Boris is right a second lockdown could cripple UK economy.

[Cnut237]

Chief Medical Officer for England Chris Whitty is pushing for a 2 week strict lockdown, but Boris is resisting this and like it or not I feel that he’s taking the correct decision at this stage.

I think it's the wrong decision. Johnson has zero sense of moral responsibility and zero concern for the wellbeing of the population. He couldn't care less how many people die, so long as the economy keeps running smoothly. Indeed herd immunity was his initial strategy, and I suspect that the reason he eventually backtracked and implemented lockdown was that he realised that thousands of deaths might cost him some votes. Johnson appears to be a fool, and this coupled with his egotism makes him dangerous - the parallels with Trump are striking.

The main problem is the endemic short-termism in modern politics, and this is another reason why lockdowns are implemented too late. They wait until cases are really high, and then decide to act. That's not the way to respond to a problem that has exponential growth. It was a dereliction of duty back in March to not bring in early restrictions and quarantining of new entrants to the country. If he'd done that, we likely could have avoided full lockdown altogether. It was a dereliction of duty the first time. But to then repeat the same behaviour later in the year is not just inept, it borders on the criminal.

I think Boris's decision wasn't mainly motivated by the economy, but just common sense and for liberty reason.

I might agree on the liberty point, but disagree profoundly on the other two. Exponential progression is not a difficult thing to understand, but Johnson has either failed to do so, or simply doesn't care. I would argue that the only sense he possesses is self-interest.

[Lucius]

Whether some people in their 20s infect each other doesn't matter all that much. The irresponsible part is where people coming into contact with elderly populations don't take precautions, or where elderly people themselves throw caution to the wind. I don't know how we address this exactly.

I would not agree that it does not matter that the infection is spreading among the younger population - because the more young people are infected, the greater the chances that those people who are in risk categories will be infected. The problem is that today's young people (the vast majority) do not want to give up their way of life, even at the cost of transmitting the infection to their parents, grandparents.

In my country, the infection has almost completely stopped - but when nightclubs opened and the tourist season started, it all went to hell - and that could only have been avoided if nightclubs had been banned. It is necessary to find the right balance between some human freedoms and the prevention of the spread of the virus, but this is much more difficult than it seems at first glance.

[mindrust]

It doesn't seem that bad, honestly.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

Does that really look "not bad" to you?

At this point, the initial lockdown appears to have been complete overkill, crippling the economy for little benefit. Masks are pretty ubiquitous now and infections are consistently dropping in the US. Clearly masks are the answer, not lockdowns.

This depends. Masks are definitely a necessity and whoever refuses to wear one, deserves a kick in the head. Lockdowns may or may not be the answer however. Like I said, depends. Since the numbers are climbing higher and higher, a lockdown as a solution is starting to weight more. Apparently, masks are not working well... enough.

People are rational. When they realized the virus was not particularly dangerous,

You clearly aren't the rational one with this sentence. The virus is dangerous. There is no question about that. It fucks people up, even the healthy ones. The ones who went through it describe this sickness like x5 heavier than the bird flu. Yes there are many people who show no symptoms but that doesn't mean it is not dangerous.

and that lockdowns threatened their livelihood and ability to feed their families and keep a roof over their head, they rationally decided that lockdowns were unacceptable.

Again. Depends. It is either die from the virus or from the hunger. I know I know, both options suck. I cannot say lockdowns are unacceptable though. Depends on the situation.

It's really messed up for governments to pick who gets to work and who doesn't, who has to burn through all their savings and who doesn't, who ends up broke and homeless and who doesn't. There are no bailouts for the poor, for renters. They have no choice. It's easy for middle class homeowners working from home or collecting $2,400 extra a month on unemployment while deferring their mortgage payments, to pass judgment on poor people who can't afford to stay locked down. It must be nice to get bailed out by the government!

The president can easily solve this by printing more money and giving it to the people. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[RealMalatesta]

Which one is more important, to have a crippled economy or basically letting people die so that UK would continue to churn up profit for companies?

I can guarantee you that a proper government should be strong enough to actually get all the money they can from taxes from all the new income these huge corporations made, and with that money allow people to stay at home by paying them a fair amount, it wouldn't be huge amount because it would be just for survival, something like 1000 pound per month, not enough obviously but could be at least a base to work on for many people.

If they can't do that I am sorry but we are talking about not making any progress as a nation and just allowing people to die, that is unacceptable and I am not going to just agree because economists says so.

