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

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Class 33

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OK today's stats have just been posted. Just one death today in the UK, just ONE! This just about as near to ZERO deaths today as you can possibly get! Though unfortunately today's number of new cases today has shot up to 1715. Boris and the cabinet will take more notice of that, rather than just the ONE death today. I'm concerned that if the numbers of new cases shoots up to an average of over 1500 per day, they may take urgent nationwide action on that. But I can't see them scrapping social distancing anytime soon whilst the balance of deaths and cases is like this.
 
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Cowley

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I know it’s a bit difficult at times to keep from straying into the territory of other threads, but could we keep the face mask/covering conversation in its own one from here please everyone:


Thanks. :)
 

trebor79

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I’ve never been to any kind of protest in my life, but I’m rapidly approaching the point where I would attend something like this if it was held in the UK.
Me too. I wouldn't attend one with David Icke or any other conspiracy theorists headlining though.
OK today's stats have just been posted. Just one death today in the UK, just ONE! This just about as near to ZERO deaths today as you can possibly get! Though unfortunately today's number of new cases today has shot up to 1715. Boris and the cabinet will take more notice of that, rather than just the ONE death today. I'm concerned that if the numbers of new cases shoots up to an average of over 1500 per day, they may take urgent nationwide action on that. But I can't see them scrapping social distancing anytime soon whilst the balance of deaths and cases is like this.
I hope they are looking at hospital admissions and numbers of people in hospital. Both of these numbers have been static for weeks, suggesting the actual level of infection in the community is static - the ONS figures in Friday backed this up.

I see the UCU has made hperbolic claims today. How universities could be "the care homes of the second wave" is beyond me. They clearly are just looking to make political capital here:
Academics' union UCU said more than a million students moving around the country was "a recipe for disaster".
Unless universities have millions of frail staff and students in the last few months of their lives, with multiple chronic health problems and all sat permanently in the same room watching daytime TV? Things must have changed since my day.
 
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NorthOxonian

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Me too. I wouldn't attend one with David Icke or any other conspiracy theorists headlining though.

I hope they are looking at hospital admissions and numbers of people in hospital. Both of these numbers have been static for weeks, suggesting the actual level of infection in the community is static - the ONS figures in Friday backed this up.

I see the UCU has made hperbolic claims today. How universities could be "the care homes of the second wave" is beyond me. They clearly are just looking to make political capital here:
Unless universities have millions of frail staff and students in the last few months of their lives, with multiple chronic health problems and all sat permanently in the same room watching daytime TV? Things must have changed since my day.

In fairness, that point is pretty similar, especially if we're not going to be allowed to have a social life for the next year!
 

MikeWM

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I see there has been some discussion of the protest in London on Saturday, but I haven't seen mentioned yet that Piers Corbyn was arrested and fined £10,000 for being the 'organiser' of the protest.

Whatever your opinion of Mr Corbyn, this is simply outrageous. We don't live in a free country if you can't peacefully lawfully protest against things you don't agree with.
 

AM9

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I see there has been some discussion of the protest in London on Saturday, but I haven't seen mentioned yet that Piers Corbyn was arrested and fined £10,000 for being the 'organiser' of the protest.

Whatever your opinion of Mr Corbyn, this is simply outrageous. We don't live in a free country if you can't peacefully lawfully protest against things you don't agree with.
He was arrested for organising a large gathering of people in contravention of the law that has been made very clear over the last few days. Whether you or I agree with the purpose of the gathering is irrelevant, he broke the law plain and simple. Do the crime, pay the fine.
It is just hypocrisy to suggest otherwise.
 

Justin Smith

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He was arrested for organising a large gathering of people in contravention of the law that has been made very clear over the last few days. Whether you or I agree with the purpose of the gathering is irrelevant, he broke the law plain and simple. Do the crime, pay the fine.
It is just hypocrisy to suggest otherwise.

How many of the organisers of the BLM protests were arrested ?
 

Huntergreed

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How many of the organisers of the BLM protests were arrested ?
Legally speaking, it wasn’t illegal then. The fines only started on (I think) Friday for gatherings over I think 30.

It does show just how much of a police state we’ve become however, we need to be stopping this going too much further.
 

Justin Smith

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I've got a question, or more accurately two questions (with a follow up question), for those on here who think we should be continuing with all this social distancing and face masks and intermittent local lockdowns.

