Is it really worth all this?

[Dustballs]

What are we shutting down for? What are we trying to save?

I don't understand what the purpose of this is anymore.

@IwishIwasyoda

I don't get it any more either. I understood 'following the science', 'flattening the curve' and 'protecting the NHS'.

I think we seem to have strayed into 'eradicating the virus' (impossible) and 'suppression' without having an acceptable level of risk or end point in place or communicated to us.

I am still not convinced by the hospital measure as I understand this can mean a positive case in any hospital setting (e.g. mental hospital where there are long term patients) and it doesn't mean that the person was admitting with covid.

If we were basing our decisions on people who are in intensive care because of covid that's another matter

We’re certainly not attempting to eradicate the virus (that would take what New Zealand did and shutting our boarders and complete lockdown for a number of months) but I think what you’ve missed here are timescales. This was never going to be a couple of months and we’re done. The aim is to keep the curve flat and steady as much as possible to ensure that health services can cope not. We’re not trying to stop everyone getting covid, we’re trying to stop everyone getting it at once. Restrictions are a dam.

As much as I’d like to blame the government for that miscommunication it really isn’t. People have just cherry picked what they wanted to hear. It’s like the shock around air bridges being closed, the government always said that was what they’d do if numbers started rising in destinations and some of the responses when it did actually happen were faintly ridiculous given that’s exactly what we were warned about.

I take issue with your last paragraph. If you are concerned about ICU numbers then you should understand that by the time that alarms people it’s too late. Numbers have risen beyond what we can comfortably accommodate and will need drastic action if we want to gain back control. This is not a quick illness and there’s a two to three week lag in becoming ill enough for a hospital admission/ICU and then another couple of weeks to see deaths. With an incubation of approximately two weeks, a week or so to show symptoms, another week or so to become ill enough for hospital.

Do you see how using ICU or hospital admissions as a point to act is far too late?

I have been against the legislation from day 1 although obeying it. We should move it to a voluntary basis come what may.

I guess Cornetto that what you are saying is that we need to apply the brakes before we crash into the car in front

I have been against the legislation from day 1 although obeying it. We should move it to a voluntary basis come what may.

Genuinely interested to know how you see this working?

In this country, we have the aggravating factor of a government that lies, gaslights, scaremongers, and treats its citizens like shit, while pretending they care, instead of communicating honestly with its taxpaying voters, led by the patron saint of clowns, who keeps speaking gibberish, and contradicting himself. One moment it's "eat out to help out", then it's "you naughty children spread the virus by doing so". One moment it's "back to work", then it's "don't go back to work". Even though Saint Boris is playing the card of "it's all for your own good, I personally am saving your lives, even though I'm making them utterly miserable, I don't care that it's one rule for you plebs and another for Dominic Cummings, I thrive on stupid slogans like squeeeeeeeeeze the brakes, blah blah blah..." he knows that by the time the real consequences kick in, he'll be out of office and retiring on his millions, while we plebs are dealing with a huge recession, mass unemployment, suicides from the despair caused by his lockdown.

This government is also tacitly encouraging people to be nasty to each other: there's no doubt that they're rubbing their hands in glee at the headlines over panic buying, because it divides the public, and distracts them from looking at the government. Children and students are being pilloried by their fellow citizens simply for existing. The government is constantly leaking inflammatory things to the press, who take the bait, print lots of rubbish to stir up the public, who then fall for it hook, line and sinker.

As far as I am concerned, all this is much more dangerous than any virus. Do other countries have this problem?

Yes to masks in enclosed spaces, yes to sensible social distancing. Yes to increased hand washing/sanitising before entering/leaving places. But no to rules restricting households mixing, particularly outside. No to the ridiculous rule of 6, whereby if my parents visit us they drive down together (they won't come alone) then only one of them can come inside while the other sits in the car, and then they swap over, before driving home together again. Meets the guidelines but is nonsensical. No to restrictions on gatherings outside, where social distancing can be observed. Let people make their own choices that fit their own circumstances

Finally someone saying what they thing should and shouldn't happen when they say we should 'get on with it'

The problem with the yes/no list above is that the 'social distancing' is the part that is affecting businesses. Even if people are allowed to gather at home or outside, business are being asked to implement social distancing measures. This is what is causing a lot of the economic problems, social distancing covers a very wide variety of things which impacts on space, the number of people you can offer a service to in a day etc. All will impact income. It also include self-isolation and quarantine rules which also affect businesses and income.

If you allow the household mixing and mixing outside then it doesn't really help many businesses unless we say that hygiene and social distancing measures no longer are needed in places of business and we no longer need to self isolate when we have COVID or suspect we have. Even if you are happy for that to happen, many people will choose not to do things they think are too risky so business will suffer anyway. Sweden's economy has suffered badly compared to the other Scandinavian countries because lots of people chose to work from home and not to go out as much, regardless of whether it was law

As another PP explained, the countries who are doing economically the worst are those generally with the most deaths. If we abandon all measures we will have more deaths and our economy will be even worse.

