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?

My DD and SIL are teachers, I don’t want them to go back to school and be guinea pigs. My DD is asthmatic she also has my DGD who are 5 and 18 months. I am asthmatic among other conditions which place me in the vulnerable group, I am also part time childcare For her youngest, as yet no staff at her school have been affected, but they have been using skeleton staff for key worker children, they’ve had less than 10 a day in school. So schools return to normal, parents doing pick ups with little or no social distancing, schools not cleaned properly and as we all know, once a bug gets into school it spreads like wildfire. So if that school has a lot of staff off, due to being infected, or a family member is symptomatic, the school closes anyway. Kitchen staff will work the same way. Some of those teachers are classed as vulnerable themselves, and are shielding until at least June. SAGE are meeting tomorrow, but I think we can all assume we are looking at 3 more weeks like this at least. The death rate has been low due to a lag in the figures coming through over the bank holiday, I am expecting a high death rate tomorrow. The true figures of loss will never be known because they are only counting deaths that occur in hospital where those patients are tested, at least 3% more added for care homes, not to mention the people sent home to die, or not deemed sick enough for hospital care.i don’t want my family to become statistics on a list, or to carry guilt because one of them brought it home to me. I get that people are losing homes and jobs, but once you lose a life you can never get that back.

My DD and SIL are teachers, I don’t want them to go back to school and be guinea pigs.

That’s totally understandable. But how would they manage with no income for the foreseeable, until this crisis is over?

Lots of us will have to risk lives and get back to work if we can because otherwise our families don’t eat.

There are only two major factors imo.

Money and economy is being put above health.

Plenty of parents CBA with their own children!

@SoloMummy or plenty of parents are struggling to work or can't work while their DC are off school. Good for you if that's not a problem but I need to work to live and I can't do it while DS is at home.

Plenty of parents CBA with their own children!

This is getting fucking offensive now.

Imagine yourself in the position of not being able to provide for those children. Worrying about how you’re going to pay the mortgage, put food on the table. That’s the position many people are in right now.

Try to engage with that rather than spouting your mouth off like an clueless teenager.

They need to think about every single citizen. And do what is best for the country.

People have the option to keep themselves safe if its needed.

People have the choice to not send their children back to school.

Teachers have the choice to determine the risk is too great to them and not go back.

The govt need to enable schools to become as safe as possible.

We can't lock everyone away. We can do it for a further few weeks until things have stabilised more.

I want there to be a functioning NHS at the end of this, so while I'm worried about us getting sick I appreciate us 'getting back into society' in the safest risk to take. Let vulnerable and their families keep isolating.

The govt cannot afford to pay the nations wages indefinitely.

It may may to stop after 12 weeks.

What happens then? Everyone goes on to Universal Credit? If they can't work? Including those that are vulnerable. Teachers too if the unions refuse that they go back to work.

So everyone suffers.

Or some go back, enabling those most at risk to still be furloughed, to still be paid if they are not furloughed.

Ithink everyone wants to get back to s more normal eay of life but Surely the governmentt will need to implement community testing and contact tracing etc in order to isolate outbreaks etc before we can have a widespread return to work. Schools are essentially impossible to maintain social distancing in so if there is an outbreak in a specific school there may need to be local closures. most schools were struggling for staff due to self isolation and there will need to be a system to test properly to avoid this. This isnt even in place for the nhs or care homes yet, never mind schools.

walksen I see sufficient testing as one of the things that need to be done. And yes, we need to contract trace again.

They need to think about every single citizen. And do what is best for the country.

This is how it should be - the people deciding our route out of this have to be pretty dispassionate as it will be impossible to meet everyone's wants and needs. Then individuals will have to be responsible for what risks they are willing to take. There will be no one size fits all for 60million people.

They need to think about every single citizen. And do what is best for the country.

Yes they should, we can't keep putting the NHS above everything else. We all understand that we need to keep admissions to hospitals to a level that they can deal with. But the more people who are unemployed the less money being paid to the government, the less funding to the NHS and other services isn't going to help. We can't borrow enough money as country to get us out of this. We can't wait 18 months / 2 years for a vaccine to be developed and given.

As I said earlier I fully expect us to have to go into lockdown at least one more time before we have a vaccine that is reliable.

I totally agree with LaurieMarlow.

