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.

@cologne4711

It did used to be like that. But I don't think people are spoilt for being frightened of loosing a parent or child. This is 2020. People live alot longer now. That's the way it should be. We get one life. Young people dying ruins other peoples lives forever too. Imagine how depressed people were back then! I did home care, at least 50% of the people I cared for had a brother or sister that had died under the age of 8. Awful!

@zafferana The two points- mine and yours- are inter- related surely?

If you say the point is to protect the NHS, well protect it from what? Numbers. My point is that if we all go out and mingle, more people will get it ( some will die) and of course the NHS will be unable to cope.

I didn't need spell out the consequences, surely? it's obvious.
It's about numbers.

I'm very happy that my family can keep safe. I'm very happy that non of us have the gauntlet of schools etc to run every day.

What's upset me is the stasi that's come out to police each other.

I had to go to the local shop for the first time in about 3 weeks yesterday. Dh had a blockage in his gullet. It had been there for about 15 hours. So I went next door to get Coke to see if it would shift.

Later that evening I saw a post on our local fb from a lady saying she lives above shop and sees '' expletives ' leaving with in essentials like... Coke' '

As an example ^ is why we shouldn't judge people and just do what we can.

So I'm very happy to be Able to stay safe... But I don't like what it's brought out in people.

I hope so. I never wanted the lock down or school closure and said so at the time. The state delayed it as long as sensible because it knows there will be civil unrest never mind people losing everything financially for which they have ever worked. We were supposed to review it at the end of this week after 3 weeks but it sounds like it will be in place for longer with many many people getting no compensation at all when all we are doing is smoothing over the numbers not probably even reducing them ultimately.

I would think we might reopen on 1 May but that is just a guess based on balance of human rights issues, deaths caused by lock down, human losses v NHS capacity issues.

I think a good exit strategy would be for school....

May/June start to open schools. Children attend school but only certain days. Example reception, year 1 and 3 and 5 go on Monday and friday. 2 4 and 6 go Tuesday and Thursday. Wednesday is a thorougher clean. Alot of schools are mixed classes so this would help to keep only 15 kids in each class. Lots of outdoor play/learning. Classroom windows open. Handwashing and handgel hourly. Anyone with colds etc stay away. Secondary could do the same. If they did this it would help the kids get back into socialising.

Then certain workers can go back to work/work from home. It allows for teachers to be absent if need be. They can always get children to have home made pack up so they can eat in the classrooms or outdoors without mingling in a hall.

I'm not sure with nurseries as nurseries are much different in regards to the hours a child attends. Also they are muckier places in general.

Many of these options are from a very privileged and cosseted place. Talk of cancelling holidays or events for example in the grand scheme are an annoyance rather than particularly life threatening. However outside of this there are lots of people really struggling, the rug has literally been pulled out from under their feet. People who were struggling money wise, may now be finding it much harder, support networks are gone, worrying about food, worrying about how to top up the elec/gas meters, DV, poor mental health.

The lockdown is needed but to brush everything else off as moaning and not caring whilst telling people to grow a backbone is unhelpful. It is important to ensure that the right networks are in place to support these people, thankfully there is a lot of work going on to do this, but do not under estimate the real negative effect this is having on people.

I think lockdown should have been brought in sooner, and it should be made stricter now. Plenty of us are abiding by the rules but enough aren't and they need to be stopped.

The amount of threads on Mumsnet where people are asking absolutely daft questions to try and twist the guidelines- no. And then real life anecdotes. Working in retail and the same people coming in up to 6 times a day within a 9h period for one or two items at a time.

People are deliberately taking the absolute piss. People can sit here and argue about what an essential or non essential item is, but the reality is, people should not be going to the shop to buy one thing.

The sooner restrictions are put in place so everyone actually abides by the rules, the better.

