Starmer calling for lockdown (Edited by GNHQ)

Some of those who live as a result will certainly think a circuit breaker is worth it. It could be any of us.

WW2 was worse than any pandemic !

Both of my parents were born in the early '30s, so lived through the war, but both say that it had very little impact on their lives. Not that that has/would have (my dad died three years ago) any bearing on their approach to Covid!

I really think far to much relaxation happened at once - the urging to go back to work in the office even if you could work from home, the encouragement to eat out and frequent pubs and night-clubs, hairdressers and gyms, the complete reopening of schools and universities.

These re-openings should have been staggered and assessed.

Education must be more important than betting shops and nightclubs so schools and universities had to operate in some way.

I would have had schools teaching half a class on alternate weeks and setting them coursework to be done at home. Obviously the children of front-line workers and the vulnerable would remain in school but children's education would continue.

Universities should carry out all teaching, lectures and tutorials online and most students should have remained at home. The nonsense of having 1 million students travelling around the country should never have happened.

The only students physically attending university should be those studying science, medicine, engineering and other courses where it is essential to use laboratory and other physical facilities. These students could be taught in bigger spaces, properly distanced and live in less crowded accommodation.

I know that, in an ideal world, or even the world of last year, going to university is not just about learning but about making friends and contacts, but social life has to be curtailed because of the pandemic and so we should have prioritised education and at the same time minimised the risk of transmitting the virus.

Mrs Eggy - good post. I had the flu in 1957 aged 21 and so had lived through WW2. I'd just started a new job and had to go back home where my Mum nursed me. I don't think my parents had it.
Another point, there weren't the drugs available in those days that we have now, when did antibiotics become available?

ps I also survived a scarlet fever epidemic in ?1945.

The concern I have about a circuit breaker is that it can only be for a short time and should bring numbers down but once everything goes back to how it was the numbers will shoot up again.
It may just give us a lull but the virus will be waiting.

KS is changing his tune now. He is so smarmy.

Fennel

*Mrs Eggy* - good post. I had the flu in 1957 aged 21 and so had lived through WW2. I'd just started a new job and had to go back home where my Mum nursed me. I don't think my parents had it.
Another point, there weren't the drugs available in those days that we have now, when did antibiotics become available?

1945: Penicillin was introduced on a large scale as a treatment for bacterial infections.

sparklingsilver28

^Growstuff - How did the war increase resilience to a pandemic anyway?^

How anyone born in Britain and growing up in the immediate aftermath of WW2, to remain ignorant of what those years imposed on the nation and what it took in character to overcome astonishing.

Its response to "Asian Flu" another indication of this generations strength of character and resilience - by simply getting on with what had to be dealt with and at whatever the cost.

Hope it has enlightened you!

No, I'm still in the dark. More romanticising about the war years, I suspect.

You must be much older than I am.

GrannyGravy13

growstuff ironically one of the highest (Thurrock) areas in Essex will be exempt from going into tier 2 along with Southend.

Thurrock is a unitary authority and isn't part of Essex County Council. Last time I looked, we in the North West of the county had the second highest rate of case. It's strange because we're the least densely populated, most rural and the wealthiest, so don't fit the description of places usually associated with high transmission.

AGAA4

The concern I have about a circuit breaker is that it can only be for a short time and should bring numbers down but once everything goes back to how it was the numbers will shoot up again.
It may just give us a lull but the virus will be waiting.

Starmer's idea of the circuit breaker also incorporates improving (radically) test, track, trace and isolate. And providing proper financial support to people and businesses.

Otherwise, as you say, the numbers would just go up again.

Totally agree with grannygravy in her post at 09.06 this morning.

Many people say don’t blame the young, well it wasn’t the grannies who were partying in the streets of Liverpool last night. But the partying of the stupid youngsters in Liverpool is likely to result in transmission which will sadly end up with Covid19 being to transmitted to their grannies, and it’s the grannies who will die.

GrannyGravy13

growstuff ironically one of the highest (Thurrock) areas in Essex will be exempt from going into tier 2 along with Southend.

