New lockdown in England, including school closures, announced by Johnson, 4/1/21

[VauxhallandI]

I think that's happening a lot. It always did of course, but it's happening on a much larger scale. It's particularly bad since online games are now one of the closest things you can get to socialising if you think zoom quizzes are pathetic.

Yes he screams and bangs and shouts to his fellow game players......

 

[yorksrob]

Funnily enough, I scream and bang and shout at my work computer, but that's more due to work.

 

[35B]

I think you are being disingenuous and unfair. The toll on society is immense. I know of previously happy teenagers who are now so depressed their parents struggle to get them out of bed.

You mistake me - my comment was never intended to deny serious impacts on individuals, and I am well aware from what I've seen in public and private that these impacts do exist.

What I questioned was the view that we have gone from a state of no fatigue and high compliance last spring, or that fatigue has gone through the roof now. My impression is that compliance remains reasonably high, though weary, and that the fears of compliance fatigue that I amongst others believed in at the time were in fact overstated.

That is the situation I am currently going through at the moment trying to cajole my daughter to do school work and engage during what should be her important GCSE year.

Prior to March 2020 she was on track for 9 high grade GCSEs.

We hope that we can turn her around even if it takes a 12 month delay as we can support her with the education (we are both former teachers) but many parents aren’t able to do that.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

In contrast, my son (same age group, similar predictions) has kept on track, though with some concerns over whether he's taken the content to be able to step through into an A Level syllabus, and forcing him to take another year would hit his morale seriously, and knock him back.

How schools and society manage these very different situations in a way that supports the differing needs of the individuals is going to be an important test as we come out of this year.

 

[Freightmaster]

What I questioned was the view that we have gone from a state of no fatigue and high compliance last spring, or that fatigue has gone through the roof now. My impression is that compliance remains reasonably high, though weary, and that the fears of compliance fatigue that I amongst others believed in at the time were in fact overstated.

I agree totally - so why is social media (and some railway forums!) full of people claiming that "rule breakers" and "covidiots"
are prolonging the lockdown??




MARK

 

[35B]

I agree totally - so why is social media (and some railway forums!) full of people claiming that "rule breakers" and "covidiots"
are prolonging the lockdown??




MARK

Because exceptions gain attention, and lead people to give disproportionate weight to those exceptions as a sign of "normal" patterns of behaviour. And that goes both ways - social media does see those claims, and also (including some on here) inferring a level of opposition to lockdown that is also not supported by the numbers. And that in turn reflects our individual preferences and observational biases.

 

[DB]

also (including some on here) inferring a level of opposition to lockdown that is also not supported by the numbers.

You seem to be implying that if people are opposed to lockdowns then that means they break the rules. This is not the case - many people who are strongly oppoosed to them are nevertheless following the rules, and conversely many who claim to support them are ignoring the rules when it suits them.

 

[35B]

You seem to be implying that if people are opposed to lockdowns then that means they break the rules. This is not the case - many people who are strongly oppoosed to them are nevertheless following the rules, and conversely many who claim to support them are ignoring the rules when it suits them.

In the context of fatigue, that’s precisely the correlation I’m drawing; I hadn’t particularly considered the two cases of non-compliant support or compliant opposition that you put forward. You suggest that there are “many” in those two camps; I tend to the view that what we individually might see as many individuals is still of limited statistical significance in the context of the overall UK population.

 

[greyman42]

This doesn't look good, not least this won't be the only thing seeing higher than normal deaths:

Alcohol deaths hit record high during Covid pandemic

The figures for England and Wales cover the first nine months of 2020.

www.bbc.co.uk

The government can just stick it with suicides and sweep it under the carpet.

 

[yorksrob]

Because exceptions gain attention, and lead people to give disproportionate weight to those exceptions as a sign of "normal" patterns of behaviour. And that goes both ways - social media does see those claims, and also (including some on here) inferring a level of opposition to lockdown that is also not supported by the numbers. And that in turn reflects our individual preferences and observational biases.

I still think that widespread aquiescence to the lockdown (however much people personally follow the rules) exists because people are giving the vaccinations the chance to work.

