Independent sage: circuit breaker lockdown needed now

[XmasGoose]

I see Independent Sage have said that an immediate circuit breaker lockdown is needed to protect the NHS.

This would involve a total ban on household mixing, all bars, restaurants and indoor venues closing and schools shutting early for Christmas.

Is this needed now to protect the NHS and save lives? Personally I wouldn’t comply with another lockdown.

twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1471160024005324804?s=21

Also: I would acknowledge that nothing we do has much chance of stopping omicron, and if the best we can manage is to slow it very slightly at huge cost, that is probably not a price worth paying.

Wales has never left plan B territory. Our numbers are no better than England's. Also, there has been official recognition from both Welsh and Scottish Gov that there's no evidence vaccine passports do anything.

It’ll be fast anyway. With a doubling time like that it’s a few weeks.

Even strict lockdown won’t stop the increase, it will slow it a bit but two weeks is just delaying that fast growth - what happens after you release?

And why would you release if numbers are still going up

Old methods like ‘circuit breakers’ seem odd suggestion from a group like this. Maybe it can be excused as they don’t have all the data

Nabarro probably a better message at this point - instead of mucking around with passes / ‘circuit breakers’ etc which won’t do much get that you’ll see high numbers and think about contacts.

No. The country can't cope with it, there's no money, people need to work in order to pay the (increasingly higher) bills. Schools need to stay open anyway, children's education has been 'shot' for too long.
Restrictions (sensible ones) yes, vaccinations yes, but lockdowns, no.

Sweden had an anti-lockdown policy, at first they were berated for it but almost 2 years on, they "no longer stand out" for it (FT, November 2021 article). They did lose lives but nothing like many other countries, but didn't suffer the other issues that lockdown countries have.

The UK's situation may be slightly different but now we have vaccinations and so on, we need to go the route of sensible precautions, not lockdowns.

Zotter

Dr Nabarro today stressed people should reduce to essential contacts only, (said he includes emotional as essential), face masks, sd, open windows and get boosters.

Yep, doing all of those things, we’ve never stopped.
My CEV husband wfh, as do I. We haven’t socialised. I haven’t seen my elderly parents since December 2019. SIL does same, daughter works in a family home where they are very cautious because of one CEV member. Youngest in first year at university has been selfless through the entirety of this. Attends lectures in mask and pretty much keeps to himself otherwise in his halls. All double vaxxed, as of this weekend all boosted.
We’ve all done everything asked of us and more, particularly the young ones whose daily lives have been damaged, without question. The youngest’s social and emotional development has suffered without question.

We won’t be missing seeing them and our grandchild for his second Christmas.

@MeanderingGently but Sweden were very compliant with other measures and their density of population much different to ours. However they are going to face much tighter restrictions under Omicron.

Household mixing and schools should be the last things to be banned - human connection, and children's education and wellbeing are fundamental rights, not a nice-to-have.

Yes totally agree with this.

@beatrixpotterspencil

Personally I wouldn’t comply with another lockdown

why what would you do? Break into the hairdressers and gatecrash a closed pub?

Honestly, how are people still trotting this out?

When people talk about not complying, they almost invariably mean they'll see who they like. Policing lockdown in private homes is impossible. There were also plenty such services running illegally on the quiet, often in people's homes, last time. And this was while there was still furlough.

We haven't really got the hang of the full Japanese/ South Korean approach to managing respiratory disease,

South Korea is currently having their worst surge ever and hospitals are apparently really struggling.

Sweden decided from the start to only introduce measures that people could keep up for long periods of time. They never banned people from seeing their loved ones. I think that was very sensible.

Whereas the U.K. has a lockdown fatigued, burnt out population with not a lot left to give.

@TheKeatingFive

Household mixing and schools should be the last things to be banned - human connection, and children's education and wellbeing are fundamental rights, not a nice-to-have.

Yes totally agree with this.

True, at this point let people decide rather than dictate - not that it can be enforced

When people talk about not complying, they almost invariably mean they'll see who they like.

True.

But I always point out here that im in ROI and if I'd wanted to get any hair/beauty procedures done jn the last lockdown (very strict), I knew exactly where to go. Ditto pubs.

All this moves to the black market eventually.

yep they have about 7k cases a day and have had 4.5k deaths

In a population of over 51 million.