[target]

Whichever they choose economy will always be affected. Not everyone will die because if for a short period of time their body can adapt to the virus, they can go on just as we can see how much people had recovered compared to the no. of deaths.  Nature is always about survival of the fittest.

They wouldn't however know how much lives will be saved though if they are going to lockdown.

[Kez1817]

I think not only the UK economy are suffering economic downfall but most of the country that has a huge number of covid patients and always implement lockdowns. If there is a strict total lockdown, there is a possibility of slow virus spreading but the economy will suffer most and for sure the government can't support the needs of the people. Here in our country, there is no more lockdowns even there are still huge number of covid cases everyday but if you can see the street ,it's like a normal day ,it's like there is no pandemic, no covid virus. Well, I believe that if it is your turn then you have nothing to do about it...You can't add even a second to your breathe.

[pokeronlinestatus]

Right now I am also in support that there shouldn’t be any other lockdown.
Yes, the coronavirus is bad, but still a lockdown seems like it’s even going to do something more worse than what the coronavirus is going to do.

And about the testing issue, it has been the same thing for where I live, nobody is talking about the coronavirus any longer and we know that we are also not ready for another lockdown, because the last one was very bad for us, and a lot of were not in support of it. The lockdown caused an increase in the price of foodstuffs and people were not even to afford anything.

[Febo]

Which one is more important, to have a crippled economy or basically letting people die so that UK would continue to churn up profit for companies?

Sweden let economy open and it dont look that bad right now. Yes things can change in upcoming months but it all seems they will be a winners at the end. They will have same % of dead as other countries, just that they had them early while others will have them evenly distributed over year.

Here is a picture of dead after covid-19 in Sweden.

[exstasie]

Does that really look "not bad" to you?

It looks like a typical flu season. In fact, it looks like a light flu season. And the more we learn about and test for COVID-19, the lower the mortality rate appears to be: https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/covid-19-has-mortality-rate-declined

I don't mean to downplay these deaths, but we need to keep them in perspective regarding the total population size and the necessity for people to work.

At this point, the initial lockdown appears to have been complete overkill, crippling the economy for little benefit. Masks are pretty ubiquitous now and infections are consistently dropping in the US. Clearly masks are the answer, not lockdowns.

This depends. Masks are definitely a necessity and whoever refuses to wear one, deserves a kick in the head. Lockdowns may or may not be the answer however. Like I said, depends. Since the numbers are climbing higher and higher, a lockdown as a solution is starting to weight more. Apparently, masks are not working well... enough.

Or there is a distinct possibility that infection numbers will wax and wane for some time. Corona virus death and new case rates have been dropping for months in the US. The opposite is now true in Europe, despite a far better initial response. Given that disparity, I am no longer confident that another lockdown justifies the economic costs.

People are rational. When they realized the virus was not particularly dangerous,

You clearly aren't the rational one with this sentence. The virus is dangerous. There is no question about that. It fucks people up, even the healthy ones. The ones who went through it describe this sickness like x5 heavier than the bird flu. Yes there are many people who show no symptoms but that doesn't mean it is not dangerous.

I guess you missed the word particularly. At a ~0.6-0.65% mortality rate, I think it's perfectly rational for people to decide working is more important. You're expecting people to destroy their savings, lose their homes, lose their small businesses, end up with no health insurance and possibly homeless......so they can avoid getting COVID-19? When protections like masks and social distancing are in place, no less?

Unless you're paying everyone else's rent and bills, good luck convincing them this is a good idea.

It's really messed up for governments to pick who gets to work and who doesn't, who has to burn through all their savings and who doesn't, who ends up broke and homeless and who doesn't. There are no bailouts for the poor, for renters. They have no choice. It's easy for middle class homeowners working from home or collecting $2,400 extra a month on unemployment while deferring their mortgage payments, to pass judgment on poor people who can't afford to stay locked down. It must be nice to get bailed out by the government!

The president can easily solve this by printing more money and giving it to the people. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr

It's the Fed who can print money, and they are only interested in bailing out the markets. That primarily means keeping homeowners out of foreclosure and buying corporate bonds to keep big companies from collapsing, which in turn props up the housing and stock markets. If you're not a mortgage holder or a bank or a company trying to raise money on the bond market, you don't benefit from that, and in the end you'll get a significantly devalued dollar.

Since they only print money to give to people who already have it, I'd rather just see it all collapse. I'm hedged and am positioned to buy blood in the streets after all. Unfortunately, the Fed will never let that happen. They'll just keep on bailing out zombie corporations who can't get debt funding, and swallowing mortgage debt on the repo market until there is no supply left.

