Why are so many people still convinced that following/tightening "the rules" has this thing over sooner?

[Makeitgoaway]

Or maybe it's me who's misunderstood?

"The Rules" are not intended to prevent the spread they are intended to slow it to a level where the NHS can cope with ICU admissions. So far, we have done that, new beds have been created quicker than they have been filled.

If we slow the spread more than necessary (I.e. so that there remains spare capacity) the crisis lasts longer than necessary. No additional lives are saved, the deaths are just more spread out in time and it's longer until we can get back to normal.

The restrictions were never intended to stop us getting ill, just to stop us all being ill at once. It won't be over until there is a vaccine (years?) or until "enough" people have had it that it no longer presents a substantial threat to the NHS.

The obsession with having rules followed/tightened, beyond what is necessary to protect the NHS just means the whole thing lasts longer, which is why, the rules are deliberately set up so that there will still be some, but reduced, transmission.

Why do people keep asserting that if we all follow the rules to the nth degree it will be over quicker.

FWIW I am following the rules, wfh, daily exercise, occasional essential shopping, but I'm frustrated with people who want to insist the exercise shouldn't be allowed, or that people in non essential jobs who can't wfh shouldn't be allowed to work, or that all non essential deliveries should be banned. It makes no sense.

Smothering the first peak is a huge achievement m, and it looks like we might have pulled it off.

It means that tight restrictions will be over sooner. and we can expect fewer people to die.

I don’t think anyone has said it will be back to the old ‘normal’ until there is sufficient community immunity to prevent the odd case becoming a fresh outbreak. That will either be by controlling peaks (varying levels of restrictions, as required) as it travels through the community until enough people have had it, or an effective immunisation is rolled out

Following the rules is the only way to flatten peaks, and to move on early on from pretty strict lockdown to variable restriction

Yes, I know that iVampire (I think that's what I said?) but it also has the (necessary) effect of making it all last longer. Yet people seem determined to believe that a tighter lockdown gets it over sooner.

People still sharing on Facebook that if everyone sticks to 'the rules' which appears to be never leaving the house, then everything will be completely back to normal by some date in June. I'm not sure whether or not they actually believe it.

Yep op you are speaking the truth. The only way to ‘get it over with’ would have been restrictions on travel in advance, then test, trace, isolate. That horse has long bolted. All we’re doing now is slowing it.

The next step should be to allow the low risk people back into society. The schoolchildren, the ‘young’ workers. The vulnerable will have to stay in lockdown until there is a consensus on treatment, or if a vaccine is ever successful. We can only hope once you get it that you retain some memory of the virus for immunity / lower risk of illness next time.

In not even sure tighter early travel restrictions would have helped, unless we were going to leave them in place forever?

What about children of vulnerable people? Should they still be expected to go to school? Should vulnerable people be mixing with hundreds of other parents doing the school run?

Be interesting to see what happens there.

Possibly not but we can’t keep everyone off

I thought the government line was the save the NHS. I’m sticking to the rules to limit the impact on the NHS staff primarily and to try and protect my vulnerable DP.

Yes eventually it would have spread unless we stopped all travel until it was expended everywhere.

The next step should be to allow the low risk people back into society. The schoolchildren, the ‘young’ workers
What's the obvious flaw in the plan re the schoolchildren?

No idea. Sheep I guess.

It’s a myth that it will ‘save the NHS’. It will help the NHS cope with an otherwise tsunami of patients. But the NHS has coped so far by basically moving many staff from its routine work (including cancer) to staff covid wards inc Nightingale, and increase ITU capacity. So the routine work is either cancelled or severely restricted.
If this goes on for months this will have a major impact on our ability to treat other illness. There is no long term thinking from government or the NHS. I’ve noticed our current 3 pages of nursing vacancies on the hospital webpage has shrunk to half a page. This isn’t because we suddenly have lots of staff it’s because the recruiting managers are all clinical nurses who have been pulled to staff covid. So no one is focusing on recruitment. We need to majorly upscale the NHS to see us beyond this first emergency.

I can see both sides.

Yes the idea was to flatten the peak & hopefully maintain enough hospital beds/ventilators for those that need them & thus save lives. Harder lock down won't make that goal any more 'met' if we still have enough beds etc

However, there's still a lot of spread & it's still killing a lot of people outside of hospital, so it would be good to slow the death rate outside of the hospitals down too no?

Plus the more of the virus we get rid of now the longer it will take to build up to the next wave where the NHS threatens to be overwhelmed again & some restrictions need to be brought back in.

Plus time for treatments & vaccines to be developed.

