If no vaccine or treatment for 5 years

[Herr Tubthumper]

If we knew we had to live much like we are now for the next 5 years. Ie schools, public spaces and offices closed, government paying wages etc, would you support either of the following views?

1) We isolate as long as we need to save £500k+ lives in the UK and 10s of millions worldwide
2) We have to let the virus go through the population and accept the massive loss of life to get back to normality

Now it maybe there is some partly viable middle option involving contact tracing or to isolate the elderly, but which is your option closest to? Which would you regard as the least worst?

Five years sounds a long time, but usually it's much longer to create a vaccine. It could be that scaling up to 7bn doses would take years. It may also be that no viable vaccine can ever be produced. So it's a bad scenario, but not implausible.

My preference is the managed approach whereby you lift restrictions once you are confident the infection rate, via test and trace, won’t be a strain on the health system. We will clearly have to live with the virus until a vaccine is found.

 

[RossyG]

1) We isolate as long as we need to save £500k+ lives in the UK and 10s of millions worldwide

Is the correct answer. People need to make these sacrifices and stop moaning how bored they are. It's tough.

For five years?

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

How restaurants and other things will work, I do not know.

In the interests of public safety I’m going to stick to fine-dining/high-end establishments as they typically have very small numbers of tables which are usually well spaced out. Needs must.

 

[atomised]

For five years?

I think if measures are relaxed in 3 or 6 weeks time the majority will maintain social distancing anyway until such time as a vaccine is available allowing a new normality to develop. In that emrespect this version of a lockdown is working through people learning to cope with the enforced measures

 

[darkwolf666]

I think I spot an aberrant £ in that post.

We’d have to go with option two and hope for herd immunity and/or a milder mutation. It’s the lesser of the two evils by a country mile.

Obviously unless you are one of the 1.5 million vulnerable, who are 80% more likely to die if admitted to hospital...

 

[RossyG]

Obviously unless you are one of the 1.5 million vulnerable, who are 80% more likely to die if admitted to hospital...

What can we do though? Keep everyone locked up for the hypothetical five years of the question?

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Obviously unless you are one of the 1.5 million vulnerable, who are 80% more likely to die if admitted to hospital...

There are of course ways around this- house visits/late night early morning visits when less people around.

Not ideal - but none of this is

 

[Weststander]

Thought we were supposed to be protecting the old and vulnerable this time around ? That seems to b working out .... not .


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Millions of self isolating elderly folk, such as my parents, are alive and well.

It’s working well.

 

[Weststander]

In the interests of public safety I’m going to stick to fine-dining/high-end establishments as they typically have very small numbers of tables which are usually well spaced out. Needs must.

Champagne Socialist

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Millions of self isolating elderly folk, such as my parents, are alive and well.

It’s working well.

Just out of interest

If they were told that they would be isolated and people under age x would be allowed out - how would they react?

My parents are just under that age

 

[Weststander]

Just out of interest

If they were told that they would be isolated and people under age x would be allowed out - how would they react?

My parents are just under that age

Guessing their answer, I think they’d be just as mildly bored and fed up with it all, as they are now. My Dad’s a doer, a bit of a fidget, for example at 82 he was still hiring a Boris Bike everyday for exercise on the seafront.

But he wants to live, there are so many little things he likes about life.

Difficult isn’t it.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Guessing their answer, I think they’d be just as mildly bored and fed up with it all, as they are now. My Dad’s a doer, a bit of a fidget, for example at 82 he was still hiring a Boris Bike everyday for exercise on the seafront.

But he wants to live, there are so many little things he likes about life.

Difficult isn’t it.

As previously mentioned I can only go on what I’ve seen and spoken too

But I’ve spoken to a lot of older people in ASDA and they think the risk v not going out is worth it.

A couple I have spoken to even say if they die from it so be it- they don’t want to spend the last years in doors

 

[Weststander]

As previously mentioned I can only go on what I’ve seen and spoken too

But I’ve spoken to a lot of older people in ASDA and they think the risk v not going out is worth it.

A couple I have spoken to even say if they die from it so be it- they don’t want to spend the last years in doors

I totally understand, and for younger people. There’s already anecdotal stories of kids who thrived at school and/or with mates, losing their self confidence and joie de vie. If this carries on and on, the mental heath price to nations will be huge.

 

[Solid at the back]

What can we do though? Keep everyone locked up for the hypothetical five years of the question?

If that's what it takes, then yes. We've got nobody to blame here but ourselves and government. We should of been putting pressure on the government to act in Jan/Feb. Because we didn't, this is the price we have pay to save the lives of millions of people.

People moaning about the state the economy is going to be in post corona shouldn't of been in denial from the beginning. If being in a semi lockdown for the next 5 years mean we save lives, then so be it.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

If that's what it takes, then yes. We've got nobody to blame here but ourselves and government. We should of been putting pressure on the government to act in Jan/Feb. Because we didn't, this is the price we have pay to save the lives of millions of people.

People moaning about the state the economy is going to be in post corona shouldn't of been in denial from the beginning. If being in a semi lockdown for the next 5 years mean we save lives, then so be it.

If we are locked up for 5 years there won’t be a government to put pressure on ha

 

[worthingseagull123]

I’d gladly take my chances with the virus.

I am not willing to not see family, take holidays abroad, go to the pub etc for 5 years.

 

[RossyG]

If that's what it takes, then yes. We've got nobody to blame here but ourselves and government. We should of been putting pressure on the government to act in Jan/Feb. Because we didn't, this is the price we have pay to save the lives of millions of people.

People moaning about the state the economy is going to be in post corona shouldn't of been in denial from the beginning. If being in a semi lockdown for the next 5 years mean we save lives, then so be it.

Can you imagine how destructive that would be? We’d be Stone Age level economy-wise with no money to pay for the NHS, police or schools and a soaring suicide rate.

 

[worthingseagull123]

Can you imagine how destructive that would be? We’d be Stone Age level economy-wise with no money to pay for the NHS, police or schools and a soaring suicide rate.

It is complete nonsense.

 

[atomised]

Can you imagine how destructive that would be? We’d be Stone Age level economy-wise with no money to pay for the NHS, police or schools and a soaring suicide rate.

There seems to be little.common sense being applied

 

[Solid at the back]

Saying the people moaning because they've had to spend 3 weeks in doors. Moaning because you're not allowed to go to the pub. Maybe, just maybe if people such as yourselves took this as seriously as you should of back in Feb we wouldn't be in this mess.