[jaysabi]

I bet after the second lockdown (if implemented), there will be the third, fourth, and so on. Lockdown doesn't work except the military strictly disallows people to get out or get shot on sight. And after all the hassle and obvious massive economic problems, it takes only one zombie to infect the people.

I think Boris's decision wasn't mainly motivated by the economy, but just common sense and for liberty reason.

Cuz apparently you can't have "freedom" if you're not free to go out and infect people with communicable diseases! /s  We have the same problem in the United States.  People crying about how their freedoms are being infringed with mask mandates.  Meanwhile, those same people don't believe in the freedom of other people not to be infected by ignoramuses who deny that masks greatly reduce the spread of the virus.  The idea of total freedom is a fiction.  Your actions have consequences on others.  As it happens, the people who are crying about freedom are really crying about their lack of freedom to do what they want without consequences for their actions.  I don't have sympathy for them.  They're the reason things are as bad as they are.

[barbara44]

Young people do die from the infection as well, I do not understand this logic that only a small portion of them die compared to older generation so it is fine. I rather not have a virus that could potentially kill me 0.000001% chance, I do not want any virus that has a "chance" to kill me, I do not want to have common flu as well, that could kill me too, why would anyone want to have a virus that could kill you?

Obviously there is precautions and medicine and prevention vaccines etc etc for common flu so the world continues like nothing happened because you recover from it with certain methods but this doesn't have any of that yet, the medications that help you are the ones from other sickness and not specific to this but figured it helps, and vaccination is brand new and still testing on humans.

[Salauddin1994]

Ahead of the lockdown british prime minister boris johnson said it would benefit local businesses as well as the country's economy if the corona outbreak increases after the sanctions are relaxed the economy will deteriorate. After the lockdown if everyone moves consciously and maintains social distance the situation will be more normal and the economy will not be affected too otherwise the economy will go down a lot and the world will turn into poverty.

[mindrust]

It looks like a typical flu season. In fact, it looks like a light flu season. And the more we learn about and test for COVID-19, the lower the mortality rate appears to be: https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/covid-19-has-mortality-rate-declined

I don't mean to downplay these deaths, but we need to keep them in perspective regarding the total population size and the necessity for people to work.

It doesn't look like a typical flu season let alone a light flu season. (not even close)

A typical flu season in the US has only 61k deaths annually.

CDC estimates that influenza has resulted in between 9 million – 45 million illnesses, between 140,000 – 810,000 hospitalizations and between 12,000 – 61,000 deaths annually since 2010.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

Total deaths from Covid19 in the US is 200k+ after 9 months. Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

You do the rest of the math.

Or there is a distinct possibility that infection numbers will wax and wane for some time. Corona virus death and new case rates have been dropping for months in the US. The opposite is now true in Europe, despite a far better initial response. Given that disparity, I am no longer confident that another lockdown justifies the economic costs.

As long as there is even one person left that carries the virus, it will keep spreading and everything will go back to where it is now.

I guess you missed the word particularly. At a ~0.6-0.65% mortality rate,

That's also manipulated (didn't want to say wrong) information. The mortality rate can change depending on how you calculate it.

Worldometer says the death rate is %4.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

I think it's perfectly rational for people to decide working is more important. You're expecting people to destroy their savings, lose their homes, lose their small businesses, end up with no health insurance and possibly homeless......so they can avoid getting COVID-19? When protections like masks and social distancing are in place, no less?

Unless you're paying everyone else's rent and bills, good luck convincing them this is a good idea.

I don't expect people to destroy their savings. If they took a 30 year mortgage, well... they shouldn't have done it. Now you mentioned it, I realized, it is the debt you are scared of so much. Even more than covid19 which explains a lot.

If people saved their cash and gold instead of taking mortgages, nobody would give a damn about the lockdowns now. You can blame the central banks here for lowering the interest rates to zero (or even negative) but on the other hand there are also people like me. I still have no mortgages on me when they were giving if nearly for free few months ago in where I live. Fuck debt.

It's the Fed who can print money, and they are only interested in bailing out the markets.

The Fed will do whatever Trump says. They did it before. There is no reason for them to not do it again.

That primarily means keeping homeowners out of foreclosure and buying corporate bonds to keep big companies from collapsing, which in turn props up the housing and stock markets. If you're not a mortgage holder or a bank or a company trying to raise money on the bond market, you don't benefit from that, and in the end you'll get a significantly devalued dollar.

Since they only print money to give to people who already have it, I'd rather just see it all collapse. I'm hedged and am positioned to buy blood in the streets after all. Unfortunately, the Fed will never let that happen. They'll just keep on bailing out zombie corporations who can't get debt funding, and swallowing mortgage debt on the repo market until there is no supply left.

