France considering a four week lockdown, possibly Germany too

[Redolent]

Lots of speculation about what this might involve in France - Guardian is reporting closure of all pubs and restaurants, but still keeping schools open. Or maybe closing secondary schools and keeping primary ones open. Announcement due today.

In Germany it’s being billed as a light November lockdown: schools stay open, pubs close, restaurants takeaway only etc

We’re normally a couple of weeks behind. Do you think nationwide action in other European countries will make it more likely here? Are we going to have ‘lockdown to save Christmas‘, or just more more tiers?

@EarlySignsOfSpring

How did Germany achieve such a comparatively low death rate?

As well as testing, they have a lot more intensive care beds so they were available to admit more people and sooner, so they had a higher survival rate.

UK had spare ICU beds to and at least three unused hospitals. We can only hope for the same this winter...

I’m just outside Paris and I’m dreading this announcement! Although saying that, despite trying to avoid it and having done so successfully thus far, I’ve just spent all weekend feeling crap and this morning I received confirmation of a positive test so it is truly rampant! That is despite all the widespread mask wearing, evening curfews, social distancing and other restrictions under which we are all living.

@Lostinacloud

I’m just outside Paris and I’m dreading this announcement! Although saying that, despite trying to avoid it and having done so successfully thus far, I’ve just spent all weekend feeling crap and this morning I received confirmation of a positive test so it is truly rampant! That is despite all the widespread mask wearing, evening curfews, social distancing and other restrictions under which we are all living.

Sorry you’re feeling crap, best wishes for a swift and complete recovery.

You mention all the restrictions.... do you have any idea how you caught it?

@Friendsoftheearth

UK had spare ICU beds to and at least three unused hospitals. We can only hope for the same this winter...

There are 1,257 hospitals in the UK. Some of them were very close to being overwhelmed last time around.

Having had 3 unused, but more importantly, unstaffed hospitals last time really isn't relevant to how well we are going to be able to cope this time around.

Thank you @PuzzledObserver

I think I am hopefully over the worst now as feeling better in myself and glad the cracking headache has gone. Got zero sense of smell or taste which is very odd when I don’t have a bunged up nose to go with it!

My DH got ill first and he commutes into and works in the city. He has to wear a mask from the minute he walks towards the train station, on the train, the whole day in work and all the way back again and he is a fastidious hand washer. However, he has been able to continue playing his team sport and I suspect that is where he picked it up.

Although the sport is played outside so should technically be less risky. I don’t think we can be sure but I am pretty sure he brought it into the house and I caught it before we knew he was ill.

Germany has announced its lockdown

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54716993

They are acting early to prevent major increases, and seem to be fully expecting everyone to do their bit as it's a national effort

Any MNetters in Germany able to say what the public reaction has been like, and if many people are saying they won't comply (or will do their own assessment)?

In der Öffentlichkeit sollen sich nur noch maximal zehn Menschen aus dem eigenen und einem zweiten Hausstand gemeinsam aufhalten dürfen. Veranstaltungen werden gestrichen und Zuschauer in der Bundesliga wieder verboten. Offen bleiben sollen Schulen, Kindergärten, der Groß- und Einzelhandel sowie Friseurläden

They will reduce the number of people meeting inside to max 10 people from two households - less strict than in most of UK now.

They will keep schools, all shops and hairdressers open.

So not that restrictive at all, really!

I think the majority of people are against the new restrictions.

Oh sorry about the German. I also hadn't realised that the BBC had spread summarised the key points.

*Personally I think we should have had a further lockdown over half term plus two weeks

I think we need a short sharp 4 weeks now schools remain open as far as possible, but everything else to shut as before*

I agree we do need a short, sharp lockdown... I do wonder if this can be truly effective with schools remaining open though.

@Aquamarine1029

I think the half-arsed lockdowns are pointless, and full lockdowns are finacially ruinous. At this point I throw my hands on the air because I can't see a workable solution.

There needs to be enough measures to stop hospitals being completely full while more and more people get ill. That's the main fear. The NHS doesn't cope in the winter in a normal flu season, let alone a pandemic.

The longer you delay lockdown the worse it gets and the longer it takes to get a grip on it. We were the last country in lockdown end of March and one of the last to come out of it.

