R number up, new lockdown threatened

I can see why you say that, silversurf, but surely the health of the people must come first? If there's no-one left standing businesses will collapse anyway.

There will be plenty of people left standing. It's us oldies who stand to be locked up for ever.

I hope you will be leading the troops over the top silversurf.

Personally, I'm not prepared to take one for the virus and I don't think a single life should be risked unnecessarily.

Pulling our socks up does not involve being downright stupid.

Who's threatening a new national lockdown anyway? Is this just more fake news?

Maybe if people took the pandemic seriously, wore masks, washed their hands, adhered to social distancing, stopped making unnecessary visits, took people’s temperatures before going into shops, workplaces, pubs, restaurants etc etc the R rate wouldn’t be going up and we wouldn’t need to talk about another lockdown. As it is I don’t even know what the rules are any more and I’m sure a lot of people are the same. I’m shielding myself for the foreseeable future anyway.

pull our socks up! - I have heard everything now.

What exactly does pulling our socks up entail I wonder.

Luckygirl

*pull our socks up*! - I have heard everything now.

What exactly does pulling our socks up entail I wonder.

Pulling them up over our mouths and noses.
Apparently they make good masks.

I do take the point that more people will be suffering if more businesses go under, people lose their jobs and possibly their homes so somehow a balance needs to be found for the future.
Sweden has not locked down and have had their problems but are they worse proportionately?

Sweden has come out of this rather well

Again the Care Homes saw a lot of deaths but on the whole they have sailed through and life appears to be going fine over there.

No masks in Holland

And as for Japan. No lockdown, no border closures, no test, test, test and they've only had 1100 deaths out of a population of 126 million.

I agree silversurf Another national lockdown would be disastrous but it’s thought that just intermittent local measures should be enough.
Let’s hope so.

Actually I sometimes wonder what the situation would be now if we had never had the lockdown in the first place.

Yes there would sadly have been more deaths amongst the very elderly and those very sick from other illnesses, but just how many more? We certainly wouldn’t now be facing this recession and the possibility of millions of job losses.

Sweden was criticised for allowing life there to more or less carry on as normal, yet they are now not one of the countries with the highest death rate per head of population.

Yes it’s not easy to compare countries as other factors play their part, but it was a brave move on the part of the Swedish government to go against what virtually every other country was doing.

Sweden have not come out of this well. Where do you get that idea from.?

Hopefully no second lockdown, but a continuation of local measures put in place ( restrictions) in towns when necessary.

This is from the independent a day ago.

Sweden recorded its highest death tally in 150 years during the first six months of 2020, the country’s statistics office said on Wednesday.

Between January and June, 51,405 Swedes died, the highest number since 1869 when 55,431 died, partly because of a famine, and over 6,500 more compared with the same period in 2019.

I think there will continue to be local lockdowns, but I don’t think we’ll have another national lockdown. There may well be more countries that we require people to quarantine from when they return. The test and trace will hopefully improve further. The rest will be up to us, we can shield, or follow the instructions for avoiding illness ie hand washing, mask wearing, social distancing and so on.
And hopefully a vaccine.

Sweden has a population one tenth the size of ours. It has had 85k cases and 5.8k deaths. Its graph shapes mirror every other country. They have had 575 deaths per 100k population. We have had 610 deaths per 100k population. Like every one else they had too many deaths in nursing homes. I would much rather have spent the last 6 months in Sweden, where life has continued relatively normally, social distancing, yes, lockdown, no.

* Between January and June, 51,405 Swedes died,*

They weren't all dying of the virus though.

I believe the latest figures from Sweden are 5,810 deaths.

Sorry, B9exchange

I'd not read your post properly.

During March and the beginning of April, deaths in the UK were increasing exponentially. If there had been no action, we were heading for half a million deaths by the end of April.

You only have to look at any graph of deaths to realise that lockdown had an effect.

I just think it's a shame it didn't happen earlier because lives could have been saved. If the UK had got its act together on PPE and testing and tracing, even more lives could have been saved.

