r/Glasgow Tools

Title
Author	meepmeep13
Comment	> This idea that we can just continue to shut down entire industry's at a whim when cases flare up isn't a viably strategy Why not? It's literally the strategy that was proposed from the beginning, back in the Imperial report in March that instructed the first lockdown. That modelling clearly showed the need for repeated cycles of increasing restrictions every few months, in particular in the winter season. > Are we supposed to stay in this sort of state until a vaccine arrives? ....yes? Although not just a vaccine, in the shorter term therapeutic treatments may become available that mean we can greatly restrict transmission, and of course the better we get at testing and tracing the more loose we can be with restrictions > The idea that we can eradicate it from a country like Scotland/UK is impossible. There is no eradication plan, but you're talking about it like there is a continuum of zero infections, to some infections, to some more infections, to lots of infections. It doesn't work like that. If R and prevalence get beyond a certain point, we go to widespread infection in a matter of weeks. At the moment we are facing prevalence being higher than in March within 3 weeks. There is no 'balanced' position like you suggest- either infection is under control or it is not, and sadly the position we have to be in to keep infection under control appears to be stricter than we might have hoped these past months. Fundamentally, hospitality = socialising = people in close proximity = infections. Yes, the impacts on that sector of the economy are awful, but that's a straightforward brutal reality of the situation we are in. Hospitality - as we know it - is fundamentally incompatible to a world with CV19 and no vaccine, or at least until we manage to get a far far more active test and trace system running. To my mind, the clear thing we should be doing is helping hospitality businesses to reconfigure to more takeaways/home deliveries etc, and helping employees to retrain to work in other sectors, recognising that this could go on for a long, long time. > Or you know, how about actually enforcing the restrictions we currently have? The vast majority of new infections are in peoples homes. What do you actually propose for this? People live together, there's not much we can do about that. (note that Belgium and Germany are currently also closing pubs and restaurants as of today)
Reddit Link	https://www.reddit.com/r/glasgow/comments/j6rp0c/pubs_and_restaurants_in_central_scotland_to_close/g80lyt9/
Created	Wed 7th Oct 2020 5:31pm
Status	normal ()

> This idea that we can just continue to shut down entire industry's at a whim when cases flare up isn't a viably strategy

Why not? It's literally the strategy that was proposed from the beginning, back in the Imperial report in March that instructed the first lockdown. That modelling clearly showed the need for repeated cycles of increasing restrictions every few months, in particular in the winter season.

> Are we supposed to stay in this sort of state until a vaccine arrives?

....yes? Although not just a vaccine, in the shorter term therapeutic treatments may become available that mean we can greatly restrict transmission, and of course the better we get at testing and tracing the more loose we can be with restrictions

> The idea that we can eradicate it from a country like Scotland/UK is impossible.

There is no eradication plan, but you're talking about it like there is a continuum of zero infections, to some infections, to some more infections, to lots of infections. It doesn't work like that. If R and prevalence get beyond a certain point, we go to widespread infection in a matter of weeks. At the moment we are facing prevalence being higher than in March within 3 weeks. There is no 'balanced' position like you suggest- either infection is under control or it is not, and sadly the position we have to be in to keep infection under control appears to be stricter than we might have hoped these past months.

Fundamentally, hospitality = socialising = people in close proximity = infections. Yes, the impacts on that sector of the economy are awful, but that's a straightforward brutal reality of the situation we are in. Hospitality - as we know it - is fundamentally incompatible to a world with CV19 and no vaccine, or at least until we manage to get a far far more active test and trace system running.

To my mind, the clear thing we should be doing is helping hospitality businesses to reconfigure to more takeaways/home deliveries etc, and helping employees to retrain to work in other sectors, recognising that this could go on for a long, long time.

> Or you know, how about actually enforcing the restrictions we currently have? The vast majority of new infections are in peoples homes.

What do you actually propose for this? People live together, there's not much we can do about that.

(note that Belgium and Germany are currently also closing pubs and restaurants as of today)