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.

@Harehedge No we haven't established that. Much more research is needed.

Given millions have caught it and reinfection levels are super super low then the evidence is in front of us no?

Anyway I can’t get drawn into this rabbit hole again. Time will tell.

[quote Bool]@GoldenOmber I think you are confusing individual level protection with community level protection. I am talking community level protection. Of course at an individual level measles once caught it vaccination against can’t be caught again. But at a community level outbreaks can happen whether herd immunity has happened through vaccination or through natural immunity.[/quote]
Measles cases per year in U.K., before vaccine:

1957 633,678
1958 259,308
1959 539,524
1960 159,364
1961 763,531

Measles cases in the U.K. per year, after widespread vaccination:

2013 6,193
2014 1,850
2015 1,193
2016 1,641
2017 1,693

Can you really not see a difference here in the numbers we get with natural infection and the numbers we get with vaccination?

Argh, that formatting messed up! Trying again:

Measles cases per year in U.K., before vaccine:

1957 - 633,678
1958 - 259,308
1959 - 539,524
1960 - 159,364
1961 - 763,531

Measles cases in the U.K. per year, after widespread vaccination:

2013 - 6,193
2014 - 1,850
2015 - 1,193
2016 - 1,641
2017 - 1,693

@Bool

Anyway I have been saying this since March and keep getting told I am wrong. And then the Great Barrington paper came out and I breathed a sigh of relief. Anyway time will tell. We will simply see now how badly different areas get hit and my prediction is that London will cope well because it already has a level of herd immunity.

I'm quite sure the Barrington proposal has been discredited by the majority of the medical and scientific community.

My London borough has a population of 232,000. To date we have had 403 deaths from covid. We haven't got an accurate number of confirmed cases but safe to assume a large part of the population has been infected at some point. The latest figures show we have a rate of 116 per 100,000 infected so not high but far from below average. I for one am not reassured that we have any such herd immunity.

@mrshoho I'm quite sure the Barrington proposal has been discredited by the majority of the medical and scientific community.

Are you? It has been discredited by PPE student Matt Hancock. The paper was WRITTEN by scientists.

Honestly tho I have to stay off these threads because we just end up going round in circles.

@mrshoho nobody has said we have herd immunity in London. That would mean 65% of people having caught it and nobody thinks that! That wasn’t what was being said. The discussion was that there is some level of protection.

@GoldenOmber I am really lost now on what you are trying to prove honestly. Nobody is debating that the measles vaccine means fewer cases of measles. Am lost. That is not what anyone said.

[quote Bool]@GoldenOmber I am really lost now on what you are trying to prove honestly. Nobody is debating that the measles vaccine means fewer cases of measles. Am lost. That is not what anyone said.[/quote]
Sigh. Okay, let’s try it this way:

If we go for ‘natural herd immunity’ with Covid, we will end up with the situation we had with measles - and polio, smallpox, mumps, and so on. That means lots and lots and lots and lots of people will get Covid, every year.

You can call that ‘herd immunity’ if you like I suppose, but you’re going to struggle to convince people that 500,000 cases per year equals ‘community level protection’.

[quote Bool]@mrshoho nobody has said we have herd immunity in London. That would mean 65% of people having caught it and nobody thinks that! That wasn’t what was being said. The discussion was that there is some level of protection.[/quote]
You are contracting yourself. If you re read your above post you said your prediction is that London has a level of herd immunity.

[quote Bool]**@mrshoho* I'm quite sure the Barrington proposal has been discredited by the majority of the medical and scientific community.*

Are you? It has been discredited by PPE student Matt Hancock. The paper was WRITTEN by scientists.

Honestly tho I have to stay off these threads because we just end up going round in circles.[/quote]
Yeah, ‘scientists’ like ‘Dr I P Freely’ and ‘Dr Person Fakename’, because anyone can sign it.

There are a small number of scientists that think this is a great idea. There are many more who think it’s a very bad idea, and also totally unworkable.

[quote Bool]**@mrshoho* I'm quite sure the Barrington proposal has been discredited by the majority of the medical and scientific community.*

Are you? It has been discredited by PPE student Matt Hancock. The paper was WRITTEN by scientists.

Honestly tho I have to stay off these threads because we just end up going round in circles.[/quote]
Oh dear maybe you should look again. I never mentioned Matt Hancock who is neither a scientist or a medical profession. The Barrington proposal has already been pulled apart as completely unworkable.

Schools lost 14 weeks of teaching time not six months.

*contradicting

"The peak of admissions was around the end of April when thankfully these levelled off and slowly reduced."

Actually the peak of admissions was April 1st.

"Oh dear maybe you should look again. I never mentioned Matt Hancock who is neither a scientist or a medical profession. The Barrington proposal has already been pulled apart as completely unworkable."

It has been pulled apart by the 'experts' who disagree with it and has been supported by those who agree with it.

Hot news: scientific opinions differ. Though sometimes I wonder if the Government realise that.

