As there’s been no second wave in any other country why are people so insistent it’s going to happen here?

[whenthejoyreturns]

Italy, Spain etc seem to be getting back to normal. Schools, work places, shops and transport systems are reopening yet there seems to be no sign of a second wave. What makes us so different in the uk that a load of people are convinced it’s inevitable here to the extent that some have even started ‘preparing’ for it?

I agree, October will be bad. Maybe hospitals will cope but I think that a month after the kids go back to school, the new cases and deaths will be high.

The virus still exists and we only managed to apparently control it because we stayed home. My son lives in Spain and the restrictions went further than here and are only now being lifted very gradually. I live in Cornwall and have felt all along that the problem will occur here in much greater numbers once the tourists who can't go abroad flock here in July and August. It's not about being doom laden or miserable, it's just commonsense They imposed lockdown so that the NHS wasn't inundated but nothing they have done since gives me confidence that this government has any idea how to safely get the economy started again without causing further outbreaks and deaths.

I think a second wave is very likely, I'm afraid. Not because I enjoy the drama, I've had more than enough, thank you, having been unwell with COVID-19 symptoms for 3 months, and I'd like nothing better than to send my DDs back to school and to be able to arrange play dates again.

But I don't see it happening. Because I don't trust our government's motives for easing the lockdown restrictions. BoJo is desperate to get us all to forget about DC and he's doing this by opening up the country too quickly, and he's no longer following the science.

Today, it was announced that people who are shielding can leave the house, which was a big surprise as it wasn't expected to happen before the end of June. Why the change? I can't help suspecting that this is a cynical ploy to take the pressure off BoJo and DC.

We don't have the virus under control, the R rate is just under 1, and there could only too easily be another spike.

Believe me, I would give anything to be wrong, as it breaks my heart to see how much my DDs are missing their friends and our extended family. (My DM is 80 and we've decided that it's not safe yet to arrange to meet up with her.)

Other countries acted quicker so of course they can start to relax things.

They also had things like isolation at airports and bans from certain countries. That’s supposed to happen tomorrow but aparantly it cannot happen here. Although don’t know where people are flying to, well at least directly anyway.

Vulnerable release date was 15th June or there abouts. I am surprised it’s been lifted considering many of the departments we need still aren’t open. Even GP surgeries aren’t properly open because of masks.

There’s so many things that could have been done differently. The government panic in the beginning was bad enough, now let’s just wait and see. Personally I will carry on making my own risk assessments.

Our “lockdown” was and continues to be pretty lame compared to most others.

Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it, but Japan had a second wave which was worse than first. At the moment it is too early to judge with most countries. Let's hope for best but prepare for worst, maybe

Would you prefer our kids couldn’t leave their houses for 9 weeks as per Spain and Italy’s lockdowns, TheShapeJaper?

@SeaToSki

China and S Korea are currently battling new infections. China is aiming to test every single resident of Wuhan after they had 8 new cases after none for 35 days. S Korea is contemplating new lock downs after a single man infects 119 others in a single night out clubbing and such. If you assume similar will happen in Europe then we will have a second wave if we cant shut down each new infection in days by tracing and quarantining all their contacts whether symptomatic or not

I just caught the end of the news, how many people are demonstrating today?

Because they are a whole bunch of doom mongering people who seem to be revelling in the misery of it all!

These'll be the same sort of people who told fellow passengers that their ship, the Titanic, would sink after hitting an iceberg. Of course, it wouldn't. Some people always look on the dark side.

I think it's too early to judge. I think there will be a second wave but it probably won't start up immediately after the first one - there will be a couple of months in between. Who knows. I'm not an epidemiologist but most of those scientists quoted say that a second wave is very likely.

What is likely to happen here (I am in an EU country) is that as soon as cases start to increase some of the easing of lockdown will be tightened up again - maybe not into full lockdown again but certain places closed, facemasks brought back (there is no longer a requirement to wear them after 15th June except on public transport and in some places such as pharmacies).

If no second wave happens or the second wave appears to be mild we'll probably have a lot of people saying that all the measures were over the top. They've certainly been saying that about the first wave - "only" 600 or so people died so the lockdown was unnecessary. Who knows what the death toll would have been if the measures had not been put in place very early on in the first wave.

@iseeu It just doesn't seem to be the case that Japan has had a second wave worst than the first. www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/japan/

I agree that it's likely too early to tell, and too early into countries relaxing restrictions to see if there will be a second spike, but it surely makes sense that enabling more social contact in a society where the disease is now endemic and fewer than 10% have immunity is likely to have that effect.

