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

[Pakenhamtrain]

And are the authorities in Melbourne going to compensate pubs, bars and restaurants for the stock they are going to have to destroy? I doubt it somehow.

If the people making the decisions about these "snap lockdowns" had to suffer the financial consequences of them, they might not be so quick to lockdown in the future.

I have also see pictures on Twitter of huge queues in Australian supermarkets with people panic buying at the last minute before the lockdown comes into effect. That is the last thing you want to happen, ie large numbers of people packed closely together in an indoor environment - talk about a potential superspreader event, especially if it is repeated in other supermarkets across the affected area.

There's a push but I doubt much will happen.

The people making the decisions can work from home if they need to that's how it doesn't affect them and given they're on good money they can afford to not work. They don't get stood down like a lot of people.

 

[6862]

edit: furlough ends at the end of april, so everything must be fully re open and operate normally by then, unless fur,ligh gets extended yet again, which wouldn’t surprise me.

I think it's very unlikely that furlough won't be extended.

 

[DustyBin]

It's not the federal side of things that are doing it although they can't wash thier hands of it. It's the state premiers. Every state is doing it's own thing somewhat. We have had quarantine leaks in NSW, QLD, SA, WA and now Victoria. With the exception of NSW everyone else went into full panic mode and locked down to varying degrees. States start shutting borders with each other. WA have been the worst on that front.

Vaccine rollout? What vaccine rollout?

The feds who are actually responsible for quarantine have sat on thier hands and done stuff all and fobbed it off to the states.


There was a farcical scene Friday night where people were allowed to go to the tennis because the lockdown started at 2359. At 2330 they started kicking people out of the arena.

People have planned holidays and they've ended up having to race back home to beat the border closures.
This weekend bars, pubs, restaurants and a lot of other places were preparing for valentines day and lunar new year. All that stock now going to go to waste because it was too late to cancel orders.

As for mental health well the was an article today in The Age.

‘Disheartened, afraid, distressed’: Victorians already feeling lockdown pain

Victorians are already seeking support in higher numbers since the state’s third lockdown started on Saturday.

www.theage.com.au

People still have heightened symptoms of anxiety and depression before the lockdown.


At the same token we do count ourselves lucky we can go out and do things like go to the cricket, the tennis, the football and so on.

Thanks I wasn’t aware of exactly how it was operating to be honest. I certainly think they need to get their acts together with some kind of vaccination programme as the current situation can’t be sustainable....

 

[Kite159]

It would be amusing to see some of the lockdown obsessives round here getting a few fines. Much of the stuff on Facebook is so depressingly hypocritical - stuff along the lines of “we went to the garden centre this afternoon and were absolutely shocked to find it was busy”!

I saw some posts on a Twitter story by some complaining that supermarkets were "busy" they had to queue up for ten minutes to be allowed in before being able to buy some more toilet rolls or cans of veg.

 

[yorksrob]

It's set to warm up again this week with a return to double figure temperatures, and the forecast currently for next weekend is 15-16C while remaining dry, so if this materialises expect compliance to plummet I reckon.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Feb 2021 ==

The CRG's demands to remove all restrictions by the end of April, based on vaccinating the 1-9 groups, has also made the BBC landing page:

Covid: Dominic Raab rejects CRG calls for lockdown easing date

It comes after Tory backbenchers called for England's Covid restrictions to be lifted by the end of April.

www.bbc.co.uk

It's pleasing that the CRG group has taken this position. I think it's entirely reasonable that we should be return to normality once 1 - 9 have been vaccinated. I'm not in groups 1 - 9, so I will personally be being cautious at that stage until I'm fully done, however it should be down to individuals own assessment of risk at this stage. Yes, there is a risk that the virus will mutate - but this is also true of flu, which is even more mutatable.

Turnover-based rents are starting to make a show in high street commercial leases, though so far it’s predominantly arising during restructurings. They are already prevalent in (for example) airport retail.

What the lenders behind all these transactions will make of them is quite another matter.

I wonder if that's a potential model for Network Rail ?

