"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?

At the beginning of the crisis the trade off was lives vs the economy. But soon they’re going to be the same thing - people will be destitute en masse, how can they not be? I think they will have to start opening up for economic reasons and I would support it - I didn’t actually think that before

I have family in China and where they live, schools are open again, shops are open, restaurants are open, gyms are open. People are wearing masks everywhere and life isn't exactly back to normal but it's a long long way off lockdown. So that's the kind of future I'm picturing. That would be fine for now.

Just remember that an overloaded NHS and the ensuing very high death rate leads to economic disruption also that some believe would be worse than the disruption caused by lockdown

End of the year? I didn't watch tonight. Blimey, that's bad.
I honestly thought that September, 6 months after it started in March, kids would maybe start school.

Bloody hell. That's miserable.

It's not clear if schools won't reopen before the end of the year.
The exact level of social distancing that is required probably isn't known yet.

But people are also dying due to the lockdown

Apparently those deaths don't matter. You can only talk about and have sympathy with covid deaths. Everyone else just has to suck it up

And then we get the 600,000k people die every year anyway, so 20,000 dying of a virus is meaningless and some of those will have died with and not because of the corona virus and would have died evetually soon anyway etc etc arguments

Read what golden omber just wrote.

frumpety

I have never said anything of the sort. I work with very vulnerable women and children whose lives will be in danger if this lockdown continues with 0 changes indefinitely.

Apparently those (extra deaths caused by the measures) don't matter. You can only talk about and have sympathy with covid deaths. Everyone else just has to suck it up

Exactly - because the CV issue is being fetishised at the expense of all else. A PP asked if folk would accept a "survival of the fittest" and that's a very emotive way of putting it, but:

IF the vast majority who'd die were already at the end of life
IF the societal costs become impossible
IF the economic damage becomes catastrophic, and
IF the alternative was many thousands of additional deaths elsewhere

then I believe a more laissez faire approach could become acceptable

All deaths matter, most especially the preventable ones and I think everyone is aware of the risks of people dying because they are afraid to go to the nhs or find it harder to cope but people are also aware that the NHScan only treat so many at any one time

I don't really care if the preventable death was caused by a stroke or covid, if both are preventable then both should be prevented. Letting the virus rip through the population means deaths from all preventable causes shoots up , it's not just a case of letting covid rid us of the ( implied by many in here ) weak , almost dead already and useless

Midge they have built overflow hospitals. Let’s not forget that only a tiny tiny % of the population will die from this.

We don’t want to force tens of thousands of more people in to poverty, food banks, death because they can’t afford electricity to keep their fridge going for insulin, more homeless. This could be the very slow death of hundreds of thousands of people. We also have to look at all undiagnosed serious illnesses that will be slipping the net - this just isn’t viable

My friend has two bars. They are fucked. And already looking at selling their house to pay there debts off because they would never catch up if they had to open in the new year. No way is the government going to keep furloughing people. And that is the tiny bit of optimism that makes me think they will open things up again. Also Just by furloughing employees doesn’t keep a business open.

There is no way I will keep up social distancing for the rest of the calendar year.

Tonight is the first night I’ve been worried. Not because of the virus but because of the governments possible incompetence.

Agree OP. They need to give some detail, and as others have said, even if it is only to say 'we don't know yet'. What they have failed to do so far and continue to fail to do is explain the reasoning behind many of the measures. Instead they use the increasingly irritating soundbite 'we are guided by the science, right measures, right time' etc.

They are treating us like children rather than having a reasoned dialogue with the public. It is terrifying for people, myself included, to think I may not be able to see my parents for months on end. It's heaping uncertainty onto what is already an uncertain, anxious time and it's irresponsible.

Just want some honesty, if they don't know the plan and are waiting to see what other countries do, or if it will be a case of trial or error etc, that's fine. Don't need specifics just ^something.

Also wonder if this potentially
very long period of social distancing would be necessary if we had sufficient testing, but that's another thread.

iMoan7 Can I just say thank you so much for making me feel like I’m not alone in my situation. I have 2 DC aged 4 and 18 months and our days are exactly the same as you. I’m utterly exhausted, physically and mentally. My husband and I both work and like you, our DC need constant supervision and stimulation. I often feel on the brink of sanity and not sure how much longer I can sustain living like this. It helps to know you’re out there going through the same as everyone I know either doesn’t have kids or they are older. I truly hope things get better.

I wish they would just tell us that all important decision making is paused until Boris Johnson is fully recovered and back at the helm.

