If you're calling for schools to go back, restrictions to be relaxed...

[GrumpiestOldWoman]

...were you also in the group shouting for a lockdown a month ago?

People seem to be as desperate to open things back up now as they were to lockdown a month ago, yet we're still not over the peak.

It's hard not to conclude that the novelty has worn off.

Why are the press giving more airtime to 'relax restrictions' messages rather than 'UK worst in Europe' which we clearly are when care home deaths are added to the hospital deaths numbers? When other countries were reporting the death numbers we have today the UK was screaming for lockdown, but now it doesn't seem to be newsworthy

I don't get it?

Honestly, if we can get the test, trace and quarantine cycle sorted out we’d be in a better position to work out how far we can relax the lockdown rules

Perhaps we’d get further if people started lobbying their MPs to hold the government to account and ask why the things that need to be put into place aren’t being done

Agree wholeheartedly. I don't want lockdown to end, I think a lot of the population will interpret lockdown easing as 'this is over now great I'll go back to normal' and take no precautions.

If lockdown has to end though I think that we all should definitely be lobbying our MPs and asking serious questions of our government in how they handle the easement. If it needs to be lifted we should be aiming for measures like -

Work from home wherever possible.

Parents who do not want to or need to (for work purposes where they absolutely cannot wfh) send their Children into school allowed to keep them off in most cases..

Proper testing and contact tracing!! Our testing is abysmal. It's madness to lift lockdown with the current lack of testing and tracing going on!!

Sports events and large or even many social gatherings cancelled.

Social distancing maintained as much as possible, even when outside.

Masks strongly encouraged. Media campaign on how to put on and remove hygenically. It's been shown that even surgical or homemade cloth masks are better than nothing.

Continue as far as possible with the practice of only allowing a certain number of people in a shop or business at a time, to maintain social distancing.

*Sorry what I was failing to articulate is that if:

• the virus spreading relatively unchecked in march/april is considered to ge a 'big problem-that-must-be-stopped' it hasn't gone anywhere since and

Before lockdown the virus had been spreading for some weeks, and the doctors and scientists said it would have been and would continue to be expontential growth. They advised that if as many people as possible stayed away from each other, it would stop spreading - because it lasts a number of weeks on surfaces and within people whether you get sick with it or not. You say it hasn't gone anywhere since but those who had it and would have passed it on have hopefully been socially distancing and have not passed it on. This will have stopped the exponential spread quite significantly. It will mean hopefully that as and when it pops up in the future it will be easier to deal with as localised lockdowns will be possible, possibly tracking, and more and more beds, ventilators and PPE will have become available.

It really is nothing to do with "bored with it all now". I really think that anyone watching hospital footage of covid wards would not feel bored and will be motivated to stay in a few more weeks until the peak is over.

@GrumpiestOldWoman
Sorry what I was failing to articulate is that if:
the virus spreading relatively unchecked in march/april is considered to ge a 'big problem-that-must-be-stopped'
it hasn't gone anywhere since and

Before lockdown the virus had been spreading for some weeks, and the doctors and scientists said it would have been and would continue to be expontential growth. They advised that if as many people as possible stayed away from each other, it would stop spreading - because it lasts a number of weeks on surfaces and within people whether you get sick with it or not. You say it hasn't gone anywhere since but those who had it and would have passed it on have hopefully been socially distancing and have not passed it on. This will have stopped the exponential spread quite significantly. It will mean hopefully that as and when it pops up in the future it will be easier to deal with as localised lockdowns will be possible, possibly tracking, and more and more beds, ventilators and PPE will have become available.

It really is nothing to do with "bored with it all now". I really think that anyone watching hospital footage of covid wards would not feel bored and will be motivated to stay in a few more weeks until the peak is over.

Germany closed most schools at a similar time to us.

They are beginning to reopen I think?

They are doing a much better job that they UK at managing this pandemic.

Australia is not really comparable in my opinion.

I don't think the government have no exit strategy I'm pretty sure they do as does anyone who thinks about it properly. What they don't have is the balls to tell us what that is

Exactly. I think their strategy is herd immunity by stealth.
The lockdown is to try prevent the NHS being completely overwhelmed. Testing and contact tracing is whats recommended by WHO and our government not doing this. Says a lot about their strategy I think. As does the silence on masks.
They want us all to get it, but just more slowly and staggered than their original 'plan'.

I thought Germany only implemented its control measures like 2-3 days before UK. There's a website you can look the dates up. Almost everyone in Europe closed schools (if they closed schools) on 17 March.

Thank you for the push, I am writing to my MP today.

They want us all to get it, but just more slowly and staggered than their original 'plan'.

I think this is broadly true - not so much "want" but more that it is probably the realistic outcome that a large proportion of the population will get it long before we get a vaccine.

Testing and contact tracing is whats recommended by WHO and our government not doing this.

How reliable is the testing? Are there different types of test? Can someone explain it?

I heard it's not very reliable and anecdotally my ex (who has given me the virus) went into hospital last week with breathing difficulties, was observed given oxygen and released. Test came back negative. Day 27 for him. Yesterday he went back into hospital and is still there now. Still negative.

An old family friend is severely ill in hospital, she would be dead if her son hadn't broken SD rules and gone to check on her and called an ambulance. She is 'negative' as well despite being on a ventilator and still in hospital 8 days later.