Between January and June, 51,405 Swedes died, the highest number since 1869 when 55,431 died, partly because of a famine, and over 6,500 more compared with the same period in 2019

So presumably 6,500 deaths potentially attributable/ connected to the virus? 575 per 100k of population as compared to our 610 per 100,000 here B9exchange says - but without the catastrophic effects on the economy.
Don’t get me wrong, lockdown was necessary, albeit at least a week too late (and we know who to thank for that) but we fell woefully short in other respects-testing, quarantining incoming travellers and of course the care homes. Let’s hope we get it right (or less wrong) next time..

Don’t get me wrong, lockdown was necessary, albeit at least a week too late (and we know who to thank for that)

......but there was nothing to stop people going into their own lockdown if they thought that the Govt were leaving it too late. Can't we take personal responsibility any more?

I did a "big shop", wearing a mask and socially distancing, at the beginning of March, and then went into lockdown. I am lucky, of course, in that I am retired, but I didn't need to wait to be told - I used my commonsense and looked at what was happening in China. I live on my own so it wasn't easy, but I have a number of health problems and made my own decisions.

Sweden has such a lot of space! And not many people to occupy it.

Life is lived outdoors, especially in the summer. Shops, cafes, public buildings are large and spacious. And they clean everything, including themselves, with a vengeance ?

Different culture.

According to an article in The Telegraph which I don’t take they now say the virus can live on frozen meat and fish for 3 weeks and they think that is why there have been further outbreaks in countries where there have been no cases for weeks.

Another article claims the virus has mutated to be less dangerous but more contagious.

I think we do need to get this country back to work and the economy going again and younger people don’t seem to have it so badly. With all the protests, raves, beach cramming etc. lots of people just think it’s all over anyway although it’s not. I guess you can’t live in fear for ever.

I for one, however, will keep safeguarding and stay in isolation As much as possible in my eyrie on the tree top, especially as another report says no vaccination now until 2022! Make your own mind up I guess.

silversurf who is proposing another lockdown?

Absolutely agree with growstuff re lockdown. The UK is a very different kettle of fish than counties such as Sweden and New Zealand. They have smaller populations and more open spaces. The population of London is calculated to be ten to eleven million people, and the entire population of Sweden is about eleven million people and there are fewer than five million people in New Zealand. New Zealand acted very differently than Sweden and has had far fewer deaths or cases. Sweden could have had fewer deaths had they locked down for a month or two.

The only people who had the luxury of going into early lockdown were the retired or those who don’t or can’t work. Others had to go out to work, so without an officially sanctioned lockdown people didn’t have the choice to lockdown early. Therefore the suggestion that people take personal responsibility for their own lockdown is a moot point.

And yes, lockdown was a week or two late, lives would have been saved by an earlier lockdown, and a better track and trace system, and quarantine of all arrivals into the country (even better, closed borders) but we are where we are, and have to go forward making the best choices possible in order to keep healthy. Now is the time we can all exercise personal responsibility by wearing masks when appropriate, hand washing/gel, and social distancing.

I agree 100% maddyone. I isolated myself before anything was announced, but many people couldn't because they had to work, so they couldn't take personal responsibility.

We've also seen that some people found every loophole there was to get round lockdown or ignore it completely. The whole point is that it needed to be a collective responsibility.

We need to stop looking at sparsely populated Sweden (which most of the country is) and comparing ourselves with remote islands and concentrate on the situation we now have.

I truly hope that opening schools for all pupils works out well, but I'm not confident. I still have absolute minimum contact with anybody and I've made up my mind to review that at the end of September, when we know more about schools. It's affecting me financially because I can't/won't visit pupils' houses, but for me it's not worth the risk.

The OP says I know more people will die So that will be OK then? As they will be mostly the pensioners or people already in poor health, the Government will save a fortune in benefits payments, etc. which will help the economy and mean more jobs available for younger people. Sounds like a good strategy, except if you (or your loved ones) are in the vulnerable categories.