Chris Whitty saying even tier 3 probably wont be enough to reduce the R

[KetoPenguin]

What do you think this means for areas in tier 3, total lockdown? How soon do you think this would happen and how likely is it for tier 2 areas to be upgraded to the same level? Do you think the much rumoured circuit breaker over half term is likely at least in these areas?

@Inkpaperstars

He can't Phil because he'd be forever known as Chris Quitty

🤣 very good!!

Sharp thinking for 4:30am!!!

Unfortunately seems to be the one time of day/night my brain does go into overdrive!

@TrustTheGeneGenie

Lockdown Hokey Cokey
Spot on!

Right until when? A vaccine? Does he know when that will be? What will a circuit breaker do? It'll just be a step in the aforementioned lockdown hokey cokey. Kicking the can further down the road.

I thought it was “hokey pokey” ?

@TrustTheGeneGenie

Wins the internet with
‘lockdown hokey cokey‘

Best phrase in the whole of this damn mess

SAGE advice that was ignored has been published or leaked. Some of the proposals would not do much if any economic harm, especially all university tuition being online. I'm not convinced if MN threads are an indication that there are people who could work from home who are all doing so, because of pressure from bosses more concerned with being tin gods and presenteeism.

I'd sooner trust a medical advisor than any politician, even the good ones.

@Toilenstripes

Right until when? A vaccine? Does he know when that will be? What will a circuit breaker do? It'll just be a step in the aforementioned lockdown hokey cokey. Kicking the can further down the road.

I thought it was “hokey pokey” ?

That’s the American name for it, I believe. My US friends call it that, uk friends say Hokey Cokey.

I'm not convinced if MN threads are an indication that there are people who could work from home who are all doing so, because of pressure from bosses more concerned with being tin gods and presenteeism.

Absolutely. Eight of us attended a meeting for 2 hrs last week less than 1m apart, no masks, people didn't want windows open. Oh, and this was at a school. 8 of us visiting when we could have done it on Teams.

Isn’t better track and trace only part of the story? Even if tests were convenient and plentiful, a successful system still depends on people doing the right thing and going to be tested, isolating if positive etc.

I wish they would just say the truth. Some of you will have to catch it now because we can't stay locked down. So carry on and use your common sense. If people are scared to catch the virus then don't go to pubs and for days out etc. But if you are not too worried go out and be hygienic.

Surely there's no other way now? School bubbles in my town are shutting every day because one child has it. Then loads of kids can't attend school for two weeks. Then they all get thrown back in until another child tests positive.

With no vaccine and people having to get on with life to keep the world spinning cases are going to have to go up. Why doesn't he just let it happen now. Why does it benefit to keep stopping and starting? Stalling the inevitable.

I know he isn't able to predict the future. But he seemed pretty confident it was going to be 12 weeks to turn it around and well on our way back to normal by Christmas. Now everyone is masked up and it's still spreading. So are masks helping or is that another waste of time.

Not to mention the fact he lied about schools being safe and now they are dropping like flies.

Glad arsed efforts again from them all. It's all or nothing. Little limitations here and there won't do much at all.

Why are cancer diagnoses being missed, postponed and cancelled at the moment?

Screening programmes, some of which were for 2 week red flags were shut down at the end of March for 3 months. Then opened slowly to allow COVID infection control measures to be put in place. There’s a huge backlog. It will impact. Many of these programmes churn through patients including having weekend screening available to meet 2 week targets.

Even dentists still not being open in some areas will ultimately impact due to links between oral health and inflammation with things like heart disease. It’s a big problem.

@IronLawOfGeometricProgression I'd imagine Chris Whitty's preference would be for a functional TTI system like wot proper countries have got.

You know the ones, they have hardly any deaths, pretty robust economies and they're all still living full lives.

No I don’t know the ones. Who are you referring to. I was in the Netherlands last week and they are now panicking. The U.K. is testing more people and more people per thousand - both since March and per week - than Germany, France, Spain and Italy. Which countries are you talking about? Sweden - who are carrying on largely as usual? Australia or New Zealand who are isolated on the other side of the world - so in a completely different situation to the U.K.? China? Or the USA? Who are you talking about? And what would you do in this situation? It is a shit show all round but I can’t see many others doing a lot better.

We wouldn’t be in this situation if the govt had been slower to open up - eg school to go back a few year groups at a time, uni start delayed/online. Had mandatory quarantine when returning from holiday much earlier.

I think unis wanted the students back as otherwise they would have a gap in their finances - if students did not take up and pay for accommodation. Govt could have planned and mitigated.

Aus, nz, Singapore are opening up and keeping virus under control. You can do it but need to change way of life.

WHO envoy David Nabarro is now begging countries not to resort to lockdown. In his words, all lockdowns do is make poor people poorer. They don’t work as a suppression tactic.

Gold standard from WHO was always test and trace with proper quarantining. I don’t think anything has changed.

@Namenic Australia and New Zealand are in an entirely different geography to the U.K. and Singapore is stopping movement completely. I am fed up with this armchair comparisons with other countries who are in entirely different predicaments and still would love to understand who @IronLawOfGeometricProgression thinks a ‘proper country’ is. We are in the midst of a global pandemic. Nobody is doing well. It’s a bloody novel virus. Am not ever going to say we do things well but I get so annoyed when people sit back and slag their country off based on armchair analysis. Largely ill informed.