People are already out having coffee with a mate or two here, and sitting along the seafront to enjoy it. The stay in your prison cell for 23 hours a day looks to be heading out, replaced with, you can leave your cell freely and meet with one other prisoner outside for a coffee.

edit: furlough ends at the end of april, so everything must be fully re open and operate normally by then, unless fur,ligh gets extended yet again, which wouldn’t surprise me.

Indeed. I haven't seen stay-at-home specifically mentioned, but it should be naturally finished by then anyway.

 

[Bayum]

I was going to post this on the Sweden thread but it’s not really about Sweden per say. This graph (stolen from another forum) shows the number of deaths per million people in Sweden and the UK throughout the pandemic. Ignore the actual numbers and look at the two lines. I’m less and less convinced that lockdowns work.

View attachment 90454

Don’t forget, the main objective is to prevent overload in the NHS. A dedication in deaths is merely a bonus.

 

[chris11256]

Interesting contrast in stories this morning. Ranging from largely reopening by April/May to retail and hospitality staying shut until August. I must admit August for retail and hospitality does seem very very pessimistic, unless some expect cases/hospital admissions and deaths to skyrocket when schools reopen.

Regardless I do expect the legal 'you must stay ay home' to go in March, I suspect the government would have quite the fight on it's hand to renew lockdown legislation at the end of March.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I have no doubt that there will be rules in place to make everywhere "COVID secure" at least intially, but I would hope that these restrictions are progressively removed over the summer, with regular reviews every two weeks to see whether they are still required.

The virus doesn't work on two week cycles its dynamic and it irritates the hell out of me that they only schedule a review every few weeks. It should be managed on a day by day basis and restrictions, up or down, adjusted accordingly to the current sit rep [You don't fight wars on a two week cycle].

 

[NorthOxonian]

The virus doesn't work on two week cycles its dynamic and it irritates the hell out of me that they only schedule a review every few weeks. It should be managed on a day by day basis and restrictions, up or down, adjusted accordingly to the current sit rep [You don't fight wars on a two week cycle].

The virus doesn't work like that, but businesses do. You can't just tell them to open or close without any warning.

 

[duncanp]

Interesting contrast in stories this morning. Ranging from largely reopening by April/May to retail and hospitality staying shut until August. I must admit August for retail and hospitality does seem very very pessimistic, unless some expect cases/hospital admissions and deaths to skyrocket when schools reopen.

Regardless I do expect the legal 'you must stay ay home' to go in March, I suspect the government would have quite the fight on it's hand to renew lockdown legislation at the end of March.

Something would have to go seriously wrong for hospitality to stay shut until August.

It seems to have been widely trailed that pubs may be allowed to open outdoors from the beginning of April. If this happens, there is no way they can justify keeping indoor hospitality closed beyond the end of April, or the first half of May at the absolute latest.

I think the government will have to have firm proposals for lifting the lockdown in place if it wants the lockdown legislation renewed at the end of March.

In other words there would have to be a firm date for reopening non essential retail, and a latest possible date for reopening pubs in order for the legislation to be renewed.

Wishy washy codswallop about "we will cautiously reopen things when "the data" and "the science" allows us to" just isn't going to cut it anymore.

And if Boris Johnson thinks he can rely on Labour, sooner or later they are going to pull the plug on him and refuse to support him, or impose conditions which most Conservatives find unacceptable. It is not going to look good for the Conservatives going into the May elections if a Conservative Prime Minister has to rely on Labour to keep the COVID legislation on the statute book.

 

[Class 33]

The CRG were previously saying they demanded all restrictions to be scrapped by the end of May. They're now saying the end of April. Excellent! I agree, that all restrictions really need to go by the end of April really. However we now have Dominc Raab saying the government won't be held to an artbitrary target to lift all restrictions by May! Dear oh dear. Seems we could have quite a battle on our hands to get these ridiculous restrictions scrapped.

Hancock said to parliament last month that "We won't keep any of these restrictions for a moment longer than they are necessary.". Well at the moment it is looking like they will keep these restrictions going for somewhat longer than necessary!

The NHS Chief Simon Stevens was on the news yesterday saying that the numbers in hospital with Coronavirus are still above the peak they were back in April. Well within a matter of just 3 or 4 days now, he won't be able to say that any more. And he also said that the NHS is still under severe pressure with Coronavirus patients. Well within about a month now, he shouldn't be able to say that any more as numbers should easily be below 5,000.

