Hairdressers may be one of the first to re-open???

[coronacockdown]

DP and I keep wondering why hairdressers would be one of the first to be allowed to open. How could you socially distance and cut hair. It just doesn't make sense.

I might be talking a load of balls, but wasn't going to the hairdresser classed as an essential journey in one of the European countries?

They were open in Spain when lots of other businesses had to close in earlier stages of the lockdown in Spain. Not sure if they stayed open or not. They were allowed to stay open so older people could get their hair washed - so they were classed as necessary for hygiene. I thought it was crazy, but I do remember my granny had her hair washed at a hairdresser for years (30? 20? years) as she said she couldn’t reach to do it herself.

Hair and beauty salons should wear masks and gloves anyhow. In the past few years I've only caught colds when I've been to those type of establishments and they splutter all over you......

Yep a lot of my elderly patients are really struggling with their hair

I’m in Australia and our hairdressers have remained open throughout.

really people think its essential-in that case can i get my nails done if they wear gloves which they do anyway

I'm a makeup artist. I'm thinking October.

Good to hear that the NHS is not overwhelmed everywhere then - from abroad I only know what I see on the news, which looks pretty appalling. The death toll is certainly so much higher than in Germany that you're nowhere near ready for lockdown to be relaxed yet, I'd have thought.

The shopkeepers here are being incredibly cautious about customers sticking to the measures - the last thing they want is tobe shut down again. So distancing and open shops can work together to some degree, but it requires people to be quite disciplined. I suspect things will be like this until a vaccine comes in, so we'd better get used to it.

Government update on BBC1 said another 6 months, before hairdressers can open, and pubs will be the last to open,
Some hardware stores like B&Q are opening now

I don't think the underwhelming of the NHS or parts of it is the whole issue. Lockdown is not just about keeping cases within nhs capacity. They want to get numbers and transmission rates down to a level where they can be kept suppressed for an extended period. Whether that is realistic I don't know.

They'd have to use rakes and those long loppers for pruning tall trees, assuming that their premises are spacious enough. I can't imagine that would be very practical....

That said, it is causing a lot of people a great deal of distress. You could call that ridiculous and say "just order some clippers from Amazon and shave the lot off", but then you could equally say (as one person on a recent thread did) that bread and milk aren't 'essentials'. Presumably because you can survive on flour and rainwater or that horrid-looking gruel that they give to astronauts.

This lockdown is having a lot of severely deleterious effects on everybody. Prince Charles was saying how very stressful he was finding it (not suggesting he was wrong to say that), so goodness knows how the average person without several palaces and millions of pounds at their disposal must be finding it.

It's going to take a very, very long time to recover and there will sadly be an awful lot of suicides as a result of it. I'm not saying that somebody will kill themselves simply because they find the salon closed, but any number of relatively trivial things could prove to be the very final straw for any individual person. And that's not even taking account of all of the hairdressers who are now prevented from earning a livelihood, but are nevertheless still incurring continuing bills and costs of running the business that has been taken from them.

I’m in Australia and our hairdressers have remained open throughout.

This is the thing: the rules in different places just seem so very arbitrary. You wouldn't consider a tiger roaming free through a Dutch street a real threat to human life and make capturing it a top priority, but then see the same tiger wandering through Athens and say "well, just do your best not to go too near it if you can".

How can it possibly be the case that British hairdressers are easily able to pass on the virus to customers and colleagues but Australian ones can't?

They want to get numbers and transmission rates down to a level where they can be kept suppressed for an extended period.

Hasn't Sweden isolated all of the very vulnerable people and then just left the rest to get it, experience mild or no symptoms and then gain immunity, whilst the country keeps going and practical measures are put in place to help those in the at-risk groups?

Have I misunderstood this? How is that not the obvious, common-sense way to handle it?

I don't know much about the Swedish approach, sorry. I doubt they are looking to reach herd immunity without a vaccine but again, don't know how different their demographics are. In general trying to do that before a vaccine becomes available would overwhelm public services, trash the economy and kill many of the young fit people who will not all have mild cases. Remember that if 60-70% percent catch it, the 0.4 or whatever percent who die starts to become very many people. Also immunity post infection is not a given at this point.

