Two week circuit breaker - who's in favour?

[zafferana]

Keir Starmer is in favour - so are you?

If they did it over the next two weeks I actually wouldn't mind that much, as it's half term.

Many PPs are against circuit break because they don’t want schools to close. But Keir Starmer suggested to keep schools open during circuit break and only move universities and colleges online, and they are on reduced timetable and mostly online anyway.

People are dying because they're not getting the treatments they need for cancer, heart disease etc.
It’s exactly why I’m in favour of 2 weeks circuit break. Otherwise NHS will be completely overwhelmed in a month time.

There is little point, it won't be short at all because it's at least a month later than Sage suggested and they won't put in place effective test trace and supported isolation afterwards so it's just an endless cycle that costs the working public jobs and helps drive the UK population down where the rich bastards controlling the Tory's want it. Where we will be grateful for any job, no matter how poorly paid and exploitative

Selfishly, I do not want an Oct half term lockdown as we've planned some university campus visits and my DD desperately needs some glimmer of her possible future next year. And I feel for the self catering industry who are no doubt fully booked for half term, plus hospitality businesses. October is often still nice enough that you can enjoy an outdoor coffee in your coat or fish and chips along the coast, so people can still holiday and be sensible.

It’s exactly why we need a circuit break to stop people travelling and holidaying. It sounds nice but yes, it’s selfish. My DD desperately need a glimmer of her possible future next year in a college as well but we are in the middle of pandemic so unfortunately life can’t be as usual.

Track and trace is not coping with the amount of cases. We won’t be able to carry on like this for much longer.

I might be more in favour if Harding and Hancock were sacked and replaced people who might at least give the impression that they know what they’re doing.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54527400
But an expert said circuit breaker lockdowns were "doomed to failure" and would bring "cost without benefit".

Dr Roland Salmon, former director of communicable diseases at Public Health Wales, said it will not suppress the virus.
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But Dr Salmon said any short-term measures lasting between two and three weeks would not be long enough to prevent the spread of Covid-19 from households where people are infectious but do not show symptoms.

"I simply don't think a circuit breaker will work," he said.
"It won't work because even Sage (UK government Scientific Advisory Committee for Emergencies) in its consideration thought it would only delay matters, not supress the virus altogether."
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The retired epidemiologist, who led the response to the E-coli outbreak in south Wales in 2005, believes governments should "rethink the whole model"
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His view was echoed by Prof Dale Andrew Fisher, who specialises in infectious diseases at the National University Hospital, Singapore, and is part of the World Health Organisation's outbreak alert and response network.
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He said circuit breakers were a short-term fix and were not "sustainable".
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"It needs to be part of a strategy, not 'lets do a circuit breaker, numbers are down, let's open up again'."

I think it's very odd to say it's an anti-science stance to not be pro lockdown.

I just think if they haven't sorted things in 6 months I can't see what they'd do with two weeks and even here there's talk already of three weeks being needed and I can just see that getting longer and longer. I'm not hearing much beyond circit break as if that was the plan.

Given the weedy track and trace system we may have no choice but a short full lock down. Would the government use that time to get track and trace properly organised? - probably not, given their track record.

What a balls-up.

I’m sure everyone would support a circuit breaker or even another full lockdown if it was guaranteed to work- but we now know that at best it’s kicks the can down the road a little

Do it’s pretty pointless

We can’t ‘control’ the virus any more than we can control the weather

Would travel cease? As you’d have to stop people taking the chance to go somewhere nicer.

It’s about the numbers for me

Hospital cut by half good but what is the upper capacity for that time period?

Also 19,900 to 12,100 is ok but we’ve reached high numbers before now so I’d look at hospital capacity mostly

Then weigh up with economic damage

If they were going to get the Test and Trace system in working order during a circuit break I'd be in favour.

But it's bloody obvious that they're going to do no such thing - they won't do anything - will they? It's all on us.

So no - I'm definitely not in favour.

Moving unis to online will make little difference, it's much more likely that students are spreading the infection socially, not in busy lecture theatres.

Many businesses who survived first one have been talking about not being able to do so for second (on R4 / LBC)

@PracticingPerson
Well, yes it will nip it in the bud and stop it climbing for now which is all we've fucking well got
Lockdown comes at huge cost, not just economically but to people's relationships, health (mental and physical) and quality of life. The default shouldn't be to lockdown because we don't have a long-term, workable solution yet. The burden of proof should rest with those that want a lockdown to evidence how shutting down the country will have a meaningful long term positive impact across a wide range of measures for a significant proportion of the population.

Doing something or doing nothing are our options. The people who want to do nothing are wrong-headed. The numbers are bad
We are already doing "something". We wear uncomfortable and restrictive masks in public places, many are seriously constrained on how they can see their family and friends and businesses have been forced to put in a whole range of measures to make sure they're "covid secure". We have a curfew in place and schools and universities are operating under the constant threat of shutdown if a pupil (who is overwhelmingly unlikely to be badly effected by covid) happens to contract the virus. We can't go on holiday to most countries without facing a two week quarantine and many can't leave their local area. To describe all of the above as "nothing" is beyond ridiculous and completely belittles the great sacrifices people have already made to tackle a virus where the overwhelming majority of the population know that the odds are very much in their favour in terms of whether they will get seriously ill or die from covid.

All those measures aren't enough though are they? You don't want "something", you want complete lockdown. Let's be honest now too, not just for a fortnight as that would simply delay the inevitable. You would want more circuit breaking lockdowns whenever numbers start to escalate. It isn't sustainable and it isn't effective in the long-term.

Covid and other viruses bring carnage, they are a natural phenomenon that we are not advanced enough as a society to combat effectively yet.