I wouldn't want to be in CW's shoes. He is responsible for the advice (with a group of experts in support) but has no power to ensure the advice becomes the plan. It must be rather like parenting a teenager.

CW was very clear back in April that we may well require a cautious series of measures that could be implemented and gradually loosened, however it was much more reassuring for Captain Underpants Johnson to swoop in and tell us if we complied in March and April we'd never have to do it again, honestly and promisedly.

I'm in a high Covid area and a hospital manager. We are walking the thin line of treating people with routine and urgent conditions and being a Covid only service. The message from the top is 'business as usual' and we are trying to deliver this against a backdrop of public anxiety re:attending hospital, inaccessibility of primary care in some areas, staff shortages due to the virus, reduced capacity in most areas of the hospital due to social distancing restrictions, and now every third bed having a covid positive patient.

Once all the ITU beds are full (less than a week, we are planning), we will not be able to do major procedures that would require post op critical care. The NHS is not making a choice as to what kind of patients it sees, we simply can't do everything safely. It is not complying with the strict covid rules that will cause cancers to be missed, it is not complying.

Regarding the charts on the briefing last night that showed elderly people are once again becoming sick, I can absolutely see that. Ur elderly wards are flagging up new cases regularly.

However, my hospital is reporting on age profile of positive patients and we are seeing more younger people in hospital this time. It may be that these are people who have come in for a completely unrelated reason e.g. ortho trauma however we have been testing all new admissions to hospital since the end of March, so it's not like the testing is new. It is inconvenient for people to think that the virus affects 'people like me'.

Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan. It is possible, but govt don’t want to make big joined-up changes.

U.K. is testing loads but has no control over who is getting a test. There is clearly a lack of tests for the people who want it - which means it should be rationed by public health (people seen by medical professional - though maybe there is a lack here as well). Also, there is availability for private testing - so it is possible for govt to compulsory purchase.

@90sgirlx

I wish they would just say the truth. Some of you will have to catch it now because we can't stay locked down. So carry on and use your common sense. If people are scared to catch the virus then don't go to pubs and for days out etc. But if you are not too worried go out and be hygienic.

Surely there's no other way now? School bubbles in my town are shutting every day because one child has it. Then loads of kids can't attend school for two weeks. Then they all get thrown back in until another child tests positive.

With no vaccine and people having to get on with life to keep the world spinning cases are going to have to go up. Why doesn't he just let it happen now. Why does it benefit to keep stopping and starting? Stalling the inevitable.

I know he isn't able to predict the future. But he seemed pretty confident it was going to be 12 weeks to turn it around and well on our way back to normal by Christmas. Now everyone is masked up and it's still spreading. So are masks helping or is that another waste of time.

Not to mention the fact he lied about schools being safe and now they are dropping like flies.

Glad arsed efforts again from them all. It's all or nothing. Little limitations here and there won't do much at all.

I am not sure who you are talking about here. But it doesn’t apply to Chris Whitty. He never said it would be over in 12 weeks. He repeatedly told us this would be a problem for a long time. He never said anything was without risk. Again he emphasised this many times.

The consequences of allowing it to spread are fairly clear. It will cause cause the peak death toll we experienced in April for many many months. Shutting down business anyway because people won’t go out. The NHS will have no choice but to revert to dealing with critical care. Even that standard of care will slip and chances of survival will be much lower than at the moment. Eventually all schools will close and teaching capacity will be limited, online or otherwise. The well off will be most able to shield themselves from the impact. They can work from home and have resources and space to ride it out.

What we have is difficult and painful. What you propose is catastrophic and frankly inhuman.

@MythicalBiologicalFennel

Is tier 3 lockdown then? So if lockdown doesn't work, what does?

I think it's a fair question.

It's nowhere close to a lockdown. Schools, colleges, unis, shops, restaurants, food selling pubs all open.

I think 2 weeks total lockdown would have been awful but in some ways preferable to what we have now dragging on for weeks. Yes only kicking the can down the road but eases the pressure for a bit.

They just don't want to call it "lockdown" - they're letting the media do that. They dare not call it "lockdown" again, so they invented a new name for it: tier 3.

The strategy is beginning to look like herd immunity by stealth, but again, they dare not call it that, as it was discredited before.

No - Singapore is opening up. It opened border to some limited travellers from Malaysia in aug and are opening to other places in a measured way.

How is aus different from U.K. - especially populated regions like Victoria, NSW? Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong all have higher population density than U.K.. Hong Kong and Singapore are more dependent on imports than U.K....

asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Singapore-speeds-up-travel-restart-as-COVID-keeps-Malaysia-gripped

We do need to restrict infections. It’s not kicking the can down the road it’s preventing the nhs being overwhelmed. Don’t people worry that they will run out of beds and just stop admitting people? Even for non Covid reasons?

I don't understand all the 'just let it go' people. The maths of pandemics mean that without preventative measures the pace of doubling will increase. All except the most risk- loving will avoid all unnecessary economic activity. Hospitals will be overwhelmed with covid and those cancer deaths (1,200 additional deaths from last lockdown) and heart attacks will get worse as capacity dwindles.

So where the fuck does it leave us? Our Prime Minister announces a series of measures that are going to force entire businesses to close permanently (the financial support just isn’t enough to keep many functioning), and then our Chief Medical Officer helpfully adds that they won’t work.
Fab. Really gives you faith in the strategy, doesn’t it?