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Relaxation of restrictions

Red Alert

Simon Harris curiously made a comment that there was a limit to how long people could put up with extreme level of restrictions as we currently have. Already we’re seeing in Italy that people are starting to get restless. So two big questions:

1) on Easter Sunday, do you think there will be further restrictions, no change with just an extension or some relaxation?

2) what will be the first thing rolled back?

My own guess would be: extension for at least 1 week. Then to allow some businesses like DIY shops to reopen, perhaps allow gatherings of 2/3 people, maybe a token increase on 2km.

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road_high

Cupatae wrote: »

well if you wanna go lives vs lives i think alot more will die to the virus than suicide so are we on the right track then?

Possibly but that’s only one aspect of what I’ve outlined. The consequences will be a more far reaching than possibly solely increasing suicide rates. We need to face up to the consequences of the lockdown rather than brushing than them under the carpet

Xertz

I'd also just remind people that a significant % of the economy still is running:

Food supply, essential retail, a large % of manufacturing, financial services and a lot of office-based businesses are working with remote working strategies, the IT sector is largely working remotely, telecommunications companies are extremely busy and working, broadcasters and media, a very large % of public servants are working, obviously healthcare is extremely busy and working flat out, logistics companies and transport services and quite a lot of other areas of the economy are still functioning as normal or even are busier than normal.

The fact we've had food on the table, supermarkets to go to and are still able to post on boards.ie means a lot of services are up and running.

So, while we are on a lock down it's not an absolute stop of the entire economy, but it is very significant.

Cupatae

trapp wrote: »

If you lockdown for two years or however long a vaccine might take then everybody does not count equally.

Because that will destroy more lives than you could imagine.

Where did i say lockdown for 2 years?

Cupatae

easypazz wrote: »

This doesn't suit the lockdown forever brigade.

We have to lift the restrictions soon and ease back to a level we can cope with.

There are loads of possible scenarios to reduce social distancing.

Pubs and restaurants allowed 50% capacity, and no standing / congregating at the bar.

Maybe schools have 50% of students study from home every second week.

Instead of a creche having say 30 kids mingling they split into 3 groups of 10.

Lots and lots of testing capacity.

So if it breaks out somewhere test and trace.

The problem with the "lets go back to normal instantly!" brigade is they dont see it ll make the whole lockdown pointless. Everyone is roaring to go back to normal, but no one has a concrete way on how to do it..any sane person would take normality back, but most understand that right now its not realistic

Plus we need to have some sort of control of the first wave, in order to contain other outbreaks.

easypazz

Cupatae wrote: »

Everybody does count thats why we are doing the lockdown, to protect the most vulnerable, If you can find a middle ground where everybody is safe and we rapidly get back to normal by all means throw it out.

What about the people who are not getting medical procedures, thinking about suicide and the homeless who need houses by next winter.

We can't go all in on this "everybody does count" with the virus.

There are other issues out there that need to be dealt with but can't be if we are in lockdown.

trapp

Cupatae wrote: »

Everybody does count thats why we are doing the lockdown, to protect the most vulnerable, If you can find a middle ground where everybody is safe and we rapidly get back to normal by all means throw it out.

If you lockdown for two years or however long a vaccine might take then everybody does not count equally.

Because that will destroy more lives than you could imagine.

the kelt

alwald wrote: »

The part in bold is what makes it impossible and dangerous at the moment anyway.

Completely and for quite a while in all probability.

But what's the point of all this if it's not to get back to normality and surely people yearning and wanting that isn't dangerous, rather its necessary.

Otherwise what's the point.? People need to want it

easypazz

road_high wrote: »

The longer this goes on the more lives will be lost in countless other ways such as suicide, health cuts, poor nutrition, mental illness. The measures being taken now have their risks to human life as well. It not simply money vs lives we are considering here, it’s lives vs lives

This doesn't suit the lockdown forever brigade.

