Do you reckon we could go on lockdown again

[Italianmoma1983]

If there is another spike ? I’m happy to go back to work but also scared and I can’t really explain why. I’m young and healthy so not really at risk...just a bit scared to leave my bubble

No way can they afford to keep furloughing repeatedly

I agree. The money will be reduced and many people will have to live on Universal Credit levels of income

and successive lockdowns will just finish off many businesses that survive the first wave.

Some yes and that's unfortunate but the alternative is millions dead, in the UK alone

What choice is there?

Estimates say that only between 5 and 10% of a population have had the virus so far.

Take the UK
Population 65 million and with lockdown so far almost 35,000 dead in 8 weeks. Yet only a small proportion of the population have had the virus, as low as 5%. That small percent has been kept low by lockdown.

Imagine what would happen if we had no lockdowns and millions of people needed the NHS all at the same time. It would collapse. Then imagine no lockdown and everyone gets the virus at the same time, within just a few weeks of each other, and how many dead there would be then, all at once. Maybe over a million, because many would die who would have survived had the NHS been functioning

They cannot stop the virus. They cannot stop people dying. They can only slow it down to manageable levels. That's all they can do ATM because there is no cure, no vaccine

It's a bad situation now and looking bleak but without the lockdowns it would be much much worse

• and successive lockdowns will just finish off many businesses that survive the first wave.

Some yes and that's unfortunate but the alternative is millions dead, in the UK alone*

So if the owner of that business takes their own life because of losing everything, that's ok is it, collateral damage for the greater good? And millions in the UK would unlikely die, even the modelling from Professor Useless and Inaccurate didn't predict that.

So if the owner of that business takes their own life because of losing everything, that's ok is it, collateral damage for the greater good? And millions in the UK would unlikely die, even the modelling from Professor Useless and Inaccurate didn't predict that.

Of course it isn't OK but someone who would take their own life over losing a business obviously already has underlying mental health problems.

This isn't about individual cases. It's about saving the NHS and so saving all lives in general.

I honestly don't think people realise just how serious this situation is. It isn't a rehearsal, its here, it's happening. It's a crisis of massive proportions. It's the most serious global event since WW2

This virus without lockdown could kill a huge proportion of a population. It's happened before in our history and it will happen again

Of course it isn't OK but someone who would take their own life over losing a business obviously already has underlying mental health problems.

Yeah ok then.

Yeah ok then

What's your solution?

30 mins back in work and it'll all seem very normal again.

It hasn't so far, work is very very different now to two months ago. My job has changed beyond all recognition and the levels of responsibility are increased massively.

• Yeah ok then

What's your solution?*

My solution is to get on with life and what will be, will be.

This lockdown has and will cause issues in so many other ways, not just economic. I have no access to specialist medical advice/help that I need, as the department has been shut down for 9 weeks. Living in constant pain and eating painkillers like Smarties is never much fun and I could have happily eaten the whole box a couple of nights ago and ended it all, but I have a wife and children to consider, if I was single it would most likely have been different. But I guess if I considered that, I already have mental health problems (I can assure you I do not), or was it because the pain got too much and I can't get any help apart from my GP saying all I can suggest is pain relief. I've been up again now since midnight trying to sort out the pain, but not very successfully.

I fully understand people are in a worse position than me, but when you see idiots like Hancock saying "the NHS is open for business" but you bloody well know it isn't from personal experience, hacks me off.

It isn't all about COVID-19 and can't be.

I honestly don't think people realise just how serious this situation is. It isn't a rehearsal, its here, it's happening. It's a crisis of massive proportions. It's the most serious global event since WW2

This virus without lockdown could kill a huge proportion of a population. It's happened before in our history and it will happen again
-----

Are we taking about the covid19 here?

I reckon they’ll just encourage vulnerable people to not go out should we see another peak further down the line.

Praying there won't be another spike but if there is the speed which this government moves at ( snail pace) there will be many deaths again before they close again. Think government getting tired if Covid and there is movement on the Brexit no deal preparations.

My solution is to get on with life and what will be, will be

Lockdown or no lockdown, this wouldn’t work. The principal flaw in Imperial’s modelling in March seems to be that it believed a mandated lockdown was required to change behaviour. It’s assessment of how deadly Covid is seems to have been broadly correct.

Take London, hospitalisation data shows it is ahead of the rest of the country in terms of recovery. This is consistent with anecdotal information that indicates Londoners in the main took the threat of Covid more seriously in early to mid March in response to news that London was weeks ahead of elsewhere and took more voluntary steps to socially distance, and this was with a situation appreciably less severe than NYC or Bergamo where things had gotten significantly more out of control.

If the Government has done nothing, it’s quite unrealistic to think that people would have carried on regardless as the cases and deaths increased further and further. I find it fanciful to believe people wouldn’t have stopped going to cinemas, restaurants and shops in droves had the hospitals became swamped and bodies literally piled up.

