Has their been a change of opinion about lockdown?

[Maryann1975]

So three weeks ago, all I heard about was why weren’t the government locking everything down quickly enough. There was such outrage about it at the time, how bad it was that the government hadn’t shut schools quickly enough, that people were still mixing and big events were still going ahead.

We are now at The start of week three of the ‘lockdown’ (which wasn’t really a full lockdown, But I’m not really sure what to call the period we are in) and people are desperately wondering when everywhere will reopen and seem to be desperate for the schools to reopen.

I’m wondering if the reality of ‘lockdown’ doesn’t fit with what everyone thought it would be (it’s quite hard dealing with dc every day with no break and no where to take them especially if you are having to work through out from home with the dc arguing around your feet). It’s really boring staying at home all the time, missing holidays, missing family, missing friends and gatherings, social interactions, No eating out, cinema, theatre, coffees etc.

Maybe there are two groups of posters and three weeks ago I mainly caught the pro lockdown group Posting and now I am just seeing the pro economy/lift the lockdown posts. I don’t know? I have also just had a group call with friends and it seemed to be that some thought we should be lifting lockdown pretty soon.

It just seems so contradictory from three weeks ago when people were clamouring for the government to take action.

@JassyRadlett thank you!

Regarding tax, I fully expect that next year all taxes will go up, it was even indicated by the government will get that they will get the money back. We are fortunate and still working, but generally things are a struggle, not looking forward to higher taxes next year, not quite sure how we will manage. If you are furloghed, you have the ability of getting another paid job as well as as keeping your furloghed income. We don’t have that option. Obviously there are people in a lot worse situation than us and I really feel for them. I’m not quite sure the fairest way of doing it and I wouldn’t like to have to make that decision.

I for one, and most people I know, are far more concerned about the economy. My mum lived through a country going political upheaval, hyperinflation and no food in the shops - and she said she would rather die of the virus than have her kids go through that.

People seem to think this will be a 3 month jolly then everything goes back to normal - well, no. The risk will still be there, but half the jobs will be gone - a lot of furloughed staff have been told not to expect their jobs back. Companies are going into administration daily. I'm pretty sure mine will go under. We will have years of austerity and poverty, which BTW cause hundreds of thousands of deaths - ironically in elderly and vulnerable groups, who are the first to have funding cut.

The people saying "I'll keep my kids of school to save even one child from death" must have absolutely zero concept of relative risk and statistics, and the Daily Mail has clearly done a number on them. The risk of children dying from this are SO small, your child probably has more risk of a car crash, falling down the stairs, meningitis, sepsis or leukaemia. Yet people will still happily get in the car and drive down the M25.

Unless you want to sit indoors until the end of 2021, at some point we will just have to accept the risk and get on with it. The government know this, they are bolstering capacity as much as they can for this reason.

Hi Beijing

I guess the markets have decided that the lockdown has to lift sooner rather than later, which is reassuring.

The bank of England is monetising the debt (essentially printing money to pay for the spending). No need to pay it back

Hellooo

Funnily enough I've just seen this headline (sorry for DM link): www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8207513/Britain-wont-know-WEEKS-lockdown-eased-warns-science-adviser.html

Neil Ferguson said there is preliminary evidence people are following the rules "too well". Classic. Although clearly when people see a headline about some poor sods sunbathing on Brighton beach, they clearly think "no-one is following the rules!!! Everyone will die!! Lock down harder NOW!". This pandemic has demonstrated how public opinion can be so easily riled up by newspapers, even when they're completely counterfactual and the statistics are telling a different story.

Also, if the government are printing out the money, are we not at risk of inflation/devaluing our currency?

Well, sure. Hardly surprising is it.

It's obvious that they've already fucked up the flow of covid19. You might recall that a couple of weeks ago people were castigated for suggesting that there was quite a lot of unknowns/sociological predictions in our Nial's model. The lockdown-harder-longer cheerleaders were sneering at the lockdown sceptics telling them that they didn't understand science, were Trump fans and so on.

