[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Stop misrepresenting those of us that believe we need to change tack, jfman. My strap line makes my position clear, so even with your dodgy memory, it should be possible for you to retain the information that I have said throughout that the vulnerable should be shielded, not killed off as you keep claiming.

Lockdowns don’t work. I don’t know how many times we have to do this before you finally admit that you are wrong.

You are trying to turn the whole argument around to your warped view that people in business don’t matter. You ignore the fact that every business that fails creates more unemployment and more misery for families struggling to make ends meet.

What has working at home got to do with your argument? Clearly, this is a balancing act and I have always taken the view that working at home should be embraced more. However, we also need to be cognisant of those in the catering industry, who will go out of business if they don’t get back their custom from office workers.

There are no easy solutions to this. Hopefully there will be a vaccine, but I fear that we will be waiting for longer than some people expect.

To be as clear as I can be, what should be done is as follows:

1. Cease all lockdowns and let the virus travel freely amongst the healthy population.

2. Advise the vulnerable and elderly to shield, but do not make it mandatory. Provide guidelines to assist them and their families to understand what is being recommended. Advise against family members visiting vulnerable relations unnecessarily. Ensure that grocery delivery slots are available and ensure council staff with their volunteers are available to help those who cannot organise this for themselves.

3. Lockdown the care homes, stop agency workers working for multiple establishments and have an isolation area for new residents and those suspected of having the virus. All hospital discharges of vulnerable patients should be subject to a coronavirus test.

4. Sporting events should be re-opened and all restrictions on weddings, funerals, pubs, restaurants and the like relaxed.

5. Get the NHS and dental surgeries back to normal ASAP, by resuming the services that have ceased. The deaths and sheer misery that have been caused by closing down these services is totally unacceptable.

If this is done properly, the COVID deaths we can expect this winter should be no more than we would normally expect in from flu in a year. And that, my good man, is unavoidable.

How would you lockdown a care home? Consider that staff have to be able to enter the care home to look after residents. Relaxing the lockdown creates greater risk of staff contracting the virus, if they're asymptomatic they go to work they then transmit the virus to potential multiple residents. what happens if those residents then go to hospital? potential asymptomatic or symptomatic transmission would run rife.

What you are proposing would basically bring the NHS to it's knees.