Lockdown ending could trigger anxiety for many, say UK charities

[everydayupsanddowns]

Can you find anything to show that large scale outdoor gatherings cause tranmission of the virus? If not, why have we been locked in our homes?

How do you feel about the anniversaries of Athletico Madrid and Cheltenham Gold Cup recently. There have been interviews with people who came down with infections in the days following both events, which are now widely regarded to have been a significant misjudgement. And also, sadly, with family members for whom that Covid resulted in the death of the attendee.

Personally, I perceived a significant hike in UK cases rising into the second wave soon (following an incubation/transmission period) after the 'eat out to infect out' encouragement for people to get out and about and support the economy, and the lockdown easing. I don't believe this happened in Australia or NZ whose lockdowns stayed locked down. So my perception is very different to yours. I believe the lockdowns (as personally, emotionally, and economically difficult as they are) were vital. But their effectiveness was impaired by easing too early, and communicating too vaguely.

 

[trophywench]

... and yet another peak after the disastrous easing of lockdown during Xmas. Not a single person wants to see that again hence why the Government has been forced into harsher treatment of people breaking lockdown and harsher language about easing lockdown eg. 'Not in any circumstances sooner than (date)'.

We collectively - including the Anti Lockdown and My life matters more than yours etc brigades along with the compliant folk - have brought this about so I'm not in the business of discovering who to blame for exactly what and even if I was - I still would not be in the position of doling out the punishment. What punishment !!!!

 

[Leadinglights]

In the early days it was not recognised that there was asymptomatic transmission so it was bound to spread as people don't live in isolation, families cannot easily stay apart from each other and distancing in the work place is well nigh impossible.
My daughter's children have been at school as key worker's kids and each had a week of self isolation in October but first week back with all the children and one has to self isolate this week. We have observed secondary school kids with arms around each other so no social distancing outside of school.
People rushing off on holiday all crowded together in the airport or on a plane didn't really help either.
Hard to imagine how we can get back to 'normal'.

 

[Eddy Edson]

I boggle a bit that lockdown denialists are still peddling their stuff.

This is what a brutally strict lockdown accomplished in Victoria over the Oz winter, from July:



It's a neat little experiment because it isn't compicated by new infections arriving from out of jurisdiction - Vic borders were closed tight all through this period.

Stressful and inconvenient for Victorians while it lasted; less stressful than months & months of high infection and death rates. Because it was maintained until cases were at zero, and because borders have been tightly controlled, it hasn't had to be repeated.

 

[mikeydt1]

people cannot live indefinitely in a lock down state whether we like it or not. we all need to learn to live with this like we have lived with other viruses and diseases. flue kills but we go about our business not hiding indoors spraying ourselves silly. other diseases kill but do we hide indoors?

 

[Amity Island]

How do you feel about the anniversaries of Athletico Madrid and Cheltenham Gold Cup recently.

I believe the lockdowns (as personally, emotionally, and economically difficult as they are) were vital.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your reply, always appreciated.

My point is about lockdowns, effectively locking people in their homes when they could instead be outside in the fresh air, walking, seeing nature and the great outdoors (which is a much safer envirnonment) but is also about the damage lockdowns cause. Both @Eddy Edson and @Bruce Stephens have both made posts and discussions on how easily covid can be caught indoors, but they 've not made any posts on how easily transmission occurs in the great outdoors, so why lock people in? But it's worse than that. I believe lockdowns have caused many deaths, be it from the intial lockdown, but also via side effects such as missed appointments, unable to get appointments and being scared to attend hospitals. Now they are telling us there is going to be wide spread anxiety when they lift the lockdowns.

The two events you refer to are really good examples of how not to go outside, stood literally shoulder to shoulder, front to back, with strangers from thousands of different households. Is it any wonder there was transmission? My point is that being outside, even in crowds - provided socially distanced - is much safer than being indoors (lockdowns).

Whether lockdowns show a reduction in cases, please refer to my response to @mikeyB on what was hapening in terms of excess deaths before the first lockdown on 23rd March 2020, there were no noticable excess deaths until after they locked down, THEN we see the spike in deaths, probably as a result of pre-emptively making bed spaces in hospitals, all the elderly being thrown out of their hospital beds, without time to even pick up their false teeth. Do you draw the same conslusion? That the deaths started happening with the lockdown?

 

[Amity Island]

I boggle a bit that lockdown denialists are still peddling their stuff.

This is what a brutally strict lockdown accomplished in Victoria over the Oz winter, from July:

View attachment 16434

It's a neat little experiment because it isn't compicated by new infections arriving from out of jurisdiction - Vic borders were closed tight all through this period.

Stressful and inconvenient for Victorians while it lasted; less stressful than months & months of high infection and death rates. Because it was maintained until cases were at zero, and because borders have been tightly controlled, it hasn't had to be repeated.

Eddy,

Not sure what you mean by lockdown denialists, but see my reponse to @mikeyB

Covid entered the UK in no later than Jan 2020. There are no noticable effects of covid19 (excess deaths) before they locked down.