 

[DustyBin]

Don’t forget, the main objective is to prevent overload in the NHS. A dedication in deaths is merely a bonus.

That’s a fair point, and this is what we were told regarding the latest lockdown in particular. I would have thought though that the number of deaths and number of hospitalisations follow a similar trajectory? I’ve said before that I accept (albeit reluctantly) why the current lockdown was imposed, it may have provided some short term relief to the NHS, but strategically lockdowns are neither effective nor sustainable in my opinion (or that of most leading epidemiologists prior to March 2020!).

 

[Kite159]

The virus doesn't work like that, but businesses do. You can't just tell them to open or close without any warning.

Especially those who offer food/drink and needs time to order in new stock to replace food/drink which had to be thrown away when they were forced to close.

 

[Planesandtrain]

I get why the government wants to go slow, last time we opened up with a bang going straight into the tiers system in December it resulted in disaster, exponential growth, then Christmas came along fueling this growth. This caused a terrible death toll so a repeat must be avoided. But now the vast majority of venerable people have had or are close to having their first jab.

Based on the three-week lag for people to gain full immunity, I do want to see the stay at home order lifted on the 8th of March turning into a recommendation, much like you see in Germany or other countries. Shops and hospitality should be opened based on the data we are seeing, and then if it's going well maybe open earlier, not some date plucked out of nowhere.

It is tough especially after seeing all the things that were possible last summer, but I think entering a new two-three-month lockdown with everything shut again would cause even more economic and societal damage than a careful relaxation.

 

[Bantamzen]

Interesting contrast in stories this morning. Ranging from largely reopening by April/May to retail and hospitality staying shut until August. I must admit August for retail and hospitality does seem very very pessimistic, unless some expect cases/hospital admissions and deaths to skyrocket when schools reopen.

Regardless I do expect the legal 'you must stay ay home' to go in March, I suspect the government would have quite the fight on it's hand to renew lockdown legislation at the end of March.

In my local newspaper an article on the Tory MPs demanding an end to restriction attracted one locktivist to demand that these MPs be "removed". They are now getting mauled by other commenters. The tide is turning.

I get why the government wants to go slow, last time we opened up with a bang going straight into the tiers system in December it resulted in disaster, exponential growth, then Christmas came along fueling this growth. This caused a terrible death toll so a repeat must be avoided. But now the vast majority of venerable people have had or are close to having their first jab.

Based on the three-week lag for people to gain full immunity, I do want to see the stay at home order lifted on the 8th of March turning into a recommendation, much like you see in Germany or other countries. Shops and hospitality should be opened based on the data we are seeing, and then if it's going well maybe open earlier, not some date plucked out of nowhere.

It is tough especially after seeing all the things that were possible last summer, but I think entering a new two-three-month lockdown with everything shut again would cause even more economic and societal damage than a careful relaxation.

We had practically no relaxation over Christmas, its time to stop pretending that had anything to do with it.

 

[Yew]

I get why the government wants to go slow, last time we opened up with a bang going straight into the tiers system in December it resulted in disaster, exponential growth, then Christmas came along fueling this growth.

We also hadn't vaccinated more than 25% of adults.

 

[DB]

We had practically no relaxation over Christmas, its time to stop pretending that had anything to do with it.

Indeed, and the increase and then decline happened exactly the same way in Sweden despite no lockdown there (and cases were already beginning to decline here before the lockdown could have had any effect). We are in the dangerous position of it being widely accepted that the lockdown was entirely responsible for the reduction, ignoring the natural fluctuation and not taking much notice of the increase in vaccinated people. This is dangerous because if it's widely accepted it makes future lockdowns more likely.

 

[kristiang85]

Also mid December is when coronaviruses tend to really accelerate in spread, if you look at historical graphs.

 

[Mag_seven]

We had practically no relaxation over Christmas, its time to stop pretending that had anything to do with it.

Unfortunately I've heard the phrase "we must stop Easter becoming the new Christmas" from those who don't want restrictions lifted by April.