Oh that our surges were proportionate to that.

sorry that was South Korea @Kokeshi123

@TheKeatingFive

When people talk about not complying, they almost invariably mean they'll see who they like.

True.

But I always point out here that im in ROI and if I'd wanted to get any hair/beauty procedures done jn the last lockdown (very strict), I knew exactly where to go. Ditto pubs.

All this moves to the black market eventually.

Yes, same! Earlier this year, I had the option of multiple illegal hair and beauty treatments in my home or someone else's, a small shebeen run from the garage of an old classmate and a couple of very discreet pub lock ins. Those are just the ones I happened to be told about. I don't doubt there'd be plenty more opportunities if I'd actually enquired. I didn't bother, but I might take the initiative to support the local economy should further restrictions ensue.

The problem is, who are going to staff these places that you are desperate to keep open? Who will run the trains that you need to get to visit your families? Who will keep the schools open when all the teachers are off sick? Who will do your hair and nails I know it’s highly inconvenient for you all but at the rate we are going everyone will be isolating anyway with omicron.

I think much of the country has been working itself to exhaustion covering for colleagues off sick/self-isolating/looking after children who are sick and self-isolating for the past however long, so we are indeed aware of the impact of reduced staffing due to covid spread, but would rather have some services than no services. Especially when it comes to things like children's education and ability to see their friends, or ability to see friends and family we have been missing for long periods of time.

@TheKeatingFive Sweden relied a lot on voluntary distancing, something is Brits refuse to do. They also banned gatherings of 50 or more so all the football matches, festivals and mass events we have had, did not take place. They put restrictions on care home visiting too. Did it work? A year and a half year after Sweden decided not to lock down, its COVID-19 death rate was up to 10 times higher than its neighbours.

@GoldenOmber totally understand that but can’t you see if we carry on this way then those things will be effected anyway?

Sweden relied a lot on voluntary distancing, something is Brits refuse to do.

I'm not sure how you're drawing conclusions like that. With good, clear messaging from the start it may well have been achieved, who knows. But all trust and good will has been eroded now.

A year and a half year after Sweden decided not to lock down, its COVID-19 death rate was up to 10 times higher than its neighbours.

And now? My friends in Norway are quite significantly restricted right now. Sweden's current figures compare pretty well and across the entire history of the pandemic are about mid table in Europe when it comes to outcomes. Without ever imposing the kind of lockdowns that have been so costly elsewhere.

[quote Trixiefirecracker]@GoldenOmber totally understand that but can’t you see if we carry on this way then those things will be effected anyway?[/quote]
It’s not ‘if we carry on this way’. These things will be affected whether we carry on this way or not. We do not have an option available to us to switch off omicron at the tap. Even a full ‘proper’ lockdown would probably just slow it down a little bit.

[quote Trixiefirecracker]@TheKeatingFive Sweden relied a lot on voluntary distancing, something is Brits refuse to do. They also banned gatherings of 50 or more so all the football matches, festivals and mass events we have had, did not take place. They put restrictions on care home visiting too. Did it work? A year and a half year after Sweden decided not to lock down, its COVID-19 death rate was up to 10 times higher than its neighbours.[/quote]
Voluntary distancing that Brits refuse to do?

We’re all those stupid queues around supermarket car parks and doormen running a one out one in system a mirage then?

@TheKeatingFive lots of things tell us this. We Brits are not great at socially distancing and as I said not having huge mass gatherings as we have done has massively helped, these are key spreading events. They are much less densely populated than us and have continued to be careful, where as we have a lockdown, then all go out and mix massively as normal and then face potential lockdown again. They have maintained the same measures throughout. You can not really compare the two countries. Above all the Swedes have more trust in their government than we do, to do the right thing, so compliance is naturally much higher.

@Suranjeep I’m not sure where you are but this was imposed on us and most people I saw in queues where not distancing, quite the opposite, nor wearing masks. They were up in arms about that too.

Ack they can fuck off. I’m calling for a £200k grant but nobody’s supporting that either.

I no longer give a fuck either way. If I get sick, plonk me in a “death bed” in a nightingale and I’ll either die or I won’t.

We do all accept by now that the nightingales were there for people to die staffed by volunteers in an “all hands on deck” scenario rather than running like a state of the art teaching hospital right?