Should our lockdown have been harsher/stricter?

[LittleAH]

A stricter lockdown would have lead to considerably worse economic damage, and many more deaths due to other causes such as cancers and suicide, and it wouldn’t have been necessary.

There is no evidence of this. A stricter, shorter lockdown would've, with a planned exit strategy would've been much preferable. The UK government went for herd immunity and it's not gone well at all.

Shops will have been shut for three months in this country before they reopen and our death rate and infection rate are far greater than our European neighbours. A stricter lockdown could've better stemmed the spread and ensured that we could properly bit by bit reopen the economy. Currently. it seems like we're sleepwalking into a second wave and that ultimately is down to poor leadership and planning.

 

[takno]

There is no evidence of this. A stricter, shorter lockdown would've, with a planned exit strategy would've been much preferable. The UK government went for herd immunity and it's not gone well at all.

Shops will have been shut for three months in this country before they reopen and our death rate and infection rate are far greater than our European neighbours. A stricter lockdown could've better stemmed the spread and ensured that we could properly bit by bit reopen the economy. Currently. it seems like we're sleepwalking into a second wave and that ultimately is down to poor leadership and planning.

The government went for the worst of all possible worlds. Start by aiming to build up herd immunity. Panic and go into a moderate lockdown to save-the-NHS (probably wasn't required, but there was a pretty scary looking model knocked up by Captain Panic and his team at Imperial). Not come out of lockdown because nobody was in charge while Boris was in hiding. Finally bottle it totally by staying in lockdown until we reach low infection numbers we can't reach because we were never aiming for them in the first place. Meanwhile kill every vulnerable person in a nursing home through an insane bed-blockers policy.

A stronger lockdown was probably the only way to exit lockdown with the desired infection levels. The desired infection levels are themselves barely scientific though, and may just leave countries vulnerable to a huge resurgence come winter. Overall it really wouldn't have been worth a harsher lockdown to achieve them

 

[Djgr]

There is no evidence of this. A stricter, shorter lockdown would've, with a planned exit strategy would've been much preferable. The UK government went for herd immunity and it's not gone well at all.

Shops will have been shut for three months in this country before they reopen and our death rate and infection rate are far greater than our European neighbours. A stricter lockdown could've better stemmed the spread and ensured that we could properly bit by bit reopen the economy. Currently. it seems like we're sleepwalking into a second wave and that ultimately is down to poor leadership and planning.

Is there any evidence whatsoever for this second wave?

 

[LittleAH]

Is there any evidence whatsoever for this second wave?

No, which is why the sentence starts with - it seems like. However, that opinion is based on speaking with friends who work in the NHS who are starting to see a small rise in cases again.

 

[Djgr]

No, which is why the sentence starts with - it seems like. However, that opinion is based on speaking with friends who work in the NHS who are starting to see a small rise in cases again.

And ignores all the official statistics that show cases and deaths are at the lowest level since before lockdown, after continually falling for week after week. It appears to me that you are simply dangerously scaremongering with incredibly unhelpful misinformation.

 

[Scotrail12]

Sorry, I don't mean to be harsh but how the hell can anyone actually believe that a stricter lockdown for any period of time would have been a good idea? No exercise + lack of fresh air = potential obesity, lower immune system and other potential health problems. That's before the impact on mental health.

 

[Scrotnig]

Sorry, I don't mean to be harsh but how the hell can anyone actually believe that a stricter lockdown for any period of time would have been a good idea? No exercise + lack of fresh air = potential obesity, lower immune system and other potential health problems. That's before the impact on mental health.

There is a frightening number of people who seem obsessed with having everyone locked up stricter and harsher. It really does scare me.

 

[Huntergreed]

There is a frightening number of people who seem obsessed with having everyone locked up stricter and harsher. It really does scare me.

If we listened fully to most people I see on Facebook, we would be locking our front doors and not coming out until our trip to the undertakers. It's shocking and quite concerning the number of people that seem to want to keep everything shut and make us sit in our houses until we drop dead, it's very concerning and the national attitude really needs to change ASAP.