I don’t understand and would like someone to explain .......
how can school closures only have minimal impact if the more people you are in contact with, the worse the spread? How can meeting a friend or walking in a beach with others be so forbidden and have such dire consequences but according to this research, having 1000 teenagers together all going home to families doesn’t cause it? How have some countries who have not ‘locked down’ have low death rates so how does that work? And I don’t understand the mass gatherings either. Cheltenham festival was 1 week before the lockdown. Over 200,000 people descended on the small town. Crowds of people packed together every day and every hotel, restaurant and bar was full for 4 days but there is no ‘spike’ no hotspot there .....how is that possible??
I just don’t understand?

I don't think the lockdown as it is now will continue for too much longer. In an ideal world the Government would have the means to be able to pay us all to stay at home and have the money to put into the NHS until a vaccine is created and rolled out to everyone. I expect they will want to get the young fit, low risk group back to work as soon as possible. Big gatherings will probably be banned for a lot longer, pubs and restaurants will be amongst the last businesses allowed to re-open. Restrictions in travel will likely remain in place for a long while. I would expect they'll lift the lockdown in areas where the virus is least prevalent first, with London likely to be the last place to return to 'normal life'.

I think things are changing every day .
Those at the start of lockdown saying this will last till September I said all along lockdown will gradually ease , granted schools and mass gatherings will not happen for some time but people will go back to work .
Like others have said the lockdown is to slow it down so the nhs can cope .
We can't all stay home till September and who's to stay it will be gone by September anyway ? .
Like I say things are changing every day I think lockdown for maybe another week or so but then some people will be allowed back to work but of course social distancing for some time . So for many things won't change for a while as schools will stay closed and people will still work from home, shops will still have queuing but I think the non essential shops and places like McDonald's will open first but with the social distancing so probably drive through only .

Waitrose was always closed Sundays and Mondays.

That's not all shops though is it? It's a shop. The statement that 'shops only opened 5 days a week 9-5' is rubbish.

No one is saying don't talk, But we don't have to all be in unison saying the same thing do we?

Really? So early on this thread when people were popping up with 'you miss your friends and family? You would miss them more if they were dead' and 'people need to grow a back bone'

That's not trying to shut people down?

All people should be allowed to discuss how they are feeling or their point of view. The point is that theres quite alot of people they will not let those thinking about the consquences or feeling like they are struggling, discuss this.

And yes as time goes on, I think more people are becoming more moderate.

However, the ones determined to shut people down are getting louder.

Anyone else getting fed up with questions from journalists about when lockdown will end?

It’s hard on us all, we have no money coming in, so yes I would love to get back to normality as much as the next person.

However, we have to get this under control and stop pressuring them to lift the lockdown. Soon as we do, those same journalists will be asking if we lifted to lockdown too soon when death rates start to soar again.

Why can’t we just look at what’s happening in other countries, see how it’s working and follow their lead rather than thinking we know best!

We left it too late in my opinion to lockdown to begin with, to lift it too soon would be madness.

It was in the news this morning that schools being closed only reduces infection spread by 2-4%

Pish how can they possibly know that? Doesn’t even seem sensible given that children mix and can carry it. If that’s the case why are teachers terrified and why are schools limited at all?

Think there’s a lot of propaganda about.

The advice from SAGE, on which the restrictions are based, put the impact of school closures on reducing deaths at around 5% based on an 8-13 week closure. Much lower than social distancing and self-isolation of over-70s and vulnerable. Today’s research puts it as slightly lower.

We don’t know how many kids get it; we don’t know the rate of spread from asymptomatic rather than symptomatic carriers. This virus has existed in humans only for months. There is a lot we do not know.

Deriding the work of scientists - especially those scientists on whose work the current policies are based - as ‘pish’ without doing research is rather wrong-headed.

School closure was always a knife edge one but became quite totemic to the public based on what other countries had done. The science for it is not particularly strong - these are relatively stable and closed populations; primary schools more so than secondary though of course it varies by size and method of journey to school.

