Westminstenders: No pubs till Christmas?

[RedToothBrush]

Today the news has moved towards acknowledging covid-19 reality: Nicola Sturgeon has explicitly stated that some social distancing will carry on until the new year in all likelihood.

When Matt Hancock asked if this was true for England too, he refused to say yes but he said that Scotland was working from the same framework as England.

In case anyone does still need this spelling out, this means the outlook for the hospitality and leisure industries is bleak.

There are extremely unlikely to be many enjoying a holiday in the sun any time soon, whether it be in Devon or Spain.

We won't be celebrating birthdays in restaurants nor having a pint in the pub.

Conversations on the doorstep from a couple of metres away is as good as it gets.

That means if you can't adapt you may not survive.

To add into the mix changes to customs to those companies who are operating seems insanity. But that's a political not a scientific decision to be made.

Whether reality in this will kick in, in the next six weeks or so before EU budgetary decisions relating to an extension have to be made remains to be seen.

Until then, there is no news but covid-19.

Auld We were being sarcastic - and alluding to misconceptions of what teachers do that seem to pop up on these boards like mushrooms after the rain ie they don't work a full day, get a million weeks holiday a year etc....

Very much more so now that teachers are 'just' setting work remotely... and not offering each child a full day of one on one tuition...

My local b and Q still isn't open.

It didn't stop it causing massive bank holiday problems with its click and collect service creating a traffic jam that gridlocked several major roads and required the police to intervene.

There is an argument to reopen b and Q on these grounds.

It also helps keep people at home if they have something to do at home. It's not ideal but if it can be managed and measures put in place to minimise risk to staff and customers it's probably going to have to happen sooner rather than later to try and stop lockdown from breaking down in other ways.

We are still doing OK and are pretty self sufficient in terms of social isolation but everyone I have spoken to is now hitting psychological brick walls with it including us. They are all happy and willing to do lockdown but my over riding feeling is people are starting to struggle rather than be disobedient as such.

We've been dropping bits at our closest friends on daily walk and vice versa to help minimise trips to the supermarket and we've had brief conversations at distance (I've been out in the front garden when they've dropped by) or have had conversations across the street with people I know and they have been moments of just sheer relief and have made a huge difference. Friends who are key workers and still going to work are more at risk but are finding it easier in some ways because they have time away from home and are regularly having conversations with others. They have fear of getting it but are philosophical about it saying that chances are we will all get it at some point and the odds on avoiding it until there's a vaccine are limited unless you are completely isolated.

So yes, whilst I want lockdown to continue and there is a need for it to continue I'm also realistic about how things are going to have to progress. There is a finite limit to a strict lockdown (arguably if you start from a very strict lockdown, psychologically it gives you more time as each easing of measures is a relief which serves to help ease that stress and the UK having a less strict initial lockdown hasn't got this wiggle room in these terms which gives us less time overall).

I don't believe that breakdown in lockdown will be deliberate civil disobedience. I think it will be a gradual creep of people not sticking to it as religiously. I certainly have seen signs of it. And things are definitely more busy. I am hearing talk that a number of businesses which shut down completely as they couldn't work from home are now reopening and are operational with distancing measures in place. Others who were furloughed or forced to stop working are getting alternative perhaps semi-permanent covid-19 related jobs, so they are going back to work. It's little things like our local garden centre managing to get a website together and find a few delivery drivers to be able to deliver locally that are making things busier.

As I say it's about who has been able to adapt and find alternative ways of doing things that will survive as businesses. And I think to a certain extent that's the same in terms of social interaction and psychological impact.

I agree Red.

A lot of businesses that shut initially are finding new ways of adapting.

Our office is now open for homeworkers to pick up stuff, swap files - all by previous arrangement, a max of five in at any one time and protocols in place for hygiene etc.

On the whole, I think the adherence to the lock down has taken people by surprise; sure you get the odd dickhead but most people have been exceptionally compliant round here.

They do continue to be so, tbf, but there's more doing the full maximum permitted by the rules (so yes, sitting on a bench during exercise - oh joy unbounded!) rather than going beyond what the rules actually said.

