Has UK Lockdown been a waste of time and money?

[pontypridd]

Other countries have started locking down earlier and been far more strict. Their lockdown has had more effect and now they're beginning to come out of it.

UK locked down was late and has been soft - so not much change to infection rates etc are happening.

Might we have been better off not bothering? As it stands it looks as though we're going to have to continue this for much longer. I wonder whether a shorter and more severe lock down would have ended sooner.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/25/boris-johnson-lockdown-dilemma-grim-virus-data

[leckford]

The lockdown has been very damaging to small businesses in particular.

London should have been shut down earlier, the tube, the busses everything. Especially non cargo flights. This would have prevented the spread.

Things need to get going now in an organised manner before the country goes bankrupt and there is massive unemployment. No concerts, football or other big sports events. That will have to wait

[Bool]

@leckford your logic is wrong. We locked down just at the right time in London. The NHS didn’t crash. So give me one reason we should have locked down sooner.

[Alex50]

I don’t think lockdown was a waste of time, testing centres have been set up, extra hospitals, extra staff, more data coming every day which is being analysed, closer to a vaccine, they are learning more about the virus. Lockdown was never going to stop the spread but it has slowed it down. The most disappointing thing for me is the government didn’t put more guidelines in for care homes, the most vulnerable group, which have just been left to get on with it, i’m So glad my mum and Dad are still in their own home.

Lockdown was the easy bit, how we come out of lockdown is going to be very difficult, you are never going to please everyone and people will loose their lives which will be blamed on the government, they’re damed if they keep lockdown to long and damed if they take it off to early.

[Sosadandempty]

The NHS was not overwhelmed because many people were either taken to hospital too late, or died of Covid at home and in care homes.

[Chipmonkeypoopoo]

I'm in Greece. We've had hard lockdown for a while now. Our government went in hard and fast before our first death and then raised the level again after our first death. Mostly because after 10 years of austerity our health service is a total mess. Our daily confirmed new cases are very low now with the exception of a few contained outbreaks in isolated populations. Those are dealt with kindly, quickly and seriously. We have had 2 days with no deaths in the past week. Lockdown will begin to be lifted in early/mid May. We will see how it goes and lift restrictions in phases. We know we cannot do this forever and we need to find a new way of working that balances COVID with the economy and safety of people. We don't know what that way is but for us it cannot include the death of thousands of people. We are all worried and scared, but I have to say for the first time in a decade I feel like people are beginning to trust the government here more. And actually a lot of good stuff has come out of this for us.

Our community testing needs to be seriously ramped up because that's totally pants but our government is not hiding data. Deaths in care homes etc are reported in daily numbers (see comment on isolated populations above) and if care home managers have been lax in their provision of PPE to workers and lax in the implementation of proper health and safety procedures, they are being prosecuted. I'm glad it's been dealt with in this way here. Examples like Sweden are entirely irrelevant to the Greek context and would have been disastrous for us. Countries have to do what works in their context. You cannot look at a country with a totally different economic and demographic context and extrapolate to yours.

[Bool]

@sosadandempty yes and care homes in Spain were completely abandoned by their carers. There will be criminal proceedings there. And STILL their health service was overwhelmed.

[Delatron]

Have just seen on the news they are finally going to quarantine people who come into the U.K.

Why oh why do we do everything so late? We should have been enforcing quarantine months ago. Mainly from China and Italy hotspots. But no we do it now when we are actually a hotspot.

Massive testing? Great idea let’s do that months down the line when we have thousands of deaths and no hope of contact tracing as the infection rate is so high.

[Hairydilemma]

That’s all we were doing with this lock down, protecting the nhs. We have over achieved, as sage predicted it was never breached

I think we need to look at what this ‘over achievement’ means though. Empty hospital beds aren’t such a great measure of success if people are seriously ill and dying at home.

DSis’s MIL had to call an ambulance three times with COVID. It was only the third time - when she was really, really ill - that they took her into hospital.

So yes, beds may be free but at what human cost? She’s getting better now, but nearly didn’t, and has had to have a much more severe illness than perhaps she would if she’d been treated sooner. How many people have died or had this worse than they might because of the government’s drive to show that that NHS is ‘coping’?

[Bool]

@Chipmonkeypoopoo and that will work in Greece if they close their borders and tourist industry down for a couple of years.

[Hairydilemma]

Sosadandempty you said the same thing as me, only quicker and more succinctly!

[Bool]

@hairydilemma whatever happens for some people it will be an opportunity to have a go. The NHS is overwhelmed then it is a disaster. The NHS is not overwhelmed and it is a disaster. Can’t win either way.

[Hairydilemma]

Bool whichever way it went in terms of NHS capacity, I can’t see 20,000 deaths as anything but a disaster I’m afraid.