My home country (Ireland) has indeed gone back into hard lockdown for six weeks. Even the Irish Government estimates the cost of this to be 1.2 billion euro and over 100,000 unemployed, and that's in a country with a tenth of the UK's population...and I can't see how this will be the last lockdown if they keep pursuing a suppression strategy, but then I also can't see how they could afford do this a third time. For once I'm actually relieved to live in England . People who favour so-called circuit breakers need to accept that they will need to happen every few months well into next spring, with ever declining compliance as fatigue deepens. Its not a remotely sustainable solution.

I kind of wish we'd just accept that we're never going to "get a grip" of it. If no European country managed it six months ago, with very long lockdowns in favourable seasonal conditions (late spring / early summer), half the population in a state of utter panic and surprisingly high rates of popular compliance, then we're not going to manage it now , when we can't afford another interminable shutdown, The Fear has long since peaked and everyone is weary of it all.

Just heard from my Mum
who lives alone in France, she is so depressed at this new lockdown. It comes into effect first thing Friday so not even enough time for her to get a flight here (and flights keep getting cancelled anyway so even if she got herself to the airport there's no guarantee she could get here)

@SexTrainGlue

Germany is in such a different position to us - 156.2 cases per 100,000 with deaths 0.6, so is presumably acting now to ensure they don't see the substantial rises happening across Europ.

France is on 659.9 cases per 100,000 with 3.9 deaths

UK 424.1 and 3.5

(Source ECDC rolling 14 day figures)

Wondering why our deaths are higher in proportion compared to France?

Different strain? Not such effective treatments? Older infected population? Shambolic testing??

@wondersun Our official figures are far lower than actual cases suggested on sampling, so that might help explain the higher number of deaths,

Johnson was advised to lock down for 2 poss 3 weeks in September, he ignored this, so now we will face a longer protracted lock down, lasting months, not a national lockdown but one that incompasses all the major population areas so a national one in all but name.

UK has far fewer ICU beds than almost all other EU countries per capita, so we are overwhelmed far sooner albeit not seen to be because we stop other treatments/keep folk at home to die.

Aside, given the UK is a global transport & educational hub..... why are we always 2/3 weeks behind countries that are not? or is it more BS?

Utter madness.

I'm ROI our lockdown is really strict, lidl are stopping non essential, special buys 😱😱😱

It will be very interesting to see if lockdown works with schools open.

My worry is that it won't be effective (or at least not very effective) unless schools are also shut. Which means that a huge amount of money wasted, jobs lost and lives adversely affected for something that doesn't even work well. It also means that other countries decide to close schools as well as everything else when deciding on second lockdowns.

I honestly don't know whether it's better to have no lockdown at all or full lockdown. But I'm not convinced that 'lockdown except for schools' can work. I hope it does.

@jasjas1973

Johnson was advised to lock down for 2 poss 3 weeks in September, he ignored this, so now we will face a longer protracted lock down, lasting months, not a national lockdown but one that incompasses all the major population areas so a national one in all but name.

UK has far fewer ICU beds than almost all other EU countries per capita, so we are overwhelmed far sooner albeit not seen to be because we stop other treatments/keep folk at home to die.

Aside, given the UK is a global transport & educational hub..... why are we always 2/3 weeks behind countries that are not? or is it more BS?

We will lockdown but it'll be too late again. Rather than 2 or 3 weeks around half term to get things back under control, we'll be stuck for winter again and the hospitals will be chaos.

France has announced their lockdown now. Surely it’s a hell of a risk for the UK not to have one when everyone else is? If our cases just go up and up the blame is going to be squarely with Boris.

Does anyone think we will be getting one but a few weeks late as usual?

I agree we do need a short, sharp lockdown... I do wonder if this can be truly effective with schools remaining open though.

Should have locked-down during an extended half term (2-3 weeks). Too late now.

@Ijustcantcope

France has announced their lockdown now. Surely it’s a hell of a risk for the UK not to have one when everyone else is? If our cases just go up and up the blame is going to be squarely with Boris.

Does anyone think we will be getting one but a few weeks late as usual?

Of course we will. We'll dilly and dally and Boris will leave it until it's untenable (probably when a major city runs out of hospital beds or the death rate is pushing 1000 a day again) and it'll take much longer to get under control than it will in countries who act in time.

Boris has bet the house on this tier system when short of shutting a few pubs, none of the rules are being paid any attention to all. It's a farce.