So lockdown worked!

I’m afraid that, for the past 10 months I have been unable to credit many of my fellow humans with even a modicum of common sense....

I think everyone has their own 'plan' and most of us are more safety conscious than we are being given credit for. What the PM has done is given us some specified liberty. I think this will make life easier for the police and somewhat perplexing for many families. I certainly won't be doing any last minute mad shopping or shop hitting and I credit my fellow humans with some sense even when they do participate. I plan/hope to have a lovely time in the simplest of ways. Very much looking forward to it.

We are nowhere near herd immunity!! If you take an area with a high number of infections, eg. 500 per 100,000, that is only 0.5% of that particular area, meaning 95.5% are not infected

Frankly a large minority (and growing) of the public, and even the MPs, seem to have had enough of the lockdown/tier systems and for Christmas it would appear that the majority of people would have broken the no mixing rules if Boris hadn’t relaxed them. Seems he had little choice if he wanted overall compliance of rules. However if people are naive enough to believe that the virus cares about that and that we won’t have to pay a price for this relaxation then they’re fools. The more people rush to shop and gather to give gifts and spend time with all of their usual friends and family, besides the very limited Christmas bubble rules, the more people will die and suffer afterwards.
I have been in utter shock at the amount of people who think they can bend the rules to suit their own needs since March and seriously wonder if we were at war with someone other than an invisible virus would we as a society be capable of making the sacrifices that were made (and sustained) during World War 1 and II. I’m beginning to doubt it.

Just read the experts like Ivor Cummins on lockdowns.

Robert F Kennedy Jr on vaccines - read insidethevatican.com/magazine/robert-f-kennedy-jr-on-coming-covid-vaccines/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAzZL-BRDnARIsAPCJs73Z0STbDhe1DztJCm_YlOGdEiDjBNVHLpntiZSrP9sHS-g6b_8bIvcaAqJMEALw_wcB

He says " vaccines are not safety tested, and people find that hard to believe, but unfortunately, it’s true."

"“None of the 72 vaccines now mandated for American children have ever been safety tested against a double-blind placebo”

'Kennedy is an environmental lawyer, the president of Waterkeeper Alliance, and the chairman of Children’s Health Defense. He has spent the past 15 years advocating for proper safety testing of vaccines. Robert has taken on the unenviable role of David fighting the pharmaceutical and big business Goliaths, including an enormous $2 billion victory against Bayer’s Monsanto and its popular weedkiller, RoundUp, for causing terminal Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in consumers'

Research is essential ..........

Christmas here (Cornwall), will be at Easter.

Please: not herd immunity again.....

Infection rates rising around me in Kent.

I would have thought some areas may have achieved a level of herd immunity but not near enough yet

I would prefer a tough and quiet Christmas all round so that we can enjoy a riotous post vaccine summer celebration.

The Government are 'damned if they do and damned if they don't'. As a nation we aren't being forced to follow the Christmas 5-day plan. I have chosen to spend Christmas without family simply because I don't want them, or us, to get or spread the virus any further. Simple as that! The virus thrives via human contact - that's not difficult to understand, surely?!

Sorry Daisymae...predictive text!

Daisy are, I’m convinced it’s our culture of extremes that is the problem. It’s not so much lockdown that alters thing but our all or nothing lifestyle. Too much drinking, socialising, shopping, eating, travelling, overcrowding, consuming...not just covid related but in ordinary times as well. If we could get to a moderate way of life, I don’t believe we would need to keep swinging from one extreme to another in our covid restrictions.

Jan16

Boris can’t win. If he had said families can’t mix over Christmas there would have been an outcry over that. Now he has said they can people are still not happy. It’s a new situation that no one has ever dealt with before so basically the powers that be are just trying to do their best whether they are right or wrong. COVID numbers in Norfolk have fallen over lockdown

Wrong. I would have said “thank goodness a sensible decision at last.” I’ve said before it’s nothing to do with politics, I am sort of centre ish and loathed thatcher but I reckon she’d have done a better job of managing the pandemic.

Daisymae

Widely reported that infection rates have dramatically fallen in many areas. This is good news. Now we are getting set to make sure that we have a second wave in January by dashing to the shops in the next few weeks then locking ourselves in with those we love the most for a few days. This is the plan right???

Too right.

Especially locking ourselves in with up to two other households for up to five days. Some of these households could be from high risk areas!

We are remaining by ourselves and planning a get-together with our families when it is far safer.

Boris can’t win. If he had said families can’t mix over Christmas there would have been an outcry over that. Now he has said they can people are still not happy. It’s a new situation that no one has ever dealt with before so basically the powers that be are just trying to do their best whether they are right or wrong. COVID numbers in Norfolk have fallen over lockdown

Even the ‘plan’ that Johnson does have is being opposed by many Conservative MP’s. So, at a time when he has a massive majority in parliament he’s having to rely on Labour to support him. It amuses me to imagine the grovelling phone calls he’s making with Keir Starmer at the moment. Discussing the current situation with my son and daughter we reached the conclusion that people that are still working, have children in school or nursery and go to supermarkets seem to exist in a different COVID world to those of us that have been shielding for months.

Well, I think it’s rather thoughtful of the PM to give families the opportunity to have a big get together over Christmas with the chance to be able to see each other to say a proper goodbye before some of the family members are buried in January and February ....

Did someone say rule of 6? We haven't had that here for a long time. At least we didn't suffer the indignity of moving from tier 1 to tier 3, and only jumped up one.

Where is all the money to come from to pay for a total year long lockdown? The numbers have definitely come down - this time last month our infection rate in Trafford was 430 per 100,000. Now it's down to 156 and falling every day.
Once this is all over and we have to start getting our economy back on it's feet, there will be people moaning about the measures the government have to take to achieve this. Are the Australians right? Are we just a nation of "moaning poms"?

What about the riots in London which resulted in 150 people getting arrested? They were demanding freedom to catch covid. And probably a lot of them will after all that close contact and not a mask between them.

Hasn’t worked at all around where I live - Braintree in Essex. Rates have gone up massively in the last week - doubling from the previous new high.

The thing with lockdown is it only works while we all remain in lockdown; the minute any kind of normality reduces up shoot the rates again. The only way lockdown would truly work is for it to be indefinite and I am talking absolute minimum of a year if not many more

Hetty ?

We're in agreement there!

Alegrias2, sorry, I should have said:

'Ignore the advice regarding the five day Christmas free for all of visiting/hosting family'

It completely contradicts the efforts made so far, doesn't it? Being cooped up indoors with others is just asking for trouble!

Mr J having a plan - that's satire, right?

Alegrias2 that comment made me laugh out loud!