Anyone want to predict when the next lockdown will be?

[MagicSummer]

I am guessing last week of August/beginning of September, and schools won't be going back when they are due to!

These are the reasons lockdown ain't coming back. Few deaths compared to anywhere close to previous lockdowns. Few hospitalisations also.

Sources: the deaths are from Worldometer, the hospitalisations are from gov.uk here: coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare

I think it depends.

There is an absolute level (not a relative level) of hospitalisations and deaths that will be unpopular amongst the public, and they will start to find it worrying and ask 'What is the government doing about it?'

However, that won't be until said public has had their summer holidays (bread and circuses), and probably not until all children have got back to school and (despite magical thinking and a determination not to find out whether or not they have Covid or find any steps to prevent it) are catching Covid in droves.

I don't think there will be a full 'lockdown' in March 2020 style, but i do think there may well be a very significant number of revived restrictions. October / November would be my guess, as by then the NHS will be really struggling with normal winter illnesses anyway.

The Government will say that they told us this was coming, and pretend that they never gave any suggestion that opening up will be irreversible.

Whenever it is, it will be the day this Government is finished. And for goodness sake why not get on with life instead of wishing the next drama on everyone.

Probably September 10th so I can miss my holiday again.

You know the idea of lockdown was to stop the strain on the NHS dont you?
With most of England having at least their first jab and a good proportion having their 2nd already if MOST people get covid it won't even require isolation never mind hospitalization so no ...there will not be another lockdown ,ever
It's almost people get moist in the gusset and too excitable at the though of paid time of work.. I'm all for being paid 80% of doing fuck all but at some point it's got to stop , too many businesses and lives have been lost.
I do however think their could be tier systems again in very highly exposed areas but that's a long shot

@MagicSummer

Well, when you hear that supermarkets are taking away the social distancing marking on the floors, you do worry about what the hell is going to happen!

Oh no!!!! Please don't tell me they are remiving the social distancing markings from the supermarket floor. That will result in nothing but a fucking disaster. The end of the world is second fiddle to that. I am beyond distressed. I'm not sure I can carry on without those

Graphs of the current situation are meaningless because of the lag.

Yes, for the same number of cases we have fewer hospitalisations.

However, both are growing exponentially, and so absolute numbers of hospitalisations will grow too. There is a point when that number MAY become as high as in previous waves, and MAY overwhelm the NHS. That will happen unless cases stop increasing. Remember that previous waves peaked due to lockdowns - if we remove that constraint, the peaks can be higher, possibly many times higher.

The peak is apparently expected at the end of August/beginnning of September. This means they could set their restrictions to begin around 2 weeks from its predicted peak so it looks like the restrictions are making a difference when actually the wave is coming down naturally anyway. Then the people will continue to buy this bullshit and on we will go into a shit 2022.
Oh yeah, just wait one more year for your summer holidays……

Oh no!!!! Please don't tell me they are remiving the social distancing markings from the supermarket floor. That will result in nothing but a fucking disaster. The end of the world is second fiddle to that. I am beyond distressed. I'm not sure I can carry on without those

Thoughts and prayers 🙏😭💙

Say that hospitalisations are 10x lower than in the previous wave - if cases are 10x higher, then the same absolute number will be hospitalised. The absolute numbers this early in the wave are, potentially, falsely reassuring.

 @Arrowheart

I know they were certainly so well adhered too as well! Alongside the miracle masks being worn correctly and hygienically! DOOMED.

Not until the MPs have returned from their summer jollies.

@cantkeepawayforever

Graphs of the current situation are meaningless because of the lag.

Yes, for the same number of cases we have fewer hospitalisations.

However, both are growing exponentially, and so absolute numbers of hospitalisations will grow too. There is a point when that number MAY become as high as in previous waves, and MAY overwhelm the NHS. That will happen unless cases stop increasing. Remember that previous waves peaked due to lockdowns - if we remove that constraint, the peaks can be higher, possibly many times higher.

Erm. Vaccines dear.

Why are there so many people who are fed up with covid, on the covid mn board??

@cantkeepawayforever

Graphs of the current situation are meaningless because of the lag.

