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

@Sosadandempty yes let’s get the true story later and beat ourselves up about it. Cannot WAIT for that when this nightmare is over.

@Bool You talk to me as though you think we're idiots here and can't see the writing on the wall or that we haven't thought about it. But I remember you from previous postings you have made so I'm not surprised.

The tourist industry is actually the one big thing that we are all discussing and debating at this point. We don't have the answers. We don't have a crystal ball and we don't know what the world will look like in a month. We will be closed to tourism until at least the 1st of June. there is talk of a health passport. We will see as I don't see how that is viable but it's something being discussed at EU level. They are hoping that antibody tests will be available and a viable option for checking travellers before they travel by then, but we recognise this is wishful thinking. If the wishful thinking pays off then we will have a limited three month tourist season here for June, July, August. The reality is that in the Greek context the outcomes would have made Italy and Spain look like they have come off lightly. That wasn't something that Greeks or Greece were willing to enter into. To be honest, we're old hands now at handling rough times, austerity and financial ruin. It's one of the reasons they think we've done well during this crisis. We didn't freak out, get angry, refuse to follow rules and guidelines, etc. Sure, some did but most of us are pretty experienced now on how to handle shitty times and got on with it. We are experienced at living with uncertainty and just get on with making the best of a rotten situation. Not to say that people won't die. Our suicide rates will sky rocket again etc. But our health care system hasn't been overrun and people are still able to access the non-COVID care they need if essential. That includes cancer treatments etc. So in that aspect it's been worthwhile. How you weigh up which deaths are acceptable and which are not I don't know. I don't think anyone does. I am looking forward to people being able to go back to work though - in whatever capacity possible. We need that here now.

I would personally have gone for a full lockdown starting early March.

Mid to late February I think, once all the half term returners from Italy started spreading it. The problem I suppose then when cases were still low the country might not have been as supportive of it

@Chipmonkeypoopoo when have I treated you like an idiot? It’s actually reassuring to read that these kinds of debates are happening in Greece.

@Bool well, I’m not in the business of predicting pandemic deaths.

But when the CMO said that 20,000 deaths would be a ‘good’ outcome and we’re clearly going to far exceed that, you have to think that we’re failing somewhere.

If I could see that our government and advisers had done a good job here, I’d be behind them all the way. I’m not hugely party political and don’t have any particular axe to grind. I’m just saying what I see to be happening - which seems to be supported by Wiseup who clearly knows a lot more than me. (Thank you, Wiseup for everything you’re doing, and hope that gearbox does hold up.)

How does this

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

mean that I treated you like an idiot? It is simply stating a fact.

@Hairydilemma I agree that it was rather shortsighted indeed for our advisors to have put a figure like that in place. Looking at how Italy was progressing at the time, 20,000 was never going to be realistic. But maybe they took the number from China. They have only had 4000 deaths after all

There’s someone on Radio 4 now describing the total lack of checks, social distancing etc coming into Heathrow yesterday.

The difficulty is that we really aren't going to know which tactics wee effective until many years down the line. There may or may not be second waves. There may or may not be a vaccine. Indirect Death rates also need to be taken into account.

This is the first time I have commented on a coronavirus threads but this one really struck a chord with me because - not for the first time - a far greater value is being placed on physical than mental health. My best friend who lives in Spain has not left her central city apartment for 7 weeks now and I am not sure her mental health will ever recover. I’m not saying that that’s necessarily unreasonable, but it is and ought to be very much part of the discussion. It was a huge part of why the UK lockdown has been less strict and I think it’s important to acknowledge that.

@epicday welcome to the Coronavirus discussions! Yes that is scary indeed and also for the kids. I have many friends in Spain and Italy. Some live in central city apartments and as you say are unable to go out at all other than for buying food within 200m of their house. We have been more balanced here and very lucky. It is indeed all about balance.

Love all the excuses why we have larger numbers here, if not NZ, how about a comparison with Germany? They may well be calling for things to open again but they can afford to given how well they have managed it.
The UK on the other hand
Not enough PPE resulting in NHS doctor/nurses dying.

10th April - Germany:
"4,700 nurses and doctors tested positive for Covid-19"

"In Germany, at least 4,700 people belonging to medical staff have tested positive for the coronavirus.This results in current data from the Robert Koch Institute.The facilities in which the cases have been registered include hospitals, medical practices, dialysis facilities, outpatient care and emergency services.71 percent of the sick are women, 29 percent men.The average age is 42 years."