[Alex50]

That’s another thing as soon as travel starts again, how on earth are you going to stop the spread? how can you quarantine people for14 days if they only want a weeks holiday, how do you open restaurants and bars? Do only people under 40 who are low risk go on holiday, do you hide all the high risk people away? I don’t know how this going to end, it’s all very scary.

[Bool]

@Hairydilemma of course it’s a bloody disaster. We are in the middle of a global pandemic!!! What did you expect. We would get out of this with a few deaths and clap our hands.

[Parker231]

The lockdown is working - it’s slowing down the number of new cases and transmission rate. That was the purpose of the lockdown so that numbers were at a level the NHS could cope with. This is why the state at home’ has been repeated so many times.

The UK has a long way to go, 20,000 deaths in hospitals and c25,000 in care homes.

[Bool]

@Alex50 yes it is very scary. And what if they cannot find a vaccine. Or we don’t get immunity and vaccines don’t even work - the WHO keeps saying there is no evidence for immunity.

[Bool]

@Parker231 yes the UK still does have a long way to go. And should do so slow and steady which is what we have seemed to achieve to date. But some people STILL seem to think that this virus can be stopped in its tracks somehow while a vaccine is still a long way off - if indeed we are ever able to produce one.

[Hairydilemma]

@Hairydilemma of course it’s a bloody disaster. We are in the middle of a global pandemic!!! What did you expect. We would get out of this with a few deaths and clap our hands

Well of course not. But there’s quite a big difference between ‘a few’ and whatever our massive number will ultimately be.

I think many of the decisions the government has made have contributed significantly to this difference.

[Pasghetti]

@Hairydilemma I agree with you about the need for earlier treatment for more people while there is capacity. Not only will it increase their likelihood of recovery but the people who get it badly are the ones who are causing the most terror for others. This really will be a mild illness for many people but for a great many others it can be very nasty. Those people deserve good care early while there is spare capacity in the system. Leaving people at home for days terrified is not acceptable when a night on oxygen might boost their recovery and avoid a 6 night stay 2 days later.

[x2boys]

Regarding South Africa only having 100 deaths compared to the UK,S 20,000+ hospital deaths I was watching the news yesterday and someone they were interviewing from South Africa said they believed Africa as a continent was a coup!e of months behind Europe and they expect the number of deaths to rise massively .

[WiseUpJanetWeiss]

The NHS didn’t crash.

That depends on your definition of crash.

People have died at home unable to get care from 111 or 999.

Other hospital care has ceased because most ICUs, HDUs and some theatres and theatre recovery areas have been transformed into Covid-19 ICUs.

Staff have inadequate supplies of PPE to protect themselves, and other supplies such as oxygen have been very close to running out.

I’ve been working 60 hour weeks since lockdown, and I’m back room working at home. I’m by no means the only one.

I’d say the NHS has miraculously limped onto the garage forecourt on only petrol fumes with two flat tyres, a broken windscreen, and significant bodywork damage. It’s too soon to tell whether the gearbox is fixable.

[Bool]

@Hairydilemma pray tell me what number you would think is a good outcome please. And then compare that to countries which a. Tell the bloody truth and b. Have the same size population and density of us. At the moment I see us running BEHIND them and not in front.

[Sosadandempty]

The 20,000 is hospital deaths. When the community and care home deaths are added in the number is in fact much higher. The FT is estimating 45,000 and the Times 40,000.

People haven’t only been taken to hospital too late and then taken ages to recover there (or died needlessly due to receiving drugs and therapy too late) they have also not been taken to hospital at all and died at home. One example of this is the dramatic increase in Covid related fatal heart attacks reported by paramedics. Many of these people might have died anyway, many won’t have. However places like Germany have had a much better outcome in part due to treating people much earlier.

So the government can crow that the NHS has not been overwhelmed, but the true story will come out when the final total figures are known.

[Bool]

@WiseUpJanetWeiss yes the NHS has miraculously limped in. But that is because we are in the middle of a global pandemic not seen for 100 years. Of course other hospital care has stopped. That was the plan was it not? Wards made available for Covid. There is a global shortage of PPE. Not just in the UK but every country in the world. Why? Because we are in the middle of a pandemic. So no of course nothing was ever going to be smooth or easy. But the NHS has done something truly incredible.

[MigginsMs]

Aren't flights still coming in, from hotspot countries? How they are allowing that, I don't understand

Because we are a hotspot country now. The people flying in here are probably more likely to get it here than bring it with them!

I think we need to crack down on travel and introduce mandatory 14 day quarantine for all arrivals once the numbers of infection are right down but not sure it’s worth it now.

Also how many flights are coming in anyway? I live on an airport flight path and haven’t heard a single one for weeks. The tarmac is full of grounded planes.