Are we headed for an autumn/winter second wave and national lockdown?

[Hamandcheeseandpickle]

Or even before then?

I wasn’t expecting to see spikes in infection rates in Spain, France etc so quickly. Highest worldwide figures on a daily basis. I don’t understand how, with people back at work, school, indoor activities, we’re not going to have a second wave?

If someone doesn’t think we will, please explain this to me as I would LOVE to be wrong.

Our best hope is a chaotic winter and a vaccine in 2121.

Hoping it might be sooner than that!

Sadly unless we can get rid of it by end of September it is almost inevitable. It seems to thrive when temperatures are cooler, hence all of the outbreaks in meat packing plants.

Without diminishing the deprivation and suffering caused by lockdown, I would point out that the country running during an uncontrolled second wave simply can't happen in the way this poster implies. Look at other countries where they've tried to keep going-the death toll and toll on services caused by a pandemic brings a country to its knees

Completely agree. I think there are some people have really thought about what it would mean in terms of damage if spikes (the one that has passed, and any possible ones in future) were not controlled. And have not realised that the economic damage would be considerably worse if we had not taken the necessary steps to flatten that peak.

@caringcarer

Sadly unless we can get rid of it by end of September it is almost inevitable. It seems to thrive when temperatures are cooler, hence all of the outbreaks in meat packing plants.

It also thrives when temperatures are hotter, as Florida, Texas and California can confirm

@caringcarer

Sadly unless we can get rid of it by end of September it is almost inevitable. It seems to thrive when temperatures are cooler, hence all of the outbreaks in meat packing plants.

Can't wait to get back to my air conditioned office in September.

It also thrives when temperatures are hotter, as Florida, Texas and California can confirm

But is it being spread on Florida and California beaches in the heat, or indoors?

It doesn't matter how hot the temperatures are outdoors, it's still a lot cooler indoors with air conditioning.

@853690525d

MN is full out angry voices, wanting drastic measures put in place to protect lives from CV but somehow forgetting that lack of food, shelter, water, healthcare...etc will kill just as many if not more.

Without diminishing the deprivation and suffering caused by lockdown, I would point out that the country running during an uncontrolled second wave simply can't happen in the way this poster implies. Look at other countries where they've tried to keep going-the death toll and toll on services caused by a pandemic brings a country to its knees. If test and trace with local lockdowns and treatment advances don't work out as we hope, there are no other options except to lurch in and out of lockdowns that are as big as they need to be. The only countries that seriously take the position in the quoted post are those for whom daily wages are subsistence and there isn't a mission of being able to treat any proportion of people so no point bothering to try. And their situation is tragic. Ours, while very difficult, is still a privileged problem in comparison and we will not be able to stomach high death tolls relative to other European countries.

Our best hope is a chaotic winter and a vaccine in 2121.

Sweden managed absolutely fine without lockdowns. They did, and are still doing, better than us without locking down and were not overwhelmed. They are playing the longer game we will eventually join in - the one where you have to live with it.

Sweden did plenty of things to mitigate - and they themselves admit their biggest failure was not protecting carehomes. Those are what need to be locked down

Btw to the point below about Texas - they live in air conditioning. You move from your air conditioning house to the air conditioning in the car to the air conditioning in the office, school or shopping centre

Yes, I would be worried - to the pp going back to their air conditioned office!

Sweden did not do well. Remember scatter graphs from school? There is a positive correlation between population density and deaths. Sweden has a low population density. It should have low deaths. It is a low population density with the death rate of a high population density country. In scatter graph terms, it would be an outlier.

If we, a high population density country, had followed the same path then it is very probable that we would have had even more deaths than we already did.

The school outbreaks have thankfully have not lead to an increase in daily deaths despite schools being open for several weeks. School children not generally being seriously affected by this virus in any way. You have to remember that - this is not a virus where a rise in cases means mass death

You also have to remember that during June/July, very few children were actually back at school. More importantly, no children and staff were back who were classed as vulnerable. It’s the people with underlying health conditions, or people living with them, who are more likely to get very ill and die. It’s those children for whom attendance at school will be compulsory from September and same for the staff members.

As people with (or living with those who have) diabetes, asthma, lung disorders, cancer etc start returning to school, things might start to look quite different. Those vulnerable people have been pretty much out of circulation for months, returning full time into massive groups of people, will be worrying. As a child, you might only be mixing with 30/90/270 new people plus the teacher, as a teacher, you could be mixing with every single year group. If that was you, your child or family member, you might be a lot more concerned.

