Lockdown easing date

Now aiming for Good Friday apparently.  Even I am losing patience now.

Bad news Guy if you’re right. The university of east anglia have calculated that r will never fall below one even if all adults are vaccinated because the Kent variant is so infectious. 

Isn’t the R rate 1.1 across the country and Cambridge last week London was 0.5. Well it’s hardly gone up since tgen has it , so unlock.

jamie , nurseries weren’t open so what ? And the being able to excersise with one other ain’t going to lead to a huge spike in infections. It’s just a BS olive branch being held out to us by our government 

Certainly more traffic on the roads than in LD1. I suspect this is beacuse more business are open and I haven't seen many voluntary closure of businesses which we did in LD1. Also more people seem to be sending children into school if allowed - I know a few people where one parent is a Dr or something and they're sending the children in on the back of that despite the other parent being WFH. This didn't happen in LD1. 

LD1 was at least partially driven by the public and businesses self-cancelling and closing. Clearly once furlough ends there will be the oposite pressure despite the safetyists. The battlelines with the scientists are already being drawn and of course once ITU empties out the crying medics will have to go back to seeing some patients. 

Also as Guy says people are certainly more depressed looking. Maybe it is the weather but lockdown fatigue is real too. 

My money is on late March for the end of LD3. There may be some minor tweaks late Feb/early March such as some schools going back. 

Crypto, I cannot get my head round the fact in my neck of the woods , rush hour is just the same as normal, along with busses being at their permitted capacity.

I mean like full on traffic jams . Where are all these people going to and coming from

I just walked twice around St James' Park and it was quite busy.  Whereas it would have been a lovely stroll in LD1 this time around there is the weight of relentlessness to contend with.  A walk in the March sunshine felt very different to a walk in the January chill with the sense that this is still ongoing.  Then it was a novelty.  Now a depressing grind.

Still, i fed several squirrels who put their teeny little paws on me as they took the trail mix i was off loading on them.  That was a bonus.

"A walk in the March sunshine felt very different to a walk in the January chill with the sense that this is still ongoing.  Then it was a novelty.  Now a depressing grind."

Very much this

The R rate is clearly below 1 nationally as illustrated by the significant drop in cases. For some reason the government uses an R rating which is based on lagged indicators like hospital admissions (to be fair to them possibly because those are more accurate indicators than testing). 

Today's PHE survey shows a drop. Positive cases, the Zoe app and NHS 111 all show drops.

The problem with talking about unlocking when the R rate is below 1 is that it promptly results in the R rate going back over 1. 

What's needed is to get cases low enough that other measures such as track and trace can suppress R, or enough people vaccinated that R being above 1 doesn't matter because vulnerable people are safe from it. 

You can chose whatever metric suits your argument. If hospitalisations are down people screech about R. If R is down they look at daily deaths. If those are down they look at cases. Team Sane do the oposite. 

It has been stated by the Government that the aim of the vaccination programe is to reduce mortality and hospitalisations. Once hospitalisations are down and stay reasonable then nobody will care about R. 

I agree Crypto.  Keep lockdown until over 70s and health care workers vaccinated, stupid to risk another huge wave before then- effectively end of February.   After that do an area by area review based on infection rate and hospital capacity.   If it is clear that the infection rate will not threaten hospital capacity for the foreseeable future, open up to tier 1 or tier 2 level and only move up again if local hospitals will not cope.   Keep under review until the over 50s all done, which should remove the problem pretty much entirely.

The elephant in the room here is the arrival of further new strains. All the existing vaccine or infection generated immunity is worth sweet FA if a sufficiently mutated new strain with a high natural R rate gets going in the next few months, because test and trace won't be able to spot it and isolate it against the the noisy background of the old strains.

If we are serious about anticipating new strains, and we should be, then we need to clamp down hard on current infection rates, close the borders properly and get to a point where test and trace will actually catch new strains quickly enough. 

