Further Lockdown Rules (Now In Law) To Start Nation-Wide

[bednobs]

By nation I mean England. Further lockdown rules meaning gatherings of 》6 people to be banned inside or outside from Monday. My first thought was how can they give a weeks notice for this but so little notice for quarantine?

[ichkeria]

The proportion of positive results has also increased so it isn’t just that more tests are being done

[naomi24]

danny, //not on the scale of this pandemic. //

Deaths are not occurring on a huge scale. 40 odd thousand out of a population of 66 million is not a lot .... and neither are new infection rates in low double figures (most of whom recover) per every 100,000. This paranoia is completely unrealistic.

[diddlydo]

Let's be realistic - this new rule will be unenforceable with regard to e.g. grandparents meeting with children and grandchildren indoors unless the neighbourhood curtain twitcher sits by their window counting people in and out and then reporting them.

[ParsleyDumpling]

Back in March/April only people in hospital were being tested (I think), certainly there wasn't the amount of testing there is now, carried out within communities. I think it would be safe to assume there were far more cases back then, than were officially recorded, especially since if you had symptoms you were told to stay at home.

I would say that now, herd immunity is maybe starting to have an effect? Either way I just wish the government would grow some, bite the bullet as say get back to normal (not new normal).How long do they expect people to accept these local lockdowns etc. for? Will they continue for months, years, because Covid is going nowhere?

As has been been said more people are now dying from flu or pneumonia than Covid. Where is the outcry about that, are young people accused of killing granny because they may pass the flu on? I know there are vaccines for both these conditions, but people are still dying, and will continue to do so in very large numbers every year, there is no panic or outcry. Even if we produce an effective vaccine for Covid people will still die, what happens then?

The restrictions were put in place (according to the government) to flatten the curve and not overwhelm the NHS, that has been achieved. How long are we going to protect the NHS, and trash our economy for, before someone has a lightbulb moment, and realises that we have to co-exist with this virus, just as we do for countless others?

I think this is a pointless measure, and will be largely ignored.

[jim360]

I'd be interested to know how many people need to die before the threat is taken seriously. I'd also be interested to know why only death is considered to warrant attention. Covid-19 also appears to cause serious long-term health conditions in several of its victims.

[douglas9401]

If the actions already taken don't qualify as 'serious', Jim, I don't want a world that you control.

[jim360]

To an extent I see the point of the complaints, though. In particular, if you open the country back up then you are naturally going to see an increase in cases, and potentially an increase in deaths, as a result. It's inconsistent, at least, to be surprised at the increase.

[jim360]

Douglas, I was thinking of the dismissive "40-odd thousand out of 66 million" post, rather than the Government's response.

[dannyk13]

Parsley, deaths from Covid19 so far this year is four times that of flu in 2019.
https://www.greenwichccg.nhs.uk/News-Publications/news/Pages/Around-10,000-deaths-are-caused-by-flu-each-year-in-England-and-Wales.aspx

[jim360]

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain/

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/

In terms of Spain, when they announced 134 deaths, that's an outlier, although there are certainly signs that the death toll is rising again.

[ParsleyDumpling]

dannyk13, I will accept that thousands have died due to Covid (although some may have died anyway, because of existing conditions). That number will decrease in the coming years as we assimilate it, and better manage it medically (as is happening now). How many thousands have died (or will now die), because they have been denied treatment, early diagnosis and screenings etc. because the NHS effectively shut up shop (and seems to be very slow reopening), is this acceptable?

[naomi24]

Jim, //I was thinking of the dismissive "40-odd thousand out of 66 million//

That wasn’t dismissive. It was an estimation - as was the 66 million. Had I known anyone would be picky about that I’d have googled the exact figures.

//I'd be interested to know how many people need to die before the threat is taken seriously.//

It is being taken seriously which is why we're in the mess we're in. Furthermore, if it wasn’t being taken seriously we wouldn’t be having these repeated conversations.

//I'd also be interested to know why only death is considered to warrant attention.//

Who said that?

[jim360]

I'm not fussed about the estimation, because, after all, your point was to compare the two sizes. It's a faulty comparison, though -- most notably, because it represents a significant increase in annual deaths over a typical year. Also, of course, there is the chance, still far from negligible, that the number of deaths will increase again if the disease is allowed to spread out of control. In that sense I sympathise with the caution from Government -- although I'd still hold that their policy is inconsistent. Opening the country back up carries risks, and it's hard not to wonder if they were almost "surprised" when those risks materialised.

But the point is, being concerned about this risk is *not* paranoia**. We've seen how devastating this can be if left unchecked, and there's no reason to suppose that all of the danger has past.

** Or at least not necessarily paranoia; but the fact that some people take the concerns too far is not a reason for doubting the legitimacy of those concerns at all.

[dave50]

I think as time goes on public support for lockdowns and restrictions will crumble ad they see the economy take a battering.

[david small]

Thank you for the response fiction-factory.

[burlyshirley]

12:20 I think they are already crumbling.