Not sure if anyone was planning any trips to Wales over the next couple of weeks but it was officially announced earlier that another lockdown is happening from Friday.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/live-updates-decision-coronavirus-fire-19126437

😞

Been in Powys this last weekend*. Stopped at a pub on Saturday night and the landlady was saying that they were expecting a full lockdown come Friday and that transport companies had been told to prepare for this but the hospitality sector had heard nothing.

It will be interesting to see whether full lockdown works better than the tiered approach but sadly the flip side for one is that there’s the probability that increased numbers will become ill or die.

*low incidence area and we live in a similarly low incidence area. Very limited close contact with locals and what did take place followed current best procedures/guidance/rules.

How will help if rUK don’t do the same? Surely once the restrictions are lifted the visitors will return and the infection rate rise?

Gatherings are banned yet the kids will be back in school whilst everything is shut?

A Welsh lockdown is “urgently” needed – but it can wait until the end of the week 🤷🏻‍♂️

Political posturing at the expense of the Welsh people.
Vast areas of Wales are hardly affected by CV and should have been left out.
No idea what Drakeford is going to say when the infection rates inevitably rise again when the lockdown is eventually eased.

Surely once the restrictions are lifted the visitors will return and the infection rate rise?

The restriction on people moving between high rate areas in England and Wales will stay after the lockdown – I actually think this is a good idea.

No idea what Drakeford is going to say when the infection rates inevitably rise again when the lockdown is eventually eased.

He will, quite correctly, say that he contained the increase for two weeks.

A Welsh lockdown is “urgently” needed – but it can wait until the end of the week

Because the Govt(s) also get slated for not giving folk/business/schools etc any notice of changes. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

I believe (TiRed might confirm when he’s back from work) that the short “circuit breaker” lockdowns are intended to provide a reset to the rates, not back to zero but to a level that systems and facilities can cope. Infection rates increase again over time and you repeat the circuit breaker thus providing another reset. You end up with a saw-tooth profile of infection rates over time hopefully with the peaks being fairly constant.

In theory this is what the English 3 tier system is meant to do but at a more local level.

Of course this is very crude A/B testing and I wouldn’t like to be making those decisions but it’s what Drakeford and other leaders were elected to do and are paid to do.

Looking at the figures, Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion, Powys and Gwynedd could stay on “alert” while the rest of Wales are under lockdown. Sort of a mid-way strategy if you like.

As for notice – read the first paragraph of my first reply on this thread, businesses have been given very strong indication that this was going to happen so they had time to prepare. Big integrated systems like transport can’t just be stopped on a whim, workers have to get back home, equipment safely shut down, etc.

…and then what?
Edit: it seems very harsh to penalise everyone when the vast majority of the infections are in the South and NE.

it seems very harsh to penalise everyone when the vast majority of the infections are in the South and NE.

It is much easier for a country to all follow the same rule and also stops all the “this is not fair” bullshit that we have seen with areas going into tier 3.
Hospitals are already filling back up so breaks in infection rises need to be put in to give people the best chance of getting treatment when they became seriously ill.

Yep – meant to be going on Monday for a few nights in a motorhome as a ‘well done’ to the kids for navigating the first half term at secondary school without drama.

Arse.

Edit: it seems very harsh to penalise everyone when the vast majority of the infections are in the South and NE.

He was asked at the end of the press briefing about that, the short answer is numbers as rising in the rural areas too.

As it was back in Spring, it’s easy to look as Powys, Pembrokeshire etc and think “oh numbers are so low, why worry” the problem is that they’ve only got the medical infrastructure to match their sparse populations. In normal times patients can be shipped to other parts of Wales to make room, but they’re filling to.

No idea what Drakeford is going to say when the infection rates inevitably rise again when the lockdown is eventually eased.

He actually doesn’t expect numbers to fall during the lock-down period, the usual lag will mean the numbers will fall a week or so later.

It’s not a cure/fix, it’s about keeping the projections below NHS capacity. He’s following the science, 2 weeks now, keeps ICU numbers below capacity, until Jan anyway. Admittedly this is in stark contrast to Boris’s “Blitz spirit, stiff upper lip, waffle waffle waffle” followed by a lot of constantly u-turned rules designed to allow him to blame the English People when it all goes wrong.

