Two wrongs don't make a right. Don't be a twat, stay home, save lives.

[effingterrified]

Just that.

Just because one arsehole might choose to recklessly endanger others, that is not a good excuse for you to do the same.

Stay home, socially distance when out, save lives. Wear a mask.

The sooner we all stick to this, the sooner we can get rid of this virus and move on.

[Saladmakesmesad]

Test, track and trace is dead in the water. Nobody is going to stay home for 14 days with no symptoms when told to by a government that supports someone with actual coronavirus NOT staying home! Come on.

[Cornettoninja]

@saladmakesmesad, I see that seems to be a popular opinion but I don’t really understand why.

Aside from employment issues (which I have plenty of criticism and concerns about) isolating if symptomatic is the most basic, effective way we have of controlling and slowing the spread which needs to happen if we want society to function. It’s not an unknown concept - we all do it for chicken pox as common practice.

In that context it’s cutting off your nose to spite your face to rail against measures like that.

[BirdieDance]

Am I the only one questioning the timing of this. BJ speaking about it in the same press conference as the one in which he announces the return of schools, despite SAGE saying that it's too early and the unions complaining about being ignored in the decision making process.
What's everyone talking about today? Dominic Cummings and his decisions. What we should be talking about today is why young children are returning to school earlier than the scientific advice suggests, when BJ assured us he would be led by the science.
I also don't think the two week gap I'm sending year 10 and 12 back is accidental either. Let the youngest be the guinea pigs and keep em chatting about Dominic Cummings. He's a great parent you know and he says it's ok to travel....

[Kokeshi123]

The virus appears to be very hard to spread out of doors (excepting things like crowded outdoor events, which obviously are not being held right now). I don't worry about being out of doors at all.

[RoosterPie]

@Newjez chemo isn’t the only treatment for cancer though. Surgical treatments which do not cause a reduced immune response have been cancelled due to bed capacity to free up beds and avoid overwhelming the NHS. Some cancer ops still taking place but at a reduced capacity so many haven’t been able to have this treatment.

[Madein1995]

The nearest one open to me is in tamworth (I'm in Wolverhampton) so prob cant justify a special journey. I miss their salted caramel iced lattes soo much though. I really miss a nice costa drink and a bacon roll on the way into work!

[Saladmakesmesad]

@Cornettoninja But test, track and trace isn’t about isolating if symptomatic. It’s about isolating if you’ve had contact with someone who is symptomatic. I’ve literally never known someone to isolate because they’ve had contact with someone with chicken pox, as they may be incubating it. Never! And that’s with someone you know directly informing you that they have it. Not an app telling you that someone you stood next to on the bus has ‘symptoms’.

And apart from that, people were plainly told that Mr Cummings followed his parental instincts, acted with integrity, used common sense etc. As if the virtue of protecting your family (not that I think that’s what he was doing, but for argument’s sake) was always the top priority. It is not in the interests of many people’s families to isolate for 14 days. How can you not see that the government’s credibility has been smashed?! They don’t believe people need to stay home, they don’t stay home, they defend not staying home and they even exalt not staying home as a virtue!

[effingterrified]

Anyone telling us that it's in our interests to abandon lockdown when we are still getting thousands of new cases a day and when case numbers are clearly rising in parts of the country do not have our wellbeing at heart.

At worst, these people are part of a deliberate (foreign?) disinformation campaign, at best these people are twats.

Take your pick.

And don't be a twat. Remember, Cummings is not a role model, he's a selfish arsehole.

Don't be a selfish arsehole.

[effingterrified]

@BirdieDance - good point.

With this government, the question is always 'What are they trying to cover up with this focus on this topic?'

[Cornettoninja]

And I share those concerns but I don’t think in practice that will be the requirement because it’s unworkable. I think it’ll be isolated until tested.

I can absolutely see the government has lost its credibility. I didn’t vote for this shower and for me their tiny amount of credibility was lost when they didn’t act sooner and Boris stood there and told me thousands of people were going to die and cheerio. I have no horse in that particular race.

I am concerned that the rebellion narrative seems to be leaning towards ignoring measures just because the government are prat’s. There are ways out of this that are credible and don’t lose that just because our government have regurgitated them. I think people have lost sight of the global situation and are in danger of actively making things worse in the effort to prove how much they hate the government.

[IcedPurple]

Anyone telling us that it's in our interests to abandon lockdown

Who here is suggesting we 'abandon lockdown'?

[TorkTorkBam]

I don't think they really want the fit and healthy to stay home any more. They never expected us to comply as well as we did. We thought the virus was more easily spread by the non-symptomatic than it turns out too.

The Dominic Cummings thing shows it very nicely. He didn't kill anyone. Those grandparents and extended family are all still alive and kicking. He got better, so did his wife, child fine too. No indication that he infected anyone on the way.

Yes, he broke the rules that he wrote that we all obeyed far more than he and the modellers expected. Yes he has made a lame excuse and looks shit. Still, it does show that it is possible for people even with an active infection to protect others if they understand how transmission works and take appropriate mitigating actions.

