United Kingdom V: Son of a beach

[Neon Ignition]

I definitely want to add, I'm not trying to take a dump on anyone wanting to feel a sense of normalcy. The situation sucks especially for anyone who finds their support, jobs, home etc directly affected.

It's just that the position of lockdown not being able to continue much longer because of a desire to go out, reopen workplaces etc quite literally means taking the number of deaths alone and jumping from 40,000 to 700,000. Putting millions in intensive care, over ten million through serious illness. It's not something that can be set aside as people push on as the increasingly catastrophic US figures showcase all tok well.

I think the fact is many restrictions could easily continue and big chunks of the economy are dead - they just haven't accepted it yet

[Dogg Thang]

I think the fact is many restrictions could easily continue and big chunks of the economy are dead - they just haven't accepted it yet

I can’t help but agree with this, as much as part of me doesn’t want to. As far as I can see, when people say that lockdown can’t continue they mean they don’t want it to continue and that’s not the same thing. It can continue. It would be possible to lock down a country enough to get active cases down to 0 if a country had the will. It’s a choice not to. For many, it’s about the economy and, as far as I’m concerned, that’s about forcing a normal that simply can’t exist under these conditions and was barely fit for purpose as it is, given the needs of the world we live in (even before Covid). The economy is a system we use and manipulate, like a set of Monopoly rules. People’s lives, permanent lung damage and every other thing that comes with going out and infecting people with this disease, those things are far, far more real. Throwing the responsibility to look after people during a global pandemic onto the economy rather than the government is a very dangerous abdication of responsibility.

[MartyG]

I can’t help but agree with this, as much as part of me doesn’t want to. As far as I can see, when people say that lockdown can’t continue they mean they don’t want it to continue and that’s not the same thing. It can continue. It would be possible to lock down a country enough to get active cases down to 0 if a country had the will. It’s a choice not to.

This precisely - this virus hasn't gone away and yet the attitude has changed to one which you'd think it had. Let's be very clear here IT HASN'T. The UK has the 4th highest per capita death rate from Covid-19 in the world.

It is going to get worse, much much worse when those restrictions are ignored and removed and the impact on the economy will equally match it.

This pattern happened with the 1918 pandemic when things were opened up, the same thing is going to happen here.

[Cassius_Smoke]

The government will take a simple approach.
Stop reporting numbers, ignore the NHS and pretend everything is fine. The news will move on and maybe next year we will have a BBC panarama about how loads are still dying and that will be it.

[MartyG]

Except that's not how pandemics work, they overwhelm health services, that's the whole point of isolation. It's not ignorable and it's not hideable especially in the social media age.

[Shoju]

Interesting article from Professors Sunetra Gupta and Mark Woolhouse arguing the case against lockdown

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/05/the-costs-are-too-high-the-scientist-who-wants-lockdown-lifted-faster-sunetra-gupta

Professors Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson on some the dire effects and implications of the lockdown.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-dire-effects-of-italy-s-coronavirus-lockdown

Also the Oxford vaccine could be available by October just as winter starts. Hopefully it's effective.

[Neon Ignition]

As much as it sounds miserable, I feel like none of the touted vaccine's will succeed and be in place within 2020 or even early 2021. Every week multiple new vaccine hopes are being dangled in the news and it feels like a lot of it is in development stuff being drummed up for fear of funding being removed and placed on rival projects that have faster or better looking odds. From the outset the experts pretty much ruled out 2020 which is why I'd rather things remained locked down.

Essentially my view is:
The summer season, regardless of whether things open up is borked. Holidays are done for, businesses are on the ropes, seasonal stuff is knackered etc. Internationally countries that took effective, firm action have had the most success such as New Zealand. Those that have chased the economy with lockdown lifts are being battered by the virus so it feels completely clear that a firm lockdown is exactly what we need. By the end of the summer we could potentially be in a similar situation as New Zealand where nearly all restrictions except border controls ones could safely be lifted and much of normal life resumed in time for the critical winter period. NZ has had very low new cases but they know they're imported and can track them quickly which would mean it's easy for them to react and keep things going internally.

Instead, as usual, we're following the US example where lives are being thrown away so one corrupt D-list celebrity can desperately try to cling on to a position he should have never been allowed to hold. It's sad that the UK's best hope on that front is a change in the US Presidency.

[Hirst]

I don't agree with how the government have handled lockdown, but I think a worthwhile point is that when calculating potential deaths from coronavirus, it seems to ignore that a prolonged lockdown would also inevitably cause deaths - both immediate (suicides from folks being unable to cope with anxiety/isolation/change of routine) and long-term (people getting into bad substance habits during lockdown, losing their homes/jobs in a subsequent recession). We've had a lockdown that went from being strict to fairly lax in a few months but people have still struggled. If we had a properly strict lockdown that lasted a full year with no end date in sight, I'm certain deaths from coronavirus would be fairly minimal, but deaths from suicides would be into six figures.

