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Coronavirus Impact

When is a lock down really a lockdown?

After being told by Boris on Monday that non essential works should stop and only breakdowns emergency works should continue, it seems the government has back tracked and is now stating as it had before Monday that if you can't work from home then go to work! That's great as like most as I need to earn a living to pay the bills, but kind of goes against what everyone is being told and made to feel by the press (showing the packed trains of commuters etc). They have still kept pubs, restaurants and takeaways from opening yet as long as a distance of 2M can be made between each worker, then to work it is. Seems like double standards to me, how come the pub/restaurants and takeaways can't open (with a takeaway service at least) yet the construction and manufacturing industry can still go to work? So do we either have a lockdown to reduce the amount of potential deaths and hopefully reduce the length of time the disruption the virus will cause or we don't and we carry on, but just isolate those in the vulnerable groups.
 
When is a lock down really a lockdown?

After being told by Boris on Monday that non essential works should stop and only breakdowns emergency works should continue, it seems the government has back tracked and is now stating as it had before Monday that if you can't work from home then go to work! That's great as like most as I need to earn a living to pay the bills, but kind of goes against what everyone is being told and made to feel by the press (showing the packed trains of commuters etc). They have still kept pubs, restaurants and takeaways from opening yet as long as a distance of 2M can be made between each worker, then to work it is. Seems like double standards to me, how come the pub/restaurants and takeaways can't open (with a takeaway service at least) yet the construction and manufacturing industry can still go to work? So do we either have a lockdown to reduce the amount of potential deaths and hopefully reduce the length of time the disruption the virus will cause or we don't and we carry on, but just isolate those in the vulnerable groups.

Pubs and restaurants CAN run a takeaway service if they want, and a lot of them are.

More broadly, I think the government all along has been trying to balance harm to individuals against harm to the economy, but they haven't been 100% transparent about that.
 
When is a lock down really a lockdown?

After being told by Boris on Monday that non essential works should stop and only breakdowns emergency works should continue, it seems the government has back tracked and is now stating as it had before Monday that if you can't work from home then go to work! That's great as like most as I need to earn a living to pay the bills, but kind of goes against what everyone is being told and made to feel by the press (showing the packed trains of commuters etc). They have still kept pubs, restaurants and takeaways from opening yet as long as a distance of 2M can be made between each worker, then to work it is. Seems like double standards to me, how come the pub/restaurants and takeaways can't open (with a takeaway service at least) yet the construction and manufacturing industry can still go to work? So do we either have a lockdown to reduce the amount of potential deaths and hopefully reduce the length of time the disruption the virus will cause or we don't and we carry on, but just isolate those in the vulnerable groups.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...R8NPR,1#closing-certain-businesses-and-venues
 

Yes but in the more detailed guidance (linked from the site you referenced) it says "Food delivery and takeaway can remain operational and can be a new activity supported by the new permitted development right. This covers the provision of hot or cold food that has been prepared for consumers for collection or delivery to be consumed, reheated or cooked by consumers off the premises."
 
Pubs and restaurants CAN run a takeaway service if they want, and a lot of them are.

More broadly, I think the government all along has been trying to balance harm to individuals against harm to the economy, but they haven't been 100% transparent about that.
I know but most have shut due to external pressure from media and not helped by Boris announcing stricter controls on Monday and then most businesses took this as them being non essential and shut. Tuesday the government back tracked and has since been more specific with it's guidance as in the linked GOV website. The point I was poorly trying to make is that things have closed without needing to (due to poor information) and that the media is making it look like anyone out going to work that isn't clearly working for the NHS should be strung up as they could be spreading the virus. Several suppliers and sites have shut because of this poor information, losing much needed income. If the government had isolated the vulnerable groups from the start then maybe things might not have been as bad?
 
I know but most have shut due to external pressure from media and not helped by Boris announcing stricter controls on Monday and then most businesses took this as them being non essential and shut. Tuesday the government back tracked and has since been more specific with it's guidance as in the linked GOV website. The point I was poorly trying to make is that things have closed without needing to (due to poor information) and that the media is making it look like anyone out going to work that isn't clearly working for the NHS should be strung up as they could be spreading the virus. Several suppliers and sites have shut because of this poor information, losing much needed income. If the government had isolated the vulnerable groups from the start then maybe things might not have been as bad?
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-address-to-the-nation-on-coronavirus-23-march-2020
He clearly states only to go to work where it is absolutely necessary and cannot be done from home! So that's where the confusion had started.
 
