Is the government preparing is for a New Zealand scenario?

[lockdownbreakdown]

Does anyone else think we are going to be locked down until the majority are vaccinated and then the borders are going to be closed indefinitely to prevent new strains? I definitely get this vibe from all the stuff leaked in the press. It seems to be the only way we can stop new variant from ruining the vaccination programme as we cant vaccinate the kids if we let in new strains from abroad we will be going back into lockdown indefinitely. Thoughts?

@Athrawes We did do it last March. In fact, NZ had support bubbles from day one whereas we did not so, in some respects, our lockdown was stricter. You also ignore that fact that we are joined on to another country by a tunnel and have a land border with another. We can never be NZ.

@Delatron

Yes we are not and could never be like New Zealand. So well done, very happy that your 7 week lockdown worked considering your tiny, spread out population and the fact that you are pretty isolated out there.

I don’t think a zero COVID policy will work and they need another plan quite frankly. It’s here to stay so why decimate the economy for years trying to achieve the unachievable and ruining many lives, especially the young.

What about South Korea? Population of 55 million, about 2 1/2 times smaller than the UK. Covid cases peaked at 900 a day in their ‘winter spike’.

@winetomorrow I, personally, don’t know of one British lawyer that was going into the office during the first lockdown. I am a lawyer at a top 100 firm and our offices were definitely closed!

I think the government know they have totally screwed up and it’s too late to do much now. I think they’re spooked by the new variants and know they need to be seen to be doing something so will bring in some surface measures re borders but as with everything won’t enforce it so it will make sod all difference.
I think they’re panicked and realising this is nowhere near over and that the only option they really have now is to let it run its course and access the damage afterwards.
The vaccines will help but they’ve said multiple times they’re not a magic bullet and won’t be a cure.

I think things will look better in summer but the border measures will be things like no summer holidays abroad. Which will mean you probably won’t get a holiday in the uk either as prices will be insane and so will demand. But in the grand scheme of things I guess that’s a pretty small thing.

If we had gone the NZ lockdown way initially maybe we would be in better shape who knows but the size of our population and the landscape of the country is very different

In fact, NZ had support bubbles from day one whereas we did not so, in some respects, our lockdown was stricter.

Not really though, given borders were still open. Internal lockdowns can’t pragmatically be regarded as strict when new arrivals can just wander into communities without quarantine.

@Circumlocutious S.Korea have huge experience in dealing with this type of scenario.

I agree they are the country to emulate. Get on top of it early and amazing track and trace. I don’t actually think they used lockdowns?

We’re too far down a different path though do we think?

I’d definitely like us to be like S.Korea though.

Anything that doesn’t involve rolling lockdowns for years.

@Siepie

Do it via zoom, or don't do it at all. Not possible by zoom? Tough shit.

My BIL is a medical engineer. He went abroad (although not from the UK) to fix a specialised piece of hospital equipment. He's one of a handful of people in the world who could fix it, none of whom were in the same country as the hospital. But 'tough shit' to anyone who needs medical equipment during a pandemic, huh?

That's exactly the type of work that I was referring to when I made the comment upthread along the lines of there being jobs that need doing that some people don't even realise exist....

@winetomorrow

From a British person in NZ... our first lockdown was weeks of nothing. No going to work. Supermarkets/shops where essential, but that was it. I work for lawyers and fully expected to be told I couldn't work from home/old school/need access to deeds. But government said NO! Every person that didn't have to be physically present in a role had to stay home. And if you did need to be present in an office then too bad, work we'd to claim the subsidy. The worst lawyers I knew (in NZ, so paling in comparison to some of the old school people I've for before in the rest of the world) all shut down their practice and worked from home as best they could. Key workers were hospital staff, food distribution and that was pretty much it. No takeaways, no nothing. If you weren't involved in keeping people alive you're not a key worker. And it worked! 6 weeks of nothing has meant a year of normalacy, except the rest of the world is locked off. We miss you, sort it out and join us!

I so wish we had taken that approach here! 😡

[quote Delatron]@Circumlocutious S.Korea have huge experience in dealing with this type of scenario.

I agree they are the country to emulate. Get on top of it early and amazing track and trace. I don’t actually think they used lockdowns?

We’re too far down a different path though do we think?

I’d definitely like us to be like S.Korea though.

Anything that doesn’t involve rolling lockdowns for years.[/quote]
Also, the collection and retention of private data which enabled the succesful trace and trace in SK - a holdover from previous epidemics - would likely be illegal in most of the Western world.

Also, the collection and retention of private data which enabled the succesful trace and trace in SK - a holdover from previous epidemics - would likely be illegal in most of the Western world.

Yep I think people need to read up on stuff and what they are suggesting in reality

[quote Delatron]@Circumlocutious S.Korea have huge experience in dealing with this type of scenario.

I agree they are the country to emulate. Get on top of it early and amazing track and trace. I don’t actually think they used lockdowns?

We’re too far down a different path though do we think?

I’d definitely like us to be like S.Korea though.

Anything that doesn’t involve rolling lockdowns for years.[/quote]
Yep they definitely have experience in this area - in the same way you’d hope the UK would react differently if there was another rogue virus in 10-20 years (well, you’d hope...)

I’m not sure if it’s too late. I’m curious to see how low we can drive cases by the summer- if it’s in the low 100s a day, it’s worth a shot to tighten border and quarantine restrictions.

Good point @IcedPurple

I think although S.Korea have a similar population size they were set up and ready to deal with this from the start. They even list the addresses of where positive cases live l think. All great for tracking and detecting but wouldn’t be allowed here.

We may need to accept we are most like our European neighbours and are interwoven with them. Even Germany who seemed to deal with the first wave better haven’t escaped this time.