When do we think schools will re open here?
Will it be like EU countries and be staggered for year 6, 10, 12?
My dc are really starting to miss their friends and structure of school/college.
Ds1 has to use public transport to get to college though:(
My gut feeling now they've cancelled all exams is that there might be induction visits for transitional years but thats it.
Bad news for my barnet about hairdressers! I cut my own hair on Saturday....I need a big hat :(
Re: lockdown - I'm ok I think but I'm out and about delivering for foodbank.
Struggling with not being able to be with mum though. She's very very lonely.
She's also saying she's going to start going for a walk each day next week....sigh.

I don't feel much different socially - I am relieved not to have to do the school run most of all! It would be nice to have a dog walk chat with another mum or two but I had only just got into that habit anyway. I've been pretty isolated for about 8 years.

I have noticed more cars on the roads and I mentioned ambulances having to turn on sirens to clear roads a few days ago. A lady I know posted pictures of them going to a beach - 30min drive away. Didn't attract many likes or comments but I can almost see people thinking "OH, OK we can do that now then!". Only about a week ago I think people would have been very vocal about her "breaking lockdown".

Personally I think this is timed with the Behavioural Scientists (Bozo's recent call to Trump also on my radar) about getting Bozo out of the line of fire for the public to "call for end to lockdown" and have the economy start up again. US won't be the only country looking at a second wave if so.

I'm up and down with lockdown.

Yesterday was a bad day. I was exceptionally grumpy and just stayed out of dh's way. Do you remember being a child when you were bored, and your mam would suggest things but you didn't want to do anything? That was me!

Today I'm feeling much more positive. There's lots of things I can do (the same things that were there yesterday, to be fair!) and I shall have a nice tea and a significant amount of vodka.

My hair was already overdue for a cut when lockdown started, so I just tie it out of the way every morning and pretend it doesn’t exist. Or I visit DD’s ‘salon’, where she’ll use her hair chalks to colour it in. My current rainbow look was declared ‘magnificent’

Yes, dd hit her target (shameless bribery for school work here) yesterday so we are going to relax in the garden today and read. I've got all of my pots out as the compost and plant delivery came the other day. I just need to figure out how to stop the dog digging them up after I've planted them which happened twice yesterday I'm trying to do a day of "hard stuff" like schooling followed by a day of "fun stuff" or breaking it into mornings/afternoons. With a 1hr walk thrown in it does help the day go quickly. Would recommend Netflix's Studio Ghibli collection for kids too - I think I like watching them as much as dd!

Omg! I have just heard on BBC radio 4 Donal Trump speaking and saying they could inject people with disinfectant or some such thing to cure Covid!!!

You do realise there was a thread on MN yesterday asking the very same question ?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3888246-Dumbest-question-ever-for-science-people

If soap can kill the virus, can this not be injected somehow into the body to kill what is internal?

I shit you not.

And to be clear, I am not in any way having a pop at the OP in that thread. They made it 100% clear they were asking the question, not suggesting the answer ...

I never quite understood why garden centres couldn’t stay open but with the cafe, furniture and general tat departments roped off and strict one in one out, no faffing and hanging around, like supermarkets. I would have thought the benefits for physical and mental health outweighed the disadvantages.

.

I agree re garden centres but I guess it encourages people to drive?
I was surprised at how few could cope with deliveries. They stock heavy products!

Also you get the sportswear shops (you all know who I mean) jumping up and down saying they are needed for mental health too!

Meanwhile, the FDA has tackled some "Churches" offering Bleach Based Therapy suggesting there are a still a few grown ups in the US.

www.fda.gov/inspections-compliance-enforcement-and-criminal-investigations/warning-letters/genesis-2-church-606459-04082020

Those grownups will soon be sacked like the others

Yeah, apologies auld it was irony!

Although it is quite well known amongst UK teachers that teaches in every other European country work shorter hours, can go home in free sessions, have longer lunch hours and just general better wellbeing than in England.

Not not point of this thread, obviously.

Never seen you on a teacher bashing threadauld(happily). They are quite special in their vitriol!

I never quite understood why garden centres couldn’t stay open but with the cafe, furniture and general tat departments roped off and strict one in one out, no faffing and hanging around, like supermarkets.

