French lockdown from tomorrow

[Workingman]

I know that this is not a French thing, but....

Well now, my prediction has come true. Leeds and W. Yorks go into T 3 on Monday, with all places east going into T 2 from tomorrow.

How do we get out of it, even with vaccines, who knows?

[cromwell]

We are going to have to try and safeguard the vulnerable and let everyone else go about their business. To do a Sweden.
So far the decisions that have been taken have been political decisions. The Tories have been terrified of being called the nasty party, of putting profit before lives, etc etc.
They have wanted to avoid the spectre of people dying of covid on hospital trolleys because the NHS couldn't cope. It would be political poison.

One reason the NHS can't cope however, is this.
Between 1987/88 and 2019/20, the total number of NHS hospital beds in England fell by 53 per cent – from 299,4000 to 141,000.
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publicatio ... ed-numbers

I know that some treatments have improved and they do more day surgery now but it is still a whopping drop, and it has occurred under both parties. Our new hospital in Wakefield was built using the PFI and it had less beds than the old one!
The truth is that the NHS is barely coping even without the pandemic.

But we are going to have to get out of it using sense, even if that sense is a bit brutal. Somewhere along the line someone is going to have to say that lockdowns can't go on. If we get a vaccine, all well and good. If it works, even better. But we can't go on bankrupting the country for a disease which kills less than two in a hundred sufferers. We are going to have to stand it.

I think the pandemic will see Johnson off. He's tied his colours to the mast of Whitty et al and at some point it will become convenient for the Tories to throw him under the bus and get someone else in to change the policy.

As for France, stand by for riots.

[Workingman]

But we are going to have to get out of it using sense, even if that sense is a bit brutal. Somewhere along the line someone is going to have to say that lockdowns can't go on. If we get a vaccine, all well and good. If it works, even better. But we can't go on bankrupting the country for a disease which kills less than two in a hundred sufferers. We are going to have to stand it.

Pretty much what I said in an earlier post. As each day passes many of us are becoming more accepting of the notion that there has to be a trade off between the effects of the virus on us and the effects the measures to mitigate it are having on the economy and the wider well being of the people. It will be a long road out whatever we decide.

As for France, stand by for riots.

And in Spain, Italy, Germany, Czechia.... Oh, hang on, they have already started. UK next?

[TheOstrich]

UK next?

Well, the BBC has been showing footage of someone knocking off a policewoman's hat in Nottingham ......

[Suff]

They all thought their government knew what it was doing. They all thought that taking the pain and stopping Covid would leave them free to get on with their lives. They all thought it was pretty much over and the governments were to be commended.

Surprise!

Now they know the truth. Nobody, especially the "experts" had any clue how to handle this. Nobody had an action plan that was going to work and lives, jobs and sanity was to be tested over and over again this year.

Funny thing. They're not happy and are demonstrating on the streets. What do they want? They want what was promised, an end to the pandemic if they did what their government said, if they lost their jobs, wealth etc. At least the virus would be over and they could begin to rebuild.

It didn't work and now they are having to do it all over again. Not very happy campers are they? Interestingly the Scots still think Sturgeon got it right. Apparently it's all the fault of those ignorant English who came up North and spread "their" disease....

Looking back at the Swedish position. They said masks should be discouraged because it promoted a false sense of security.

Never a truer word!