Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

[FunkyDexter]

Italy has experienced a downturn in new cases.

It turns out I was wrong on this. I believe the figure was an early day figure, not the total day. Italy's still on an exponential increase. Apologies for the miss-information.

Hopefully Trump lets the 15 day period complete in full before thinking that things can start opening back up again.

15 days?! Dude, you're looking at 12 weeks, minimum! 15 days is the period you need to fully self isolate if you actually have the virus. It's the period you, personally, need to be quarantined for. The lockdowns are about delaying the spread of the virus for the whole country, it runs into months.

I "broke home quarantine" this weekend... had to

Sounds like you were actually pretty responsible. Over here we're saying that it's fine (recommended in fact) that you get out and get some exercise, but you maintain a distance of 2m from anyone else while you do it. so things like a walk in the park or kayaking are fine.

I agree and it makes me feel conflicted about the US\world lock down strategy if it is just going to resurface again

It's important to understand that the lockdowns aren't intended to stop the virus. They're intended to slow the spread so our emergency services are better able to cope. It reduces the height of the peak. As you and Dil have identified, this will resurge in waves (or just carry on at a consistent reduced rate) until we have built up a herd immunity. That's all part of the plan though.

@NSA, I think we've handled it fairly until the last couple of days. I feel the message to stay home came at about the right time but it's increasing clear that we've left some major point of confusion and haven't enforced it the way we should.

Failing to offer concrete answers for what would happen to gig economy workers and the self employed has the potential to be disastrous (might already have been so). Seriously, I phoned up the agency on Monday to cancel my cleaner and they were trying to talk me into letting her come. I know why. Both her and the agency could end up being hung out to dry by this but, seriously, ironing my shirts is NOT a critical function.

My sister and her partner's have a small fleet of minibuses they use to do school and airport runs. Needless to say that business has collapsed so, because they still have absolutely no idea what support they're going to get, my sister has taken a temp job stacking shelves at Aldi. Just for flavour, my sister has diabetes so is in the at risk group. Failure to isolate could literally kill her but she feels she has no choice.

The debate over whether to shut construction sites is ludicrous. Sure, keep critical infrastructure projects running, but there's a house conversion still going on 5 doors down from me. That could wait.

I also think the government have shown a habit of trying to slope issues off onto the public rather than taking ownership. Telling people to not go to pubs and restaurants instead of simply saying the venues had to close meant that some stayed open longer than they should and, surprise, surprise, people went out to them. That will have cost lives.

And I don't feel there's a ready source of information where we can enquire about shady edge cases. My Rental property in Cardiff has it's Landlord safety certificate due in a week. I don't know whether I should be getting that done. I think I should (it's a potential health and safety issue) but I don't know and there doesn't seem to be anyone I can ask.

Overall I think we're getting it roughly right in the UK but we REALLY need better and more concise information. That failure is going to cost lives.

Sorry for the wall of words and Shaggy wins the alliteration prize for post 312