Why Are People Pushing For U.k. Lockdown To End Quickly

[calmck]

I can understand people, and especially small business and the self employed want to get back to work but at what cost. Spain, France and Italy are slowly relaxing a much longer lockdown. Here in Portugal we had 8 weeks and are now on a two weekly reopening starting with gyms, golf, hairdressers and home hairdressers but with strict guidelines as to numbers, face masks, no use of communal showers etc. Why push for a shorter lockdown and risk upsurge in infection rate and have to start over again. Judging from news reports there are more cases of non compliance in the U.K. than in the other countries. I wonder if people in the U.K. would respect a gradual reopening

[New Judge]

Eventually - and I believe sooner rather than later - the country will have to decide whether it wants to remain in suspended animation indefinitely (and learn how to deal with it) or return to some semblance of normality despite the virus (and learn how to deal with it).

Calculation of the fabled “R” number is impossible. To determine how many people on average those with the virus are each infecting you have to know how many people have the infection and how many more are being infected. Neither is known even as a best guess, let alone with any accuracy. Around four thousand new cases are still being reported every day (despite 6 weeks of lockdown) and the true number of new cases is probably many times that. There is no way the virus is going to disappear any time soon and preventing its spread has not been a success either here or elsewhere where lockdown measures have been imposed.

The country needs to concentrate on protecting the most vulnerable and not to waste time and threaten the economy any further by trying to prevent it spreading to anybody at all. It will not be wiped out; it will disappear as most viruses do when they reach the end of their natural lifespan (which seems to be around 12-24 months). An effective prevention or cure is highly unlikely to be developed by then and retaining the current arrangements until then will see far more damage than the virus itself inflicts. A radical change of direction is urgently required before the country goes skint and the population goes barmy.

[tomus42]

..or as I heard some expert on say on telly the other day - I think we're just going to have to learn to live with [the virus] for a while because it's not going away any time soon.

[jim360]

I wouldn't despair too much about the calculation of R. Epidemiologists may not be able to give you an exact figure but it is not true that they are merely guessing, in a manner equivalent to that of a coin toss. Nor is it true that lockdown measures have been ineffective. One need only look at New Zealand to refute that, but plenty of other countries show similar patterns.

Perhaps it's also worth adding that you are using a different metric of "success". In the UK, the restrictions were meant not to eradicate the virus, which only a Wuhan-style lockdown would have achieved, but to bring its spread under some form of control and to avoid a situation in which the NHS was overwhelmed. That the Nightingales have gone largely unused is a testament to the "success" of the lockdown in that sense.

None of which means that the sentiments in your posts are wrong, but the starting points at least need challenging.

[teacake44]

The only reason that the lockdown doesn't appear to be working to some, is that we are in catch up time. Had we acted sooner after having months of notice, and warnings from other countries to do so.

[New Judge]

Nobody knows what effect the lockdown has had because we don't have a comparable control (i.e. no lockdown, unless you examine Sweden, which we've agreed before is not an appropriate comparison). Common sense tells me that keeping people apart should mean fewer infections but it doesn't seem to have worked out. Deaths have reduced almost certainly because the most vulnerable have taken the most precautions. But new cases do not seem to have reduced in the same proportion.

If the lockdown has succeeded in flattening the curve it may have done that, but in my view that is simply delaying the inevitable and the country cannot afford to do that for much longer. I completely agree with tomus in that we must learn to live with the virus, not eradicate it. And we must learn how to do that quickly.

I'm afraid we must agree to differ with the "R" factor. I'll adjust my view to say that an "educated guess" may be possible. But that's all it is. Nobody knows how many people are or have been infected so nobody can say how many they have passed it on to.

[tomus42]

// the lockdown doesn't appear to be working to some, //

Like who? The lockdown is working exactly as it was intended, unless they're falsifying the statistics they put out every day.

[New Judge]

//… is that we are in catch up time. //

It didn't work in Italy. It didn't work in Spain. Those countries (ahead of us) had far more severe lockdowns, but far more cases.

[jim360]

New cases is harder to compare because it's also affected by the number of tests, which has increased considerably in the last few weeks. Makes it much harder to assess the affect on cases, although in that is less important than the number of serious cases -- which, again, has stabilised or even started to fall.

[tomus42]

// It didn't work in Italy. It didn't work in Spain. //

What do you mean it didn't work?

[teacake44]

You missed Wuhan out. plus Spain and Italy are to big holiday hot spots, so more people touring than the UK, and tow wrongs don't make a right, or three should I say, including us now.

[teacake44]

^two

[Hopkirk]

Don't believe the press reports, there is a high level of compliance in the UK.

The press love to report people not complying. They often back this with long range zoom images of people in parks to make it look like they are closer than they are.

[teacake44]

We all live in different parts of the country on here so we are best placed to know more so than the media whether compliance has been achieved, I'm in Shropshire and everywhere I've seen has been deserted, a little more traffic may be, but there's only one person in each car, so not a day out with family and friends I wouldn't think.

[jno]

Italy were unlucky: the virus hit first in a region with a lot of old people and the health service was overwhelmed. In Germany on the other hand it hit young people who didn't get so ill. It meant Italy had no time to put a plan in place (weren't they the first country affected outside China?) but Germany could and did.

Britain had much more notice than Italy, but didn't make good use of the extra time, for instance to sort out PPE.

[tomus42]

// Britain had much more notice than Italy, but didn't make good use of the extra time, for instance to sort out PPE. //

Attempt objectivity at some point jno. You might find it liberating. When Britain came around to realising that PPE was essential, it had all been bought up by the Chinese, Italians, Spanish, Germans in the same order that the virus rolled across the world. No-one predicted this except the South Koreans who had learnt from a bad experience with SARS/MERS and so were extra prepared.