End of Lockdown Unlikely to Bring an End to Face Masks and Work from Home Guidelines

2 min read

Professor Anthony Harnden, the Deputy Chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), says that the unlocking of society will be a “gradual process” requiring a “cautious” approach – even if the June 21st date for the end of lockdown is met. He told BBC Breakfast (as quoted in WalesOnline):

Even if we do un-lockdown, if you are in a vulnerable position, particularly if you’ve not been vaccinated, you do need to carry on being cautious, even if the June 21st date goes ahead.

So I think we’ve all got used to living within boundaries at the moment and I think it’s not an all or none, I think it will be a gradual process even if the June 21st date goes ahead.

According to the Times, the Government is prioritising ending social distancing guidelines, but will likely leave guidance around masking and working from home in place.

The Treasury is prioritising the end of the “one metre plus” distancing rule and the “rule of six” indoors, which is viewed as crucial to supporting hospitality and retail and helping the economy to recover. Ministers also want to end rules that limit mass gatherings so that festivals, concerts and sporting events can go ahead…

In an attempt to reduce the spread of the virus, masks could still be required on public transport and in indoor public spaces. Guidance stating that people must work from home if they can may also remain in place. Boris Johnson is expected to make a decision on which restrictions can be lifted within the next fortnight.

For some Government advisers, even unlocking partially on June 21st would be going too far. According to SAGE member Professor Andrew Hayward, there is a “good argument” for delaying the end of lockdown until a “much higher proportion” of the population has been fully vaccinated (a sentiment recently echoed by Health Secretary Matt Hancock).

He told Today on BBC Radio 4: “It’s still going to be a few weeks yet until we’ve got all of the highly clinically vulnerable double-vaccinated and that will probably coincide with the plans to open up more fully. When we do open up more fully, instead of [cases of the Indian variant] doubling every week, it’s likely to double more frequently than that. I think there is a good argument for caution until we’ve got a much higher proportion double-vaccinated.”

The Times report is worth reading in full.

Comments

This week across the site:

Email me alerts for this discussion
Notify of

To join in with the discussion please make a donation to the Daily Sceptic.

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

163 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
tom171uk
tom171uk
5 years ago

The use of the word “lockdown” is semantic. We will not be free until masks, the Coronavirus Act and all the other paraphernalia is gone. And that will not be soon.

Let’s face it, we have spent at least 30 years having our freedoms removed and we have meekly accepted it. We didn’t kick against surveillance cameras, the ending of double jeopardy, the petty shit like plastic bag tax, CRB and DBS, FPNs for motoring offences, and the rest. That’s why the outrageous impositions of the last 15 months were so easy to implement.

The Walrus
The Walrus
5 years ago

Here in Massachusetts, all restrictions were lifted yesterday. I went to the supermarket, expecting to see few people with masks. Instead, nearly everyone was masked as if nothing had changed. Besides myself, I only saw 2 others unmasked. This is going to be a long process, unfortunately.

imp66
imp66
5 years ago

Quelle f*ckin’ surprise!! And the scared ones will comply 100%.

Mike Yeadon
Mike Yeadon
5 years ago

I can hardly believe the article & it’s coverage in main media.
They’re still acting as though lockdown was either proven to slow epidemic spreading or at least that it remains an open question.
It’s neither. It’s definitively not effective. Dozens of peer reviewed journal articles say so.
We even know why not. Transmission almost never occurs unless the source is symptomatic. Those who are the best sources of infection are most likely the most ill….and least likely to be out & about. Sources of infection were & remain heavily deselected for in the ambulatory population & so community transmission in places affected by lockdown was close to zero.
No wonder lockdown simply destroys the economy & crushes civil society.
Meanwhile, transmission continues in institutions (provided there is any incidence, which there may no longer be,..but you can’t trust the testing, either).

So, discussion about lockdown is wholly misplaced.

Similarly, we know masks play absolutely no role in controlling virus transmission.

