I don’t want the lockdown to be lifted yet

[Scousebird26]

Apologies if this thread has been done before, I’ve not seen it.

But am I in a minority for not wanting lockdown to end? I think it’s far too soon, and we have come to far too risk a second wave of it when there is still hundreds dying every day in hospital.

What are your thoughts on what Borris next step will be?

We need to start manufacturing PPE equipment in this country so we aren't reliant on other countries and fighting with the rest of the world for supplies.

Haha! That’s brilliant! By all means do an advanced search and check out my posting history. If I’m a government spin doctor then I’m a pretty shit one, I’ve spent the last 3 years criticising the government over brexit!

Doctors don't announce when they've tried drugs on people in a willy nilly fashion. It's meaningless and leads to people demanding/ or worse taking treatments that could have negative impacts.

The professional are using many of the treatments you've mentioned and recording the effects. When they get meaningful results about their effectiveness there'll be a publication and a press release.

The Daily Carbunckle - couldn’t have said it better.
I wish you were running the country.

I’m praying for the lockdown to end as soon as possible. We have had 30 k of deaths that are mostly existing conditions so these deaths are ‘with COVID ‘ rather than just because of it. And yes I am sorry if anyone has lost someone.

Last year around 20 k of deaths were due to normal flu and nobody paid any attention to those numbers. We have never ever had a focus on numbers like this before. So it’s made many people super anxious and paranoid.

They haven’t even tested in the actual population yet - only hospitals and now extending to other settings/ front line etc. I think 20 k in population about to done.

I would bet money this virus has already been in the population for some time without anyone knowing - France already realising a month earlier now in December.

The only reason for lockdown was to prevent the nhs being overwhelmed. And that never happened anyway - we barely used Nightingale- it’s being mothballed.

The consequences of the lockdown however will affect every person in the UK in some shape or form over at least a decade even though we did as we were told.

It’s affects are truly devastating and I think in years to come we may well look back and realise the costs v benefits were not worth it.

The lockdown was the only tool available to an unprepared government who had underfunded the nhs for too long and didn’t take fast enough action at the outset. They are learning as they go. And now they are dithering at the end of it. Creating even more uncertainty and anxiety.

We're in the middle of a pandemic and over 32,000 people at least have died. More than almost any other country in the world.

In these extraordinary circumstances there's no time for a lethargic approach. What other countries have done (instead of just letting patients die) is trying anything that might save lives.

Because the side effects of almost all these drugs are already known, when given under medical supervision (obviously excluding patients with contraindications) at worse it doesn't work.

Speaking of evidence. All of the evidence from around the world suggests early treatment is key. Before it gets to a more serious stage. And certainly before lips turning blue stage.

Regardless of drugs treatment or not, we should certainly be getting patients onto oxygen earlier.

Incidentally, the drugs trials in the UK seem almost set up to fail. Trialling only on hospitalised patients. Yet the evidence is they're most effective when given early.

So many people seem to think lockdown is some kind of magic bullet, and the complaining that's going on about the streets being busy and so on makes me laugh. Very few people can afford to lock themselves in the house for months on end and suffer the mental, physical and financial consequences. The rest of us just have to get on with it, despite the curtain twitchers opinions.

I haven't seen anyone say lockdown is a magic bullet nor have I seen anybody suggest it continue for months and months.

I presume you're not in the UK. We're not confined to our homes here.

We can't just tell the nasty virus to go away because we want to return to normal. Well we can but it won't care.

People who are particularly struggling with the pandemic might be better offered some MH support instead of being told to 'just get on with it'.

One very good thing that will hopefully come out of all this is a new understanding and empathy for those who really are confined to their homes. The permanently housebound. Let's hope there's finally an end to their financial struggles. They can only dream of furlough level incomes.

Fifty percent of the Swedish population live in single person households. And they're more spread out. Much easier to socially distance there. They have a well-funded healthcare system too.

It's also debatable as to how successful their approach has been. Their death rate is worse than their Scandinavian neighbours.

I don’t want our half baked lock down to end either. It’s not even a proper lock down. Italy and Spain’s “easing” only gives then the rights we already have.

Their figures are reducing more than ours

How can we ease to less than what they’re doing!?

The people taking about the mental health implications of being in lockdown need to realise that a) there are massive mental health implications involved with lifting it too soon! And b) the state of mental health wasn’t that great for a lot of us pre lockdown

Ahhh. There’s a lot of these post at the moment. I’m not usually an anxious person. I have to admit that others are making me anxious. I know it’s a hard pill to accept but I think we need to start considering we do need to come out of lockdown at some point. It’s unrealistic to stay as we are.