I think it is smart to keep him in the news seeing as infection-wise it all turned out fine. He's in trouble for breaking the rules, which pisses people off. Crucially, he's not in trouble for his rule breaking causing an outbreak in a hospital that killed ten people. It helps shift the mood away from if you meet a friend for coffee you've probably murdered a disabled person to something more nuanced, realistic and sensible.

[Drivingdownthe101]

The problem is OP you’re presenting it in such black and white terms... seems you think the choice is ‘stay at home’ or ‘abandon lockdown’. When actually what most of us are doing is following the current guidelines. We can go out for unlimited exercise. We can sunbathe and have picnics. Abandoning lockdown would mean going to see my family, having friends round, going to the cinema, going out for dinner, going to a bar... I can’t do any of those things, so I’m not. I’m doing the things I can do. I’m not ‘staying home’.

[Pertella]

How about those that want to 'stay the fuck at home' do just that and mind their business whilst the rest of us get on with our lives minding ours?

If you are staying in then people going to the park, or sitting in the garden with other people, or having a picnic are having no effect on you at all.

[Sharpandshineyteeth]

Until when?

[Saladmakesmesad]

I think it is smart to keep him in the news seeing as infection-wise it all turned out fine. He's in trouble for breaking the rules, which pisses people off. Crucially, he's not in trouble for his rule breaking causing an outbreak in a hospital that killed ten people.

We actually have no way of knowing that his actions didn’t directly cause deaths. With a 4 year old in the car, he almost certainly stopped on the way.

[TorkTorkBam]

I travelled north to south years ago with a sick child and a couple of healthy ones. We stopped in laybys for wees and brought sandwiches and bottles of water in the car. God it was grim but we did it. It would have been more convenient to go to service stations but we did the less convenient thing because we didn't want him spreading a gastro bug to anyone else. I am sure many people have done similar at some point in their lives. It is entirely possible to drive 300 miles with zero human contact if you care about infection control.

[cyclingmad]

We arent lockdown anymore, seriously need to say we are. We are not! We can go out as much as we like therefore we are not lockdown into our homes.

[IcedPurple]

We arent lockdown anymore, seriously need to say we are. We are not! We can go out as much as we like therefore we are not lockdown into our homes.

There's never been a real 'lockdown' in England in the sense of having to provide a reason to go outside the house, as happened in Spain, France and Wuhan. However, while people are free to go out, where exactly is there to go? Pubs, cafes, restaurants, most shops, museums, tourist attractions, gyms, swimming pools etc are closed.

[Drivingdownthe101]

Well I can’t see my family and friends so I may not be on lockdown but I certainly can’t do as I please!

[Waxonwaxoff0]

We may not have had a strict lockdown like other countries had but we are still very limited as to what we can actually do. The local park gets boring after the millionth time you go.

[MarginalGain]

Caffe Nero is open, but closed on Sunday and Monday.

Starbucks is open!

[BritWifeinUSA]

Interesting that people are still blathering on about “protecting the NHS” - if you don’t start going back to work, start shopping and start doing other tax-generating activities, there won’t be an NHS to protect.

Gradually re-opening things, bit by bit, is not a government order for everyone to rush out and cram themselves into a pub. By all means continue to stay at home if you want to. But don’t deny others the option to make their own risk assessments.

Curious as to whether you expect the government to tell you when it’s safe to climb a ladder, go out in your car, cross the road, eat food that’s a day past its sell-by date... or whether you consider yourself adult enough to make such decisions? Why would this be any different?

[KOKOagainandagain]

There are some counties that have responded well. Strict lockdown has not been necessary to control infection rates and deaths where non-pharmaceutical measures have been deployed early and consistently. This has prevented the virus getting a foothold. There are multiple examples of countries that have done this in south east Asia and Europe and the means they have used are well documented.

There are other countries that have totally fucked up - unnecessary deaths directly and indirectly from CV and screwed the economy to boot.

If you hate a draconian lockdown and it's effects you need to support non-pharmacological methods of control and suppression because we don't have therapeutics and we don't have a vaccine.

Gold standard is to stop geographical movement (not potentially spreading the virus from one area to another is basic common sense) plus hygiene (handwashing, wearing a mask) plus when faced with a highly contagious virus that spreads when presymptomatic or even if you remain asymptomatic but which can be fatal, during a global pandemic, you really need community testing, tracing and efficient quarantine.

It is true that this could have been avoided if we had done things differently. If we had put out the smoking ember instead of providing the best conditions of possibility of an out of control inferno, things might have been different.

But to continue the analogy, we are being encouraged to go back into a still burning building because the growth of the fire is no longer exponential as a consequence of firefighting actions (that will be overwhelmed if the growth once again becomes exponential which may be case if we go back into the still burning building).

[Wired4sound]

Our local drive through costa and Starbucks are open!

They have a natty little invention to lower the drinks closer to you too.

I had a Costa the other day and it tasted like heaven.

Sorry for the derailment - as you were.