I know but most have shut due to external pressure from media and not helped by Boris announcing stricter controls on Monday and then most businesses took this as them being non essential and shut. Tuesday the government back tracked and has since been more specific with it's guidance as in the linked GOV website. The point I was poorly trying to make is that things have closed without needing to (due to poor information) and that the media is making it look like anyone out going to work that isn't clearly working for the NHS should be strung up as they could be spreading the virus. Several suppliers and sites have shut because of this poor information, losing much needed income. If the government had isolated the vulnerable groups from the start then maybe things might not have been as bad?

Yes you are probably right. On your last point, I personally suspect that when the Public Enquiry on this whole episode reports - in maybe five years' time - there will be a lot of focus on whether the much-vaunted UK Pandemic Flu contingency strategy (last revised in 2011, I think) was fundamentally fit for purpose, or not.

I'm certainly not a public health expert but from my quick read of the contingency plan (https://assets.publishing.service.g...ads/attachment_data/file/213717/dh_131040.pdf) there is practically no mention of rigorous testing and contact tracing to contain the outbreak, but instead (from my read anyway) an acceptance that the virus would become established in the population and the government's response would be the 'mitigation' model that they initially tried to apply, without strict 'lockdown' type suppression measures; until told that 250,000 people would thereby die - a figure well within the range of the contingency plan assumptions by the way which envisaged up to 750,000 excess deaths, but a prospect that it turns out is unconscionable and politically inconceivable in the real world.

The contingency plan also makes no mention that I can see of the need for a huge expansion in ICU capacity, and specifically of ventilators.

Always very dangerous to try to draw conclusions during a live emergency, but I have to wonder what will eventually come out in the wash about all this, when compared against what was done in China, South Korea etc.
 
Yes you are probably right. On your last point, I personally suspect that when the Public Enquiry on this whole episode reports - in maybe five years' time - there will be a lot of focus on whether the much-vaunted UK Pandemic Flu contingency strategy (last revised in 2011, I think) was fundamentally fit for purpose, or not.

I'm certainly not a public health expert but from my quick read of the contingency plan (https://assets.publishing.service.g...ads/attachment_data/file/213717/dh_131040.pdf) there is practically no mention of rigorous testing and contact tracing to contain the outbreak, but instead (from my read anyway) an acceptance that the virus would become established in the population and the government's response would be the 'mitigation' model that they initially tried to apply, without strict 'lockdown' type suppression measures; until told that 250,000 people would thereby die - a figure well within the range of the contingency plan assumptions by the way which envisaged up to 750,000 excess deaths, but a prospect that it turns out is unconscionable and politically inconceivable in the real world.

The contingency plan also makes no mention that I can see of the need for a huge expansion in ICU capacity, and specifically of ventilators.

Always very dangerous to try to draw conclusions during a live emergency, but I have to wonder what will eventually come out in the wash about all this, when compared against what was done in China, South Korea etc.
I agree, hopefully the government will learn for next big event.
 
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Mike
 
Yes you are probably right. On your last point, I personally suspect that when the Public Enquiry on this whole episode reports - in maybe five years' time - there will be a lot of focus on whether the much-vaunted UK Pandemic Flu contingency strategy (last revised in 2011, I think) was fundamentally fit for purpose, or not.

I'm certainly not a public health expert but from my quick read of the contingency plan (https://assets.publishing.service.g...ads/attachment_data/file/213717/dh_131040.pdf) there is practically no mention of rigorous testing and contact tracing to contain the outbreak, but instead (from my read anyway) an acceptance that the virus would become established in the population and the government's response would be the 'mitigation' model that they initially tried to apply, without strict 'lockdown' type suppression measures; until told that 250,000 people would thereby die - a figure well within the range of the contingency plan assumptions by the way which envisaged up to 750,000 excess deaths, but a prospect that it turns out is unconscionable and politically inconceivable in the real world.

The contingency plan also makes no mention that I can see of the need for a huge expansion in ICU capacity, and specifically of ventilators.

Always very dangerous to try to draw conclusions during a live emergency, but I have to wonder what will eventually come out in the wash about all this, when compared against what was done in China, South Korea etc.

reading that plan I now feel quite depressed.

The blasé acceptance of socially and politically unacceptable levels of deaths and no mention of any of the actions that have been shown to be essential elsewhere. Up to now I actually thought that "being guided by the science" was a comfort and far better than being guided by political populism. I now find it quite unsettling.
 
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