How much longer will social distancing go on for in the UK?

Socanxdis said:

Survival of the fittest, quite literally then.

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As opposed to survival of the rich and old?

Skimpot flyer said:

Good to hear that I wasn’t overreacting when alarmed by this person’s actions. Personally, I don’t like wearing a mask, but I do it. I hate to think about my reaction had this selfish person NOT been wearing a mask!

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No you weren’t over-reacting. Even in normal times it’s odd behaviour in most people’s eyes.

Bletchleyite said:

Shopworkers may not need to if they are (like bus drivers) behind screens.

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Think the actual 'rule' is that Shopworkers do not have to, per se. nothing about screens.

Scrotnig said:

But if there are loads of completely empty blocks of seats, why do they come and sit opposite someone? It’s inconsiderate at best.

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Had that a few times too. I think some people feel safer if there close to someone else.

DavidB said:

Uner normal circumstances, you will also get the odd one who comes and sits in the airline seat next to you, when there are plenty of empty pairs. Why?

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To quote Jasper Carrott, when the nutter gets on the bus, why does the nutter always sit next to you?

LAX54 said:

Think the actual 'rule' is that Shopworkers do not have to, per se. nothing about screens.

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I believe you're correct, but that's handled by the "COVID Secure" guidelines for them having reopened - some mitigation needs to be in place for that which might be masks and might be screens, it's mostly the latter in my observation.

Richard Scott said:

Let's be honest, these decisions are being made by middle aged people who have had their childhood but are likely to have many years of life left. Yet their decisions are robbing children of some of the time of those few precious years of childhood and telling older people to stay in and stare at four walls when they want to make the most of the time they have left. Very unfair. Older people should be allowed to make their own decisions now on whether or not they go out, see family etc not be dictated to by politicians. It's their life, let them live it.

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Older people have been making their own decisions regarding their lifestyle ever since the beginning of lockdown. I know plenty who carried on as if nothing had happened.

MikeWM said:

That's irritated me for many years. In my experience, the person then usually starts shouting into a mobile phone, compounding the irritation!

I've often changed seats when this has happened, while trying to look as exasperated as possible (in a British sort of way).

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Don't worry. That's exactly what I did (I actually moved carriage when I realised coach B had just one person in the whole carriage but still)

Skimpot flyer said:

During a long journey on a northbound Thameslink service this week, I was sat in a window seat in a bay of four. I settled down, mask on, and put on headphones to listen to some music. At some point, I fell asleep, and woke after the train left East Croydon. To my astonishment, I woke to find a middle-aged gent had plonked himself in the aisle seat of the pair facing me. OK, he had a mask on, but I just was incredulous that in an 8-car train with loads of available seats (I checked the in-car displays), he would choose to sit so close.
On reaching London Bridge, I asked him why, with a multitude of available seats, he felt it necessary to sit there. ‘I don’t like airline seats’ was his reply, followed by some other comments I didn’t hear, as I’d already decided to move further up the train.

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Good for you for saying something. I would suspect that with a multitude of other seats there probably were more bays available elsewhere in the train, he just got on and saw that was the first bay closest to the door he'd boarded at, rather than looking further down the train - which he should have done if airline seats had bothered him that much.

I noticed Chris Whitty is STILL saying social distancing must stay for a long time. That's not a surprise! If he has his way, we'll be "socially distancing" forever! Sorry Chris, but we can't as it's continuing to wreck the UK economy and ruining life! By November, when hopefully social distancing will be completely scrapped, it would be a "long time" we've put up with social distancing as it is, nearly 8 months! Many of us are losing patience with social distancing now.

Here's the article from Sky News. I haven't bothered to read it all myself, as I(and I'm sure many many others) am fed up of him forever saying social distancing must stay for a long time yet!

Social distancing will need to continue for a "long period of time" and eliminating COVID-19 in the UK is unlikely, England's chief medical officer has said.

Professor Chris Whitty told the Lords science and technology committee that certain hygiene measures would remain for the foreseeable future and that people would also need to continue keeping a safe distance from others.

