"Some" disruptive social distancing to be in place till the end of the year

[Frompcat]

Says Chris Witty. Nothing unexpected but I really wish they would say what they're talking about when they say shit like this. What does "some" mean? Schools? WFH? Family visits?

Saw a long time of social distancing/restrictions coming.
People thinking that life would go back to normal by the time the next extension is reviewed, will be surprised by this. That is what I meant.

Also, it would be good if the scientists/medical experts decided the highest risk groups - is it men/women, is it young/old, is it pre-existing conditions and if so, which ones.

Sorry but is this not already pretty widely known?

Men are higher risk than women

Old are higher risk than young

Pre-existing medical conditions include Diabetes, Lung Disease, Cancer, Immunodeficiency, Heart Disease, Hypertension, Asthma, Kidney Disease and Liver Disease.

The New York Stats from 14th of April give a pretty accurate picture:

Male deaths: 61.8%
Female deaths: 38.2%

By age (with underlying conditions vs without)
0-17 : 0.04% / 0%
18-44 : 4.5% / 1%
45-64 : 23.1% / 3.5%
65-74: 24.6% / 6%
75+ : 47.7% / 14.2%

Total deaths 6839.

I can't do much longer in isolation on my own without another human being. The 60-somethings of my acquaintance who are coping are either partnered or breaking the rules.

My husband and I are both working from home. Him full time, me four days. We have targets and hours to meet (failure to do so will leave us at risk of redundancy, would be my fear).

Our children are 5 and 2. They need someone focussed on them, they can’t be left to their own devices. It is a complete nightmare. We work in shifts. We are literally either working or parenting all day every day. We get up at 5.30am to cram in an hour or two before the kids get up. We take it in turns to work/parent through the day then once the kids are asleep we work in separate rooms until we go to bed.

It’s a fucking nightmare.

People thinking that life would go back to normal by the time the next extension is reviewed, will be surprised by this

I'm not sure anyone thinks that. It certainly isn't what I think. Why do people not seem to understand that there are a huge number of measures in between "stay exactly as we are now" and "go back to normal"

I also know that there are plenty of people in my situation as well as people who are alone and finding it equally as hard. It can’t be done this way until god knows when. It just can’t n

@smokescreen people failing to adhere to the rules (which are difficult for everyone, not just you) is one way to guarantee that the lockdown drags on for even longer.

The Government's incompetence in dealing with this crisis is why we'll end up in lockdown for months on end. The lack of planning for a pandemic, letting PPE stockpiles deplete, the lax attitude to mass testing even now – they and their scientific advisors like Whitty tried to turn us into a massive social experiment at the beginning in an attempt to achieve herd immunity and it's massively backfired. I am so angry with the lot of them.

the minute you say to people that the rules are going to be relaxed, people will run with that and start undoing all the good. Where is the evidence for that? As I understand it the British public have followed lockdown more than expected, you only have to read threads on here to realise some people are absolutely loving it, particularly trying to impose their own rules on other people.

It won't be like it is now.
It will be a reduction of some of the measures. He explained this well. They can't tell us this what and when and how, because as he explained, they are looking at the data constantly, the science, what's happening elsewhere. He doesn't want to say one thing, and then retract it.

I'm as frustrated as everyone, but we can't do anything about it.

But this is what I mean. It's already been interpreted different ways by different people on this thread. Because at no point did he say "all current social distancing measures to remain in place until a vaccine". He said SOME.

But what are the some he referred to? If we have to continue queuing at supermarkets, then our children can't possibly go back to school without the same social distancing, which will be nigh on impossible because classrooms just aren't big enough to keep 30 kids 2m apart. Are we to continue not seeing our elderly relatives until next year? It was obtuse and irresponsible of him to say that without any attempt at clarification. All he's done is stoke fear, as this thread proves.

But what are the some he referred to?

Exactly my point and the whole point of this thread.

people failing to adhere to the rules (which are difficult for everyone, not just you) is one way to guarantee that the lockdown drags on for even longer.

I'm absolutely not trying to start a huge argument but I really don't understand this logic?

If everyone adheres to lockdown rules completely, from what I can see, we're just kicking the can further down the road.

It's not like "if everyone just stays in for 12 weeks this will all go away"

There isn't a treatment or a vaccine, we are probably all going to catch it. It's just a case of when. If we all, simultaneously decided to break lockdown tomorrow that's kinda the only way this could be over quickly.

We would never do that, of course, because many people would needlessly die.

But everyone staying in lockdown doesn't make this pass any quicker. It just "flattens the curve", i.e, pushes all those infections into the future.

Sophism1

Exactly. People genuinely seem to think that the lockdown is about eradicating the disease. It isn't.

'But what are the some he referred to'

He said that they will look at all the restrictions and it will be a balancing act, they might release some, but not others. They need to weigh it up. And they can't weigh it up yet, because they don't have enough data. They simply can't tell us more than they have, because they need more time.

We know what the restrictions are, but we don't know, and they don't know yet, what they are going to do about relaxing some of them.

I know it's hard, but that's the way it is. We have no option but to just put up with it. For those that don't, all they will do is extend this lockdown, and these restrictions for longer.

@MegUffin agree wholeheartedly with you regarding the alternative government! What a bloody fiasco that would be!

The function of lockdown has never been to reduce deaths, it has been to stop the health services being overwhelmed. This hasn't happened, so I suspect government will be examining how to reduce lockdown measures to avoid a second spike.

@Frompcat They are treating the general public like children

If the cap fits ...

I am not particularly enjoying the lockdown and may well struggle financially in the future
But quite frankly it’s tough luck just going to have to knuckle down and get on with it
Some may think it’s too much to carry on this way but quite frankly what is the alternative This virus is an unknown quantity never been experienced before Go back to normal life let the virus run its course ie survival of the fittest Does anybody really want that ?

It seems so far away I'm shit at home schooling I'm pregnant and it's all to much stress. Dreading the future every day is hard right now not knowing what will happen to us all jobs health family etc

I thought Whitty did a good job today in trying to manage people's expectations.

Life is not going to go back to normal in a few weeks. Absolutely not. We will just be controlling the ebb and flow of people needing to use NHS services until such point as a vaccine is found (which may not ever happen) a treatment is found (which may not happen) or we reach herd immunity.

As nobody has a clue how many of us Brits have had COVID-19 due to lack of testing, we might be closer to herd immunity than people think.

Unavoidable outcome will be many many more deaths

Ilockdown has reduced deaths as we can see we have slowed the rate of growth,

it would be much much worse now if we had not locked down

He didn't say what they were because no one has hashed out the precise logistics, yet. It is pretty obvious that things will not be back to normal for Christmas, though, so why be so aggrieved at CW's statement?

I think they are being negative, because they want to get to the point where we (or at least a majority of us) start saying “sod this, we’ll take our chances with the virus, just want to get back to normal(ish)”.

They need the public mood to change from “lockdown as long as it takes” to “christ I can’t do this any more”. Only can they start easing things, without fear of huge backlash if (when) it leads to infection and death rates going up again.