Why can't we just have a full lockdown for 2/4 weeks and get it over and done with?

[Betty94]

Hello,

First I'd like to say I have been incredibly lucky and fortunate enough not to have had covid or have had any of my friends or family affected by it (apart from DH being made redundant) but I know how serious it is and the illness itself is devastating but I also feel the impact it's having on the economy and mental health is equally as devastating and it really does feel like we're living half a life -

I know the priminister is making an announcement tonight about going into "tier 3" which means pubs and gyms will be closed for 4 weeks (to six months) but I don't understand the point of it - what's the point of closing pubs and gyms but letting people mix at schools and work etc like you can't even meet with your own family (or you'll get accused of killing grandma) but mixing with people when you don't know where they've been and children mixing, you can't really expect kids to know to social distance or for teenagers to even care, they don't think about consequences ( I don't think I would have cared as a teenager as they tend to live in there here and now)

I just don't understand why we can't go in a full lockdown for 2-4 weeks, I understand the cost of that wouldn't be brilliant but people can still work from home and they can keep essential shops open like supermarkets so they wouldn't be paying as much as they did in March-June etc because surely if it carries on as it is then it's going to cost more in the long run (apparently tier 3 could last for six months but the virus won't be gone then)

Maybe I'm just being naive and stupid but I really don't see any other option - not going to the pub or the gym will not slow the virus down - I don't know what do people think would need doing so we can have some normality ? I know our opinions don't really matter and the government will do whatever they want really but I just wondered what other people thought

We had a 3 month lockdown in March, which did not work.

It absolutely did work, in that it prevented the rise in infections, so that at no point was anybody who needed ITU refused for lack of a bed. That - not eradication - was the aim of lockdown.

Around the time it started, Chris Whitty said he expected to see restrictions loosened and tightened repeatedly, in response to levels of transmission. And they've just said on the briefing that the number of hospital admissions is not as high as it was in March, not rising as quickly.... BUT, it is rising, and if nothing changes, it will continue to rise.

Actually, it would continue to rise even if we entered total national lockdown today (we won't), because anyone who just got infected right now will take an average of 5 days to show symptoms, then another week typically before they need hospital admission, if they are going to need it.

Also bear in mind, it is not just deaths which this causes. Long Covid is a real thing, and seems to affect younger fitter people who have had relatively mild Covid symptoms. You know, working age people. That's why there are Covid recovery programmes being set up by the NHS. And because it is still relatively new, it is not clear what proportion of people will fully recover in what sort of timescale. What is becoming clear is that Covid is more likely to cause post-viral problems than most of the other viruses we have circulating around.

Even during the first lockdown people were going to the shops multiple times a week. People were not taking it seriously minimising contact. It was stupid that i click and collected my food shopping once every 3 weeks, and couldn't go to the garden centre once, but down the road went into the corner shop every day for a paper and daily food. It's obvious which is the greater risk of transmission.

A short hard full lockdown with no shopping no exceptions may work or otherwise we just need to learn to live with covid and adjust to proper mask wearing.

Like I said I am very naive and probably clutching at straws because I hate the new normal

No, not naive - it’s an option that has worked for some countries

If you mean put everyone in the country under house arrest for 3 weeks then maybe they would work. But that would mean every single person banned from leaving the 4 walls of their home. Have the army in the streets to hand out food packages and paramedics available. Have nurses and doctors agree to commit to working for the 3 weeks without ever leaving the hospital; working, eating and sleeping there. So the only people on the streets at all would be army and paramedics using fill hazmat for 3 weeks. Then we might eradicate the virus.

But can you actually imagine that? If this pandemic was a 90% fatal, horrible disease like in Outbreak then I'm sure they would do that. But it's not, and they never will.

Tiny islands miles from anywhere aren’t a helpful comparison point

Then I give you the densely populated Vietnam and South Korea

Actually the "quickest" way to get it sorted is no restrictions at all and it will burn out in few months once we've either caught it and recovered or died
The problem here is that for the people who are thinking this, it's always 'other people' who will die. Not themselves or their loved ones, just a bunch of strangers.
And so that's fine

Then I give you the densely populated Vietnam and South Korea

With radically different attitudes to public privacy and data. In South Korea the government have access to your phone/bank card data/all CCTV. They publish the exact geolocations of people who’ve tested positive.

Countries that are culturally, geographically, economically politically similar to the U.K. haven’t failed particularly well either. France, Spain, Italy, US.

If you want an example, Germany is a better one. But even they have much more robust healthcare and support put in place for those they had to lock down

@redvest

and if this virus affected mainly the young, like polio did in the 1950s, would you still be saying we need to sacrifice the young, so that life could carry on as normal, because its nature?

They didn't have lockdowns for polio or TB, although they did close swimming pools (in fact it was a reason a lot of the lidos disappeared).

Even during the first lockdown people were going to the shops multiple times a week

There was so much moaning on here about that at the time. It was much better going to the shops twice a week on foot as part of my "daily exercise" than it was getting in the car once a week or fortnight for a "big" shop and spending much longer in the shop at one time.

@Wherehavetheteletubbiesgone

Even during the first lockdown people were going to the shops multiple times a week. People were not taking it seriously minimising contact. It was stupid that i click and collected my food shopping once every 3 weeks, and couldn't go to the garden centre once, but down the road went into the corner shop every day for a paper and daily food. It's obvious which is the greater risk of transmission.

A short hard full lockdown with no shopping no exceptions may work or otherwise we just need to learn to live with covid and adjust to proper mask wearing.

How can you have no shopping or no exceptions? How do people survive if they can’t get food?