We have to lift the restrictions soon and ease back to a level we can cope with.

There are loads of possible scenarios to reduce social distancing.

Pubs and restaurants allowed 50% capacity, and no standing / congregating at the bar.

Maybe schools have 50% of students study from home every second week.

Instead of a creche having say 30 kids mingling they split into 3 groups of 10.

Lots and lots of testing capacity.

So if it breaks out somewhere test and trace.

Cupatae

trapp wrote: »

Everybody counts or nobody counts.

We have to find a middle ground where the numbers getting the virus are kept low but some sort of life can resume.

Difficult but has to be done.

Expect everybody to sacrifice their lives for 2 years and sit at home and non compliance will cause numbers to rise anyway.

Everybody does count thats why we are doing the lockdown, to protect the most vulnerable, If you can find a middle ground where everybody is safe and we rapidly get back to normal by all means throw it out.

alwald

Lord Trollington wrote: »

I don't think most reasonable people would have any issue with 3 months of restrictions if they new there was a road map to exiting.

This is like asking how long is a piece of string.

trapp

Cupatae wrote: »

well if you wanna go lives vs lives i think alot more will die to the virus than suicide so are we on the right track then?

Everybody counts or nobody counts.

We have to find a middle ground where the numbers getting the virus are kept low but some sort of life can resume.

Difficult but has to be done.

Expect everybody to sacrifice their lives for 2 years and sit at home and non compliance will cause numbers to rise anyway.

Cupatae

road_high wrote: »

The longer this goes on the more lives will be lost in countless other ways such as suicide, health cuts, poor nutrition, mental illness. The measures being taken now have their risks to human life as well. It not simply money vs lives we are considering here, it’s lives vs lives

well if you wanna go lives vs lives i think alot more will die to the virus than suicide so are we on the right track then?

iamwhoiam

alwald wrote: »

The part in bold is what makes it impossible and dangerous at the moment anyway.

We all know it’s impossible but I genuinely can’t see the harm in wanting life as we know back ? Can we not wish it was ?!

trapp

History Queen wrote: »

Social distancing is very difficult if not impossible in schools. Classrooms aren't big enough for it. Most of my classes are between 25 and 30 students. Staggered break times presents a supervision issue as well.

Teachers only have one staff room (in most schools) to access photocopiers/IT equipment/have lunch, they need to access this room. It isn't big enough for social distancing either.

What about the movement of 700 or so students through the corridors from classroom to classroom? How do you enforce social distancing there? Students in my school come from 3 different counties.

I appreciate that we need to think outsode the box but with so many older buildings with small rooms and narrow corridors as well as prefabs and shared bathroom/canteen facilities it is very difficult for me to see social distancing working in a school setting.

Alternative is schools closed for another year or two.

Educators are going to have to think outside the box.

Staggered timetables with each child attending school for 1 day per week perhaps which will give more focus to work at home on the other days.

Forget the staffroom. Eat lunch on your own. Hardly an insurmountable issue.

road_high

Jenbach110 wrote: »

I thinks its more idotic not to understand the dangers of NOT going back to normality

The longer this goes on the more lives will be lost in countless other ways such as suicide, health cuts, poor nutrition, mental illness. The measures being taken now have their risks to human life as well. It not simply money vs lives we are considering here, it’s lives vs lives

alwald

the kelt wrote: »

No wanting a return to normality is exactly that, wanting a return to normality.

I know it’s been a while but normality was life before the virus. Life without the virus

So I’ll ask the question again, what is so dangerous about people wanting their lives to return to that normality?

I didn’t state when that should happen or how it will come about, I simply asked what’s wrong with wanting that return?

The part in bold is what makes it impossible and dangerous at the moment anyway.

Cupatae

I think people need to start looking at this Covid in the same light as a natural disaster like a hurricane or tsunami, there is gonna be damage done, businesses and jobs will be lost, its the sad reality of it...our returning to "normal" wont be "normal".... if we do what some people ask and return to normality tomorrow, the place would be ina heap, hospitals over run ect people out sick ect... it still wouldn't be normal.. we wont have that till we have a vaccine and can fully control it until then we are just doing damage limitation.

