Am I the only one confident we can get back to where we were back in July/August?

[Lockdowner35]

With a tough full lockdown and the vaccine , in a few months maybe April/May we can get back to where we were in the summer time were we could have small parties and only reporting a 1000 or less new cases a day
Keep the faith

Today it says June to September.

Why is that I wonder?

Yes I completely agree with you too OP. I’m sore it can be done as we have already done it once before. It didn’t last as lockdown ended, however I’m hoping that once we end lockdown this time then the vaccines will have improved our circumstances a lot.

*sure

Of course we are a lot further on than last summer , the vaccine is here .
Some staff at my dc school have had the first dose of vaccine this weekend so it's positive news.
I actually think people enjoy the misery of all this going by some of these threads .

@Iremembertheelderlykoreanlady I see it now says to be fully protected after receiving the two vaccine doses so I would hope you and my family members have had their first vaccine way before that?

I think we could be in much better position then, OP, but we need a proper, sustained lockdown to achieve that, with schools closed and a stricter definition of what an “essential” shop is. If the government announced a lockdown, and gave and end date in April or May, I could actually cope with that because you know where you are. At the moment it feels like we are just clutching at straws, trying half-arsed measures that don’t really work and nobody knows what’s happening next. Very stressful and difficult to cope with.

If the government announced a lockdown, and gave and end date in April or May, I could actually cope with that because you know where you are.

If you actually understood what that would do to the economy and public services in the medium term
I suspect you’d be a lot less sanguine.

Live in Manchester. No parties here! I am not very optimistic.

Currently lower cases here than national average but still tier 4 and under threat of school closures when its much safer now than it has been.

So I am a resounding no to tougher lock down. It wont make a difference. We lockdown cases go down, we unlock cases go up, businesses going to the wall. Meanwhile the government dont give a shiny shite and have decreased hospital provision in my area over the last few years so then we are "sold" lockdown on the basis that hospitals will become overwhelmed despite flu pandemic being a known risk for years. And its clear that stats about hospital space are being manipulated as was the case in Manchester in October. The government twist the data to say what they want.

So we all bear the brunt of shitty planning, cynical manipulation of public opinion, misrepresentation of data, barefaced lying to us all and breathtaking levels of government incompetence whilst we are still not being listened to. Rant sorry.

Maybe if people followed the guidance.
Don't see any of that happening. Feels like it's just me inside at the moment 🤦🏻‍♀️

We were in local Lockdown over summer and haven't actually had any time out since March. The opportunity to have small parties would be amazing.
Hoping for May as my DD is 1 then and hasn't really met anyone.

Maybe if people followed the guidance.

Doesn’t matter. Cases shoot back up anyway. Haven’t you figured that out yet?

Yup, completely agree.

I agree, BUT I think it relies on not finding another new strain which is vaccine resistant (if a dominant new strain emerged, we would be back to square one with vaccination rollout plus the 6 to 8 week lag on tweaking the vaccines plus the challenge of producing 130m more doses).

I would like to see our international borders remaining largely closed, to minimise chance of importing an unknown new strain from a country that doesnt monitor as well as us. Sorry to people who want to go on vacation abroad, but I think it would be stupid to let people wander round the world until it is stamped out globally.

I am hopeful, but for that to actually happen people need to stop being selfish and thinking the rules don’t apply to them. Yesterday, on our little cul de sac alone, I saw 3 households having visitors and we are in a Tier 4 area. This was all families visiting families as well and not single people with support bubbles.

Basically we’ve hit maximum lockdown fatigue at exactly the wrong moment.

I wouldn't say April and May, a bit later. Sadly by then it looks like over 100,000 people in total will have died from the virus.

No way. A life in the UK with no restrictions won't be on the cards until at least after next winter. I have no faith this government will roll out the vaccine efficiently over the next few months when they've fucked up on so much else.

In my head, I am planning for a shit winter, lockdown schools closed etc. But I think if that happens it will help get numbers down by the summer. So we can get back to what it was like last summer.

@southeastdweller whilst I’m trying to remain optimistic, I’m inclined to agree with you. I do hope people remember this governments bumbling ineptitude at the next election.

I do hope so and i want to be hopeful but unless Boris actually imposes a full lockdown i can't see things getting much better as those being vaccinated are above 90 & 80 mostly so that's still alot of 60,70 etc not to mention people not in the 18-45 category getting hospitalised with the new strain who aren't even on the vaccine list for this year. Lets hope we have some sort of proper lockdown coming pronto. Too many people travelling from tier 4 to lower tiers and too many kids being forced back into the classroom today for me to have any hope. It's depressing

Well that echoes Boris’s thinking but he’s not exactly got the best track record for his predictions about when we will be out of the shit.

@TheKeatingFive

If the government announced a lockdown, and gave and end date in April or May, I could actually cope with that because you know where you are.

If you actually understood what that would do to the economy and public services in the medium term
I suspect you’d be a lot less sanguine.

Indeed- many people seem to have completely forgotten about the economy, the hundreds of thousands of jobs that have already been lost and hundreds of thousands still to come

Hard times ahead

@TheKeatingFive

Today it says June to September.

Did it give a year?

Vaccine will have an impact - and will roll out even with this shit government.

Tiers will lower in March/April mostly because we can’t afford otherwise but also because hospital numbers will improve.

Weather will improve which will help people’s health and mood.

Stay strong people!!

@Lockdowner35 you keep starting threads and not returning to them. are you actually interested in anyone's replies, ever, it doesn't seem so.

Two problems:

All available evidence suggests that the measures which worked really well in the first lockdown to suppress transmission won’t be enough for this new strain, even if the population were as compliant this time as they were last time (which anecdotally feels unlikely).

Vaccinating the over eighties and care home residents should slash the number of deaths very quickly, but it won’t do enough to ease the pressure on the NHS because the people filling up the wards are mostly in the 45-80 age range. Vaccinating front line HCP will help a lot because you’ll reduce sick/self-isolation leave and hence have more staff, but you’re still going to have an unsustainable number of Covid patients in hospitals until you’ve vaccinated most of the over 65s, which is a lot of people.

However I strongly disagree with the people saying that restrictions will be in place until deaths are zero. Back bench support for existing measures is already precarious, Johnson is libertarian by nature and Sunak can see the bills piling up. The instant they think the NHS can just about safely cope they’ll be revoking the laws and reverting to adverts about hand washing and after that it’s down to individual choices, for good or ill.