The necessity of lockdowns during the pandemic

[some_username1]

16 minutes ago, elaine567 said:

@some_username1 Long term lockdown has been hinted at by the scientists and frankly unless this virus  decides to pack up and leave by itself I see no other solution.
As for the govt., dithering is the word and they don't have the cohones to lead the population out of this with clear messages.
The population would follow a good leader over a cliff, if they thought it would help but with bad leadership and fuzzy instructions they make their own minds up and do what they want.
The media doesn't help, they keep plugging the easing message and telling us all how unhappy we are under the lockdown...
They need to stop that IMO. They are inciting rebellion. 
All very well that conflict makes for headlines and news but now is not the time or the place
If things get really desperate then I agree martial law on some level is probably a given.

I don’t think we need to be told. It is psychologically hard without the BBC confirming it. Everyone is fed up, bored and struggling, from what I gather. As if being shut off from being social is not bad enough some of us have job worries over our heads and concerns how we will pay our rent. And yet we have to grin and bear this uncertainty and lack of fulfilling company for months? Tough, tough ask imo. As pointed out above, it’s the Stepford Wife Karen’s who are writing HR policies on their laptops and baking cookies with their kids who are enjoying this situation whilst telling everyone else to stay home,  but that’s a very small minority. Most have very real fears of some form or other, mental or financial or both and they will all reach a tipping point sooner or later.

 

[Libby1]

46 minutes ago, some_username1 said:

 it’s the Stepford Wife Karen’s who are writing HR policies on their laptops and baking cookies with their kids who are enjoying this situation whilst telling everyone else to stay home,  but that’s a very small minority. Most have very real fears of some form or other, mental or financial or both and they will all reach a tipping point sooner or later.

 

Those damn Karens have their fingers in every pie gone wrong.  I wouldn't be surprised if 卡伦 was the person who sold the snake which ate the bat which caught the virus in the first place.

In the UK, pretty much from the start the lockdown was pushed for on the basis that it would help protect the NHS.  There was a general sense from Government statements that vast numbers of us would undoubtedly get it, and some of us would die from it, and that was an inevitable process which needed to be staggered in order to avoid undue burdens to the NHS.  Now that there are hundreds of thousands of people in the UK grieving a lost friend or relative they've shifted away from that very matter of fact approach to deaths caused by the virus...and there's a lot of emoting going on in governmental speeches.  But they knew from the start that there were going to be lots of people dying.  That wasn't their focus.  The response has always primarily been about protecting the NHS from being swamped with way more than it can handle.

[schlumpy]

11 minutes ago, Libby1 said:

 But they knew from the start that there were going to be lots of people dying.  That wasn't their focus.  The response has always primarily been about protecting the NHS from being swamped with way more than it can handle.

That's why you have to take a healthy dose of skepticism because the people who are running the government are not angels. The decisions they make will be tainted by their own interests and not the interests of the people they purport to serve - In my humble opinion.

[Libby1]

2 minutes ago, schlumpy said:

That's why you have to take a healthy dose of skepticism because the people who are running the government are not angels. The decisions they make will be tainted by their own interests and not the interests of the people they purport to serve - In my humble opinion.

In fairness, the view of the government is echoed by the population in the UK.  I think most of us do support the notion of protecting the NHS via a lockdown.  However, if the government here had cared a bit more about the NHS and invested more in PPE and testing facilities/equipment from an early point then we might be in a far better position today and actually in the process of a phased return to normality -  instead of just talking about it.  There will be a lot of recriminations further down the road, but at the moment most people are focused on trying to make sense of and manage these strange and unfamiliar circumstances as best as we can.

[thefooloftheyear]

10 minutes ago, schlumpy said:

That's why you have to take a healthy dose of skepticism because the people who are running the government are not angels. The decisions they make will be tainted by their own interests and not the interests of the people they purport to serve - In my humble opinion.

They have no skin in this game, many have been out of the every day public life for decades, so why would anyone trust that they'd make the proper decisions?  Their pensions are being funded, their fat paychecks are clearing, their sub zero freezers are stocked full of ice cream....

At the very least, what they should have done is freeze all pension funding and drop all of their salaries to the state's basic average, at least until things resume some sense of normalcy.....Maybe then they'd give their constituents a feeling like they are "all in this together"...But if it stays the status quo, then there is no reason for them to do anything drastic..and they can preach what the peasants have to do from their Ivory Towers...

NFL QB Aaron Rodgers had a great take on this when they asked him what he thought....Look it up....very refreshing among all the other garbage fake sob stories...

TFY

Edited April 26, 2020 by thefooloftheyear

[amaysngrace]

All I can say is better get used to it.  This is probably just the first of many for a lot of us.  Some places are use to pathogen outbreaks which is why their responses are way more efficient than our own.  

We’ll get there too, no worries.  This is just a new normal that many of us have been fortunate enough to avoid until now.

[elaine567]

1 minute ago, schlumpy said:

The decisions they make will be tainted by their own interests and not the interests of the people they purport to serve - In my humble opinion.

