No point in lockdown anymore

[LifeMatters]

All my neighbours seem to think that we are in a paid staycation by the government and social distancing are out the door.
Everyone around where I live has friends and family over, are having picnics together on the grass in front of their flats, the roads are busier than ever.
It's crazy! There's no point in making this country suffer any more so better all let's just go to work and what happens happens.

People are taking advantage of the paid time off and not staying indoors. What is the point of this lockdown if people are not following it anymore?

My next door neighbors had friends and family over all this week...it's crazy.

I’ve resigned myself to the fact it’s more of less end of lockdown. I’m in a part of London where there is a high % of entitled gits that have openly said on our local forum things like because they have 3 young kids and no garden they will let their children go wherever they want to go, we should all move out their way if we see them coming towards us ( so in other words go into the road) and if we don’t like it then stay at home. That was the first post that I actually had to block as I’m sat here with my son neither of us able to go out in 7 weeks ( im on 12 week list) As if his needs and mental health are less important because he’s older. Then you had some basically say they are just carrying on as normal in terms of socialising with friends, and going out as many times as they like etc. The latest is they all seem to be putting ads recommending their cleaners looking for extra work right now.

So certainly In London ( especially my area) the only thing that’s made thins fraction quieter is because the shops aren’t open otherwise they are out sunbathing, meeting friends, traffic levels and drivers on my road fighting over who has right of way is back to normal and it’s business as usual

@yellow, sorry I can see how that looked! I have posted elsewhere about the issues we had at the beginning of lockdown. We have a high number of non English speaking residents who were initially confused by the changes. The main employer is on one side of our small town, houses on the other. There was some local concern about the large groups walking walking between the 2 sites (not nasty, proper concern).

Between the employer, business club and 2 'Polish' deli's we now have lockdown rules and updates in 4 or 5 different languages and now support and information is a much more integrated.

I think the mass gatherings in the week before lockdown and the slightly later lockdown as well as not quarantining after or stopping international flights (we have a huge amount of air traffic compared to other countries) will most probably come out as the weak points in the government response.

But I also think we have some uplift due to how we have reported deaths. I think the PPE situation and medical response will come out ok in the final analysis.

Some modelling has been done by UEA looking at lots of countries data and biggest impact to reduce rate of infections was banning mass gatherings, shutting schools and closure of leisure industry business.

Staying at home, shutting non-essential businesses such as retail and hairdressers actually had less impact.

I agree that lack of clarity combined with over optimism in thr way the data has been interpreted has led to people believing the worst is over and we can do what we like.

There is an uptick in people getting in their cars as per the slides shown on the daily briefings, this is proof that it is happening.

Nobody knows what this will mean for infection rates going up but if they loosen restrictions I reckon it will be pretty much the end of lockdown now for many people...

People are staying home where I am, and according to govt records.

Which is why cases are going down. But despite all the figures to the contrary, people still want to insist nobody is staying home, lockdown is over, things are carrying on as usual.

No, Scotland isn't different

Indeed. People in Scotland also seem to believe what is happening in their tiny neighbourhood is indicative of the Country as a whole and assume that because a few teenagers met on their bikes in the park, the entire nation is ignoring lockdown despite a whole lot of evidence to the contrary. Government and police figures show that people in Scotland are largely sticking to the lockdown. I've added some pictures of our city centres this week. People are not carrying on as normal. Lockdown isn't over.

*disclaimer - one of the pictures above isn't scottish - picked the wrong image. Imagine an empty Sauchiehall Street!

Unfortunately most of my neighbours haven't got the memo either.

Next door to the left is still visiting her grown up children;her son uses the back gate and sneaks up through the garden,I've seen her daughter giving her lifts as usual and her and her other daughter who lives on our street going to each other's houses.Nice mixing of households there.

Neighbours to the right are still having visitors;they openly sit in the garden drinking tea with them and they've had friends around for a bbq.

Another neighbour a few doors down has had her mum/dad/kids cousins/best mate and her kids coming and going daily as usual all throughout this.They had a very loud birthday party in the garden for one of the kids about 2 weeks ago.

It's really upsetting tbh.Ive seen none of my friends and family since 20th March and neither have the kids as we're trying to do as we're told and my daughter has health issues so it's too risky.

Agree with Everybodysang, went out this morning to see if roads were busier on my walk and was same as has been all along. Minimal traffic, few people and most people near me seem to be sticking to the rules. Threads like this understandably attract people to comment who've seen the rule breakers and are worried, as am I. But there is another side to this in other areas if that reassures anyone. Am in a large city.

The people on my street are actually putting tables out having a VE Day street party right now... these people haven't followed any rules since the beginning. The police weren't interested though.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-52584690
Coronavirus: Lockdown remains in Wales but exercise rules eased

People will be able to exercise outside more than once a day in Wales, with some libraries, recycling centres and garden centres set to re-open too, First Minister Mark Drakeford has said.

But Mr Drakeford warned it was "too soon" to make any other changes.

The rest of the stay-at-home restrictions will be extended for another three weeks.

It comes 48 hours before Prime Minister Boris Johnson announces possible changes to the rules in England.

The changes come into force across Wales on Monday.

Furlough - most people don't get a choice if they are furloughed or not. The anger and jealously aimed at those being furloughed is so misjudged. These people pay their taxes and due to their company using a government scheme they find themselves out of work. And suddenly they're targeted as being selfish and being on holiday.

The people on my street are actually putting tables out having a VE Day street party right now... these people haven't followed any rules since the beginning. The police weren't interested though.