As it was back in Spring, it’s easy to look as Powys, Pembrokeshire etc and think “oh numbers are so low, why worry” the problem is that they’ve only got the medical infrastructure to match their sparse populations. In normal times patients can be shipped to other parts of Wales to make room, but they’re filling to.

My parents live in Powys and their nearest hospitals are all in Gwent and Merthyr Vale. The nearest Powys one is 40 miles away and tiny. Small increases in the numbers in rural areas have the same or larger effects than those in urban areas.

circuit breakers are supposed to bring the R rate under 1 but only work if the R is just above 1. jason leitch gives a decent explanation of it somewhere but in relation to scotland

How will help if rUK don’t do the same?

It won’t – but the WG doesn’t control the rest of the UK. And the leadership is quite different so they have come to a different conclusion. However scientists have gone on record urging the circuit breaker idea so maybe it will happen.

How will help if rUK don’t do the same?

It’ll help Wales.

Firstly, it closes Wales to the rest of the UK for the last major Tourism week of the year, Oct Half-Term.

Also, the local lockdowns aren’t going to be lifted at the end of it, so it’ll only be ‘business travel’ to our major population centres post-fire break, which you’d hope by now would be ‘Covid Friendly’.

More fundamentally though, look at the figures. We’re taking measures in Wales to try to minimise the damage and even our worst hit areas wouldn’t make the top 50 in the UK, even on a per-capita basis. The infection rate in same parts of the UK is already higher than the Peak in April.

It put Wales in a position to have lessor restrictions down the road, when England inevitably starts to run out of hospital beds and has to have a open-ended national lock-down.

We’ve not been able to use our static caravan since end of September. That’s now another 2 months lost of the season – only had 3 months use of it this year. The site owner isn’t bothered as he’s had all his cash. Might be a different story if we are still not allowed to travel come March when the bills are due.

Due to go on holiday to Pembrokeshire on Friday for a long weekend, this was the last chance of a break this year with The Wife restricted to school holidays were she can take time off work.

Everything else planned this year has been pretty much cancelled or curtailed. But I do understand why the Welsh Government has taken this step. It won’t be popular but at least a tough decision has been made, rather than the sand and head interface that continues in London, “errr, waffle, waffle, common sense!”

I haven’t been able to find the actual legislation yet (maybe it isn’t published). But my reading of the faqs is that I can now go outside the county during bike or foot exercise that starts from home. (But I can’t drive anywhere, even within the county, unless it is for a permitted reason.) This is assuming that the new rules replace the current county-level ones. Which is quite a big deal for us Cardiff peeps.

ETA link to the faqs

I haven’t been able to find the actual legislation yet (maybe it isn’t published). But my reading of the faqs is that I can now go outside the county during bike or foot exercise that starts from home. (But I can’t drive anywhere, even within the county, unless it is for a permitted reason.) This is assuming that the new rules replace the current county-level ones. Which is quite a big deal for us Cardiff peeps.

AFAIK all the new Circuit Break regs are in addition to any existing ones.

So yeah, I’ll be riding from Llandaff to Forest Fawr and back a lot solo for the nest few weeks. I’ve just spunked my Nectar points on some cheap wireless headphones…

the short “circuit breaker” lockdowns are intended to provide a reset to the rates

And hopefully a reset on people’s behaviour as well, getting them to take it more seriously again.

Hope this places pressure on the UK Gov to do the same, and sharpish.

I am not one of the “it’s all a hoax, stop lockdown” nutters, but I would like to see an analysis, which will have to be post-facto, to discover if lockdown has caused more deaths than it saved. Many life saving operations and treatments have been postponed, and there is always an inverse correlation between death rates and GDP. I know of at least two cases of people in retirement homes who, unable to see their nearest and deraest have given up and “turned their face to the wall” and died, I do know that “the singular of data is not anecdote”, but effects such as this need to be taken into account too.

BTW I live in Wales and have hospital appointments coming up that have been postponed, fortunately not life saving.