This is a historic event, we will be talking about this for generations to come.
Politicians therefore need to keep an eye on how history will perceive them.
Boris I feel is a politician that has always been very aware of his "legacy", it matters to him.
I doubt he will want to be seen as Boris the Butcher or Boris the Bungler....

[some_username1]

7 hours ago, elaine567 said:

This is a historic event, we will be talking about this for generations to come.
Politicians therefore need to keep an eye on how history will perceive them.
Boris I feel is a politician that has always been very aware of his "legacy", it matters to him.
I doubt he will want to be seen as Boris the Butcher or Boris the Bungler....

He wants to be Boris the lifesaver by all accounts, the word on the street is that he plans to continue with the lockdown as a priority at the expense of the economy. All along the government have under-estimated external factors, it’s almost a hallmark of Tory politics: they under-estimated the chances of a pandemic a years back and so we were woefully prepared. Then they under-estimated the threat of covid-19 and we went into lockdown far too late. Then they under-estimated the number of companies who would claim for furlough by some 200%. So who really trusts them that they know what they are doing when it comes to an exit strategy? I fully expect Boris to change his tune come the end of May when people are flaunting lockdown more brazenly and they realise they have under-estimated the damage to the economy....

[elaine567]

Lives vs money.
He may want to chose the economy, but I am not sure that will win him many friends in the general population.

He is already to blame for many lives lost from Covid-19.
I am not sure if he can get away with saying save the economy and to hell with the deaths, to hell with the NHS... 
The Tories already killed so many with austerity without turning a hair, so killing thousands more again due to choosing "the economy" over people's lives may not go down well.
But then again...

[BC1980]

Our hospital is kind of in a mess now. We are opening back up for elective surgeries, but the COVID patients keep coming. The COVID floor is completely full, and, each time they discharge someone, another admit comes in. LTC facilities and rehabs are requiring 2 negative tests for a patient to come back (which is protocol), so people are waiting 2 days in the hospital to get into a rehab or LTC facility. 

[Belle23]

The purpose of the lockdowns were to ensure hospitals are not overwhelmed. The hospitals in my state are no where close to being overwhelmed and cases are not increasing that much. Yet officials say that we’re no where close to open anything. It’s puzzling. Personally, I do not support the total lockdown any longer. 

[Redhead14]

25 minutes ago, Belle23 said:

The purpose of the lockdowns were to ensure hospitals are not overwhelmed. The hospitals in my state are no where close to being overwhelmed and cases are not increasing that much.

The reason  that the hospital isn't overwhelmed is that the measures we took to prevent that from happening were successful!!!!!! 

Edited April 28, 2020 by Redhead14

[preraph]

The Texas Gov is gradually opening some businesses by maintaining social distancing, but today's numbers in Dallas are tied for the highest they've been yet, after going down to about half that just a few days ago.  I think people just stopped minding the recommendations.  The map of outbreak changed radically from just a couple days ago too.  It's spreading.  My area is still good, but it won't long be.  

[sothereiwas]

On 4/26/2020 at 4:15 PM, elaine567 said:

Lives vs money.

No.

The economy isn't a thing that magically produces a thing called money. The economy is how people get the necessities of life. They can't eat money - if that's all it took we could just start adding zeros to bank accounts.

So it's lives vs the necessities of life.

The UN has recently estimated that an additional 130,000,000 people will be in danger of starvation due to the economic effects of locking down for the pandemic so far. That's a lot of people. 

[Belle23]

51 minutes ago, Redhead14 said:

The reason  that the hospital isn't overwhelmed is that the measures we took to prevent that from happening were successful!!!!!! 

Yes, and we took those measures. They worked. It’s time to ease those restrictions a little. If cases increase drastically, they can’t just put them back in place. You can’t keep people locked down forever. I’m the small percentage of the population considered at risk and even I think it’s time to ease restrictions a little. 

[carhill]

I have a money tree in the back 40, it's hidden in the the fruit and nut trees. Doesn't everyone? Add a little water and a few bureaucrats for fertilizer and it does pretty well. It's been real handy during this lockdown, as have the food items. Fresh quail and rabbit, tastes like chicken don't you know. 👍

[Redhead14]

1 hour ago, Belle23 said:

Yes, and we took those measures. They worked. It’s time to ease those restrictions a little. If cases increase drastically, they can’t just put them back in place. You can’t keep people locked down forever. I’m the small percentage of the population considered at risk and even I think it’s time to ease restrictions a little. 

Fine, open it all up again.  There will be fewer people for the government to help.  However, those of us who are at risk and still working, etc. cannot be forced or required to expose ourselves to possible death.  So the government needs to provide ongoing assistance for those people until a vaccine is found or a viable curative remedy is available.  That should make it easier for the government to give help rather than the mass all-inclusive provisions being made now.  I'm lucky, I can work from home and have been prior to all this.  However, I won't be able to spend time my kids or grandchildren or friends or go out and do things like everyone else for 18 months or so because the rest of the population is going to provide hosts for the disease enmass, therefore, making it really risky for a long time. 