 

[Scrotnig]

If we listened fully to most people I see on Facebook, we would be locking our front doors and not coming out until our trip to the undertakers. It's shocking and quite concerning the number of people that seem to want to keep everything shut and make us sit in our houses until we drop dead, it's very concerning and the national attitude really needs to change ASAP.

It will once the furlough scheme ends. There are far too many people in jobs they despise who are being paid to sit at home doing nothing, and they want it to continue and can't see any reason why the government can't just keep paying for it forever.

There are also the 'Facebook mums' who just get ludicrously vocal about anything and everything.

Staying away from Facebook and Twitter is really the only answer, both are bad for mental health.

 

[Yew]

There are also the 'Facebook mums' who just get ludicrously vocal about anything and everything.

God forbid you link them to statistics showing the actual risks to their child.

 

[Esker-pades]

Well, that isn’t true. If you read the BBC quote (did you read it?!):



So Sweden’s major error wasn’t their lack of lockdown, it was their failure to prevent the virus from gaining a foothold in care homes. Exactly the same as in the UK, where care home deaths from the virus now account for >50% of the fatalities.

I did read the articles.
What you said doesn't contradict.

 

[Jonny]

I agree with this. The lockdown-mania seems to have spread out of China and followed the virus around the globe, without much assessment and seemingly completely ignoring the fact that China is still a very authoritarian nation, and one that would have been very keen to absolve itself in any responsibility for the virus escaping its borders. And now a precedent has been set, it will be very hard to undo when the next new virus comes along. My worry is that as society becomes more & more risk adverse still, so pressure will build to have stricter & longer lockdowns, not necessarily because the science backs any of it up (still as you say debateable), but because its a tried method to stop the proles messing up the healthcare systems with trivial issues such as heart attacks and cancers* whilst governments enter flap mode for a few weeks. The public's willingness to comply for a sense of safety has lowered the bar....

(* Please note for context, I am being ironic here)

Very concerning indeed, the spectre of things looming like in some US states (coerced vaccinations, far too many and most not necessary at an individual level, in a way that constitutes institutional child and/or employee abuse). Beyond coronavirus, this could have been a real threat especially if we had a Leftist or so-called Liberal Democrat in charge; it was 1/3 the matter at hand and 2/3rds that the previous (then current) iteration of Parliament pull a ^stunt^ like coerced vaccinations (I was expecting it to be Flu, and apparently the lockdown has stopped a few strains of that as well) that lead to a near-breakdown that saw my access to the General Discussion section get revoked. Who said this forum is any better than <sarasm>Fakebook</sarcasm> or other social media...

There is no evidence of this. A stricter, shorter lockdown would've, with a planned exit strategy would've been much preferable. The UK government went for herd immunity and it's not gone well at all.

Shops will have been shut for three months in this country before they reopen and our death rate and infection rate are far greater than our European neighbours. A stricter lockdown could've better stemmed the spread and ensured that we could properly bit by bit reopen the economy. Currently. it seems like we're sleepwalking into a second wave and that ultimately is down to poor leadership and planning.

Also, for most people going for herd immunity is safer than vaccination, especially if we cannot be 100% sure that the vaccine is going to be safe. Once the vaccine comes out and most people decide that this one is a rush job and might be a bit dodgy, and that it's better to run the risk, what then? For those who are vaccine-cynics like myself (we don't oppose them completely, but believe that informed consent and no coercion for not having them unless working in healthcare etc. where an enhanced duty of care exists are important) I look forward to seeing the responses when what others call society has spoken.

 

[gg1]

But again, no evidence from the authority other than "what I reckon" from their spokesperson.

Are you suggesting they (along with numerous other people across the country who are in a position to know how visitor numbers at the time compared with the norm) were lying? Why would they?

Interesting to hear "if people don't stay at home we'll lockdown" barely a couple of days before the lockdown was imposed. It's almost like lockdown was already planned and they were getting their excuses in early.

AKA "We are trusting you to behave like responsible adults" - as was wholly predictable a significant chunk of the great British public didn't

Of course lockdown distorted everything. Everyone knew it was coming, so people went out for one last walk or one last pint with their mates while they still could. Without lockdown, people wouldn't have gone out in the same way. It's circular Locktivist logic: tell everyone going out is banned from tomorrow, encourage everyone to go out for one last time, then explain we needed strict lockdown laws because people were "selfish" for wanting to see a friend one last time.