Does anyone else feel like Chris Witty will get a ticking off for what he said tonight? It’s a shame as I really like him but I would bet he won’t be on tv as much now - I think the negativity and lack of clarity (as op says) was a real clanger. But working with politicians who talk rubbish most of the time and don’t know half as much as you do must be a really annoying job.

I work in customer service and while my employer is being great now, they cannot keep this up indefinitely. I am terrified about my job, and yes, I know there are bigger and more important things.

Well bowel screening isn't happening, mine is now overdue and we have family history (pretty horrific) so it is important. I suppose I was unlucky as I got my kit, sent it off within a couple of days and testing closed down that weekend. I bet other screening isn't happening, mammograms, smears etc.

Can we agree done things?

Nobody knows yet
It’s hard not knowing
We can look at what other countries are doing
China has moved on a lot
There’s no reason we won’t follow
We all expect some social distancing to last
Economic factors mean things will have to reopen
Tough choices will be made
There’s no real alternative
We may or may not find a vaccine
You can’t please everyone

It's a few weeks not a lifetime

Most people are still working their normal jobs

Of those that are not , MOST people will be caught by the safety nets that have been deployed

And it doesn't matter if you lock down or not YOU STILL GET THE RECESSION
In all probability the lockdown gives the best economic outcome even if you personally are hurting, you would probably hurt a whole lot more in the alternative

A crashed NHS means no cancer treatment, no mental health treatment, no treatment for children or accident victims. That's a lot more deaths.

So they got more beds than they need. Better than what happened in Italy, or have you already forgotten the pictures?

There’s a comms agenda at the moment, to keep the public open-minded about either an early lift of the lockdown (May 11) or one that lasts until mid June or one that extends until September.

No-one actually knows, all medical data scientists are extrapolating different outcomes on a daily basis.

The government will not give an advance roadmap of how the out of lockdown will happen for 2 reasons 1) they don’t know which way to go yet and 2) advance warning will mean some people will crack on with it too early and trigger a second surge.

No-one wants this to carry on longer than absolutely necessary but imagine the outrage if a second peak happened and was worse in Nov/Dec?

The government has balanced the NHS thresholds v the costing of paying wages etc for 12 weeks. They are trying to avoid doing this a second or third time later in the year. That would not be affordable. They would then have to balance the the public’s acceptance level of overwhelming death rates v economic wipeout across many sectors.

It’s a house of cards...expecting anyone to have all the answers is unrealistic (all the mistakes will be identified later on).

For now, it’s clear that nothing changes until mid May so we should just see where we are then.

@Frompcat I never said you said any of those things, just felt it necessary to proactively wheel out the same tired old arguments we see on any corona virus thread. Sorry if you feel that I was attributing any of those tired old arguments to you. I wasn't

As I said on Daffodil101's thread, the Government are in a really tricky situation here, if they mention ending lock down, people will push the limits as far as they possibly can. I imagine we will get the same level of notice for the ending of lock down as we did for it starting. Not a lot.

I don’t think life will ever “go back to normal”, nor should it.

It has been only a matter of time until a pandemic hit. SARS, swine flu, Ebola etc, all near misses. International air travel will have to be curtailed and/or more strictly controlled, with health testing on departure and arrival. There’s a reason why epidemics can be more devastating in modern times/have the potential to go global, and that reason is air travel.

I’m amazed that anyone thinks a Labour Govt could have been more of a shit show than the current bunch. Tories ignored all the pandemic planning, cut stocks of PPE to the bare minimum, sold off parts of the NHS to the private sector ( the last only TWO WEEKS ago, in the midst of the pandemic!).
The public sector has been systematically run down in the name of austerity, yet suddenly people are remembering why local authorities have an Emergency Planning Duty.
Did you see Keir Starmer make mincemeat of Raab today? Finally we have a functioning opposition.

Doctors everywhere will tell you 1000s of lives could have been saved with competence. That’s before you get anywhere near the political ideaology.
Boris has been incompetent throughout his career. He has the attention span of a gnat. Many members of this government and their lackeys should be spending time in prison for their appalling mis management of this.
Heaven forbid their City mates might lose share value!

It's a few weeks not a lifetime

But it isn't a few weeks.

No nearer antibody testing than a month ago.

Germany apparently now has reliable antibody tests. Lets hope that doesn't go the way of the EU procurement fuck-up.

I wish they would just tell us that all important decision making is paused until Boris Johnson is fully recovered and back at the helm.

Quite. Which is an absolute disgrace, seeing as we voted for a government not a sodding president. They were elected, they need to keep doing their jobs.

But it isn't a few weeks.

Yes. A year or more out of anyone's life is not trivial. It's huge.