1 - If no vaccine or effective drug treatment is found for Covid, how long do you think we should keep up all these restrictions on our lives ?
No crowds, so, for example, no football or theatre.
Quarantine enforcement, so (effectively) no foreign holidays.
Face masks, which nobody likes even if many are prepared to wear them at the moment.
How long ?
Months ?
Years ?
Forever ?

2 - Since there will definitely not be majority support in the country for (2 ) or (3), how do you think we should continue to force the majority to do what the minority think we should do ?

Follow up question, in the same vein, how long do you think we should wait for a vaccine (whilst ruining our lives with all this social distancing and face masks) ?
 

Huntergreed

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I've got a question, or more accurately two questions (with a follow up question), for those on here who think we should be continuing with all this social distancing and face masks and intermittent local lockdowns.

1 - If no vaccine or effective drug treatment is found for Covid, how long do you think we should keep up all these restrictions on our lives ?
No crowds, so, for example, no football or theatre.
Quarantine enforcement, so (effectively) no foreign holidays.
Face masks, which nobody likes even if many are prepared to wear them at the moment.
How long ?
Months ?
Years ?
Forever ?

2 - Since there will definitely not be majority support in the country for (2 ) or (3), how do you think we should continue to force the majority to do what the minority think we should do ?

Follow up question, in the same vein, how long do you think we should wait for a vaccine (whilst ruining our lives with all this social distancing and face masks) ?
Precisely; well put! This is exactly what the issue is, there’s no end in sight.

It’s always dangerous to base a pandemic strategy on being able to find a vaccine, but that’s what’s happened here, meaning that for the meantime they’ve dug themselves into a hole. Support for restrictions is absolutely falling, and it’ll only continue to do so as things drag on more.
 

AM9

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I've got a question, or more accurately two questions (with a follow up question), for those on here who think we should be continuing with all this social distancing and face masks and intermittent local lockdowns.

1 - If no vaccine or effective drug treatment is found for Covid, how long do you think we should keep up all these restrictions on our lives ?
No crowds, so, for example, no football or theatre.
Quarantine enforcement, so (effectively) no foreign holidays.
Face masks, which nobody likes even if many are prepared to wear them at the moment.
How long ?
Months ?
Years ?
Forever ?

2 - Since there will definitely not be majority support in the country for (2 ) or (3), how do you think we should continue to force the majority to do what the minority think we should do ?

Follow up question, in the same vein, how long do you think we should wait for a vaccine (whilst ruining our lives with all this social distancing and face masks) ?
Several posts in this thread have already answered your questions, (the first few: #5,#10,#20,#21,#24....) and there is a common them in the namely the availability and deployment od a vaccine that has been proven to work. Unfortunately, although key to this thread, post #26 attempted to remove the topic of vaccines.
So, in answer to your post, nobody knows the answer to question 1 because the only posts that seriously attempt to put timescales on the end dates refer to the key subject of vaccine deployment, i.e. your question 2.
 
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talldave

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Legally speaking, it wasn’t illegal then. The fines only started on (I think) Friday for gatherings over I think 30.

It does show just how much of a police state we’ve become however, we need to be stopping this going too much further.
Such a coincidence, new fines introduced the day before a large protest. Sadly, some BTP are loving their new powers to threaten and bully passengers.
 

Scrotnig

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Legally speaking, it wasn’t illegal then. The fines only started on (I think) Friday for gatherings over I think 30.

It does show just how much of a police state we’ve become however, we need to be stopping this going too much further.
That's ok. There's sure to be other large BLM gatherings in the near future. I look forward to the organisers of those being arrested as well.
 

DB

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I see there has been some discussion of the protest in London on Saturday, but I haven't seen mentioned yet that Piers Corbyn was arrested and fined £10,000 for being the 'organiser' of the protest.

Whatever your opinion of Mr Corbyn, this is simply outrageous. We don't live in a free country if you can't peacefully lawfully protest against things you don't agree with.

It was on radio 3 news this morning. Absolutely appalling, and a demonstration of the sort of authoritarian bullying we can now expect from the government.

They didn't try to stop the protest, which casts severe doubt on any claims that it's about infection control, but they have been quick to make an example of him, presumably because they want to disuade others and think there won't be much public support for Mr Corbyn. Let's see what happens if they are stupid enough to try prosecuting the organisers of the next BLM protest!
 

takno

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It was on radio 3 news this morning. Absolutely appalling, and a demonstration of the sort of authoritarian bullying we can now expect from the government.