Do you agree with that?

 

[Amity Island]

people cannot live indefinitely in a lock down state whether we like it or not. we all need to learn to live with this like we have lived with other viruses and diseases. flue kills but we go about our business not hiding indoors spraying ourselves silly. other diseases kill but do we hide indoors?

I agree. Not to mention there were no excess deaths until they locked down on 23rd March 2020.

 

[mikeyB]

Yes, that’s because they locked down three weeks too late. Show me a graph for the latest lockdown.

I assume you are not intending to demonstrate that lockdowns increase Covid deaths, because they don’t. Show me all the graphs from countries that haven’t locked down, like Brazil and the US, and the countries that have, like Australia and New Zealand. The UK is a bad example, because the English government ignored advice from scientists, and their own “what if” exercises done previously.

 

[Eddy Edson]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your reply, always appreciated.

My point is about lockdowns, effectively locking people in their homes when they could instead be outside in the fresh air, walking, seeing nature and the great outdoors (which is a much safer envirnonment) but is also about the damage lockdowns cause. Both @Eddy Edson and @Bruce Stephens have both made posts and discussions on how easily covid can be caught indoors, but they 've not made any posts on how easily transmission occurs in the great outdoors, so why lock people in? But it's worse than that. I believe lockdowns have caused many deaths, be it from the intial lockdown, but also via side effects such as missed appointments, unable to get appointments and being scared to attend hospitals. Now they are telling us there is going to be wide spread anxiety when they lift the lockdowns.

The two events you refer to are really good examples of how not to go outside, stood literally shoulder to shoulder, front to back, with strangers from thousands of different households. Is it any wonder there was transmission? My point is that being outside, even in crowds - provided socially distanced - is much safer than being indoors (lockdowns).

Whether lockdowns show a reduction in cases, please refer to my response to @mikeyB on what was hapening in terms of excess deaths before the first lockdown on 23rd March 2020, there were no noticable excess deaths until after they locked down, THEN we see the spike in deaths, probably as a result of pre-emptively making bed spaces in hospitals, all the elderly being thrown out of their hospital beds, without time to even pick up their false teeth. Do you draw the same conslusion? That the deaths started happening with the lockdown?

The main point of "lockdowns" I believe is to reduce the number of contacts people have. Keeping things brutally simple means you keep the compliance monitoring and enforcement problem simple - if somebody is out & about without a "valid" reason, they are not complying. The more exceptions you allow, the harder it is to ensure that people aren't popping into each other's homes or gathering on corners for a good old natter in each others' faces. Anyway, that was the rationale for strictly limiting outdoors time in Melbourne & briefly in other parts of Oz during "mini lockdowns".

You can find plenty of dicsussions of UK excess mortality by experts including the initial bit, but it's just such an obvious non-issue. COVID deaths start getting reported as such in volume in the 2nd half of March, around the same time as the first "hard" UK lockdown. There's a lag between infections and fatalities, so obviously those COVID deaths weren't because of the lockdown - the deceased got infected earlier in March, maybe in Feb.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

but they 've not made any posts on how easily transmission occurs in the great outdoors, so why lock people in?

Different governments have made different choices about that kind of thing. Compared to many places the UK has never really had a lockdown: we've been allowed out of our houses without that much policing (in a few countries you had to have a form declaring your purpose for leaving). And Scotland has always had much more relaxed advice over outdoors things.

So I think the government has just made an error on this in England.

 

[Amity Island]

I can see everyones opinions on lockdown and other issues and I can see why they may reach those conclusions, which may well be right.

But for me, everywhere I've looked, every graph, every event, every measure taken always results in the opposite effect to what I'm sure anyone would expect to see?

Wouldn't you expect to see cases falling with a lockdown?
Wouldn't you expect to see cases falling with mandatory masks?
Wouldn't you expect to see worse death rates than in previous 200 years or more?
Wouldn't you expect huge case increases after a large outdoor beach gathering, given we were prevented from such gatherings to cut cases?

I've provided all the data in my posts above and elsewhere. On that basis, I've drawn the conclusion that the measures haven't worked and thus unnecessary.

Be it:

1. Masks, no noticeable effect
2. After first lockdown deaths increase
3. Given a pandemic, death rates no worse in 2020 than they were in 2000 or any year prior.
4. No noticable excess deaths before a lockdown was brought in.
5. Test and trace, no noticable effect.

And generally, the fact that cases have been high, even with all the measures taken. I can't find anything to suggest anything has really worked for us in the UK.

And what about all the strategies that were not brought in for the "biggest health care crisis of our generation".

1. Free face masks provided by Government, particularly in the beginning when there was nothing else, no other treatments or vaccines available.
2. Hazardous waste disposal bins for used masks.
3. Co-ordinated UK wide responses and strategies.
4. Prevention of foreign travel
5. Early sharp and short lockdown (afterall, UK was very well prepared for a future pandemic)

And what about other things that could have been done before now to save lives, without lockdowns, restrictions or crashing the economy.

