Will there be another lockdown

[Doublethecars]

In November time?

@TheReluctantPhoenix
“At the moment we are playing fantasy normal life and creating a lot of problems 4-8 weeks out”
Again spot on.

Sorry my grammar was appalling there was typing and walking bad idea.

@Dghgcotcitc

People were furious at the lack of a fire breaker lockdown yes but wakes had it abs still a long three month lockdown after Christmas!

People are creating a narrative that is untrue re so much on this pandemic and we are not listening to the evidence if people are so keen on a firebreak two week lockdown as the “solution” to save the nhs a better start would not be “and if you don’t agree with me you don’t care about saving the nhs@ but explaining any evidence you have that a two week lockdown will change the course of the pandemic significantly. What you are calling for needs to work and there is no evidence this strategy does! If it does why is Sidney which lockdowns really quite early (with Under 100 cases a day) still in lockdown three months later with over 1000 cases a day?!

Australia hasn’t got to the same stage in a vaccine programme. Completely different demographic issues and antibody prevalence. You’re not comparing like situations at all.

There’s so much random opinion splurging on this thread about whether masks do or don’t work or what lockdowns do etc. I’m starting to think you should all be heading up Sage with your extremely well researched and knowledgeable scientific opinions! When people who have spent their lives in medical and scientific research are still weighing up the data and pros and cons, they could save their effort and just ask all you experts!

@FallingRussetLeaves it clearly meant we are unprotected currently-desperately so. And that therefore we have exhausted our efforts at "living with this" as if this continues there will be nobody fit to propel the economy so many here are naming as priority.

There’s so much random opinion splurging on this thread about whether masks do or don’t work or what lockdowns do etc.

But you include your posts in this?

The best thing any of us can do to reduce our chances of ending up in ICU is lose weight! Statistically, most serious cases currently in hospital are BMI+ 30. The countries with the highest rates of obesity are also those with the highest death rates. My BIL is a medic and he believes this message is not being rammed home clearly enough and it’s the one thing in most of our control. This virus isn’t quite as indiscriminate as we all fear.

www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-obesity-idUSKBN2AW1X0

www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e4.htm

There’s so much random opinion splurging on this thread about whether masks do or don’t work

I am sitting in a country right now that has both masks, and one of the highest covid rates on the planet. So yes, fairly confident that they aren’t all that massively effective at keeping cases low, really. What with them very obviously not doing that.

Ditto ‘circuit breakers’. We do know they wouldn’t have avoided the winter lockdown, because we tried them and they didn’t avoid it.

@GoldenOmber

Are you happy to see people gasping to death for air, as oxygen and delivery systems are not available?

Are you happy for you or your child to die of other treatable ailments, as hospitals are overwhelmed?

It wasn’t a 2-week circuit breaker and masks in Tesco that avoided this previously, though, was it? It took harsh months-long lockdowns. Most people were willing to go along with those lockdowns for that reason, when that was the alternative.

People start being a lot less willing to go along with harsh restrictions when the alternative is ‘hospitals busier than normal’ instead of ‘hospitals overwhelmed and systems collapsing.’ Or when told that the alternative is full-on healthcare system collapse, but we can avoid it with a 2-week ‘circuit breaker’ and masks in Tesco.

Well that isn’t what anyone is saying. My friend who managed Covid response was the lead consultant in the epicentre area of the transition from Alpha to Kent variant last August-October. In her opinion at the time, if we’d had a circuit breaker as the new variant took hold, it would have avoided the post-December lockdowns because it took around six weeks out of August for the full sequencing data to make it clear that it was a new variant takeover, and quick actin at that point would have dramatically suppressed the curve. Instead the government did not act in the run up to Christmas even though it was clear by October that the new variant was taking over and changing the transmission rate. Same happened when Delta took over as the dominant variant.

It’s been clear from the outset that the virus will change and not behave how we want. Saying what you or anyone will or won’t accept won’t stop it from doing what it does. Even those working closest with the data can’t accurately weigh up exactly what will or won’t happen when you add or remove various restrictions or predict how the vaccines will affect transmission, but I’m glad so many people on this thread do!

@MarshaBradyo

There’s so much random opinion splurging on this thread about whether masks do or don’t work or what lockdowns do etc.

But you include your posts in this?

I have no opinion on lockdown or anything else: no-one right now can tell. I’m not a virologist or an epidemiologist. I also can’t predict the future. I’m simply saying whatever people on here think or say will not change whether a lockdown is needed or not. I can’t help it if you blame me for that message 🤷‍♀️

if we’d had a circuit breaker as the new variant took hold, it would have avoided the post-December lockdowns

But several UK countries did have a circuit breaker, and it didn’t avoid the post-December lockdowns.

[quote DoubleShotEspresso]@FallingRussetLeaves it clearly meant we are unprotected currently-desperately so. And that therefore we have exhausted our efforts at "living with this" as if this continues there will be nobody fit to propel the economy so many here are naming as priority.
[/quote]
That wasn't at all clear. It still isn't. Are you saying you think we're on the path to nobody being able to keep working and paying in, and if so is there a course of action you're advocating to prevent that outcome?

But you include your posts in this?

Nah!

Ditto ‘circuit breakers’. We do know they wouldn’t have avoided the winter lockdown, because we tried them and they didn’t avoid it.

Well they weren’t tried in the Kent/Essex area where the Kent variant emerged and took off, so whether they were tried in Wales makes no difference to your argument 🤷‍♀️

Honestly it’s like people think England exists in some kind of parallel universe sometimes.

“How do we know masks/circuit breakers wouldn’t have avoided winter lockdown/delta wave?”
“Because we tried it and it didn’t work.”
“Ah, but maybe it would have done!”
“No, we literally did it and it didn’t work.”
“But who can say if it would have worked or not?”
“Well, we can, because we actually did that thing and it did not work.”
“Truly, we’ll never know if it would have worked or not. What a shame we never did it.”

