So, what happens if/when the R-number goes back up?

[CallmeAngelina]

With the increased socialisation reported everywhere, and wider opening of schools and shops and so forth next week, it's more than possible the R number will increase to over 1.
Then what?
Will schools shut down again? A stricter lockdown be re-imposed?
Will people comply to the same extent this time?
Or will it be a case of "Covid is here to stay. Deal with it?"

I think we’ll see a rift between the government and its scientific advisors, for one thing. The economic and political appetite for a widespread lockdown no longer exists - nor any chance of public compliance. So the government will probably say nonsense like her extra diligent with washing your hands’, or they might make masks compulsory, but they won’t retighten.

‘Be extra’

They've already said they'll be going for localised lockdowns/closures, if necessary.

Regional restrictions, possible staggered arrangements for businesses and schools, and more focus on whether the R is driven by community transmission or closed transmission (i.e. primarily in care homes and hospitals) are all things that would be implemented.

So the government will probably say nonsense like be extra diligent with washing your hands

Whatever you think politically, this isn’t nonsense: washing your hands properly and good cough/sneeze hygiene really are among the most effective things you can do to protect yourself and others from infection transmission and public health messaging about it genuinely will have saved lives. I think it would be far more dangerous if people decided that handwashing was a gimmick and stopped doing it than people visiting the beach.

Yes strict lockdown again and them lifted a bit and then strict again and so on. This was always the plan. Not sure why people don't understand it. It was explained months ago

I don't see them regionally locking down London. It's likely on its way to a second wave. Thousands arriving daily at Heathrow from highly infected countries like Sweden and Brazil. No checks or quarantine before they head off on busy public transport. But a few very wealthy people make a lot of money from London. They'll lean heavily on the government to keep it open. They themselves don't live in London or at least not permanently. London is their second (or third or fourth) home and they'll get out if need be. Vulnerable Londoners won't be protected. Again.

Elsewhere there might be regional lockdowns.

I think London is least at risk now actually, more peope have had it and a high % of work can be and will continue to be done from home. The 14 day quarantine should protect against foreigners bringing it in.

What we may well see is local lockdowns in the areas that can least afford it, although how you enforce that, I have no idea.

They reckon 17% of the 9 million Londoners have had it? Even being generous and estimating as high as 40% that leaves over 5 million people vulnerable. And given the huge amount of deprivation, overcrowded high density housing, and the UK's largest elderly population, I'd say they were very vulnerable. We all know the wealthy in London are a minority and like I say mostly don't live there full-time or at all. The ONS figures on higher death rates in deprived areas had the top ten as London boroughs.

Remember many were socially distancing during lockdown but with places reopening they'll be out and about again. Mingling with commuters coming in from other areas.

The fake quarantine is a load of nonsense. International arrivals have been asked to self isolate. After travelling to their UK destination. Likely on busy public transport...

I hope I'm wrong but it's certainly very vulnerable to any second wave.

I’m really worried that numbers are going to start to go up. The photos of packed beaches have really shocked me and I know just from what I’m seeing in the local park that there is lots of mixing households with no social distancing. I’m feeling a bit demoralised about it all as it seems like a lot of all the work done over the past few months might be At risk due to lockdown being relaxed a bit too early (and I’m not ‘enjoying’ lockdown btw - I can’t wait to get back to work/school/cinema/socialising etc). I just don’t understand how we are not going to see numbers go up?

Well, the government said they would only lift lockdown when the 5 tests were met and in line with the 'science'

Instead, the Government is now muzzling its scientists and are hoping that everyone has forgotten the 5 tests exist and that journalists are so busy asking about Cummings that they forget to ask about the missing 5 tests.

In other words, the policy of herd immunity, which never went away, is being pursued at full pelt by the bunch of eugenicists currently in government.

Expect a huge second wave within a month and the UK continuing to top world mortality rate tables.

On a personal level, continue to practice social distancing, work from home if you can, don't send your child to school. Continue to be as vigilant as before because the risk is at least as high.

Then if you're very lucky, your family may escape the carnage that is coming.

It's tragic to watch.

Schools in England only have 6 weeks before the summer so maybe they’ll break up early if they really have to but I imagine the government will want to hold off if they can so they don’t look like they made a mistake.

@ComtesseDeSpair

Regional restrictions, possible staggered arrangements for businesses and schools, and more focus on whether the R is driven by community transmission or closed transmission (i.e. primarily in care homes and hospitals) are all things that would be implemented.