I think there will be a second wave but I'm hoping it's going to be quickly spotted and curtailed. It's not because I'm a doom monger or similar I just think it's too soon for some things to reopen and have lots of movement of people.

I'm back to work (hallelujah!) on the 15th but I'm non essential, it involves people wanting to sit inside often for hours. We don't know how many will be allowed in at a time yet but like many of my colleagues have a feeling we're not going to like what we get told.

The only reason I can see that we've been allowed back earlier than planned, bare in mind we closed down with pubs, is to reduce the furlough bill - my employer has roughly 8000 staff and there's another 2 big high street companies with less staff returning at the same time - so the cost to the government will reduce dramatically. Which is good for them but I fear it will be at the cost to people. Money before lives is my feeling about it.
I am looking forward to getting back but a little afraid at the same time.

I've no idea if there will or won't be, I'm happy to admit that.

The simple reason why it seems like many people are sure there will be is because it's pretty much in the British DNA to be miserable and to always assume the worst.

user1471510720 sport on.

I think there will be a 2nd wave but hopefully smaller than the first in most countries. In the UK I don't know what will happen. Lockdown was less strict and so is the post-lockdown so I wouldn't be surprised if it was worse unfortunately.

user1471510720 Spot on.

doesn't Iran have a second wave?

Of course there will be a second wave. How big that will be, nobody knows. But you can't come out of lockdown and expect no spike in the number of cases.

As to how many of us have already had it unknowingly earlier in the year....until testing gets underway properly is again, guesswork.

The UK government's response to this has been shambolic from the very beginning.

It's nonsense to compare the uk to places such as Spain and Italy when trying to argue about whether there will be a second wave. Those countries have gone about things in a totally different way to the uk and it's all been taken a lot more seriously- just look at all the examples of people's accounts of this on this thread.

Our lockdown has been a bit crap really and tarnished by lots of people doing whatever they want. Countless stories of beauty spots heaving with people, parties etc.

I'm not saying there will be a second wave - or even that one is very likely - but I do think we need to admit our country has handled this badly overall and it's illogical to just think 'ah but Spain and Italy are all doing ok now'.

FWIW I'm not a 'doom monger' and genuinely miss all the play dates and toddler groups that we went to before lockdown!

Actually, the statistics show the number of positive pillar 1 cases (symptomatic cases, tests based on clinical need) have decreased quite dramatically, halved from around 1,000 per day in early May to c500 per day by mid May. The vast majority of cases identified are now asymptomatic ones identified from routine testing of care and NHS workers.

I'm assuming they don't draw attention to this because it highlights the issue that has caused the majority of the problem in hospitathls and care homes.

But actually in reality once they have solved the problem of care home and hospital transmission, the positive cases should fall quite dramatically and with the already decreased positive pillar 1 cases, the daily deaths should soon halve as well in theory.

There are some clusters occurring in NE China that may not be the beginning of a wave, they may be more isolated, but interestingly appear different to the earlier cases in Wuhan. These cases in the NE are apparently (only seen news reports quoting one medic on this) showing a longer incubation period increasing the likelihood of family clusters, and also a longer duration of illness.

I think there will be pockets of second waves. The scenes in london today, I find it hard to believe that won't have any affect in the next few weeks in the area.

FWIW - we're keeping track of 12 counties locally in the north. Two of them had had new cases down to low single figures all this week. Today they have jumped massively - one with 43 and the other with 48 new cases since yesterday. Both are popular tourist hotspots.

I don't understand this whole "coming out of lockdown too soon" shite

We are still very much in it. A minority of kids are going back to school into "bubbles"

Non essential shops will open in 2 weeks with social distancing

That's not "out of lockdown" or back to normal is it?

If that alone is going to cause a second wave I'd be incredibly surprised.

I'm in a US state that started opening up 3 weeks ago. You can go to community pools, shop almost anywhere and eat at restaurants. We're getting a lot more cases even though our county was down to confirming 1 case a week before the measures lifted. I think this will be common for a lot of the West because we didn't intervene early enough or test enough to really control the first outbreak.

The one upside is that we strengthened contact tracing measures, so where it looks like there are clusters they really can intervene. People can also access testing widely now, and they've started allowing tests without Dr's permission and doing sampling via free testing sites to get a sense of where things are at in the community.

What we have here is essentially measures that help us live with the disease. For example, this week in my city we've had no recycling collections because the solid waste team had a case and one shift had to isolate. A nursery that reopened had to close a room because a child tested positive. A hairdressers had to contact trace and test all their employees after 2 tested positive. A McDonald's closed 1 shift because an employee was positive and everyone else had to self isolate.