Why did the government lock down so long the first time?

[IheartNiles]

They’ve never bothered to explain this to the population. We were told 3 weeks in March. No one with any sense will trust that any future 2-3 week lockdown is going to finish on the date stated. If it’s enforced then an end date must be written into law.

The NHS (I work in a London hospital) was coping just fine by a month into the first lockdown - the wards had emptied and we were able to restart elective treatments. But for reasons unexplained to this day the government decided to extend locking down the country from 3 weeks to 4 months, with school children missing education for almost 6 months. It obviously wasn’t an elimination strategy as borders were kept open and then at the end people were encouraged to resume overseas travel.

If they’d stuck with occasional 2-3 week ‘circuit breakers’ at the beginning 1. The NHS would’ve coped 2. Business wouldn’t have gone under 3. We’d be closer to the talked about ‘herd immunity’ 4. year 10-13 education wouldn’t be fucked 5. people wouldn’t be utterly fucked off with it / terrified they’ll lose their jobs/home / mental health shot to pieces - and may have been more willing to comply.

Because they dithered and left it too late. Cases were eye wateringly high but because of the stupid "we don't need to test because we are so superior" they had no idea....

Oh and there is no herd immunity. They now know that any immunity only lasts about 6 months.

Agree - Sturgeon locked us down in March and stuff was still closed in July when the rates were as low as 10 new cases a day.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but she should have opened up again far more quickly, certainly by the start of May.

We were never told it would be a 3 week lockdown though. We were told it would be reviewed after 3 weeks. Which it was.

They said they’d review every 3 weeks. A lot of people clearly heard that as ‘it’ll only be for 3 weeks’ but that’s not what was said. I don’t think they gave any estimates of how long it’d last - feels like they had no idea.

First time round wasn't London the area to be very quickly affected? The NHS wasn't coping just fine in other areas after a month. There was no elective surgery in many areas of the country.

I dont think they ever promised the first lockdown would be 3 weeks, they said they would review it after 3 weeks.i expected it to be longer than 3 weeks but not as long as it actually was.
I'm cautious of the idea of a 2-3 week circuit breaker when it seemed 2-3 weeks wasnt anywhere sufficient last time.....
I think I could just about cope (mentally and financially) if there was a 2 week lockdown....but not if it was open to being extending . But I'm aware 2 weeks lockdown will be the straw that breaks the camels back for a lot if businesses and for peoples mh.

@WhyNotMe40 who knows it only lasts 6 months?

Who said it was going to be for 3 weeks, I followed all the news at that time and I don't remember there being a limit set

@WhyNotMe40

Because they dithered and left it too late. Cases were eye wateringly high but because of the stupid "we don't need to test because we are so superior" they had no idea....

But as I said, the hospitals had emptied out enough to resume elective procedures after the first month. So why then continue for 4 months? That would signal an elimination strategy. Fine- but to do that borders would have needed to be closed and stay closed until a vaccine or effective treatment or test and trace. Instead borders stayed open and people were encouraged to resume overseas travel, no test and trace working. Why all these about turns? Policy chopping and changing without explanation and people on here wonder why the public are increasingly non compliant.

@Youandmeareluckytobeus

First time round wasn't London the area to be very quickly affected? The NHS wasn't coping just fine in other areas after a month. There was no elective surgery in many areas of the country.

Oh other areas were also staffing empty hospitals. It just wasn’t talked about.

@WhyNotMe40

Oh and there is no herd immunity. They now know that any immunity only lasts about 6 months.

That’s not true at all. There have been very few cases of reinfection worldwide. Sure you may get it again but less severe and probably not for a year if it behaves like what it is- a Coronavirus.

Sturgeon said through the summer that she was pursuing a strategy of elimination.

Then when it became obvious that it was impossible to do this, she backtracked and said that she never actually meant eliminate, she meant keeping it to a low level which is just the same thing really. And the fact that numbers are rising again isn't Scotland following the same pattern as everyone else, it's all us Scottish people being naughty and not doing what Nicky decrees.

I think they were overly cautious first time around. They were very scared.

They won’t repeat it because it makes no sense any more.

Future lockdowns will be a month tops.

It was too late so each week late added x number of weeks to the lockdown. The whole circuit breaker needed to be 21st Sept to work apparently. So if they decide to wait until hospitals are overwhelmed again it will end up being a long time again.

That doesn’t look to be the case with the hospital admissions, this graph starts at the end of March. Where are your figs from?
www.travellingtabby.com/uk-coronavirus-tracker/

I agree OP. If the strategy was to allow the NHS to cope then it was coping and we could have opened up and sent kids back to school in May. As we know cases would have gone up again. So we could maybe have done another two weeks in August or the schools would have been shut anyway so natural break. It would have been summer so less colds/flu etc. Rather than shut everything down for so long and then the inevitable happens when we open back up slap bang at the start of flu season. Great idea!

The strategy never was elimination, that ship sailed at the beginning of March.

I suspect the theory was to get the numbers low enough to effectively track and trace and keep a stable hand on outbreaks. They fucked that up though.

Your hospital may have been quiet but the government were implementing lockdown at a national level without regional variations. Now it seems that northern areas should have stayed in lockdown longer and some areas never really experienced a decline.

Some things are incompetence and others are just down to dealing with a threat with very little information about how to handle it.

If there is no herd immunity there is no effective vaccine as the body cannot develop effective response so even more reason to only do short lockdowns as they are the way of life for decades!

More seriously I think the answer was in developing other systems. We still not get community testing until June and no attempt and track or trace until a similar time frame? Nightingale hospitals and ppe too? Basically they could have done better but they did build an infrastructure in March we did have before and I think that was always going to take more than a month.

They did muck up the school reopening as they gave the public the impression that schools should be one of the last things to open and therefore logically one of the first things to shut hence the general mumsnet obsession with shutting them which doesn’t seem to happen in European countries that did a much wider re-opening of education before the summer (I am thinking of Germany, Belgium, Denmark here Spain and Italy did the same as us and also seem to be keener on school closures going forward there is def a pattern!)

Having said that I don’t remotely believe another lockdown will only be for three weeks and if I don’t you can bet a lot of the public share that view it will make public compliance much harder as it’s not “do this for a short time” but “do this for an indefinite time”. I think very pro lockdown people don’t always realise how important general public voluntary compliance is there is only so much non compliance the police can police do dealing with this scepticism about length is actually pretty important going forward. Maybe writing a date into legislation would help?

Fear. People were still terrified in May.

I heart, we had to wait till late September for my dd to get seen for her teeth, an appointment put off since May?
Aretha you sure that every hospital had emptied out enough to carry on as normal?

@ResplendentAutumn

I heart, we had to wait till late September for my dd to get seen for her teeth, an appointment put off since May? Aretha you sure that every hospital had emptied out enough to carry on as normal?

Most dentists don’t work out of hospitals. Non emergency dental work was halted because of the amount of PPE it would have needed due to AGPs. So could only restart once PPE stocks allowed.

Q, how could they write a date into legislation, when for all we know, the virus could be worse than ever, about to explode with winter?

I am sure they don't want to totally shut us down, which is why there are supposed to be specific area lock downs.
But once again they have lost control and there is no test and trace back up.
I agree with the scientist who said short lock downs around school holidays. Keep us treading water until better weather and the break through!
I'm sure there will be a break through.... It's just buying time till that moment.

"? No, it was definitely a hospital consultant.... And still is, we were then supposed to get a follow up shortly after and we have to wait another 2 months!

Orthodontics.