What do they mean ‘social distancing in some form until the end of the year’?

[BuffaloCauliflower]

Just that really? What sort of level are they actually talking about? Surely the country will crumble, hospitality industry for one won’t survive if people can’t go out normally all summer and then Christmas time as well? The fallout will be far greater than the virus and the country will be bankrupt.

Anyone more knowledgeable than me able to contribute?

WhyCantIthink, Surely the chances are also very low of needing hospital treatment in the younger age groups? I like to see the stats on age of hospital admission but can't find any

Forgone90
Yes but at present when asked difficult questions, ministers' (including the Chancellor) stock answer is we're relying on the medical/scientific advice.

at the moment hospital treatment including any cancer treatment which lowers immunity has been "delayed" the mortality rate & consequences of lack of treatment for many other Conditions are concerning many specialist clinicians - this is why many wards in hospitals are empty. Women who would be offered chemo for breast cancer are having mastectomies, for instance, & for people needing operations for routine surgery or planned surgery their life quality will be affected & earlier death may be the result. The reason for this is that many of the earlier cases of coronavirus were caught in hospital from undiagnosed (probably asymptomatic?) cases.
I am concerned about the flu outbreak in winter - if its a bad flu season & it corresponds with another outbreak of corona - it doesn't bear thinking of but all those extra beds in Nightingale hospitals (if they can get the nurses they need & what happened in London Nightingale Hospital replicates what happened in Wuhun new hospital -I actually wondered when they built these were all the specialist staff were coming from. for those who think the services should provide the doctors don't understand the way things work - doctors who work in the NHS work as part time soldiers doctors in fields of conflict like the middle east - they are back within the NHS now., the army ect don't have the number of medical specialist they use to have)

@Thingybob

Statistics differ but from the picture emerging is that even in middle age it rises sharply around 4% of people in their 40s for example (there are probably huge errors on these results - I've seen as high as 20% and also much lower numbers suggested). Some people also need to stay in hospital quite some time (the old and frail tend to die quickly). Obviously hospitals couldn't cope with this huge flux of the population turning up in a short period of time.

I hate the idea of us all walking around wearing masks for months on end.
It reminds me of the zombie apocalypse.
When ppl speak with them.on you can't even understand what they are saying.

@ romatheroamer

Yes the problem with that answer is it can't possibly be true. For example an epidemiologist can tell you projections (with error bars) for how the virus is likely to progress, a NHS expert can tell you what the system can cope with and how it can be scaled up and what the likely effects of that will be, an expert in mental health can tell you the likely affect of a prolonged lockdown, another expert can tell you the risk to say children in chaotic environments, an economist can estimate to some extent the effect of a prolonged lockdown or second wave of infections etc but who is actually looking at all these things and making an informed long term decision which accounts for all of the myriad of factors involved?

Would this be a better answer, then? “We realise now that not copying the reaction of countries like Germany did not pan out well for us, so this time we’re waiting for a bit to see how gradual lockdown lifting works in countries ahead of us In the cycle before we open our big mouths and publicise any decisions.”

@Walkaround

Pretty much. Obviously it's good they're listening to scientific advise but it's massively dishonest to pretend that all of the advise they're receiving doesn't require thinking about and decision making applied to it.

WhyCantIthinkOfAgoodOne - to be fair, I haven’t heard a single minister say they are not thinking about or discussing how and when to start lifting restrictions, only that they do not think now is the time to share their discussions with the British public. It’s the British public they do not want to be pretending they are scientists and making their own decisions, not themselves.

Which is why it was important to find a way to get Parliament up and running again - someone has to be able to challenge and discuss what the Cabinet is up to (and I don’t think the press are responsible enough to do the debating for us all).

WhycantIthink, The only evidence I have to go on regarding hospitalisation of younger people from this virus is anecdotal. My local hospital has not admitted one person under the age of 50 to the Covid wards. I do however live in an area with few cases and few deaths so I'm not sure how representative that is. But if it is representative of the country as a whole and there is very little risk to younger people then surely they should be free to get on with their lives. The only objections I've heard oppossing that is that it isn't fair. If the oldies can't go out then neither should the younger ones. Both Angela Merkel and Nicola Sturgeon have said that this morning.

@Thingybob not much point in anecdotal evidence. It's clear there are significant numbers of younger people admitted. At one point in London the numbers of all adult age groups were fairly evenly represented in ICU. You can look at the actual figures and it said that the current estimate is 4% of people in their 40s wil be admitted to hospital. The healthcare system can't cope with this all in one go. WE also can't simply protect all older people - they need care too. Obviously though we can make moves to offer more protection to certain members of the community than others.

I mean it will take a while, but in another 100 years when the next big pandemic breaks out they will probably have forgotten all about it, like the 1918 influenza.
Hmmm, not sure about that. The 1918 flu was at the end of a highly lethal war, then we had another, it kind of overshadowed everything.

Children still learn about plague in schools, we still sing ring o' Rose's etc. This could shape society drastically in years to come. Especially if, as PP says, we get waves for 40 or 50 years

Really don't know, but I'll made a prediction:

Lockdown until end of May.

