Why are we not in lockdown right now?!

[InkyPinkyParlezVous]

If things are as bad as they say, why are we not locking down right now?

Surely waiting til after Christmas is just too late to stop this "tidal wave"

[quote SagittariusDwarf]@SLH2003 quite possibly I would do that! I'd also meet up with friends indoors. A lot.[/quote]
Good for you?! Award yourself a rebel medal.

There's absolutely no need? The media are fuelling the fire so that some people will restrict themselves anyway.

Lockdown almost broke me last time. I'm currently in the grips of real depression, for which I take medication daily. My mental health will decline even further if and when it happens again. Please don't assume. It's not kind.

Because we have all been vaccinated, we were told we had to so we could get in with our lives and avoid more lockdowns?

I for one do not want lockdown. People (well most) can use their common sense now we know more about covid, people are changing their plans for Christmas, people are cancelling parties, because they feel it’s the right thing to do. We don’t need telling, we don’t need to be imprisoned in our own homes again.

Just follow the advice “don’t mix with people if you don’t really have too” and continuing doing what we have been doing regarding masks etc..

Not sure I need a medal for acting like a normal human being, @DismantledKing, but thanks anyway!

@SLH2003 I meant with families mixing at Christmas etc.

Makes no odds to me lockdown or not. I'm a massive introvert and don't go anywhere anyway. can't remember the last time I went to a pub or restaurant 😅 quite happy being at home but I'm in the minority.

Our jobs have not been affected by the pandemic. Worked all the way through in the workplace as they never shut down!!

There is no public appetite or political will for a lockdown.

@Borisjohnsonshairbrush

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

My last comment was in reply to this.

@InkyPinkyParlezVous

Lockdown almost broke me last time. I'm currently in the grips of real depression, for which I take medication daily. My mental health will decline even further if and when it happens again. Please don't assume. It's not kind.

To be honest, I wouldn’t post on the Covid board and expect people to be kind. There’s too many obsessives with personal agendas on here; even AIBU is better than the Covid board. You can ask MN for it to be deleted if you want.

@InkyPinkyParlezVous
Well if it nearly broke you like it broke me stopstop asking why we aren't in one.

Just be glad we aren't and start living!

@InkyPinkyParlezVous

Lockdown almost broke me last time. I'm currently in the grips of real depression, for which I take medication daily. My mental health will decline even further if and when it happens again. Please don't assume. It's not kind.

In the kindest way, if you're struggling that much I wouldn't post a thread that's going to stir up so much emotion, especially without sharing your views.

Oh, here comes another lockdown lover.

Why should we want to be in lockdown? We don't want to be, and for all the reasons given above and then some.

We can't lock down without furlough anyway. What are people supposed to use as money to feed themselves and their families? What about their mental health issues that are made worse by lockdowns.

The whole mass hysteria needs to stop now.

Because it'd be pointless.

Omicron has an R value between 3 and 5. Even a March 2020 lockdown isn't going to halt that, particularly now when people will mix at Christmas whatever the government says (and I don't blame them, honestly). And even if restrictions did slow it a little (and don't forget, there would still be plenty of settings where it would continue its exponential spread), as soon as thing reopened it would go bonkers again.

In the past lockdowns have bought us time to roll out vaccines, but that's been done, now. Most people will have some level of immunity, making illness milder. The knotty point is how well the NHS will cope with the (possible) huge numbers of people who will need help - but even at that point, lockdown won't do much as the crisis will be here.

I think there'll probably be some restrictions (nightclubs closing, wfh continuing, table service in pubs etc) but even those won't be without great cost to livelihoods and MH. But the peak of Omicron looks as if it might arrive very quickly indeed, and hopefully pass as quickly too. Who knows? By early February this we could have a situation where, although there will be a rise in deaths and hospitalisations, millions of people will be triple or quadruple jabbed and had covid at least once (if I catch it it'll be a third time!). It'd take one fucker of a future variant to break through those defences, and Chris Whitty has said that another like Omicron would be very unlikely.

But by God we have a mountain to climb first - not one that lockdown would help in any meaningful way, however.

How will we pay the wages and compensation for the millions of staff who'd lose their jobs and the hundreds of thousands of businesses that would collapse? They spent hundreds of billions already and yet even that huge figure left over 3 million self employed and freelancers without adequate support causing them to lose homes, businesses and some of them, their lives. It simply can't happen again.

Sorry for all the typos!

Because we're grown ups who are perfectly able to make our own choices?

Because if they lockdown now, it brings back the whole 'well you all had parties' stuff from last Christmas.

Because a lot of Tory MP's don't support it, and it would make Johnson look weak when he had to rely on Labour support to get it through.

And the big one, because it costs a fortune. This way they get a mini lockdown effect by discouraging people, but they don't have to pay for it.

Stop scaremongering! Get the vaccine, be sensible and live your life!

People need to work in order to survive, endless lockdown will just decimate the economy. There won't be any jobs to go to, no jobs means no money, no money means no food, no NHS or benefits.

I wish people would wake up to this other reality.

@InkyPinkyParlezVous

Lockdown almost broke me last time. I'm currently in the grips of real depression, for which I take medication daily. My mental health will decline even further if and when it happens again. Please don't assume. It's not kind.

OK, I'll take back some of my initial post. You don't want lockdown, but your OP did sound as though you did.

Best not to post threads which look like we would accept it. You never know who is looking.

Obviously if pubs and theatres and restaurants were all closed I’d be gutted but have no choice not go to them.

I would go to see my friends. Indoors. I would travel on a train to see my family. I would invite people to my house.

I don’t have a granny, she’s dead of cancer. And I’m sorry to say but there’s a limit to how long I’m expected to care about a stranger’s granny.

I have cared, I complied with previous lockdowns, I got vaccinated. But sorry random granny, that’s enough from me.

The kill a granny argument is ridiculous now.

Best not to post threads which look like we would accept it. You never know who is looking.

Well there’s paranoia, and then there’s this.

If we don't want lockdown though, we need to fund businesses and find the money from somewhere to do it. "Make your own choices" will cost more jobs than lockdown.
Plus the IMF is offering the government a loan, if they have no appetite for giving money to people who aren't their cronies.

@AD80

Even if we were in a lockdown, no one would comply anyway! The British public don't like being told what to do - even the ones who have set the rules! 👀

Who is this “British public”…standard phrase used to assume everyone thinks like you and your mates First no country’s population really enjoys being told what to do by their government and actually the uk population has generally accepted it better than a lot of countries, but not as well as some other countries. Most people I know are actually being very cautious and are back to being semi locked down to prevent themselves getting an infection before Xmas, as we’re now less than 10 days away. Like me they want to try to ensure that Christmas with long distance close family does go ahead vs last years miserable separation. But that’s just people I know..I don’t assume we singularly represent the “British public” In my experience a minority of very vocal people always claim to be the British public. Much like the daily mails opinion is quoted as British public. .

@girlmom21

There are 90% less hospital admissions than there were at the peak and the NHS was never overwhelmed

Yes, but have you not been paying attention?

Omicron is much much more transmissible and cases will sky rocket, even if it's less virulent and a smaller percentage of people get I'll enough to need the hospital, a smaller percentage of a much larger number if cases, is a larger number if people needing hospital care. Hospitals are gradually having to stop care for anything else due to the increasing number of omicron cases. It's only a matter of time before cases become hospital admissions...

Lockdowns didn't work before, in any real way, and the costs are huge-- not just economic.

Locking down now would be even less likely to work with such a transmissible variant.

And we open up and then what? It just kicks the can down the road.