Local lockdowns

[Sadless]

What are the chances of local lockdowns for places like Bolton and Blackburn. I live not to far away from both these and a local college recently shut because of cases of the Indian varient.
Does any one think if it doesn't improve in these areas they could put these places in lockdown and would it be the towns or the whole of Lancashire.

Thanks
Sal

its the asian communities living in large multi generational housing and mostly reluctant to have vaccine. Lockdowns wont help.

@duffeldaisy Ive seen posts on here denigrating ppl for not making enough effort. These attitudes are unfair towards ppl who just cant afford to travel or take time off.

@MercyBooth Exactly. It's next to impossible for some people just to access the services or to follow the rules.
And I think the government likes it that way - get people to blame each other, rather than the government's lack of any forward planning or imagination. It's what they've done in everything.

Totally. And this over (insert age here) can now book online. There are ppl out there who dont have smartphones because they cant afford them and THIS VERY GOVERNMENT told them not to prioritise them over food www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-esther-mcvey-suggests-poor-14210844

Tory Esther McVey says poor families 'prioritise new phones over food'
The former Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey, who was the face of Universal Credit, appeared to blame low-income families' wanting 'new phones' for poverty

There will also be many who cant afford home internet either. The "just book online" attitudes for the under 50s will not work in poorer communities. Oh just do it online is not the answer to everything despite many on here and in RL thinking it is. Its a lazy default setting.

@duffeldaisy
I live on the Lancashire Cumbria border and work in Blackburn,Darwen and Burnley in all lockdowns I've left my hometown roads Very quiet everywhere empty.
Drove to work and in the 3 areas I work you would never know there was a lockdown on people absolutely everywhere mixing.
I work for one of the utilities ring ahead with covid screening questions they just lie and won't social distance or where masks .
Friday afternoon there crowds like a football match .
Surprisingly these are the areas that have high infection rates .

The Blackburn 18 plus vaccination has just been pulled.

@PaperMonster

The Blackburn 18 plus vaccination has just been pulled.

So I understand. Disgraceful. Think they’re on the naughty step. If they had extra capacity then what is the issue? I think most of us would agree that it makes sense to vaccinated these areas ASAP even if if slightly delays the rest of us. I just don’t understand the argument against.

[quote rwalker]@duffeldaisy
I live on the Lancashire Cumbria border and work in Blackburn,Darwen and Burnley in all lockdowns I've left my hometown roads Very quiet everywhere empty.
Drove to work and in the 3 areas I work you would never know there was a lockdown on people absolutely everywhere mixing.
I work for one of the utilities ring ahead with covid screening questions they just lie and won't social distance or where masks .
Friday afternoon there crowds like a football match .
Surprisingly these are the areas that have high infection rates .[/quote]
Weird. I've been in Burnley every day this week and haven't seen these "football crowds".

@LucilleTheVampireBat
Well you wouldn't would you as I clearly said it's friday afternoon ( friday prayers)

So at the moment if they are refusing to vaccinate all over 18 year olds in Blackburn what are they going to do. Blackburn has always been the place with the highest cases in Lancashire but a few months ago in was over 100 a day. Today is 42 which has doubled from yesterday. I don't know what boltons like but I went into boltons town centre last Saturday and it was really busy. There was queues for shops but not for pound land and it was impossible to social distance with the amount of people in there. They need to do something to stop it spreading before it's to late

Sal

I work in the centre of Blackburn, and it's been like normal since I went back to work in august last year. People just don't seem to give a shit.

This government is beyond useless we live on an Island for Christ sakes. They've been talking about Indian variant of concern yet clearly allowed people to travel in or how the fuck else has it arrived

I don't think there is anything they can do.

It's too late to vaccinate them all - by the time they'd done half the younger groups, the variant will have spread to a wider area.

Local lockdowns just don't work. Italy proved that in Feb 2020 - we didn't learn and tried them with no success last autumn.

Surge testing hasn't worked with the Indian variant, probably because we haven't been dealing with a couple of cases (like with the SA/Brazilian variants), but with thousands of infected people, arriving on flights from India before they shut it down, with I suspect a very low compliance rate with quarantining at home.

Thanks to the government prevaricating YET AGAIN, all we can do now is cross our fingers and hope that the variant doesn't wreck our chances of herd immunity.

@namechangerforthisconfessionn

This government is beyond useless we live on an Island for Christ sakes. They've been talking about Indian variant of concern yet clearly allowed people to travel in or how the fuck else has it arrived

Exactly. There was an outbreak at a local high school a week or so ago. Linked to a family that failed to quarantine on return. From India 🤦🏻‍♀️

@whataballbag - me too. And I agree. And I’ve been into small businesses there and their working practices leave a lot to be desired.

[quote PaperMonster]@whataballbag - me too. And I agree. And I’ve been into small businesses there and their working practices leave a lot to be desired.[/quote]
My workplace is a disgrace. Lost count of the number of times I shout '2 metres!!!' A day.

@whataballbag
@PaperMonster

My point exactly there no regard for any restrictions .

What are you supposed to do if your desk isn't 2 metres away from others?

And these are the people who are reluctant to be vaccinated 🙄. Couldn’t make it up.

@GiveMeNovocain

I was not advocating lockdown, lockdown is failure.

I advocate, as I have from the (fucking) start:

• border measures
• proper track and trace (not the shit Serco were doing)
• support to isolate
• low-impact mitigations e..g. ventilation, masks

They do think the vaccines are holding up against the Indian variant, so that’s good. So long as they keep working, we shouldn’t be too concerned. Which is why they need to get vaccinating these areas, vaccines work to stop serious illness which is all we need them to do 😩

I think they must be a bit worried about the vaccinated as care homes in Bolton are being advised to follow lockdown measures to avoid outbreaks.

Stop people travelling from red areas and not isolating because they go via a green area so they don’t isolate! This is a massive issue.

Let local public health strategies manage the situation not government

Surge vaccines in problem areas

Give people money to isolate as they can’t afford to so go out and spread it.

Monitor hospital cases, if the NHS locally is coping even with increase of cases (hopefully smaller because of vaccines)

I’ve followed every bloody lockdown and have had my vaccine. I work in the nhs I know how bad COVID is. But I also see the damage in mental health from our long restrictions.

I don’t see why we should be punished with local lockdowns again. We practically had restrictions for a year in my area: greater Manchester not actually Bolton ( and other areas in the north ) we couldn’t even go in gardens. Pubs/restaurants/indoor areas were closed much longer than other places. Never reopened after the November lockdown either. We can’t afford to lockdown again.

I’m not Bolton but Manchester and sometimes work in Bolton. I’ll be protesting if there’s a local lockdown. This is torture. The cause of this is the government and their lax travel rules, lack of monitoring of isolation and shit case tracing. Yet they expect the public to continue to pay for their incompetence. I won’t have it. The Bolton areas affected are very vulnerable. Very deprived, low education attainment, poor health of many and massive overcrowding. It’s no wonder it’s spreading so quickly but there’s such a lack of trust in the government too. London has more of the indian variant than Bolton and yet Bolton has been in the news all week.

@picturesandpickles - well, that’s very sensible. They think vaccines are holding up but they’ll be scrambling to pull data together. It takes a while to see trends etc. Better to be cautious with the most vulnerable. The Indian variant has been in at least one care home & no-one died. That’s very positive (see attached screenshot)