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Class 33 said:

I noticed Chris Whitty is STILL saying social distancing must stay for a long time. That's not a surprise! If he has his way, we'll be "socially distancing" forever! Sorry Chris, but we can't as it's continuing to wreck the UK economy and ruining life! By November, when hopefully social distancing will be completely scrapped, it would be a "long time" we've put up with social distancing as it is, nearly 8 months! Many of us are losing patience with social distancing now.

Here's the article from Sky News. I haven't bothered to read it all myself, as I(and I'm sure many many others) am fed up of him forever saying social distancing must stay for a long time yet!

Coronavirus: Social distancing must stay for a 'long time' and eliminating COVID-19 unlikely, Whitty says

England's chief medical officer insists it would be difficult to eradicate the virus in a "highly connected" country like the UK.

news.sky.com

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What annoys me about Whitty and the members of SAGE is they speak like they’re making the decisions.

When Whitty says social distancing “will stay for some time”, what he really means is “from a purely medical perspective, disregarding the economy completely, I advise you to keep social distancing for some time”, but he doesn’t put it like this, he acts like he’s the one who makes the decisions.

If we don’t scrap it in November, the Christmas shopping season, and the thousands of businesses which benefit from or even rely on it won’t happen, and the economic implications will be very ruinous indeed.

Huntergreed said:

What annoys me about Whitty and the members of SAGE is they speak like they’re making the decisions.

When Whitty says social distancing “will stay for some time”, what he really means is “from a purely medical perspective, disregarding the economy completely, I advise you to keep social distancing for some time”, but he doesn’t put it like this, he acts like he’s the one who makes the decisions.

If we don’t scrap it in November, the Christmas shopping season, and the thousands of businesses which benefit from or even rely on it won’t happen, and the economic implications will be very ruinous indeed.

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Agreed completely - he is beginning to sound out of touch with the world. Remember that the CMO is the one who says that it's 14 units of alcohol a week as a "safe" limit - don't remember the last time many students at the very least abided by that guidance.

Because that's all it is. Guidance. Not reality. He needs to come with a disclaimer - "in my opinion, social distancing must remain until we have an effective treatment or vaccine - although this is based on medical research and does not take account of other factors".

Huntergreed said:

What annoys me about Whitty and the members of SAGE is they speak like they’re making the decisions.

When Whitty says social distancing “will stay for some time”, what he really means is “from a purely medical perspective, disregarding the economy completely, I advise you to keep social distancing for some time”, but he doesn’t put it like this, he acts like he’s the one who makes the decisions.

If we don’t scrap it in November, the Christmas shopping season, and the thousands of businesses which benefit from or even rely on it won’t happen, and the economic implications will be very ruinous indeed.

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Indeed, it's not up to him to make the decisions on social distancing. And he's also not taking into account much the ongoing damage to the economy and people's livelihoods and mental health, this current ongoing social distancing is causing. We've been socially distancing for almost 4 months now. It is unsustainable for it to continue too much longer now.

Yes, can you imagine what chaos city centre shopping centres and large out of town shopping malls are going to be like in the run up to Christmas, if this social distancing is still going on. There will be long queues to get into the shopping centres, long queues to get in all the stores/shops, having to dawdle around the shops being careful to stay 2 metres away from anyone, long queues for the checkouts! It will be absolutely chaos! But then again if social distancing is still in force then, then a fair number of people won't bother going to the shops to get Christmas shopping, they'll get it online instead. Also some of the stores currently still going, may have closed down permanently by then!

After Boris's speech on Friday though and that he may be able to scrap social distancing by November at the earliest, I am now feeling somewhat more confident that social distancing will be finally scrapped completely by sometime in November(ideally 1st November!). Previously I wasn't very confident about this, and thinking social distancing will remain until next Spring at the earliest! I genuinely believe Boris wants to scrap social distancing as soon as he believes the time is right.

