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Is it time to move to a more localised approach to lockdown?

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BJames

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This is disappointing but expected. The government advice falls short of the necessary requirements yet again, and without this support local lockdowns are just unworkable!
 
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PTR 444

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It's only the Press quoting it as "lockdown", and I agree, it'd just be ignored. More likely would be closures of businesses and schools which would effectively give people nothing to do but stay at home. It's much easier to close businesses and facilities (e.g. parks, pubs doing takeaway that people are gathering on the streets to drink) than to try to control what people actually do.

Expect the pubs in Loughborough, Nuneaton and Market Harborough to be twice as busy on the 4th of July then :lol:
 
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Bletchleyite

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Expect the pubs in Loughborough, Nuneaton and Market Harborough to be twice and busy on the 4th of July then :lol:

That's a downside and would spread any infection more widely - arguably for it to work properly it would have to include travel restrictions, and that's how other countries have done it.
 

PTR 444

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That's a downside and would spread any infection more widely - arguably for it to work properly it would have to include travel restrictions, and that's how other countries have done it.

Exactly, otherwise all their residents will just flock to another town and use their facilities.
 

duncanp

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I wonder if this will increase the likelihood that people will decide to travel to Loughborough or even Nottingham or Derby, where things are reopening and cases are lower?

Keeping pubs in Leicester closed will encourage people there to travel elsewhere to get a drink, and that is the last thing you want to happen. As if there aren't going to issues with Scotsmen travelling to Carlisle and Berwick on Saturday, as well as Welshmen travelling to Shrewsbury.

You should open up everything in Leicester as planned, but ask people not to travel in or out of Leicester for the next two weeks unless absolutely essential.
 

cuccir

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Local lockdowns would be more difficult in the UK than other countries. Local governement here is weak, and has been weakened during austerity: councils and polcie forces do not have the resources to enforce local lockdowns. There's also the problem that people are very unacustomed to local-level distinctions in laws here in the UK, and have little shared understanding of local: indeed I'd hazard a guess that a lot of people couldn't name you the local authority that they live in, particularly in areas with two-tier authorities. Whereas in other countries there's much stronger regional and small scale government, which means people are more ready to accept that there'll be regional differences.

Equally, when the two alternatives are national level lockdowns or allowing the virus to spread, they still seem preferable as an idea. To work, and to mitigate against people travelling to avoid them, you could imagined a two level system whereby the immediate local authority (Eg Leicester) is under the strictest lockdown, and other authorities within a certain distance (eg all East Midlands? or at least Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Warwickshire, Derby and Nottingham cities perhaps) are under a more middling level (perhaps close to what we have now, pre-July 4th).
 

duncanp

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Equally, when the two alternatives are national level lockdowns or allowing the virus to spread, they still seem preferable as an idea. To work, and to mitigate against people travelling to avoid them, you could imagined a two level system whereby the immediate local authority (Eg Leicester) is under the strictest lockdown, and other authorities within a certain distance (eg all East Midlands? or at least Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Warwickshire, Derby and Nottingham cities perhaps) are under a more middling level (perhaps close to what we have now, pre-July 4th).

The problem with any kind of regional lockdown is that you have to stop people travelling into and out fo the area,

If you lock down most of the East Midlands as suggested above, then people from Leicester may well travel as far as London, and Birmingham is within easy reach of Nottingham and Derby when it comes to going out for a drink.
 

MikeWM

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According to the Mayor of Leicester, there are more cases being found in Leicester because they are doing more testing. Apparently there is no rise in hospitalisations.

Doesn't seem to be a good way to verify this either way, and not sure why there would be more testing going on in Leicester than in other places. But seemed worth mentioning.
 

BJames

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I see Hancock's Leicester announcement has been delayed amidst possible disagreement between him and Leicester's mayor, who is reportedly against the local lockdown.

Without travel restrictions local lockdowns are pointless. I've already seen it on twitter, someone said that "If your local area is locked down, just get in a car and drive to somewhere that isn't. Cummings and the whole cabinet have already said it's fine to do that!"
 

