R number up, new lockdown threatened

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 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.

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?

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

What exactly does pulling our socks up entail I wonder.

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.

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?

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

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.