[themaclad]

Cast your mind back to the UK in March 2020, the great lockdown debate, the Media vast number of celebs were clamouring for a lockdown, eventually Johnson agrees although many say he was a week to late, the same with the Autumn one he was reluctant to lock down again critised for doing so late by the usual suspects.
Now we all did as we were told and dutifully followed orders until we all got bored.
Moving forward there are people saying we should noot be opening up fully next week even though everybody has been out for weeks.
Boris was often compared to how the woman with many teeth in New Zealand and how she had saved them from a massive death toll but being permanently locked down since the crisis began, the same to a lesser scale with Australia. (Though I note that Sydney has extended the quarentine because Delta cases are rising)
However an article that really should be highlighted popped in of all places the Guardian, the link below

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/j...unity-debt

To my way of thinking although you may disagree we are now in a Catch 22 situation, you lockdown against Covid but destroy people's immune system or we let people and take the risk of them getting Covid.
In another article Sir Patrick Vallance states up to 60,000 could die from flu this winter from having immune systems which cannot cope. Hospitals in Britain are already on alert for high flu incomings this winter.

One final point if you have had a complete lockdown as NZ and Australia have had how can you actually open up again.

Suggest you all make sure you get a flu jab

[St Charles Owl]

To be fair NZ and Australia have not been on lockdown as we know it at all. Their lockdown was basically shutting down anyone being able to enter or leave the country, even their onw citizens. My Brother and his family live in Australia, he and his wife were stuck in Thailand late last year and couldn't get home until they were granted a seat on a plane that was monitored by the Govt and then when they landed they spent 2 weeks in a hotel. My niece and nephew were in Australia through the whole thing and they have had virtually no restrictions on what they can do since their first lockdown last year. They do see local restrictions as cases rise but they have been able to do most things throughout.

Here in CA as well, we went on a strict lockdown in April 2020 but since then virtually everything has been open with restrictions. Large gathering events were shutdown, concerts, sports etc, but shops and restaurants have been open with limited capacity and mandatory mask wearing. We have the weather to take dining outside all year and the cities have done a great job in relaxing outdoor dining rules to help businesses continue.

We know enough about this now to know that we cannot kill economies by shutting everything down but at the same time we shouldn't be wide open with the number of cases we are seeing in the UK. Wearing masks indoors and having some social distancing we know really helps stem the spread, so keep those rules in place and shut down places that don't adhere to this. It can be done but flip flopping from lockdown to open won't work and as we have seen in the Red states over here being completely open and not being vaccinated will see you get it and potentially die!!

[themaclad]

SCO did see your post on Facebook never got chance to answer it
There has been a subtle change of messaging here, listened to Drakeford and he echoed something Whitty said on Monday
The phrase was the damage of lockdown now outweighs the success of lockdown
They know what’s coming IMV in regards to masks they want you to wear them in public transport but not whilst standing at the bar
Given the weather we will have until next weekend everyone will be out as it’s roasting

[Lord Snooty]

What should've happened is that first of all, we shouldn't have had that ridiculous referendum in 2016. Because what got ignored in the same year was Operation Cygnus, which showed that the UK was totally unprepared for the oncoming pandemic (they knew one was coming, just didn't know when).

Because of the stupid referendum, we ended up with a complete buffoon as Prime Minister, just as the pandemic kicked in.

With somebody with a better working brain in charge, than some feckless imbecile, and earlier taken note of Operation Cygnus, we would've been prepared for what was about to come. We could've locked down better, closed the borders more efficiently, had proper PPE, etc etc.

[themaclad]

Snoots

North Korea has totally closed border no one goes there they got it should have stayed in the EU signed up to the EU vaccination roll out which was 10 weeks behind us they then spent weeks dissing the AZ vaccine
Yep Boris’s fault that the Delta variant arrived which doesn’t explain the fact it’s in 80 plus other countries
At least you are allowed out to go to the Terries given Starmer’s stance on it we still e locked up until Christmas
Now get back to your birthday ale

[Lord Snooty]

Yes we would've still got it, but it wouldn't have been as bad as we did get. And so we would've been able to open up sooner.

[hibeejim21]

Australia and New Zealand went all out for a zero covid strategy and it worked.

Problem is they need to build up immunity via vaccination, but their uptake has been terrible and there have been serious supply problems. Looking at the media it seems the public are quite resistant to it as well.

[themaclad]

Correct Jim but they still have to unlock and neither are this year
One other thing about masks Tokyo one of the most conscious mask wearing Cities in the world now has it.

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Snoots given the whole world got it appears no one else had a plan either

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We needed Verbal Kint the man with the plan

[spireitematt]

The biggest mistake was not locking down 2 weeks earlier in March 2020. Brexit was about 'taking back control' and controlling the borders but the Government didn't do that in 2020. If we locked down 2 weeks earlier in March, thousands of deaths could have been avoided but instead we didn't. Then we come to shutting travel from India when the delta variant was going around and Johnson didn't want to shut the border because he was banking on a post-Brexit trade deal with India.

Every step of the way they've made mistakes whether it's lockdown's, PPE, test and trace, the app that doesn't properly work, sending mix and contradictory messages to people. Also people going on about 'Lockdown's being mistake', no one knew anything about this virus when it came about and we are still discovering things about it, what about long covid? What are the lasting damages on people's physical health? Lockdown's will have had detrimental effect on people as well with mental health and physical health etc and before anyone says Labour wouldn't have done any better we don't know that and will never know that because Labour weren't and aren't in power and therefore we can't talk about a hypothetical scenario which has never happened. As for the EU vaccination programme, Britain has never been in that programme pre-covid or post-covid the only people and parties who wanted us to be part of it post-Brexit was the Lib Dems and some individuals in the Labour Party.

What needs to happen in the future is there needs to be a detailed, thought out plan in place just in case something like this happens again.

[0762]

Australia and New Zealand went all out for a zero covid strategy and it worked.

Problem is they need to build up immunity via vaccination, but their uptake has been terrible and there have been serious supply problems. Looking at the media it seems the public are quite resistant to it as well.

Also note that NZ, under Ahern's leadership, and roughly the same size as Scotland with a similar sized population, has only lost 27 people to COVID since Feb 2020 - a massive difference in response, swift mitigation measures and unpopular tough decisions.