What is so offensive about this is that these people are about as far from the spirit of VE Day and respect for a victory hard won through sacrifice as you can get.

People will be able to exercise outside more than once a day in Wales, with some libraries, recycling centres and garden centres set to re-open too, First Minister Mark Drakeford has said

So Drakeford is stepping out of line with Scotland? I thought the message yesterday was that all 4 had to keep to the same rules at the same time?

The issue with some furloughing is not with the employees, but employers.
Obviously, it's not the case that all employers exploit situations, but plenty do.
Furloughing has probably saved a lot of jobs, because companies have so often reaped the rewards (quite literally dividends) when times are good, but put very little aside for a downtown or rainy day, thus the moment work dries up, staff are laid off. Furloughing has prevented that, but there will also be companies who have set aside some money but would rather take the 'gift' from the government.

The morality of this is highly debatable, and there is no absolute right or wrong as every company is different, but it is a very good reminder to any business of how rapidly fortunes can change.

The issue with some furloughing is not with the employees, but employers

I'm on furlough, was asked to come back in on Monday but with a 20% wage cut, i said NO! then told i can stay on Furlough!!!

They 've saved 5 weeks salary yet expect me to come into work and put myself at greater risk, add in travel expenses and for that i can work for 20% less.... they said i was essential to our customer base but not essential enough to be deemed worthy of my contractual pay.

Loads of my neighbours aren't sticking to it anymore, including the ones across the road who work for the bloody NHS so constantly have family and friends over with no social distancing!!!

We have stuck to it but I have decided if they lockdown again on Sunday, we are seeing our families again irregardless.

And this is how we end up with a domino effect and the restrictions collapse (or are massively undermined).

If we see enough others showing disregard, we lose faith that our own actions matter, feel demotivated and give up.

I truly hope I am wrong, but suspect we will pay yet another heavy price for jumping the gun, and showing complacency.

If there's still over 500+ deaths happening daily here HOW are they all being infected??

Mostly because it is spreading within households, care homes, hospitals and essential workplaces. Which would still happen even if we did a Spain and locked everyone up in their houses for weeks.

The govt via Johnson (yet again) and his much leaked speech on Sunday has led to this, he really is a very irresponsible man.

Why the xxxx did he allow the rumours to spread this week on the relaxing of restrictions?

We still have a CV care home crisis, a rising R0 number and 500 to 600 per day dying.

A man goes to work, gets it on his clothes, or gets infected, and shows few if any symptoms. He passes that on to his care worker wife. His wife attends the care home and passes on to 2 or 3 other people (because care homes involve a lot of personal care and proximity)

A group of fit, healthy construction workers who flout the 2m rule (often pressurised to do so), 5 of those go home and pass on to their families, one of whom is a teacher. That teacher still works in a school and looks after a small number of kids... who then go home and pass it on.

The lockdown is not 100% lockdown, it's a restriction that massively reduces the spread, it does not stop it!

Utter nonsense that is Johnson's doing - and I'm no fan of his.
There are countless civil servants and advisors working on this and are privy to various strategies being discussed. The government has to give some heads up to some sectors to prepare... this then leads to leaked memos, and speculation which the media thrive on.

This would happen with any government in this situation,
because it is not something the government can discuss / act upon in isolation.

Didn't vote for the government and didn't have particularly high expectations about how they would deal with the crisis (though Chris Whitty, now hardly ever seen, offered brief comfort). In fact, they’re the worst government in recent history.

It's not even the gross incompetence (around PPE, buying antibody tests from China that didn't work, continuous problems in the PCR labs, late lockdown etc). That's been deadly and is a tragedy, but it isn't sinister.

The thing that appalls me is the evacuation of truth and rationality as values or even concepts. The endless seeding and baiting of the press to judge public opinion, so the 'news' becomes a set of images and events that the government can use to gauge our reaction. The explicitly stated policy of sowing fear in the healthy majority of the population to force them to act against their own self-interest. (Rather than a rational and adult appeal to people's altruism -- which in reality I think runs quite deep, though isn't limitless.) Sunk cost fallacies abounding. Concealment of data. (Why for example did Dominic Raab say yesterday that the R0 is now lower in London than elsewhere without offering data or reflecting on the implications.... Herd immunity?). A failure to publish serology test results, giving public no sense of scale of infection, hence the virus's true fatality rate. Planted or totally inert questions at the 5pm briefings that allow whichever buffoon is presenting to repeat the same Cummings' slogans over and over like someone shoving up a shield. The patronising attitude towards people's intelligence. Over-reliance on Neil F's dubious models without EVEN the basic political value of loyalty they ended up throwing him under a bus to conceal the news that we had the worst death rate in Europe. Endless dithering and uncertainty. No one able to make any decisions, because political decisions are in the end decisions based on PRINCIPLE not evidence, and no one in government has a fucking clue about what their own political principles are.

There are not 500-600 people dying from Coronavirus per day at the minute.

The daily reported deaths include those that have happened some time ago, but for whatever reason ensuring ongoing public lockdown compliance this is not pointed out. In England, it seems the peak was some time ago www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/COVID-19-total-announced-deaths-8-May-2020.xlsx .

We don't have the worst death rate in Europe.
We have the highest number of confirmed deaths which is not the same thing.

Belgium > Spain > Italy > UK

@PinkSpring that's what I'll do as well.
People where I live are disregarding the reason for this lockdown and today is the living proof...they are having a barbecue in their back garden with different people showing up.