What if we went into immediate lockdown as you say we should have.
Yes the spread of the disease would have been less.
Yes we would have had less deaths.
Intensive care beds lying empty.
Then slowly but surely, people would get restless and start breaking the lockdown. Mainly because they would have seen very few deaths and think this isn't that serious.
Before long, the death figures would start rising again.
Pleas to remain inside would be ignored. The reason for this is persons are smart but people are thick.
The government knows this.
We already have pubs doing lock ins.
People "exercising" in public parks. I don't think i've seen as many cyclists in my life.
Dog walkers stopping to have chats with people.
People have been BBQing on the moors in large groups.
Old people deciding that it is ok to go outside to shop/visit friends.
All this in less than one week of a lock down.
Now we have a situation with no controls. So the army is deployed onto the streets.
Like all the random riots we have had over the years. People would see the army as the enemy.
People would resist calls for isolation. Chaos would soon follow.
The virus takes over again and now there is nothing to stop or limit it.
The figures we have now would look great in comparison.
We have no way of stopping this. Only trying to slow it or manage it.
They have said from the start that they know they have "one" shot at total isolation/lockdown.
Mistakes have been and will be made. But i think we are doing ok.
Do not agree, and in fact the government does not now agree either.
Reflect on this: if we locked everyone in the UK up for 2 weeks, the virus would be gone, eliminated, no more. Everyone infected would be either recovered or dead. Either way, no more infections. The whole of the UK would be "clean".
Now of course we cannot do this, so we get "leakage". Some people continue to travel around and infect other people. And many of us have to go out and buy food and get infected by not being careful enough, not washing their hands enough or by just pure bad luck. And we have essential workers who also get infected, through no fault of their own.
So in reality it takes lo get than 2 weeks to get the infection rates right down and close to zero.
And of course the longer you took to start clamping down, the longer it takes to get things under control, More people are infected. The peak is bigger and it takes longer to suppress.
How long it takes depends on how careful we are and how draconian the measures are. People ignoring advice, weak lock down rules, light punishments and it will take longer, more people die, but we will still get there.
Once the numbers are really low, we go into phase 2 - the phase we should have been in, in the first place. That is test the shit out of everything that moves phase. Any suspected cases at all, lock them down immediately and trace all their contacts and lock them down as wel. For 2 weeks. And test/quarantine anyone re-emterjng the UK.
But the rest of the country can gradually go back to work, more or less as normal, but with heightened awareness and hopefully improved hygiene routines.
This works. This is what South Korea has been doing for weeks and it's seen to work. They have the same population as us. They had 5 deaths yesterday. We had 260.
Can you still buy Samsung phones, made in South Korea? Yes you can. They have their lives relatively back to normal and the virus under control.