Should have done it at the beginning.

@CarpeVitam who do you know that was going to work in the first lockdown? I don’t know anyone apart from a police officer, a social worker and an acute medicine consultant. My GP friends pretty much worked from home, my dentist friends didn’t work at all, neither did my airline crew friends and everyone I know including myself that works in an office, worked from home or was furloughed.

@Delatron

Good point *@IcedPurple*

I think although S.Korea have a similar population size they were set up and ready to deal with this from the start. They even list the addresses of where positive cases live l think. All great for tracking and detecting but wouldn’t be allowed here.

We may need to accept we are most like our European neighbours and are interwoven with them. Even Germany who seemed to deal with the first wave better haven’t escaped this time.

It’s interesting that you mention Germany, because - probably for the first time - Merkel was warning two days ago of closing Germany’s land borders to neighbouring countries. A warning to the EU perhaps, but language like that (unheard of a year ago) is now on the rise.

www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-will-eu-countries-close-borders-again/a-56298808

I just can’t see any other plan to keep vaccine-resistant strains out of the country. Don’t children have the right to an actual education? Don’t we have the right to interact normally with our family and loved ones? How long can we live like this for? There need to be a plan

Oh, and my social worker friend did as much as she could from home but, of course, there were occasions where she had to visit people in their homes.

I so wish we had taken that approach here! 😡

Numbers fell here after first peak

So what are you lamenting? Border closure? If possible

[quote BunsyGirl]@CarpeVitam who do you know that was going to work in the first lockdown? I don’t know anyone apart from a police officer, a social worker and an acute medicine consultant. My GP friends pretty much worked from home, my dentist friends didn’t work at all, neither did my airline crew friends and everyone I know including myself that works in an office, worked from home or was furloughed.[/quote]
I know this wasn't directed at me but I know a huge amount of people who worked in the first lockdown.

Me (dog Walker), my friends: nurses obviously, supermarket workers, cleaners, window cleaners, delivery drivers, decorators, a bike shop owner, mechanics, a celebrant.

In fact only really know two people who stopped- a golf pro and my husband who works in retail and worked from home. He and most of his team now work back in their closed store, apparently their boss feels they need to be there and they are doing a lot of click and collect 😳.

Even if we closed the borders completely and had a hard China style lockdown with zero tolerance and severe punishment for rule breakers, it would take a long time for us to reach zero covid. The vaccines are still a very grey area regards efficacy so we can’t count on them in this strategy because the variables are too high. We’d have to endure months of extreme isolation to eradicate infections.

The only way out of this is through:

1. effective proven vaccines with proper dosage and guaranteed resilience to the virus

2. absolute mandatory stipulations for mask wearing in public in all settings and situations with NO excuses and no exemptions.

3. border closure with NO exceptions

4. enormous recruitment drive within the NHS with possible conscription of those furloughed from industry not reopening any time soon ie hospitality and retail.

5. doubling the size of the hospital network with investment into all systems across the board

6. acceptance of remote learning as the norm and a universal basic income for all 16 and above

Without these happening we will be stuck in this stalemate of rinse repeat lockdowns with very little progress being made.

[quote BunsyGirl]@CarpeVitam who do you know that was going to work in the first lockdown? I don’t know anyone apart from a police officer, a social worker and an acute medicine consultant. My GP friends pretty much worked from home, my dentist friends didn’t work at all, neither did my airline crew friends and everyone I know including myself that works in an office, worked from home or was furloughed.[/quote]
Some airline crew were most very definitely working throughout the first/second..etc lockdowns..

If your airline crew friends didn't it must have been down to the individual airline's decision regarding who worked, who didn't and possibly which aircraft they were qualified to work on (some airlines completely grounded some of the types they operated, so those crews were grounded).

@Siepie

Do it via zoom, or don't do it at all. Not possible by zoom? Tough shit.

My BIL is a medical engineer. He went abroad (although not from the UK) to fix a specialised piece of hospital equipment. He's one of a handful of people in the world who could fix it, none of whom were in the same country as the hospital. But 'tough shit' to anyone who needs medical equipment during a pandemic, huh?

Time for the people responsible for this piece of kit to make other arrangements. What if your husband was unavailable or sick. No one is indispensable.

I know that's very militant but lax border controls mean we will loose control even further.

@MarshaBradyo

Also, the collection and retention of private data which enabled the succesful trace and trace in SK - a holdover from previous epidemics - would likely be illegal in most of the Western world.

Yep I think people need to read up on stuff and what they are suggesting in reality

Yes 100k and counting deaths is much more preferable.

Govt could change the law but even allowing for the difficulties in doing that, they were late to party with TnT using their own centralised app that didn't work, wasting precious time.

As has been said, we had infections down to the 100s in the summer and then allowed it to increase to the 000s before doing a thing, despite being told in September to LD.

i just do not get the understanding given to Johnson, quite extraordinary.

@Angel2702 I'm not sure why you said that for the first nine weeks in England you couldn't work unless you were a critical worker? This isn't the case. Lots of business types were told to close.

Everyone else was permitted to work if their work could not be done from home.

I'm not saying it was the right call, but that was the situation. Every member of my friends and family including me did not change their work habits with the exception of DH (retail), and a find who is a golf pro.

I'm a dog Walker. Every one of my customers except teachers worked as usual out of the home. Even they were often working away from home teaching key worker children.

Jasjas Ok so you’d implement SK approach.

What about China’s? What’s your preference

I’d rather people who want above move there

...oh yes, the expectation that millions of workers on low pay would, test, self isolate, go into debt etc or be unable to feed themselves multiple times, shows how far the millionaires who govern us really are.

even now the council run scheme rarely pays out any assistance monies.