How is this going to pan out without a firebreak?

[Starlight101]

I’ve just listening to a sage scientist on the radio. He spoke a lot of sense. He basically said that even if every part of the country went into Tier 3 now then that wouldn’t bring the R rate below one. It might get it to one but it’s more likely to remain above one. So in 2-3 weeks we can expect 300-400 deaths a day due to the current amount of infection in the population. If the R rate remains at 1 then this will continue for months. In 10 days that’s 3000-4000 deaths, in 100 days (about 3 months) that’s 30000-40000 deaths.

A circuit breaker would likely half the infection levels thus halving all those numbers above. He agreed it’s also easier for track and trace to do their thing with smaller numbers involved.

How on Earth is this going to pan out without a circuit breaker. The numbers are shocking

Basically a 2 week national lockdown to bring down new infections to reduce strain on NHS and allegedly allow improvements to track and trace etc

@walksen

The government will need to do something sooner rather than later.

As a pp said in 2 weeks deaths will likely be in the 300 to 400 per day range and hospitals in the nw will be under real strain and there are months to go to spring. It doesn't seem likely that tier 3 will bring r down below 1 like it needs to. Perhaps they will have to introduce tier 4 and close shops in those areas.

What evidence have you seen that covid is transmitted in shops? Shutting down shops would not bring down numbers but cause even more people to lose their jobs.

Look at the numbers for other viruses and you’ll realise the numbers you say are shocking , are not in fact shocking

It's shortage of appointment slots, not vaccines. Just go to your local chemist.

No, it's vaccines. No local chemists offering it anymore unless you are over 65.

It's out of control.

In a few weeks when the numbers are scary, we'll all move to bullshit Tier 3.

Then when things get scarier a national lockdown but not schools as we are still pretending kids don't transmit it.

Then finally schools will have to close when they realise that with nothing else open the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DAILY MASS GATHERINGS WITH NO SOCIAL DISTANCING OR VENTILATION OR ADEQUATE HANDWASHING is funnily enough actually making a big difference.

But because of the lies and pretending, the schools will close abruptly with no warning and the online provision will suffer as a result.

But a circuit breaker will only reduce the infections for a few weeks. Before too long we will be back where we are now anyway. What’s the point? Had this genius from sage got any suggestions of something that will actually work instead of handwringing and moaning?

The vaccine will likely be given while still unlicensed and manufacturers will be immune from any liability. I won't be having it. This line in the government document does not fill me with confidence:

The government will look to ensure that, should an individual be harmed by a COVID-19 vaccine, they would receive the support they need

And winter and seasonal pressures happen every year. Yet here we are a few weeks into autumn and the NHS already being unable to cope? This is what people voted for. They are always telling us they knew what they voted for . This is it. An NHS which cannot cope with usual pressures let alone anything else on top. But after years of voting for it , it’s only now it’s a problem. Why is that?

Limping along to the Xmas school
Holiday. One month off school, limp along to easter. One month off school. Cancel GCSEs, vaccine.

You heard it here first.

I'm in tier 3. It honestly doesn't seem to make any difference to most people. It's hardly a lockdown. Most people are seeing family, and as someone said above the only places shut are the pubs not serving food.

@CountessFrog

Limping along to the Xmas school Holiday. One month off school, limp along to easter. One month off school. Cancel GCSEs, vaccine.

You heard it here first.

Is it wrong that I think this would be AMAZING?

"What evidence have you seen that covid is transmitted in shops?"

Come on now this is mumsnet. For a start every single person in a school who has been infected caught it in the shops, not at work!

Let it get too big then abruptly clamp down, I predict.

My 2 pence for what I think might sustainably suppress Covid-19.

Work that does not require specialist equipment or face-to-face contact must be done from home. Make that law. No more managers demanding workers be in the office without good reason.

Similar rules for university education. If it's not a lab or similar, it should be done remotely. (Having students attend en masse was the most idiotic decision so far). Students should be encouraged to live at their home address where possible. Universities working together to make their facilities cross-available could facilitate this, for example a student at Durham who lives in Birmingham could do lab classes at Birmingham University.

Reinstate 2 metre social distancing in all indoor spaces, and cut out the loopholes (eg aeroplanes). The "1 metre plus" thing is a confusing joke and leads to a lot of people not even giving that distance. Retailers to reinstate number restrictions - that's gone out of the window and shops are often overcrowded again.

Restrictions on high-risk hospitality businesses re-imposed.

Good financial support for businesses forced to close and their employees. But with greater controls to prevent businesses that are not affected from, frankly, putting their snout in the trough as happened with the original furlough scheme.

(I wonder, why not have a general pause on debt and rent repayments? I suspect that for many business, if they didn't have to pay wages, rents, and debts then they could be "mothballed" for some time.)

Primary and secondary education to be looked at long and hard. Disruption to education will have impacts for decades so this should be a last resort.

If the govt don’t manage to improve the failing test, trace and isolate system v soon (have not managed so far using outsourced private companies) the reduction of cases by a short lockdown will be undone within a month or so as cases will start to rise again. And the longer it is left until locking down the less help a short lockdown will provide as 2 weeks will not be long enough to get the numbers down sufficiently.