As I say, others will know more about Sweden. As i understand it they are social distsncing but without lockdown, and last I heard had many more cases than their neighbours. Not sure how valid comparison with their neighbours is though. I also don't know what R is believed to be there. It's possible the UK lockdown is designed to get our infection down to a level where we can do similar to Sweden.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

It doesn’t make sense. My daughter’s orthodontist appointment was cancelled, my optician is closed except for emergencies, we are not to sit and eat in the lunchroom at work but my work colleagues are all having their hair done ‘because it’s allowed’.

I wouldn't want to be a hairdresser

In general trying to do that before a vaccine becomes available would overwhelm public services, trash the economy and kill many of the young fit people who will not all have mild cases.

So does that mean we have to keep our lives on hold and maintain lockdown potentially for the next two years or more? Otherwise, what's the difference between everybody getting it when lockdown is eased/ended and everybody getting it without lockdown ever having happened?

If we keep schools closed for another year or two, our whole education system will be utterly trashed with knock-on effects lasting maybe decades - along with the economy, of course.

Already, there will be children who were in Reception who will actually forget what school was, and will have to re-learn all about it and how it impacts their lives pretty much from scratch - in a Year 1 that is simply not set up to support them in this, because that's what should already have happened in Reception. What about the older kids coming up to exams - will we have a micro-generation who either had to miss a year or two at school or who are one or two years behind where everybody else was (and eventually will be) at their age?

Later on, to all intents and purposes, they could have a two-year shorter fertility window than everybody else, with all of the traumas and societal and financial costs that that could lead to, with them having had to put their lives on hold for two years.

Many years down the line, it could even end up sending the state pension system into more chaos than it already is with them either having to wait two years longer than everybody else to start claiming (for many, representing the difference between actually getting a pension and dying before ever being able to do so) or the economy suffering the shortfall in tax and NI contributions towards it from hundreds of thousands of future claimants!

Could some or all of this happen, or am I jumping to massive conclusions? At the moment, who could possibly know?

@Nat6999 I have my grey roots through and im a dark brunette so it really shows. Hate it.

Whats really getting on my nerves is my fringe. Its in my eyes which makes me touch my face more.

No way im cutting or colouring my hair myself though. Im just not good enough to do it.

And hair is really really thick so it would take boxes and boxes of colour to do it.

I wish they'd open. I had beautiful blonde highlights and now with my dark roots and greys getting more noticable daily I really feel like shit.

So does that mean we have to keep our lives on hold and maintain lockdown potentially for the next two years or more? Otherwise, what's the difference between everybody getting it when lockdown is eased/ended and everybody getting it without lockdown ever having happened?

No, I think the plan is for lockdown to get case numbers and the transmission rate down to a level where they can be kept low/stable by some social distancing (but not lockdown as it is now), and by measures like testing/tracing. The plan is not for everyone to get it, although we are relying on a vaccine there, or on drug therapies that make it much less bad for everyone to get it. They are not going to close schools for two years or extend lockdown indefinitely. I know it's hard but I find it helpful to try not to get ahead of myself and take it one day or week at a time.

I’m in Australia and our hairdressers have remained open throughout.

They haven't been open in NZ, and even though our lockdown is being reduced slightly on Tuesday they still won't be open.

Australia has a fraction of the cases though, and a completely different geography, so less commuting between cities etc.

In Australia they made a 30 minute time limit for hairdressers for about two days then lifted that and have just had them open. Though everyone I know is not going to the hairdresser anyway so they are all very empty anyway even though they are open because people are for the most part adhering to the stay home unless essential statement.
Having hairdressers open and beauty salons shut makes zero sense to me, it should all just be shut. But Australia made up their own confusing rules, somehow it's been effective so far though for the most part. But, winter is coming!!

@mentousac are you Chris Witty ?

Helenadove I have a couple of trade cards as I used to be a nail technician so I'm buying professional hair colour, I've done my own hair before & needs must at the moment.

I'm a beauty therapist but work inside a hair salon.
I wonder how it will differ for me than for them.
Im self employed so wnat to get back to work but also scared as it's so close contact and I'm asthmatic.
Even if allowed I think I'll be very nervous of what is best to do.
Also if it is allowed I don't think ill be entitled to any help like I am now.