 

[DannyMich2018]

The CRG were previously saying they demanded all restrictions to be scrapped by the end of May. They're now saying the end of April. Excellent! I agree, that all restrictions really need to go by the end of April really. However we now have Dominc Raab saying the government won't be held to an artbitrary target to lift all restrictions by May! Dear oh dear. Seems we could have quite a battle on our hands to get these ridiculous restrictions scrapped.

Hancock said to parliament last month that "We won't keep any of these restrictions for a moment longer than they are necessary.". Well at the moment it is looking like they will keep these restrictions going for somewhat longer than necessary!

The NHS Chief Simon Stevens was on the news yesterday saying that the numbers in hospital with Coronavirus are still above the peak they were back in April. Well within a matter of just 3 or 4 days now, he won't be able to say that any more. And he also said that the NHS is still under severe pressure with Coronavirus patients. Well within about a month now, he shouldn't be able to say that any more as numbers should easily be below 5,000.

Yes it's very likely in the coming few days the hospital Covid number patients will fall the below of the peak we had last April-already the number of intensive care patients is now less than the peak last year too. We've gone from just over 39000 in hospital a few weeks ago to 23341 on the latest update (hospital figures aren't updated on a Sunday or Mon due to the weekend so something a like 40% reduction). With the Vaccinations making excellent progress and with hospital admissions already way down it will be hard to justify not opening up as much as possible by Easter.

 

[philosopher]

Interesting contrast in stories this morning. Ranging from largely reopening by April/May to retail and hospitality staying shut until August. I must admit August for retail and hospitality does seem very very pessimistic, unless some expect cases/hospital admissions and deaths to skyrocket when schools reopen.

Regardless I do expect the legal 'you must stay ay home' to go in March, I suspect the government would have quite the fight on it's hand to renew lockdown legislation at the end of March.

Which newspaper / broadcaster is saying hospitality will remain closed to August? If that is indeed the case then it sounds disastrous for hospitality. I can’t see may pubs surviving if they miss out on more than half the summer.

 

[duncanp]

Which newspaper / broadcaster is saying hospitality will remain closed to August? If that is indeed the case then it sounds disastrous for hospitality. I can’t see may pubs surviving if they miss out on more than half the summer.

There is a piece in The Sunday Times which says:-

"The 'superfast' plan would see restaurants and pubs opening in early May once the over 50s have beeen vaccinated. The slower alternatives would see pubs and restaurants reopen by the Spring Bank Holiday on May 31st or by mid June. The slowest route would be to open by August. A senior Whitehall source said options two or three were most likely"

The first thing to note is that options two or three both say by the Spring Bank Holiday on May 31st, or by mid June, or by August. So it would be entirely consistent with option two to open pubs on the second Saturday in May, for example, and it would be consistent with option three to open pubs in the first week of July.

The second thing to note is "..a senior Whitehall source said options two or three were most likely..." It could be that this is the version of the plan which has been leaked to the Sunday Times, which is different from other papers which suggest that beer gardens could be open from Easter. And are the government using the Sunday Times to manage expectations, so that when pubs reopen at the end of April everyone thinks "..ooh Boris, aren't you wonderful, I'm going to vote Conservative in the elections at the beginning of May..."

The fact that some papers have been fed the story that beer gardens are going to reopen at Easter suggests to me that the plan is to reopen pubs by the election date, or to have a firm reopening date for shortly after the elections.

It will be an electoral coup for Boris if he can vaccinate all over 50s by the time of the elections, and then announce the reopening of hospitality in order to make people feel good before they vote.

 

[TheBeard]

There is now no justification for locking up kids and the 40% who have been vaccinated or taken Covid on the chin. To release this would half the damage at least, more so cos many are the young and the old.
It is a human rights/false imprisonment issue now. And those who would absolutely refuse a vaccine, ironically, too are similar.

 

[philosopher]

There is a piece in The Sunday Times which says:-



The first thing to note is that options two or three both say by the Spring Bank Holiday on May 31st, or by mid June, or by August. So it would be entirely consistent with option two to open pubs on the second Saturday in May, for example, and it would be consistent with option three to open pubs in the first week of July.

