Lockdown in England from next week **title edited by MNHQ**

[Velvetpeel]

The Times is reporting that we are headed for a month long lockdown until Dec 1st.
No details yet...
Why do they always announce things on the drip feed - makes it all even more stressful

*Abracadabra

So the worst happened, you are vulnerable and despite all your best efforts, caught Covid. Has it been as bad as you feared?*

It was a moderate case. I have had breathing difficulties, tight chest, cough, leg pains, etc. It felt very much like when I had pneumonia several years ago, similar symptoms, similar level of being ill.

The worst complication, which involved hospital admission, was that my blood pressure went dangerously high, really high, level 3 hypertension crisis as well as having a rapid heart rate. I had a cat 2 ambulance called due to the increased risk of heart attack or stroke, plus concerns about a clot of my lungs.

Medication and hospital treatment has this controlled at present to stage 1. It's still too high so meds may well need upping and quite likely it will be ongoing medication now for good. I've just spent the last 72 hours wearing a heart monitor to check that too.

I can now go for a steady slow walk. I'm still out of breath going up stairs but manageable. I get a tight chest still. The cough has subsided as have the leg pains. My blood pressure isn't dangerously high now, just high.

I'll be off work/school for at least a month, depending on that happens at the GP surgery next week.

So it's not been really bad, moderate in the end, but with ongoing issues which may stay with me for good.

Let's hope I have some immunity ready for returning to school, back to teaching a ton of kids across school with no SDing etc. I don't want this again and the new complications means I tick even more boxes for being vulnerable, on top of the previous ones.

@Sunflowers246

How do people not understand that the whole reason schools can stay open is because we sacrifice other freedoms?? Does your rampant desire to go to the gym or the pub or dorothy bloody perkins outweigh the educational, emotional and mental positives of your children still being able to go to school?

Exactly.

We're making sacrifices in other areas SO THAT schools can stay open!

If levels of the virus reach levels that are too high, cases in the community are reflected in cases in the classroom.

Schools shut anyway.

A lot of people are failing to realise the extent of closures in some places in the North.

For example Knowsley council reported that just before half term a third of secondary pupils were off. This borough is one of the most deprieved in the country. Some kids have been sent home three times in a single half term. Meanwhile elsewhere in the country schools have not been affected. In terms of fairness for exams this is a massive issue.

So the idea that schools can stay open if we continue as we are is a bit of a false one anyway. There is an inevitability in school closures if something isn't done.

Having said that i have my doubts about the level of compliance there will be with a second lockdown.

I think ultimately whether or not we like it we will see widespread school closures regardless of whether schools are allowed to stay open or not.

Realistically since school bubble closures are having a massive effect on absence at work for nhs staff, i think this is where the deciding factor will be - the better option for the nhs will be to limit the risk of staff absences by returning to key worker children only in school - at least in some areas of the country.

For this reason i believe that ultimately it wont be a choice about schools, it will be a necessity and Johnson will uturn. It will be an admission of failure especially if other countries do keep schools open but it will be spun about it being the nhs and it won't be a choice but an option of last resort. And i fear we are likely to reach that point regardless of what we do, so a managed national lockdown is likely to be the better option rather than the chaos of just carrying on.

@Completmentfille

Does your rampant desire to go to the gym or the pub or dorothy bloody perkins outweigh the educational, emotional and mental positives of your children still being able to go to school?

Some people don't have kids, yet you're expecting them to sacrifice seeing their family for months on end so that your kids can attend school.

This is just such a pathetic argument anyway and always comes down to someone wanting to feel morally superior for wanting to keeping schools open and suggesting anyone who likes the pub doesn't give a damn about corona/schools/blablabla.

But believe it or not the mental health of adults is important as well. Just as much as children. I'd suggest children aren't going to do well with great swathes of their adult relatives struggling horrendously with MH issues.

My area is tier 1 and less than 20 people with COVID are currently in our city hospital. I do not want a national lockdown, there is too much suffering, economic damage and negative health impacts caused by lockdown and our local hospital is in no way even close to overwhelmed by COVID patients and never has been.

They aren't treating people now to be honest, plenty of people have been unable to access treatment
They are in my hospital, which also has a high but manageable number of covid patients.

So you’re not in favour of taking any action to further limit the impact of covid on the NHS?
And how will this improve the situation regarding access to treatment for other illnesses?

As a teacher I’m going to do one of two things:

Option 1: if it’s ok for me to mix with 500 secondary age children a week, then it’s fine for me to visit my friends and family. I am not sacrificing my own well-being, just to go to work.

Option 2: if cases continue to spread in school and I am still expected to go in at my own personal risk, then I will take the long term stress leave that I probably should already be on.

It isn't a lockdown unless schools, universities and the borders are closed. As none of those will happen, it's simply a PR exercise to pander to mass hysteria while totally fucking up the lives of millions.

I'm done with any suggestion of caring about the NHS, the vulnerable, kid's education. This country is so screwed up now I don't see any way back from this.

