Health officials make last-minute plea to stop lockdown easing in England

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www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/31/health-officials-make-last-minute-plea-to-stop-lockdown-easing-happy-monday

Health officials make last-minute plea to stop lockdown easing in England

Royal College of Nursing also fears lifting of more restrictions on ‘happy Monday’ is too early

Senior public health officials have made a last-minute plea for ministers to scrap Monday’s easing of the coronavirus lockdown in England, warning the country is unprepared to deal with any surge in infection and that public resolve to take steps to limit transmisson has been eroded.

The Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH) said new rules, including allowing groups of up to six people to meet outdoors and in private gardens, were “not supported by the science” and that pictures of crowded beaches and beauty spots over the weekend showed “the public is not keeping to social distancing as it was”.

Jeanelle de Gruchy, president of the ADPH, said her colleagues across England were “increasingly concerned that the government is misjudging the balance of risk between more social interaction and the risk of a resurgence of the virus, and is easing too many restrictions too quickly”.

They have called on ministers to postpone the easing of restrictions until more is known about the infection rate, the test-and-trace system is better established and public resolve to maintain physical distancing and hygiene can be reinforced.

“We have not spoken out in this way before,” De Gruchy said, “but we are concerned that if there is a spike it will be in our communities. We need to be confident we can get on top of it, and we are not confident yet.”

@astabarista they used communal toilets though at those events

Eerily quiet here today

So what do we do stay locked down ? The fear is worse than the virus ... mental health is on the rise/ cancer on the rise need I go on? And all those saying about Dominic Cummings (I don't agree with him) what about Kinnock and the other 4 labour MPs even one meeting for a bunk up !! Life had to return to normal as there will be more deaths than the virus itself

Whilst I get annoyed at seeing people flouting lockdown, I actually don't see many people at all back to normal. I think we have to be careful not to be pulled into the media portrayal of people flaunting lockdown, I've been caught up in that.

People annoyed and worried about the easing of lockdown in the most part don't need to do it. Stay home, keep your kids off school, no one is forcing you out.

My ds2 goes back to nursery on wednesday, I've risk assessed it and it is the right thing for us. We haven't been in a shop or enclosed space for months and have no desire or plans to any time soon. A lot of people are the same, not rushing to outdoor markets and car showrooms today.

All we can do is wait and see, r might briefly go above 1 as it did in Germany and come back down. Personal responsibility goes a long way.

I think it is almost irrelevant what the rules are any given week now. It is unenforceable unless the population consents. As we can see on here, it is very area dependent how much people consent.

The part of central London I live in looks fairly normal now, streets are busy, parks are packed, many shops are open. Hairdressers, pubs and schools are closed, that is about the only sign. Restaurants and cafes have turned take away, so the queues are outdoors now.

So I would say in my area, people are done with lockdown. In April, it was eerily quiet, people really reacted. The changes of the last couple of weeks did not lead to a noticeable behaviour change. The only things that can be controlled is opening of pubs and schools now.

But I think it's been lost that lockdown was never to stop the virus. It's not the case that we just shelter until it goes away. It's not ever going away now.

We were supposed to shelter until levels of illness got low enough for testing and tracking to work - to do the job that lockdown did. Levels aren't that low yet in the UK, so we're stopping lockdown without a fully working alternative suppression system to replace it yet. The nhs is not immune to being overwhelmed ever again. If the virus spreads widely again, it will be at risk again.

Learning to live with the virus means learning to live with being in a permanent state of defence against it (until a vaccine). That system of defence has to be a really good one. If we don't want it to be lockdown any more, the alternative defence of a testing and tracking system has to be really good. But's hardly even got started. It really doesn't inspire confidence.

The problem is everyone on this site wants the restrictions that most affect them to be completely relaxed (and many are ignoring them anyway) and all the other restrictions to remain fully in place. Unless the police suddenly gain thousands of extra officers we are better off allowing relatively low risk activities so the police have more resources to target those who are doing higher risk activities (such as meeting in larger groups, meeting indoors etc)

I think a large percentage of the population eased their own lockdown a while ago.

If the test and trace, or whatever they're calling it, was up and running this whole easing thing would work a great deal better.

As it is, it all seems completely uncontrolled and disorganised.

As I said on another thread, and a pp has said on this thread, I think Johnson and Cummings are going for herd immunity by stealth.

It's what they wanted all along, and now that much of the public has given on even the pretence of social distancing nor seeming to care if they get infected, BJ & DC can have their wish.

The other problem is that the rules make no sense at all. Eg we have 4 DC, including a toddler. So if we go to the park, no one should in theory say hello to us in case this constitutes a gathering of 6+ people. And we can't have in-laws in the back garden for the same reason. I will leave you to speculate how strictly we are likely to enforce this. It's nothing to do with Dominic C, just the sheer illogicality of it....

The rules make perfect sense to those who want to stick by them, but those who don't are using it as an excuse to break them. The larger a group is the louder they will be talking and it is proven that talking loudly is a trigger for the spread of the virus. It's also unrealistic for parents of 4 small children to be able to keep them all at a social distance from grandparents etc. Large families are also in the extremely lucky position of having others to interact with and are therefore not in the same need to socialise with people outside their household.

Statisticalsense - are you suggesting that people with lots of kids somehow don't need to see their own parents? The 6 person rule applies only in England, oddly. Two households can meet up in Scotland (up to 8) and in Wales (with no limit), so the point clearly isn't intuitive....

Given that it's 8 people in Scotland and 6 people in England it would rather seem that these numbers have pretty much been plucked out of the air, rather than been based on any exact science.

Surely no one in England is going to be penalised if they're meeting up with 7 people and in all honesty, who is going to be policing this anyway, given that hoards of people are mixing on beaches and no one is doing anything about that.

And if anyone does query it, just tell them you're following your instincts.

In 2-4 weeks' time, the death toll will be back up. But then it will be too late.

I seriously am tempted to do an advanced search on MN and see just how many times that statement (or near enough) has been typed in the last 6 weeks. At least 8000 times, do you reckon?

The government won’t back track, it wouldn’t likely work anyway.

What's with all the posters saying they can meet in groups of 8 in Scotland??

It's groups of eight consisting of people from only 2 households!!