Surely the point of the lockdown in March was to move the peak of the epidemic into summer when there are fewer flu and pneumonia cases so that hospitals wouldn't be overwhelmed? So the point in locking down now would be...to move the peak into the middle of winter??

I'm hoping they'll do something about schools before we go back either masks for all at all times (except eating) for all secondaries or, for some years at secondary , moving to blended learning as both Professor Ferguson and Independent Sage have said.

My fear is they'll do nothing and we will need a panic lockdown to stop the NHS from being overwhelmed in mid November but they'll keep the schools open which will mean the lockdown will not work.

@SophieGiroux

The vaccine will likely be given while still unlicensed and manufacturers will be immune from any liability. I won't be having it. This line in the government document does not fill me with confidence:

The government will look to ensure that, should an individual be harmed by a COVID-19 vaccine, they would receive the support they need

Most people will not recieve it anyway for quite some time. The plan is to give the vaccine to less than half the UK population and in order of priority first www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-confusion-over-covid-19-vaccine-plans

The order of priority is set out here and is largely age based. Those under 50 who are not vulnerable are in group 11
www.gov.uk/government/publications/priority-groups-for-coronavirus-covid-19-vaccination-advice-from-the-jcvi-25-september-2020/jcvi-updated-interim-advice-on-priority-groups-for-covid-19-vaccination

@safariboot I like some of your ideas in particular reinstating 2m social distancing. I have never stopped following this but have noticed that since masks came in many people seem to no longer bother to keep their distance.
However I don’t agree about the university point. I think students should be allowed to stay in university halls with online lectures where possible. It would not be fair or practical to make students go to a completely different university for part of their course. The practical elements of my dcs course are only available at a few institutions in the country the nearest being 2 hours away. Already the normal university experience is greatly reduced through the lack of clubs and events as well as lack of face to face lectures. If they were to go back to living at home they would be more likely to infect their families given that many have jobs in bars etc and would still socialise but with local friends instead. University infection rates have plummeted in the hardest hit areas so either there is some herd immunity within student populations even if short term or measures brought in are beginning to work.

I haven't read the full thread but did no-one hear Patrick Vallance stating in the last press conference, when asked about when a vaccine might be available, that he did not think that would happen until Spring next year. He said there might be something available a bit earlier for key workers but that generally, we'd be waiting till Spring 2021 and even then he said there's no guarantee. So basically we're looking at a winter with no vaccine to bail us out, and even when it is available, it'll take months to work through the population, it won't be a quick fix. We're going to have to manage this virus by other means for several months yet.

All lockdowns do is push back the inevitable. Agreed they circuit breaker things but can realistically now only be used to stop overwhelming of our NHS.

I think our biggest issue is people being fed up of it all and people generally being selfish and lacking the concept of personal space . I agree with the pp re bring back the 2 metre rule because tbh no one is keeping their distance. At all. I have had 2 people get too close to be in places this week, me trying to move and they tried to touch me when saying sorry. Or reaching past me or bumping me to get to things.

When I caught corona I was in a close contact office and 75% of that office caught it and had time off. It spread fast and free, and I don’t think enough is being said about that.

@MadameBlobby

And winter and seasonal pressures happen every year. Yet here we are a few weeks into autumn and the NHS already being unable to cope? This is what people voted for. They are always telling us they knew what they voted for . This is it. An NHS which cannot cope with usual pressures let alone anything else on top. But after years of voting for it , it’s only now it’s a problem. Why is that?

People have been voting and lobbying for a NHS treatment service for decades. Even though whatever we spend it will not be enough. This has all come at the expense of effective public health and prevention. Whenever attempts are made to change this politicians will jump on the opposition bandwagon and line up a lot of well meaning idiots with banners to save the NHS or our hospital.

As to what we voted for there wasn’t anything on offer that was better. In 2010, labour (health minister Burnham) planned to freeze spending. Then and thereafter the Tories kept up and bested opposition spending pledges. Their actual vandalism was the Langsley reforms. What that did to public health functions is a significant part of mess today.

Who knows what's going to happen but worldometres have projections on there.

Stop all measures and they predict we are on the down slope in January ( so presuming some sort of hard immunity??) But at 5600k deaths a day

Not sure I want to see that.

I wish there was some sort of projections but with the data of how they do them

Source

Tiers are a joke. I’m in a Tier 2 and I do not know a single person- including those who were very strict about the original lockdown- that’s taking it seriously. And why the hell would they? They’re sending their kids to school everyday... which is patently so unsafe (because the schools are doing impossible work on stupid government guidelines) to anyone with eyes. Therefore it causes the public to say “fuck it then, if my kids can be in school, mixing with no SD I won’t not mix indoors with my parents/siblings/friends (two kids in primary and a secondary teacher with a secondary teacher DP so seeing this from all angles).

I just don’t see how the tiers will actually work.
I am in a tier three area and nothing has changed. We haven’t been able to see family inside for ages or meet up with more than your own household in the pub.
Yet our cases are rising every day and amongst the top in the country.
I agree people have become disillusioned with it all and just aren’t complying anymore.
There will come a point where more is needed but will people then decide to comply , probably not unless we start to see hospitals over run. Then it will be panic.