Strange how many of these 'friends' people wanted to see 'one last time' just happened to live in resort towns or national parks.

The Swedish response was far more sensible.

Finland, Denmark and Norway all established lockdowns and all had much lower death and infection rates than neighbouring Sweden's suggesting their response may not have been that sensible after all.

 

[Smidster]

No, which is why the sentence starts with - it seems like. However, that opinion is based on speaking with friends who work in the NHS who are starting to see a small rise in cases again.

But that is why we need to look at data and not anecdote - There is no evidence that cases are increasing. All of our metrics are going in the right direction at the moment

There may well be a second wave - but it is far more likely to happen later in the year when the weather is cooler and is a discussion for a different thread.

I think the balance was probably about right - It did the job of massively reducing the number of contacts between people which is the whole aim of "lock down" . The question I would ask to those supportive of more restrictions would be how much more would it cut those interactions over and above what we did here? People will still need to go and buy food so not much we can do about that. As for limiting exercise - aside from the severe impact on health would that really make a material impact on contact between people?

There is an argument that you could have gone sooner, and done much more to protect the most vulnerable, but I don't think harsher measures would have done anyone any good.

 

[Tetchytyke]

There is no evidence that cases are increasing.

The R-rate is the north west of England is slightly over 1, which means cases are increasing there. It's only just under 1 in the south west. Overall cases might be decreasing, but it's certainly not across the board.

What is the coronavirus R number and is it rising in the UK?

Research suggests the average number of people one person infects may be increasing – but opinions differ as to why

www.google.com

However, research by Public Health England (PHE) and Cambridge University suggests R is on the rise. R is now at around 1 for the south-west and just over 1 for north-west England.

Strange how many of these 'friends' people wanted to see 'one last time' just happened to live in resort towns or national parks.

I was more referring to the pubs. But the same applies- you're told you won't be allowed to go out for months after this, so you do it whilst you can. Also bear in mind that weekend was Mothers Day.

AKA "We are trusting you to behave like responsible adults" - as was wholly predictable a significant chunk of the great British public didn't

They'd already made the decision, it had nothing to do with anything anyone did or didn't do. But public health officials in the UK have always been condescending and always sought to blame the stupid plebs for everything.

Are you suggesting they (along with numerous other people across the country who are in a position to know how visitor numbers at the time compared with the norm) were lying? Why would they?

Lying? No. But they offered no evidence visitor numbers were "unprecedented". I suspect that's because they didn't have any evidence, they didn't have numbers, and were basing their comments on anecdote. If they actually knew how many people were there, one would assume that they would have said exactly how many visitors they had and how that compared to a normal summer's day.

"We normally get 5000 visitors per day in August, but that Sunday in March we got 12,000 visitors", that sort of thing.

It's the same as Derbyshire police using drones to show a "crowded" car park with 6 cars in it and show "crowded hills" with two people and a dog walking in splendid isolation.

Finland, Denmark and Norway all established lockdowns and all had much lower death and infection rates than neighbouring Sweden's suggesting their response may not have been that sensible after all.

True, but their rates are significantly better than most of Europe, including the UK.

It's almost like lockdown isn't the variable, the underlying health of the population is.

 

[scarby]

The figures for overall mortality in Sweden in total in the last week in May, week 22, were below the average for the past five years, according to Statistics Sweden's preliminary statistics. Statistics Sweden expects that the figure, which at week 22 was 1,524, may increase by around a further 200.

Unfortunately this sort of context has been sadly and almost wholly lacking in media reports, which have just focused on "xxx dead in xxxx country today" without any explanation as to what that number means in terms of the overall number of people you would expect to die in a day anyway.

 

[Huntergreed]

What I do find quite concerning is that the “lockdown” was only stage 4 out of 5 on the “alert level” Nando’s style scale. If this is level 4, and it was deemed enough to suppress the virus, why include a level 5, and essentially admit that stricter measures could be taken to reduce contact further, which aside from banning exercise (which I can’t see making that much of a difference) can’t really be done.

