Regarding easing of lockdown, there a good article here
Molly Scott Cato argues that the public-school approach of fighting COVID-19 like a wartime enemy results in needless casualties and no exit strategy.
bylinetimes.com
agree with this completely. Basic premise is
"herd immunity is still suffusing much of what we’re hearing about the government’s response. For example, the message from the daily press conference is not that we should stop transmission and contain the virus, but rather that we should ‘protect the NHS’, the implication being that the ultimate number of deaths may be the same but that the sick can be offered an ICU bed and a ventilator if they are part of the unlucky 5% whose life will be threatened by the Coronavirus, along with the 50% survival chance that comes with it. "
We have clues what the coming easing of lockdown will mean, because messages are being dripped out buy the Tories. Schools look set to go back, or at least those outside of London. Some more shops will be added to the allowed to open list.
Going back to that article above, this is what opening schools means in practice:
"A key question that should be put to government scientists and ministers is: do you think that everybody will have caught the disease before a vaccine becomes available? It seems clear that the working assumption of government scientific advisors in the UK is that this is so. Therefore all you are trying to do is to spread out that incidence of disease — and the 1% mortality rate it entails — across the next 12 or 18 months.
Given that assumption, it makes sense to allow schoolchildren and young people to be the first out of quarantine. They will spread the virus without putting undue pressure on the health service.
But for a policy based on containment and control, the young, as asymptomatic carriers, are some of the most dangerous citizens, since they make it hard to trace the spread of the virus. So reopening schools and allowing children to share the virus with granny only makes sense if your ideal is to work towards 60% of the population having encountered the virus, and accept the death toll that goes along with such a policy.
A strategy based on containment would keep schools closed and would, instead, identify industries and economic sectors that are most essential and can most easily introduce reliable social distancing and shut down other workplaces to protect employees. I would hope that the HSE has already requested all employers to draw up plans for social distancing that can be signed off by local environmental health departments."
-Easing of lockdown is in practice filling up hospitals and killing off (maybe immunising - we dont actually know that) more of the herd.
If you're hoping to go to a party or a pub, dont get too excited. Jims post is a good benchmark I think
Sixty seven days with no new cases in our district and partial restrictions are still in force, most restaurants still shut, schools too etc. Can go out and about locally though. Had to go to the tax office in town the other day and needed to have temperature check and show health code on my phone to get it. Then had to go to bank next door to pay and do the same. Been some new clusters in NE China and officials called in for dressing down over slack enforcement. Would think the UK might try to get back going quicker but not sure you should.
