Further Restrictions 'Stricter than March' Needed

[Bewareoftheblob]

From the Telegraph today:

Sage advisers are calling for a lockdown tougher than the one seen in March as they argue the current restrictions do not go far enough.

Professor Susan Michie, a health psychology professor at University College London who sits on a Sage subcommittee, said more stringent action was needed.

While around 90 per cent of Britons are sticking to the rules there are also "more people out and about”, Prof Michie told the Today programme.

"It should definitely be tightened,” she said. "This is quite a lax lockdown because we’ve still got a lot of household contact, people go in and out of other’s houses. We should have stricter rather than a less strict lockdown than we had in March.

“You have this wide definition of critical workers and therefore you’ve got really busy public transport. There's also this new variant, and we have the winter season and the virus survives for longer in the cold.”

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Do you think they'll follow through with this? Reduce the amount of children in schools, ban support bubbles, heavier policing of people going about their daily lives?

There are hundreds in the town and my walk in the park was packed.

Person in park complains there are others walking in the park.

I think they need to start by giving a definitive list of who exactly are keyworkers. Too much of it being left to discretion. Then they need to ensure there is no alternative available within the family unit. Reduce the numbers in schools and nurseries.

They then need to close everything that is not absolutely essential. Including non essential shops and garden centres. We don’t need garden centres. All takeaway food should be closed.

And everyone should wear masks outside their own homes even if visiting someone in a support bubble (unless medically it’s not possible)

@TwentyTwentyOne

Where I live it is market day. Queues down the street for the supermarket are 100 metres long. There are hundreds in the town and my walk in the park was packed.

What lockdown?

So you can go into town and for a walk in the park, but no one else can?

@CKBJ

I posted this on another thread:

I think schools including nurseries should only offer places for NHS/Care/Police/Fire staff for the next 2-3weeks. As this would stop many people with children from working it would become a very harsh lockdown for 2-3weeks and therefore disrupt the covid transmission. Yes work places will suffer, including those that are critical, however with the way numbers are increasing it calls for drastic action. This should be known as Total Lockdown,we then revert back to the current lockdown and as soon as possible (End Feb/Mar) move the country back down the tier system.

Ok so what about pharmacy staff? Social services? Bank cashiers? Post office clerks?

@Lifeispassingby

Support bubbles and childcare bubbles are important but there are many peoples I know who use this as an excuse to see their bubble every day when they don’t need to ‘because we’re in a bubble’. Still doesn’t mean you can’t catch it from each other and seeing each other more than you need to will increase the change of passing it to each other

Bubbles are treated as one household so can see each other as much as they like.

I'm watching all this unfold from East Asia.

People freaking out about someone driving five miles vs four for a solitary walk or sitting on a sodding bench in the fresh air to eat a cheese sarnie, while kids continue to breathe infected droplets all over each other in crowded classrooms.

It's like when you've got a lovely but clueless hippy friend who smokes 40 cigarettes a day while anxiously sourcing organic non-GMO food because she's worried about "health risks." Deal with the real risks, not the risks that are largely imaginary!

If the above closes there would be carniage

@Secretsquirrelsbuddy

And everyone should wear masks outside their own homes even if visiting someone in a support bubble (unless medically it’s not possible)

And how's that going to be policed?

I agree - the focus needs to be on the areas where the most transmission is happening.

Two people walking near each other with a coffee is not causing the high transmission rates and it wastes everyone's time and patience to focus on that, rather than the more important areas.

Everywhere people are mixing indoors or mixing outdoors in large numbers is where the risks are. Employers, this time around, are being very reluctant to let their employees work from home - even when it's an easy switch.

They need the government to push them harder on this.

They also need to give parents wfh concessions to also do child care. In reality, this probably means a drastic reduction of expectations from those people trying to juggle both, plus great fleixibility over hours.

They also fucked up with making the payment for self isolation so low - so that those on minimum wage would lose about £300 for every isolation period. It means people are reluctant to test because they cannot afford to isolate. Anytime you ask someone to choose between the 'greater good' and providing housing and food for their families, you risk large numbers choosing the latter (understandably) and are on a losing streak.

I love how everyone is absolutely certain what the biggest problem is in terms of cause if transmission and how to put a stop to it, and it’s often the thing that has the least impact on them

@Secretsquirrelsbuddy

And everyone should wear masks outside their own homes even if visiting someone in a support bubble (unless medically it’s not possible)

So when I go to my DPs house I can sleep next to him in bed as long as I wear a mask?!

We really don't need to be wearing masks outside.

I'm fairly ambivalent on the old masks front but I do not want to be wearing one when jogging outside because I will find it difficult to breathe and probably won't bother going so much. Which I guess on a personal scale only impacts me so who cares right ? Except if lots more people stop exercising then they get fat and develop diabetes and strain their backs when doing normal activities and become a burden in the NHS.

Transmission is mostly happening inside in non ventilated areas, so stopping or restricting people doing outdoor activities is counterproductive.

