Starmer calling for lockdown (Edited by GNHQ)

Err ... no ... it's a classic example of a leadership with no convictions, which just wants to stay in power by saying and doing what it thinks people want.

Is it because Dido Harding is an expert in absolutely nothing that she's still in her job?

Ferguson wasn't discredited for getting his calculations wrong, as you well know. Or maybe you don't know, because it's certainly what the Daily Mail would have you believe.

What evidence do you have that 500,000 wouldn't have died if there had been no lockdown? We were certainly heading in that direction at the end of March/beginning of April. Lockdown had a dramatic effect.

Grandmama you are not the only one. I also have my doubts about the benefits of a lockdown BUT I can appreciate the PM’s dilemma when faced, as he was with a certain discredited Ferguson making the idiotic claim that 500,000 people could die from covid if no lockdown was introduced.

A classic example of the difficulty faced by the government in deciding which so called experts to listen to.

I agree with you Mollygo!
I think it is also easy for any opposition party to give suggestions of a tougher lockdown but you can bet your bottom dollar that Starmer will be the first in line, in the future, to shout that the economy should have been given a higher priority when the debts rise.

It looks as though you're in Tier 3 Iam64. It was announced in Sky. Andy Burnham says he wasn't informed, despite being in meetings today.

Biscuitmuncher

All you who want another lockdown, what did the last one achieve?

If you look at the data (in handy graph form) on here you will see what it achieved

coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

Unfortunately the government wasted the time it gave us by not introducing a rigorous test, trace, track and isolate programme (including travellers entering the UK) or mandating mask wearing, and by easing off restrictions too early.

We shall see in a few weeks if the extra localised restrictions are having a good effect, if not then localised lockdowns is next on the agenda.The flouting of laws has to be policed, but with so many people involved ( huge city populations) it can really only be done by general compliance.Having the pubs and city bars closed may concentrate a few minds.

Biscuitmuncher

All you who want another lockdown, what did the last one achieve?

It stopped the NHS being totally overwhelmed. Without the lockdown , even more operations and treatments would have been cancelled and we would have faced the possibility of Covid patients being triaged and some just left to die.

The opportunity was wasted to get a functioning Test and Trace system in place, which we absolutely must do this time round.

The government also needs to stop grandstanding about schools and look at the evidence very closely. Everybody agrees that schools must remain opening, BUT they are currently one of the biggest sources of infection, as predicted. Many children are having their education disrupted by the level of infection anyway. The government must listen to those people who have been advocating a mix of online and face-to-face learning.

And no more ridiculous eat out schemes and trying to shame people about working from home! The hospitality and transport industries will need support, as will people who are required to self-isolate - so be it!

Lockdown would be painful, no doubt about it, so it wouldn't be too much to ask the government to behave like responsible adults doing the job for which they're paid.

Good posts JenniferEccles ??

The Asian flu epidemic of 1957 was not - in my experience - described as a pandemic. It reached Scotland courtesy of the US Navy which was paying a visit to the Firth of Clyde. Schools never closed. I was in the 6th form and none of us were affected. However, many teachers were absent and we were sent to supervise depleted junior classes. I doubt if any of them learnt anything! I caught it the following spring on its second round. It was the worst flu I ever had. My mum was quite alarmed and the doctor was called. In those days they made house calls! Hong Kong flu didn't reach me in Kenya. We were quite oblivious to it, but back home, my mum was hit so hard that she lost her taste for cigarettes!

All you who want another lockdown, what did the last one achieve?

Herd immunity doesn’t work with covid, because there is no buildup of immunity.

A regular vaccination may achieve a “topping up” of immunity but herd immunity certainly not.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

growstuff I agree ??

ps you need to scroll back to the start.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.