The argument is not the killer one you think it is, The Kent variant takeover emerged in SE England, not Wales or Scotland. When established in England it crowded out the previous variant elsewhere. To suppress that curve - which was getting near vertical by early December - you’d have needed a lockdown in SE England, not Wales or Scotland where it hadn’t yet taken off.

@2389Champ,

Obesity is a factor but it isn't THE factor that you are implying (incidentally, being underweight seemed equally problematic).

The country survey is a bit dubious, as there are so many confounding factors. The actual paper you linked to seemed to show the risk of death, even for the very obese, never reached twice the risk of death in those of healthy weight.

So, yes, lose weight and be healthy, but simply losing weight isn't the miracle strategy against COVID.

We did not have a circuit breaker in England because Johnson thought it wouldn’t play well with business, the Christmas shoppers, etc. So we didn’t try it, despite the data in what was happening in SE England being by then very clear. I don’t know why you’re claiming we did something we didn’t do, because despite circuit breakers in other regions they didn’t have that level of cases or the transmission of the Kent variant at that time. But whatever 🤷‍♀️

I have no opinion on lockdown or anything else: no-one right now can tell. I’m not a virologist or an epidemiologist. I also can’t predict the future. I’m simply saying whatever people on here think or say will not change whether a lockdown is needed or not. I can’t help it if you blame me for that message

I wouldn’t blame you for that message because it’s just a chat forum and we’re all just posting opinions.

But when it comes to what works it does make sense to look at what has and hasn’t. I agree with pp re Wales circuit breaker and that it didn’t stop the lockdown after.

Circuit breakers will only work if they are really 'hard', reducing contacts to family only pretty much, for about 2 weeks. They would also need to be enforced.

If you want to trust people with no enforcement, it takes a lot longer, as, although you get the r to below 1, it is not much below one, and takes months to work the infection out of the population (as it did).

To suppress that curve - which was getting near vertical by early December - you’d have needed a lockdown in SE England

And that would have suppressed it for the length of your two-week lockdown. Perhaps. After which - whoosh! Near-vertical curve again.

As I pointed out, the Wales circuit breaker was at a point where they had very low case numbers; whereas the Kent strain which was then taking over was taking off in - Kent. Not Wales. So a Welsh circuit breaker quite obviously had zero effect on a new variant emerging in SE England, where there was no circuit breaker. Where case numbers were exploding many informed people were calling for one to dampen the new variant takeoff.

There’s not much point using an example of a lockdown somewhere else as a reason why a lockdown in a different place with a different strain would or wouldn’t have worked 🤷‍♀️

I doesn’t seem to me that lots of people in this thread even remember accurately the pandemic we’ve had so far, never mind tell us what we should be doing in the future.

@TheReluctantPhoenix

Circuit breakers will only work if they are really 'hard', reducing contacts to family only pretty much, for about 2 weeks. They would also need to be enforced.

If you want to trust people with no enforcement, it takes a lot longer, as, although you get the r to below 1, it is not much below one, and takes months to work the infection out of the population (as it did).

What do you mean by work? Suppress or reduce etc

If you compare lockdown in Melbourne which brought down cases and now isn’t - apart from fatigue issues then delta is harder to reduce

@MarshaBradyo,

I mean substantially reduce cases, so you can go a good long time before needing another one.

Yes, a lot harder with delta.

So a Welsh circuit breaker quite obviously had zero effect on a new variant emerging in SE England

But the reason circuit breakers don’t work is that they don’t stop the virus spreading. They temporarily suppress it until you lift the circuit breaker, at which point it comes right back again.

This is what happened in Wales, with a less transmissible version pre-alpha. This is what happened in Scotland. So how, exactly, would this not have happened in an area where a more transmissible variant was already taking hold? What’s special about Kent that would make a circuit breaker more effective after that two weeks?

[quote 2389Champ]The best thing any of us can do to reduce our chances of ending up in ICU is lose weight! Statistically, most serious cases currently in hospital are BMI+ 30. The countries with the highest rates of obesity are also those with the highest death rates. My BIL is a medic and he believes this message is not being rammed home clearly enough and it’s the one thing in most of our control. This virus isn’t quite as indiscriminate as we all fear.

www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-obesity-idUSKBN2AW1X0

www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e4.htm[/quote]
you're not allowed to sat stuff like that...

@FallingRussetLeaves

• DoubleShotEspresso @FallingRussetLeaves it clearly meant we are unprotected currently-desperately so. And that therefore we have exhausted our efforts at "living with this" as if this continues there will be nobody fit to propel the economy so many here are naming as priority.  That wasn't at all clear. It still isn't. Are you saying you think we're on the path to nobody being able to keep working and paying in, and if so is there a course of action you're advocating to prevent that outcome?

But you include your posts in this?

Nah!*
I don't know what you want made clear?!
I'm saying that the economy is severely impacted by both lockdowns (obviously) and the potential of vast numbers of our population being at risk of illness, long term illness, unemployment , hospitalisations and yes in some cases death. Nobody wants either of these to continue so I'm suggesting again that any and all measures (and God knows we need measures) are applied in food time, not late as they repeatedly have been and not lifted too soon as again has repeatedly been the case. And then yes- if these measures fail to work effectively, lockdowns where numbers/seasons/Nhs pressure necessitates. This includes all the services and pleasures we all take too readily for granted in the united effort of saving lives and long term severe illness. And no I'm not pitching this against appropriate funding for the nhs- that ought to be a given. I'm neither
As for the "including your own posts ? Nah"comments I've no idea what I'm doing wrong here, I'm using my phone app and using the quote option as normal?