Will you be angry if we end up back in lockdown?

[turnshavetabled]

/ harsh restrictions?

I feel so tired of this all - but mostly tired of feeling lied to by the government. The false promises - 'irreversible' 'final lockdown until science / the vaccines can save the day'

And Scotland are already floating more restrictions, only a few weeks after reopening. It's gutting. I wish they would just tell us what the probably already know is likely to happen over the next few months.

@TheKeatingFive

The 3rd lockdown was clearly billed as buying time to get people vaccinated.

Most people felt the cost/benefit of that was worth it. Whether they’re right or not is another point as there’s never been any actual attempt to calculate the wide ranging costs of lockdown. But that’s by the by.

After the vaccines, lockdowns don’t achieve anything beyond kicking cans down roads, so the conversation about compliance will look very different. It’s one thing to slap down a lockdown and entirely another to get buy in. It’s also the case that lockdown is less effective and more costly every time you use it.

Lockdown 3 was one last ditched attempt with a clear rationale in rolling out something that we knew would save lives. There would be no similar carrot for a subsequent one.

The 3rd lockdown was clearly billed as buying time to get people vaccinated.

yes, lockdowns are something the government can implement for a range of reasons, that was my point.

Not always the same reason. They are in answer to a crisis, but have been put in place in response to different aspects of the crisis.

Would people respond well again?

Well, past behaviour predicts future response to a large degree. So maybe, maybe not (we don't want another one, do we).

I think it would depend where we find ourselves in deepest winter. We'll have to see. Let's hope it all pans out well. Fingers crossed.

They lockdown again and people can still see friends and family.

They can also do a lot more than that.

Ive talked about this before, but my next door neighbours, during the post Christmas lockdown went to Tenerife, had countless house parties, sleep overs and play dates, got hair and nails done regularly, drank in unlicensed pubs (I’m in ROI). Last summer their niece went to at least illegal rave.

Not that any of that particularly matters (apart from for the exchequer) as the most ripe place for spread is within private residences, which is the most difficult thing to police and how most people would flout a new lockdown order.

[quote Delatron]@herecomesthsun

I really don’t know what your point is? I mean who likes a lockdown?
There won’t be another lockdown. At least I can come out and be confident and own my convictions.

It’s clear you want restrictions to continue. I think you may need to come round to the idea we are in to the next stage of living with this virus now. People are ditching the masks/social distancing and getting on with their lives.[/quote]
My point?

1. We can't accurately say there won't be a lockdown again, we don't know.

1. We don't have formal restrictions but people aren't ditching masks where I live; and in studies recently in the UK, mostly people are still being very cautious.

Do I think we should take responsibility for helping this situation? yes

lockdowns are something the government can implement for a range of reasons, that was my point.

And the point Delatron and I are making is that the list of reasons that would have any legitimacy with the wider public is extremely short and pretty well exhausted.

Short term emergency measures. Buying time for vaccine rollout. Both done. I can’t think of anything else bar new terrifying variant that evades vaccines/has a much higher mortality rate. Then I might comply, but it would take something like that.

Compliance will be gained through legal means if necessary. If schools close, it won't be about whether or not I comply and that goes for every other service.

Compliance will be gained through legal means if necessary.

Nah. They can’t patrol what people do in their private homes. They don’t have the resource. It would be political suicide. They know all this.

Let's hope that we don't end up facing such a scenario. We can all perhaps agree on that.

Yes

Not angry no. Disappointed yes. And I will follow the rules.

@TheKeatingFive

Compliance will be gained through legal means if necessary.

Nah. They can’t patrol what people do in their private homes. They don’t have the resource. It would be political suicide. They know all this.

I'm not talking about what we do in our own homes. I'm concerned about schools. I have 2 kids. The current situation is an absolute joke.

Only if hospitals are overwhelmed. I think this would be the only reason another lockdown is called. And every single person can never say for sure "I won't need a hospital at the moment".

Yes it is impossible to police homes but it's not impossible to turn ambulances and patients away from A&E.

Hopefully it won't come to this.

@frozendaisy

Only if hospitals are overwhelmed. I think this would be the only reason another lockdown is called. And every single person can never say for sure "I won't need a hospital at the moment".

Yes it is impossible to police homes but it's not impossible to turn ambulances and patients away from A&E.

Hopefully it won't come to this.

But then you're prioritising Covid patients over patients with other health problems. Lockdowns cause other problems, such as mental health, suicides, cancer patients not getting urgent treatment, patients not being able to get GP appointments, routine screenings not being done, etc etc.

The vaccines seem to be working for the majority at the moment, i.e. reducing seriousness of covid, and deaths from covid. We can't protect everyone from covid, and yes, sadly, there'll be some for whom the vaccines don't work, or who can't have the vaccine. We can't protect those people at the expense of giving other people health issues or killing other people.