The numbers of deaths on a weekly basis are really coming down. Week by week they are coming down! I know that the number of new cases seems to be flatlining at the moment, which is a bit concerning and disappointing. But even though the number of new cases doesn't really seem to be coming down at the moment, the number of deaths ARE still continuing to fall week by week. Which proves that of those people who become infected with Coronavirus, a much lesser percent of those people are dieing from it now. This should be taken into account surely. Also the number of deaths now is more than 90% down what they were at the peak back in April. That is amazing progress! We still need to continue getting these deaths right down though. But by mid October, they should surely be incredibly low. And at that time, when Boris holds his review he should then make the decision to scrap social distancing completely.

Also some positive things I've noticed on the TV ads and news:

The media invented phrase "The new normal". Previously this was mentioned countless times on the news. But I've not heard it mentioned so much over the past couple of weeks. Instead I've heard "A return to normal" mentioned a number of times now.

I've not seen any TV ads mentioning "We know things are difficult for everyone right now.". Instead over the past week or two I've seen a number of ads mentioning such things as "As life begins to return to normal." and "It's good to see everyone getting out and about now.". And also the return of holiday ads!

So yes, I'm feeling more confident now that although we'll have to persevere with this social distancing and it's hassles and problems for a few more months yet, but come November we should finally see the end of it.

Class 33 said:

I noticed Chris Whitty is STILL saying social distancing must stay for a long time. That's not a surprise! If he has his way, we'll be "socially distancing" forever! Sorry Chris, but we can't as it's continuing to wreck the UK economy and ruining life! By November, when hopefully social distancing will be completely scrapped, it would be a "long time" we've put up with social distancing as it is, nearly 8 months! Many of us are losing patience with social distancing now.

Here's the article from Sky News. I haven't bothered to read it all myself, as I(and I'm sure many many others) am fed up of him forever saying social distancing must stay for a long time yet!

Coronavirus: Social distancing must stay for a 'long time' and eliminating COVID-19 unlikely, Whitty says

England's chief medical officer insists it would be difficult to eradicate the virus in a "highly connected" country like the UK.

news.sky.com

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What is he supposed to say? He's giving the advice from a medical perspective, i.e. the virus hasn't gone away and it likely to flair up again. If everybody starts acting like it's all normal then things will be a lot worse than if they take a bit of care.

If you want positive messages then listen to Boris making up dates and policy as he goes however just because he gets to decide policy dosent mean that everybody suddenly has to agree with him.

Enthusiast said:

Ditto. What a nightmare. This effectively means "social distancing" is enforceable by law. I cannot establish what the "specified premises" are to which the regulations apply. I imagine it will certainly be pubs and restaurants but it may extend to shops. This could put Tesco's recent decision to return to near enough normal in jeopardy. Being in the hands of LAs the powers will be rigorously utilised. All the council wallahs currently unable to get into the office will be trained up to make inspections (suitably clad in biological warfare suits, natch) and enforce their interpretation of what constitutes a "serious and imminent threat to public health." What next can we expect?

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I think it is deliberately vague. In theory it could be applied to residential premises, to say "do not go out unless necessay" although with the way it is worded, they would have to catch you crossing the threshold.

MikeWM said:

Ugh, just looked through that. Another massive change creating lots of new powers and criminal offenses, presented without debate and without Parliamentary scrutiny, mere hours before they come info effect. At some point, you have to start wondering how this is different from an actual dictatorship...

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I agree that it is not good; these are announced sometimes weeks in advance without the regulations being presented and there is often a mismatch (albeit minor) between what is said and what the law says.

bramling said:

We can’t expect this forever. People have already lost half a year of their life to this, as well as in some cases losing their job. It’s not reasonable to expect people to keep sucking this up indefinitely, especially if their isn’t a definitive end-point in sight.

And in all honesty a lot of older (and thus more vulnerable) people won’t tolerate it either, taking the view that they don’t wish what could be the last years of their life to be stuck inside looking at four walls.

