Won’t there just be a second peak?

[Lockdowner13]

Have any countries experienced a second rise due to relaxing lockdown yet?

Surely it’s inevitable?

I’m only not getting it because apart from a weekly trip to Tesco by my husband and a few walks round the block, we barely leave the house or see anyone. When school, nursery, work, social interaction starts up, it will only be a matter of time before people get sick in larger numbers. This week I’ve had close contact with 4 people. Normally we have hundreds of contacts a week... school and nursery, work contacts, other family etc.

I can’t help but think this whole thing started a few months ago with just one person. We are at 1000s now. Restarting the upward trend is gonna be much easier!

Am I missing something? Isn’t it inevitable?

There's bound to be a second peak. People have become even more laissez faire, so the virus will spread, but there's a lag before this will show up in the figures. When it does show up, people will become more cautious again, and so on.

Of course it will happen.

An increased spike in infection rates in a few weeks time.

That will entirely down to Boris and the government you know, it will all be their fault according to many on here...

I like what langclegsinspace said. I can’t believe we are just giving up and letting it spread. Surely the uk can come up with a better strategy than this. It’s pathetic

Thankfully Blueberryham the UK strategy is not being decided by the crazy posters demanding an immediate end to lockdown! Let's wait and see what our plan going forward is when Boris talks to the nation tonight.

I'm not holding my breath mrshoho.

I am in DK where the first phase of relaxing lockdown has not resulted in a second spike in cases. Phase 1 began on the 15th April, opening nurseries/childcare, primary school and special needs schooling of all ages but with new distancing measures, and also businesses with close unavoidable contact can consider opening eg hairdressing, physio, chiropody, dental care, opticians etc but also things like driving schools. No gatherings of over 10 people, PPE and an upscaling of public transport eg longer trains, more frequent buses to deal with the increased demand while allowing social distancing. That's been nearly a month now and there has been no observed surge in cases. Probably because people seem to be taking the rules seriously and there is a lower population density in most places here so its easier to keep to the guidance. Covid is still here, still new cases every day but not huge or exponential numbers. Care homes etc still kept very isolated. Public health services here never completely shut eg chemo and cancer operations etc continued but in the last 2 -3 weeks clinics and elective operations eg hips and knees have been cautiously opening with screening and/or testing for Corona before admission

Phase 2 will start 11th May this will be opening of more shops and bigger shopping centres, outdoor sports as long as gatherings are not more than 50 people. On the 18th comes Secondary schools, libraries, cafes, restaurants, pubs with physical distancing measures in place, churches and drive through safari parks, professional sport without audience. It will be interesting to see how this goes.

Planned for Phase 3 on 8th June are indoor sports, adult education eg evening schools and social clubs, cultural institutions eg art galleries, museums, zoos, planned childrens summer activities, and potentially return to work for those still working from home in both the public and private sector but this is all dependant on phase 2

Phase 4 is back to total opening eg universtities , nightclubs, fitness centres and gatherings of over 500 people and is tentatively planned for August if phases 2 and 3 go well. Borders are shut until 1st June as a minimum and will be considered/negotiated further and of course all this is subject to change/reimposition of full lockdown if there is a sign its going too fast

Not perfect, still a worrying time but it shows that a second spike isn't inevitable depending on how the reopening/easing of lockdown is done. What sounds as though it will result in a spike is a rapid free for all/business as usual opening, or opening before the R numbers are low enough.

Yes LangClegInSpace I'm trying hard to feel optimistic but equally wondering if a further ballsup is on the way. As they keep repeating they are going to follow the scientific advice let's see if they do...

Denmark never really had a first spike though did it? If you look at the death graphs ( grim thought I know) the results are pretty low throughout the period.

I suppose that's part of the point
They locked down early, before the first death but when infection rates started to exponentially increase (though this only lasted for 2-3 days)and there was a spike in cases eg 400-500 cases hospitalised and about 80-90 ventilated at any one time in the first few weeks after lockdown. This was well under capacity so there were no problems about getting medical care if you needed it. ICU death rates are about the same as other countries. The rates of asymptomatic/mild infection cases in the community aren't known.
Death rates have remained low probably because of the lockdown, and the fact that here it didn't really get into carehomes in the same way (though where there have been cases in a carehome it has spread rapidly and caused a number of deaths there, just like in the UK and other countries)
So now theres cautious reopening but they have waited long enough in lockdown condtions that the rebound effect wasn't inevitable

I'm dismayed at the number of people who have rationalised to themselves that all these deaths are not so important because it's mostly old people or those with 'underlying conditions'.

To be clear I am not just dismayed by these people I am disgusted by them and I think they are utter fucking scum.