Xertz

History_Queen: That's why I would suspect the only way forward on this for a time may be to have reduced numbers of students by perhaps having people in only 1 or 2 days a week.

If you have a class of say 25 in primary school, it may be a case of just having them split into 5 groups of 5 and having them in 1 day a week for a time.

In secondary school, you could look at organising things to reduce density with maybe more density than for younger kids, but it's going to be about prioritising resources where they're most needed.

One example might be to just scrap transition year entirely next year, which would reduce your school population by 1/6th for a start and free up teaching resources. Perhaps those students could be encouraged to keep in touch online and do some kind of safe community projects instead?

We might need to expand the number of teachers for a time, by bringing in people who are on panels / retirees and so on on temporary contracts to allow for lower density too and it could mean finding new spaces to teach too - empty offices for example might be considered?

None of this is going to be ideal or easy and students will absolutely lose out. That's the sad reality of a natural disaster, which is what this is.

All any of us can do is try to mitigate that as much as we can with creative organisation, use of technology and supports.

This situation is just not going to be perfect or ideal in anyway. It's a really nasty mess and there will be serious consequences economically, socially and in all sorts of ways. It's not a war or a tsunami but the consequences are as significant.

lainey_d_123

Lord Trollington wrote: »

I don't think most reasonable people would have any issue with 3 months of restrictions if they new there was a road map to exiting.

As it stands we've had restrictions for a number if weeks, extended by a further 3 weeks with no indication of a possible lifting of restrictions and what is required to lift them .

There is a lot of misinformation out there regarding schools not opening again until September. Pubs or large social gatherings not opening until there is a vaccine.
No sporting events unless behind closed doors and hundreds of other scenarios all feeding into making people uneasy and feelings of hopelessness.

If the government and health professionals came out with a road map of what we need to do and where we need to be to reopen in a restricted manner in 3 weeks time I would wager that people would be far far more compliant and hard working towards that goal. As it stands now no one has no where and nothing to aim for.

We're just plodding along with no end game

This.

This is exactly it.

It's not a matter of 'people not being able to stay in for a few weeks', it's having absolutely no idea when this is going to be anything near 'over'. The uncertainty is what's driving most people mental.

If they said 'look, this is going to be three months of total lockdown and after that things will be pretty much back to normal', I'd say most people could buckle down and do it. They'd know they had a defined amount of time to kill, could perhaps take on a project for that length of time - learn a new language to pre intermediate level, learn a few songs on the guitar, write a book, whatever. Now nobody knows if it's going to be days, weeks or months.

History Queen

robinph wrote: »

Schools can be opened and maintain a limited social distancing by don't have any school trips, limit interactions between the year groups, staggered break times etc. The teachers can manage to handle keeping apart from each other. That limits the spread immediately through the entire school such that there is more chance of noticing and shutting down that particular school for a couple of weeks. The pupils at the school are generally all going to be from the local area. If there is a rise in cases in that area then shut down the local schools for a couple of weeks.

The risk to the wider community comes from the parents mixing with a wider geographic area on their commutes into work and the time they then spend sat in their offices, they bring it back home, it spreads to another family via school and then to a completely different geographic area from a different family who work in a different town 40 miles in the other direction.

Social distancing is very difficult if not impossible in schools. Classrooms aren't big enough for it. Most of my classes are between 25 and 30 students. Staggered break times presents a supervision issue as well.

Teachers only have one staff room (in most schools) to access photocopiers/IT equipment/have lunch, they need to access this room. It isn't big enough for social distancing either.

What about the movement of 700 or so students through the corridors from classroom to classroom? How do you enforce social distancing there? Students in my school come from 3 different counties.

