To ask if we’re heading for another lockdown?

[TreeLine6]

So covid cases are rising and like clockwork, the likes of independent sage are back in the media calling for ‘protections’ like masks, isolation and social distancing to “avoid full lockdown”.

Is it time to reintroduce some measures like the rule of 6, a cap on large events numbers and maybe distancing and early closure for hospitality as independent sage are calling for?

Personally I feel that with vaccines and treatments, we are now in the best position we’re going to get with covid and would be very reluctant to comply with further measures, that themselves cause enormous harm.

It does pretty much stop a community outbreak within a week or 2 even with omicron. China hasn’t got rid of covid, but the majority of cases are in people who didn’t catch it in China.

I’m not saying we should do it here. We’re definitely not likely to try it and it’s so out of control here it would take bloody ages. But it isn’t true that it doesn’t work. Large parts of China have shown that it does even with omicron. We made a deliberate choice not to bother with elimination and let it spread widely.

No thank you.

The risk of serious illness and death on a population level is sufficiently low to mean that these kinds of restrictions are not needed and not justifiable.

It does pretty much stop a community outbreak within a week or 2 even with omicron. China hasn’t got rid of covid, but the majority of cases are in people who didn’t catch it in China.

I’m not saying we should do it here. We’re definitely not likely to try it and it’s so out of control here it would take bloody ages. But it isn’t true that it doesn’t work. Large parts of China have shown that it does even with omicron. We made a deliberate choice not to bother with elimination and let it spread widely.

Depends how you define control and doesn't work, I suppose. In this instance we're talking about actually stopping it.

In terms of 'letting it spread' that terminology implies some kind of permission or approval. There is no evidence that we have that level of control once Omicron has a foothold in the population, and indeed no society has been able to exercise any degree of control once that stage has been reached. In the UK, it was already here when South Africa announced the first case. So even talking about something taking ages is optimistic.

RainStalksMyWashing
Yes, exactly like that.

Thank you! I feel like I'm talking to teenagers sometimes - teenagers have a stage where they always have to be right, and will twist a debate into into all manner of directions to avoid otherwise.

@PerfectlyPreservedQuagaarWarrior

They're not, as evidenced by the fact that we don't have them now despite covid essentially being in every public space. Restrictions don't automatically happen when covid reaches a certain level, and never have. There's no inevitable link.

That is because the control of Covid is at a different phase now. The use of mitigations - plus vaccines - at the beginning achieved what you enjoy now - relative freedom. I wouldn't call it 'endemic' just yet, but we're not far off. There is a clear link between Covid and mitigations, but not an automatic level.

We made a deliberate choice not to bother with elimination and let it spread widely.

Elimination stopped being an option once it spread outside China. This is on China, frankly. The CCP chose to lie and cover things up in a panic, as usual.

So too much disease would stop keyworkers going to work if there was a lockdown, but somehow wouldn't stop them going to work if there wasn't a lockdown?

No, my point is that if a disease had a really high IFR and was very infectious, there would be complete panic, not a lockdown, services would break down and we would be screwed anyway. The amazon warehouse guys etc. would just refuse to work.

Politically maybe. But otherwise elimination and eradication were an option once it had got out of China. The Chinese should have reported it earlier when their doctors were trying to whistleblow. We ended up in a global pandemic because even after theWHO warned everyone to take it seriously in Jan2020, we all got caught napping.

would have been a lot less harmful to the global economy, people’s livelihoods, mental health and education if we’d acted sooner and eradicated it early. Not to mention the huge burden repeated covid infections is going to put on healthcare.

The last sentence in your post is the only important or relevant one: you accept there is nothing automatic about restrictions. There would have to be, for your argument that covid not restrictions causes closures and losses. How you justify this is neither here nor there, although it does make your attempted dig about debate twisting more unintentionally amusing.

@PerfectlyPreservedQuagaarWarrior

The last sentence in your post is the only important or relevant one: you accept there is nothing automatic about restrictions. There would have to be, for your argument that covid not restrictions causes closures and losses. How you justify this is neither here nor there, although it does make your attempted dig about debate twisting more unintentionally amusing.

"Nothing automatic about restrictions" = they don't kick in at any particular, set level.

The rest of your post - meaningless word salad.

Pot kettle hilarious.

Anyway, restrictions are what causes mass closures. Covid itself doesn't, the response to it does.

@PerfectlyPreservedQuagaarWarrior

Anyway, restrictions are what causes mass closures. Covid itself doesn't, the response to it does.

I recognise you're an intelligent person. The statement above, though, doesn't make much sense. How can restrictions cause closures? The restrictions are a response to disease figures - ergo, Covid.

Perhaps we are talking about the same thing, but using different terminology.

Perhaps we are.

My position is that covid itself doesn't cause mass closures or anything other than ad hoc cancellations when the whole staff/cast are ill as has happened a few times. Businesses can and do continue functioning during the pandemic when they're not legally restricted from doing so. We saw that in the latter half of 2020, local restrictions notwithstanding, and then after the 2021 restrictions ended too. Obviously there was still a great deal of covid around then, as now, but when business sectors are allowed to they will simply coexist with it. You seem to concur with this part.

Because the closures have happened as a response to restrictions not to the presence of covid, it's the restrictions that caused them. If it were the covid, closures would track with covid rates. Which of course they don't. The prevalence now is higher than at some points when we still had restrictions.