Some people are in a better position than others - if you're an indoors type, have a decent family around you, enjoy talking to friends on the Internet and you've got a decent house and a nice garden you'll probably find lockdown more of a mild inconvenience (with some upshots) than anything else. If you're an elderly widow living alone with very little social contact and you don't have the technical skills to do more than speak to people on the phone, it probably feels like a death sentence. We didn't back the lockdown up with much meaningful support for people really, which is pretty typical for this country. People in critical need being told they can't see their psychiatrist, but here's a web page about mindfulness, just read that and ring for an ambulance if it didn't work.

My personal feeling is that we screwed up the lockdown by doing it far too late and now we're in a position where we probably can't do much about it that doesn't have some other severe knock-on effect, it's a case of picking from many lose-lose options and all of them will cause mass death. All I can hope is that people bear in mind next time that novelty candidates for PM are only fun until something bad happens.

[Neon Ignition]

News round up beyond the restrictions liftings themselves:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/23/easing-several-lockdown-rules-at-once-could-boost-virus-say-uk-scientists

Scientists have warned that lifting the lockdown restrictions may see the virus rear upward. Key here is that several are on SAGE highlighting how little the Tories are actually listening to the science.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/23/reopening-of-pubs-restaurants-and-hairdressers-not-risk-free-say-top-advisers

As the pubs and restaurants lockdown is lifted the Chief Medical Advisor has said 'don't be fooled this means [coronavirus] has gone away'

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/jun/23/coronavirus-live-news-update-saudi-arabia-closes-borders-hajj-global-covid-19-cases-pass-9m-latest-updates

In the US Fauci has said testing will be increased despite Trump's opposition to it. The EU is considering a ban on Americans entering its countries.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/23/no-10-not-sharing-covid-19-data-on-local-outbreaks-say-councils

Councils have said they may not be able to identify local outbreaks of the virus because the Government is not sharing required essential testing information with them

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/23/saudi-arabia-bars-foreign-pilgrims-from-hajj-over-coronavirus-fears

Saudi Arabia is attempting to fend of new outbreaks by banning Muslims from outside the country from joining this years hajj pilgrimage. Whilst Germany has locked down and entire district as a new outbreak flares up. Frances trace app has failed, alerting just 14 people in three weeks.

[Dogg Thang]

While I agree that the government messed it up, I think that, honestly, some of that is nonsense. Really, the idea that lockdown might be more dangerous than letting a virus run rampant through a country because what if someone commits suicide is such a stretch that I can’t imagine you actually believe that. As Neon Ignition points out, it’s very clear that the countries that kept it under control did so by (spoiler) keeping things under control. It’s really very simple.

But I think some of this is a side effect of the really atrocious mixed messaging throughout this whole thing. For some people, it has turned something dangerous with lots to learn and research by scientists and medical professionals yet very simple for the rest of us (don’t get it - it’s bad) into something that can be debated as if a virus cares about opinions.

[Hirst]

I'm not saying we should have done nothing either, but I don't think we can treat it as though a strict and possibly indefinite lockdown would have no knock-on effects in terms of deaths. Recessions alone cause a spike in deaths due to the associated impoverishment and anxiety from people losing their jobs and what-not, that is a proven fact. But we've also had a unique situation where we've seen a substantial spike in mental health issues caused by lockdown which is then turned onto a support network that has largely been withdrawn.

For what it's worth, I think lockdown genuinely made sense, but I'm sure historically people will look back at this and wonder why the government basically left a large section of society to basically fend for themselves.

[monel]

People mention a second wave as inevitable and are right, but the first wave hasn't ended and we are ruled by terrible people it seems.

[Shoju]

I'm not saying we should have done nothing either, but I don't think we can treat it as though a strict and possibly indefinite lockdown would have no knock-on effects in terms of deaths. Recessions alone cause a spike in deaths due to the associated impoverishment and anxiety from people losing their jobs and what-not, that is a proven fact. But we've also had a unique situation where we've seen a substantial spike in mental health issues caused by lockdown which is then turned onto a support network that has largely been withdrawn.

And there are probably all sorts of other reasons that lockdown could directly or indirectly cause death or damage to health over the long term like cancers going undiagnosed etc. There are likely to be many long term implications that we can't know for sure right now.

Professor Sunetra Gupta raised an interesting point about the weakening effect of lockdown on our immune systems and the increased threat of future viruses down the road. She's also talked about other factors behind immunity other than antibodies. Some pretty interesting findings on that and an alternative to the worst case scenario Neil Ferguson model which the government scientists are going off of.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/07/immunological-dark-matter-does-it-exist-coronavirus-population-immunity

[MartyG]

It''s a minority view. Gupta believes in herd immunity and her modelling is based on the idea that as much as 50% of the UK has already been infected.

[Neon Ignition]

Gupta sounds like a muppet