Mitchell Hurd

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Well hopefully this will be the only local lockdown to happen in the UK - I can't see this ending well!
 
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geoffk

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What's to stop Leicester folk driving or getting a train to Derby or Nottingham, or indeed Market Harborough, to visit a pub or restaurant?
 

Scrotnig

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Just to clarify...it isn't two weeks. It's indefinite, with a review every two weeks.
 

Scrotnig

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What's to stop Leicester folk driving or getting a train to Derby or Nottingham, or indeed Market Harborough, to visit a pub or restaurant?
Non essential travel is banned again.

Effectively it's a reset back to March 23rd.
 

sharpley

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What's to stop Leicester folk driving or getting a train to Derby or Nottingham, or indeed Market Harborough, to visit a pub or restaurant?
I live in Leicester and it's literally a 10 minute walk from my house to a nearby village, which I assume wont be included (but could well be, a map of what's included would be nice)
 

Yew

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I'd be keen to see the actual statistics behind this.
 

PTR 444

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Non essential travel is banned again.

Effectively it's a reset back to March 23rd.

How will this work with trains carrying leisure travellers to/from elsewhere that have to pass through Leicester station?
 

MikeWM

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Nobody with half a braincell will ever start a business again if this kind of thing continues. Economic suicide - brought to you by the 'party of small business'!
 

Scrotnig

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Nobody with half a braincell will ever start a business again if this kind of thing continues. Economic suicide - brought to you by the 'party of small business'!
They haven't been that for a long time...party of big business these days. It will suit them if there are fewer small businesses to take trade away from the big guns.
 

Domh245

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They can't, but most people will comply, which will be enough to get the transmission rate down.

Devil's advocate, but the fact there's been an increase in numbers in Leicester and not elsewhere would suggest that compliance with current regulations/guidance has been poor there, and so relying on it being self policing may not be the best approach
 

MikeWM

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They haven't been that for a long time...party of big business these days. It will suit them if there are fewer small businesses to take trade away from the big guns.

Yep - and here they are, pushing that in the nastiest way possible, forcing them to shut their doors in an way that no sane person would ever have anticipated.
 

yorkie

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Devil's advocate, but the fact there's been an increase in numbers in Leicester and not elsewhere would suggest that compliance with current regulations/guidance has been poor there, and so relying on it being self policing may not be the best approach
Or have the transmissions occurred at factories in the area?
 

birchesgreen

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Nobody with half a braincell will ever start a business again if this kind of thing continues. Economic suicide - brought to you by the 'party of small business'!

A local business was planning to open in April, obviously that couldn't happen. The restrictions on it opening are lifted now but the would-be business owners have given up.

I don't see how any planning beyond the next few days is possible now with the spectre of local lockdowns and 2 week quarantines.
 

Bantamzen

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A local business was planning to open in April, obviously that couldn't happen. The restrictions on it opening are lifted now but the would-be business owners have given up.

I don't see how any planning beyond the next few days is possible now with the spectre of local lockdowns and 2 week quarantines.

Whilst having local "lockdowns" does carry some merit, it is true that this will make planning for businesses, transport, even health care very problematic to say the least. Now looking around at some of the data, the mean incubation period for the virus is coming in at around 5-6 days, as opposed to the more cautious outlier of 14 days adopted by the government's new policy (there have been some instances of incubation periods into 20+ days, but these seem to be the absolute exceptions rather than the norm). So what I would propose is that a 14 day "lockdown" come not only with intensive test & tracing, but also a 7 day review of that testing data to see if the lockdown can be released early if the trend is in the right direction.

What this would mean is that businesses could get back to normal operations by day +15 rather than waiting for the 14 day review, and then having to restart supply chains, prepare premises and maybe not get back into operation for several days after a 14 day reviews clears the lockdown. We need to be able to quickly respond to local spikes, which are likely to happen, but also be able to clear any additional measures quickly to minimise disruption to the local economies. Too many businesses are on the edge right now, and even short future disruptions could spell the death knell for them and tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of jobs.
 
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