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.

@HelloMissus I don’t really understand the last part of your post - surely there are a lot of plans for us to return to ‘normal’ - not during the summer but in the autumn/winter, just when people are more vulnerable to illness - schools, workplaces, Uni’s etc will all be back?

We’re in no way operating like Feb/March with no plans to return to that.

Well, September will be very interesting then with schools back to full capacity as well as most universities. Some of the lectures may well be online, but thousands of teens will be descending from all around the country to their university town to mix with thousands of others come the third weekend in September.

I don’t think it’s going to be pretty, sadly.

hamandcheese schools and unis are indeed going to open but not as normal.
Universities are mostly not having freshers week. The bars all have to be booked. No night clubs open. No contact sports. Many societies will operate on line as will lectures.

@feetfreckles thank you, I have often queried the ‘shield the vulnerable, everyone else carry on’ logic. Too many people are vulnerable to Covid for that to make sense.

It's generally born out of ignorance. People who generally think shield anyone over 75, they're retired anyway. But a lot of working age people are highly vulnerable if they get the virus.

Yes, I’d be surprised if we weren’t locked down again by September.

We’re in no way operating like Feb/March with no plans to return to that.

Not right now but now and into August you've got the holiday season with people flying all over the place.

September you've got all the kids going back to school which is going to have a big impact on spreading the virus.

You've got Boris and the government telling everyone to get back into their air conditioned offices and back onto rush hour public transport.

You've got Boris saying he wants/expects everything back to normal from October/November with furlough winding down.

If we try to do too much too quick over Autumn then we'll be in a bad way going into winter and Christmas.

The trade off of getting all the kids back should be keeping most people working from home where they can. You can't have it both ways and expect cases to not substantially rise.

But schools need to reopen, kids need to be educated. If it leads to an increase it leads to an increase. As long as the NHS isn’t overwhelmed I guess we just need to deal with it. People can’t really expect society to start functioning again and cases stay as low as they are. But society can’t stay shut down. I suspect shielding might make a comeback, hopefully with proper financial support.

@HelloMissus

hamandcheese schools and unis are indeed going to open but not as normal. Universities are mostly not having freshers week. The bars all have to be booked. No night clubs open. No contact sports. Many societies will operate on line as will lectures.

It is much the same as normal. There may be a few staggered starts here and there and trying to keep year groups apart, but they will be back at full capacity in small classrooms and there is not a lot of wriggle room in schools. The teachers will still be teaching across huge numbers of pupils, the children will still be mixing with huge numbers of other children. Visitors, supply teachers, volunteers are all allowed in schools-the contact points for transmission will not be low.

Universities may have scaled back on freshers events, but they will still be congregating in halls of residences in large numbers, having come from all over the country (world!).

Yes, it’s not exactly as it would have been, but it’s not far off.

People can’t really expect society to start functioning again and cases stay as low as they are. But society can’t stay shut down. I suspect shielding might make a comeback, hopefully with proper financial support.

It's a trade off. You open what's most essential (from September that includes schools) and open up where social distancing can be adhered to (shops, restaurants, pubs).

Things like nightclubs, football stadiums and concert venues will have to be stay empty (or operate at very low capacity) and working from home should be encouraged if the government are fearful of a bad winter. That's the trade off for having schools fully open and allowing open borders and international travel.

If we take the obese, the diabetic and the asthmatic as vulnerable, enough to protect the NHS, you are looking at 30% of the working population. Plus all the over 70's

A PP already mentioned that over 70s generally aren't working anyway, but why does it have to be 30%? Using your own examples, why not shield just the morbidly obese and those whose chronic conditions are unstable, rather than all of them?
Certainly that would increase the overall risk a little, but as ever it's about balance, and right now for me there's not enough

I matter for nothing in the grand scheme of things, but like many of us I put my own stats into a calculator (mid sixties, slightly overweight, one chronic condition, still working) and discovered I have a 99.96% chance of surviving this whole mess - hardly cause for panic
Even if I didn't we've all got to die of something, and while the urge to protect the sacred cow of the NHS is understandable, I worry about the collateral damage the Covid obsession's causing all round

I have a 1 in 300 chance of death, ignoring long term damage, my husband is a 1 in 100 ...would you want to get on a plane with those odds? We probably have 30 plus years of good life left

What gets my back up is that the actions needed to really squash this will probably in the long run cause less damage and disruption , economic woe and death than the alternative let's just face the risk approach.

fedup I don’t know much about schools other than we’ve already been told that neither of our foster children’s schools will be operating after school care or clubs and there will be no transport to get them there.
There also talk of one of them closing a half day - but no firm decisions yet.

