Should our goverment, be opening up the UK ?

SeaVixon

With deaths from Covid 19 still high, and more people being taken ill every day ,both in care homes, and in the north of England, should our government continue on it's present course ? or should we follow the example of the other 3 nations that make up the UK .?

Personally I have mixed feelings regarding the opening up of schools ,but it has to happen sooner or later, as it's bad for our kids to be at home for to long ,and missing out on their education ,but I can also see, why some mums are divided over this especially those who live up north .

Personally I understand the economic argument for opening up the UK ,and agree with the government that we have to get industry moving again soon if we don't then a recession will follow the lockdown , and that would mean many people will lose their jobs and their home's ,and businesses will fail ,that would lead to homeless familie's, and indebted people , and that could over time be worse than the virus , plus hospital waiting lists will get longer.

So what do you think the government should do ? should England do what the rest of the UK wants, and incur more debt by staying closed ? Or should England open up as this government wants to do?

.Either way this government losses ,as it will be blamed either way for what happens , and in my view, it will have to introduce strict financial measures once the country gets back to normal , weather or not we have open up and monitored the spread of the virus , or ,we have stay closed until a vaccine can be found in order to avoid unnecessary risk, to our children, the old, and the sick .

To be honest I'M glad I don't have to make that decission , as it seems to me ,which ever way the government goes' it will have to carry the blame for the aftermath,no matter which way it goes' .

What do the rest of you think the government should do ?.

Mike1

Initially I was not going to respond to this post, indeed I had turned my laptop off, as I would not want to see the forum politicised. However, having given a little thought to the issue whilst making a brew I considered that I would put down a few thoughts.

Firstly we are supposed to be the United Kingdom, I recognise, however, that various Governments have devolved some powers to the constituent Countries in a similar way that our Counties have responsibility for some aspects of governance. It is reasonable, therefore, that there are likely to be differences in the approaches of the individual constituents as they will have a better grasp of the needs of their residents. However I would have expected there to be a joint response to the pandemic rather than the blame game which is being played out on occasion. It may be worth noting that UK taxation is apportioned between the 4 Countries on a per-capita basis but that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland get a higher amount per-capita than English Councils hence they are able to offer things like free prescriptions, free parking and so forth.

Similarly the political parties should be working together rather than promoting the blame game.

The Government of 2016 should have taken action to increase levels of PPE and Ventilators following the exercise which was undertaken simulating a World-wide Pandemic. That said, individual Health Authorities were responsible for setting their own levels but seemingly failed to identify the issue or did not have the funds available.

The NHS have a central purchasing system which has a list of approved suppliers, Health Authorities are obliged to use this system often having to pay more for items than can be obtained commercially elsewhere. Part of the PPE problem was that although their are numerous manufacturers and suppliers in the UK who could have provided PPE they were not on the NHS list of suppliers so were not used.

Whether Lock Down procedures should be maintained or relaxed should surely be based on how the Pandemic is spreading. In this matter I find that the publicised daily death rate is not particularly helpful, what should be published is the number of new cases identified each day as this is the only indicator of whether the spread of the virus is declining. I am disgusted that there are a large number of people who are ignoring both the lock-down and social distancing, and as for the protests against lock-down which were held in London and elsewhere over the weekend they should be rounded up and sent off to a deserted island somewhere.

In summary, no matter what the Government does they will attract criticism from some quarters.

I am of the opinion that if I catch the virus I am at a high risk of kicking the bucket, whilst I may feel like going that way sometimes most of the time I am happy to be alive. As a result I will be staying at home alone with my cat until a proven vaccination becomes available.

SeaVixon

Hi Mike 1, thanks for responding to my post ,and I'm sorry if you felt I was being political, or trying to indulge in a political argument, I wasn't .,I just wondered what others here believed should happen next ,so thank you for your post .

Like you I'm all for a united kingdom ,but I can also see, why other counties/countries' with in the UK would want to stay in lock down , especially those in the north of England, Scotland ,and Liverpool ,they don't want to change as their R number is still above one.

I also believe all political parties should be working together for the sake of the union , but the government also needs to be scrutinised.

I also see many people breaking the rules ,for instance ,I live in a disabled peoples bungalow ,and their are many other bungalows like ours here ,yet one old couple have moved a young couple into their bungalow, then went away for two weeks ,now they are back ,and now the couple have young children with them, yet its only a small two bed bungalow ,to me, that is breaking the law ,yet the police turned up the other day and spoke to the guy, and then drove of and they remain . So what is the law now ?

I also agree with your views regarding the lock down ,but should it be open for each country or even county or city to decide what happens locally ,or should every one follow the one fits all scenario, regardless of their area's R number .

This Virus is killing many people in this country ,and mistakes have been made , but of course, we could be living in the good old USA under trump .so I suppose, I should count my blessings .

Apologies' I am aware that my punctuation and spelling is not of the best quality, I apologise if it upsets others .

Question what subjects are not allowed on this BB ? and must we stick to Arthritis matters only

Mike1

Regarding what can be posted on this site the Community Guidelines can be viewed at https://community.versusarthritis.org/discussion/51413/community-guidelines#latest

Kazza52

Hi everyone,

Opening up the UK and seeing the thousands descending on the seaside resorts over the last week putting people at risk is surely not the right thing to do. Allowing people to get in their cars to travel all over the UK, sitting on beaches with no social distance is asking for trouble. I think the Government should have allowed people to travel for exercise, say within a two/three mile radius of their home. Some people have got in their cars and driven seven hours to get to Cornwall. Southend which is approximately nine miles from my home had thousands descend on its beaches last weekend and people were on the beaches so close together (social distancing non existent). I just hope Southend Hospital does not get inundated with further cases.

Stay safe everyone.🐶

SeaVixon

Kazza52 I so agree with you ,to me it's to early ,especially when we see over 300 deaths a day ,and over 1900 new cases , across the country ,and that is less than 0.1%of the population ,but it doesn't take long for this virus to infect healthy individuals .

The government them self's have all ready stated that the R rate is between 0.7and 0.9 in the UK on average , but then they say London hasn't had any deaths for 48 hours, and that the R rate in London is much lower at 03-07 ,and yet many Londoner's are now driving many miles to get away from London, and are probably heading to higher R rated areas which is madness.

To me opening up the country as a whole is madness , So I ask my self ,why can't this government show the counties' or cities' with the highest R rating, on their web site ,so people can avoid them, but if for some reason they can't do that , then they should not open up the country so idiots can spread the virus by driving across the UK in order to get a day out .

Another stupid idea they have is that you have to quarantine your self for 2 weeks when entering the UK from abroad , but how can any one isolate them self's in an air port ,port or train station? if you don't have a car waiting out side to pick you up ?, if you don't ,then you have to use public transport in order to get to your destination .thus defeating the object of quarantining your self . and if you want to avoid quarantine just fly to Dublin first and then cross over by the ferry ,as the Irish are exempt, It's as if, this government are making it up as they go . they should either do what the Americans are doing (god help them) ,,or wait until the transmission of this virus has reduced to 50 deaths per week .