Lockdown will end sooner than later

[Mumlove5]

Let’s hope the government will listen to the economists. A balance needs to be created.

I honestly do not think Boris will stand for a longterm lockdown. He wants to get back to normality ASAP.

Plus, infection rates are slowing in Europe🙏🏻

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/05/behind-scenes-boris-johnsons-gang-becoming-riven-infighting/

“It’s a false argument that we are either going to save lives or save the economy,” said Sir Iain, a former Work and Pensions Secretary. “We are talking about saving lives right now versus saving lives in the future because people have got jobs to go back to, and a strong economy that can raise enough taxes to pay for the NHS.”

Yet when does the crossover point come when the Government has to start prioritising the economy above all else? “I’d say we have until the end of this month,” added Mr Duncan Smith. “We have a chance of saving the economy if we are out of this in three weeks but much longer and businesses won’t be able to be resurrected and charities will go under. And then we will see real suffering. We get this done, we flatten the curve and we get back to normal.”

@Orangeblossom78

People need to go to back to work. Reopening schools will have to happen. Early May(May 4th?)is my hope and opinion.

And I wonder how yoyo lockdowns will work for the leisure and entertainment industry. Will there be regular repatriation flights, as people get caught in the wrong place immediately prior to the next lockdown? Or does “getting back to normal” not actually mean that at all, just relaxing the lockdowns a smidgeon?

imo They shouldn't loosen lockdown much without massively increased testing, both of who has the virus and who has had it and has the antibodies.

But the longer we are in lockdown the bigger a MH situation we are storing up for later.

We need a strict testing and isolating process in place and then we can get out of lockdown and not kill thousands. It’s possible ( South Korea, China, Singapore). Not popular with our government because they cocked up and didn’t put the testing and tracing in place. It’s the only way out with a reasonable outcome at the moment.

Foreign office has just changed its travel advice.
Government/ Matt Hancock was clear yesterday that there will be no quick end to this lockdown.
No one, NO ONE wants this, but it is necessary.
The increase in capacity of hospital beds does not mark the end of lock down it marks the fact that our NHS couldn't cope with a pandemic in the first place.
Those who expect or want this lockdown to end soon and the devastation to lives that will occur as a result of that must live in some parallel universe or not be or be related to any NHS staff.

Will the insurance industry cover big events that might have to be cancelled at the next lockdown?

I think they’ll begin a phased easing after Easter. The Telegraph reports many cabinet ministers are agitating for this.

It's interesting that IF the lockdown actually seems to be working and we just about avoid the worst case scenario (let's not forget all the people who already died or who are left with life-changing physical effects), people are quick to pretend it's was pointless and it must stop asap regardless of the possible consequences.

TheArchSorcererofContwarabu

I am so sorry. Some people seem to think it will never happen to them but that is not the case. And is why I am happy for lockdown to carry on as long as the medical advice says it should. I hate it and my sons small business may never recover but I still think we need to stay in lock down longer. My son agrees even though his livliehood is threatened because like me his thinks more important things are at stake.

@DCOkeford
So true, people seem to be forgetting ill people die, the main effect c19 is having is speeding up the death of already very ill people (80% of all cases according to Italian research). I do care about the other 20% but it gives perspective at least

If we have then surely every other country that imposed a lockdown is facing a similar how to exist problem.?

Not Germany because it’s tested and tested and then tested some more. It’s in a far better state than us.

@Walkaround I think it will be relaxing but still keep social distancing so no holidays etc but a bit more freedom.

I think maybe another 3 weeks of lock down (after the initial review) and then relax them.

I hope so anyway!

then you've clearly never suffered from bad mental health or suicidal thoughts.

Don't I wish. I have terrible PTSD from child bereavement and having another child with several special needs/conditions that went undiagnosed and utreated, resulting in his having to be sectioned. This time last year, I was past idealising suicide and onto the planning stages. My mental health is shot to pieces. It will NEVER recover. It's fucked up beyond all recognition. But that's beside the point. This is a global pandemic. It would go a lot better if people grew the fuck up and acted like adults.

The bigger picture is half a million people dead of the virus.

Schools are really tricky, because social distancing is impossible for everyone within them, staff wearing full PPE would be seen as 'frightening' and although children's death rates from the virus are 'very small' (a couple per secondary school), illness and death rates amongst the adults necessary to keep them safe within the school are higher.