Universities however will not be operating remotely as normal - honestly, if any of mine were due to start in September, I’d tell them to postpone it.

Universities however will not be operating remotely as normal - honestly, if any of mine were due to start in September, I’d tell them to postpone it.

If everyone did that, the universities would go bust. DC and all their friends are still planning to go as normal in September. There’s no guarantee they’d get in next year as they’ll be a whole new cohort going. I expect university to not look that different from an accommodation point of view. Maybe some one way systems around buildings etc

fedup of course and that’s why many are not allowing students to defer.

But IMVHO it’s going to be crap and I’d still advise mine not to go as a fresher. Fortunately mine are either finished, going back for their final year and an MA.

I don't think there will be a second national wave or lockdown. I'm expecting a series of local spikes and lockdowns, which seems to be the pattern in countries like Spain or France. Local spikes will certainly cause disruption over the autumn and winter for any affected areas.

I’m sure l read somewhere that universities were not tolerating deferring places for a gap year.

They would only hold the place until September of this year.

Yes I think they will be a second wave and of course general flu season will impact the NHS further. IMHO there won’t be a national lockdown, but areas with local spikes could and should lockdown. I think Gov will say previous shielded group, should stay home, fit, young & healthy to get on with it.

What about the in betweens?

Over 50’s to have flu vaccine and first line corona vaccine.

What will happen to this age group as they aren’t really young?

@Puzzledandpissedoff

If we take the obese, the diabetic and the asthmatic as vulnerable, enough to protect the NHS, you are looking at 30% of the working population. Plus all the over 70's

A PP already mentioned that over 70s generally aren't working anyway, but why does it have to be 30%? Using your own examples, why not shield just the morbidly obese and those whose chronic conditions are unstable, rather than all of them?
Certainly that would increase the overall risk a little, but as ever it's about balance, and right now for me there's not enough

I matter for nothing in the grand scheme of things, but like many of us I put my own stats into a calculator (mid sixties, slightly overweight, one chronic condition, still working) and discovered I have a 99.96% chance of surviving this whole mess - hardly cause for panic
Even if I didn't we've all got to die of something, and while the urge to protect the sacred cow of the NHS is understandable, I worry about the collateral damage the Covid obsession's causing all round

Asthma isn't as high risk as was initially thought. It's more lung conditions like COPD. Type 2 diabetics are at very high risk of serious illness or death, and those with heart conditions. Here's a link to the updated CDC list (which seems more evidence based than NHS England). I think our shielding list was based on who was most at risk of catching it, i.e. people taking immunosuppressants (which appear to protect against severe illness) rather than who was most at risk of being seriously ill or dying.

www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/people-with-medical-conditions.html

I doubt we'll see an updated shielding list if things get bad again. There was an article in Pulse Today, a GP magazine, where GPs stated opposition. Because diabetics are a sizeable proportion of the population doctors think it would be too much workload to have them all shielded. They're also concerned about losing a chunk of their workforce. A good balance would be to shield all the most vulnerable from the age of 40. It seems the risks, even with underlying conditions, under 40 are minimal.

TheEmoji that’s true, they’re discouraging deferrals.
If mine were going I’d tell them to withdraw this year and reapply next.

I think I’d start university even if this year. There’s no guarantee competition wouldn’t be higher next year and a year off with low likelihood of a job would be no great shakes.

But what are they going to do that's better, next year?

@Hamandcheeseandpickle

I accept all this but what is the alternative to a national lockdown in the event the virus gets out of control again (so local lockdown/track and trace impossible)?

Maybe I’m missing something but this is what I don’t understand.

Why do you think the virus will get out of control again? There's really no reason why it should. We know so much more about containing and treating it than we did in Feburary and March.

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince

What about the in betweens?

Over 50’s to have flu vaccine and first line corona vaccine.

What will happen to this age group as they aren’t really young?

Perhaps more concerning, what about the 40-50 age group? Without a flu jab they face a hugely increased risk if they catch flu - with the consequent weakened immune system.

Coronavirus age risk starts at 40. Your 40s are also a time when many underlying conditions start developing. Many go undiagnosed, at least initially.

The role of deprivation needs to be taken into account too. I suspect a healthy 50 year old living rurally and working from home is far less at risk than an overweight 40 year old living in a deprived urban area.

TheLegend I think over the next 12 months we’ll be edging slowly towards reintroducing as many things as possible.
So right now there’ll be no lectures, society meetings, drama, music clubs, sports etc etc you’ll be actively discouraged from mixing physically with students outside your immediate group.

This will improve over the next year I think.