We’d have had our “lockdown”, but one driven by people’s horror rather than Government mandate, with 250-500,000 deaths to boot!. (Bergamo had 6,000 deaths out of a population of 1.1m, and it locked down to prevent further spread - albeit too late.... Scale that up to the UK and that’s 350,000 dead).

So yes, a death from suicide is as important as a death from Covid... but burying your head in the sand and thinking that we would have collectively gotten on with life in the midst of the carnage of an uncontrolled Covid outbreak is crazy, one whose horrors would itself likely have seen a suicide spike (see heart-rending story of NYC doctor a few weeks back).

I have no access to specialist medical advice/help that I need, as the department has been shut down for 9 weeks.

I’m sorry you’re in such pain at the moment. The NHS needs to look to get its provision back as soon as it can.

However, your predicament wouldn’t have been any different had we just “let things be”. Hospitals would have been swamped and non-Covid stuff would have been cancelled anyway - even more so than has been the case! However, we would have emerged with a broken health service and hundreds or perhaps thousands of dead medics... impacting your care seriously in the months and years ahead.

Unemployment has already risen by 50,000 - and it will get much worse

The cost of dealing with coronavirus is eye watering

My solution is to get on with life and what will be, will be.

This all the way.

@userxx

As I wrote above, if we did this we’d have more than likely have “lockdown” anyway by default.

As I wrote above, if we did this we’d have more than likely have “lockdown” anyway by default.

What, because so many people would die?

Something like 3 or 4 in 1,000 will die. We can identify the 3 or 4 within about 90% certainty. Why do you think that people would lock themselves down willingly?

Currently, they've living on steady diet of how deadly covid19 is. This will pass.

@Derbygerbil If you say so. I for one am cracking on with life as best I can, along with my family and friends.

Praying there won't be another spike but if there is the speed which this government moves at ( snail pace) there will be many deaths again before they close again
I

This is what the government want though. The more people who die = the more people who have had it = closer to their herd immunity plan.

My solution is to get on with life and what will be, will be.

I agree.

At the moment the thinking seems to be the only death worth talking about is a death from Covid, anyone else is collateral damage and would have probably died anyway.

Life can’t go on like this, at some point we will have to return to normal and accept that, like the flu, measles etc, Covid is here and unfortunately people may die from it.

Something like 3 or 4 in 1,000 will die. We can identify the 3 or 4 within about 90% certainty.

We are learning to live with Covid, and should be in a position to manage those at more risk. I want lockdown to end and think we can do this if we are cautious and adopt some degree of social distancing for the time being, and I’m looking forward to being able to send my children back to school. I’m no lockdown zealot who wants us to remain indoors until we have a vaccine! But had we not taken the measures we did in March, before we were able to test widely and before we had sufficient PPE, and we carried on regardless, the we wouldn’t have been able to protect the vulnerable (we still let it get into 1/3 of care homes!), and we would likely to have had deaths on the scale of Bergamo and NYC... Ie hundreds of thousands.

Why do you think that people would lock themselves down willingly?

Because they pretty much did just that! Certainly in late March and much of April, the vast majority of people were willingly keeping at home!

And that’s without the carnage that would have resulted had we carried on regardless for another fortnight!

(Ie hundreds of thousands.)

That’s scaled up to the UK population in case one challenges that NYC and Bergamo didn’t have this number of deaths.

1. You can't take results from a dense cluster of cases and extrapolate them to the general population The population is far too heterogeneous.
2. The death rate peaked too soon for the reduction to be attributable to lockdown. One of two things must be true: either the pre-lockdown warning bells worked, or the UK population reached herd immunity. I reckon it's the former.
3. It is now clearly the case that the risks to a healthy person under the age of say, 50 are vanishingly small. There is absolutely no reason for anyone in this category to do anything other than wash their hands a bit more (unless they have an extremely low appetite for risk - which is their right).

People over 50 or probably more reasonably 60 or those having underlying health issues can follow the ONS data and arrive at their own conclusions.

04:09 PhilCornwall1

I wasnt asking about your individual circumstances. I'm asking about our UK policy in general

Life can’t go on like this, at some point we will have to return to normal and accept that, like the flu, measles etc, Covid is here and unfortunately people may die from it

The lockdown isn't to prevent deaths from Covid19 in the long run. No one can do that, unfortunately.

The lockdown is to prevent the health services being overwhelmed all at once.

If there had been no lockdown, then many more people would have died who did not have Covid19 or who might have survived it. Because the health services would have collapsed.

There is no alternative

Either lockdown and save as many people as possible by flattening the curve and spreading the virus out over time.
Or no lockdown and millions of deaths in a short period of time

Save the NHS, save lives.