Do we need to create an artificial spike? If so, when?

[CheriLittlebottom]

Was thinking about this off the back of random musing about when schools might reopen.

Do we need to try to get a lot of society infected with this in the early summer, say June, so that the NHS have June, July, August to deal with the biggest wave of sick people, then hopefully see numbers coming down from September as we start getting into autumn and winter?

Obviously we can't stay in lockdown forever, or until there's a vaccine, the economy will completely tank. Is there a "best" time to increase transmission in the hope that we can push up herd immunity? Was also thinking about those in the shielded groups, how long can they realistically keep themselves completely isolated?

If schools did reopen after the May half term, and most people went back to work (not the most at risk) would that work? Would the NHS have the capacity and equipment in place by then?

I don't know enough about transmission rates etc to know if this is a good idea or not!

@BigChocFrenzy I expect it may be up to 2 years before foreign holidays are encouraged / allowed Out of (selfish) interest, is this based on something Merkel has said, or your view?

If lockdown had worked in China, it wouldn't have spread would it?
It has
There is no vaccine
Therefore it is now going to go back and forth until most people are exposed to it
You can be exposed to it now, next month, or next year, but as no lockdown can continue until we develop and roll out a vaccine, you are going to be exposed to it

Money is a social construct. The economy crashed in 2008 and the government asked the bank of england to engage in trillions of pounds of quantitative easing to bail out the banks.

Money is how everyone eats and has a roof over their head. After all that quantitative easing to encourage the banks to lend again, and lowering the interest rates, house prices are the highest they've ever been. Young people can't afford to buy anywhere, unless they're earning £££ or borrow even more money through schemes like HTB. Standard of living has gone down for many people, and many live paycheck to paycheck. That's real life and it can still get a whole lot worse if your government has no money or starts printing it like there's no tomorrow. Look at Venezuela.

Young/fit/healthy people die of things all the time, the covid death rate is about 0.2% for young people so statistically it is very unlikely. Also the newspapers reporting is completely irresponsible - they show a headline of "young person dies with no underlying conditions", when the person is clearly obese, or the next day turns out to have had leukaemia.

The spread happened predominantly before the lockdown. Lockdown is clearly working because the numbers in China are now reducing. I know I shouldn't wear myself out on these 'please explain the obvious again and again' posters. Who says a lockdown can't continue until there's a vaccine? Where are you getting this stuff from? Your own brilliant mind?!

I never said lockdown doesn't work - I said we cannot sustain it for the 18 months it would take to get a vaccine. No economy could sustain the majority of the population being stuck at home and not working for that long. We can't borrow or print infinite money without dire consequences.

So, sorry just trying to get this straight. You think deliberately infecting people with something that has killed over 3,500 in this country in what, 10 days?, is sound policy?

Do you honestly think people working 'creates' money @BeijingBikini? Or you aware that work is merely the unequal method of distribution of that particular social construct?

Apologies, before anyone points it out, over 2,500. Typo, do t want to co tribute to misinformation.
Still crap though.

There is a good article here saying that lockdown is a short term solution to slow it down but an endless /long term lockdown / release cycle is not the answer, lots of testing is. So that only those who have the virus are in lockdown and not the entire population.

The lockdown only buys us time: to really defeat the virus we need mass testing now
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/01/lockdown-buys-time-virus-mass-testing-coronavirus-uk?

Governments can manage amazing things for long periods of time, when there is no other choice. This is from the government website:

www.gov.uk/government/news/the-women-of-the-second-world-war

From 1941, women were called up for war work, in roles such as as mechanics, engineers, munitions workers, air raid wardens, bus and fire engine drivers.

At first, only single women, aged 20-30 were called up, but by mid-1943, almost 90 per cent of single women and 80 per cent of married women were working in factories, on the land or in the armed forces.

Oh, is it crap, duchess? I hadn't realised. Ta for the insight. I though it was all fine.

The point is that given we can't keep the whole world indoors for up to two years and still produce food, remove waste, sustain power and water supplies, all the bare minimum necessities for life, do we need to manipulate the situation so that more people contract it at the start of summer instead of at the start of winter?

In the absence of serious numbers of testing, the only feedback the scientists have is hospital admissions and deaths both in and out of hospital. The current test only provides for positive at the time of testing, it provides a snapshot of of two weeks. It doesn’t prove if a person has recovered immunity. It is only of use if a person is currently infected.
The antibody test is a while away yet, this is the most crucial missing link to drive policy. Until then the inputs are deaths and admissions.

Surely the way out is testing, and managing outbreaks? That’s what’s being planned. Testing for antibodies as well. Just as in Taiwan, for eg. The more people who get jt, the more die. Plus new drugs being developed to help treat it. That’s what the lockdown is also allowing - time for science

Isn’t this why all the journos are banging on about testing. We don’t want most people to get it. But we need testing to control and isolate outbreaks quickly . There’s no need to create artificial spikes

The scientists and medics are also "banging on" about testing, tootyfruitypickle.

It's like some people have no clue how the whole world functions. Quite evidently we can't remain in lockdown til a vaccine is found and then mass produced. Noone in any government anywhere is basing their strategy on that as an idea.

And I agree, testing is the medium term solution. It's testing plus contact tracing that worked short term for both China and S Korea.

Although it has been said many times, I will repeat here. There are viruses - such as small pox - for which we have no herd immunity. Herd immunity is a term from vaccinations. Having 75% of population is not herd immunity, it is a humanitarian disaster.

I also find it weird that people think that there will be riots if lockdown continues. Do you think if we have tens of thousands of people dying daily, wherever - because NHS collapsed - there won't be a civilisation breakdown? Do you think people will just be going round to their pubs as we kind of return to middle ages with bodies piling up?

75% of population infected - I meant

Yes of course I realise that everyone including scientists want testing! My point is that the questioning and holding to account of the Govt is focused on this because they are behind other countries on this and this is the way out of lockdown .

Can you imagine 500,000 dead by summer - as per original government strategy - and society (and economy) going on as normal? This is a bizarre assertion.

As you say ..as per original govt strategy. Government seemed happy enough with it at the time didn't they. Bizarre it might be but they were happy enough to go on tv and tell us a lot of us were going to lose loved ones before their time.

Would have been nice if we'd had a better strategy of not letting it spread like wildfire, actually testing people on return from regional hotspots, locked down a whole lot earlier and ordered more ppe about 6 weeks earlier. But hey, we like the difficult path.

Testbank but many of us loving loved ones before their time is the very sad truth?

Losing loved ones