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?

[buttermilkwaffles]

"A recession – a short-term, temporary fall in GDP – need not, and indeed normally does not, reduce life expectancy. Indeed, counterintuitively, the weight of the evidence is that recessions actually lead to people living longer. Suicides do indeed go up, but other causes of death, such as road accidents and alcohol-related disease, fall."
www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/25/there-is-no-trade-off-between-the-economy-and-health

[Pleasedontdothat]

There will always be outliers like the 28 year old pregnant nurse - incredibly sad on an individual level, and because cases like that are so unusual, they get reported a lot. Healthy, young people also die of normal flu every year, or from a stroke or cancer or heart attack - however their risk is much smaller so if it does happen they’re incredibly unlucky.

My dad is in his 90s and is extremely frail with underlying health conditions. His risk of dying in the next year is pretty high - his risk of dying from Covid-19 is pretty high too. The risk of my healthy 23 year old son dying in the next 12 months is vanishingly small, yet not impossible - his risk of dying if he contracted Covid-19 is equally small but not non-existent. Obviously I don’t want my dad to die but realistically he’s not going to live forever and he’s had a good life.

[bluebeck]

On a personal level, I am fine. I could carry on like this for at least a year or two.

Globally, as obviously this isn't something just affecting UK, I think it will be a huge issue until a vaccine is found (which isn't guaranteed)

With regards to schools going back, the paper circulating Dept of Education asks how many dead children/staff/parents are acceptable as a trade off for the economic benefits of re opening schools. That is actually how it is worded but you can see why.

The whole thing is awful - there's no real way around it that doesn't hurt, but yes,we will eventually recover. Life will not be as it was before, in the same way as it wasn't after WW1 and Spanish Flu, or after WW2. But, economies and families recover.

[BeijingBikini]

@buttermilkwaffles how on earth do you know that the recession will be short and temporary? The Great Depression lasted 10 years and we are projected to have the worst fall in GDP for about 300 years, if lockdown goes on till June - the recovery from that many job losses will not be short.

[NikeDeLaSwoosh]

@5zeds You’re arguing with the findings of peer reviewed research here, not me.

[WhatWouldYouDoWhatWouldJesusDo]

I can see things starting to get there by next month. I think restaurants etc will reopen but with a lower capacity to help with distancing and government support to offset the loss of money.

Schools and colleges I don't think will be back until September, maybe even later. My son certainly won't be going in as a guinea pig until we're a lot more certain of the future..part of that will be waiting and watching what's happening in other countries when they started to lift the lockdown.

[LooQoo]

@HandfulOfFlowers

I absolutely agree.

[NikeDeLaSwoosh]

Also worth remembering that, although 14,000 people have died with Covid 19 this year, there are only around 5,000 excess deaths over and above what would be expected for this time of year.

[Lweji]

@NeneValley
The "plan" is indeed to shield the health systems from overload by reducing transmission so that the number of people in hospital is manageable, while resources and protection gear can be reinforced, and while better treatment, improved surveillance and, ideally, a vaccine is found.

It's not a plan that we all get infected.
Different things.

[Quartz2208]

life will change partly due to the people we have lost and also I think if we dont get it under control with life expectancy being reduced

www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/COVID19/

www.statista.com/statistics/1105061/coronavirus-deaths-by-region-in-italy/

www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-daily-deaths

Both of these show that the risk for the workforce is not actually that high Italy 5% were under 60 England 8.5% under 60 and US 9% under 55.

So this lockdown is about managing the NHS and I think making sure (and Dominic Raab said this) that this the 4 weeks we have done works - that we get it properly under 1 so that transmission is suppressed.


We are locking down to help and save are vulnerable and ageing population but by the end of May I think we will need to accept the risk to ourselves and restart everything otherwise all will be lost

[Letseatgrandma]

If you're vulnerable get paid to stay home. Everyone else goes out and back to normal

That’s over half the teachers in my school being paid to stay at home.

There are not enough supply teachers to cover those gaps. Let alone if we try social distancing and need staff for class sizes of 10!

[Newjez]

I remember a couple of weeks ago everyone was screaming to shut the schools.
Now they seem to be screaming to open everything again.
No pleasing some people.

[randomer]

Its overwhelming. I don't understand anything any more. I feel so low today.

[lockeddownandcrazy]

I think they need to start opening things at the end of this 3 weeks. Nothing has really changed since the start of lock down in terms of vaccines, testing etc so we are just holding off and that cant go on forever else there will be no jobs to go back to

[serialtester]

@bluebeck do you have a link to that paper?

[carryoncoping]

I hope all those moaning about thr economy feel some guilt...

But unless the economy starts up again, everything will collapse..... It won't be a case of sitting at home on 80% salary complaining about the lack of super market delivery slots. What we are in now is an insulated bubble. We have food, electricity, water, pretty much everything we usually have bar freedom of movement and a full range of health services. This cannot last without economic activity.

[YgritteSnow]

We will carry on like this until the government decides it has cost enough and they've been seen to be doing enough. There will gradually be less scare mongering and more positivity in the press. People will still be catching the virus and dying but we won't hear so much about it.

[ilovedjerrymore]

I myself lost a loved one due to coronavirus last weekend and to say we are heartbroken is a understatement but we do need to start getting things back to some kind or ‘normality’ after the next 3 weeks have passed To help the economy and to help people in general. This will include social distancing and limited numbers of people in certain areas at one times.
We need to remember the reason we went in to lockdown was to help the nhs from a overload and to make it more manageable which we have done.
At the moment we are all concentrating on the coronavirus victims when there is now many people with cancer and other serious illnesses that are now not getting their treatment/operation. Another close relative is now having to deal with this so as well as loosing a relative to coronavirus we will now loose another family member when there is a good chance they could have been saved. This is the reality...we need to work safely around coronavirus and not hide from it.

[randomer]

Do you think anything approaching normal will come back?

[Devlesko]

On a household level we will cope, just about. There are things we can do online, and short term we could sell things, downsize our home, when things get moving again.
Nationally and the economy, I have no idea. If people can't afford to buy more than essential food/goods, it's not going to support the top end stuff, or the non essential.

[NikeDeLaSwoosh]

I still don't understand this and I disagree

@circusintown nicely summing up the problem here.

We have become a whole nation of people who don’t understand something, yet still have an opinion on it.

[woodchuck99]

It's interesting when people suggest that we can't carry on like this because the economy will fall apart. What do they think will happen to the economy if hundreds and thousands of people die? Many of those who will die are of working age, particularly men in their 50s and 60s. People who work in the NHS will also be at high risk. I doubt that there will be any return to normality before a vaccine. There is no easy solution.

[LooQoo]

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsinvolvingcovid19englandandwales/deathsoccurringinmarch2020

Another poster shared this yesterday. There is a tiny risk of the under 45s, with no underlying health conditions, dying from this. Get the under 45s back to work. Those older and with underlying conditions can choose whether or not to self isolate and the over 70s are mostly in receipt of pensions (so can afford to stay at home).

I’m concerned that the financial damage (poverty, depression etc) will end up far outweighing the damage done to those at risk of dying from coronavirus.

[circusintown]

People are just quoting statistics and "research" here to justify their own opinions and wishes.

I think that's probably a very natural way to behave.

However, I would probably need oxygen. I want that to be available to me. I won't be immediately badly affected by a recession, my children would be fine to continue these measures for some time.

I'm going to listen to that podcast but I don't think it will convince me that I wouldn't need intervention to survive coronavirus. I know it won't convince me I'd be dead from my "underlying health condition" within 5 years

[FliesandPies]

They could reopen a lot of shops now with social distancing measures.