@PerfectlyPreservedQuagaarWarrior

My position is that covid itself doesn't cause mass closures or anything other than ad hoc cancellations when the whole staff/cast are ill as has happened a few times. Businesses can and do continue functioning during the pandemic when they're not legally restricted from doing so. We saw that in the latter half of 2020, local restrictions notwithstanding, and then after the 2021 restrictions ended too. Obviously there was still a great deal of covid around then, as now, but when business sectors are allowed to they will simply coexist with it. You seem to concur with this.

No, not really.

Because the closures have happened as a response to restrictions not to the presence of covid, it's the restrictions that caused them.

No.

If it were the covid, closures would track with covid rates. Which of course they don't. The prevalence now is higher than at some points when we still had restrictions.

Because ... there are no restrictions? No mask wearing? Etc.?

Because the closures have happened as a response to restrictions not to the presence of covid, it's the restrictions that caused them.

No.

Well, yes, though. Restrictions were done in response to covid, but they didn’t have to happen just because covid did. Covid didn’t write legislation and send police out to enforce them. That was a political decision, made by humans.

Of course you can think it was a good political decision, or that any alternative decision would have been worse. But the point is that a) deciding to have restrictions at all and b) deciding what specific restrictions to have was still a decision. Restrictions on things like restaurant capacity, and how many people you can have in your house, and whether you can leave your local area, don’t just automatically ‘kick in’ when virus rates hit a certain level.

Restrictions were done in response to covid, but they didn’t have to happen just because covid did. Covid didn’t write legislation and send police out to enforce them. That was a political decision, made by humans.

But you're still referring here to a restriction, political or not, made in response to Covid. I'm not seeing the difference here.

Of course, mitigations/restrictions didn't have to happen. Covid could have been left to run unchecked, correct? However, most countries had mitigations of some description, some heavier than others, before slowly letting them go as more of their populations were vaccinated.

I really wonder where we'd be if Covid wasn't 'checked' in that first year - certainly not where we are now.

But you're still referring here to a restriction, political or not, made in response to Covid. I'm not seeing the difference here.

Ok. Imagine I own a cafe. Covid comes along. Is my cafe still open? Yes, it is, because cafe doors don’t automatically clang shut when they detect a virus.

Now, say the government says “to keep covid numbers low, we will close your cafe.” Is my cafe open now? No, it is not, because I legally have to close it.

Meanwhile, my friend just over the border has a different government. Her government says “eh, this covid is bad and all, but we aren’t going to tackle it by closing cafes.“ Is her cafe still open? Yes, it probably is.

When restrictions are legally ordering things to close, then those restrictions are closing things. Maybe for a good reason, maybe not, maybe it’s the right thing to do, maybe not, but either way: it is the restrictions, the choices the government makes to restrict things by closing them, which is causing closures.

No, not really.

Tell us why then.

Because ... there are no restrictions? No mask wearing? Etc.?

Irrelevant. Whether the restrictions we had previously have put us in a better position now is a totally different question to whether they were the cause of closures and job losses. There is no contradiction between being a restriction supporter and accepting the consequences of those restrictions either.

But you're still referring here to a restriction, political or not, made in response to Covid. I'm not seeing the difference here.

The difference is that one is the disease and one is the response to it. They are not the same thing.

If you have a different response that isn't restrictions, as we have now and had for various periods during the pandemic, then that changes what happens in the relevant job sectors. Golden Omber has explained it well.

It doesn't much matter for the sake of this specific point whether anyone thinks restrictions were justified or not. You can support laws closing certain sectors whilst acknowledging the impact they had, and indeed that's a more sensible approach than refusing to address this head on.

I’m so tired of all of this. Covid is here to stay now and will fluctuate with the seasons until it is so ingrained in populations that hopefully we will either become more resilient and/or the disease will weaken and become mostly inconsequential except for the immunosuppressed. Mask wearing for me has become a habit, but only when the numbers are rising. I have had four jabs but have decided to not have any more mRNA vaccines. I think people will do what they want to do, and could not imagine another lockdown. Restrictions at a time of a cost of living crises would do more harm than good.

No. Of course not. Bar another pandemic, it's not going to happen.

But you are still simply describing responses made to a primary cause - in this case, Covid. As I noted in a previous post, the responses and restrictions of other countries may differ.

At this point we're just debating semantics.

BBC is running a big feature this morning about community warm spaces, can't quite see how this sits with people thinking there will be lockdowns, doubt there will be many windows open either as it defeats the object.

At this point we're just debating semantics.

It isn't semantics, it's the entire point.

The fact that responses from other societies have differed, and indeed that our own haven't actually waxed and waned with covid prevalence levels, is actually evidence that it is restrictions rather than covid itself that caused the closures.

What you said was: “Covid means certain venues can't open. Covid means some businesses can't run at capacity. To keep blaming mitigations for these things is disingenuous.”

But the ‘mitigations’ you’re talking about are legal orders to close those certain venues, and legal orders to make businesses run at reduced capacity.

You can keep a venue open if there’s covid. Maybe the result would be bad, but the virus itself wouldn’t close its doors.

You can’t keep a venue open if there’s a law saying ‘that venue has to close’.

Yes they were done in response to covid. But they were not the inevitable, only response to covid, they didn’t happen all by themselves. I get that you think these restrictions were the right thing to do, but that is really irrelevant to whether or not laws saying ‘close things’ caused said things to close.