What would YOU do about Covid?

[KhalliWhalli]

I get that the government can’t win, whatever they do. And everyone seems to have an opinion on what should be done about Covid. I have my own opinions but am wondering what everyone else thinks, about lockdown, mandatory vaccination, etc.

So, what would you do, if you were in charge?

No idea, that’s why I’ve never had any desire to be in charge of the country.

Control the borders better. Somebody on London radio last night was saying how careless airports were still being. Not enough checks on entry (thus easy for new variants to be brought over).

No idea either. I think at first it was thought lockdown would get rid of covid, which obviously worked and cases declined. Then the Kent variant came, followed by the Indian variant, which again caused havoc, lockdowns and rising cases. Vaccination programme has been our saving grace, with regards to hospitalisation, but it’s a shame transmission rates are not better, as was first hoped. I hope they can get 16/17 year olds vaccinated soon.

I think all along there should have been stricter border controls. Closing the border to India to keep out the delta variant, for example, was a no brainer.

I also think, if we had had a decent track and trace system back in summer 2020 when cases were so low, combined with closed borders, we could have got on top of it much quicker and the second and third waves could have been prevented.

Now that we are where we are I would do what the gov have done, in as far as lose all internal restrictions and encourage vaccine uptake. I would make it available for 12 to 18 year olds, but not compulsory.

Make free vaccines (and boosters) available to everyone (all ages) who wants one, then open up the country and get on with our lives. I'd suggest people continue to wear masks in crowded places and use hand gel, but I wouldn't make it compulsory once the vaccinations were at a high enough level.

Get everyone vaccinated asap.

I would have planned to mitigate risk in schools and colleges by providing money so that better ventilation could be fitted. With the money and planning done in good time so the work could be done over the summer holidays before the return to school in September (august in Scotland).

I would have paid people properly to isolate from the start so that no one was left out of pocket for following the government’s rules.

Now that we have high levels of vaccination and our hospitals are no longer at risk of being overwhelmed, I’d open our borders fully and allow people to travel as normal.

Shut everything down completely for two to four weeks, enlist the army and police to ensure compliance.
Control the borders.
Stop mass gatherings for football and sports.
After two /four weeks reopen the schools.

Control the borders/airports

Mitigations in school

Clear and consistent messaging. Honesty, not lies that children can't catch or transmit virus

More focus on the fact thid is airborne. Even now the focus is mainly on hand sanitiser more than fresh air in many places

Vaccination for all, including children.

A simpler vaccination system at local hubs - our GP didn't offer it, we had to wait longer than all our friends and travel to get vaccinated

Decent test and trace when we had chance

Schools is the main one for me and vaccinations for children. A friend is a teacher in Spain and the contrast was stark.

Going forward rather than retrospectively.

• ventalation in schools as this was needed anyway.

-masks on public transport

• sustained recruitment and training drive for more healthcare assistants, nurses, doctors and other healthcare people to increase hospital capacity in Winter to take account of covid plus flu. Id also focus on improving working conditions in the nhs so staff dont leave.
• improve universal credit so poor people arent so poor
• something to tackle obesity not sure what.

Stop all non-essential travel in and out of the country.
Prioritise schools remaining open.
Stop mass gatherings for sports events.
Continue the good work done with the vaccine roll-out because that's the one thing the government have got right.

Invent a time machine and go back to 2019

Lift all restrictions and let people get on with their lives. Offer antibody tests to anyone who wants one so they can make an informed decision about whether or not to have the vaccine (particularly young people/children). Offer boosters to the most vulnerable groups coming into the winter. Use the nightingale hospitals to treat and convalesce covid patients (so we’re not sending sick people into care homes). Invest in the nhs so it is properly staffed and can cope with typical winter respiratory illnesses never mind a pandemic. (The budget for the ridiculously overpriced T&T app could have gone much further here for example)

Make everyone coming into the country from anywhere isolate for 2 weeks at the very start.

Prioritise school and nursery's for testing and staying open.

Instead of eat out to help out give everyone a voucher to be spent any day in any restaurant/small business.

Better, targeted support for self-isolation throughout all this, particularly for those on low incomes and insecure employment and in crowded households.

Approach the whole issue with a general presumption that measures really shouldn’t stay in place any longer than necessary, and the default position should be to inform and empower people rather than make them do stuff.

Approach future planning with the awareness that the country has temporarily gone a bit mad, and will hopefully at some point recover its senses and see the issue with measures like putting most of the global South on the ‘red list’ indefinitely.

What @ahgst said basically. Also..crack on with your lives, and stop forcing the vaccination on everyone

If no one travelling from China in January or Italy in February 2020 had been let in very little of this need of happened. Borders should have been closed by the start of march. We are an island. It could have been contained.

Borders closed.
Everyone including children offered vaccine.

I haven't got a clue. I'm not in charge and have no desire to be because I couldn't even begin to make such decisions. However the one thing I would have changed was the whole of china going into lockdown immediate and stopping out bound flights.

Whilst I don't think that if this had happened, there wouldn't have been a pandemic ( I do think it would have spread across the world anyway) but I think it might have slowed things down a bit and bought some more time for countries to prepare and research to be done.

But I'm neither a medic, politician or disaster planning person so this may also be totally wrong anyway, but I don't think china trying to cover up and deny things helped anything at the start of this.

Oh I'd also make anti vax and conspiracy theory posting online and social media an actual crime I think because that does a lot of damage when trying to roll out things like the vaccine etc but I don't know a) how you'd do this and b) if it's possible!

I'd have probably have reacted quicker when reports started first coming out of China. Blocked all travel from there and quarantined anyone that had been in China the previous few weeks. Reports came out in Nov 2019. We didn't lock down until March when the country was already well infected.

Mandate FFP2 masks in all indoor spaces.

@felulageller

If no one travelling from China in January or Italy in February 2020 had been let in very little of this need of happened. Borders should have been closed by the start of march. We are an island. It could have been contained.

It was already in New York and Spain too. Would you still have borders closed.like NZ and Australia now? No more fresh food from EU for all of the past 19 months because it doesn't come in containers? That would not have worked, stop clutching at dreams.

Offer everyone aged 16-24 £50 in Tesco or Amazon vouchers per jab. That will soon solve the vaccine uptake problem.