I think that as soon as people suspect that they are being softened up for a more permanent regime of lockdowns, that aquiescence will crumble.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Case rates down again and I know one swallow doesn't make a summer but there is definitive downward trend now in the more important hospital admissions and number in hospitals. Mortality rate has 2-3 week lag on admissions but even that measure appears to have peaked in this wave on date of death data not the headline grabbing reporting data. So on current trends the data will be looking very favourable come the 15/2 review and right on cue we have add some fuel to the fear fire with the SA variant. Would have been more helpful if they'd clamped down on travel in the first place to minimise importing these variants and why haven't they got forced quarantine in place still.

 

[packermac]

I still think that widespread aquiescence to the lockdown (however much people personally follow the rules) exists because people are giving the vaccinations the chance to work.

I think that as soon as people suspect that they are being softened up for a more permanent regime of lockdowns, that aquiescence will crumble.

Which is OK as long as the vaccine keeps working on the variants.
UK says vaccine works on SA variant, South African Scientist on the news at lunchtime says their results show on 49% effective, hence below WHO figure for a viable vaccine.
What happens if vaccines do not work I do not know, but I do not believe the UK public will revolt like many on here seem to believe.

 

[6862]

Which is OK as long as the vaccine keeps working on the variants.
UK says vaccine works on SA variant, South African Scientist on the news at lunchtime says their results show on 49% effective, hence below WHO figure for a viable vaccine.
What happens if vaccines do not work I do not know, but I do not believe the UK public will revolt like many on here seem to believe.

I think reduced effectiveness of the vaccine (even if it was still 50% effective) would probably be enough to scare the majority into complying with extended lockdowns.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Which is OK as long as the vaccine keeps working on the variants.
UK says vaccine works on SA variant, South African Scientist on the news at lunchtime says their results show on 49% effective, hence below WHO figure for a viable vaccine.
What happens if vaccines do not work I do not know, but I do not believe the UK public will revolt like many on here seem to believe.

I agree they won't revolt until they have good cause to but bending the rules will become more prevalent.

 

[yorksrob]

Personally

Which is OK as long as the vaccine keeps working on the variants.
UK says vaccine works on SA variant, South African Scientist on the news at lunchtime says their results show on 49% effective, hence below WHO figure for a viable vaccine.
What happens if vaccines do not work I do not know, but I do not believe the UK public will revolt like many on here seem to believe.

They might not throw rocks at the authorities, but I can't see them complying with long term imprisonment either.

 

[35B]

I still think that widespread aquiescence to the lockdown (however much people personally follow the rules) exists because people are giving the vaccinations the chance to work.

I think that as soon as people suspect that they are being softened up for a more permanent regime of lockdowns, that aquiescence will crumble.

I wouldn’t put it in those terms, but I think you may be right. The government have forfeited trust by running a set of policies which have resulted in significant economic harm, a very high death toll, plus significant other side effects.

The public believe, rightly or wrongly, that vaccination is the way out of this situation. So far, the government have done an excellent job in both placing their vaccine bets and then managing the roll out. If that progress falters, whether because of failings in the distribution programme, because of mutations in the virus that undermine vaccine efficacy, or whatever else, then the messaging will become a lot harder.

Whether you think as I do, that restrictions are a necessary evil to contain the virus, or as others do, that they amplify the harm of the virus, the political and morale impact would be serious.

 

[yorksrob]

I wouldn’t put it in those terms, but I think you may be right. The government have forfeited trust by running a set of policies which have resulted in significant economic harm, a very high death toll, plus significant other side effects.

The public believe, rightly or wrongly, that vaccination is the way out of this situation. So far, the government have done an excellent job in both placing their vaccine bets and then managing the roll out. If that progress falters, whether because of failings in the distribution programme, because of mutations in the virus that undermine vaccine efficacy, or whatever else, then the messaging will become a lot harder.

Whether you think as I do, that restrictions are a necessary evil to contain the virus, or as others do, that they amplify the harm of the virus, the political and morale impact would be serious.

In the event that the vaccine is less effective than hoped, the political and morale impact will be a lot less serious if the authorities accept that there are limitations to our ability to control nature, and allow people to get on with their lives.

 

[birchesgreen]

The issue we have is actually motivating my daughter to do anything. The lockdown has really affected matters. She is not naturally lazy but lost all motivation since March.

And we (her parents) are at home all day.

Sorry to hear that, to be honest my nephew was very similar to that last year, though seems to be taking this latest lockdown instalment a lot better (unlike his uncle!)