The vulnerable will have to stay in lockdown until there is a consensus on treatment, or if a vaccine is ever successful

Personally, I'd be happy to do this, but we need to work out how those of us 'staying in lockdown' can survive financially.

I live alone, I need to pay the mortgage & bills- as do the vast majority of the 'vulnerable' group. I can't do my job from home and doing my job involves contact with many students from an international school (not a teacher) and many others in my situation will be in just as risky or more risky jobs. I imagine a fair few teachers, childminders, nursery staff are vulnerable too but if there's no mandate to stay at home (as there isn't now) & no legal right to self isolate then they'll have to go to work too.

Then before you know it everyone is back & we face another wave

I don't know what the answer is though

Totally agree and feel that we will be relaxing some of the current rules but may have them tightened again. So I could see schools going back, people returning to work apart from things like pubs and the most vulnerable being told to continue to self isolate. Then when we get into winter I could see things getting so bad that we would have to lockdown again to prevent the virus overwhelming the NHS.

A lot depends on how much difference NHS intervention actually makes to the death count. Some things I read make me wonder if it’s only marginal. If that’s true then I understand the argument that we should just let it run through the population quickly, to get it over with (although this assumes that we acquire immunity and it lasts a significant period— still unproven).

The preferred approach would have been to lock down hard and early and then contact trace every new case, as South Korea and Singapore have done. I’m not sure if we can ever get to a place where that is possible now, thanks to the government’s extraordinary negligence.

Absolutely agree OP. Stricter lockdown would just prolong/put off the inevitable; Another sharp rise and peak when it's lifted resulting in another lockdown.

The end game is still ultimately herd immunity (whether that be via infection or vaccine). Containment is no longer an option ...A flow of people still being infected is required for this to happen, just at a slower rate. So people screaming that they are seeing families all meeting for BBQs etc means this will still happen.

I really dont understand the thinking that we can make this virus go away by being in lockdown.

No additional lives are saved, the deaths are just more spread out in time

This is not correct.

Imagine the NHS has 10 ventilators and 30 people need to be ventilated for a week. 10 can be ventilated but 20 will die.

Now imagine you spread out the infections over 3 weeks so 10 people per week need ventilators. Now all 30 people can receive treatment, 10 people per week.

That’s flattening the peak, and it saves lives.

I think we will have quite a long period of lockdown restrictions of varying degrees with some restrictions being eased and then possibly reapplied. The current objective is to manage things so that the NHS is not overwhelmed. We really don't know enough about the virus to be sure we've got the level of restriction right so it feels a bit like an experiment. I think what we can be fairly confident about is that we will need compelling evidence that the rate of infections has levelled out or is declining before any restrictions are lifted. Adhering to the lockdown will reduce the rate of transmission but we will not be able to evaluate our approach if large numbers of people don't play their part and may result in restrictions remaining in place for longer or more severe restrictions being applied if it doesn't look like it's working.
I think people need some light at the end of the tunnel if you want them to be compliant with the restrictions imposed so it feels quite important to me to suck it up and do my bit.

Does ventilation actually save lives, though? So far our stats indicate that 66.3% of those put on one die anyway, and this stat will worsen as more reach outcome stage. In other countries 70-80% of those on ventilation never make it. Do we know that the 20-30% who do make it wouldn’t have anyway?

It feels like we're all trapped in a lock down cave, it's not safe to go out of the cave because of the wild animals but we can't stay in the cave because we will run out of resources 🤔

It does look as if we need new methods for dealing with acute respiratory distress syndrome,

The crucial thing to understand is that the lockdown is to prevent excess deaths through overloading healthcare settings. Ultimately the number of people contracting the virus will be the same, without a vaccine. Lockdown draws out the infection rate over time.
Herd immunity (recovered immunity) is not yet fully understood, the nearest comparator - Sars1 produced detectable antibodies of 80% av Males under 40, falling to 60% middle age, rapidly tailing off in older age. Females fared better at around 80% through all age groups. There was some viability over time - low years.
Ultimately vaccine is the way to eradicate this virus, we must continue to keep it damped down until then.

I know what you mean; on another thread, when I said that I would go out again when the lockdown was relaxed and going out is allowed, I was told that I would die of "natural selection" and put my loved ones at risk. I wonder if the UK government is responsible for that thought, though? The message "Stay at home, save lives" is meant to be simple, but is so simple that it will be difficult to back down from when it's time for the non-vulnerable group (such as me afaik) to go out and save lives by building up herd immunity. (If that really does end up as the strategy.)

Countries with stricter lockdown (Spain, Italy etc) are now coming out of the other side.
In Italy as of today another big slew of work categories are allowed back and more "non essential" shops can open.
The lockdown has worked.