To think the govt timed the lockdown about right

[Coffeeandgin24]

With more and more people flouting the rules for lock down, it seems the government were about right as to when to call it. There is a limit to how long people will isolate for.

OP that is a bold statement in your title, considering if they lockdowned sooner then there would undoubtedly be many people alive today that are no longer here because of corona. I'm sure these people and their families do not agree with you, along with myself.

No. Should have been two weeks earlier. Our death rate is on course to be the highest in Europe. We were two weeks behind Italy so we knew what could happen.
The UK public have been largely compliant with lockdown - which apparently has been a surprise to some - but the public are not as stupid as the gov might think. If people are now tiring of it, they should be considering the fact that had we locked down sooner, our case load would now be at a point where easing lockdown might be safe (see Demark). We didn't and it isn't.

We were always going to have some of the largest numbers of deaths in Europe as of all the large countries in Europe we are the most densely populated

Bollocks.. Defeatist and suspiciously "on-message" bollocks. We chose to have the deaths we did, and that's an end to it. Whether it was worth it remains to be seen. But trying to paint it as some inevitable outcome is just being wilfully provocative it you have thought about it, or suggests you didn't think about it.

Herd immunity is still needed

We can’t hide for 12 months -So that’s out the window

it’s herd immunity or hiding til vaccine. Lockdown is basically hiding as it’s not going to suddenly go away!

There’s no in between so herd immunity gradually has to be the plan. A series of stop starts which is exactly what government said at the beginning

If we’d have locked down earlier we would still have had to come out of lockdown by now

It’s not what people want to hear but there is no alternative

In terms of position on the curve, we lockdown earlier than a lot of countries as they were further along than us

Our death rate wasn’t that high when we had lockdown

Immunity is the only thing that will stop the virus beside a vaccine

It’s just that we have to build that through stop starts

Yes Imo they did!

People were only going to comply for x amount of time so you have to wait until the last possible minute to lockdown.

People are already starting to take no notice, if they’d locked down sooner that would of happened long ago.

@Hermano Perfectly put!

@happinessischocolate EASTER?! I didn’t know that. Good grief. What an (even bigger) shit show that would have been

It was slightly too late - everything was a week too late, the curve could have been flattened if each stage had started when the previous did - so the 'wash your hands' message should have been 'if you have a new cough or temperature stay home', 'the if you have a cough stay home should have been 'everyone minimise mixing as much as possible', etc.

I personally think too much is being made of some of the more extreme social distancing - you're unlikely to catch it passing someone with less thn 2m distance, it would be more appropriate to say 'avoid face to face contact closer than 2m for more than 2 minutes'. ESPECIALLY if you still have the 'stay at home if you have a cough' advice - the cough is still the main method of transmission even though other routes are possible.

An island nation that can control its borders slowly watched as the virus spread across the globe and in the middle of March was still allowing large scale events to go ahead. They only timed the lockdown when somebody woke up to what was actually happening.

"But if we'd locked down sooner the peak would have arrived sooner and at a much lower number and lockdown would have been lifted sooner."

^Yep

The later the lockdown, the less effectively it works ....
so it needs to be longer than an early lockdown would have been

This is the 7-day FT rolling average of daily deaths
with the curve for each country offset wrt time, to start at the 3rd death

Some European neighbours have stars, in curve colour, which mark lockdown date , also offset

The star for the UK is later than any other except one, which I think is Italy

(and as they were the first country in Europe to suffer from this crisis, one can understand why their govt delayed with noone to follow except China - but Italy suffered for that delay)

Re the population density argument - compare the UK to S Korea and Hong Kong ... both with high population density ... cases and deaths much much lower ... could it be because their governments reacted more robustly???
Re the herd immunity argument ... countries who have kept this initial wave under better control will have a smaller percentage who have already been exposed BUT they have bought themselves time. As time goes on we edge towards a vaccine and in the meantime we learn more and more about the virus - better treatment protocols, better testing, anti viral drugs that work ... this will save lives. Interesting to note that top virologists have said that they would far rather get the virus 6 months into a pandemic than earlier because of all the knowledge gained in those 6 months. But Boris wanted us to ‘take it on the chin’. He still has plenty of cheerleaders here, bizarrely.

Totally agree. People were already thinking it was ridiculous at the time they did it. Any earlier there would have been uproar.

Earlier lock down, earlier exit. Not difficult to understand. It is not like other countries have to wait for the UK to ease their lockdown.

Dear god. No. This government has death on its hands. They ignored all advice until the panic set in

The original 'plan' was 60% of our population (the herd) to be infected - that's roughly 40 million ill people. People had already died, when PM, having already shaken hands with coronavirus patients, told us all to keep shaking hands. Then someone had an 'oh shit' moment, what are we doing?

Italian doctors were making videos of their experiences in attempt to persuade other countries to lock down soonest. Dr Helen Wood, Imperial College, advised the government to lock down in February, when they declined she sent all her staff home.

We were late.

They timed it about right for rural areas. Too late for large cities. For the few, not the many.

I agree but the left won’t ever admit it.

It was three weeks too late. I remember shitting myself on the 1st March when we had to go somewhere busy.

I'm happy to sit it out. Leave the NHS and scientists to crack on with it without even higher deaths.

Re herd immunity, surely that definition includes immunity from having the vaccine. There has to be herd immunity ultimately for us to function as before.

Hollyhead

They kind of did say that really

The health minister defined contact as being within 2 metres for 15 minutes so actually just a passing someone etc is low risk

I'm not really clear on what the govt aim is anymore. I think they are still assuming that it will be impossible to prevent large numbers of the pop getting it between now and the vaccine (without shutting down the ecinomy for 1-2 years) so their aim is controlled phases of people getting it. If thats the case they timed the lockdown correctly.
The other approach is to lockdown asap (as and when rewuired) and test and contract trace and isolate like crazy to try to keep numbers permanently low. If that's their approach, they locked down way too late.

Is the premise of the thread based on them lifting lockdown next week?

'We've beaten it, so they're gonna lift lockdown now, which means we went into it about the right time'.

Just curious if op will still feel same about government next week if lockdown doesn't ger lifted?

It should have been earlier but they underestimated how contagious it was.

Herd immunity is still needed

Yes, herd immunity would be lovely. Shame that there's no evidence that catching covid bestows immunity. Which makes Johnson's 'take it on the chin' plan to create it, and the reason he didn't lock down sooner, even more abhorrent.

Our government has the blood of thousands on its hands.