 

[Bikeman78]

I still think that widespread aquiescence to the lockdown (however much people personally follow the rules) exists because people are giving the vaccinations the chance to work.

That and the awful weather. Some people have been lucky enough to have some snow. In Cardiff it stays two or three degrees above zero with rain as usual.

 

[yorksrob]

That and the awful weather. Some people have been lucky enough to have some snow. In Cardiff it stays two or three degrees above zero with rain as usual.

We've got cold, rain and snow !

 

[bramling]

I think this is a very relevent point, and needs to be looked at in terms of the long term trajectory the NHS has been taken. - Maybe this is a valid topic for a new thread.

Over the last decades, the NHS has very much taken a "bigger and fewer is better" role for hospitals. Major hospitals in major towns and cities have had huge multimillion pound rebuilds, whilst smaller outdated facilities have been closed. In 'normal' times this has nto nessesarily been a bad thing, often the bigger hospitals can offer the specialist treatments that a smaller hospital couldn't. No doubt the pooling of resources at the larger facilities has a cost benefit. However what it does mean, is you have far more human-human contacts, simply because you have more people roaming around in the same massive building. You have porters, cleaners, nurses, doctors, patients and visitors, all roaming around from ward to ward within the same building, touching the same elevator buttons, opening the same door handles. It must be a nightmare for transmission control. As a result

I know in some countries, where they have not taken this amalgamation approach to their healthcare, they have been able to designated facilities as covid and non-covid hospitals. In these cases staff have not been mixing between the facilities. Whilst I am sure it is not 100% effective, I am convinced that this kind of thinking has reduced transmission, thus reducing the impact upon the health facilities and their staff.

I think it is something that the UK will have to re-visit. Obviously there is an opposite end of the scale where there are far too many small hospitals that they cannot function efficently, but there can be no doubt that the general thrust of UK heatlh policy over the last decades has been this amalgamation approach, evidenced by the regular and repeated "save out local hospital/A&E/surgery" campaigns.

The point about hospitals is well made. Pretty much every case that I know (there’s been a few at work, and now just recently in my family too) seems to trace back to hospitals.

This is certainly something which will need to be part of any inquiry afterwards, likewise care homes. The NHS just doesn’t seem to have been set up for this, no matter how hard the staff on the ground are working.

I have a work colleague who now has a relative in palliative care (deemed too weak for ICU). A vaccinated person went to the bedside of his wife (unvaccinated) who was dying from COVID, then went straight back home to continue living in the same house as someone who is classed as CEV. COVID duly transmitted (along with to most of the rest of the immediate family thanks to the car journey), and it’s now touch and go. How many similar stories are there to this? All the masks in every shop in the world won’t help when people are making such misguided decisions.

 

[Wychwood93]

Sorry to hear that, to be honest my nephew was very similar to that last year, though seems to be taking this latest lockdown instalment a lot better (unlike his uncle!)

A godson of my wife, aged seven, had a similar disinclination to home learning - his mother tried, but.... the two elder children (15 and 14) were fine and self motivated. Anyway, the mother phoned the school and said the boy was getting nowhere with home learning and did they have room for him? Fine, they said, bring him in. The only case that I know of but there must be more overall.

 

[johntea]

Amusingly on the local news today they showed a clip of about 5 complete strangers huddled next to each other pushing another strangers car out of the snow...surprised the lockdown police weren't around to slap them all with a couple of hundred quid fine!

 

[35B]

The point about hospitals is well made. Pretty much every case that I know (there’s been a few at work, and now just recently in my family too) seems to trace back to hospitals.

This is certainly something which will need to be part of any inquiry afterwards, likewise care homes. The NHS just doesn’t seem to have been set up for this, no matter how hard the staff on the ground are working.

I have a work colleague who now has a relative in palliative care (deemed too weak for ICU). A vaccinated person went to the bedside of his wife (unvaccinated) who was dying from COVID, then went straight back home to continue living in the same house as someone who is classed as CEV. COVID duly transmitted (along with to most of the rest of the immediate family thanks to the car journey), and it’s now touch and go. How many similar stories are there to this? All the masks in every shop in the world won’t help when people are making such misguided decisions.

I'm sure there are plenty of such stories, but I don't envy that person the challenge of deciding the right thing to do in those circumstances, when every option is truly awful.