“ Two people walking near each other with a coffee is not causing the high transmission rates and it wastes everyone's time and patience to focus on that, rather than the more important areas.”

In the case of that incident I thought the police presence itself probably was the biggest risk in terms of increase in transmission

should we be wearing masks outside?

my morning dog walk, ahead of me 2 separate walkers had stopped....2 metres apart but i could see their cold breath as they talked (icy cold morning here)....was more 'breath' than i thought actually, stood out to me

@PinkSparklyPussyCat it’s not going to be policed. But just now it’s not law to wear masks outdoors so no one is. By making it law the majority of people will. All laws are broken by a percentage of people in society doesn’t mean we don’t have any laws.

And everyone should wear masks outside their own homes even if visiting someone in a support bubble (unless medically it’s not possible)

So on my walk to work where is see no one at 6am in morning I should be wearing a mask.

Masks outside I will not comply with.

I blame people not the government. Go to Costa when you’re a key worker on a 12 hour shift and need a coffee. Don’t go to Costa when you’re on daily walk and you can have one when you get home.

So only keyworkers who are going to or from work can get a takeaway coffee?! What's the difference if someone is out on a walk and picks up a coffee to go home with? Or, God forbid, walks with a coffee in hand?!

Do you think that, maybe, the government let cafes/restaurants stay open for takeaways in a bid to save people's jobs?

As PP have said, a full locked down would be catastrophic to many jobs and incomes. There is no easy solution but, as PP have put it, damage control is it.

As with any virus, things will improve with the seasons (as we saw over summer) and with vaccination roll out.

@IloveJKRowling

With the possible exception of religious services and non-essential work in people's houses, disallowing most of the above will make no sodding difference at all

You need to get masks on the kids in schools. Now.

Yes, 100%. If you look at countries with universal mask wearing their rates of covid and death rates are much better, their schooling and economy much less disrupted.

The debate no-one seems to want to have - I don't know why - is WHY is our society willing to accept so much damage to life, mental health and the economy just because they don't want (and don't want their kids) to wear a mask? I mean, surely it would be worth it?

Also, there are loads of WHO videos showing how to wear a mask properly but I've seen no public messaging using this from UK government - there should be posters, infomercials etc. Why not? It wouldn't cost anything to use the WHO materials.

Have you seen the research that masks increase transmission if not used correctly? That is why WHO don’t recommend them for under 12s. The countries with kids in masks are not comparable in their approach in many other ways, or they are comparable and they’re having the same problems as us. A flimsy bit of fabric or paper may make people feel better but if you look at the evidence they don’t actually do that much. ‘PPE’ in the shape of a surgical mask is not that much better hence the amount of healthcare staff who’ve had covid

A Car showroom near me are still doing test drives, salesmen are getting into cars with the customer to show them all the controls, customers are driving long distances to get to the showroom. This maybe one business but multiply this by all the other businesses bending the rules and it’s easy to see why covid is spreading.

[quote Secretsquirrelsbuddy]@PinkSparklyPussyCat it’s not going to be policed. But just now it’s not law to wear masks outdoors so no one is. By making it law the majority of people will. All laws are broken by a percentage of people in society doesn’t mean we don’t have any laws.[/quote]
You were talking about visiting someone in their support bubble. The majority of people will not wear a mask in that situation even if it is the law.

Doesnt matter how strict the rules are unless you are welding people into their homes the same people will always ignore

A psychologist (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) calls for tighter restrictions - I can't believe what has happened to this farse of a country.

Our head has emailed parents who have booked into the key worker scheme to remind them that if they are working from home, there’s another parent available, not on a shift, have a childcare bubble then these should be the first options rather than booking their child in.

She’s reminded parents that the provision in school will be the same online learning set for everyone, and manned only by TAs (mostly p/t), not teachers. Work will not be marked until the teacher is back in class.

And also reminded parents that there is a pandemic, and that’s the reason no one should be coming into school unless absolutely necessary. Also, that the more children that are in,the greater the risk to staff and other children.

We’ve currently got a third in. The key worker groups are broader, businesses are not allowing wfh as much as before and are not as flexible with parenting requests.

One child was sent in with a persistent cough, when the parent was called, they arrived within 5 minutes and had been working from home...

Hospitals are full round here, it’s ridiculous.

@Kokeshi123

I'm watching all this unfold from East Asia.

People freaking out about someone driving five miles vs four for a solitary walk or sitting on a sodding bench in the fresh air to eat a cheese sarnie, while kids continue to breathe infected droplets all over each other in crowded classrooms.

It's like when you've got a lovely but clueless hippy friend who smokes 40 cigarettes a day while anxiously sourcing organic non-GMO food because she's worried about "health risks." Deal with the real risks, not the risks that are largely imaginary!

Exactly!

But whilst you’re got a PM who just repeats ‘schools are safe’ whilst ignoring the hundreds of staff and children inside them-it’s like bashing your head against a brick wall!

There are over 50% of children and 100% of staff inside many primary schools at the moment.

How can people think that two people meeting outside for a walk is the problem when so many people are crammed together unmasked in schools, I don’t know.