And with regards to schools, I am very concerned for the many many children for whom home is not a good or safe space to be. Not just actually abusive homes but homes where there is just low level neglect.

And as for the wealthy wanting people to go back to work for them. Well we are comfortable and I know we could personally last for a lot longer financially than my self employed friends.

And I personally would be quite wary of all the furloughing - as this has been massively over subscribed I wouldn't be at all surprised if the govt doesn't pay all of those salaries. Especially as seems some companies are abusing the scheme.

Lock down was essential but it can not go on for too long. It is the hammer and dance. We will move out of lock down but if rates start going up too quickly again then I would guess another temporary lockdown would occur.

Lilac tree
Thanks, chose the name as I prefer it to my real name 😁
I suppose I would have liked a, similar lockdown to France. Or even for the police to have more authority in this country so we actually listen to them and don't just ignore them. I'd like to see higher finestoo. Young lad next door (about 20) was telling me his mates don't care about getting caught and they'll just pay the fine. Kind of says it all.

My children will not be going back to school this academic year.

My dd starts sixth form in September and my ds will be going into year 9.

My husband works for the NHS but has been deployed to a different area and had extra training.

I am in the high risk category and have received the letter from NHS and local Council.

If I could I would keep my son off until they found a vaccine BUT that's because he has a very rare, underlying incurable disease (very outing here!!!) I am aware that we have to try to get back to some form of normality, whatever that will now look like.

I wanted lockdown, I wanted schools to close earlier but I didn't think the exams would be cancelled.

The biggest ever recession was after the Spanish flu. There, lockdown was not a normal response, yet the recession still hit.

??? The 1918-19 influenza was followed by the roaring 20s. The Great Depression did not hit oil 1929 and had quite different causes.

For people who can and want to home educate and not send Children in, I really don't think they should be penalised (ie loss of place, fines, LA scrutiny) for not sending their Children to school for as long as they deem neccessary.

Everyone's individual situation is different. I have always been poor. Not third world poverty, but poverty under the austerity programme and it's not fun. I worked non wage for many years and was still poor but cannot now. I don't drive, live in substandard housing, I don't even have a washing machine have to hand wash everything. We manage.

I don't want to have to send them back. We have an extremely vulnerable family member as well in my DC fathers household.

If they open the schools, it should be made absolutely crystal clear it's optional for most. This would also help with reducing the spread.

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

Absolutely not. Once the NHS has capacity to cope, it should be lifted. The virus is still out there, the lockdown won't magically get rid of it as it seems some on MN think.

I've seen ridiculous posts where people think we should be locked down until a vaccine is available, that's just not sensible. The majority of people and businesses in the country would be bankrupt and then the government would have an even bigger problem.

Economically it's going to be very painful anyway.

Once the NHS has capacity to cope...

Not likely to happen for more than shortish periods of time until we have a vaccine. Periods of lockdown will bring it down. Then things will be relaxed a bit before the next lockdown.

I want things to go back to normal...

But I realise that's a exercise in futility. My desire for normality is not more important then the need for lockdown to prevent the nhs from becoming over run and preventing preventable deaths.

As much as I want things to be normal, I would much rather suffer lockdown, struggle financially but keep people who shouldn't be dying alive. And frankly I would be even less productive if they cancelled lockdown but close friends or family members ended up severely ill, or gods forbid passed away before their time.

What we want dosent necessarily align with what we know we need.

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.

I have dc at an independent school, so far they've only missed 4 days of school! Looking at the charts, I think even the end of May could be premature for schools to go back safely.

The Lockdown was NEVER about making schools safe for children

it was to cover up the fact that the Government has underfunded the NHS and Adult social care for the last ten years

Keeping the schools closed will just destroy our children's mental health and futures

the virus is here for ever now

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. They are not going to be able to lift the restrictions and allow things to go back to normal as the virus will just rebound. The schools in wales are unlikely to open before September our government told us that at the beginning. Scotland was told the same. I would imagine the same is true for England. We all need to get used to waves of lockdown as that is the only way to stop the nhs collapsing. The lockdown was only ever about slowing the virus never about stopping it.

The Lockdown was NEVER about making schools safe for children it was to cover up the fact that the Government has underfunded the NHS and Adult social care for the last ten years

Are you aware that schools are closed in many places worldwide? Including in countries like Australia and Germany, where the virus has been far more contained?