Lockdowns, even a stricter one is not going to work

[Icanseegreenshoots]

Unless we shut down every sector except for food, medical care and distribution this lockdown (or even a much stricter one) simply will not work.

Mostly everyone outside of hospitality/gyms is working as normal - I don't disagree with this - as we need an economy to return to. Supermarkets are packed, because people need food. Public transport in cities are rammed because people need to get to and from said work. Some schools are full because the key worker list is so long. The infection rate will continue as before.

The real elephant in the room is that we will have to furlough almost everyone in every sector to beat this new variant, and the government is just not prepared to do it/or can not afford to.

The new variant seems to be beating the odds even in areas that have already had a very hard lockdown for a long time, with no sign of it abating or even levelling off slightly. I don't believe it is the 'rule breakers' that are causing this at all, as I don't think in reality there are that many of them - certainly not enough. The new variant is so infectious that almost any attempt to stop it is futile and pointless, that is the truth of the matter.

Even if they stop all exercise, introduce zero household mixing and close nurseries, we will still continue to see a high infection rate, because even brief contact seems to be infecting people.

I am quite neutral in terms of how I feel about this, because at least we have a solution that will set us free in the coming months, but instead of blaming 'people' for not following the rules, we need to have a much closer look at the new variant, and being more honest about the limitations of this lockdown in the face of such an infectious strain.

Some hospitals have 50% of patients infected with the virus, how do you stop it spreading to the rest of the hospital when hospitals only have a few single rooms. Staff are either only partially vaccinated or not at all. Apparently there is a risk in having large numbers of partially vaccinated people as it could accelerate viral resistance.

I hardly know any one working from home this time. My DH was furloughed last time, this time has a letter that he is an essential worker (manufacturing). Garage owners open, closed last time. Sales manager, linked to food, allowed to WFH 2 days to minimise staff in office, others in healthcare and education all at work. How many places are really 'covid secure'.

I'm also hearing of lots of people not wanting to be named as contacts with T&T, not answering phones, positive people not naming people. Also, lots of people shrugging off 'symptoms'. Lots if people dont want to have it so maintain 'it's just a cold' rhetoric! 🤷‍♀️

@Affor

Mostly everyone outside of hospitality/gyms is working as normal

I don't think this is true? I don't know anyone who has left the house to work (except a doctor) in almost a year now.

DP hasn't stopped working at all, out of the home, since the start of this. Same as most people who work with him, a few were furloughed but theyve got work so they're open. I still go into the office too.

@Yohoheaveho

the government is just not prepared to do it/or can not afford to I agree, they are just pretending to do something to keep us quiet, ultimately they will save the economy so thier rich friends can carry on being rich.... it doesn't matter if poor people die

But the economy is all of us not just "the rich"!

It's far more complex than that. I think the point is, is that this strain is uncontainable. We can't do anything about it, short of welding people into their homes and forbidding all mixing in any setting, anywhere, for a long, long time. Which obviously can't happen because society will collapse and people will die in large numbers in their houses.

Things won't suddenly start improving because people aren't allowed to go for a walk in a different village to where they live, or if we're not allowed to go in Home Bargains.

There is a lot of "little world syndrome" occuring here..which makes me wonder if this is effecting how people see the virus

Also this lockdown isn't the same as March. In March it was stay home even of you can't work from home. This time that isn't the other.

Therefore people like me, and my thousands of peers across the country are still at work.

And we can travel over three counties in one day, easily. Mixing with hundreds of people. But we can't work from home.

Out of everyone I know who was furloughed last time, none are this time.

Just for my own mere experience of this, the following are now available to me that were not in March: cleaners, nannies, window cleaners, decorators, builders inside home, plumbers (non essential work), electrician (non essential work), dog groomers, dry cleaners, car valet, in house chef services, carpet cleaning, house moves, removals of all kinds, physio apps, dog sitting and walking, viewings inside homes - the list is pretty endless. I am not saying I want to reduce them or take them away just simply observing that the 'key worker' status and what is essential has massively expanded in the last nine months around here. All of these services have support, admin and all the rest.

Good for the economy but is the lockdown being compromised, probably.

And as for the idea that we are going to PROSECUTE people going out for a walk holding a cup? I have worked in the criminal justice system for seventeen years, it was a very dark day for our country when that was made public. If the two women do not pay their fines, they will end up in our overworked, massively backlogged courts, and will that reduce the infection rate? No of course not.

The case of the two women was so highly publicised it also put them at risk from threats of violence and being targeted.

I am absolutely aghast actually at the way this is going.

So agree that will not work. Most people are still at work - mask wearing is a bit hit and miss, distancing is poor. I wonder does it matter too much if it circulates through all of us if older and vulnerable people can be protected til vaccinated? I wouldnt have said that 9 months ago but we are on the final stretch. Yes I know others die but such small numbers. In meantime divert funding to nhs, close not essential things like garden centres and the bloody national trust, b and m bargains and enforce mask wearing everywhere busy- including at work.

house I wanted to say I am very sorry to hear you have had a panic attack this morning, particularly as you have worked so hard to manage your anxiety. If you need to go out every day for fresh air, go out every day. You don't need to justify looking after your own mental health to anyone.