@Betty94

Obviously too late for this now but do you think anything could have been done prior to March to stop the spread? Maybe nov/dec when China was like oh by the way there's this virus, it's not great and we've had to build covid specific hospitals ... could more have been done then or do you think it was hard to manage? I know I wasn't taking it seriously back then (if only I knew)

I think the lack of planning at that stage was woeful. Firstly, there should have been a pandemic plan in place for decades - we know they hit every 100 years or so, so we were due one soon. But apparently the government scrapped it a few years ago?

That would have ensured that there were adequate supplies of PPE either stored somewhere, or with an established supply chain.

We would probably have locked down anyway, but it would have been in order to prepare for the huge numbers. Things like track and trace could have been implemented much faster and better - there's no reason that the app couldn't have been worked on from day 1, with an agreement from Apple and Android that they would update their devices in preparation.

We would have come out of lockdown to a fully working track and trace app/system, hospitals and workplaces with adequate PPE, public transport geared up, schools ready to go (and adequately resources) and things could have opened up more quickly.

Lockdown didn't work before, but it did achieve poverty for many people, loss of jobs and homes and people unable to get cancer, and other treatments they needed, no dental care, no eye care. Many jobs are not possible from home so the business folds.People have had to give up their pets, their only companions in many cases due to no income or home and rescues are unable to take them.

From my point of view another lockdown would pretty much be the end. I need dental treatment and surgery. I have no job, and partner's business is struggling along on loans only as no grants applied due to loopholes. We are not alone in that, an entire industry has been affected. Complete lockdown would be the end. It didn't work before, just slowed things down and wrecked the economy, why would another lockdown make it better?

Lockdown didn't work before, but it did achieve poverty for many people, loss of jobs and homes and people unable to get cancer, and other treatments they needed, no dental care, no eye care

Whereas covid running rampant through the population would put no strain on the NHS and jobs??

@Aridane

Lockdown didn't work before, but it did achieve poverty for many people, loss of jobs and homes and people unable to get cancer, and other treatments they needed, no dental care, no eye care

Whereas covid running rampant through the population would put no strain on the NHS and jobs??

We have no idea whether that would have happened, do we?

You're assuming everyone catches it at once and dies and everything closes down when that likely not the case at all.

No I’m not!

@Betty94

"maybe it's just me but I can't see how closing pubs and gyms will help."

On that point you are spot on - it will really make next to no difference . But it is being used " to be seen to be doing something "

As another poster mentioned there are basically three options

1. seal every one in a box for a month then close the borders forever- not very realistic!
2. Develop a vaccine and distribute it to the vulnerable - this will take quite some time. Interestingly this is the approach used in the Hong Kong flu epidemic of 1968 which killed c 50k people however by the time the vaccine was ready the virus had already burnt out, although it still exists today but lumped into all the other flu cases each winter.
3. no restrictions and achieve herd immunity that way - this will clearly cause a large number of deaths in the elderly and vulnerable.

Not a great range of options but it is what is or as I read a quote last week "Enjoy Covid because the future is going to be hell ".

@Aridane

No I’m not!

80% of people are asymptomatic. Why would everywhere be shutting down?

@TrustTheGeneGenie - I think we are talking at cross purposes (I must learn to post more clearly!)

@Betty94

Obviously too late for this now but do you think anything could have been done prior to March to stop the spread? Maybe nov/dec when China was like oh by the way there's this virus, it's not great and we've had to build covid specific hospitals ... could more have been done then or do you think it was hard to manage? I know I wasn't taking it seriously back then (if only I knew)

China didn't start building their covid hospitals until well into January, and were still insisting that the virus would only hospitalise a tiny amount of people at the start of March. China have never admitted that the virus is anywhere near as fatal as it has proven to be. They're still insisting that they had only around 3,500 fatalities, even though the Wuhan crematoriums ordered over 35,000 urns during the pandemic there.

Even during the first lockdown people were going to the shops multiple times a week. People were not taking it seriously minimising contact. It was stupid that i click and collected my food shopping once every 3 weeks, and couldn't go to the garden centre once, but down the road went into the corner shop every day for a paper and daily food. It's obvious which is the greater risk of transmission

Oh god, please. Not the shopping arguments again. There were never any bloody restrictions on how often you could go to the shop. It'll be cheese in coffee next.

Obviously too late for this now but do you think anything could have been done prior to March to stop the spread? Maybe nov/dec when China was like oh by the way there's this virus, it's not great and we've had to build covid specific hospitals ... could more have been done then or do you think it was hard to manage? I know I wasn't taking it seriously back then (if only I knew)

China only told the WHO on 31/12.

The UK has a PM who didn't and still doesn't take CV seriously, so unlike Germany, did not mobilise its pharma industry to produce testing kits in feb march.

Only today has the govt said that health workers will be routinely tested for CV regardless of symptoms but not agency workers who do most of the community care :( AND only in the high risk areas....... test everywhere you fools, prevention is better than cure!

We live in the country so low cases, why should we lockdown because those in red areas can’t do as they are told. We are socially distancing and wearing masks, why shouldn’t everyone else. It’s common sense.

jaspers, I only heard a short clip but was it 'health workers' or just hospital workers? During most briefings, even the medics seem to relatively ignore primary care and presume NHS+hospitals even though most cases (and I suspect deaths) didn't have admission to acute.

@Tigerswife

We live in the country so low cases, why should we lockdown because those in red areas can’t do as they are told. We are socially distancing and wearing masks, why shouldn’t everyone else. It’s common sense.

Ha. Were somewhere with high numbers, not our bit of town but the town in general. We've been following the rules, but yes lock us up because we "can't do as we are told"

Fucking hell.

Just to say I agree OP.

I think they should do a 2 week circuit breaker.