Other shops can open but with reduced stock and limits on number of people allowed in (the latter part may not be a necessity but hopefully a common theme like it is now).

Food places may reopen but no sitting in and only to go e.g. costa is takeaway only.

Group meet ups to be no more than 5. Travel my car to see family over a certain distance, but no train trips to meet friends for the weekend. Will be hard to police the reasons people are visiting but will hopefully stop those who want to do the right thing.

No big events or parties and no reopening of concerts, sports games etc. But you can meet with close friends near you.

Schools may go back for a bit but close again in summer. Some services can again do reduced contact e.g. hairdressing, dentists but may have temperature checks.

Once (if!) they sort out more PPE, you may only use these services with masks. Not sure we'll ever have enough to do that though.

I think it'll end the current culture of hanging out in coffee shops, restaurants, going to anything arts related like a gallery or concert. It's more 'you get something then come home'. Just more range than we have now.

I think it'll end the current culture of hanging out in coffee shops, restaurants, going to anything arts related like a gallery or concert. It's more 'you get something then come home'. Just more range than we have now.

To me this is one of the worst versions of future. Many, many people are employed in these places.

I spend a large proportion of my life doing these things.

My life would be very very much worse.

Before you all say but people die, I know, I understand.

@NathanNathan I agree, that’s an horrendous vision of the future. Human’s are built for community, for being together. Everyone confined to their homes in small nuclear families unless they have to go out is a highly unnatural plan for humans. People need people.

@Userwhatevernumber I hear you. As much as love watching church from my kitchen table in my pyjamas, it’s not the same. My church is still able to run it’s foodbank thankfully but church is also an essential community for many.

I suppose it’s a question of whether you see the household as the basic ‘unit’ of contagion, rather than a series of individuals.

Do mixing households becomes the activity which needs to be controlled to break the transmission chains. Social distancing is the only way by which that can be done.

So I predict we’ll see more shops open, but for purposeful shopping (not a day out at the shops for leisure IYSWIM) and some services (where you can drop off/pick up, not be present throughout)

Perhaps some team sports - not for DC (as their additional household mixing would be with classmates - don’t add sports clubs on top of that) but perhaps spectator-free no/low contact sports outdoors for adults.

How to manage school is going to be tricky. You’d still need a very hard line for isolation of the symptomatic and their cohabitants, plus possible lengthy sick absences for those with moderate illness/recovers, and possibly local lockdown if something that looks like a local clump is starting up? So online version in parallel with sites being open might have to become a permanent fixture

A false premise, if restrictions are lifted, who would want to go to pubs etc busy parks, beaches? even your local shopping Mall?
Who would go on a flight or busy ferry?

Oh I think you would be surprised!!!

@walkaround If we are planning on waiting and seeing how Germany works out and then copying them, I hope we have really been employing contact tracers, rather than just saying we have been (looking at you, land army).

@Abreadsandwich

I was quite shocked by the news on Tuesday that April had had 8000 more deaths than expected (or than last year, sorry cant remember which) and that a third of them were due to covid 19.....which means there were around 5.5k extra deaths that were not due (directly?) To covid 19. This was not addressed or explained.

No, Covid accounted for around a third of all deaths for that week, not a third of the excess - so around 6,000 of 18,000 were Covid deaths. Of the 8,000 excess therefore 6,000 were Covid which leaves 2,000 excess without an explanation, most probably many were Covid then some due to other factors as people said.

It's really, really important that we do get these facts right.

Madhairday
I watched the same news twice and that's how I interpreted it both times, but it did seem surprising so maybe I understood wrong.

@nellodee - yes indeed. The rhetoric certainly indicates the Government knows what it ought to be doing, but reality is seldom as timely, orderly and efficient. Given the fact we know that, it’s a good thing they aren’t busy lifting restrictions already.

Seems like this is the most dramatic set of control measures ever taken to stop a disease, though. There is nothing in history that compares. If we knew 10 yrs ago that this pandemic was coming, had time to discuss at lengths the trade-offs, are the current Lockdown & near future measures what everyone would have voted for?

Everything is unprecedented, including the social price people are willing to pay to prevent the deaths.

If all this effort was to save 30 lives in the UK: we'd all say no, too large a price to save them. Would 30k life saving be enough to justify all the current control measures, though? Govt decided 300k lives were worth the price. But there's been no debate, no grown up discussion, the large Tory majority just decided.

And now there is no real discussion about which control measures are most harmful. I imagine lots of research going into saying which ones are most effective... but very little balancing out with calculations of which measures are most harmful. This is why the economists want to be listened to. There's imbalance in the decision making.

MN and most my contacts seem to think More Control = Less Death directly from cv19 = Obviously best, Shout at anyone who suspects otherwise could be true. I have a rapidly shrinking list of friends. :(

No big events or functions, theatre etc

No private gatherings of more than 10 people

Masks compulsory on public transport and shops

Restaurants reopening with tables 2 metres apart.

Schools open in September, classes staying separate with no assemblies and separately playground slots.

Pure speculation on my part!