PotatoHead, I don't think people will tolerate lockdown until infection levels are negligible.  If fighting the disease was the only criteria for policy what you say is logical, but as it is, we are just going to have to take the risk on mutated strains, because we will NEVER be able to eliminate the risk of a vaccine proof strain and there will a risk every year and therefore logically lockdown every year.  That cannot happen.  We can only base policy on what we know or think overwhelmingly likely, lockdown is only justified when we know or consider  very likely that hospitals will be overrun without it.

SAGE wanting lockdowns as is until May , come on. The government must not allow that to happen, surely.

I think much of the fatigue present in LD 3 is because it feels like we have been in lockdown for a year . Even when restrictions were lifted, pubs , bars, and restaurants were still a big reminder of the virus and were shit to go to . No groups of x, Perspex screens, masks , no bar service , scan phone , security marshalls outside, early closures, etc, etc. 
wasn’t much fun was it, I recall people in pubs barely speaking to each other. Was better than nothing I guess .

TBF it wasn't ideal but I remember life returning more or less to normal in August and September, ate and drank out loads, went on holiday (albeit in UK) and visited loads of friends and family.

I had some fantastic evenings in pubs through the summer and the autumn even with the restrictions and saw plenty of groups also enjoying themselves.  Last time I was out in late November the pub garden was full of groups of men at one table chatting away as their wives gossiped at a separate table and everyone was pretty cheerful.  Was the first time I'd seen one friend since March as he'd been too scared previously.

Isn't part of the theory that even if the vaccine is not directly tailored to a new strain it will still offer some assistance so even a new strain won't spread as rapidly and won't cause as much carnage as the Kent one did?

Guy I was out and about a lot , it was a bit of a chore, but as I said better than sod all. I forgot about the compulsory mask wearing when moving about even if it was one step to the WC or door . And the booking was a pain but that mostly fell away. And the table service for a pint I ask you!

the worst was the whole meal and a drink debacle . That was not thought through at all was it ?

Let’s not get carried away with the rose tinted glasses. Last summer was NOT normal. Everything was a reminder of the virus EVERYWHERe. Pubs were no fun, stuck in sad little bubbles, masks, sanitising constantly, BS temperature checks and Perspex, everything disrupted. 

 

It is unthinkable that we now consider last summer to be closest to normal and yearn for that to return. What does that say? We’ve just resigned to accepting that is life forever. I’m close to being done. 

Schools first. If they open shops and restaurants and let people have family and friends around that will be enough for me. Bonus for gyms open early. Extra bonus for non-essential travel bans lifted by June.

I can handle masks and social distancing until August if we must. It's all just theatre.

After this summer when everyone has been offered and received the vaccine, we have to stop closing the economy and banning people. This is endemic and enough is enough.

"Let’s not get carried away with the rose tinted glasses. Last summer was NOT normal. Everything was a reminder of the virus EVERYWHERe. Pubs were no fun, stuck in sad little bubbles, masks, sanitising constantly, BS temperature checks and Perspex, everything disrupted."

Very much this. Last summer was shite and anyone who suggests otherwise is a massive tede with no life left in them. 

"It was nice I could go to the pub all I had to do was wear a mask, stay until 10, keep 2 metres away from everyone, register on an app, and wait in a queue for 2 hours". Fvck. right. off. 

Covid: Politicians reluctant to hint at lockdown end date https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-55753670
 

Here we go - pressure increasing to extend furlough etc. Almost inevitable that it will be extended until June in the first instance as the LD lumbers on. Of course as long as people can stay at home on furlough there isn’t a great imperative for them to pressure politicians to end anything. 

Let’s not get carried away with the rose tinted glasses. Last summer was NOT normal. Everything was a reminder of the virus EVERYWHERe. Pubs were no fun, stuck in sad little bubbles, masks, sanitising constantly, BS temperature checks and Perspex, everything disrupted.
 

it’s almost as though we were living through an unprecedented global pandemic on a scale we have never seen in living memory

So much negativity here.

It will be over soon. Numbers falling fast. 

As for not being able to enjoy a night in the pub because you had to order from a bar person and not go to the bar, if that's what it takes to ruin your night you need better m8s, m7s.

I keep hearing May and June bandied around and after easter for schools.

it’s completely mad that a year later we are locking down harder than the first time.