ToffeeYogurt:

People who are particularly struggling with the pandemic might be better offered some MH support instead of being told to 'just get on with it'.
......
Too right!

Re: the mental health thing, I can't help think a longer sustained period of spikes, restrictions and lockdowns would ultimately be worse than one single long period of lockdown. The uncertainty of constant changes (and associated financial impacts for example) would surely be worse? How do people or businesses/employers plan for or mitigate that??

People who are particularly struggling with the pandemic might be better offered some MH support instead of being told to 'just get on with it'.

Before this, it was a good six month wait for the majority of areas, I was doing very well before this, but I have sunk right down and so if I seek help, will have to wait another 6 months to be seen.

Its not as simple as people can be offered support, because when this is over GPs are going to be overwhelmed, whether the end lockdown or not. The worst of this is for me, is there has never been a clear plan, no one knows what they are meant to do and I am now clinging onto Sunday to give me something. Which from the sound of it is going to be crap.

Lets not even go into the fact that, for an example, tribunals were stopped for disability. This has now added on an extra 8 weeks maybe more for those people waiting. I can probably guess how long those 8 weeks have lasted for those people and none of them were included in the help offered

bettybeans and sobeyonthehills, thank you for those two posts, they are so insightful and informative. I suspected as much, am very conscious of the strain this entire business has put on those with mental health problems and have felt anxious for them. Yet what can I do? Very little practically but I will write to our mayor, local MP (who is excellent.) and maybe even BoJo.

Nobody is immune from mental health illnesses which are not dealt with decently when there is no pandemic, something I know very well from personal experience. Even though I'm OK now and thankful for it, I have not forgotten.

You take care as far as you can, anything I say to you will be inadequate but you aren't forgotten. Keep on posting on MN.

@Lynda07

The other thing is the children, in my area its a two year wait for the children mental health team and my son is starting to really struggle with it all.

If it was just me, it would be ok, I have been worse and now have enough awareness to know what is going on, but he does not, if it continues without an answer I will do what it takes to protect my child

You want to stay home?
You want to homeschool?
You want to stop work and sample UC?
You want to shut yourself away from the world?

Crack on. By yourself.

I'm re-entering the world. Bye now.

The economy is taking a battering, there is going to be huge unemployment if we don’t get back to work, which will be far worse than the virus:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52566030

The risk is so low for 99.5% of the population, we need to start to get back to whatever normal is
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52543692

No one is lifting lockdown, lockdown will never be lifted because that implies that a door is opened and we will go back to normal.

But like the rest of the World it will start to ease on a gradual basis and on Sunday we will know how that works.

For the majority of things I expect it will be June (and I am fully expecting my year 6 DD to go back from then but not my year 2 DS) with some minor things from Monday - my view is that this may be people can go outdoors without restrictions (so in my case I can get a run/bikeride in whilst still taking the kids out) if social distancing is followed, outdoor picnics in households are allowed and we are allowed slightly more leeway in driving to places. With the caveat that we must follow distancing guidelines

A few more takeaways and shops may start to open as well over May but beyond that June will bring the biggest changes.

Which is right all other European Countries are slowly coming out now.

And for all those who say we are massively behind well we really cant be WHO recognised it as a potential problem 16 1/2 weeks ago we have been in lockdown 61/2 weeks.

Our death rate looking awful is in part because of testing. There was a chart I think in the Worried thread 39 which actually shows now we are bothering to test our infections numbers are going up and not that different to France/Italy/Spain which is why our deaths are not. I have always found the idea of us being behind them in terms of infection odd when Heathrow is a hotspot. In terms of when it started I dont think we are

“Other countries who are easing their (proper) lockdowns have taken the very simple and easy measures of treating their patients. Early treatment has a relatively decent chance of survival. Antivirals, precautionary antibiotics to prevent secondary inflections, oxygen as soon as it's needed. Also more testing and contract tracing”

I just want to throw in that as covid-19 is a virus, not bacterial, antibiotics doesn’t help.

the R rate in the community is now really low, it's only the issue of care homes and, to some extent hospitals, that it is keeping it above 1.

Loosen restrictions for the majority of the population while providing extra help for those most at risk.

Good news about the R rate if that's true Alec Have you got a link? I thought we didn't have widespread accurate testing yet.

I'm not sure it's feasible to protect the vulnerable. Given that's the majority. 60% approx of the UK population is overweight. Which is one of the risk factors with Covid. Add in common underlying conditions. We have more vulnerable than not vulnerable.

What do you suggest we do to protect BAME communities? They're being disproportionately affected.

One of the priorities over the next three weeks is getting hold of enough PPE to ensure another group disproportionately affected are more protected. Our doctors and nurses and other HCP. That will take us closer to being ready for a safer easing of lockdown.