 

[thejuggler]

Sorry, I don't mean to be harsh but how the hell can anyone actually believe that a stricter lockdown for any period of time would have been a good idea? No exercise + lack of fresh air = potential obesity, lower immune system and other potential health problems. That's before the impact on mental health.

Looking at New Zealand, Slovakia, etc a strict lockdown appears to have been exactly the right solution. Go early, go hard. They are out of lockdown and more or less back to normal.

Most UK offices won't be up and running until 2021 and I am now listening to a discussion where this may also have to include schools. The long term effect on mental health on those workers who cannot get back to work and the effect on lost education for thousands of children cannot be disregarded.

 

[thejuggler]

The figures for overall mortality in Sweden in total in the last week in May, week 22, were below the average for the past five years, according to Statistics Sweden's preliminary statistics. Statistics Sweden expects that the figure, which at week 22 was 1,524, may increase by around a further 200.

Unfortunately this sort of context has been sadly and almost wholly lacking in media reports, which have just focused on "xxx dead in xxxx country today" without any explanation as to what that number means in terms of the overall number of people you would expect to die in a day anyway.

You must watch/listen to different media to me. UK Excess deaths are mentioned almost every day.

 

[Smidster]

The R-rate is the north west of England is slightly over 1, which means cases are increasing there. It's only just under 1 in the south west. Overall cases might be decreasing, but it's certainly not across the board.

What is the coronavirus R number and is it rising in the UK?

Research suggests the average number of people one person infects may be increasing – but opinions differ as to why

www.google.com

We are in danger of obsessing about an "R" number - Estimating "R" is not at all precise and has very wide confidence intervals to it as well as not taking account of setting. The vaunted "R" can increase if you have an outbreak in a hospital or care home - that doesn't mean you have community transmission.

Look at the actual number of cases that are being reported - https://lginform.local.gov.uk/reports/view/lga-research/covid-19-case-tracker . Right now there is no indication of any region being in a period of significant growth.

 

[Tetchytyke]

What I do find quite concerning is that the “lockdown” was only stage 4 out of 5 on the “alert level” Nando’s style scale.

I wouldn't worry about that, those scales are always meaningless. As we see with the terror threat scale, governments will never use the lowest threat level in case something happens and they end up looking stupid, and they won't use the highest threat level because you always need somewhere to escalate to.

We are in danger of obsessing about an "R" number - Estimating "R" is not at all precise and has very wide confidence intervals to it as well as not taking account of setting.

I completely agree, but all metrics- including testing- are just estimates. My point is that it isn't clear cut things are dropping everywhere and there are pockets where it doesn't seem to be.

 

[Djgr]

The R-rate is the north west of England is slightly over 1, which means cases are increasing there. It's only just under 1 in the south west. Overall cases might be decreasing, but it's certainly not across the board.

What is the coronavirus R number and is it rising in the UK?

Research suggests the average number of people one person infects may be increasing – but opinions differ as to why

www.google.com

I was more referring to the pubs. But the same applies- you're told you won't be allowed to go out for months after this, so you do it whilst you can. Also bear in mind that weekend was Mothers Day.



They'd already made the decision, it had nothing to do with anything anyone did or didn't do. But public health officials in the UK have always been condescending and always sought to blame the stupid plebs for everything.



Lying? No. But they offered no evidence visitor numbers were "unprecedented". I suspect that's because they didn't have any evidence, they didn't have numbers, and were basing their comments on anecdote. If they actually knew how many people were there, one would assume that they would have said exactly how many visitors they had and how that compared to a normal summer's day.

"We normally get 5000 visitors per day in August, but that Sunday in March we got 12,000 visitors", that sort of thing.

It's the same as Derbyshire police using drones to show a "crowded" car park with 6 cars in it and show "crowded hills" with two people and a dog walking in splendid isolation.



True, but their rates are significantly better than most of Europe, including the UK.

It's almost like lockdown isn't the variable, the underlying health of the population is.

The oft quoted "R is greater than 1 in the North West" was one estimate, which was debunked yesterday as unrepresentative.

 

[Smidster]

Looking at New Zealand, Slovakia, etc a strict lockdown appears to have been exactly the right solution. Go early, go hard. They are out of lockdown and more or less back to normal.

