We need action now as we have the benefit of hindsight

growstuff, there will be problems with any restrictions short of another full lockdown and furlough carried out as prior.

However, we have to get this epidemic under control if we are to prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed and other essential services collapsing due to large scale infection among their employees.

Incidentally, I believe a second short full lockdown (with the exception of schools and essential retail) should be the way forward, followed by a slow gradual opening up as the infection figures justify and allow.

I had a despairing email from a friend in the NE who works for the NHS saying none of her staff feel they can ‘go through that again’. One of her colleagues, a fit, healthy, upbeat young man took his life yesterday.
A patient who tested +ve but was well enough to be discharged has said he’s not going to self isolate. They cannot report him as that would breach confidentiality.
She saw the protests in London against lockdown and wearing masks and said they ought to come and work on her ward for a shift.

Apart from the appalling death rate and the terrible pressures on front-line workers the worst thing about this pandemic is the realisation that there are so many stupid, selfish people in the world.

Grandad I don't know why you thought I deserved a lecture. I have been banging on about a "short, sharp, shock" for months - with no excuses and no loopholes, which makes me sound as though I support a dictatorship.

I would even have closed down schools for a couple of weeks, with the proviso that there is quality well-planned and well-resourced online teaching. I have always believed that would result in fewer school closures and less disruption in the long run.

In theory, the more people can be totally isolated (short of putting them in individual cages), the shorter the period of pain will be. It wouldn't kill the virus completely, but isolated outbreaks could be controlled. As it is, it looks as though the UK has missed the boat again.

The trouble is this government can’t deliver on anything.

I think that we should follow Sweden’s example ! They had no lockdown so no Financial disaster and a country with better Mental Heath situations - but a similar death rate . So our lockdown didn’t help us much I fear !

NannyDaft

I think that we should follow Sweden’s example ! They had no lockdown so no Financial disaster and a country with better Mental Heath situations - but a similar death rate . So our lockdown didn’t help us much I fear !

And the NHS?

growsfuff, apologies if I appeared to be giving you a lecture as that was not the intention whatsoever.

I was trying to make the point that "hardline" action is required in the situation this nation now finds itself in. I am not normally a person who supports any hardline policy but with Covid infection increasing among workers in essential services then such policies have to be brought forward.

Sweden has a population of. 11 million - much smaller than ours, and has a lot of open country, lakes, mountains, forests, and an outdoorsy culture. The government regulate all alcohol sales and although there are restaurants and bars in the urban areas, they all have outdoor space. I don’t think you can compare the 2 countries.

NannyDaft

I think that we should follow Sweden’s example ! They had no lockdown so no Financial disaster and a country with better Mental Heath situations - but a similar death rate . So our lockdown didn’t help us much I fear !

Much higher deaths rates there per 100,000 than in Norway and Denmark which means people died who need not have done.

Sweden cannot be campaired to Britain in any comparable way.

Also Sweden spends far more per capita than the U.K. on health care, so were not as worried about their health system being overwhelmed.

Britain's lockdown brought reduced dramatically the rate of infection rate in the country.

Britain released the lockdown to be inline with that of Sweden and the infection rate is now increasing dramatically once again.

So, what would the Swedish policy supporters and reality deniers suggest that Britain do now???????

Despite the lower population numbers in Sweden, most of their population lives in one city - which is around the size of Birmingham. There are still vast areas of open space in GB, but our population, also, gathers mainly in cities.
Think that Sweden has set us all an example, but they did and still do have strong leadership, largely trusted and popular with their citizens. And that leadership has kept to a real strategy and not u-turned, chopped and changed every few days.

Just let it run riot I expect Grandad and overwhelm the NHS, retail, transport and other public and private sectors.

They’d start squeaking when shops ran out of essentials and the pharmacies couldn’t supply their prescriptions because staff were off sick - especially when Brexit bites at the end of the year.

Bring out your dead - but don’t expect there to be anyone to bury them.

There was a substantial voluntary lockdown in Sweden – yet it wasn’t nearly as effective in reducing the spread of the coronavirus as the compulsory lockdowns in neighbouring Denmark and Norway. Cases and deaths rose faster in Sweden and have been slower to decline.

Sweden has about 8200 confirmed cases per million people as of 12 August, compared with 1780 in Norway and 2560 in Denmark. (For the UK it is 4600 and the US 15,400.)

Sweden has had 57 deaths per 100,000, compared with five in Norway and 11 in Denmark. (For the UK it is 70 and the US 50.)

Read more: www.newscientist.com/article/2251615-is-swedens-coronavirus-strategy-a-cautionary-tale-or-a-success-story/#ixzz6YZFsymv3

Furret

Just let it run riot I expect Grandad and overwhelm the NHS, retail, transport and other public and private sectors.

They’d start squeaking when shops ran out of essentials and the pharmacies couldn’t supply their prescriptions because staff were off sick - especially when Brexit bites at the end of the year.

Bring out your dead - but don’t expect there to be anyone to bury them.

How right you are in your above post Furret.

We do agree very occasionally GD

My thinking is the government will do what ever they and Cummings decide to do, we have no control until the next general election. I will follow their rules and hope for the best but fear the worst if I get covid.
Has anyone here had covid already?

It isn’t just protestors but all those flocking to the beach, illegal raves and large house parties. I don’t think many of expected other than a big rise in cases. Too many people don’t comprehend the rules, not that they are always clear anyway, but they don’t want to comprehend as they are too complacent. One local football manager thinks the rule of 6 means 6 can cram into a small unventilated changing room when actually changing rooms should be shut! Others say such and such a team aren’t doing that so why should we? Would they all follow each other and jump off a cliff?

Furret

We do agree very occasionally GD

????

Whilst accepting that Sweden can’t be compared with Britain on a population/geographic level, how does anyone explain Japan’s figures (1500 COVID deaths) with no lockdown, higher population density and double actual population?

What is it they’ve done?

Who knew that children go to school in September?

Who guessed that hundreds of thousands of students head to universities where they – and easily shocked readers should look away – strive with every fibre of their being to mingle with each other as vigorously as they can?

What clairvoyant might have predicted that, when the government offered the public cut-price restaurant meals at the taxpayers’ expense, the public would gobble them up? Or that, when the prime minister urged workers to go back to their offices and save Pret a Manger, a few brave souls would have returned to their desks and risked having “dulce et decorum est pro Pretia mori” carved on their gravestones?

You may have expected trouble, but Baroness Dido Harding was flabbergasted. The complaint from MPs that the rise in Covid cases was “entirely predictable” baffled the head of the NHS test-and-trace programme. Nobody “was expecting to see the really sizeable increase in demand that we’ve seen over the course of the last few weeks,” she said.

Harding could not see a foreseeable crisis because she has no qualifications for running a public health service in a national emergency. She’s in post because she is a Tory peer and supporter of the governing regime. Far from firing her, ministers have promoted Harding to head their new National Institute for Health Protection. She didn’t apply for the post, she admitted to parliament.

Nick Cohen

Oops wrong thread ?

Pantglas2

Whilst accepting that Sweden can’t be compared with Britain on a population/geographic level, how does anyone explain Japan’s figures (1500 COVID deaths) with no lockdown, higher population density and double actual population?

What is it they’ve done?

I suggest you tell us Pantglas2 what it is that Japan has done so we can all then judge that action.

How Japan tackled Coronavirus

I think you will find there were quite a few measures that were taken, plus the Japanese were more compliant with guidelines, have a very low obesity rate and so on. Read the article. I found it interesting.