Starmer calling for lockdown (Edited by GNHQ)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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!

WW2 was worse than any pandemic !

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

Posted too soon. Perhaps extending the half term and having a circuit break may help but I am not totally convinced it would work.

In my GDs year 11 group there are hardly any attending as some have Covid and those near them have been sent home.

My GS in another part of the country had Covid and when he returned to school only half the class were there. I wonder how many are missing out on their education even though they have been sent back to school.

GC in yr 1 came out of school this afternoon informing us that he had been making Christmas cards most of the day.

Is this a sign that schools are expecting to be closing down ?

I will Bodach ?

The trouble is too many people seem to be in complete denial about their weight. Either that or they claim they can’t lose it.

The Starmer and weight campaign comment was a bit tongue in cheek as I am not sure any government or political leader can make much difference.

The bottom line is we are all responsible for what we shovel into our mouths every day, so the responsibility lies with every one of us.

JenniferEccles

Much has been said on here of the the Asian flu epidemic in the 1950s. In, I believe, 1968, we had Hong Kong flu.

No lockdown then either, so the economy survived and it is said over 60,000 people in this country died of it.

If Keir Starmer wants to take a different approach, how about a campaign to urge the high number of very overweight people we have now to do something about it?

How many of those clogging up the NHS with various ailments are obese ?

It’s a well known risk factor which could easily be tackled

Actually amongst the million of other things the PM promised and hasn’t materialised was to get to grip with the overweight issue.

Easy to forget I know when he promises so much and delivers so little.

A circuit breaker would cut the death rate by half. I would have thought it was worth doing for that alone.

Well Johnson has done that so what would be the point.

"If Keir Starmer wants to take a different approach, how about a campaign to urge the high number of very overweight people we have now to do something about it?"

Well said, Jennifer. Now stand by for the flack!

Much has been said on here of the the Asian flu epidemic in the 1950s. In, I believe, 1968, we had Hong Kong flu.

No lockdown then either, so the economy survived and it is said over 60,000 people in this country died of it.

If Keir Starmer wants to take a different approach, how about a campaign to urge the high number of very overweight people we have now to do something about it?

How many of those clogging up the NHS with various ailments are obese ?

It’s a well known risk factor which could easily be tackled

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!

Can’t you comment on anything you disagree with growstuff without your usual sneery reference to the Daily Mail?

I have no idea what it says as I haven’t read it yet today.

The opinion I gave was all mine.

I had Asian flu in 1957, aged 18 and knew many people who did - I never heard of anyone who died, though. I do wonder if that generation had more immunity - very few overweight children or adults, most had already been challenged by childhood illness without the benefit of vaccinations, we slept in cold bedrooms, had regular cod liver oil (vitamin D), and a lot more exercise.

Sir Keir was merely suggesting that the Government apply the advice given BY SAGE rather than ignore it in favour of Tory donors like the odious Wetherspoons owner

Do lockdowns really work? France and Spain had a draconian lockdown and all it did was delay it. I will be surprised if the same doesn't happen here. We need to learn to live with it because it is not going away. Catching Covid is not the same as dying from it. We are in danger of more people dying from cancer and other illnesses because of lack of treatment.