As for hospitals, I agree that there will need to be a lot of thought over how capacity is managed, and what is actually an efficient level to run at. From what I see on the news, my impression is that one of the major challenges is simply getting enough capacity into hospitals to deal with the surging demand, and having to decide on a balance of risk.

In the event that the vaccine is less effective than hoped, the political and morale impact will be a lot less serious if the authorities accept that there are limitations to our ability to control nature, and allow people to get on with their lives.

I suggest that ship sailed a long time ago, and the public's expectations of what government can and will do to prevent this virus causing them medical harm have long been more important in public opinion than the need to get on with lives. How government reduces that expectation, should they need to, will be one of the greatest tests any politician has to face.

 

[Bertie the bus]

The public believe, rightly or wrongly, that vaccination is the way out of this situation. So far, the government have done an excellent job in both placing their vaccine bets and then managing the roll out. If that progress falters, whether because of failings in the distribution programme, because of mutations in the virus that undermine vaccine efficacy, or whatever else, then the messaging will become a lot harder.

The public don't believe it rightly or wrongly. The public believe it because it is the way out. Vaccination isn't Plan A, it is the only plan. The current early indications are that vaccination will have the effect politicians and the public hope for but if they don't there is no option but to reopen society anyway. As I've said there is no other plan if vaccinations don't work and small numbers of scientists can moan and predict Armageddon as much as they like, society will reopen.

 

[bramling]

I'm sure there are plenty of such stories, but I don't envy that person the challenge of deciding the right thing to do in those circumstances, when every option is truly awful.

As for hospitals, I agree that there will need to be a lot of thought over how capacity is managed, and what is actually an efficient level to run at. From what I see on the news, my impression is that one of the major challenges is simply getting enough capacity into hospitals to deal with the surging demand, and having to decide on a balance of risk.

I agree it’s not a nice decision to have to make, however for me the answer isn’t difficult - no way would I go up close to a confirmed COVID case and then go home living in a small house with a CEV person, it’s sheer madness from a logical point of view. I’m not sure if there may have been a mistaken belief that the vaccine would prevent *transmission*, however in this case it seems pretty clear it didn’t.

One wonders how many similar things have happened. This whole situation I described in the earlier post appears to have been directly responsible for at least *7* consequential cases, and tragically in all likelihood barring a miracle a death (albeit someone with a serious underlying condition). All this resulted from a simple trip indoors setting off a chain reaction, the initial COVID exposure was in hospital for something trivial like a broken wrist (showing that staying at home isn’t risk-free either).

The government strategy of blaming people who “don’t follow the rules” is, to be honest, puerile - as it grossly distorts the complexity of the whole thing. Likewise romanticising the NHS ignores the fact that many deaths have their roots inside the NHS in that a lot of infections are occurring in hospitals. It’s easier to blame “rule breakers” than accept that this is happening inside the NHS, and if necessary expectation-manage that this may be an unavoidable part of the whole situation. Any lessons for the future need to be learned though.

 

[6862]

The point about hospitals is well made. Pretty much every case that I know (there’s been a few at work, and now just recently in my family too) seems to trace back to hospitals.

This is certainly something which will need to be part of any inquiry afterwards, likewise care homes. The NHS just doesn’t seem to have been set up for this, no matter how hard the staff on the ground are working.

I have a work colleague who now has a relative in palliative care (deemed too weak for ICU). A vaccinated person went to the bedside of his wife (unvaccinated) who was dying from COVID, then went straight back home to continue living in the same house as someone who is classed as CEV. COVID duly transmitted (along with to most of the rest of the immediate family thanks to the car journey), and it’s now touch and go. How many similar stories are there to this? All the masks in every shop in the world won’t help when people are making such misguided decisions.

I may have misunderstood the details, but it seems unlikely that the person visiting his wife could become infected by her then within minutes/hours infect the other people in the car? People normally take a couple of days to become infectious as the virus has to take hold in the body. Could it be that the other people in the car picked up the virus while also visiting the hospital?

Details aside, I hope they all make a full recovery.

 

[bramling]

I may have misunderstood the details, but it seems unlikely that the person visiting his wife could become infected by her then within minutes/hours infect the other people in the car? People normally take a couple of days to become infectious as the virus has to take hold in the body. Could it be that the other people in the car picked up the virus while also visiting the hospital?