Most UK offices won't be up and running until 2021 and I am now listening to a discussion where this may also have to include schools. The long term effect on mental health on those workers who cannot get back to work and the effect on lost education for thousands of children cannot be disregarded.

That risks conflating two things - the speed of the response and the severity of it. The lockdown in Slovakia for example doesn't seem that different to the one in regards to things like exercise.

I do think there is some evidence that we might have been in a better position had decisions been taken sooner but not that stricter measures would have had much additional benefit.

 

[thejuggler]

I wouldn't worry about that, those scales are always meaningless. As we see with the terror threat scale, governments will never use the lowest threat level in case something happens and they end up looking stupid, and they won't use the highest threat level because you always need somewhere to escalate to.

Governments do go from max to min.

NZ has a 4 level scale. It was 4 in April, it was 1 yesterday. The difference is the NZ scale has been in place for a long time as part of their emergency planning processes and understood.

Our scale was invented a few weeks ago in an effort to demonstrate something was being done.

 

[Bikeman78]

God forbid you link them to statistics showing the actual risks to their child.

For example, the fact that children are three times as likely to be killed by a motor vehicle. I hope all the concerned parents will hand in their car keys. My daughter will be going back at the end of June when her school reopens. She is looking forward to it.

 

[Yew]

Finland, Denmark and Norway all established lockdowns and all had much lower death and infection rates than neighbouring Sweden's suggesting their response may not have been that sensible after all.

Since they could lockdown early, of course they have, but that's no the important factor. The lesson we should have been learning here is that Sweden's death rates have not been significantly worse (per capita) than in other European nations that locked down later in their curve, neither has their health service been overrun. The Imperial model predicted ~40,000 fatalities by the beginning of may, whereas in realityit was ~2,600, and to this day stands at ~5000.

 

[takno]

Looking at New Zealand, Slovakia, etc a strict lockdown appears to have been exactly the right solution. Go early, go hard. They are out of lockdown and more or less back to normal.

Most UK offices won't be up and running until 2021 and I am now listening to a discussion where this may also have to include schools. The long term effect on mental health on those workers who cannot get back to work and the effect on lost education for thousands of children cannot be disregarded.

New Zealand locked down with really very few cases. We were already long past that point by the time anybody was even contemplating a lockdown, so it really wasn't an option for us. New Zealand also had the extra impetus of heading towards winter rather than summer which makes the urgency of not dealing with the initial onslaught rather more severe than it is here

Longer term New Zealand will at some point have to reopen to the world, and unless there's a vaccine, which isn't looking hugely likely in the short term, they will probably sooner or later end up with a substantial outbreak and heavy deaths.

Poland also locked down early and fairly hard in places with enough police to enforce anything. They have now eased up lockdown and were boasting last week about how much better they'd done than the Imperialist west (the ruling party in Poland actually speaks like this). Unfortunately infections there this week have gone through the roof. This is heavily driven by outbreaks in the Silesian coalmines right now, but there are signs that it's growing out of control in the wider community as well. Realistically their only decent option going forward might well be to write off the wasted months of lockdown and take the Swedish route after all.

The reason we are looking at offices being closed for several more months is in any case because we are making a choice to keep things that way. We could take some of the lessons we've learned about shielding the most vulnerable and open much more widely without any huge risk, but instead we still have too many people fetishizing the estimates of R like it's some kind of science or something.

 

[Jamesrob637]

I think we should have done a Spain but only for two weeks in early-April when case and death tolls were drastically increasing.

 

[philosopher]

That risks conflating two things - the speed of the response and the severity of it. The lockdown in Slovakia for example doesn't seem that different to the one in regards to things like exercise.

I do think there is some evidence that we might have been in a better position had decisions been taken sooner but not that stricter measures would have had much additional benefit.

Looking at Wikipedia, Slovakia went into lockdown very late, on the 8th April, however they quarantined all international arrivals on the 13th March and made facemasks compulsory on public transport and shops on the 15th March. So perhaps some these other measures were what bought it under control there.

 

[Djgr]

I think we should have done a Spain but only for two weeks in early-April when case and death tolls were drastically increasing.

What difference would that have achieved? Virus transmission in the outside air coupled with social distancing is very difficult.