Because as the grown-ups noted (and the "clarifications" proved) the guidelines hadn't been thought through at all and were really just window-dressing headline catchers. Like everything this government has ever done.

My local B&Q opened yesterday. Their click and collect service, though well-meaning, was chaos! There were maybe 5 people in the queue to get in- two were buying inflatable hot tubs 😊.

I read in this past week's 'The Week' that the government were surprised at the level of compliance with the lock down (I was, too, but having read the near hysteria, misinformation and witch-hunting going on on MN, I'm no longer surprised); that they thought about 20% of DC would still be in school, as opposed to 2-3%; and that three times as many people are on furlough than they'd bargained for!

The 'Stay home and save the NHS' slogan is 'saving the NHS, but has created a level of fear so great that the government are apparently worried that, as lockdown eases, people just won't go back out to work, or won't send children to school.

If I'd read that 2 months ago, I'd've thought 'Rubbish!' -the British (certainly English) mindset wouldn't accept any of that! As for panic buying, and snitching on neighbours to the authorities....But I'd've been wrong.

I fear for Brexit even more now, seeing how we've reacted over this past 4 weeks!

Talking of grownups ...

Hancock wants to make sure the UK public gets the vaccine first, but doesn't want to say so in case other countries develop the vaccine before the UK

When I answered Horehound earlier about the vaccine specs being made available to the world, maybe I should have said "provided the US or UK govt don't get there first" !

Obviously actual stocks of the vaccine go to one's own country first,
but I hope Hancock isn't hinting he'd try to keep the bloody specs for UK only ?
@Mship wtf is he talking about - licence fees ??

Fortunately teams around the world are working on vaccines,
because if other countries had to wait until a UK public vaccination program had finished, ^
or even until the govt signed off specs release & licences, the world could already have achieved natural herd immunity!

Coronavirus vaccine row grows as Matt Hancock says UK jab must go to British people first 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

Of all the things he could be wasting his limited brainpower on during this crisis .....

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/23/coronavirus-vaccine-row-grows-matt-hancock-says-uk-jab-must/?

< 5-year-old > Matt Hancock has insisted Britons must be first in the queue for any UK-developed coronavirus vaccine
amid a growing row in the Government over the issue.

Downing Street and its scientific advisers are refusing to make any promises over the UK distribution of a British-made vaccine,
partly to hedge their bets in case another country produces one first. 😂🤦🏻‍♀️

But the Health Secretary is determined that British taxpayers – who are funding two UK vaccine programmes at a cost of £42 million – should be the first to see the benefit if either of the projects is successful.

A Department of Health and Social Care source said:
"Matt is the UK Health Secretary, and his job is to protect the UK health service and the UK population.
If Britain is the first country to develop a vaccine, he wants to make sure British people, who paid for it, have first refusal."

@BCF

Was it yesterday you were assuring me that politics would have no part to play in the science of distributing a UK vaccine ?

(When I say "yesterday", I actually mean "less than 24 hours" ...)

Anyway, am going to pop out now for a bottle of Jack Daniels that will be left on DS' doorstep as a belated birthday surprise (and hopefully a donut assortment too ...)

DW had a wobble last night about this being the first birthday she couldn't hug him.

Please, please, please don't let me see a queue of people leaving the store with bottles of bleach ...

Sorry, I realised after I posted that I had a huge irony-spotting failure, because I am so accustomed to being told I have a cushy job.

Maybe the Trump family could volunteer to be guinea pigs for a trial to see how effective injecting disinfectant into the "inside" of people is...

Jack Daniels!
Haven't drunk that this century.
[Wonders whether it's available in France...]

Happy Birthday to DGR Jr.

No worries auld.

I think these times are making everyone have detection of irony failures!!

My SIL (Alabama) put a truly frightening prayer on Facebook yesterday about thanking God for the CV and knowing he will cure and bless those who pray. She thinks it is a Biblical plague...

Regarding Brexit, I wonder what the howling Brexiteer Mobs on FB trying to incite French-like rioting and civil disobedience a la 'yellow vests' when they thought their Brexit was threatened- make of the sheer scale of the French lockdown (as seen on the MN thread)?

I must say I don't think the British public would put up with quite the heavy handedness of the Gendarmerie, though!