I have posted before that I think school return depends on:

• Significant fall in cases and deaths (ie well past the peak)

• A rethink of the self-isolation rules (it was these, not people actually getting ill, that pushed schools to the brink before full closure) - if every member of staff whose family develops a fever or new cough has to go into family isolation for 2 weeks, then schools will close again due to lack of staff after a couple of weeks OR very rapid testing that allows those staff where family member is shown not to have COVID to return to work almost immediately.

• Post 12 weeks for highly vulnerable staff or those who care for highly vulnerable family members, and lifting of the restrictions on movement of those staff OR sufficient supply teacher cover for all those staff who a) fall ill in the next wave or b) are in a vulnerable group (pregnant, post or pre cancer treatment, asthmatic or have to care for those who are)

• Sufficient staff to provide a full online learning service for those children who cannot return to school, through being highly vulnerable, or whose return to school poses an unacceptable risk to someone highly vulnerable (e.g. a child who lives with someone currently on 12 week lockdown).

What mental health issues will develop as a result of extending lockdown?

Not being obtuse, genuinely interested.

700 people dying a day not enough for you OP? And we have not even reached the peak yet. That 700 does not even count those who died in the community of corona, so most people in care homes for example who have died of this.
I know it does not seem like it at the moment, but the economy will recover. We are in for a rough ride for a year or two, but things will recover.
And during a recession deaths tend to go down, but more people may be miserable.

@MamaBearOnLockdown

We need to keep an eye on Sweden. They know there will be deaths. Is a softer approach good enough?

Neil Ferguson said that the NHS won’t be breached and the number of deaths will be substantially lower than 20K. He said this just a few days after a lockdown. My opinion, he’s just covering his tracks.

I'm so fed up of the attitude that mental health issues and illnesses are not real illnesses. They are not someone wallowing and being 'all about me'. They are not because people are narcissist...They are realy illnesses, that people who suffer from them, would love to be able to 'snap out of', to just 'toughen up' and not suffer from.

Mental health issues kill people. Domestic violence and abuse kills people. Poverty and the fall out to the economy will kill people. Illnesses that are not being diagnosed or treated due to all focus being on covid 19 (which most people will get mildly) will kill people.

You cannot compare the UK to Austria. They locked down very early, after just one death I believe, and were rigorous about testing and quarantining arrivals to the country. We will probably see that countries which locked down before the virus had spread widely, like New Zealand, will be able to relax restrictions much earlier.

@TheArchSorcererofContwaraburg

I have said another 3 weeks (so 6 in total) and then an ease, maintaining social distancing. I haven't said IDGAF we should all carry on as normal.

I'm sorry you have experienced bad mental health - my fears are that with a long lock down and then a back log to receive help that would be people like you or I and thousands of others dead from suicide.

So-called Spanish flu broke out in Europe and the UK in March. But oh, no, the war, the economy! It appeared to go away in June. It mutated and yet authorities still tried to cover it up. By the time the lockdowns started it was too late. But hey, they got their end of the war and the economy! And 50m dead people.

You're not making any sense.

It's lockdown that's slowing the numbers across europe. End lockdown and numbers shoot up again. Obviously.

I'm not sure if social-darwinists in the tory party are organised into starting these threads to try and pressurise the government into doing something stupid, but it does seem that way.

@cantkeepawayforever Proper testing would eliminate some of these issues. I am sure most people I know who are saying on face book they have corona just have a cold or other virus. But without testing no one knows for sure.

I am frontline NHS, and have been redeployed to ICU. There is absolutely no sign of this peaking. We’re in London, so rest of country even further from the peak. There is zero chance of lockdown being lifted in early May.

I would love to go back to my normal job and for my son to be back in his usual nursery with all his friends, taking him swimming on a Saturday, going for pizza, and booking our summer holiday. I would also quite like my husband’s job to be safe! But realistically, this is going on till September.

Not just the economy, ill people (not covid) are being denied healthcare because the GP surgeries and hospitals have shut up shop.

I keep reading on MN that GP surgeries are closed and it's really not true, though arrangements for access have obviously changed. As for non-Covid hospital treatment, the more effectively the curve can be flattened by lockdown/social distancing, the sooner this can be recommenced. If the hospitals are overwhelmed with Covid patients because everyone goes back to work and school too soon, then it will take longer, not less.

It's daft to imagine there's some ideal 'balanced' solution just waiting to be thought of. A global pandemic of a new and fundamentally untreatable disease just isn't a situation that's amenable to that kind of logic, however much people might wish it was.