Again with the mortgages. Yawn. I say just let them burn. Maybe that'll smarten them up a bit or their kids at least.

[coolcoinz]

If we have about 50 million people in the UK and 38k cases a day, it's going to take just 4 years before every single person gets it at this rate, but we have to assume that the more cases there are overall, the more new daily cases there will be, so I'd say 2 years tops and it's over.

Isn't this good news? Always try to find positives

On the other hand the official statistics show just 400k total cases in the UK, so with almost 40k a day this number should be much higher.

[bryant.coleman]

Sweden let economy open and it dont look that bad right now. Yes things can change in upcoming months but it all seems they will be a winners at the end. They will have same % of dead as other countries, just that they had them early while others will have them evenly distributed over year.

Here is a picture of dead after covid-19 in Sweden.

A few months back, many of us were making fun of Sweden. They were having on average more than 100 deaths per day, while the neighboring countries such as Norway and Denmark were reporting deaths in single digits. Sweden was the first country to propose the "herd immunity" theory. This was ridiculed by most of the experts in the beginning. But now from the data it looks as if they were right about it.

[Chrystora123]

not all countries are compatible with the LOCKDOWN policy, there are also many that even though LOCKDOWN still experience an increase in positive patients COVID 19 like India..  for me, the decision taken by Boris was right (not re-enacting LOCKDOWN) even though many UK residents also think it's not right..

[20kevin20]

not all countries are compatible with the LOCKDOWN policy, there are also many that even though LOCKDOWN still experience an increase in positive patients COVID 19 like India..  for me, the decision taken by Boris was right (not re-enacting LOCKDOWN) even though many UK residents also think it's not right..

The economical repercussions are just way too harsh for another lockdown. I am quite afraid of what's to come from an economical perspective. This is basically deciding between having to "fight against the virus" without lockdowns and fighting against it by increasing the power of the incoming economical crisis (through locking down countries again). I'd rather continue with the existing measures for a few more months than make a lot of people starve and lose jobs within a matter of months/years. I'm afraid the option of having new waves of lockdowns would end up way worse than continuing the current measures.

[Harlot]

Obviously this is true and I don't think there should be an argument about this one any kind of event where it will stop some kind of industry in their economy may it be in agriculture or tech will hurt the economy but the real question here is will a 2 week lockdown period give more pros than cons in the future of UK? Before they consider another lockdown they must have exhausted most options like contact tracing, mass testing, as well as strict enforcement of their own pandemic guidelines and an improvement thereof, If nothing can be improve to what they are doing then they don't have any choice but to do another lockdown in the hopes that it will flatten the curve.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

UK is not my country and not my battle, but I'd be against another lockdown if it were my country.  Hell, I don't even think we need to keep wearing face masks anymore--and a lot of people in the US have stopped doing that and have stopped keeping physical distance from one another, too.

COVID-19 is nowhere near as deadly as it's being made out to be, and I think the entire world has overreacted in the extreme to the outbreak (except for the at-risk population).  Are we going to shut down our economy every time there's a new virus that causes X number of deaths?  I don't think that's a wise course of action in any country.  There are thousands of risks we take every day just doing everyday stuff, and people die of infectious diseases other than COVID-19 every day, all over the world.

Sweden was the first country to propose the "herd immunity" theory. This was ridiculed by most of the experts in the beginning. But now from the data it looks as if they were right about it.

It's stupid to ridicule herd immunity, since it's a well-known principle in epidemiology that keeps people safe.

[abhiseshakana]

If people saved their cash and gold instead of taking mortgages, nobody would give a damn about the lockdowns now. You can blame the central banks here for lowering the interest rates to zero (or even negative) but on the other hand there are also people like me. I still have no mortgages on me when they were giving if nearly for free few months ago in where I live. Fuck debt.

Agree with your opinion, many people think that debt is a solution to economic problems, even though debt, especially those that have interest, is adding to the burden on your life according to the period of debt you take. Debt makes a person dare to speculate and make decisions based on a picture of the future, which in reality is not necessarily what we expect. With debt, humans force the ability to buy and become very consumptive to buy what they want, not buy what they need.

The option to save money in the form of cash, gold and bitcoin is very good, but it is wiser if we also invest in the real sector so that the economy rotates, apart from banks with interest practices, the money market is one of the causes for speculative action and money accumulates in a group of people, so the economy doesn't spin. The more people save and hoard assets, the less investment, the slower the economy rotates.