The second thing to note is "..a senior Whitehall source said options two or three were most likely..." It could be that this is the version of the plan which has been leaked to the Sunday Times, which is different from other papers which suggest that beer gardens could be open from Easter. And are the government using the Sunday Times to manage expectations, so that when pubs reopen at the end of April everyone thinks "..ooh Boris, aren't you wonderful, I'm going to vote Conservative in the elections at the beginning of May..."

The fact that some papers have been fed the story that beer gardens are going to reopen at Easter suggests to me that the plan is to reopen pubs by the election date, or to have a firm reopening date for shortly after the elections.

It will be an electoral coup for Boris if he can vaccinate all over 50s by the time of the elections, and then announce the reopening of hospitality in order to make people feel good before they vote.

Ok, after reading article, I think it could be read that pubs and restaurants could open any time between the start of May and August but are most likely to open either in May or the first half of June.

Also from the article:

Back to school on March 8 as Johnson starts lifting lockdown

All schoolchildren will return to the classroom on March 8 under plans to start lifting the lockdown, Boris Johnson will announce in a national address next wee

www.thetimes.co.uk

Ministers have drawn up a four-speed plan for restarting the economy, with all shops, pubs and restaurants open anywhere between early May and August.

The whole country will move together through a series of national tiers — which may be different from those in operation last year — with reviews every fortnight.

I suspect the four options outlined in the article set out different criteria in terms of infections and hospitalisations for reopening, with option 1 using the most lax criteria and option 4 using the most strict criteria. Whatever option the government go with however, the data would be reviewed every two weeks to decide what if anything can reopen. The dates in the article then could be estimates based on current trends of when pubs and restaurants would open for each option.

 

[takno]

It will be an electoral coup for Boris if he can vaccinate all over 50s by the time of the elections, and then announce the reopening of hospitality in order to make people feel good before they vote.

I'm not sure how much of an electoral coup it will be if just before an election people are finally able to do a limited range of the completely normal things they've been able to do for decades and yet were stopped from doing less than a year after he took office. In any case, if I was him I'd be extremely fearful of revealing just how few places will actually be able to reopen, given the number of venues that have just quietly gone bust.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I get why the government wants to go slow, last time we opened up with a bang going straight into the tiers system in December it resulted in disaster, exponential growth, then Christmas came along fueling this growth. This caused a terrible death toll so a repeat must be avoided. But now the vast majority of venerable people have had or are close to having their first jab.

Based on the three-week lag for people to gain full immunity, I do want to see the stay at home order lifted on the 8th of March turning into a recommendation, much like you see in Germany or other countries. Shops and hospitality should be opened based on the data we are seeing, and then if it's going well maybe open earlier, not some date plucked out of nowhere.

It is tough especially after seeing all the things that were possible last summer, but I think entering a new two-three-month lockdown with everything shut again would cause even more economic and societal damage than a careful relaxation.

We didn't open up with bang things were still heavily restricted in hospitality relaxation was proportionate with the virus being in decline. The failure came in late summer to react early when the virus started growing again this is what lead to the exponential growth. Wave 1 the govt can be partially forgiven but they ignored there own requirements when it came to wave 2 and used the Kent variant as a cover story. This time the virus is reducing at a faster rate than wave one even the lockdown leader Edmunds is acknowledging that.

Im with you on opening up and whilst caution needs to be exercised I want to see Boris layout the criteria that need to fulfilled before each stage of relaxation the dating of it can then be dynamic not the fixed dates everyone keeps going on about. For instance if in the previous 7 days case rates were consistently below x/100k then move to this stage. So business might say how can they plan well they can't really but if govt is giving a sit rep report everyday they can use there judgement to decide. This is just the way it has to befor this period and once we are through it they/we will have the stability we all crave even if its looks a bit differrent.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Feb 2021 ==

The virus doesn't work like that, but businesses do. You can't just tell them to open or close without any warning.

Well currently the virus is in charge and had govt recognised that last autumn we wouldn't have got into the mess we did which has given business a far bigger headache than being bothered about exactly when they can open.

