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!

@tempester28

There won’t be another lockdown. Numbers are high but it is not having the same impact on deaths so we need to carry on with life now.

Not now, no. Because we are living under restrictions. Once all the restrictions come off, this more transmissible strain will find it even easier to spread among the unvaccinated and partly vaccinated population - which is sizeable. And includes all children.

@aldkj

September - then parents and teaching unions will finally wake up and wonder why their DC are unvaccinated and lockdown at home again. Obviously boarding schools will have vaccinated their pupils as residential settings, so the Tories' kids will be OK.

Teachers already know this. As do the teaching unions - but teachers and teaching unions are completely powerless to act in any way to make schools safer, including by lockdowns (I give you January as a case in point - every single teacher across the land, and all the unions, know it was absolutely stupid, but had no power whatever to force the lockdown or even any sensible mitigation measures against an airborne virus)

@aldkj, I agree children are a problem for this government to address (and soon, it’s reprehensible they haven’t done so yet). Covid isn’t as much as a problem for children but it isn’t without risk either and ignoring concerns isn’t going to make them go away.

Sadly I don’t think we’ll see any kind of comprehensive official strategy until the end of summer and more likely well into the start of term. They’ve kicked that can as far down the road as they possibly can in the hope that problem resolves itself somehow.

What are people calling “lockdown” ? Are some posters talking about (or are even hopeful of) a full lockdown with no going out? Or a retention of current (as in today) restrictions like mask wearing and limits on gatherings?

tbh i think we will be under more restrictions from August/September onwards, possibly until the end of the year, they may relax over Christmas then it will be back to restrictions until April/May next year, just a gut feeling that's all

I doubt there will be another lockdown.

@DottyHarmer I don’t think we will ever need to go back to a full lockdown unless there is a vaccine resistant strain but I think the case rate means some restrictions will need to be reintroduced - masks, distancing, maybe some venues closed/large gatherings restricted in hotspots. I don’t think we will be able to get away with no restrictions for long because just too many people will be isolating/looking after isolating kids/off sick with COVID even if it is mild due to the vaccine

First off, again I don’t think there will be another lockdown although I can well imagine a situation that would force it to be considered.

Vaccines were never promised as the absolute end to all issues caused by covid. They’re a massive part of the solution but not a whole solution in and of themselves. Look at how long they take to manufacture and distribute for one.

Vaccines are keeping an emergency from turning into a crisis for now, but there is still very much an emergency. The reality is that we’re not safe from an emergency until covid is stable across the majority of the globe and we’re not quite there.

Sorry my post was in reply to @AnnaForbes

The 12th of never (hopefully)

Lockdown won’t be necessary for this variant. It very well might be for a new vaccine resistant mutant strain. Probably in the autumn.

@Twoforthree

Lockdown won’t be necessary for this variant. It very well might be for a new vaccine resistant mutant strain. Probably in the autumn.

I may have misread/misunderstood, but I’m sure I saw a discussion that there were rumblings about the possibility that vaccination+natural infection of delta might provide better protection against beta (the South African variant currently rising in France and showing signs of vaccine escape).

@Twoforthree

Lockdown won’t be necessary for this variant. It very well might be for a new vaccine resistant mutant strain. Probably in the autumn.

the idea of a lockdown now is to try and prevent that

@siestalady

What a cheerful thread

A realistic one 🤷‍♀️

Yes, I would say two weeks too.

A realistic one

How on earth is a bunch of people with no scientific background sticking a pin in a calendar and deciding on a random date when the next lockdown will be (when there's absolutely no evidence there'll even be a next lockdown) 'realistic'?

It's a load of old Mystic Meg crystal bollocks is what it is.

I think we'll struggle in the winter, and lots of people will voluntarily restrict themselves. I don't think there will be a lockdown of the sort we've seen over the last 18 months though, the public appetite has gone for that, and this populist government can see that.

A new variant could come from anywhere in the world. Locking down now is hardly going to protect us from a strain cooking up wherever in the world. Remember how this all started…. with a tiny number of travellers.

If a vaccine resistant strain breaks into the (world) population then lockdowns are utterly pointless, as we’re all f*d.

What’s the difference between businesses not operating because of lockdown and not operating because of isolation / positive cases?

@AlecTrevelyan006

What’s the difference between businesses not operating because of lockdown and not operating because of isolation / positive cases?

Furlough and business grants/loans.

I think 2 weeks is where we're going to be looking at about 2k admissions a day looking at current infection and admission rates.

I reckon there's a few weeks after that before they manage to convince the government another lockdown is needed.

Hopefully nobody was banking on us using the summer to catch up on that backlog we caused by not getting on top of Covid early enough the last 2 times.

end of September/beginning October

October.

@AlecTrevelyan006

What’s the difference between businesses not operating because of lockdown and not operating because of isolation / positive cases?

The tories can pass the buck!