Is this really our plan?

[CheeseSlice]

Just taking a step back and looking at the basics of where we're going with the lockdown, what we're trying to do, what we want, etc.

Boris has confused the nation on Sunday and is still struggling to explain it all, and what it all means.
However, 'Getting the R down' to control the virus and save lives seems to be the central message.

But is this right? and are the results of this plan actually going to be the same as 'what we want'?

I thought that we would surely want to resume normal life, with the virus either eliminated, or simply no longer a threat.

The lockdown easing strategy doesn't help us get back to this at all. The only thing it will guarantee is that we stay under some sort of lockdown rules for the foreseeable future.
If anything we will have an extremely long period of a stagnated economy, no contact with friends and family, no holidays, no sports, more suicides, and a generally angry and peed off population.

Well it wouldn't be a bad strategy if a vaccine was just around the corner, which I think most of us think is the plan.... but pinning our hopes of a vaccine may also be fruitless. Boris said himself that we may never find one, and he only 'hopes' that one may be found.

So failing an actual vaccine, we just wait until we have herd immunity right?

I saw BBC news provide an estimate yesterday that our coronavirus antibodies are around:
10% of population of London
4% for all of UK (average)

Thats quite some way off the 60% we need to protect the country from further outbreaks.
Reaching 60% at our current lockdown rate will just take forever, and may never be reached at all if we're so hellbent on keeping R down under 1.

So the current plan in my mind appears to be 'lockdown forever'..

There must be another way

[DimPrawn]

There is another way. If you couldn't give a toss if 1,000,000 people die in the UK over the next 6 months, you could lift all restrictions, overwhelm the NHS, dig mass graves, and those that survive can buy a new car and get some nice new clothes and stuff.

HTH BIDI

[CheeseSlice]

There is another way. If you couldn't give a toss if 1,000,000 people die in the UK over the next 6 months, you could lift all restrictions, overwhelm the NHS, dig mass graves, and those that survive can buy a new car and get some nice new clothes and stuff.

HTH BIDI

Indeed. I meant 'some other way'

Come on lets hear them.. wacky or sensible.

Spacesuits for the at-risk ?
Colonize the Mediterranean islands for exclusive use by at-risk people, so the rest of us can get sick quickly? Or would that be the same as putting them on cruise ships?

[Old Greg]

There is another way. If you couldn't give a toss if 1,000,000 people die in the UK over the next 6 months, you could lift all restrictions, overwhelm the NHS, dig mass graves, and those that survive can buy a new car and get some nice new clothes and stuff.

HTH BIDI

Herd immunity? The grave digging would be a good employment opportunity for Brexiteers without the requisite skills for fruit picking.

[Whorty]

There is another way. If you couldn't give a toss if 1,000,000 people die in the UK over the next 6 months, you could lift all restrictions, overwhelm the NHS, dig mass graves, and those that survive can buy a new car and get some nice new clothes and stuff.

HTH BIDI

We need a referendum on this

I love how on the one hand, everyone the masses are complaining that we have lockdown, no freedom blah blah blah, then on the other hand they're complaining that we didn't lock down soon enough, we want the government to dictate our lives and we can't think for ourselves so will only do what Boris tells us.

The country is full of idiots.

Let's not forget that, whilst the death rate is higher for covid compared to the Flu, there is still a specific risk profile of those most likely to get very ill and/or die of this illness; the old, those with underlying health conditions, smokers, the obese (and this is BMI 30+, not just really big fatties).

Unfortunately the UK has a lot of old people, a lot of fatties and far too many smokers. From day one we should have put all the resources into protecting the care homes/older folks and those will serious underlying health conditions, but instead we instead tried to protect the general population and ignored the private care sector and left the poor sods who live their to the private companies that run them. Bad move.

What this illness has shone a light on is how badly the private care sector is run. Care homes have been locked down since February and yet, despite allowing no visitors in, their infection and death rate is significant. Maybe the only 'positive' from all this, is that the care sector gets a much needed overhaul when this is over.

[mudskipper]

Maybe the only 'positive' from all this, is that the care sector gets a much needed overhaul when this is over.

I suspect when this is over, there will be no money for anything.

[Old Greg]

We need a referendum on this

I love how on the one hand, everyone the masses are complaining that we have lockdown, no freedom blah blah blah, then on the other hand they're complaining that we didn't lock down soon enough, we want the government to dictate our lives and we can't think for ourselves so will only do what Boris tells us.

The country is full of idiots.

Let's not forget that, whilst the death rate is higher for covid compared to the Flu, there is still a specific risk profile of those most likely to get very ill and/or die of this illness; the old, those with underlying health conditions, smokers, the obese (and this is BMI 30+, not just really big fatties).

Unfortunately the UK has a lot of old people, a lot of fatties and far too many smokers. From day one we should have put all the resources into protecting the care homes/older folks and those will serious underlying health conditions, but instead we instead tried to protect the general population and ignored the private care sector and left the poor sods who live their to the private companies that run them. Bad move.

What this illness has shone a light on is how badly the private care sector is run. Care homes have been locked down since February and yet, despite allowing no visitors in, their infection and death rate is significant. Maybe the only 'positive' from all this, is that the care sector gets a much needed overhaul when this is over.

No they're not. That's just your fantasy to internally justify your woolly thinking. Most of the British population support the lockdown.

[DimPrawn]

I suspect when this is over, there will be no money for anything.

The one thing the world is not short of is money. We can print our way out of anything. Look at the stock market, booming, make the super rich into the hyper rich.

[rootsnall]

I suspect when this is over, there will be no money for anything.

That's what I'm thinking. And I'm not sure the government can do much about it either.

[DimPrawn]

We need WWIII to sort this out. Pre-emptive strike on China. Sorted.