How long can we carry on like this for?

[Pseudosudocrem]

Anyone else starting to wonder just how long we can carry on like this before everything irrevocably falls apart?

How will we ever recover as a country?

Just like that? My DH has worked 25 years in the live events industry, how is he meant to change careers in the middle of a pandemic/massive recession?

He's probably not going to have any choice if live events are not allowed for a year or two.

He's probably not going to have any choice if live events are not allowed for a year or two.

No I suppose he won't if that's what happens. It would be nice if the government extended assistance for the worst-affected industries in that case but I'm not holding my breath.

The infection rates and hospital admissions numbers are only going down because of the lockdown... surely there's no way we can "go back to normal" until an effective vaccination and/or a widely available treatment is available? Otherwise as soon as people start mixing and returning back to normal, there'll be another spike in the virus spreading faster again.

I don't disagree SpokeTooSoon.

But when there is a car coming imminently everyone should stop. There's no other obviously safe way of handling that scenario.

I understood the plan to be a series of lockdown everytime the infection rates start to increase to keep the NHS capacity manageable, I read possibly a series of 6 of these until hopefully a vaccine is found.

@booboo That really isn't a plan but just inevitable if you let people get infected. Because as school staff get ill and some die, schools will be forced to close, which leads to workers having to stay off and businesses closing, so a lock down becomes inevitable. Then as people get better you reopen schools, 4-6 weeks later more people get ill and die, and schools close again.
That is kind of plan is just reacting to what happens.

Found this summary of where the UK is up to.

New cases are generally flat at about 5,000 per day but this isn't good news. The "active cases" curve is still climbing at unbroken speed.

Worryingly, while the highs aren't hitting new records the lows are getting higher —suggests Britain may not yet have peaked.

Certain things need to be in place before we end lockdown, like testing and tracing capacity, to even try to avoid a huge second wave. Making sure transmission is below a certain level etc.

Let's say we do end lockdown before those things are in place and we get that second wave. One of two things happens as far as I can see. One, we go straight back into lockdown and we are back to square one with all the gains we have made lost. Two, we allow the infection level to grow exponentially and wash over society and the nhs...I highly doubt in this situation anyone will be able to safeguard their job or income, or receive any medical care.

So those saying they can only do three more weeks, which I understand, should be putting their hopes in the govt and the public to speedily meet the criteria for lifting lockdown, which seems a somewhat forlorn hope right now but I hope I am wrong.

Otherwise, to those who want lockdown to end....which option would you prefer, one or two? Or do you think there is another option...I am very open to being wrong on this!

New cases are generally flat at about 5,000 per day but this isn't good news. The "active cases" curve is still climbing at unbroken speed.

I don't think that the number of cases tells you anything as they are doing a lot more tests now.

Imagine we get a pandemic like this every few years ... Are we going to lockdown every few years? At some point we have to just get on with it

Exactly - except it may not be not as long as "every few years" since some insist there'll be another outbreak from autumn no matter what we do. Or to put it another way we could trash everything until then, only to have to trash it again until there's nothing at all left

I'm another who notes that Sweden - with almost no lockdown and folk left to use common sense - has far fewer cases and deaths per million than many. Frankly I can see a situation in future where the extent of the lockdown is deemed to have been a massive overreaction - which is all very well except for the hideous damage that will have been caused

Jourdain11

Really glad to hear that - i wonder how the guidelines differ according to the cancer. I have a family member who is unlikely to have her (non chemo) treatment because of this. There ahve been a few posters on the thread saying chemo has been halted.

I think the best indication is the hospital cases and that is lowering that is the one source of steady data that I think can be seen as fairly accurate.

Testing/Deaths to me are not so accurate indicators

Why would we get a new pandemic every few years?
You may as well ask what we will do when aliens land.
This is not the end of the world. Pandemics do happen fairly regularly like ebola and swine flu, but most kill few people in the UK. This one is unusual.

@Quartz2208 Only if people are getting admitted when they should.
Increase in deaths is most accurate as that can't be hidden or manipulated.

@Puzzledandpissedoff I am interested to see what the overall consensus is when they start looking deeper into numbers etc

Pandemics do happen fairly regularly like ebola and swine flu, but most kill few people in the UK. This one is unusual.

Swine flu wasnt a pandemic.. not sure about Ebola.

Yes it was. Pandemic means a new virus that has spread to multiple countries.

"I'm another who notes that Sweden - with almost no lockdown and folk left to use common sense - has far fewer cases and deaths per million than many. "

It has significantly more than its neighbours.

Exactly - except it may not be not as long as "every few years" since some insist there'll be another outbreak from autumn no matter what we do. Or to put it another way we could trash everything until then, only to have to trash it again until there's nothing at all left

I like to think that we would act much quicker if another pandemic looked like it was on it's way. The reason for Europe being so heavily hit by this is because there was very little done to stop it. In contrast countries that dealt with SARS were much more decisive and now they are in a much better position.

I'm another who notes that Sweden - with almost no lockdown and folk left to use common sense - has far fewer cases and deaths per million than many.

We would have said the same thing a few weeks ago and look what happened. Sweden already has a much higher death rate than neighbouring countries and this will continue. It is much less densely populated than the UK though so it wouldn't be expected to spread as quickly.

Frankly I can see a situation in future where the extent of the lockdown is deemed to have been a massive overreaction - which is all very well except for the hideous damage that will have been caused

Alternatively it could go down in history as an action which was far too late and resulted in many more deaths in the UK than necessary,

I understood the plan to be a series of lockdown everytime the infection rates start to increase to keep the NHS capacity manageable, I read possibly a series of 6 of these until hopefully a vaccine is found

I read the same thing, but the issue here is that with the current approach we could go on ruining a great deal now, only to have to do it again and again until nothing's left

Already we've been threatened with "hundreds of 1000s of deaths" and "bodies piling up in the streets" even with a lockdown, and it's simply not happening. As said, a little more balance and a little less hysteria's sorely needed, and right now I'm not seeing enough of the first

Exactly - except it may not be not as long as "every few years" since some insist there'll be another outbreak from autumn no matter what we do. Or to put it another way we could trash everything until then, only to have to trash it again until there's nothing at all left

I like to think that we would act much quicker if another pandemic looked like it was on it's way. The reason for Europe being so heavily hit by this is because there was very little done to stop it. In contrast countries that dealt with SARS were much more decisive and now they are in a much better position.

I'm another who notes that Sweden - with almost no lockdown and folk left to use common sense - has far fewer cases and deaths per million than many.

We would have said the same thing a few weeks ago and look what happened. Sweden already has a much higher death rate than neighbouring countries and this will continue. It is much less densely populated than the UK though so it wouldn't be expected to spread as quickly.

Frankly I can see a situation in future where the extent of the lockdown is deemed to have been a massive overreaction - which is all very well except for the hideous damage that will have been caused

Alternatively it could go down in history as an action which was far too late and resulted in many more deaths in the UK than necessary,

Oops, I read that on another thread and didnt fact check.

Isnt it hugely different though?

"If one thing's become obvious in all of this, it's that the whole 'Accepting Mental Health issues' trend was never anything more worthwhile than a passing fad on social media.

• Absolutely This. 👏

The poster who said the mortgage holiday will automatically be extended if lockdown continues is naive IMO. I hope they're right of course, but I don't trust the banks as far as I can throw them!

Surely the answer is "until we can stop people dying"

So that will be never then.

This

Do we lockdown every year because of flu? Or a measles outbreak? Or meningitis?