Second waves - dealing with the virus part 2 ??

MawB re Van Tam - I know that! That's why I posted it.

Am I alone in suspecting that the reason for opening bars etc and reducing the social distancing requirement, is partly to do with the economy but also an attempt to make a second wave happen earlier. If a second wave coincided with the winter period when the NHS is usually fully stretched any extra pressure would cause collapse. Getting it over with before the autumn would be more advisable. I'm sure somebody has worked ths out, but they aren't going to tell us that.

Of course it's all a sneaky plot. Ooh that government!!

I also thought that Trisher, and realised all of Europe are doing the same!

Including Belgium who had a hard lockdown with high number of deaths per million population and Sweden who had no lockdown and less deaths!

There seems to be no logic in any of it!

Agree with growstuff

Jane10 it would probably be the one good thing the government have managed. But that probably means it's just coincidence!

if you have common sense, use it!

Whitewavemark2

6. Get rid of the government

And replace it with what!

Growstuff said Let's all visit Scotland I say Please do not

Read this:

Today’s figures highlight the problem. In Scotland we had 12 new infections today. Allowing for population equalisation, Scotland being 8.2% of the UK population that would give you an expected figure of 146 new infections in the UK if the rates were mirroring Scotland. Instead the UK figures were 1147 new infections on the 23rd June almost EIGHT TIMES THE RATE IN SCOTLAND. If, as expected the more lax regulations in England result in the rate of infection increasing further in England then surely everyone must recognise it would be folly to ignore the risks of allowing tourists from these areas to enter our country unintentionally infecting our population

It is interesting that the R numbers for Wales and Scotland are much lower than those for England. Also interesting that while the SG and WA can Police their borders, only Westminster has the power to close the internal borders of the UK.

I hope there won't be a second wave but suspect it will come.

At least this time I hope people will not stockpile goods from the supermarket because they will have realised that it simply isn't necessary.

Maybe it will just mean localised lockdowns with a second wave.

The English figures are based on far higher population densities than we have in Scotland.
Please come here and spend money. We need to get our economy going.

We don't have a high population density where I live. Admittedly nothing like parts of Scotland, but most of the local authority is rural and we still have an average rate of infection.

I won't be leaving home, never mind going to Scotland.

Apologies for a lengthy copy and paste, but I am not brilliant at posting links and sometimes ( although not usually the Guardian ) articles disappear behind firewalls.
Local outbreaks of Covid-19 could grow undetected because the government is failing to share crucial testing data, council leaders and scientists have warned
More than a month after being promised full details of who has caught the disease in their areas, local health chiefs are still desperately lobbying the government’s testing chief, Lady Harding, to break the deadlock and share the data.
The situation was described by one director of public health as a “shambles”, while a scientist on the government’s own advisory committee said it was “astonishing” that public health teams are unable to access the information.
The prime minister said on Friday the country was moving from “a huge one-size-fits-all national lockdown programme to one in which we’re able to do more localised responses”, and ministers have told councils and their public health directors to take the lead
They will be responsible for monitoring the spread of Covid-19 in local areas and deciding when to close schools, offices, care homes and if necessary impose lockdowns on whole towns. As they race to produce outbreak management plans by the end of June, public health directors warn they lack crucial data flowing from Whitehall

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Tangerine: if we end up with a no deal brexit, which is looking highly likely at the moment, the supply chains will be affected and there will be food shortages.

I'd have thought outbreak management programmes wouldn't be too hard to devise. At one of the briefings one of the scientists listed actions that could be taken if local lockdown are required.
Meanwhile other causes of death than Covid are still around. The number of suicides are, as always, worrying. Public health in its broadest sense must be considered too.

Why would they be difficult to manage? Germany's managed it. I'm sure the UK could too.

Local public health managers need accurate, current data and and protocols on what to do. They need to be empowered to shut down schools, shops and whatever else it takes. They already have the powers to shut down restaurants etc immediately for public health reasons. It wouldn't be rocket science with some forward planning.

Sorry Jane I misread your first sentence. I don't think they would be that difficult to manage either, provided they had the right data, powers and finance.

'Downing Street has refused accept a call from Britain’s medical leaders for a review into how prepared the country is for a second wave of coronavirus.'

www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2020/jun/24/uk-coronavirus-live-health-risk-second-wave-lockdown-eases-pmqs-covid-19-latest-updates

I was going to start a new thread, but it fits in here.

I want to bang my head against the wall. Almost 60,000 dead and they WON'T check to see if we're ready for round 2. Is this because they KNOW we're not ready?

I was upset when the Tories got in. I was scared when C19 started to kick off. I've been anxious about the death rate/isolating etc. But this? I despair. I'm not just writing it, I really do feel like giving up.

What sort of a country do we live in? We've massively failed once, losing so many British people. And they're not going to do anything to stop it happening again. It's almost starting to look like an active plan to rid the country of the infirm.

As a child I had drummed into me “Fail to prepare, prepare to fail” - what does it take to drum that into our “leaders” ?

Exactly MawB. I honestly think they feel the financial loss of preparation is more important than the deaths of we insignificant 'little' people.

We're doomed all doomed! ?

German handled the COVID pandemic in a totally different way to us but they have also had and wave of new cases reported in the meat packing factories. North Rhine Westphalia's Gütersloh district is again under lockdown following many new reported cases. Many people admired the way the German government addressed the pandemic in its initial stages but it's back there now and 360,000 people are in lockdown. Again.

Chew I and many others still admire the German Government for how they handled/ are handling the pandemic.

Chewbacca Flare ups like the one in Gütersloh are probably inevitable, although it seems critics of the company which owns the meat processing plant claim it could have been avoided.

The issue is how it's been handled. The lockdown isn't popular with residents - for obvious reasons - but testing has been made available. People will be able to find out very quickly if they're infected. Extra police have been deployed to the area to make sure people comply with the regulations. Hopefully, it will have been contained and life can go back to normal fairly soon.

I have my doubts whether the UK government would behave as decisively and efficiently in such a situation.

The infection isn't going to go away completely, but it's how it's managed which matters.

SNAP suzie