I think the issue with all of these things is that it’s not all or nothing. It’s not lockdown v normal life. It’s not odd to want an idea of what the plan is for moving on from lockdown.

The key will (I suspect) to do things in stages.

So schools re-open perhaps with half the children attending on alternate days. Yes, this will cause in spike in cases. However, if children are only attending school and then going home and all other social distancing measures are maintained the pool of contacts is presumably still limited? It is the same people mixing with the same people everyday and so eventually the majority of that pool will have been exposed and recovered. After a further 3/4 weeks you release another measure, again there is a spike in cases. You manage that spike and when cases drop again you release something else and slowly you work back towards normality.

That’s how I have anticipated it going anyway.

how can school closures only have minimal impact if the more people you are in contact with, the worse the spread?

This hypothesis is consistent with the Chinese data that appears to suggest that the risk of C19 transmission from children to adults is very low. Of course, open schools also trigger more active interaction among adults (teachers/parents) but it is different from children getting infected in school and bringing the virus back into their homes.

I fully accept that we should take all the Chinese data with a pinch of salt.

And I don’t understand the mass gatherings either.

Again, research appears to suggest that mass gatherings ban only reduces the peak by 5-10%. Most of C19 transmissions happen at work, through households or on public transport. There is a case of a German who infected numerous people by going to a carnival but it is not 100% clear whether the transmissions happened outdoors or in a confined space (e.g. restaurant/bar).

IRL, I know quite a few people who have been tested positive for C19. All of them got infected at work or via family.

Thanks for that info @Hettie34. Very good to know! But how does it work? Exactly?

The problem I have is that apparently the cyst is quite inconveniently rooted in a place preventing access to my cervix. The nurse said she's unable to collect the cells to take the smear. The problem is it could be that she just isn't familiar with cervical cysts so freaked out a bit. Unable to see my doctor, had premonition the hospital would cancel on me, so went to the walk in sex clinic and they booked me an appoinment with their resident drop in gynae, but cancelled on me the very day I was due to go!

Anyone else getting fed up with questions from journalists about when lockdown will end

No, quite the opposite, it's the most important question now.

I think having some official idea of when it will end/be relaxed will be a big help.

@Sunshinegirl82 the trouble is with kids going to lessons and going straight home it isn't going to happen like that. It would mean more packed trains and buses. Kids stopping off at each other's houses etc after school.

@ArfArfBarf

These would also be stopped if the NHS were having to deal with true peak coronavirus numbers too. It’s a coronavirus problem not a lockdown problem.

True point.

@Peppafrig ok but on the basis we will have to eventually release the measures this is going to have to be faced. There is going to have to be a slow incremental increase in contacts. Whichever measure you release will have that impact. I really can’t see any other option in the long term.

It's a tough one for sure .

I just think all those extra children on trains and buses at rush hour when loads of key workers will be using the service . Is a sure way to spread it. It don't know what could be done about that . Have children starting at 10am but then parents would say they needed to go to work later too
.

I think we have to look for solutions as far as we can. Children to be dropped off and collected by a parent/carer to minimise our of school contact, staggered start and finish times (perhaps mornings and afternoons) to try and reduce public transport use, people encouraged to walk or drive whenever possible in the short term. Just keeping everything as it is now isn’t sustainable beyond another month or so I would think.

Unless of course the number of cases are still very high in 3/4 weeks time and the pressure on the NHS is too great for it to cope with an increase in cases. If that is the position it won’t be possible to release the lockdown (which I suspect is why the government don’t want to commit to any timings).

Presumably, in a perfect situation, if everyone currently infected was able to self-isolate, the virus would have no-one to jump to, so once those infected recovered, that particular one would just die, rather than spreading.

Then it’d be a question of just making everyone entering the country self-isolate for 14 days.

I appreciate that’s just not going to happen in real life, because it’s really inconvenient and impossible to implement. But isolating now must be doing something in breaking some of the threads of cases.