Inflation is the least painful way out of this. I hope that’s the route they choose tbh

@ChrissieKeller61, it would mean people's pension pots, savings and houses are worth fuck all. I've spent the past 4 years saving for a house deposit - if that becomes worth the price of a Twix then a lot of people will be fucked. Though a lot of people will be fucked whatever happens. Everything in this country seems geared towards punishing savers but supporting those who have saddled themselves with debt, no matter what.

@beijingBikini the alternative is thousands of families who had no choice but to get into debt are homeless which will cost more than propping up pensions. I’d actually happily flick you a few quid towards your deposit fund if it means my mortgage gets inflated away

I see the Great British Public is slowly ticktocking towards accepting reality ...
Week 3
3 to go (in my opinion) before you are going to work to save lives

I wonder how many people you know who have had it, so far? Where I am it's about 1 or 2/10 people I know, so I am assuming that makes it pretty rife. People still catching it as well, including someone I know who came down with it yesterday despite only going out for shopping once in a while. We are working nicely towards herd immunity with our ineffectual lockdown. Shame it's taking the whole economy out with it.

If there is another three weeks to go I wish they would just come out and say that so we know where we stand .

I don't know anyone. A report of a friend of a friend of a friend possibly

It's about right now, but we need an exit strategy. I have about a month left before madness sets in! I am also worried about the economy and the effect this is having on people's mental and physical health. We need to have balance.

The people being very militant and over the top - suggesting drones hovver over parks spy on people, and shopping trolleys being checked - are the ones making lockdown hard to tollerate. I think people are doing very well considering.

thousands of families who had no choice but to get into debt

But people have a choice whether to get a mortgage or not. No-one has to get up to their eyeballs and borrow the max that they can, such that if they lose their job they immediately can't pay it. I specifically saved for a long time because I didn't want to be paying some super high-interest large percentage of my salary on a 5% deposit, so it would be shitty to effectively be punished for being sensible.

Beijing, yes - terrible to have a depression or recession. We may not even be able to afford to pay the wages of nurses, teachers and doctors never year for example as we have got into such debt to save some lives this year, nothing like the 600,000 who die every year any way. I am not sure the economic price is worth it as it is destroying the lives and jobs of so many.

Well that’s what happens. We put down 20% deposit in 2007. A fixer upper. Have spent 13 years trying to earn as much as the day we both earnt on that day 13 years ago ... were a whisker away from it on the 20th of March and now this. Do we deserve to be homeless after spending £158,000 in interest keeping a roof over our heads? The house is just worth £80,000 more than we paid for it and we’ve probably spent that making it habitable. Nobody deserves to be punished for this.

Nobody deserves to be punished for this

Do you mean, punished for coronavirus? Of course we're all punished, i.e. paying for, the government's response - whether we support it or not.

What we 'deserve' hardly matters.

True

I agree, nobody deserves to be punished, everybody generally just wants to have a job they like, live and have a roof over their head. But whatever decision they make - lockdown, don't lockdown, print money, borrow money - some groups will be screwed over. I just hope they have got some good advisors and scientists to realise when that point is that the death/economic toll of lockdown will outweigh the benefits, because I think that point is soon.

When will there be an announcement about what happens next do we think, given that the initial 3 weeks is almost up?

Surely they have to announce something on Monday. I'm betting it'll be another 3 week extension though.

Agree on another three week extension being announced on Monday, which would be the same as the Republic of Ireland.

Very sensible advice from the WHO. It’s true-how to lift the lockdown needs v serious consideration and should not be done too early.

I strongly opposed the lockdown and am now in a neutral or mildly supportive position.

I wish someone would explain what happened in 1918; did folk shrug after the carnage of WWI? Spanish flu mostly killed young people. I bet no one tried to totally shut down the economy then or would have thought the prices we are paying now to protect so many is worth it.