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I agree with this post. My wife's grandmother has been stuck in one room in a care home since mid March and has seen nobody but staff. There is no end in sight yet and I guess there are thousands in this situation. Desperate

I keep repeating this but in the past week I've been in France, croatia and UK. The uk is only place I've seen with social distancing.
In france where I am at the moment there are no restrictions apart from masks on public transport and most shops. I've had a lovely meal tonight with no ordering from an app, no disposable menu, I didn't give my name and the table next to us was about 30cm away.

Class 33 said:

The numbers of deaths on a weekly basis are really coming down. Week by week they are coming down! I know that the number of new cases seems to be flatlining at the moment, which is a bit concerning and disappointing. But even though the number of new cases doesn't really seem to be coming down at the moment, the number of deaths ARE still continuing to fall week by week. Which proves that of those people who become infected with Coronavirus, a much lesser percent of those people are dieing from it now.

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Not necessarily - it depends how long people are taking to die after becoming infected.

My little boy met up with his best friend today (he’s 6). He hasn’t seen her since 16th March. They have a very close, special friendship and this has been extremely difficult for both of them. They couldn’t cope with video calls and both sets of parents have dealt with questions such as “what if they don’t remember me? What If they’ve got used to life without me?” My son has really struggled with being apart from her.

We sent my son back to school but as we knew they would split him and her up into seperate bubbles (they are pretty tactile towards each other) she didn’t send her daughter back. How the hell do you explain to a 6 year old that he’s back to being lonely and apart now after 6 wonderful weeks of not much socially distant play?

Well, we didn’t. Throughout all of this, all they have wanted to do is play and hug and that’s what they’ve done today. Once we as a family made the desision that we wernt going to inflict this on the kids anymore I felt a weight had been lifted.

A light has gone back on in my sons eyes today and it’s a light that as his mum, I will never let go back out

Edited to add that us adults are still following it. But if us as parents did off our own back to our kids what the government have done then those children would be removed from our care quicker than we could imagine

Huntergreed said:

What annoys me about Whitty and the members of SAGE is they speak like they’re making the decisions.

When Whitty says social distancing “will stay for some time”, what he really means is “from a purely medical perspective, disregarding the economy completely, I advise you to keep social distancing for some time”, but he doesn’t put it like this, he acts like he’s the one who makes the decisions.

If we don’t scrap it in November, the Christmas shopping season, and the thousands of businesses which benefit from or even rely on it won’t happen, and the economic implications will be very ruinous indeed.

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What impact on the economy is having thousands of people who are permanently affected by Covid? We've got fit and healthy people who contracted the virus still unable to walk up stairs months after they initially got Covid, with no indication if they will ever overcome the virus. What impact will that have on the NHS? On Government benefits? On tax income?

History has taught us that if you reopen economies too early during pandemics you get second waves. Just look at the USA right now. People and businesses must adapt. Things cannot go back to normal.

SuperNova said:

History has taught us that if you reopen economies too early during pandemics you get second waves.

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What history would that be? I don't know of any pandemics in history where economies have been closed down to such a drastic degree so it's a little difficult to judge the effects of reopening too early. What you will get if you reopen too late is massive, massive economic and social problems and these are already beginning to manifest themselves.

holl1984 said:

My little boy met up with his best friend today (he’s 6). He hasn’t seen her since 16th March. They have a very close, special friendship and this has been extremely difficult for both of them. They couldn’t cope with video calls and both sets of parents have dealt with questions such as “what if they don’t remember me? What If they’ve got used to life without me?” My son has really struggled with being apart from her.

We sent my son back to school but as we knew they would split him and her up into seperate bubbles (they are pretty tactile towards each other) she didn’t send her daughter back. How the hell do you explain to a 6 year old that he’s back to being lonely and apart now after 6 wonderful weeks of not much socially distant play?

Well, we didn’t. Throughout all of this, all they have wanted to do is play and hug and that’s what they’ve done today. Once we as a family made the desision that we wernt going to inflict this on the kids anymore I felt a weight had been lifted.