And above all, 'saving Christmas' can fuck right off.

Nothing happened, because he was in school!
They spoke to the attendance officer, as we had talked to the teacher/senco about our concerns about ds being in school, as he was previously shielded. School said fines would be pursued. The attendance officer said that fines would be pursued if we were to take ds out, without medical evidence he should be at home.
We do, now, have a letter from the Dr saying ds should stay home, and we hopefully have school on side too....it took all term (with ds's bubble closing due to a case by the end of term) and has not been easy.
It still feels as though we are walking a tightrope, we have an incredibly long and difficult history with the school, and in our fight to get ds the right support, relationships are, at best, strained. We had a warning letter about ds's attendance before Covid, despite acknowledgment in the letter that ds had been off for 2 operations, and his on going medical conditions.

Its not about deaths from covid.

Its about hospital bed management and the complete collapse of the nhs system. Which would impact the availability of care to children in other areas leading to their deaths.

Covid causes about x10 the amount of hospitalisations than flu. Thats the problem. And once you hit the point where hospitals are full you get an effect where the number of deaths from all causes skyrockets with people dying from all sorts of managable ailments.

This is the bit the 'its only the flu' crew dont grasp.

We have one of the lowest number of hospital beds (remember its about staffed hospital beds) Europe and one of the highest rates of economic deprivation and poor underlying health in Europe.

This is not a pretty combination.

Bamboozled

What do you want to happen? Genuine question, can't work out from your post.

Lockdowns do not work. Even the WHO do not advocate there use

I am not sacrificing my own well-being, just to go to work

The rest of us are, what makes you special? Aren’t you concerned about the risk of transmission to your own friends and family, even if you don’t care about strangers?

What a deliberately goady comment. Everyone benefits from investing in children’s future, whether you have children yourself or not, and you bloody well know it.

It wasn't deliberately goady. I have a school aged child myself. I would personally rather make the choice to keep him at home but still allow him to see extended family. I'm not allowed to do that.

The fact of the matter is that if schools are still open the virus is going to spread. The only way to properly get this under control is aggressive test and trace or aggressive lockdown.

But believe it or not the mental health of adults is important as well. Just as much as children. I'd suggest children aren't going to do well with great swathes of their adult relatives struggling horrendously with MH issues

Yes we need to stop this hierarchy of jobs ffs. Everyone is important and as much as I want my kids in school I see the importance of other estavlishments to other people.

I cant believe how quickly we seem to have forgotten that all these usually forgotten and insignificant to most, people got us through the last lock down. We would have noticed no night shift petrol station cashier before we noticed the ceo of tesco wasnt in the office .

We need to stop turning on eachother. Its what they want. It deflects from what they are doing. Or not doing.

The emotional blackmail doesn't help anyone.

We have practical realities to face up to.

Our current course will lead to more chaos and the same inevitabilities.

We are better to manage the situation rather than let it continue to spiral out of control.

I can't see high schools staying open until Christmas whatever happens.

Please shout loudly about keeping schools open but making them safer! Yes schools should stay open but not with handwashing as the only protection for pupils and staff including vulnerable ones.

@Parker231

If schools close , primary, there will be no economy as parents won’t be working as they will have to stay at home with their DC’s. Schools need to remain open. Teachers teach and parents parent.

Only 8% of the workforce have school aged children. Out of those you have people who can wfh, have a stay at home spouse etc.

It is far more damaging to the economy to keep the schools open at all costs. Closing businesses like hospitality when there is far less spread there than in schools is beyond stupid.

The government aren’t protecting the economy, they are playing political games with it. They gave to ‘show and tell’ that they face tried every useless measure first before they do the right thing and shit schools.

I'm just sick of everyone blaming each other for seeing family or going to the pub or whatever when the person you should be blaming is Boris Johnson and his gang of idiots.

If they'd sorted test and trace this would not have been necessary. There would not have had to be what some see as a choice between protecting the vulnerable and protecting the economy, because both could have been done.

The idiots missed the boat with a circuit break over an extended half term, so we need a longer lockdown and schools and unis which are key spreaders still stay open.

Better hope the nhs staff don't go off on stress leave, guess everyone thinks we will all carry on.
People do realise if they just carry on seeing friends and family, there's a good chance there won't be a hospital bed if your family member needs it?

it's simply a PR exercise to pander to mass hysteria while totally fucking up the lives of millions

Pandering to what mass hysteria?
Surely if anything you would say that the government are pandering to their scientific advisors.

Absolutely agree re the disgrace of T&T.

If they'd sorted test and trace this would not have been necessary. There would not have had to be what some see as a choice between protecting the vulnerable and protecting the economy, because both could have been done.

I agree @Completmentfille.

Also the fact the NHS don't have enough beds is a disgrace in itself. They should have enough. Maybe ask yourselves why they don't.

Why oh why did the lockdown not start the week before half term. Nobody could really do anything anyway in half term. It felt like a waste of a week. Bad planning in my view.