If hospitals are "too busy" with covid, then, sadly, some covid patients will end up not receiving medical care. That's what happened during the lockdowns, but then it was people with covid who got the medical attention, but those with all manner of other conditions, some serious and life threatening, didn't care the medical care they deserved. We can't do that again. Why should a covid patient trump a cancer patient??

There won’t be another lockdown. At least I can come out and be confident and own my convictions.

It’s clear you want restrictions to continue. I think you may need to come round to the idea we are in to the next stage of living with this virus now. People are ditching the masks/social distancing and getting on with their lives

100% agree with all of this.

1. We can't accurately say there won't be a lockdown again, we don't know.

We can accurately say there doesn't need to be a lockdown again, though. Your point is... not really making much of a point since it applies to basically everything a gov could potentially do.

We can't accurately say they won't nuke us all. We can't accurately say they won't impose an ISIS type regime. We can pretty accurately say that unless something gamechanging happens, there is no need for those things.

2. We don't have formal restrictions but people aren't ditching masks where I live; and in studies recently in the UK, mostly people are still being very cautious.

Do I think we should take responsibility for helping this situation? yes

Well that's all well and good people aren't ditching masks if it's not a big deal for them. For others it is a big deal.

I agree we should take responsibility for helping this situation but not in the arse-over-tit way we've been doing.

After 18 months, maybe time to take your own responsibility? That has been the fabric of the society I've lived in for the last 30 years. Personal responsibility + safety nets for those who can't. We need to get to that stage with covid now we have vaccines as the safety net.

For me, much easier to loose the lockdown1 stone and get my fitness and nutrition up than it is homeschooling as a single parent while watching my business go down the pan. It's literally the best thing anyone can do for their health. So that's exactly what I've done.

For others it's getting the vaccine. For others it's homeschooling. For others it's avoiding social contact and masking.

I could sit here and call everyone who hasn't lost weight in the last 18 months selfish idiots, like people do with those who visited family or refused to wear a mask - but A) it helps nobody and B) I'm logical enough to see that for some people those things are harder than for others. Nobody is 100% selfless all the time.

Do what you need to do to keep yourself and those you care about as safe as you want to feel.

And it helps if you draw the logical conclusion that we're all, inevitably, going to get infected no matter what we do.

No, people won't do it. There would be riots.

What are they going to do though for those of us who work in sectors that are always the last to open and the first to close in lockdowns? What do we live on? Rishi has said no more financial help.

@PilatesPeach

What are they going to do though for those of us who work in sectors that are always the last to open and the first to close in lockdowns? What do we live on? Rishi has said no more financial help.

Well the Govt didn't care about the 3 Million excluded self employed/freelancers who weren't eligible for support in the first lockdowns, so maybe there won't be any support for anyone at all if it needed to happen again.

I am self employed but only 18 months ago so got buttons - about 600 quid. Can't live on 600 quid for 5 months ago however it is not a race to the bottom - everyone who could not work through not fault of their own should have got help. I am knackered now as working too much to try and claw back some money,

We can accurately say there doesn't need to be a lockdown again, though.

not without a crystal ball

What do we know?

Our CMO has predicted a "very difficult winter" .

Herd immunity is thought not to be possible now.

There is also the idea that covid infection will be very widespread, despite vaccinations.

Let's hope for the best (losing weight is a great idea, I'm also aiming to get fitter) in these circumstances, but realistically, we don't really know how it will pan out. Let's hope covid hospitalisations and deaths stay at manageable levels.

Fed up maybe but not angry. However I would be angry if schools close as my daughter has already lost most of her infact school education.

I can not see it happening. We have been in a stage of controlled spread and living with it over summer. All of my household has been free to live normally with a infected child. How do you come back from that? Knowing my child had covid and my husband had to go back to work has completely changed my outlook on covid. The fear element has gone for one. I dont think mentally I could be worried after that. If they had had said stay at home if there was a confirmed case in your household maybe but not now.

What rules I follow are mostly irrelevant as if i want see family ot friends in lockdown then i need willing family and friends.

Covid back in the first lockdown was a terrifying unknown. Now it's fine to live and mix and whatever knowing you have it at home. Cant unseen that and go back into terror mode I'm afraid

But I do t get how a new lockdown works, we lock down cases fall, admissions fall we open up both raise again. They have here after all three lockdowns they have in france, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands etc it not like we don’t have a lot of evidence re how this goes now Ultimately lockdown will move deaths and admissions but not reduce them so achieves nothing other that make those who like them happy!

I get if you are being New Zealand and locking down to zero cases then opening up then yes sensible but that ship has sailed for us given the high rates of community prevalence!
so we only achieve a short term reduction in cases quickly eliminated once we open up.