I would question why, if the arguments against Barrington are so strong, why it would be necessary to attempt to discredit it by adding a lot of silly names to it.

@Pixxie7 has it right. It's just shambolic.

@amicissimma

I would question why, if the arguments against Barrington are so strong, why it would be necessary to attempt to discredit it by adding a lot of silly names to it.

I wouldn't necessarily assume 'desperate establishment plot to discredit something by pretending to be Dr I P Freely', when 'bored teenager' would suffice. Any 'declaration' with a lot of publicity where anyone can sign whatever name they like would I suspect get the same result - it's why the gov.uk petitions site has some actual checks in place.

You can call that ‘herd immunity’ if you like I suppose, but you’re going to struggle to convince people that 500,000 cases per year equals ‘community level protection’

Even at a death rate of 1% that's only 5000 deaths a year. Less then flu... Is that not acceptable for a virus?

@Notselfish

Good post Qasd

I've found mumsnet generally to be lockdown obsessed. They love it.

What they don't realise is that last time, people were scared, so they complied.

This time, apart from those who are vulnerable, or those in secure jobs, no one wants it again. People are more scared of lockdown ruining their lives than they are the virus.

I have no idea where this fiction that people in secure jobs favour lockdown comes from. I have a job that is far more secure than I'd care to think - I literally volunteered to go and was refused! I do not want another lockdown, and I have no expectation that a lockdown will have any effect at all. I manage over 200 people - all of whom were given the choice of taking redundancy in recent weeks and didn't apply, so very secure. None of them wants a lockdown. Quite the reverse.

And maybe some vulnerable people wat one - well (a) there are quite a few who don't and wan their lives to mean more than they do now, even with the risk, and (b) nothing at all is stopping them having their very own lockdown - just shut the front door and don't come out.

However, to answer the question about why it was a long lockdown - Dominic wasn't sure when he'd want to visit Durham, but wanted to ensure that the motorways were empty.

The Barrington proposal has already been pulled apart as completely unworkable.

No it hasn't. There is no irrefutable proof that it will work. There is no irrefutable proof it won't. Mud slinging and hysterical allegations do not constitute scientific endeavour. There is still far from enough evidence of anything to be certain what will work and what won't, or what it might entail. Although there's a growing body of evidence that the current strategies to manage the virus resemble nothing more than pissing up a wall.

One observation that I will make though - when the UK governments scientific advisors were running around like headless chickens in March, predicting 200,000+ deaths this year from Covid (remember those headlines anyone), an expert epidemiologist from Oxford pointed out that their figures were almost certainly wrong and that based on her own workings, the actual figures were in the region of 50,000 - she actually said 30,000 - 60,000. She didn't say that was ok or acceptable - just that the figures being flung around were almost certainly wildly wrong. She even pointed out where they had made the errors in calculation. She was savaged by the UK government, the media and their scientists. It was made personal, and very much a case of "the little lady hasn't a clue and should go away". That Professor was correct - take a look at the figures and there is your proof. And she also happens to be one of the three main signatories to the Barrington agreement.

It may be that strategies based on other scientific models won't work. It might be that they will work as well. Or they might work even better. Whilst the real debate is stifled by absolutes, it is impossible to tell. But it is bloody certain that what we are doing now isn't working, and maybe the majority of Mumsnet think that searching for the guilty, or victim blaming those who simply cannot face this any longer is a new fun game for keyboard warriors. But it is certain that what we have already done has not controlled the virus, it has destroyed our economy, and it has seriously damaged the educational, social, physical and mental health of vast swathes of the country. How the hell is even more of that OK?

wasn't it predicted 200,000 if we didn't lockdown? We've had 40,000 deaths and that's after lockdowns that brought the infection cases right down.

The Barrington proposal would be far more credible if it didn't just focus on the 'economic' but also took account of available science that is widely available but is ignored in the West.

It says a lot that they don't. It's almost like they don't know that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and that it didn't have to be this way. Maybe the rich and powerful can see that the natives are getting restless and are pretending to be on their side. Who knows.

If you look at the explanations of mechanisms freely available on YouTube from medcram, drbeen, John Campbell, peak prosperity and their referencing of research (largely in 2nd world countries) it is quite easy to see that disease severity and death is hugely impacted by prophylactics and therapeutics administered early in the disease process. Eg vitamin d, zinc, NAC, melatonin, steroids, anticoagulants, ivermectin etc. The MATH+ protocol. These are all cheaply available but you won't get them in the UK.

Instead we have lockdown, circuit breakers, wait for a vaccine or, if you are unlucky/lucky, ventilation and hugely expensive but largely ineffective drugs like Remdisiver when you are at deaths door.

If the aim is to lower severe illness and death, protect the economy and prevent the health service from being overwhelmed (including routine and additional physical and mental health issues) this is failing on all counts.

But on the plus side the housing market is booming and billionaires are richer.

I remember back then people talking about it being 3 weeks and the majority who understood it correctly explaining that was just when it was going to be reviewed - clearly still not everyone grasped that!