I appreciate that we need to think outsode the box but with so many older buildings with small rooms and narrow corridors as well as prefabs and shared bathroom/canteen facilities it is very difficult for me to see social distancing working in a school setting.

the kelt

alwald wrote: »

I am not playing with words, and you do realise that wanting a return to normality is the equivalent of not caring about the spread of the disease and all the consequences that will follow.

No wanting a return to normality is exactly that, wanting a return to normality.

I know it’s been a while but normality was life before the virus. Life without the virus

So I’ll ask the question again, what is so dangerous about people wanting their lives to return to that normality?

I didn’t state when that should happen or how it will come about, I simply asked what’s wrong with wanting that return?

Jenbach110

Widdensushi wrote: »

whatever we go back to ,it won't be normality, it will be a new normality with social distances where possible, hand sanitation etc

I have no issue with this. This is just adjustments to social practice.
The current restrictions are indefinitely, that where the issue is for people questioning May 5th. I have no confidence any restrictions will be lifted on May5th, even if a considerable drop in numbers has presented itself

iamwhoiam

alwald wrote: »

I am not playing with words, and you do realise that wanting a return to normality is the equivalent of not caring about the spread of the disease and all the consequences that will follow.

I want normality , I want to hug my grandchildren , I want to see my friends . I am sure all of us want that but most of us know we can’t always have what we want

Widdensushi

Cupatae wrote: »

I think its more "idotic" to want to go back to normal at the drop of a hat without seeing the lock down through properly and not understanding that all the good work can and will be undone if we jump back to normal cause a few people cant hack it, its **** for everyone but its obviously for the best.

spain is allowing manufacturers back to work, that will be the first step, see how the hospitals are managing after three weeks of that

Xertz

In the medium term we will have a vaccine and we may have drugs that make this disease far, far less deadly in the shorter term.

The current lock down is a firebreak. It's designed to reduce transmission to a level where the virus dies back as it cannot survive without hosts to infect. It's not a bacterial infection that can live in the environment. Without our cells, it dies in days.

We will have to restore some degree of normality after that and we will have to look at reorganising life to be able to work with this threat of COVID-19 in the background, but it does mean massive changes for a time until we can tackle it from a medical point of view.

The choices going forward aren't a continuous lockdown or a total return to normality. They're a mixture of both strategies applied with extreme caution, based on the scientific evidence and practical realities.

The main thing is we do whatever we do with pragmatism and caution and It think that is genuinely what we are doing to date.

There will also be a lot of information coming from small scale reopening here and in other similar countries and we can all share information and experiences on those too and strategies will develop.

I would suspect until well into 2021 we are looking at a 'new normal' rather than a restoration of everything to what it was a few months ago.

alwald

the kelt wrote: »

That’s true, no one is disputing that. Of course that’s not what I said though.

I said what’s dangerous with people wanting a return to normality?

You do realise there’s a difference in wanting something and doing something?

I am not playing with words, and you do realise that wanting a return to normality is the equivalent of not caring about the spread of the disease and all the consequences that will follow.

Widdensushi

whatever we go back to ,it won't be normality, it will be a new normality with social distances where possible, hand sanitation etc

Cupatae

Jenbach110 wrote: »

I thinks its more idotic not to understand the dangers of NOT going back to normality

I think its more "idotic" to want to go back to normal at the drop of a hat without seeing the lock down through properly and not understanding that all the good work can and will be undone if we jump back to normal cause a few people cant hack it, its **** for everyone but its obviously for the best.

the kelt

alwald wrote: »

It is idiotic at this stage not to understand fully the danger of going back to normality.

That’s true, no one is disputing that. Of course that’s not what I said though.

I said what is so dangerous about people wanting to return to normality?

You do realise there’s a difference in wanting something and doing something?

Jenbach110

alwald wrote: »

It is idiotic at this stage not to understand fully the danger of going back to normality.

I thinks its more idotic not to understand the dangers of NOT going back to normality