So the government will probably say nonsense like be extra diligent with washing your hands

Whatever you think politically, this isn’t nonsense: washing your hands properly and good cough/sneeze hygiene really are among the most effective things you can do to protect yourself and others from infection transmission and public health messaging about it genuinely will have saved lives. I think it would be far more dangerous if people decided that handwashing was a gimmick and stopped doing it than people visiting the beach.

Yes handwashing remains important, but constant handwashing wasn’t sufficient back in March and it won’t be sufficient if the R starts to rocket up again due to the relaxation measures they have taken - without proper track/trace, speedy tests, etc

@Flaxmeadow, What's with the snippy "Not sure why people don't understand. It was explained months ago," remark. You seem to be implying that we're thick or something.
Many things have been said and plans announced in recent weeks that have altered since, as evidenced by responses on here already.

The plan is herd immunity - the government haven't the guts to tell us that - but they are perfectly happy allowing the deaths of a few 100,000 plebs.
What I don't understand is that the Torys main supporters are the elderly/retired and they are most at risk? Are the gov planning on biting the hand that feeds them?

I haven't got a different solution, I can see it's complicated, but when I look at the figures - the deaths in the UK (for our population) are very very high.

BJ might be considered in a much worse light than Tony Blair by the time he steps down. But hey, he's going to deliver Brexit.(half of the people who voted for it will possibly be dead by then...)

Our ICU has been very quiet over the last few weeks and only had a couple of covid patients. In 48 hours we have had 5 covid admissions. Hope this is
just a local blip

Local lockdowns would be the first thing up as far as regional level which I think it will be difficult to get everyone to comply with. There did seem to be talk of local self isolation which beyond very small numbers of people I think there will be zero chance of people complying with.

@effingterrified

Do you watch the daily briefings? Last night BJ went through each of the 5 tests in turn and explained why the government felt they had met the test.

I’m not sure I completely agree with their assessment on that in all cases but they didn’t pretend they didn’t exist.

The R number in the community is low but being pulled up by the R number in care homes and hospitals. Care homes have been the real failure in the U.K. as a huge proportion of deaths have occurred there. It may be possible there is something approaching a sort of localised herd immunity in some care homes (although due to the nature of care homes it won’t last long).

London has the lowest R value in the country so I’m hopeful that means they won’t see a significant jump in cases but time will tell.

I think they’ll just conveniently forget to talk about the R number. Yesterday was the first time I’ve heard them mention it for a while. They’re hell bent on saving the economy now. Everything else is secondary. I can’t see them reimposing lockdown unless it’s literally at a point of being worse than the first wave.

spotlighton .... what gave Boris his majority to execute on the referendum was the large number of northern Labour constituencies, including ex-mining communities, that hadn't seen a Conservative MP for generations. And your comment " I haven't got a different solution" is typical. You trot-out your political prejudice as if its Holy Scripture and yet you offer nothing , save ingrained dogmatic bombast.

Perhaps we should have kept having General Elections until we got the vote you wanted. Then call that a triumph of democracy.

The R number is updated weekly on a Thursday in the daily briefings. If you look back through the slides for the presentations you can see it presented in the data.

Their plan is to let it tear through. They don't have to worry about voters for the next 4 yrs. They'll just get the papers and Facebook to brainwash the voters again. They are also about to redraw the boundaries to make it even more difficult for other parties to win seats. They can essentially do what they like. See Cummings.

Yes strict lockdown again and them lifted a bit and then strict again and so on.

Do you mean local lockdown because it isn’t clear that they intend to revert to what we had - a blanket one.

I doubt it can be afforded.

I don’t know other than local lockdowns, trace and trace what they will do.

The briefing yesterday did talk about the 5 tests being met but conveniently didn't mention that the five tests have been changed. Number 5 was originally to keep the R below 1, now it has been reworded to say that any second wave will not overwhelm the nhs. This implies to me that they are fully expecting a second wave and will still claim that to be a success as long as the nhs can cope with the numbers.

I don't think there will be another national lockdown.

They need to get everyone back to work before No Deal Brexit hits.

And on a very slight tangent, this is why Cummings should have resigned/been sacked. Journalists were (understandably) interested in trying to pin down Boris for an answer (like nailing jelly to a wall) instead of asking when and why the 5 tests had their terminology altered.