 

it’s completely mad that a year later we are locking down harder than the first time.
 

i completely agree ob

this was never inevitable - other countries have done significantly better

its a direct result of the unbelievably incompetent response of our current government

It is mad OB. And almost unbelievable. I think it may in part be part of the govt plan to help ensure compliance with the lockdown now.

If we all comply we will be out quicker.

I’m sick of the sobbing nurses and doctors on the BBC. SOCK of it! Newsnight at it tonight, ITV earlier. I’m kind of drunk and depressive right now but I just want to be in a busy City pub on a messy Friday night, chat shit to strangers over a fag and ahhhh... memories. 

I’m exhausted. Up at 430-630 with the littlest. Asleep till 8. Then on kid duty til 130, worked til 630, bedtime then straight on calls and just finished now. This working pattern just isn’t sustainable for either of us but no choice.

And now some Cambridge don is telling us that the new post vaccine public health message should be “even if you’re vaccinated act as if you’re not vaccinated”. FFS when will this shit ever end? 

“Pubs were no fun”

Is this true or are you just being a tool?

things pubs being fun doesn’t depend on for 99% of people include:

1. not having to book

2. bar rather than table service

pardon me but who gives a shit? Can you sit and chat with your mates and drink beer? Y/N

Surely the problem with arguing for a tougher lockdown now is that much of the popn has ‘lockdown fatigue’. If we’d have done a hard lockdown in February 2020, closed borders etc, I think people would have complied. But we made our bed - remember “we will put in the right measures at the right time”? Instead we chose “wash your hands whilst singing happy birthday twice” - turns out singing is bad too, so even that was wrong.

 

We now half a situation where there have been egregious and high profile alleged breaches by people like Cummings and the former CMO of Scotland. I just cannot see the population accepting even more measures now, as more and more people get vaccinated. It also makes no sense.

i reckon, unfortunately, because of a combination of bad luck and circumstance, measures will absolutely be in place into 2022. I don’t see us staying in Tier 4 throughout 2021 so there might be some movement to Tier 3 and have our Scotch egg and eat it, but I fully expect “The flu season this year will be particularly bad because this year’s flu strain is even more contagious, perhaps because it was so well contained last year. So we must protect the NHS.”

Poloticians need to get honest with the population about the choices. IF we haven’t messed up with the vaccine 2nd dose thing and ended up managing to roll  out a vaccine that will be ineffective or something, then politicians need to then be honest and say we now have protected the NHS and do you want to prevent every death ‘from’ covid at the price of further economic damage, indirect deaths from other illnesses / costs (ie do you want to increase funding significantly for adult mental health services?) and lasting damage to a generation of children and young people?  

Moral of the story? You can’t control a virus via computer modelling. Seems to me that early on the plan was to have a goldilocks covid strategy whereby, without mass testing, we were trying to have “just the right amount” of covid in society, and I don’t think it works like that in the real world, because humans come along and f it up!

 

 

EP I can live with that seems a long overdue sensible approach to be honest . Watching various channels this morning along with reading the papers , I think Easter is the earliest we can expect some restrictions to be released . We are clearly being prepped for it.

I just worry about the effect it will have on severe mental health and suicides. Someone remind me why are we being told April to June before restrictions are eased. The beginning of the week we were told restrictions will start to be lifted by end of February 

Christ table service and table booking improved the pub experience as it avoided ten minutes queueing at the bar only to then find there were no seats and drinking your beer in a corridor constantly having to let people past.  Guaranteed sunny spot in the garden and no need to leave the table.

You’re being told that so you don’t go “oh it’s over so I can have my mates round and sack off taking precautions”.  At least the government has learned the lesson that people get demob happy if you tell them it’s almost over.  They also want the PR victory of “we vaccinated faster planned and can let you out months earlier than planned”.

Davos have you seen the amount of house parties that have been shutdown already? I think people have long since stopped bothering. 
 

even people in uni halls which is well policed have been having hundreds partying brazenly. Imagine what’s been happening in private homes behind closed doors .

Yeah I agree there is a lot of breaking of the rules. I've said before that if we stick to the rules we will be out of this quicker.

I also was agreeing with Sails' pub post as well FAOD.