Circuit Breaker

[Workingman]

Keir Starmer has called for the above as an alternative to the local lockdowns and three tier system currently about to be introduced.

He claimed that measures in the tiers do not go far enough, but said that Labour would not vote them down tonight as that would leave no restrictions other than the current nationwide ones issued with the rule of six and the 10 pm curfew.

He also claimed that the PM was not following the science when it emerged that SAGE had called for the "immediate introduction" of a circuit breaker in a meeting he attended with that committee in September.

I am not sure what to think.

[medsec222]

So Sir Keir volunteers an opinion at last. Opinion is so divided and is difficult to know which way to go. I think if there were to be a two week total lock down it would have to include the rest of the UK to give it the best chance of success.

[cromwell]

Lockdowns haven't worked.
So what's the solution?
Another lockdown.
And if that doesn't work?
An even stronger lockdown.

Am I missing something here?

If we go on like this I can't see any reason why we won't be doing exactly the same in a years time.

I think we are into the realms of insanity now.

[TheOstrich]

I hear you, Crommers, but some Talking Head on the Beeb News made a very telling comment tonight: [paraphrasing]
"We are not going to be out of this until we get a vaccine."

If we accept that is going to be the proverbial Light at the End of the Tunnel, the Promised Land so to speak, then the strategy really becomes mitigation of the Virus whilst we journey there.

My personal view is that we should have regular and recurrent "circuit breaker" i.e. full countrywide lockdowns every time the R number reaches (say) 1.3 until it is back to (say) 0.7. Then we start over. And a comprehensive range of Government financial support should be made available to employers and employees every time we enter a lockdown period.

I do not believe that the Economy should be the be all and end all of life at the moment. We can salvage the economy once we have the virus beaten.

[cromwell]

And what if there is no vaccine Os?

[Workingman]

The curent system is doing little more than creating a patchwork of measures, so I agree it would need to be UK wide, but it is not a quick fix.

It might give us time to get rid of Dodo Harding and fix Serco's test and trace shambles. That in turn might allow us to really quarantine, by force if necessary, those who are positive. It might also get us back to the figures in summer or somewhere near so we can open up again. Then again it might not.

Unfortunately it will not get rid of the virus nor give us immunity so we will end up with a series of high and low tides for God knows how long, as Ossie says..

Imagine if the UK became Covid free, then what would we do? We cannot slam the doors and let nobody out or in, so it will come back. Unless it is eradicated the whole world will at some point have to learn to live with this damned thing. How it gets there is up for debate.

[Suff]

And what if there is no vaccine Os?

There is one thing which is absolutely guaranteed. With over 200 candidates in some form of testing, there will be a vaccine.

The only question is When and how much of our economy we will tear to shreds until we get it?

[Workingman]

Circuit breakers kick in to protect the circuit because there is a fault. If the fault is not rectified the CB will keep kicking in. We think that we might have identified some of the faults but we are nowhere near really knowing what to do to fix them. We are still doing suck-it-and-see and can-kicking exercises.

Of course there will be vaccines, but they will not eradicate Sars-CoV-2 any more than they have eradicated the common cold or flu. Like it or not even with vaccines we are going to have to find ways of living with the virus in the long term.

[Workingman]

Isn't it going well?

NI has announced its version of a national lockdown as from Friday and now Wales has banned visitors from UK hotspots - all those above Tier 1. Sturgeon is considering the same for Scotland.

Everywhere doing its own thing.

[Suff]

30,000 new cases in France yesterday. Now they are starting to lock down the cities. Deaths are bouncing around 100 a day now.

If you look at the cases vs deaths chart, they are in reverse. Small deaths, massive cases. Back in March and April it was moderate cases and Massive deaths.

Our pubs and restaurants remain open, our shops continue to have a full stock and life goes on as ever. Masks in enclosed places and no masks in the open.