A light has gone back on in my sons eyes today and it’s a light that as his mum, I will never let go back out

Edited to add that us adults are still following it. But if us as parents did off our own back to our kids what the government have done then those children would be removed from our care quicker than we could imagine

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I fully respect and admire your decision here. From an outside perspective it was absolutely the right thing to do. You're still following guidelines but your 6 year old son is so incredibly unlikely to contract covid, even with this interaction, and even less likely to be impacted in a serious way. It is my belief (and is what I believe you're insinuating) that it would actually be more damaging to him and his development to continue to follow these restrictions than to at least accept a bit of normality back.

SuperNova said:

What impact on the economy is having thousands of people who are permanently affected by Covid? We've got fit and healthy people who contracted the virus still unable to walk up stairs months after they initially got Covid, with no indication if they will ever overcome the virus. What impact will that have on the NHS? On Government benefits? On tax income?

History has taught us that if you reopen economies too early during pandemics you get second waves. Just look at the USA right now. People and businesses must adapt. Things cannot go back to normal.

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While I accept your point I would suggest that these are anomalies rather than a trend - the overwhelming majority of people recover very quickly from the disease (or one-two weeks at the most). I reject the suggestion that this would have a bigger impact on the economy than remaining closed. Do I have evidence? No, but then you haven't provided any either. I've looked, and I can't find any to support either side. Things must go back to normal and not in two years time - granted, not all at once but that's what we're doing - taking small steps in the right direction. The USA is out of control because they never brought it down in the first place.

Also, businesses have adapted and a lot of them have found that they cannot survive in this way for more than a few months at the very most, especially without government support - which we all know realistically cannot continue. Think back to this (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/26/restaurants-stare-into-social-distancing-abyss) which, before the 1m+ rule was announced, followed Whitty's original comment that 2 metre distancing will be in place until next year at the very least. The key point:

Usher, who has six restaurants in the north-west, agreed: “We have done forecasts on opening with just 50% of the pre-Covid trade. We’d survive for three months and then go bust.”

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Adapting to the 1 metre rule will help these businesses. But even then, it is not enough for them to turn the level of profits that are needed.

BJames said:

I fully respect and admire your decision here. From an outside perspective it was absolutely the right thing to do. You're still following guidelines but your 6 year old son is so incredibly unlikely to contract covid, even with this interaction, and even less likely to be impacted in a serious way. It is my belief (and is what I believe you're insinuating) that it would actually be more damaging to him and his development to continue to follow these restrictions than to at least accept a bit of normality back.

While I accept your point I would suggest that these are anomalies rather than a trend - the overwhelming majority of people recover very quickly from the disease (or one-two weeks at the most). I reject the suggestion that this would have a bigger impact on the economy than remaining closed. Do I have evidence? No, but then you haven't provided any either. I've looked, and I can't find any to support either side. Things must go back to normal and not in two years time - granted, not all at once but that's what we're doing - taking small steps in the right direction. The USA is out of control because they never brought it down in the first place.

Also, businesses have adapted and a lot of them have found that they cannot survive in this way for more than a few months at the very most, especially without government support - which we all know realistically cannot continue. Think back to this (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/26/restaurants-stare-into-social-distancing-abyss) which, before the 1m+ rule was announced, followed Whitty's original comment that 2 metre distancing will be in place until next year at the very least. The key point:

Adapting to the 1 metre rule will help these businesses. But even then, it is not enough for them to turn the level of profits that are needed.

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I mean there's plenty of evidence out there - I've read a few case studies this week and a doctor friend is also increasingly worried about the long-term impact from what he's seen RE Covid recovery. Just one example on these shores (plenty more abroad): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-53368768

SuperNova said:

I mean there's plenty of evidence out there - I've read a few case studies this week and a doctor friend is also increasingly worried about the long-term impact from what he's seen RE Covid recovery. Just one example on these shores (plenty more abroad): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-53368768

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Although that article doesn't exactly show that thousands and thousands of people are at risk of having covid for an extremely long period of time. It's worrying, definitely, but I would stand by the fact that there is no evidence that this will cause a bigger impact on the future economy than remaining closed now. As I said in the last post businesses have adapted and are finding they can't survive - let too many businesses go under and we won't have an economy to go back to. There's no other option as far as I can see other than to start the drive to reopen the economy. Clearly the government agree, with the eat out to help out scheme.