In our arrogance we are like King Canute. I really don’t think there is anything we can do. It’s all a facade.

Just frustrated, thanks for giving it a name - little world syndrome.

People just don’t seem to understand how many people are going to work. I go to work 5 days a week, two buses there, two buses back, in with my colleagues, eating in a staff canteen, going back to a home that I share with family members who then go out to other workplaces. Of course it will spread.

And then we are supposed to worry about someone sitting on a bench or having a walk five miles from home.

I hope we are on the final stretch, but the government said we will still have restrictions next winter, and I start to despair at that.

lick The point of my thread was to say I do not think we are going to see a big downturn in numbers. There should have been a big downturn in numbers when Kent was put in tier 4 restrictions in the autumn and then in full complete lockdown, the numbers only continued to rise and rise. That is my worry. I don't think we will see much of a decrease at all. The variant is so infectious, that any efforts to contain it and stop the spread are going to be largely a waste of time. Unless you literally close down the entire country completely....

Sorry op, you’re too late to the party with your scaremongering. Cases are already starting to decline and we should start to see that become apparant in the next few days.

stripe and just about every NHS medic and worker, call centre operators, factory workers, police, fire and all the rest....replicate what you do in every city and in every town in the whole country every day around the clock. If we didn't, the country was stall overnight.

My issue is that we are being made to feel that we are not complying and this all on us, when actually most people are - they are working to keep the country running and by default with the new variant it will be impossible to stop.

mothering is right, this is more of an exercise in feeling like we are in control, of course we are not, but some reason no one really wants to say that out loud. So we get the graphs, and the tellings off, and Mr Hancock ordering us to stay at home and stop being so indulgent by wanting to exercise and breathe fresh air.

The truth is we are up against it, and it is not our fault, or your neighbour's for walking his dog twice a day instead of once, nor the joggers annoying as they are. Nor the grannies shuffling around supermarkets for hours because they are so lonely. The government need to stop with the blame game, and start focusing on delivering a more compassionate, honest assessment of this new variant, and treating us all like adults instead of children.

**would stall

blunt please read the thread, this is not a scaremongering thread. We are discussing the new variant, and the rates of transmission and talking about whether a whole country lockdown in totality would even work given the rates of infection continue to rise across the whole country.

It is not intended to scare anyone, but to discuss why the public are being blamed for this. If this scares you feel free to hide the thread, or add something useful to the debate.

Nowhere have I seen the rates significantly dropping.

Yes! I'm aghast at all the money that has been 'found' for furlough, businesses, eat out to help out building unusable hospitals etc etc. Yet we've never had the money to fund our NHS properly and they will argue for the next 100yrs that there is still no money for the NHS whilst we're paying off this shit show.

Yes OP, people are trying to square a circle. It’s just not possible to send everyone home from work and school. We all live in an interconnected world.

Absolutely agree with everything you have said op. The government are using the old divide and conquer, using this as a political point scoring opportunity rather than trying to address the problem.

Yes they are thebuffer which actually makes me worry more, why create such division unless you are really are in the shit and are reluctant to say so?

Compassionate
Compassion is completely antithetical to tory ideology, everything else flows from that

Agree so many more people at work this time round than before and I very much doubt a lot of work environments are properly covid secure. Anecdotally it seems that (unsurprisingly) large companies with proper health & safety policies with the infrastructure and staff to support it are more likely to have people working at home and to properly enforce Covid safe work place while small and medium sized companies with no specialist H&S staff and infrastructure have people in the office and put less resources into making offices Covid secure

I think the gov have a problem brewing on their hands as soon the population will reach lockdown burnout. I think the gov are aware of this and are going for a last push to make people comply
This in spades. At this time of year, people would be starting their new regimes of keeping fit: the gyms and pools have been snatched away, and by stealth, the government is trying to criminalise (or at least discourage) walking outdoors. And before long, there will be the massive public backlash. The more Saint Boris comes out with three-word slogans such as "people will die", the more stupid and desperate he and his merry men look, especially when he tries to keep blaming the public. With the recent missteps by the police, the authorities are shooting themselves in the foot.

The government need to sound as if they are on our side. If they grovelled a bit more about the effect on mental health, on business, and admit that this is going to cause a financial crash to dwarf 2008, I might have some respect for them; but because they are very much minimising these realities at the moment, and pretending that these are not going to happen, they are proving they are in their highly privileged own little world.

And I just know that when things do start to improve (or the government decides that it's time to pretend they're improving), they're going to reverse the scaremongering spin machine, and later the government will again be trying to blame to public with "it's your fault the economy is fucked, you didn't spend enough when we allowed it".

All those who are asking how has the pandemic money been found whilst we’ve ‘underinvested’ in the NHS since the financial crisis, well it hasn’t been found, it’s been borrowed on top of what we’ve already borrowed (upwards of £2 trillion debt at the moment) & Sunak’s tax rises are in the post.

Happy New Year ;)

I'm very cynical but I would say it's so they can recreate the country in their own image. NHS underfunding etc has been an issue for years. The conservatives don't believe in it and have been selling it off piece by piece. Of course, we'll all be begging them to make it private if it continues much longer.
It's not that I'm a tin hat the great reset conspiracy theorist. It's just I think they're opportunists.