What exactly Is the strategy/way forward

[Notcontent]

I was just reading that a pub has closed after a customer tested positive. They are now tracing all the other customers.

What does this mean for the future? Realistically this will just keep happening until a vaccine is found - is that right? Because in the U.K., particularly now that people will be travelling abroad and coming back, there is no chance of completely stamping out the virus. So does this mean that every time there is a case in a school, or an office, or a restaurant, or a gym (once they open) etc they will need to close?

I really hope and pray a vaccine is found and ready to use by the winter .
The future is already bleak yes places are reopening but not to full capacity they can't until social distancing is not a thing .
In the meantime yes I think the governments plan is to muddle through and hope for the best.
what's the alternative? keep everywhere shut and people loose their jobs or reopen and hope for the best some will survive others won't .

@TheDailyCarbuncle

Eventually everyone will have to admit what they should have admitted in March, which is that trying to completely control a virus that is present in huge numbers all over the world is a crazy-making nonsense and that while it makes sense to take precautions like good hygiene, we will have to accept at some point soon that covid is one virus among many that a lot of us will probably get at some point. Shutting life down to avoid one risk, with the result that you increase many other risks is a stupid, irresponsible thing to do and the only reason politicians won't admit that is because they will be rightly asked why millions of people have lost their jobs for nothing.

This is a terrifying prospect as it's essentially saying we all have to take our chances and it will be survival of the fittest. But then ultimately that is what life is about and we won't be able to function as a society long term while constantly trying to avoid the virus.

I just hope there is a vaccine soon, so that this does not have to happen. Or failing that effective treatments so at least people are likely to survive when they do get it.

@BumbleWumble do you feel equally terrified of the flu? Or any of the other hundreds of infections you could pick up every day?

Agree @Beebityboo. When looking at the guidance for schools document, it appears they are expecting possible disruption throughout the next school year. It mentions changes to curriculum in certain cases not returning to normal until September 2021. Surely by then they'll have a vaccine or effective treatment up and running 🤞🥴

Well, the hope is that there's a middle way between lock everything up forever and open up, crack on and tough shit to the vulnerable/old/unlucky well. They've already learnt lots about the virus (oxygen early, CPAP not ventilation, check for blood clots/inflammation early) and found some useful treatments. We might have a vaccine in the next twelve months. I'm hopeful for sooner, but that might just be wishful thinking. Track and trace could work if we did it properly.

Lockdown was about getting the exponential growth down. Otherwise we'd have the same horrors facing parts of South America right now. Only worse, because our population on the whole is older and sicker.

Not locking down wouldn't have saved the economy because so much of our economy is based on shops/restaurants/pubs/salons etc. If people were dropping like flies, nobody would want to go to them (maybe a few seize-the-day types but not enough to keep them afloat). So the economy would be screwed, health services would have been overwhelmed and more people dead.

The problem with ‘giving up’ and living with Covid is what Texas and Florida have now with nearly full ICUs. There is no real answer.

I’m in Australia and I think the government made a mistake not aiming for elimination once most of the states got to zero community transmission. We have the international borders closed with our current suppression strategy anyway so that can’t be used as an argument.

Now we have Melbourne having to lock down again for six weeks and Victoria cut off from the rest of the country. There is no guarantee it hasn’t already leaked to other states. Businesses that survived the first lockdown may not make it this time

@secretllama

I would like to know the end goal too. It just seems absolutely insane to live socially distanced indefinitely until a vaccine is found as we may never get one.

It's not so much a vaccine but until an anti viral that makes the disease less fatal. Without either we'll be living like this for another year at least, or at least until the virus fades away. The winter will be bad anyway because of the usual flu season while this still circulates.

The hope is it can taper off by next Spring.

[quote TheDailyCarbuncle]@BumbleWumble do you feel equally terrified of the flu? Or any of the other hundreds of infections you could pick up every day?[/quote]
No, although to be fair prior to this I hadn't realised just how many people flu killed. But from what I understand Covid is much more of a risk to the general population and potentially nastier. Apart from flu I can't really think of any other dangerous infections that you have anywhere near the chance of getting as Covid. I mean I did manage to catch TB 17 years ago. Apparently I was extremely unlucky as the chances in the UK are something like 1 in 100,000. The fact I have had TB does make me worry I am now at more risk of severe illness if I catch Covid.

It was ordered because the govt reckoned they were more likely to get blamed for not locking down than for locking down, and more likely to get blamed for covid deaths than for anything else.

Polling wise, lockdown was the most popular policy of all time. The government didn't want to lock down but were basically ramrodded into it. They left it as long as they could but it would have been carnage. Our own Prime Minister was on his death bed with it shortly after lockdown.

Dubai locked down, a strict lockdown with curfews and permits. I can't imagine the government here being railroaded into anything particularly by the media. Going into lockdown enabled hospitals not to become so badly overrun they were rendered useless.

IMHO I think local lockdowns will be the way forward and we will have to adapt to them. Working from home where possible. I do think some people have been very inventive in changing their business models and adapting it so they can make money and that gives me great hope. We do need to learn from what happened and what should have happened and there can't be a massive cover up. It would be such a disservice to everyone.

annabel85 I agree, they would have been crucified if they didn’t lock down. I’m not saying lockdown was a bad idea (though I think it was too late and went on too long). I’m saying that I have no faith in any of the government’s decisions as they are based on polling and what they think will hit their (short term) careers most, rather than a careful evaluation of all the pros and cons.

“I just hope there is a vaccine soon, so that this does not have to happen. Or failing that effective treatments so at least people are likely to survive when they do get it.”

The vast majority of people are already very “likely to survive” if they catch it, even without treatment. It’s not rabies or ebola.

@BumbleWumble any viral infection or infection with a pathogen has the ability to case severe illness or even death. Sepsis is one such scenario. One of the biggest killers there is.
There’s also less common outcomes such as encephalitis or ADEM which my brother had 15 years ago when he was about 14 years old. He was in a coma and had to learn to walk and talk again, all as the result of an innocent virus.

"until a vaccine is found - " OR until so many people have had it that it becomes hard to pass it on.

@TheDailyCarbuncle

Eventually everyone will have to admit what they should have admitted in March, which is that trying to completely control a virus that is present in huge numbers all over the world is a crazy-making nonsense and that while it makes sense to take precautions like good hygiene, we will have to accept at some point soon that covid is one virus among many that a lot of us will probably get at some point. Shutting life down to avoid one risk, with the result that you increase many other risks is a stupid, irresponsible thing to do and the only reason politicians won't admit that is because they will be rightly asked why millions of people have lost their jobs for nothing.

We did control it. That's why we had the numbers of deaths that we had and not hundreds of thousands more.

Really conspiracy theorists with their world-wide secret government connivance stories are getting old. You couldn't get every government to agree that water was wet and yet they all dealt with the pandemic in more or less the same way and all their experts agreed with the facts.