Details aside, I hope they all make a full recovery.

Not sure to be honest. It sounds like it may have been the case that there were several journeys to/from the hospital spread over a few days. I guess that would account for it. From what I gather they are adamant there was no other obvious way they could have become infected.

 

[yorksrob]

I suggest that ship sailed a long time ago, and the public's expectations of what government can and will do to prevent this virus causing them medical harm have long been more important in public opinion than the need to get on with lives. How government reduces that expectation, should they need to, will be one of the greatest tests any politician has to face.

I must admit, I've not really seen any discussion which the population regarding the prevention of medical harm by the virus and the need to get on with lives. It all seems to have been a one way street whereby the Government and its advisors, tells us what that balance should be, and demands that we enact policies to support that. Perhaps the first step is a genuine discussion with the population, rather than the hasty imposition of policy manufactured by SAGE. That might be a bit of a luxury now, while the vaccine is being rolled out, however this discussion will become vital in the event that the advisors want to impose stringent measures once the population have been vaccinated.

 

[yorkie]

Which is OK as long as the vaccine keeps working on the variants.
UK says vaccine works on SA variant, South African Scientist on the news at lunchtime says their results show on 49% effective, hence below WHO figure for a viable vaccine.
What happens if vaccines do not work I do not know, but I do not believe the UK public will revolt like many on here seem to believe.

How do you define "works"?

There isn't going to be a variant any time soon that would reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine as low as 'flu vaccine levels of efficacy!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Feb 2021 ==

I think reduced effectiveness of the vaccine (even if it was still 50% effective) would probably be enough to scare the majority into complying with extended lockdowns.

There is a lack of understanding among the general population; many people think that one jab is not very effective; others think the advertised efficacy, which is measured as the reduction in symptomatic Covid, relates to serious illness or death; many believe vaccines could suddenly become completely ineffective against new variants in a short period of time.

This lack of understanding is driving fear and giving the hysterical 'lockdown indefinitely' brigade ammunition.

The public don't believe it rightly or wrongly. The public believe it because it is the way out. Vaccination isn't Plan A, it is the only plan. The current early indications are that vaccination will have the effect politicians and the public hope for but if they don't there is no option but to reopen society anyway. As I've said there is no other plan if vaccinations don't work and small numbers of scientists can moan and predict Armageddon as much as they like, society will reopen.

Indeed; the only way out is to build up immunity, and we must be a significant chunk of the way there now.

While it would be nice to eliminate the virus through reaching the herd immunity threshold, this is not essential; once we have built up a good level of immunity, the worst that would happen is to reach endemic equilibrium, which we have with the 4 regularly circulating Coronaviruses and hundreds of Rhinoviruses. Either way, once sufficient people have built up immunity in any given region, the epidemic will end.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Feb 2021 ==

The government can just stick it with suicides and sweep it under the carpet.

Indeed those sort of deaths are not deemed to be particularly newsworthy by our society / media.

Deaths with (not necessarily of) Covid are deemed as more problematical / avoidable / worthy of outrage than almost any other death. We know suicide is a leading cause of death among younger people and the risks of this for anyone below the age of around 45/50 are higher than the risks posed by Sars-Cov-2 and that's without considering the effects of lockdown on mental health.

But it's all about reducing deaths with an average age of 82.

The dangers to almost anyone below the age of 50, and possibly higher, caused by lockdown are clearly far greater than the dangers posed by the virus itself.

Therefore, lockdown is not sustainable once Groups 1-4 have been vaccinated. Some people may argue group 5 also needs to be vaccinated before lockdown is unsustainable but that should only take an extra week at current vaccination rates.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

There is a lack of understanding among the general population; many people think that one jab is not very effective; others think the advertised efficacy, which is measured as the reduction in symptomatic Covid, relates to serious illness or death; many believe vaccines could suddenly become completely ineffective against new variants in a short period of time.

This lack of understanding is driving fear and giving the hysterical 'lockdown indefinitely' brigade ammunition.

There is also a lack of understanding in so far as a great many people seem to think that a vaccine will just "get rid" of Covid and make it go away. This is probably not helped by the constant messaging from Government and others that we can "beat the virus". When they find out this is not going to be the case and Covid will still exist even if a very high % of the population is vaccinated then that will also drive fear and add fuel to the 'lockdown indefinitely' fire.