They didn't try to stop the protest, which casts severe doubt on any claims that it's about infection control, but they have been quick to make an example of him, presumably because they want to disuade others and think there won't be much public support for Mr Corbyn. Let's see what happens if they are stupid enough to try it with a BLM protest!
I get the impression that the police did it fully intending it to be overturned in the courts. Sometimes when they are handed slightly uncomfortable powers it's better to get the limits tested by a court, rather than be criticised for declining to use them, or not use them and allow them to have a chilling effect on how people plan.

It's certainly better for the police if political protests have clearly-defined leaders and management rather than all turning into Extinction Rebellion style guerilla protests
 

island

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It was on radio 3 news this morning. Absolutely appalling, and a demonstration of the sort of authoritarian bullying we can now expect from the government.

They didn't try to stop the protest, which casts severe doubt on any claims that it's about infection control, but they have been quick to make an example of him, presumably because they want to disuade others and think there won't be much public support for Mr Corbyn. Let's see what happens if they are stupid enough to try prosecuting the organisers of the next BLM protest!
I don’t think they could have stopped the protest. They certainly couldn’t ticket, let alone arrest, every attendee, and any use of force would rapidly have escalated out of hand.
 

Smidster

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I've got a question, or more accurately two questions (with a follow up question), for those on here who think we should be continuing with all this social distancing and face masks and intermittent local lockdowns.

1 - If no vaccine or effective drug treatment is found for Covid, how long do you think we should keep up all these restrictions on our lives ?
No crowds, so, for example, no football or theatre.
Quarantine enforcement, so (effectively) no foreign holidays.
Face masks, which nobody likes even if many are prepared to wear them at the moment.
How long ?
Months ?
Years ?
Forever ?

2 - Since there will definitely not be majority support in the country for (2 ) or (3), how do you think we should continue to force the majority to do what the minority think we should do ?

Follow up question, in the same vein, how long do you think we should wait for a vaccine (whilst ruining our lives with all this social distancing and face masks) ?

We have been through this debate before but the answer is that restrictions will remain until the Virus is no longer considered a serious risk to public health.

Now there are different ways to do that - the optimal is that you have a vaccine deployed at scale and hopefully over the next month or two we will know if the Oxford trial has been successful.

Secondly you might find a really effective treatment or therapeutic which neuters the virus.

Finally we could either reach herd immunity or the virus mutates in a way that makes it significantly weaker.

If I had to bet on it I would probably be looking at sometime next Spring, after the threat of winter, for all restrictions to be lifted

Now that doesn't mean I am "happy" about it or enjoy wearing a mask but think the public generally want the Government to be cautious.
 
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Justin Smith

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This graphic might be if interest.
People's adherence to the lockdown actually started easing off within a few weeks but it is not easily quantifiable (other than traffic density, does anyone know where to get those stats ?). I worked right through this Covid episode (so was "out and about") and I can tell you for certain that people started getting less strict about the lockdown inside 3 or 4 weeks, slowly at first, then more widely as time went on.

NOTE I am not saying the fact the lockdown started going was the reason the infection date and death toll started dropping, I'm simply saying I don't think they were actually doing much to keep it down.

Graphs of the falling infection rate and death rate as the lockdown is officially eased off, no increase despite the "experts" telling us, at every stage, there could / would be :

UK timeline for Covid restrictions = dubious benefit 700W L1 PNG.png
 

Richard Scott

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Now that doesn't mean I am "happy" about it or enjoy wearing a mask but think the public generally want the Government to be cautious.

Who are these people then? Almost everyone I know is fed up with the whole thing and wants to get on with life. I've not been surveyed and nor has anyone I know so how do we know this? Just going by social media posts? May I suggest those that want to be cautious have next to no idea about severity of, or apparent lack of, this virus and are unable to weigh up advantages/disadvantages to restrictions? Unless government is going to a proper survey then can do without blanket statements about what the public wants.
 
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MikeWM

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He was arrested for organising a large gathering of people in contravention of the law that has been made very clear over the last few days. Whether you or I agree with the purpose of the gathering is irrelevant, he broke the law plain and simple. Do the crime, pay the fine.
It is just hypocrisy to suggest otherwise.

I agree that there is indeed such a law in place.

My point is that having such a law, and it being used, is utterly chilling in a so-called 'free' society.

(To be fair, now that his arrest and fine have become more widely publicised, there do seem to be a decent number of people pointing out that this makes them very uncomfortable. I hope that increases).
 