Here you go:

New cases per day per 100k people (average of last 7 days):

Basildon 12.07
Braintree 6.03
Brentwood 10.03
Castle Point 10.47
Chelmsford 9.76
Colchester 8.53
Epping Forest 12.09
Harlow 8.08
Maldon 7.54
Rochford 9.20
Tendring 13.33
Uttlesford 10.57

Pleased my district has dropped down the table a bit

To put that into perspective, the average new case figure for Liverpool is 124, so I'm not sure what Essex County Council is playing at. I did hear a rumour that authorities in Tier 2 receive £1 per resident.

I saw young people in Madrid on the news last night and they were saying the same as our young people. They've had enough of the restrictions and I can understand how they must be feeling. Although I don't agree with rule breaking. To have your youth curtailed in this way must be awful. Having said that I personally agree with Starmer.

For those who didn't watch PM's questions today this is what was said - up to about 14 minutes:
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000njp5/prime-ministers-questions-14102020

PS. If anybody wants to check out their local authority, the figures are here:

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1APtcBmI4JeTR0Ysufjavgg2gy4MBiHz0Hf9eKIp5BSo/edit#gid=1865138965

ps you need to scroll back to the start.

growstuff I agree ??

I would have been aged 10 in 1957 and was a student in 1968. Interestingly it's only since the Covid epidemic started that I have discovered there were epidemics in those two years and apparently mortality figures were high. I was quite oblivious to them and didn't notice any disruption to my life. College life was normal, none of my friends were ill or in sick bay. Nothing was closed or cancelled.

I think lockdowns do more harm than good but I seem to be the only Gransnetter that believes that.

grannyrebel7

I saw young people in Madrid on the news last night and they were saying the same as our young people. They've had enough of the restrictions and I can understand how they must be feeling. Although I don't agree with rule breaking. To have your youth curtailed in this way must be awful. Having said that I personally agree with Starmer.

The double think is making me very cross.

There are those who support Gupta, Heneghan and Sikora, who have had a great deal of media exposure and claim young people should just get in with life, that the damage from lockdown is worse than the disease, etc etc. They still believe in the idea of herd immunity. There are people on GN who have posted support.

Well, it's a theory and there's some merit to it, despite the many flaws which the majority of scientists have pointed out.

There is some evidence that Johnson and Cummings have been influenced by it. It's certainly influenced writers in the Telegraph and Daily Mail and there must be thousands of comments on social media by people who want to believe it.

Sooo ... when young people go out and do precisely what is suggested, risking infection but acquiring immunity, they get hammered for it!

Grandmama

I would have been aged 10 in 1957 and was a student in 1968. Interestingly it's only since the Covid epidemic started that I have discovered there were epidemics in those two years and apparently mortality figures were high. I was quite oblivious to them and didn't notice any disruption to my life. College life was normal, none of my friends were ill or in sick bay. Nothing was closed or cancelled.

I think lockdowns do more harm than good but I seem to be the only Gransnetter that believes that.

I was 2 in 1957 and wasn't even aware of it. I never think of myself as "post war" either. Ten years made a big difference.

I was 3 in 1957 and knew nothing about Asian Flu at the time. I hadn't even had mumps or measles by then. Some people seem to want mumps and measles back – my mum struggled to keep me indoors with mumps but measles was some unspecified period outside time, feeling like death in a darkened room. And pink medicine. All medicine was pink then I think, strawberry flavouring maybe, and was a liquid in a corked bottle. Quite nice but nowhere near as nice as welfare orange juice from the clinic.

Now, Hong Kong flu of 68-69 really hit me. February 69 – it was a snowy weekend and my sister and I went to St Albans on the Saturday: I bought Albatross by Fleetwood Mac in the record shop in St Peter's Street and felt generally fine. On the Sunday morning I was prostrate, burning, couldn't eat anything, just wanted to sleep and not wake up. Three weeks off school, in my first O-level year too.

People who want measles and mumps back are idiots. I developed meningitis and temporary hearing loss from mumps. It was feared I was developing encephalitis and I was admitted to hospital. I remember being in hospital and how terrified I was.

They still believe in the idea of herd immunity. There are people on GN who have posted support.

Well, it's a theory and there's some merit to it, despite the many flaws which the majority of scientists have pointed out.

The biggest flaw, IMO, is that no major recurring disease has ever been controlled by 'herd immunity'. I don't understand where these 'scientists' are coming from. Herd immunity has only been achieved through vaccination.

If we don't have the various pandemic flu's around any more it's because the viruses mutated and died out. Not because we have herd immunity.