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

Genuine question. If the estimates that 100,000 a day are currently getting COVID- are we not at herd immunity point (or very close to)?

66million people in the UK, at 100k/day it would take nearly 2 years for everyone to have it. They don't know what the herd immunity level is - but lets just say it's 80% (like polio, measles needs 95%) then that's 53 million people who need to be immune, which would take 520 days at 100k/day.

So no, not even close to herd immunity, even if we knew what that was or if it was possible with covid.

Herd immunity is not possible, I wish the phrase never came out.

@Completmentfille there is winter planning each year plus major incident. I’ve worked in the nhs for 30 years, we weren’t prepared. We were barely coping as it was.

Genuine question. If the estimates that 100,000 a day are currently getting COVID- are we not at herd immunity point (or very close to)?

Even at that rate of infection, with crude maths it would still take about 2 years for the whole country to have been affected.
And I think it’s already been established that herd immunity cant realistically be achieved by natural infection.

Many nhs staff will leave after this, most wont leave now as we feel a duty to help at the greater risk our our/our families lives. I know that’s emotive but I’ve had 2 colleagues die. Honestly, I don’t know how much more stress some people can tolerate.

You can’t work from home successfully and provide home schooling for primary age DC’s. The earlier lockdown shown that.

I’ve worked in the nhs for 30 years, we weren’t prepared. We were barely coping as it was.

But you should have been, that's my point.

I cannot see the benefit if any lockdown strategy without schools switching to remote learning for all but essential children

Well, it won't be a month, will it, it will be 3 months again.

Had really hoped my daughter's 13th birthday might be the one birthday to not fall under lockdown. Now she is feeling really low and I'm finding it hard to stay positive enough to cheer her up.

My two DDs are also due to stay with their grandparents from Monday for a couple of days (in our support bubble) but now I don't know if that will be possible...

It isn't like I'm sitting here desparate for schools to close, but I cannot see how people expect them to remain open as they are and still have the virus spread staunched.

Well, it won't be a month, will it, it will be 3 months again

I doubt that. Bojo's ego won't allow him to be known as the PM who cancelled Christmas.

@RedToothBrush

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.

This. A million times, this. Plus, if you start to get to the point where you have a significant percentage of police, paramedics, fire officers, care workers, teachers (and other critical staff) either sick or isolating the entire public sector starts to look very fragile.

@the80sweregreat

If schools are staying open then I can't see people abiding by it!

If everything else is closed I'm not sure how you can't abide by it but if you mean mixing households then if people do that they are just thick! Yes school plays a part in transmission but they arent the sole source of transmission by cutting out most other scenarios then infections should reduce

if you mean mixing households then if people do that they are just thick!

Oh fgs I am so sick of this. No they are not "just thick".

So many people aren’t complying with the current rules and aren’t taking it seriously. I was having a coffee yesterday at a pub (on my own, outside). There was a big group of young women celebrating a birthday. All arrived separately and were hugging and kissing each other. No distancing.

At least a lockdown is clear cut and everyone knows what is expected. No ambiguity.

It won't work unless they close schools and universities too. We are where we are now because of a reluctance to face unpalatable truths. This is a key one. If you don't close down the hundreds of thousands of infection vectors which education represents then you are wasting your time and people will be losing their jobs unnecessarily.

This year's exams are fucked anyway - and I say that as someone with a Year 13 child. Stop pretending and start managing that.

Suck it up, close education settings for a month too and try and force virus levels down enough that we can stagger on until we have a vaccine. TBH I reckon we will need to do it again in February too.

@Pootle40 herd immunity has never been achieved through letting a virus spread, it achieved through use of vaccines. It should never have been discussed as a possible plan at all.

@Yellowmellow2

So many people aren’t complying with the current rules and aren’t taking it seriously. I was having a coffee yesterday at a pub (on my own, outside). There was a big group of young women celebrating a birthday. All arrived separately and were hugging and kissing each other. No distancing.

At least a lockdown is clear cut and everyone knows what is expected. No ambiguity.

But what will be different thus time round us that there won’t be as much general compliance as there was in the spring, because people like me have had enough propaganda to service this phoney fucking war.

If everything else is closed I'm not sure how you can't abide by it

If parents are still walking their children to school with class mates at 8.30, standing in the playground together, if their kids are still spending all day packed into classrooms together, many will see no reason not to spend half an hour chatting/going to the park/Tesco together after they’ve dropped them off-just as they do now.

Honestly I feel safer in my pub having a meal than I do at work with little children. Your not in there that long and it's socially distanced.
The school have done everything they can but they can only do so much.
Keeping them going means people are still mingling and will still meet up at home.
I know they need to stay open etc, but it makes the government's job harder to do.
People are mixing and have done since day one. If they can mix at school they can outside ( that's what they will say and think)
It's not people being 'thick' , it's what will happen.

Problem is, the rates will come down massively, we will all be told how good we have been, then in December, it will come back up again as everyone rushes out to buy Christmas presents and meet up with everyone.
A lot of it comes down to compliance which is on the wane. As I said uptrend, the people next door have carried on as though nothing has happened. Grandkids in most days, kissing and hugging, parties etc. They will continue on as before and thats why we are in the position we are in now.

@Completmentfille

if you mean mixing households then if people do that they are just thick!

Oh fgs I am so sick of this. No they are not "just thick".

What are they then? Clever, entitled, more important than everybody else? And by mixing I mean having birthday parties, sleepovers, dinner parties, play dates or 20 people round for Sunday lunch, not supporting family members or friends if they are struggling for any reason. People need to be sensible with their interactions.

@Completmentfille you sound quite accusing. Please do come and help is if you wish- we’ve loads of vacancies.

you sound quite accusing. Please do come and help is if you wish- we’ve loads of vacancies

It wasn't nhs staff I was accusing.

@Mokusspokus

Again agree its definitely not just tories.

I had to have a c section with second dc due to fear hospital doors would close under labour. It happened frequently, one hospital was utterly dangerous, women left to birth alone the other just closed its door when full, spilling more women into the one that had failed.

The only way I could guarantee a bed and assistance was by surgery. I have a fear of birth and couldn't risk being turned away in labour.

At the time of my first babies birth, the headlines were constant about labour under funded hospital, not enough mw etc. Chronic state of hospitals.

Sorry to digress, I think NHS needs to lifted out of politics altogether.

I think most things need to become independent of politics when the political system is so broken.

The simple reality is there's about 20 million more people now in the UK (mostly England) than when the NHS was created and the infrastructure in this country is just not designed for 70 million people.

The irony is, we're doing all this to save the elderly and save lives (and rightly so, don't get me wrong) when it's people living longer and longer that is really exacerbating our overpopulation crisis and causing more burden on the health service.