[elaine567]

Germany is thinking of reversing their recent easing of the lock down as their R number has gone up again.

Quote

The chancellor has placed the reproduction rate, also known as R0, at the heart of her approach to the pandemic. Any value below 1 means that the number of cases will fall; anything above 1 implies an exponential increase'
“If we get to a point where each patient is infecting 1.1 people, then by October we will be back at the limits of our health system in terms of intensive-care beds,” Mrs Merkel said.
“If we get to 1.2 . . . then we will hit the full capacity of our health system as early as July.
“And if it’s 1.3, we hit the full capacity of our health system in June. So you can see how little room for manoeuvre we have.”

Its not easy.
Germany has one of the best health systems in Europe.

Edited April 28, 2020 by elaine567
spacing

[Belle23]

1 hour ago, Redhead14 said:

Fine, open it all up again.  There will be fewer people for the government to help.  However, those of us who are at risk and still working, etc. cannot be forced or required to expose ourselves to possible death.  So the government needs to provide ongoing assistance for those people until a vaccine is found or a viable curative remedy is available.  That should make it easier for the government to give help rather than the mass all-inclusive provisions being made now.  I'm lucky, I can work from home and have been prior to all this.  However, I won't be able to spend time my kids or grandchildren or friends or go out and do things like everyone else for 18 months or so because the rest of the population is going to provide hosts for the disease enmass, therefore, making it really risky for a long time. 

I didn’t say open it all up. I said ease some restrictions, which isn’t unreasonable. It shouldn’t be an all or nothing decision. 

[Redhead14]

15 minutes ago, Belle23 said:

I didn’t say open it all up. I said ease some restrictions, which isn’t unreasonable. It shouldn’t be an all or nothing decision. 

I know you didn't say it.  I did.  They might as well just open everything up and get it over with because easing the restrictions is just going to give more and more people license and boldness to return to normal and ignore the "rules".  Lots of people are already.   Many people are stupid, arrogant, entitled and have short memories and attention spans (which explains why we have the POTUS we have and that he is so well liked by many).  They aren't going to tolerate any modifications of any kind to their lifestyle for long. 

 

 

Edited April 29, 2020 by Redhead14

[basil67]

5 hours ago, Belle23 said:

The purpose of the lockdowns were to ensure hospitals are not overwhelmed. The hospitals in my state are no where close to being overwhelmed and cases are not increasing that much. Yet officials say that we’re no where close to open anything. It’s puzzling. Personally, I do not support the total lockdown any longer. 

Why is it puzzling that you're not opening up when the virus is still increasing?   Perhaps if you were down to near zero new cases, I could understand your confusion.

 

[schlumpy]

43 minutes ago, Redhead14 said:

I know you didn't say it.  I did.  They might as well just open everything up and get it over with because easing the restrictions is just going to give more and more people license and boldness to return to normal and ignore the "rules".  Lots of people are already.   Many people are stupid, arrogant, entitled and have short memories and attention spans (which explains why we have the POTUS we have and that he is so well liked by many).  They aren't going to tolerate any modifications of any kind to their lifestyle for long. 

 

 

I had two kids knock on the door today asking if they could cut the grass. No masks or gloves just two normal fresh faced American kids doing what every kid has done since there were lawnmowers. I admit I follow the restrictions that are in place but I'm age vulnerable and my wife is also medically vulnerable. I have to say that most of the people I see outside in my neighborhood are not too worried about it.

Take that for what it's worth.

[schlumpy]

8 minutes ago, basil67 said:

Why is it puzzling that you're not opening up when the virus is still increasing?   Perhaps if you were down to near zero new cases, I could understand your confusion.

 

I just saw a report tonight on Tucker and the Australian reporter claimed that the low infection rate for Australia was because the government closed the borders despite heavy lobbying from the airlines, universities and tourism. Good for you.

Keeps a whole lot of congregating from going on down there.

[basil67]

@schlumpy If there was lobbying from airlines, unis and tourism, it didn't make our news.   To my knowledge, they went along with it for the greater good despite the financial pain it would cause.

The only lobbying I saw was where we tried to get the Chinese government to relax their internet restrictions so that our universities could deliver classes to their students who were unable to come here.  

[Belle23]

1 hour ago, Redhead14 said:

I know you didn't say it.  I did.  They might as well just open everything up and get it over with because easing the restrictions is just going to give more and more people license and boldness to return to normal and ignore the "rules".  Lots of people are already.   Many people are stupid, arrogant, entitled and have short memories and attention spans (which explains why we have the POTUS we have and that he is so well liked by many).  They aren't going to tolerate any modifications of any kind to their lifestyle for long. 

 

 

Some people don’t have the luxury/ability to have a job they can’t work from home. Everyone I know wants eased restrictions so they can’t have income again, not to go partying. 
 

To the other poster, ... It’s not increasing in my area. New cases has been steady for awhile. Hospitalizations and deaths have been down. Further, we only have a .001% infection rate for my area. That’s just the infection rate, not even the death rate there’s never going to be zero new cases.