SuperNova said:

I mean there's plenty of evidence out there - I've read a few case studies this week and a doctor friend is also increasingly worried about the long-term impact from what he's seen RE Covid recovery. Just one example on these shores (plenty more abroad): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-53368768

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Has anyone actually done any study on how many people with Covid-19 end up suffering from chronic fatigue or other long term symptoms? I have read quite of reports of this happening, but I have not seen anywhere how common it actually is. If 1 in 10 of those who recover have long term symptoms, then the implications are very different than if 1 in 1000 have them.

I would imagine that before much longer, the bodies which represent the retail sector will be pressing for relaxations of this stuff because at present, it means many shops have to employ people all day to do basically nothing apart from greeting people, supervising queues, manning 'sanitation stations' etc.
Aldi has introduced a very ingenious traffic light system of entry whereby the green light for entry only shows when someone leaves, thereby obviating the need for a door person. I presume that from next Saturday the doors will need to be manned again to police mask wearing.

Such nonsense must be a complete anathema to the business world, expending wages on extra employees who will be totally unproductive all day long, particularly the shops which have been identified as being at high risk of insolvency.

Mugby said:

I would imagine that before much longer, the bodies which represent the retail sector will be pressing for relaxations of this stuff because at present, it means many shops have to employ people all day to do basically nothing apart from greeting people, supervising queues, manning 'sanitation stations' etc.
Aldi has introduced a very ingenious traffic light system of entry whereby the green light for entry only shows when someone leaves, thereby obviating the need for a door person. I presume that from next Saturday the doors will need to be manned again to police mask wearing.

Such nonsense must be a complete anathema to the business world, expending wages on extra employees who will be totally unproductive all day long, particularly the shops which have been identified as being at high risk of insolvency.

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Interestingly my local Aldi which has the traffic lights installed has stopped using them already and is back to manned doors. A few stores with multiple entrances and exits have chosen to have one entrance and one exit, but both must be manned, usually using one member of staff on the entrance regulating and security at the exit (or another staff member if no security present).

SuperNova said:

What impact on the economy is having thousands of people who are permanently affected by Covid? We've got fit and healthy people who contracted the virus still unable to walk up stairs months after they initially got Covid, with no indication if they will ever overcome the virus.

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While I agree that such 'edge cases' should not be ignored, what percentage of Covid survivors under the
age of 70 have been afflicted in that way? My guess is that it must be less than 1%, but it seems higher
than that because every example gets reported on news sites / social media, ironically because of their rarity!

History has taught us that if you reopen economies too early during pandemics you get second waves. Just look at the USA right now.

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For clarification, the badly affected US states (Arizona/Texas/Florida/etc.) are actually experiencing their first waves;
they mistakenly thought they had dodged the bullet and had escaped the carnage that affected New York a couple of
months ago, but this virus is nothing if not persistent! In reality, the only way to avoid a first wave altogether is to do
what New Zealand did and shut borders and introduce a mandatory, strictly enforced quarantine, but that is simply
not possible to do between the 50 US states(nor between England, Scotland and Wales, either!)

People and businesses must adapt. Things cannot go back to normal.

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Ever????






MARK

SuperNova said:

I mean there's plenty of evidence out there - I've read a few case studies this week and a doctor friend is also increasingly worried about the long-term impact from what he's seen RE Covid recovery. Just one example on these shores (plenty more abroad): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-53368768

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This can happens with 'flu too, but that doesn't make the news.

And I'll counteract your argument with this:
https://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/lockdown-contributed-to-suicides-of-three-teenagers-228000/

Three teenagers in Kent are said to have taken their own lives while suffering the psychological effects of lockdown, a clinical commissioning group has said.

