Are we locking down again?

[Dancerinthedark01]

And if so will they do more of the furlough and shutting things down?

Schools?

Please No!

I’m reading that this might be happening.

I think there’ll be localised lockdowns for sure.
The numbers in the worse affected areas seem too high to sustain any type of normal public services.

@julieca

The idea of the pandemic burning out is obviously false. Lots of people are getting reinfected including me. Sure it is unlikely to kill people being reinfected, but some may still need hospital treatment. At the least, it means people are off work including public services.

Sooo… what’s your plan? You want to do this… forever?

@QueenofKattegat

What would be the purpose of another lockdown? The first three didn't work, why would a fourth? What is the point of artificially supressing the spread of a virus, by decimating lives, education and the economy, just for it to rise again once those restrictions are lifted. Genuinely, what is the point? Where does it end? We know it isn't going away so what would another lockdown achieve?

We are back, once again, to the general public being made responsible for "saving" the sainted NHS when it isn't our job.

I mean they kind of did work (whether they were worth it or the kind of thing a government should even have the right to do in a free country notwithstanding), biding time until vaccination roll out. We were in and out of lockdowns to keep rates in a band we could cope with. Fine.
But now post vaccine rollout I don’t see the logic at all. We could lockdown (and destroy the economy) and get rates low again, and then open up and see rates get higher and higher again in the months that follow, so then what - back into lockdown? For years? At some point enough has to be enough. Vaccinations have been given to all adults who want them. Boosters are being offered to older people which should help. They knew cases would spike.. it looks like unfortunately they didn’t spike high enough in the summer as the Govt expected and now it’s worse in A/W which is unfortunate - I guess the gamble of moving so called “Freedom Day” back a month didn’t work and it should have been earlier.

Well they had a minister on this morning saying it won't happen so on past performance I'd say that means it might.

Sooo… what’s your plan? You want to do this… forever?

Well exactly. All the doctors on the telly moaning about the NHS being busy in the winter. Just as it is every winter. Wanting us to wear masks, work from home, socially distance every single winter. Forever. And saying that it's no big deal, no disruption to our daily lives.

Sorry doctors, not doing that. Totally impractical. And without rehashing about a million threads over the last year, masks are not a "simple thing" for most people, neither is social distancing.

Not a chance. There'll be nothing left of the country if they go into another lockdown.
For all those crying for another lockdown - just why? The hospitals aren't overwhelmed, the death numbers are suddenly increasing either it's been flat for months on end.

Didn’t Boris say that about closing schools in January and then close them the next day @ancientgran

aren't 🤦🏻‍♀️ @mumsnetHQ* you need to make an edit comment button!

@Bizawit
Well, what’s your plan? To want covid to be over so much, you’ll ignore it so it might go away? That’s a bit ‘toddler playing hide and seek’, isn’t it?

Perhaps you REALLY need to understand Covid ‘is with us forever’ and that means we will need to adapt at times when cases soar, particularly if hospitals are affected. So yes, we might need to do ‘this’….forever. Hopefully not and hopefully not all the time…but it might be forever. We don’t know!

@secretllama

I dont see the point in calling for locking down this winter unless you're happy for lockdown every winter. I keep reading that the NHS is worried about flu this season because we locked down/distanced last winter and it didn't spread as usual. So you want us to keep locking down every year because the first winter you don't, it will be carnage with covid and flu and no immunity. I won't be avoiding friends and family this winter.

I think the NHS staff, and social care, can only do so much. One of my kids is a nurse, has worked flat out for over 18 months now, has had Covid so 2 weeks off then, holiday entitlement building up. A manager looked at them a couple of weeks ago and said they looked like the walking dead and a holiday was immediately approved. They can't go on like that.

We don't need to lockdown, we could strongly encourage masks and look at other measures, distancing in supermarkets etc.

We could do vaccine passports maybe - to avoid the alternative of some businesses having to be closed.

It isn't all or nothing.

And we need vaccines to be available for teens who want them, and boosters available for at least the people who are meant to be having them.

I think there will be lockdowns. Might be called a different name of course.
I think this thread will age quite quickly sadly.

Just to point out again that we have masks in schools and in supermarkets in Scotland, and work from home orders, and vaccine passports.

And there is no difference between rates here and rates in the rest of the UK.

@toomuchlaundry

Didn’t Boris say that about closing schools in January and then close them the next day *@ancientgran*

Yes, him or his minions assuring us something can't happen is quite a good predictor of it happening. I suppose they think we won't notice because we are all thick, not like them.