I honestly think mps will need more of a game plan for a new lockdown re how it can reduce cases long term not just for now, the last one the argument was vaccination and that is the current explanation for New South Wales current lockdown but after vaccination what is the end game to the new lockdown?

Of course if as I expect there isn’t one (so permanent lockdown) what is the plan to manage those elements of society we need that are not compatible with Perkins the lockdown (how to we educate kids with no schools? How do we manage elderly care with no extended family support, etc etc). I do think pro lockdowners shut themselves a bit in the foot by denying the impact lockdown had on a population it was all just about staying the fuck at home but it meant no realistic plan to mitigate the long term impacts. Now we literally have doctors talking about the degenerative impact lockdown has had on the elderly health actually once of the reasons the current nhs is under strain you need a long term plan to deal with these consequences to get a long term lockdown abs it doesn’t help if you have denied the problem exsists for the last 18 months just saying “everyone needs to be resiliencent!”

There will be another lockdown when the government have let things get bad enough that it's the only thing that will prevent collapse of vital infrastructure.

The same as March 2020, and January 2021.

Removing NPIs such as isolating contacts/masks/ social distancing etc just makes lockdown more likely.

And sooner.

@PrincessNutNuts nothing changed since 2020 and Jan 2021..? Nothing at all?

Vaccines?

Our CMO has predicted a "very difficult winter"

Herd immunity is thought not to be possible now.

There is also the idea that covid infection will be very widespread, despite vaccinations.

Yup. But even if this is all 100% probability (and I believe it's highly likely all of this is true / will happen), it still doesn't = need for lockdown.

So we can accurately say there doesn't need to be a lockdown.

The only argument they have for another implementation is hospital overwhelm. That would likely make a lot of people say there should be a national lockdown, but it still doesn't = need.

Take all of the emotion out of it and there has always been alternatives to national lockdowns.

For it to be needed you'd surely have to come from the angle that covid deaths trump absolutely everything else in society that was previously deemed important?

And that angle gets less sustainable the longer this goes on.

I believe more and more people are arriving at this conclusion.

A pp said that they were shielding and asked a pp if their right to MH trumped theirs.

The answer is absolutely yes. Of course it does. Is my mental health more important than a random stranger's in Kent who I don't know and will never meet? Absolutely. And it's honestly scary that over the course of this pandemic people have convinced themselves otherwise. I look forward to those people remortgaging their homes and selling their business so they can donate it all to prevent a baby dying of malaria on the other side of the world.

Except that will never happen because, other than covid, that's not what we do.

So yeah. Take your vitamin D and get your BMI healthy and if that won't help you, get the jab, and that won't help you, other mitigations are available that don't include pulling my children out of school, keeping me away from loved ones, and closing down my business.

@Dghgcotcitc But I do t get how a new lockdown works, we lock down cases fall, admissions fall we open up both raise again.

The first lockdown was "to flatten the curve" of the first wave. I remember seeing the graphs showing the "peak" without a lockdown and then the graph showing the peak, far lower, with a lockdown. It was never to eliminate covid, just a tool to reduce the number of covid patients in hospital at the projected peak.

People have very short memories if they think the lockdowns were somehow going to eliminate covid etc - that's not what we were being told at the time.

Trouble is that the govt messed up by keeping the lockdowns too long in lockdowns 1 and 3 and not long enough for lockdown 2. We should have started opening up again as soon as infection rates started falling, but for some reason, the decisions were made that the relaxations only happened in 1 and 3 once infection rates were very low indeed along with tiny numbers of deaths. That WASN'T the plan. We shouldn't have been waiting for low numbers before opening up, we should have been rolling out the relaxations a lot sooner.

I dont think it is just vaccines I think (rightly or wrongly) there has been a massive attitude change.

You can see in Australia and New Zealand (to a lesser extent) that the worst part of anything is the build up, the dread before something happens. We can all remember the scenes from China and Italy last year and some of the scariest threads are from January to March 2020.

We are now 18 months beyond that and have been hit massively hard by Covid. But I think it working through all of that we have lost the sense of fear and dread, the denial and anger and are now I think at a stage of acceptance.

Some posters will argue that acceptance is misplaced (and they would have a point), that it is heartless or wrong to have come to that point - and again they may well have a point. Some of what has happened has I think numbed people to a certain extent to figures they would have found shocking before

But the fact is as @IncessantNameChanger puts

Covid back in the first lockdown was a terrifying unknown. Now it's fine to live and mix and whatever knowing you have it at home. Cant unseen that and go back into terror mode I'm afraid

So many people are at that stage. The terror has gone and acceptance has been reached. It will take something to change that and I am not convinced that hospitals being overwhelmed will do it.