Statisticallychallenged , we can not expect a large proportion of the population to get the virus and at the same time keep the load on the NHS lower than it is now ( which it needs to be as death fro other causes will rise) and expect this to be over in anything less than10 years unless we get a vaccine before then.

To protect the nhs we can only have a very small fraction of the population in hospital with the virus at anyone time, and even if the hospitalisation rate is lower than the 20% that somewhere like Germany is saying, that means we can only have a very small fraction of the population with the virus at any one time .

And it takes a long time for all those small fractions to add up to most of the population

It's why vaccine and or treatment is so crucial as the steps we will need to control are arduous

mobile.twitter.com/BenjAlvarez1/status/1250563198081740800

The video in this tweet is worth watching IMO.

And then bear in mind we haven’t got the slightest clue what our number of deaths is, Much less our R0. And Germany have considerably more ICU beds per capita than we do. It’s around 29.2 per capita as opposed to 6.6.

Where did you see the 20% German hospitalisation rate? Everything I've seen suggests that the true hospitalisation rate is far below that.

This is going to go around, the aim is to do so as slowly as possible (I'm not sure why you think that's not what I said) but realistically our number of actual cases is far, far in excess of what is being reported. We're not going to get it down to South Korea style super low levels as we don't know where the vast majority of them are. Comparing our death rates to those countries like Iceland who have done very extensive testing gives an idea of how far out our case numbers are. We're currently confirming about 4500 cases per day. The true number is probably 10-30 times higher, giving 45000-135000 cases per day, and the NHS is currently coping. Lots of procedures are cancelled which isn't sustainable, but the majority of the Nightingale functions also aren't currently in use.

If it stayed at the level it is currently then that would be a large proportion of the population getting it before any vaccine is ready.

They are obviously trying to pull it down considerably more because it will rise as lockdown is released, but the proportion who have it is nothing like as small as being reported as we're not testing!

If the world is going to stay in lockdown until everybody is vaccinated
where will the money come from to pay for anything
who will pick the food for the shops

all the people happily WFH or on furlough do not seem to realise that many of them will be on UC before the end of May
and the government will run out of money for that as well

why is Covid shutting the world down when other major killer diseases do not?

Exactly, Listening

why is Covid shutting the world down when other major killer diseases do not?

Mainly because there’s a vaccine or effective treatment available.

think this is broadly true - not so much "want" but more that it is probably the realistic outcome that a large proportion of the population will get it long before we get a vaccine

@StatisticallyChallenged I agree, but they should still be testing and tracing properly, as advised, to at least try to stop as many citizens as possible from catching this before we have a vaccine/treatments. They are not doing that. Aside from that, testing provides valuable insight into the disease and how it behaves. We have been advised to "test test test", and trace, been told that we can't fight a fire blind. Yet we are barely testing - WHY?? and the government are silent on masks.

Mainly because there’s a vaccine or effective treatment available.
Malaria - kills 400,000 a year - no vaccine
Flu - kills tens of thousands a year and mutates every year
SARS / MERS / H1N1 - no vaccine

We are going to have to learn to live with Covid
same as we do with the other human coronaviruses

as waiting for it to go away will destroy the things we have worked for (particularly our children's futures)

I'm desperate for them to go back because my dd is studying a subject that can't be properly done by distance learning. For her it's not about the exam/qualification but about the fact she is losing a while lot of training the year before she graduates that will impact on her skill levels when she comes to try and get a job next year. She will never be able to get that time back.

But I have to counteract that with the fear of dh having to travel to his college by public transport each day and the risk of infection and ultimately lives are more important.

Soon enough people won't have jobs to go back to. And what happens when families start losing their homes? Lockdown can't last for months on end. The economy is going to be on its knees. There is no simple solution. But at some point, we are going to have to focus on the economy because the level of depression we are going to be looking at is going to be far greater number of deaths than coronavirus is responsible for.

My partner lost his work so we currently have childcare as I can't do my job around a toddler. But if he goes back to work and childcare doesn't reopen, I don't know what we will do. My company are already furloughing people and it's only a matter of time until it will have to start looking at redundancies. This is happening in big and small companies. It is absolutely brutal.

Unreliable testing:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8225309/Covid-19-nurse-tested-negative-virus-three-times-despite-symptoms.html

why is Covid shutting the world down when other major killer diseases do not?

Because it’s relatively highly transmissible, with a fairly high rate of severe illness and death, and no-one has immunity.

What do you think the effect would be on the economy if we had no lockdown?

Malaria - kills 400,000 a year - no vaccine

Antimalarial tablets.

Flu - kills tens of thousands a year and mutates every year

But we do vaccinate. And have treatments.

SARS / MERS / H1N1 - no vaccine

Hardly anyone got SARS or MERS and a vaccine was quickly developed for H1N1, plus treatment (tamiflu) was available.

they should still be testing and tracing properly, as advised, to at least try to stop as many citizens as possible from catching this before we have a vaccine/treatments.

Yes, they should, it should absolutely be one of the strands of trying to keep the infection rate low.

What do you think the effect would be on the economy if we had no lockdown?
Less.
Muck less long term damage than a prolonged lockdown will cause.

What is the point of education if kids graduate from University into lockdown?

When unemployment hits 40% and absolute poverty returns
what price is worth paying?

“ What do you think the effect would be on the economy if we had no lockdown?”

If the disease is 90% killing a demographic that doesn’t work, it might be better than lockdown.