I wonder what else is going to come out about the Johnson houseguests last Christmas. Meanwhile I had one of my kids, a nurse, with covid and couldn't see them or indeed any of my kids. Our Christmas was in the car park of a service station on a motorway a few days before Christmas. It was cold, dark and damp and not the Christmas that the Johnsons would have wanted I'm sure.

Waiting to hear about boosters, our six months is up but nothing yet. Another success for our illustrious leader.

They may implement plan B or something which is masks, working from home and social distancing. No lockdown talk whatsoever. According to somebody on radio 4 this morning. Plus vaccine passports.

Which they should have been doing all this time!

@JaneDoe21

Not a chance. There'll be nothing left of the country if they go into another lockdown. For all those crying for another lockdown - just why? The hospitals aren't overwhelmed, the death numbers are suddenly increasing either it's been flat for months on end.

Our local hospital has just announced it is doubling covid beds due to pressure. If they are losing more and more beds for other conditions the backlog is never going to go is it.

Sadly I don’t think distancing in supermarkets does much to help.

The major point of transmission is in homes , so unless we have to wear masks inside by law then there is always going to be transmission, especially amongst those who choose to remain unvaccinated.

I think vaccine passports are the way to go: members of my family abroad who were vaccine hesitant, rather than anti-vax, have now rushed to get jabbed as, in one case, their hobby mandated that no one over 12 could cross the threshold without a pass. Carrot rather than stick!

So yes, we might need to do ‘this’….forever.

There won't be compliance for this forever. It's a dumbarse strategy, doomed to fail.

We need to completely rethink the nhs, what it's purpose is, how it's funded, what our expectations of it are. We needed to do this long before Covid and now it's much more urgent.

A health service that needs lockdown measures/restrictions every winter to barely function is quite obviously not working.

To all those saying it won't happen can't you see that we can't afford for the NHS collapse?

That would cost more than furlough, if the rates continue to spiral (and its clear vaccination doesn't stop lots getting it or becoming rather ill with it , plus there is more talk of waning protection) whole swathes of the working population will be off sick, including those central to the running of the country.

This time last year the same people were saying that it would never happen and stop scaremongering, but it did. I hope it doesn't happen but currently in schools it is lockdown by the back door.

These threads always seem to have people wanting to sensibly discuss the likelihood of further lockdowns and accept that the reality is some restrictions could be brought back but we aren’t sure which ones. And loads of other posters jumping in to attack perfectly reasonable posts and accuse them of being desperate for more lockdowns and wanting to do this forever more. I don’t think anyone anywhere actually wants lockdowns.

So distancing, masks, bubbles, isolating households with cases and a clear message that if you are sick stay home or prove a test. So many with colds and bugs seem to know it’s not covid without a test

One thing that could be done (and Tim Spector from the Zoe research programme has been trying to get to government to do) is to update the Common covid symptoms in the fully vaccinated. We are constantly being told if we have a new continuous cough, fever and loss of smell to get tested but the most common symptoms are now runny nose, headache, sneezing, sore throat and maybe a raised temp and loss of smell. The original symptoms sound to have moved down the top 10 for those who are vaccinated.

I can only guess it’s been a conscious decision by the government not to change the info. If they won’t do it though at least bring back masks (some countries have mandated the white thicker ones not the blue jobbies or fabric ones which seem less effective) and bring in covid passports. I think maybe stop looking at how long this might be necessary and deal with the situation as it is not how we want it to be.

[quote BustopherPonsonbyJones]@Bizawit
Well, what’s your plan? To want covid to be over so much, you’ll ignore it so it might go away? That’s a bit ‘toddler playing hide and seek’, isn’t it?

Perhaps you REALLY need to understand Covid ‘is with us forever’ and that means we will need to adapt at times when cases soar, particularly if hospitals are affected. So yes, we might need to do ‘this’….forever. Hopefully not and hopefully not all the time…but it might be forever. We don’t know![/quote]
People will not do it forever though.

It is worrying how the nhs will function in the future with Covid to contend with contstantly. As obvioudly it’s now a permanently circulating virus.

@lightand

I think there will be lockdowns. Might be called a different name of course. I think this thread will age quite quickly sadly.

I think we shouldn’t be too accepting of it.

In any case listening to people speak I’m less convinced plan b will happen yet.

I’m musing about the timing of ‘freedom day’. They planning it so we’d get a peak over summer. And really went for it by taking away all restrictions.
Yet that peak in summer didn’t happen (why do we think? Summer behaviour, people outside more?)

Now we are looking at an autumn/winter peak which is what we didn’t want.

Should we have opened up fully in say March/April to get the peak earlier?
What was the point in getting cases really low through months of lockdown (and hammering the economy)? When we knew we had to ride an exit wave?

Obviously though they scuppered any chance of their plan being successful by slowing down the vaccinations and boosters.