So, discussion about lockdown is wholly misplaced.

hilarynw
hilarynw
5 years ago

‘If you’re in a vulnerable position because you haven’t been vaccinated’!! Well no! There’s this rather antiquated thing which really fell out of favour in 2020 called an Immune System and I’m going to go with that for protection thank you Boris!

rutlandrebel
rutlandrebel
5 years ago

They’ve already extended furlough until September, appointed jobs for Covid martials and spent millions of pounds of public money on Covid advertising until next spring and contracts for Covid passports. Entirely predictable this would not end, part of a predetermined plan to keep this going indefinitely?

gedhurst
gedhurst
5 years ago

Making perfectly healthy people wear useless masks and ‘social distance’. We are truly in the grip or psychopaths and sociopaths, as the Cummings 3 ring circus confirmed once again last week.
The revolution can’t be far off.

tom171uk
tom171uk
5 years ago
Reply to  gedhurst

Don’t hold you breath! This brave new world is not going away.

mojo
mojo
5 years ago

June will not go ahead. Already Christmas markets are being cancelled along with Pantomimes etc. They know they can keep half the population in a state of medical fear and create an apartheid situation until every person is on universal income, no private businesses or schools exist, and no one owns anything.

But who does own it all……why of course the State and the Banks and the few at the top who work for the state. Does this remind you of anything……

How could such a proud nation, with so much history of fighting for the freedom of the oppressed, be brought into oppression.

chaos
chaos
5 years ago

Boris secretly married Princess Reset in a catholic ceremony yesterday.. the things that empty barrel will do for fanny.

chaos
chaos
5 years ago

“…the Government …will likely leave guidance around masking and working from home in place.”

So that you don’t discuss Stanley and Carrie’s et als continuing ‘green’ depopulation great reset agenda.. hey where did the gas boilers go? Hey why can’t I have a car? Hey… my car will only let me drive ten miles from my home.. hey why can’t I drink milk or eat meat? …I’m cold.. I am hungry.. hey.. I have already had 6 vaccinations in two years…

SweetBabyCheeses
SweetBabyCheeses
5 years ago

“ So I think we’ve all got used to living within boundaries at the moment”.

No!!! It drives me absolutely fucking mental every single day! Why do people assume this? And why do we all have to carry on with this charade because some people have been conditioned to this shit now.

CarrieAH
CarrieAH
5 years ago

Should be personal choice from 21 June – if you want to continue to hide under the duvet and cover your face with a bit of damp cloth, feel free. But leave the rest of us alone to breathe freely. No more masks. Ever.
Working from home – personal choice between employee and employer.

Hester
Hester
5 years ago
Reply to  CarrieAH

Yesterday when we were out the other half had a fancy for some Guiness, however no mask in which to enter the corner shop, so he put the cloth bag we had over his head, and went in, well it counted as a face covering, the shop keepers face was like thunder but he still had to serve him, perhaps taking the piss is the way to go.

ellie-em
ellie-em
5 years ago

“Ministers also want to end rules that limit mass gatherings so that festivals, concerts and sporting events can go ahead…”

Of course they do because they will use that as an opportunity to imbed the test and trace surveillance and the ‘passports’ – all in the interests of public safety, of course.

DoctorCOxford
DoctorCOxford
5 years ago

Even more than social distancing, masks are what I want gone. People are free to keep wearing it (after all, if it’s useful, your wearing it is the essential part, right). But I need to be able to breathe while I shop and ride the bus. It must end. We know that most infections with Indian variant is happening within homes, where mask mandate doesn’t impact.

Set us free Prime Minister!

Hester
Hester
5 years ago
Reply to  DoctorCOxford

I agree the face mask along with the now you must register all your details to drink in a pub (but not in a shop, hairdressers, beauty salon !) are the most opressive, authoritarian and frankly the human equivalent of having our faces rubbed in the shit by this Government. The problem is they know this is the most humiliating element of what they are doing, they know it signals fear and ferments hatred and discord amongst the peasants as they view us, they frankly enjoy that power trip, why would they let it go when we all have a daily reminder of the people who are really in charge.

Tillysmum
Tillysmum
5 years ago
Reply to  DoctorCOxford

His Agenda won’t allow him to listen. Take control, you are a Sovereign person, you don’t need his permission.