Yes, for the same number of cases we have fewer hospitalisations.

However, both are growing exponentially, and so absolute numbers of hospitalisations will grow too. There is a point when that number MAY become as high as in previous waves, and MAY overwhelm the NHS. That will happen unless cases stop increasing. Remember that previous waves peaked due to lockdowns - if we remove that constraint, the peaks can be higher, possibly many times higher.

Remember that previous waves were not ameliorated by vaccines.

Why are people so determined to disregard this fact?

@User135644

Not until the MPs have returned from their summer jollies.

And most of the public, too. The government know they can't get the public to adhere to restrictions at the moment, so they have decided we get our few weeks of 'freedom', they allow the cases to skyrocket to such an extent that even with much lower hospitalisation rates, the absolute numbers are once again too high for the NHS to cope, and the public will be scared enough again to comply once more.

I bitterly resent being manipulated in this way, and most bitterly resent the excess deaths it will cause. But if the public won't comply, because the messaging has throughout been so poor, then we have little alternative.

@Lemonmelonsun personally I think a bit of both, it’s really hard to judge because India definitely didn’t have the capacity they needed during their wave of delta for testing or medical care. News was mostly gathered from the cities rather than rural villages for obvious reasons.

I tend to follow the India board on Reddit to get a feel for what’s going on over there and although covid is still very much an issue the threads collating information on where people could access services and resources (like oxygen) have really tailed off and are amalgamated into one thread which seems to be dominated by information about obtaining vaccines. It would be interesting to look at Twitter trends because that was also heavily utilised at their peak. Anecdotally cases have fallen alongside the official stats.

Their actual case and death numbers are widely accepted to be under counts but I don’t think the correct numbers would change the shape of their graphed curves much.

It’s either going to be proof that the virus self-regulates after a very harsh but short peak or that people dramatically regulate their own behaviour. Probably a mix of both.

@cantkeepawayforever

Graphs of the current situation are meaningless because of the lag.

Yes, for the same number of cases we have fewer hospitalisations.

However, both are growing exponentially, and so absolute numbers of hospitalisations will grow too. There is a point when that number MAY become as high as in previous waves, and MAY overwhelm the NHS. That will happen unless cases stop increasing. Remember that previous waves peaked due to lockdowns - if we remove that constraint, the peaks can be higher, possibly many times higher.

They are not meaningless because the lag is very unlikely to show a massive 90 degree rise or similar. So graphs of the current situation can be used to inform what may happen in future - after all, we have had several peaks already so we don't have to reinvent the wheel. What is interesting now is that unlike in previous peaks, the cases-deaths link has been radically changed because of the vaccination drive.

So there are grounds for optimism; and far better to have a rise in cases in the summer, and a dip in 1-2 months, than keep restrictions now and then see the same rise in cases in autumn/winter.

In time to further
mess up kids education and mental health

@SonnetForSpring

Why are there so many people who are fed up with covid, on the covid mn board??

It's a Covid discussion board, not a 'love Covid lockdowns' board

Remember that previous waves were not ameliorated by vaccines.

The current rise in cases is ameliorated by vaccines (goodness knows what the case rate would be if there weren't any vaccinated people in the population).

I haven't seen much sign of it not growing exponentially? Everyone who has not been vaccinated, everyone with 1 vaccine, and a significant proportion of those with 2 vaccinations can still catch it. Cases are going to have to be a LOT higher than 54,000 per day for it to run out of people it can infect, which is the only impact that vaccination can have!

Vaccines ARE having an effect on the proportion of the infected who are hospitalised. But if the case rate is 10x higher, then a 10x reduction in hospitalisation is wiped out.

Oh no.

Lockdown doesn't bother me personally but it has been dreadful for many people. It has changed lives.

I want it to be over, everyone vaccinated, the virus managed.

I don't believe there will be another lockdown.

Why are some of you being so nasty? Some posters are acting like schoolyard bullies and it isn’t nice to see.

Some people are anxious to resume life (in the sense of not being able to wait for all restrictions to be lifted) and others are anxious to resume life (in terms of being frightened).

Can we not respect our differences and try to be kinder to one another?

Never!