Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

I know - no idea why but they do. For some reason, there's a large % of the population who actually like him.

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The reason is extremely simple--he was on TV, although I can't explain why people seemingly trust people who've been on TV. It's the same as with Trump.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/03/keir-starmer-calls-for-immediate-lockdown-in-england-as-covid-cases-soar

The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, has urged Boris Johnson to avoid delay by imposing new nationwide restrictions in England within the next 24 hours to tackle the “out of control” virus.

After the prime minister earlier on Sunday raised the prospect of tougher Covid-19 restrictions amid concerns over pressure on the NHS, Starmer intervened to argue action must be taken immediately and that it was no good hinting at curbs to come in future.

Will Mr Johnson accept the advice from the member for Holborn and St Pancras or will he double down and force schools to open tomorrow?

If they are gonna have a proper lockdown they all need to make it proper unlike this shambles that’s been going on although I don’t think it’ll work again. It’s just like repeating the same thing over and over hoping for a different result!

What's proper?

The point of lockdowns from the beginning were to prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed. Not to eradicate the virus.

First lockdown was very effective.
A similar lockdown would be effective though compliance might be awful compared to the first one.

My completely uneducated thinking is that you could 'catch' it in the sense of viruses entering your mouth/nose/throat and hanging out there for a while before your own antibodies catch up and get rid of them. In that time you could still be breathing out virus. (Not sure whether virus works that way.)
(Assuming you're immune, which is a bit of an assumption. A few people seem to have got it twice.)

Will Mr Johnson accept the advice from the member for Holborn and St Pancras or will he double down and force schools to open tomorrow?

Starmer calling for a total proper lockdown makes it politically impossible for Johnson to do it. Is there anything else they can do other than shut schools ?

I fear they’re just going to try and ride this shit show out now, hoping that the hospitals in the Tory south don’t get overwhelmed and they’ll turn a blind eye to everywhere else.

Are we seeing 50,000+ because this is the actual number or limited by testing capacity?

Most recent data I can find is for the 30th when there were 363k PCR tests with capacity for 720k so it seems not unless there is a bottleneck somewhere that doesn't show.

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/testing

School closures up here. I imagine it's similar nationwide.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/they-agonised-what-do-schools-19557180

Found out earlier one of our neighbours died from it just before Christmas.

Fuck this virus.

The Labour Party are not calling for schools to remain closed, as far as I can tell. There seems to have been a total abdication of responsibility from the party... at a time you could quite fairly characterise as a moment of national crisis. They should be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with parents, teachers and unions but instead they seem to be calling for the closure of zoos (?!).

ftfy

Tony Blair / I would have worn a mask properly, says former PM

Because 'TV' is mind control for the proletariat. Duh.

Starmer said: “Everybody wants children back in schools. Nobody would argue with that. Of course that’s what we all want.

“I don’t want to call for the closure of schools tomorrow morning and add to the chaos, but we do need to recognise that it’s inevitable that more schools will close, and we need a plan in place to deal with that. But it can only be part of a wider strategy that has a national lockdown in place in the next 24 hours. The prime minister is hinting at it, but he’s not doing it. And we can’t afford that delay again.”

Starmer said he was not calling for all schools to close, explaining that should be the “last resort, not the first resort”. In an apparent reference to tier 3 areas where non-essential shops were still allowed to open, he added: “We can’t have retail open in some places and schools closed.”

Tier 4 means stay at home. Right?
I collected some shopping,kids uniforms for school - hahahaha oh, from Brixton and walked home to Sydenham hill on Saturday.
I've never seen so many people walking. Up and down college road. By Herne hill station was nuts. Everywhere was a bit daft.

...

I'd agree, I think another March-style lockdown will be a lot less effective than the first unless properly enforced, there was a much larger level of uncertainty and fear at the time which led to people going well above and beyond the restrictions, on a personal level as-well as businesses that shut even when the were not required to (albeit temporarily)

Also the weather was an important point - it's quite easy to see friends/family outside in a sunny spring, now the option would be essentially no social life, unless you want to freeze your tits off, or do it under-the-radar inside a warm private home, I know what option a lot of people would choose (and understandably so, 60+ people are not going outside in -1c temps)

Add to that the increased transmissibility of the new variant, general discontent and lack of faith with this governments approach, mixed messaging and outright corruption we seem to be heading towards a perfect storm - I don't think even a national lockdown ala spring will have the desired effect and the vaccinations are still too far off to catch up. Think the next few months are gonna be a pretty bumpy ride to say the least...

I don't doubt that there were a lot of people walking, but I guess you were also one of the people walking, albeit for a good reason. It's the old 'why am I stuck in all this traffic' problem.

Its tricky, if more people stayed at home, then the parks would be less busy, which would be great for the for the people who didn't stay at home, because they're less busy.

Maybe supermarkets are busier because of the kids staying at home and having to be fed lunch?

Yeah I think all of the people who would usually have lunch at work are now cooking for themselves also. Shutting all non-essential shops means that EVERYONE is going to supermarkets, even if they need something like wrapping paper / bike lights (just two examples from our household in the last few weeks).

Every time I go to the supermarket / for a walk and find myself thinking "why is it so busy, they should be at home", I have to remind myself that I am being hypocritical. No doubt some people are not staying home as much as possible, but any city with a high population density will inevitably have busy supermarkets etc.

Questions - would a pre-scheduled, full-blown national lockdown be enough to decisively beat covid? If so, what would be the minimum duration for it to have the necessary effect?

From what I’m seeing, the current course isn’t sustainable, full stop. If the mass vaccination programme doesn’t bring the contagion speed down, then we have a shot at maaaybe one more total lockdown with good voluntary compliance in the near future. If that becomes the case, the Govt should plan to absolutely maximise its impact. For that to happen, they need to give people a chance to prepare beforehand, and they should also use all the media at their disposal to hammer home the importance of everyone following through this one time.

If 2 weeks are enough to break covid, the plan could be something like:

5-12 Jan- Govt begins an all-fronts campaign highlighting need for one singular Big Lockdown; get the unions, big industry, private mass media, regional govts, political parties to agree and actively promote the Big Lockdown. Eases restrictions on importers to allow quick stockpiling as some people will unavoidably panic buy.

12 Jan- PM/Parliament announces clearly worded law imposing Big National Lockdown from midnight 01 to 05:00am 16 March for the entire UK; no meeting between households except for carers; enforced quarantine for all travellers into UK from 10 Feb to 01 March and 16 April to 01 July, no-exceptions; specialised isolation areas for shipping crews temporarily docking in the UK; everything except genuinely essential services and WFH closed; nationwide Govt paid furlough; cloth nose and mouth coverings mandatory in public; 30 minutes exercise outside once per day within .5km radius of home; mass vaccination to continue; specialised containment areas for refugee arrivals; criminal charges, heavy income-balanced fines and police-enforced quarantine for flagrant or repeat offenders; priority visa decisions for all medical personnel immigrating into UK; military used to transport personnel and equipment across the country in rapid response to outbreaks.

Would two weeks of suspended animation be enough so that on the 16th day we could go down to tier 2 or even 1, and keep it there?

Edit- this was surprisingly cathartic, even as a die hard believer in democracy and personal liberty.

Even people who are working in an office I'm sure are getting lunch at small and large supermarkets, so the footfall will feel larger, and they will appear busier if there is a huge queue outside.

I've been frequenting the local asian supermarkets for a quieter and more delicious shopping experience. For things other than crates of ramen.