ArtC
ArtC
5 years ago

I was in town today – it was rammed, being bank holiday weekend and a real scorcher, and I couldn’t believe the huge amount of people 50 and over who were wearing masks outside as they walked along. I’m presuming most of the ones me and the wife saw have been double-jabbed so it beggars belief why they are still so scared. It seriously pisses me off.

HelenaHancart
HelenaHancart
5 years ago
Reply to  ArtC

Yes, it’s the over 60s and a lot of the youngsters that seem to love their face nappies. Saw older woman sneeze violently in hers, it kind of blew outwards, a bit of spray came out….and she carried on walking with it strapped to her face. Lovely.

tom171uk
tom171uk
5 years ago
Reply to  HelenaHancart

Hey! I am well over 60 and will never wear a snot rag on my face!

Fingerache Philip
Fingerache Philip
5 years ago
Reply to  ArtC

Totally agree and I’m 72.
I think that a lot of people think that they are going to live forever.

thedarkhorse
thedarkhorse
5 years ago
Reply to  ArtC

Hubby and I ignore people in masks who try to speak to us…can’t hear anything they say. I treat em as non-persons. Yes I know it’s rude but I no longer give a stuff about their feelings.

Jaguarpig
Jaguarpig
5 years ago
Reply to  thedarkhorse

Brilliant will start doing that

lincsfloody
lincsfloody
5 years ago
Reply to  thedarkhorse

I talked to a nice elderly lady whilst queuing at a butchers shop and as she was mumbling I pointed this out and asked her to join me maskless, she did.

ebygum
ebygum
5 years ago
Reply to  thedarkhorse

Me as well. I have a new thing now where if I see someone coming towards me in a mask, I stop really noticeably and cross over the road. I’m waiting for one of them to say something so I can say, well you must be infected because otherwise it’s moronic to wear a mask outside! Kind of a reverse swerve they do to us un-masked!

Moist Von Lipwig
Moist Von Lipwig
5 years ago

Once again, a Witch Doctator pretends restrictions are cautious when, in fact, caution requires the immediate ending of all restrictions

Attaboy
Attaboy
5 years ago

masks and restrictions will cease when people take it upon themselves to stop and disobey

Woden
Woden
5 years ago
Reply to  Attaboy

Not in my ‘Invasion of The Body Snatchers’ town…

tom171uk
tom171uk
5 years ago
Reply to  Attaboy

I agree. But it’s going to be a long wait.

DanClarke
DanClarke
5 years ago

Muzzled is a horrendous way to live, just glad I’ve never succumbed to the propaganda and worn one.

HelenaHancart
HelenaHancart
5 years ago

Shove your vile jabs, you disgusting excuses for human beings. I’m hearing of more friends and family getting side effects, than of ANYONE getting the virus! One close friend had a stroke within a week of getting the AZ jab.

Hester
Hester
5 years ago
Reply to  HelenaHancart

And did all these people report the side effects? I bet they didnt, thus far friends who have had the injection have suffered from the following, 2 days in bed with bad flu like symptoms immediately post injection,
1 friend eye sight in her left eye became distorted and she could not see through it properly, she had to have the lense replaced which she paid for privately, previously she hadn’t worn glasses even, the incident happened within days of the injection. She did not report it as a side effect as she couldn’t believe the injection would cause that to happen.

2 Another friend who had Hodgkins lymphoma 10 years ago stage 3 has been well since, but post jab she has had chest pains similar to the original cancer and is now having blood tests, again did not report

3 Her son 23 years was offered the injection at work he took it 2 weeks later he was lethargic, and losing weight, the Doctor took bloods he has Glandular fever with the added complication of it attacking his Liver. No reporting to the Doctor

4 two friends whose Periods have been affected heavy clotting etc. one with severe… Read more »

BeBopRockSteady
BeBopRockSteady
5 years ago

I can’t find the goalposts. It’s seems at this point they’ve exited the stratosphere

Awkward Git
Awkward Git
5 years ago

Well it’s not the end of lockdown then is it?

Only when all the restrictions are removed including vaccine passports etc is it the end, not before.