The mental strain of coronavirus restrictions was thought to be a contributory factor in the suicides of the three youngsters. Lockdown is said to be exacerbating existing mental health issues in young people.

A report to the Kent and Medway CCG revealed there had been seven attempts by children aged between 13 and 17 to take their own lives between March and May this year. Sadly, three of them resulted in deaths.

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But, again, mental health issues are less 'newsworthy' and suicides aren't going to make the national news.

The media are absolutely desperate to get their hands on Covid-19 scare stories.

For the average fit and healthy person, there are far greater risks in life than the risks associated with catching this virus.

The livelihoods and mental health of millions of people has been put at risk.

SuperNova said:

History has taught us that if you reopen economies too early during pandemics you get second waves. Just look at the USA right now.

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Ah, that story again.

https://fullfact.org/online/spanish-flu-second-wave-quarantine/

Claim
A post claims that the 1918 influenza bout had a deadly second wave after quarantine restrictions were lifted.

Conclusion
It is true the second wave of the pandemic was the most deadly, but it did not happen due to lifting of quarantine.

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By the way, the USA are not experiencing a second wave; it's still the first wave.

yorkie said:

Ah, that story again.

https://fullfact.org/online/spanish-flu-second-wave-quarantine/
By the way, the USA are not experiencing a second wave; it's still the first wave.

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The Spanish Flu is often used as evidence that a deadlier second wave is inevitable, even though the people using it often refute any suggestion that Covid-19 is anything like Influenza. That in itself should tell us all we need to know!

But what annoys me about this is that people using this argument completely ignore what was going on in 1918. The world had just seen the most devastating war mankind had ever witnessed to that moment. Millions of people were dead, entire countries literally ripped apart, healthcare systems were ravaged and overwhelmed, there was devastating poverty, and most of all the movement of vast number of soldiers around the globe. And these movements didn't take part in a few weeks, it took months in often appalling conditions which would have been the perfect breeding ground for any virus, and indeed was. The notion that the second wave happened just because of some big jolly up is ridiculous and frankly disrespectful to what so many of millions of people were going through during the post-war months and years.

Class 33 said:

The longer this "Social distancing" nonsense goes on for, the more and more damage it will continue to do to the UK economy! There's more and more people being made redundant every week, more and more businesses having to close down, and if you're one of the unlucky and growing number of people who are unemployed then it's close to ZERO chance of finding another job. That's just a shortened comment on all the problems this ongoing social distance will cause. This madness can not go on much longer!

However, answering the question of the thread. From what I've seen on the news and the government daily briefings, it appears the government has no plans to scrap social distancing any time soon! As you will be aware, it's been announced that schools will return in September with no social distancing, but with complications to how they will operate, including "bubbles" and staggered break and lunch times, etc. So it's obvious that the government has no plans to scrap social distancing nationwide in September or sometime soon after that. The gist I get is that they intend to continue with this social distancing nonsense until at least NEXT SUMMER!!! Chris Whitty has said a number of times "Social distancing is here to stay now.". God forbid if that happens. Someone else in government(can't remember who) has said "Social distancing is here for many many months now.". And I think it will indeed be many many months that we'll have to put up with this nonsense and the catastrophic effects it will have on the economy and our lives.

What do you think about this?

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If someone sneezed towards you with (possibly covid 19 infected) droplets would you prefer to be 2m away or 1 m away or immediately next to you and would you prefer if they wore a face covering?

SuperNova said:

What impact on the economy is having thousands of people who are permanently affected by Covid? We've got fit and healthy people who contracted the virus still unable to walk up stairs months after they initially got Covid, with no indication if they will ever overcome the virus. What impact will that have on the NHS? On Government benefits? On tax income?

History has taught us that if you reopen economies too early during pandemics you get second waves. Just look at the USA right now. People and businesses must adapt. Things cannot go back to normal.

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LondonJohn said:

If someone sneezed towards you with (possibly covid 19 infected) droplets would you prefer to be 2m away or 1 m away or immediately next to you and would you prefer if they wore a face covering?

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Handkerchief (or crook of elbow) would do