@Bool I apologise if I misinterpreted your tone but it sounded a bit condescending and suggested that we haven't thought about it or realised that might be an issue. At the moment anyone coming in is tested and put in a hotel until their test results are back. Then allowed to move to their quarantine address where they're checked on at least twice to make sure they're staying in for the 14 days. I'm as surprised as anyone that we got our act together on this. But if you read about the situation here (sadly not getting much press even though it's far more impressive than many countries like Sweden or NZ) then you'll see we definitely are thinking about tourism, the financial crisis, etc etc. It's been a long time since we as a nation have had much to be proud of.

Reading through some responses now. Thank you.

Put another way (because many of you have made me see this differently), if we all just choose to end lock down for ourselves now, will that make the UK lockdown a waste of time?

My feeling is that this needs to be done in an organised way in order to make the most of our investment so far.

@Bool it’s lovely and sunny so I don’t want to stay on here all day debating with you.

But I think it’s important to acknowledge that that lauding the NHS for not being overwhelmed by COVID (which is really lauding the government’s strategy) is pretty one-dimensional and doesn’t take into account the things that have enabled this - people being left to die or become very ill at home and in care homes, other treatments being delayed etc etc - both physical and mental health-related.

I also think it’s odd when people insist on saying how well the NHS is doing in the face of first-hand evidence from posters like WiseUp who are at the forefront of all this and demonstrate at what cost to NHS staff - and how narrowly - this is being achieved.

@Chipmonkeypoopoo sorry was by no means meant to be condescending. In your first post you made no mention at all of the medium term economic implications of stopping the spread short term so successfully. I am just not sure how tourists are going I react to coming to Greece for a 2 week break to find themselves in quarantine for all of it. That’s all.

@EpicDay I agree. The mental toll is huge. I'm sure I had mild PND after having my baby due inpart, to a whole host of changes in my life at the time. I was just coming out of the fog and now here we are again. It is very hard.

@EpicDay that’s so sad. I don’t understand how children aren’t allowed for a walk once a day, they are the least at risk group. I suppose it’s harder to police if people go out, trying to keep to the 2 metre rule, you can only be sure if people stick to the rules if they don’t go out at all but that is a big price to pay, especially for children.

@Hairydilemma I understand what you are saying. I do think though that for people’s mental health we need to get some positives out of this that’s all. There is enough doom and gloom. Let’s try and be happy for what we did get right and then yes hold ourselves to account for what we didn’t. However lots of threads on here are really berating and I just try and give some positives because if not, I for one will be thinking is this all really worth it.

@Bool - I guess when you're Greek talking about the economy is a bit tiring sometimes. 😔😊 Plus we make assumptions that everyone knows we know it's going to be a mess. We're actually a hugely politically active population. There are lots of approaches being touted. A two week quarantine in the way it is being implemented right now is unlikely to be one of those. I don't want to derail the thread but there are a lot of various plans being debated and discussed in Greece and within the EU.

Why are some people never happy? Lockdown has had the desired effect of flattening the curve and keeping the cases within NHS capacity. The aim was never to avoid all deaths - impossible.

Are people really looking at the situation in Spain where people have not been allowed out of the house for a month and thinking "oooh that looks great, wish we could copy them"?

There really are some posters on here who are rooting for maximum misery and maximum hardship, and won't be happy until the economy's tanked, the Army is on the street and people leaving their homes are shot on side.

@WiseUpJanetWeiss I think a lot of people have made a lot of sacrifices. Lost jobs and income. Suffered mental health issues. Put off routine operations and some not routine and life threatening. That to then hear that it is still all doom and gloom in the NHS will make some people then stop and think is this lockdown really worth it. We must bring a balance. Yes of course the NHS isn’t perfect. But it is doing an amazing job. And everyone is pulling together for that.

Sight. Not side.

@PineappleDanish I am with you. Actually if we look at this holistically then we have walked a real tight rope here. We must start looking at what we are doing right as well. I love it that Greece is proud of what they have done.

I actually get a bit cross when I read people calling what we are doing at the moment "being in lockdown" We arent in lockdown. We have gone for a sort of half arsed compromise because to be brutally honest a lot of us have lost the ability to be resilient and to deal with a real crisis.

By not going into a proper lockdown we have all tacitly accepted that there will be considerably more excess deaths in this country than elsewhere. If we stop the measures too early we are throwing old people and those of us with underlying health conditions to the wolves. and all because some people wouldnt stop travelling when they could see this on the horizon. their one week skiing was sooo important. their business meeting soooo important. To those saying we should have brought in more measures just look at how these are going!!! Too many years of people banging on about their rights and not accepting that with this comes responsibility and too much pandering to snowflakes.

So yes, what we have at the moment the half arsed lockdown has been a waste but its as much as the government could do to get us to comply with anything. We just completely lack the intelligence and responsibility that other countries have to behave like adults. I despair of how this is all going to go in the coming months, I really do.