1. Banning sale of cigarettes.
2. Banning sale of alcohol.
3. Ending poverty.
4. Improving hygeine to end millions of yearly deaths worldwide from food poisoning.
5. Providing decent care for the elderly.

What's been done about TB? Millions die worldwide each year from TB.

 

[trophywench]

What has been done about TB? - as teenagers at school, both my sister and I had to have a BCG test and then depending on the results of that, both had our TB jab. A letter was sent direct to our parents by the local council and they had to sign a form to give their permission, then the 'School Nurses' came to school on day X and we were each told what time to attend the room where we joined all our mates in the queue and got the BCG test administered (inner wrist area) and then a few weeks later were examined to see what the results were (that hurt cos the lymph nodes in our armpits had to be felt, hard, by hand, to see what reaction our immune systems had had) and subsequently either jabbed or not depending on what our lymph node reaction was.

There was still more than enough native, white Brits dying of TB in the 50s and 60s to inform the Government to take this out of the ordinary person's control and make it just another fact of all senior school attendees' lives.

No idea whatsoever if/how any of our grandchildren (or their kids) have or will get immunity to TB if this quite normal procedure (to us) does not still take place annually.

It was long said by long-haul public air hostesses that they didn't mind flying to India or Africa but coming back if one person getting on the plane had TB, at least 2 others would also have TB by the time they landed at Heathrow.

 

[Amity Island]

What has been done about TB?

Hi Jenny,

I was talking worldwide. In terms of the amount of effort to try and save lives compared to the effort made to try and save lives from covid19.

https://theglobepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Tuberculosis-wordwide.jpg

 

[trophywench]

Aaaaah - but now you are entering the field of foreign aid, which leads us to whether it may be morally right or wrong to ring fence foreign aid and thereby keep more of the population of X alive when X does not have the resources to support a population greater than Y .....................

Which is NOT the purpose or intention of DUK or this forum!

 

[Amity Island]

Aaaaah - but now you are entering the field of foreign aid, which leads us to whether it may be morally right or wrong to ring fence foreign aid and thereby keep more of the population of X alive when X does not have the resources to support a population greater than Y .....................

Which is NOT the purpose or intention of DUK or this forum!

Interesting...but gives an idea of the differences in effort against one disease and another.

 

[mikeyB]

It was long said by long-haul public air hostesses that they didn't mind flying to India or Africa but coming back if one person getting on the plane had TB, at least 2 others would also have TB by the time they landed at Heathrow.

Nonsense. TB is actually quite hard to catch. It’s nowhere near as infectious as, say, measles, or even just a cold. That’s why you see it in crowded slums around the world, but never really “out in the wild”. It takes prolonged close contact. And if you are healthy and well fed, it struggles to take hold. Like its cousin, leprosy.

When I was doing a locum GP job in Preston I was asked to see an unwell Bangladeshi young woman. Listening to the back of her chest (the only bit the other women in the house allowed), I heard the textbook classic lung sounds of TB. So off she went to hospital to kick off her year of treatment. The rest of the family tested negative. See? Hard to catch.

I’ve only seen one case of leprosy in this country, not acquired in this country, and on treatment.

 

[Leadinglights]

Immunisation policies are different in other countries, my son in law from Pakistan was immunised against chickenpox as a child but still got it from the children when they got it. Scarlet fever was a big thing when I was a kid, I well remember the isolation hospitals.

 

[trophywench]

Immunisation policies are different in other countries, my son in law from Pakistan was immunised against chickenpox as a child but still got it from the children when they got it. Scarlet fever was a big thing when I was a kid, I well remember the isolation hospitals.

Yeah - and little girls having all their hair chopped short.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

Interesting...but gives an idea of the differences in effort against one disease and another.

When some of Italy's hospitals (by all accounts rather better equipped than ours) started to collapse under the strain of this new infection last February/March, obviously the Italian government was forced to act. Prior to that I'm sure they could have spent more money on (say) helping to control malaria, but they probably feel much less pressure from their electorate to do that. Similarly when it hit some of ours.

And then it's really not much of a choice: do you let your healthcare system collapse under the strain (and thus become enormously unpopular, at best) or do you do stuff to try and control that. (And sure, make errors while doing that, repeatedly.)

Could Italy (or we) have done different things and avoided some of the restrictive NPIs? Quite likely: an obvious one would be to help people who felt sick to isolate themselves. But the government has barely done anything on that even a year later, and it's still just as important.

The idea of "focused protection" (helping to keep vulnerable people relatively isolated) seems like a good approach until you look at the practicalities. Conveniently we have an idea (though an imperfect one) of who (if infected) is most likely to die (they're groups 1-4 of JCVI's list) and also (about as important) who's most at risk of needing hospital treatment (groups 1-9). Groups 1-9 is lots of people. And even a subset of groups 1-4 (those in care homes) are apparently very hard to keep safe, even if you have significant restrictions outside, so surely it would be a disaster not to have such restrictions.

(I don't intend to defend the government's every action. I disagree with much of their response. But the idea they had some choice in whether to "lock down" last March seems implausible to me.)