Comments like this make my blood boil. Who do you think is paying for all this? We’ve lost thousands in income, abided by every single rule, our kids have lost their education and their generation will be paying for this time for years. If we don’t get back to some sort of normality at some point there will be no money for the nhs, no money to pay teachers, no money to to keep the vulnerable safe and benefits paid. Millions will die from the resulting poverty.

You can’t be that blinkered surely? It isn’t a matter of sacrificing some, it is a matter of finding a balance where the majority aren’t destroyed.

You're the blinkered one whisky. You're another who seems to think our only weapon against this virus is lockdown.

I think we're probably going to be back to "plan A", ie let the virus move through the population and eventually reach herd immunity levels.

The difference between now and 8 weeks ago is that we are starting with a much smaller number of people already infected and we now have social distancing measures firmly in place in shops etc. So the virus shouldn't spread out of control. It will indeed spread though. People will continue to be infected and many people will continue to die from it or with it.

This is likely to continue for many months to come, since the best case scenario is that a vaccine might be ready within about 18 months and we don't yet know whether having already had the virus confers any lasting immunity.

Whisky that is a blinkered view. The lockdown was put in place to protect the country's health and wealth collectively. Unfortunately we can't just click our fingers and get back to normal, so like it or not we have to have a gradual opening with the results of each step monitored to see the effect on numbers of new cases. Yes our lives have been impacted but the alternative would have been far more damaging. My kids education, my husbands self employed business, my parents have all been screwed but I can see the bigger picture. The UK was completely unprepared and didn't make use of the time we had before the exponential growth took hold. Can you not see that we are playing the waiting game to get case numbers as low as possible to cope with whilst getting the country back up?

And thinking about it can you imagine if the UK had been as prepared as Germany and had an effective large scale testing program from day 1? If we had inflicted lockdown and 'only' suffered a few thousand deaths of mainly vulnerable and elderly people the government would have been slated for putting the country through such unnecessary upheaval. With the shocking death numbers we've had there's a lot of people who still really do believe that there was no reason to lockdown.

Here is WHO guidance on how to come out of lockdown:

www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/covid-strategy-update-14april2020.pdf

Page 10 has an outline of 6 things that need to be in place to transition back to steady low-level or no transmission. They're quite different from our government's 5 tests.

Unfortunately the uk government seem to think they are special in some way and know better than who

I wish there was more clear guidance and feeling that Boris actually has a plan and knows what he is doing

To be clear I am not just dismayed by these people I am disgusted by them and I think they are utter fucking scum.
I really hate this sort of divisive language - demonising people who think something different. It's a bit like Brexit and the trans debate. Surely we need discussion? Plenty of people have all sorts of views, and we need to listen to all of them, surely, without automatically cancelling out those differing views.

uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-southkorea/south-koreas-moon-warns-of-covid-19-second-wave-as-cases-rebound-idUKKBN22M028
'The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) reported 34 new infections, the highest since April 9, after a small outbreak emerged around a slew of nightclubs, prompting the authorities to temporary close all nightly entertainment facilities around the capital'

"The difference between now and 8 weeks ago is that we are starting with a much smaller number of people already infected."

I am not sure this is actually the case. We can only really look at deaths ( because we are testing so many more people than 8 weeks ago so bound to be picking up more cases). Deaths are now decreasing but only very slowly. I think lockdown needs to continue for longer in order to get cases right down.

And as testing increases so do the teething problems and until the testing procedures are reliable we can't just move on.

bbc.in/2SQMUHH

We apparently had to send 50000 test swabs by plane to the USA to be processed last week???

@whiskybysidedoor

” Comments like this make my blood boil. Who do you think is paying for all this?”

Many shielded people (organ transplant recipients, severe asthmatics and people who recently had cancer treatment etc) work and have children. People like you are unbelievably ignorant.

The overall death rate is likely to be 0.05 percent.

This is hilariously inaccurate. It's around 2 to 4% in countries with developed healthcare systems. 0.05% is lower than seasonal flu and would have been highly unlikely to convince most of the world's governments that economic implosion was a sensible choice.

Over 0.1% of the entire New York State population has already died of coronavirus, for an infection rate that has been (albeit imperfectly) estimated by antibody testing to be less than 15%.

That puts a lower bound on the infection fatality rate of somewhere not too far off 1%.

The case fatality rate in NY for people over 45 was over 5%.

No, WinterIsGone, it's really not like brexit and the trans debate. I am talking about people who think all these deaths are not so important because it's mostly old people or those with 'underlying conditions' who are dying.

I'm not talking about likelihood. We all know that older people and those with certain conditions are more likely to die if they catch this virus.

I'm talking about the idea that these people's deaths are not that important.