Here’s are some thoughts.
Lockdown is all about social distancing, because social distancing is the only weapon we really have.
Lockdown basically says that the government in your country can’t trust you to stay *at least* 6 feet away from everyone, 100% of the time when you are anywhere other than your own property. If the government could guarantee that every person in the world would stay at least 6 feet from every other person and nobody would ever break that rule, and that everybody then we wouldn’t need lockdowns. The reality is that’s a completely unrealistic expectation, hence lockdowns. It’s the only way the governments of this world to kind of guarantee that most of their people are not just milling about spreading this virus. We could re-open much of the economy tomorrow if we could guarantee that everyone was very disciplined in adhering to social distancing guidelines and that everybody would wash their hands regularly and thoroughly, so touching of handrails and door handles wasn’t a problem. But again, you can’t guarantee it. I personally can in a miniscule way. I can vouch for me as an individual, but I can’t vouch for the tens of millions of potential idiots out there who will get within 6 feet of you and thinking nothing of it and never wash their damn hands.
Testing on its own doesn’t do anything. Testing + social distancing does. Imagine, you get tested. It takes 48 hours for the results to come back and in that 48 hours you infect 15 people because there is absolutely no lockdown in place and social distancing doesn’t happen at all. You go into a bar, have a few drinks have a laugh, chat with a load of people, hug some of them, whatever.
A vaccine or cure of some kind is the only way we will get back to normal quickly. A vaccine might be available by Christmas if we’re lucky. I mean one that is proven to work and has undergone extensive human trials that haven’t rushed because the situation is urgent or some nonsense.
Pretty much every country is experiencing lots of deaths in care homes/nursing homes/care facilities. It’s hard to know what proportion of these deaths is being reported by each country. Some of them are allegedly being diligent and reporting them. Others are not. Here in the UK, we could be looking at 7,000 to 10,000 unreported care home deaths. 7,500 was the number I had read, but that was in an article published at least 10 days ago. The elderly and vulnerable are the ones that need protection. They know who they are and most of us know who they are. They should be protected but restrictions should be more lenient for everyone else.
My 70 year old mother is dying, slowly, of lung cancer. I know that she is incredibly vulnerable. She knows it as well. But she’s still having a carer go into her home for an hour a day most weekdays. They have PPE. But have they been using that PPE for a week already with 60 other patients or is it fresh PPE for every house they go into? If I ask, will they be honest or will they lie? I’ve had this discussion with my Mum and she, not me, she, is happy to accept the risks. She understands this will finish her within days if she gets it.
I’m 37 and I’m very fit and healthy. Do I won’t to get COVID-19? No. I’m not totally sure that I’d be ok, regardless of my mother. Have already had it? Maybe in early March, but they would have been incredibly mild symptoms that lasted about 2 days in total.
Am I desperate to get tested to find out if I have had it, or if I have it now? No. Why? Because if I have it now and I get sick enough to warrant going to a hospital, I won’t need a test to tell me I have it. Equally, if I have it now and I never get sick enough to go to a hospital and I fight it off at home, then I will know that I have been very ill or just slightly ill, but I will fight it off and eventually recover, hopefully with no lasting damage.
Do I care if I have antibodies as a result of getting it? No. Why? Because nobody, can, at present, definitely say that I am 100% immune as a result, and they can’t say how long that immunity would last. I live a streamlined minimalist lifestyle anyway, and don’t have kids, so being on lockdown isn’t the enormous inconvenience that it might be for others.
Given all this, I think we should begin to re-open our economy (UK) as soon as possible, but only once the daily cases and daily deaths have both reduced to about 20% of what they are now. That might take another 3 to 6 weeks. After that, I personally believe that we need to starting trying to re-open schools, or some shops. Figure out how we can test one or two variables at a time. I don’t think we should have sport and concerts and festivals happening in June, July or August.
But what if 20% of the numbers we have now doesn’t happen until August? I don’t know. It’s tough.
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Regarding the US, they should be treated like a continent, not a country. What someone said earlier made me think.
The US lockdown is a bit like someone say that there are problems in Romania so people in Scotland must also stay indoors. That wouldn't work in Europe. Why should it be the case in the US?
I fear that the US is re-opening too soon in some areas, but in others, it sounds like they have been shut despite not really being affected.