Justin Smith

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We have been through this debate before but the answer is that restrictions will remain until the Virus is no longer considered a serious risk to public health.

Now there are different ways to do that - the optimal is that you have a vaccine deployed at scale and hopefully over the next month or two we will know if the Oxford trial has been successful.

Secondly you might find a really effective treatment or therapeutic which neuters the virus.

Finally we could either reach herd immunity or the virus mutates in a way that makes it significantly weaker.

If I had to bet on it I would probably be looking at sometime next Spring, after the threat of winter, for all restrictions to be lifted

Now that doesn't mean I am "happy" about it or enjoy wearing a mask but think the public generally want the Government to be cautious.

What does that mean, objectively speaking ?
 

takno

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He was arrested for organising a large gathering of people in contravention of the law that has been made very clear over the last few days. Whether you or I agree with the purpose of the gathering is irrelevant, he broke the law plain and simple. Do the crime, pay the fine.
It is just hypocrisy to suggest otherwise.
As far as I can see from other court actions, the legislation explicitly doesn't apply to political gatherings, so the purpose of the gathering is not irrelevant at all.

Frankly I find the idea that the police can just issue fines up to 10k without the prior intervention of a court absolutely appalling, and pointless since it's almost always going to end up in court where it will be reduced massively. I'm glad that there's an existing limit for about 400 quid for such things in Scotland.
 

Justin Smith

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He was arrested for organising a large gathering of people in contravention of the law that has been made very clear over the last few days. Whether you or I agree with the purpose of the gathering is irrelevant, he broke the law plain and simple. Do the crime, pay the fine.
It is just hypocrisy to suggest otherwise.

But the point is, if it'd been a BLM protest Or some other Politically Correct* one (like gay rights or similar) would the organiser have been prosecuted ? I think not.
I do know for a fact that the demo would have been on the BBC news......

* Gordon Bennet I sound like I read the soddin' Express....One of the things that is most depressing about this Covid episode is that I am feeling I have more and more in common with right wingers, and I'm not happy about it.
When can we get back to normal politics, and, in fact life. Are we permanently to live in post rational world ?
 

takno

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But the point is, if it'd been a BLM protest Or some other Politically Correct* one (like gay rights or similar) would the organiser have been prosecuted ? I think not.
I do know for a fact that the demo would have been on the BBC news......

* Gordon Bennet I sound like I read the soddin' Express....One of the things that is most depressing about this Covid episode is that I am feeling I have more and more in common with right wingers, and I'm not happy about it.
When can we get back to normal politics, and, in fact life. Are we permanently to live in post rational world ?
I think the answer is that they probably would have gone after the first political protest that came along, and indeed according to this article they did try to go after a more "politically correct" cause earlier in the week, but because they did it before the event it was sorted in court before it got to the papers.
 

MikeWM

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* Gordon Bennet I sound like I read the soddin' Express....One of the things that is most depressing about this Covid episode is that I am feeling I have more and more in common with right wingers, and I'm not happy about it.
When can we get back to normal politics, and, in fact life. Are we permanently to live in post rational world ?

I know the feeling - I seem to have moved from a Corbyn-supporting socialist to 'somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan', in the space of six months. I know you're 'supposed' to move rightwards as you get older, but not this quickly!
 

DB

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I know the feeling - I seem to have moved from a Corbyn-supporting socialist to 'somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan', in the space of six months. I know you're 'supposed' to move rightwards as you get older, but not this quickly!

Indee, same here. I find that the Telegraph is now being more sensible on this issue than the Guardian, and even some of what Trump says is logical!
 

Mag_seven

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Indee, same here. I find that the Telegraph is now being more sensible on this issue than the Guardian, and even some of what Trump says is logical!


I'm worried that I now find myself agreeing with right wing commentators such as Peter Hitchens. Normally I wouldn't go near any of his stuff!
 

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I was really hoping that there wouldn't be any political polarisation over covid, but it does seem that the right of centre are starting to come to terms with the fact we can't hide behind the sofa, whereas more left leaning commentators are still accusing people of "killing granny". At least that's what it feels like, especially on social media.
 

DB

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I was really hoping that there wouldn't be any political polarisation over covid, but it does seem that the right of centre are starting to come to terms with the fact we can't hide behind the sofa, whereas more left leaning commentators are still accusing people of "killing granny". At least that's what it feels like, especially on social media.

It also seems to be the way it's gone in the US from the beginning- i.e. the left were more in favour of restrictions.
 
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