No I wouldn't support it despite being happier than some to live with tighter restrictions (no household mixing though with support bubbles absolutely allowed, masks mandatory outdoors in urban areas etc.) More localised, targeted, short-term shutdowns through the new tiered system is the right approach. Not true to say track and trace is a shambles everywhere, our local authority here in Cumbria seem to have been doing a good job.

People need to live a life with purpose. Get an education, go to work if they possibly can. I don't believe a circuit breaker would last two weeks, more like until Christmas. My DCs attend a primary made in to an academy last year due to a poor Ofsted inspection, the new Trust are turning things around. Attendance this term is right up, no positive cases in school, many improvements made to the school building, my Year 6 DDs anxiety which developed through being off school is getting better. .

Why shut down non essential retail when it's low risk and an important time of year for those businesses who need Christmas shoppers in. Everyone then piles to the supermarkets instead to strip the shelves and essential grocery shopping becomes a nightmare again. Food deliveries for the entire population not realistic.

The thought of returning to the days of people locally walking round and round on the streets for 'daily exercise', competitive clapping on a Thursday night, god no.

Look at these two groups of numbers and see if you can work out which is bigger. When it comes to hospitalisations, big numbers in the middle of winter are bad and little numbers are good. If I sound frustrated, I am

A: 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400, 12800, 25600, 51200, 102400 = 204,600

B: 200, 400, 400, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400, 12800, 25600 = 51,800

But winter doesn't end in 10 weeks. More like 18-20 weeks. So what happens is in your scenario B, Jan and Feb see the 51200, 102400, 204800, etc. figures. That's why people are asking what the point is.

That fact that the UK has seen such a quick and large second wave is a sign that it came out of lockdown too quickly or didn't implement and/or actually follow strict enough control measures once it did so. Yes, other countries made this same mistake, but plenty did not. Saying "but Spain fucked up too look at them see look" doesn't alter that fact.

So then it comes down to a new lockdown only really achieving anything if the government and we the people do better post-lockdown than we did last time. That we do something differently to avoid the exact same thing happening all over again, but with a 28-day delay.

And that is where the "it's pointless" crowd come in. Because people have absolutely no belief in that. The government's handling of the whole thing has been such a shambles, nobody has any hope that they would do anything better if they have another shot at it.

I think a two week circuit breaker makes sense when you use that time to shift track and trace into the hands of local authorities. If there is room to get on top of transmission via this route before the flu season kicks then this will be the only chance to do that. It might be the only window left to keep the virus subdued enough to protect the Christmas gold rush for the retail sector and also to avoid a reactive shut down when the hospitals become overwhelmed.

I'm just glad I don't have to make these decisions.

@FourTeaFallOut
I think a two week circuit breaker makes sense when you use that time to shift track and trace into the hands of local authorities. If there is room to get on top of transmission via this route before the flu season kicks then this will be the only chance to do that. It might be the only window left to keep the virus subdued enough to protect the Christmas gold rush for the retail sector and also to avoid a reactive shut down when the hospitals become overwhelmed
Track and Trace isn't going to be the gold bullet for a disease that is so established, wide ranging and most importantly often asymptomatic. If you don't even know you have Covid then how can you trigger the system so your contacts can be traced? Until testing is rapid and widely available to everyone then I don't think we should put too much hope in T&T, no matter how effectively the system is (or isn't) when enacted.

I didn't suggest it would be a golden bullet. It's simply one of the few practical opportunities to make a difference. Germany, who handed over the track and trace system to the local authorities - rather that to a centralised private company, is doing much better but of course - it's not going to drive the virus into the ground.

But it might be enough to tip the scales in our favour. Given the right resources, local systems could reach far more contacts and reach the asymptomatic carriers who are driving the spread.

Academic behind startling 'circuit breaker' study which found half-term lockdown could save up to 100,000 lives by New Year admit their death figures are wildly over-estimated and say they wish they'd never used them

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8838727/Academics-circuit-breaker-study-admit-death-figures-estimated.html

Professor Keeling told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning: 'I really, really wish I hadn't put these numbers in the paper because they were there for illustration.

'We looked at a range of different scenarios from a relatively low growth rate going forward where we might reduce deaths by a third between now and new year to some extreme scenarios, which I think are the ones that have been quoted in the papers, which really were 'what happens if we don't do anything?' between now and the new year.'

At the risk of being heartless, practically speaking, death rates aren't a very useful figure in assessing the pressure being applied to NHS services and I don't think it will be the figure used to trigger either circuit breakers or lockdowns.

If I believed it would be for 2 weeks and over half term then yes. But they’re already talking about 2-3 weeks and 3-4 weeks so it’s not even happening yet and the amount of time is already going up!

If we lockdown at half term, we’ll be in it til January I’m telling you, with 3 week carrots being dangled in front of our noses to try to keep us all on board with it.

@Bumpitybumper What "Curfew"? - pubs closing at 10pm is not curfew is it, that would be everyone off the streets and in by 10pm.

The government specifically call it a curfew, so that's the language we use.

@Rosehip10
It's widely regarded as a form of curfew by the media and I would agree with them. Sure, technically people could be legally pacing the streets late at night, but realistically it has focussed on the activities that people are most likely to be doing late at night outside of the house. With lots of people not allowed to visit friends and families in their homes and the nights drawing in and weather preventing people meeting up in gardens then realistically for many people the combination of current restrictions limits their ability to leave their house at night.

You can see here they don't seem to work locally so not sure why would nationally

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54239538

I’d be happy to lockdown till January if the kids school could make distance learning work. Mine really struggle with it though and I can’t see how to help them.. The lockdown at home without the school worry is easy for us.