I am really not advocating another lockdown, just saying that railing against the measures we put in place seems pointless to me as we can't know for sure which are working or not. What we can know is that no measures at all will lead to very large numbers of deaths which will wreck the economy even more.

@midgebabe

I guess Cornetto that what you are saying is that we need to apply the brakes before we crash into the car in front

Pretty much. If infections levelled off for a substantial period then maybe it would be okay to at least continue as we had been but we don’t know enough to accurately pinpoint when that might happen.

@Xenia

I have been against the legislation from day 1 although obeying it. We should move it to a voluntary basis come what may.

Well we know what will come. Because people are barely following the rules while they're not voluntary.

@wanderings totally

@weepingwillow22

The problem is OP that we will still have the same economic pain if we don't lockdown. If 100,000s people die and even more develop long term symptoms people will become too fearful to go out and spend anyway. Schools will still shutdown because staff will be off sick and people will still have their nhs treatments cancelled because it will be overwhelmed with covid. You will have an equally bleak economic situation but with more deaths.

You'd think it would be bloody obvious wouldn't you, but seemingly not. People seem to think it's lockdown v pre Covid with magic fairy dust making all the previous shut vanish too!

YABVU. Until we can achieve 100% immortality without a few selfish few dying and fucking up the numbers, how can we ever expect to recover? Some twats seem to think death is binary. I say NO! No more of this negative attitude.

Oh goodie... another OP who thinks they understand better than the experts. 🙄

Quite apart from saving lives, the NHS was on its knees at the height of the pandemic. I have friends who worked the whole time on the covid wards, it was hell. They had to separate from their families for the whole time, no contact. I’m not sure we could do it again.

Oh goodie... another OP who thinks they understand better than the experts.

The ‘experts’ don’t actually agree though do they?

But we are all ready getting on with it. People are working, children are in school. There are rules to follow to help slow down the spread. I work in a library, we are open, people are borrowing books, but we are not doing our children's activities as it's too risky and in any case I doubt people would come if we said we were. Would you go to a theatre like we did before March, right now? I'm not sure people would. I've been to a pub, hardly anyone there. It's no good saying open everything as it was, when people aren't going. I think most people are pretty sensible, but it's not easy stopping a virus what ever we do. It will run its natural course, we will have better treatment for it, maybe some sort of vaccine. I just hope we don't see deaths rising like we did earlier in the year as that was awful.

No.

What surprises me is that there weren't more objections to the idea that everyone had to sit at home for months because the health system wasn't good enough to cope. The message was 'protect the NHS' - ie you had to potentially lose your job, your business or your entire livelihood, and your children had to lose their education to protect a public service that was supposed to be there to help people. It's bizarre when you think about it - destroying the economy to 'protect' the health system.

**Couldn't agree more. I wonder this too.

It wasn't Protect the NHS
it was protect the reputations of the politicians who have actively and deliberately undermined the NHS since May 2010
but Hey, the liar in Chief was voted in as PM in December
and then the deliberate exclusion of all of the Local Experts from
Test, Trace, Track
so that it was set up to fail

and at the same time Kent will be turned into a parking lot as Cummings and his acolytes have their wet dream of a hard Brexit
putting food prices up by 20%
just as a million people lose their jobs

This whole lockdown is deliberately confusing
to stop us seeing the real picture
and blame each other
not those at fault

For me the answer is no, not any more. I've followed all of the guidelines since day one but I've had enough. The industry I work in has been decimated and I'm about to be unemployed for the first in 29 years. My mortgage and house purchase fell through, my relationship is in tatters and DS has struggled hugely with lockdown and I'm really worried about the impact on him. After less than two weeks in school his year group has closed down. How can I start a new job then needc two weeks off every time there's a case in school?

I'm vulnerable - I have asthma and an auto immune disease but at this stage the risks to my and my families mental health is greater.

No. It's not worth it IMHO. So many sectors are being destroyed. Young people losing their one shot at education. Mine and many other's mental health is shot and no face to face support allowed. Cancer diagnoses not happening. All being sacrificed for Covid. I don't get it.

@Teateaandmoretea

Oh goodie... another OP who thinks they understand better than the experts.

The ‘experts’ don’t actually agree though do they?

Exactly!

Hardly anyone in hospital? X2 in a ward for COVID (not icu) currently in a London hospital (I know a doctor who works there)

... and no it's not worth it.

I suppose at the moment we have to say yes. However I suspect with the benefit of hindsight we will look back and find out it wasn’t.

PS
I am not denying the existence of COVID - I know of people who have died from it and their families are struggling.

I am not denying the existence of Long Covid - but many other diseases including some Flu variants cause exactly the same, it just does not make the news

What I AM saying is that it has been handled atrociously be people who do not give a shit about 99.9% of the population