There's still no evidence of superspreader events linked to schools, and evidence emerging that opening schools up did not lead to community spread

Indoor events that have been linked to superspreader events include indoor pubs, indoor clubs, indoor restaurants, indoor workplaces. Fun times.

I love the magic protective bubble that exists over schools. Thank god for Dumbledore!

It might be weird, and thank god it is the case, that children do not seem to be spreading it. They are catching it, not getting ill (very rare anyway compared to adults) but also not spreading it. I suppose as the adults who might spread it are spending time mostly away from each other, that's why schools are not linked to superspreader events.

I suppose no media is going to publish a " this is going reasonably well , all things considered" story?

@TheLegendOfZelda

It might be weird, and thank god it is the case, that children do not seem to be spreading it. They are catching it, not getting ill (very rare anyway compared to adults) but also not spreading it. I suppose as the adults who might spread it are spending time mostly away from each other, that's why schools are not linked to superspreader events.

It could be because the only children who have been back in school have been the healthy ones, but in incredibly small bubbles, not mixing with anyone else and they’ve probably spent large amounts of time outside.

It was always suspected it is linked to biology, and the difference between children and adults respiratory systems, but that will be a long time to research. Meanwhile, there were terrible missed opportunities to do compararative research using Sweden, where under 16s stayed in school throughout, so we would have better data.
I would worry more about gyms, restaurants, cafes, funerals than schools. All those have proven links to superspreader events.

There is plenty of evidence of children being effective vectors of transmission - loads of research points to this.
There are lots of outbreaks focused on schools from around the world & even in England where most schools have only had limited numbers in. My own area now has more cases than regional average because of outbreak that started with 15 cases in one primary school.

I think yes, we could have a second wave, but we won't have another lockdown as we can't afford it.

I imagine those who are generally healthy, not thought to be high risk, will be told to carry on going to pubs and restaurants. Those in higher risk groups will be told to shield again and I hope to God, paid to do so, unless they can work from home obviously.

Someone pointed out that actually this isn't the worst time to be leaving the EU, as we are at least free to mess around with interest rates and currency, whereas places like Italy will struggle with their economy more and France now can't just hand money to Greece via Grant's for example, they have to provide loans. This person explained it a lot better than I can, so excuse the shit retelling of that point! This person and I are very much against Brexit generally though, so it isn't a bonkers, hard line brexiteer comment, I swear!

I am at the point where I think the economy may start to be a bigger threat to people than the actual virus. I'm sure I'll get flamed for that, but it's true.

Sweden managed absolutely fine without lockdowns. They did, and are still doing, better than us without locking down and were not overwhelmed. They are playing the longer game we will eventually join in - the one where you have to live with it.

They really haven't done fine by any reckoning.

It could be because the only children who have been back in school have been the healthy ones

The ones who’ve been in throughout have been keyworker children, therefore much more likely to be exposed than others.

Yes and it will be mixed in with winter flu and norovirus, the NHS is in for a bad winter.

The ones who’ve been in throughout have been keyworker children, therefore much more likely to be exposed than others.

The very few KW children we have had in are children whose attendance is excellent and are very rarely unwell. They were also superb at hand washing and trying to socially distance. None of our KW parents had coronavirus luckily, so their children wouldn’t have been exposed to it from them, to be able to pass it on.

It’s not the ‘healthy’ people I’m so worried about-it’s the ones with pre existing health conditions. They are the ones more likely to show symptoms, become ill or die.

The very few KW children we have had in are children whose attendance is excellent and are very rarely unwell. They were also superb at hand washing and trying to socially distance.

Your own experience isn’t true of everyone though. Not all key worker children are rarely unwell.

The bottom line is that the children exposed to the greatest risk have been in all along.

KW children would be a cross section unless KW felt they could stop work to keep them home, I haven’t heard much on this.

On a separate note. Listening to R4 on why women are disproportionately affected by any extra cc. It costs their jobs at a higher rate.

It’s worth thinking about when talking about part time schooling or closures. We get the worse deal.

The bottom line is that the children exposed to the greatest risk have been in all along.

But if they didn’t have it in the first place, because their parents didn’t have it, the risk of transmission was low.

Well, we will just have to wait to see what transmission rates look like in September when 8 million children go back to full time schooling. I am just very grateful that none of my children have a pre-existing health condition.