 

[cuccir]

Im with you on opening up and whilst caution needs to be exercised I want to see Boris layout the criteria that need to fulfilled before each stage of relaxation the dating of it can then be dynamic not the fixed dates everyone keeps going on about. For instance if in the previous 7 days case rates were consistently below x/100k then move to this stage.

For me this has been the biggest failing in the UK's approach from the start. Both good and bad decisions seem to have been made in light of very short term current situations, often trying to resolve the most recent problem. If we were really 'following the science' then the government would have used scientific advice to establish various acceptable measures for moving between different restrictions, but we have barely done that up till now.

FWIW I think the reports starting come out about plans reflect timelines that have been predictable since mid-December when the first vaccines were approved and the Kent variant's impact started to be apparent. 'Lockdown' and business closure restrictions starting to be relaxed in March ending on a the absolute best timescale by mid-May, on the worst by September, and more probably between those. Social distancing to remain in place in some form probably until the end of the 2021-22 winter, with possibility of some level of lockdown restrictions in Jan/Feb 2022 to cover us during the winter coronavirus season, depending on how the vaccine does against new variants and how quickly top-ups can be obtained and rolled-out. I don't think any of the leaks seem to have changed that have they?

 

[DB]

We didn't open up with bang things were still heavily restricted in hospitality relaxation was proportionate with the virus being in decline. The failure came in late summer to react early when the virus started growing again this is what lead to the exponential growth.

There is no convincing evidence that more restrictions then would have made any real difference. See comparisons between states in the US where the outcome for those in the same climatic regions has borne no relationship to the level of restrictions.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Feb 2021 ==

with possibility of some level of lockdown restrictions in Jan/Feb 2022 to cover us during the winter coronavirus season, depending on how the vaccine does against new variants and how quickly top-ups can be obtained and rolled-out. I don't think any of the leaks seem to have changed that have they?

Absolutely not acceptable. By then we will be in the best position we will ever be in as regards vaccines, so if lockdowns are "necessary" next winter then the same would apply to every winter. This must not be normalised. If they think there might be a spike then, they need to get on now with planning an increase in hospital capacity.

 

[Yew]

It will be an electoral coup for Boris if he can vaccinate all over 50s by the time of the elections, and then announce the reopening of hospitality in order to make people feel good before they vote.

Once the over 50's are vaccinated, there is no reason whatsoever for restrictions

We didn't open up with bang things were still heavily restricted in hospitality relaxation was proportionate with the virus being in decline. The failure came in late summer to react early when the virus started growing again this is what lead to the exponential growth. Wave 1 the govt can be partially forgiven but they ignored there own requirements when it came to wave 2 and used the Kent variant as a cover story. This time the virus is reducing at a faster rate than wave one even the lockdown leader Edmunds is acknowledging that.

Im with you on opening up and whilst caution needs to be exercised I want to see Boris layout the criteria that need to fulfilled before each stage of relaxation the dating of it can then be dynamic not the fixed dates everyone keeps going on about. For instance if in the previous 7 days case rates were consistently below x/100k then move to this stage. So business might say how can they plan well they can't really but if govt is giving a sit rep report everyday they can use there judgement to decide. This is just the way it has to befor this period and once we are through it they/we will have the stability we all crave even if its looks a bit differrent.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Feb 2021 ==


Well currently the virus is in charge and had govt recognised that last autumn we wouldn't have got into the mess we did which has given business a far bigger headache than being bothered about exactly when they can open.

I'm up for criteria, but they must be primarily focused on Vaccinations and NHS loadings, rather than worrying about mild cases in healthy people.

 

[philosopher]

There is no convincing evidence that more restrictions then would have made any real difference. See comparisons between states in the US where the outcome for those in the same climatic regions has borne no relationship to the level of restrictions.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Feb 2021 ==



Absolutely not acceptable. By then we will be in the best position we will ever be in as regards vaccines, so if lockdowns are "necessary" next winter then the same would apply to every winter. This must not be normalised. If they think there might be a spike then, they need to get on now with planning an increase in hospital capacity.

I agree, this must be the last lockdown. The government should be preparing an alternative strategy to lockdowns if the worst case situation does occur and there is a new wave next winter.