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Your ideas on the current lockdown:

I've seen a lot of conflicting opinions on this, but I want to get everyone's view on it too, and don't sugarcoat it!

Do you think opening schools and getting everything back to normal March onwards is a good idea? If not, do you think the lockdown should be extended and how long for?

Reply 1

Cnidaria

You are seeing conflicting opinions because A) there is no easy or obvious answer, and B) because the average forum user is not an expert or epidemiologist.

Opening schools would have immediately benefits to students' education, physical, and mental health. It would ensure immediate education whereas many have been neglected during lockdown (not all students are financially equal; many cannot afford to study from home, nor have the space to do so. Many also depend on schools for lunches, socialisation, and exercise). It would also be beneficial to the economy (parents will be better suited to attending work during the day).

The obvious risk, however, is that there is no reasonable way of maintaining social distancing and mask use in small buildings housing hundreds of students, many of whom will rebel against distancing and mask use simply because they are rules. This would increase virus spread, increasing the odds of mutations that may alter the antigens targeted by vaccines. It will also put potentially thousands of lives at risk. However, there is equal chance that further lockdowns will pose a danger to human life, as diversity of location; exercise and nutrition; and socialisation are all fundamental to mental and physical health.

I do not know whether lockdowns should continue or stop. But these are a few arguments for each side.

Reply 2

aiwiloistyping

Positive: students getting proper education in a classroom, coming into contact, socialising, with others (communication is essential to not go insane)
Negative: the pressure of tests, assessments, etc. to give out grades would be exhausting and would take a toll on their mental health

Reply 3

nexttime

Hospital admissions are down, as are deaths. Both are still very high, but with the lag we could open up now if we wanted. With the vaccine around though, it makes sense to give it time to work before opening up. It would be sensible to try to ensure everyone vulnerable has had at least one vaccine + time for it to work before opening up.

One problem, is that we have prioritised vaccinating those most likely to die. Which is sensible. However, very few 75+ year olds would get onto ITU at the best of times. That is not who is overwhelming ITU - the most overwhelmed area of hospitals. Its your 50-60 year olds and those with medical conditions. The latter have only just had their definition expanded by Oxford and we will need to catch up there, and the former are going to be waiting a couple months yet to have one dose and be protected. So that might delay things?

However, we will never be able to suppress covid completely, so that clearly should not be the aim. There seems to be some suggestion of using lockdown to contain new variants to an extent? Which clearly won't be sustainable long term, so not sensible either.

And another factor is that the virus is clearly very seasonal - we may find even if we open up completely that cases fell to much lower levels by say May.

Re-opening schools is the first thing to do when lifting. They are very low risk themselves, and having schools closed causes significant economic damage from parents being off of work.

Going forward, next winter will see a surge again and lots will panic. How bad that will be, remains to be seen.

And of course this is unlikely to be the last pandemic in our lifetimes. They are getting more and more frequent and contributing factors like increasing meat consumption are only set to continue.