Many life saving operations and treatments have been postponed

Without “lockdown” many more life saving operations and treatments would have been postponed. Without “protecting the NHS” the service it would have been providing non-covid patients this year would have been scaled back even more than it has been.

Possibly @P-Jay, but it is odd in that case that the faqs don’t mention county boundaries, but say you can go as far as you like as long as you stay near home. Just got to wait for the actual regulations and see I guess.

Without “lockdown” many more life saving operations and treatments would have been postponed.

Evidence?

What evidence do you want? Hospitals have had to give over large areas and numbers of staff to provision for covid patients… and that’s with the measures we have taken to keep admissions for covid low. If we just let the virus take its course, more areas, staff and beds would have to be used for covid patients rather than timely elective surgery and other interventions for non-covid patients. Remember, covid patients and elective surgery patients absolutely must not be mixed, for obvious reasons. If you want evidence that contracting covid while recovering from other interventions or illnesses would result in poor outcomes… well, I hope there’s little data there, and segregation in healthcare settings has done its job.

Without “lockdown” many more life saving operations and treatments would have been postponed.

Probably, but I’d still like to see the analysis.

What evidence do you want?

What have you got?

What I can’t understand is why they don’t call it cheese on toast like everybody else.

What have you got?

Well, I can’t give you the results of any A-B testing, thank god. Think it through for yourself.

Well, I can’t give you any A-B testing, thank god. Think it through for yourself.

Just defend your statement; if you can. Or at least explain your thinking.
I’m not sure how you can know.

More covid patients means fewer resources for planned surgery and other interventions. What evidence do you want to support that statement? By all means argue why you think it is not the case.

Possibly @P-Jay, but it is odd in that case that the faqs don’t mention county boundaries

They do specifically say that the local restrictions still apply, and for us in Cardiff that means very limited riding.

@molgrips @greyspoke @P-jay “the faqs don’t mention county boundaries”

“They do specifically say that the local restrictions still apply, and for us in Cardiff that means very limited riding.”

The latest FAQs imply to me that the local rules will cease and the new National rules will replace them:
“My area is currently subject to local restrictions – do these continue as well?
No – the circuit breaker lockdown will apply in the same way across Wales.”
source

and

“Following the end of the firebreak, a new set of national rules will be introduced, covering how people can meet and how the public sector and businesses operate.”

I think it’s been omitted that residents will be able to cross district boundaries for exercise, because the main message is you should stay at home except for essential journeys. You should exercise from your home, not even drive to walk the dog in the local park for instance, so for the vast majority of people they aren’t going to cross a district boundary.

More covid patients means fewer resources for planned surgery and other interventions.

Except in some instances, it would be impossible for there to be fewer resources available because all non-covid related work was stopped.

Sure you could hypothesise that total numbers of interventions may end up being lower as a result, but we don’t have the evidence to support that. And there are lots of folk that have suffered as a result of what would normally be considered routine work being stopped.

I didn’t mean to start an argument, albeit very mild by STW standards, I think a full analysis, stating the assumptions made and margins of error, would be interesting. That said the margins of error might result in such a broad range that the result is meningless.

Its going to decimate a load of tourist places,as premises close and cant afford to reopen or take the welsh assembly handouts and then dont reopen, either way huge job losses.

Then add in all the tourist static caravan sites, where owners pay a fee early next year,if they cant afford it,lots of statics are going to be empty looking for a buyer at lower costs as well as site owners looking to hold them to ransom till they get paid ground rents etc.

Add in all the large hotels and Band bs currently not occupied and being forced to close and return customers deposits/payments its going to be a huge cash flow problem for them.

@konagirl

I think it’s been omitted that residents will be able to cross district boundaries for exercise, because the main message is you should stay at home except for essential journeys. You should exercise from your home, not even drive to walk the dog in the local park for instance, so for the vast majority of people they aren’t going to cross a district boundary.

Well not for a considerable chunk of those living in suburban Cardiff and the wider conurbation, which includes parts of the unitary counties of Cardiff, the Vale of Glamorgan, Rhondda Cynod Taff, Caerphilly and Newport. It actually is a big deal for many people, even if you take a conservative view of what staying “near home” means. Well ridden/trod routes criss-cross the Caerphilly boundary, for example.