Fingerache Philip
Fingerache Philip
5 years ago

June 21st = The Longest day (Surely one of the most boring films ever made), but if us sceptics can gain a foothold (beachhead) by not social distancing, not using hand sanitizer and not wearing masks, perhaps there will be a glimpse of the “Sunlit uplands”, if not, I fear that we are well and truly f×cked!

Jaguarpig
Jaguarpig
5 years ago

One of my favourite films off all time

Fingerache Philip
Fingerache Philip
5 years ago
Reply to  Jaguarpig

Just my opinion, JP.
Something the Covideisters deny us sceptics.

Jaguarpig
Jaguarpig
5 years ago

True

Woden
Woden
5 years ago

It is of course. the summer solstice a pivotal date for Pagans. Wiccans and the Druids…Not Satanists…

Catee
Catee
5 years ago

Anyone got any news from London?

Paul B
Paul B
5 years ago
Reply to  Catee

The RT stream parked themselves outside the police barricade into Downing street, the language was colourful!

Norman
Norman
5 years ago

Out of interest I was looking at the geographical areas that are showing up as worse on the infections hot-spot map. On the two that I have looked at – Bolton and Bedford, they are both in or on the border of the local main hospital, where I am guessing a large number of hospital workers live. The thing I am not clear about is whether nosocomial infections are listed as the area where their hospital is, or their home address.

karenovirus
karenovirus
5 years ago
Reply to  Norman

At the most local level stats are provided by local council wards.
We had an unusual jump in cases back in January in a ward that Local Live was keen to remind us contained a high proportion of student households.
What they didn’t say was that the ward included HMP which is where those cases actually were.

alw
alw
5 years ago

It is so easy not to wear a mask. I have only worn twice during the last 15 months and that was to an NHS dentist. I walk around, travel on public transport and do all my shopping maskless only challenged a couple of times. I stare in wonderment at all the fools who wear without bothering to consider the evidence against. So many chant the mantra “out of courtesy to others”. What about courtesy to me? Really the biggest non reason ever.

String
String
5 years ago
Reply to  alw

Agree. “Really the biggest non reason ever.” esp. when you throw the argument back at them – like if they had to visit a Dr or Hospital for a medical procedure, would they expect you to accompany them? because after all, their health is all you care about!?
Would they be happy if someone took any sweets, chocolate, alcohol, & red meat out of their supermarket trolleys? because someone wants to make sure that their health is protected, because someone cares so much about another random stranger’s health, and is dedicated to the NHS & making sure it is never overwhelmed…

CarrieAH
CarrieAH
5 years ago

Mask wearing is pseudo scientific nonsense, a means of control or a placebo for the masses. Never worn one, never will. I’m done with all of it.

JohnK
JohnK
5 years ago
Reply to  CarrieAH

Correct. I never have done either. The worrying thing is that so many people believe in the use of them – although not that surprising given the structure of education, unfortunately. After all, even some of the teachers believe in it!

Mayo
Mayo
5 years ago

The worrying data is the ZOE estimates of symptomatic cases. The numbers have been ticking up for about 3 weeks. I noticed it at the time but thought it might just be a minor blip. Cases, though, have doubled in less than 4 weeks.

ONS and government data tends to lag ZOE by a few days so further increases are likely to show up in the official figures in the coming days.

If the promised sunshine doesn’t halt the spread I think we can forget June 21st.

Julian
Julian
5 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

We could always forget June 21st and this has nothing to do with “cases”.

Sandra Barwick
Sandra Barwick
5 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

Symptomatic in the young. So loss of taste etc.
Good news.

eastender53
eastender53
5 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

I’ve lost a lot of faith in the ZOE project. Sadly I believe it’s ‘controlled opposition’, there to look like an alternative view but in reality another PsyOps channel.

Jaguarpig
Jaguarpig
5 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

Fuck off with cases, false positives from a not fit for purpose test

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

So they’ve got you with the Fear bug, Mayo. Hope you can get over it soon.

Paul B
Paul B
5 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

You need to keep an eye on the vax rollout, once that’s up to 95% they’ll think about opening, other than that I see no freedom o the horizon. It angers me every time someone tells me they’ve been jabbed, one more soldier of the resistance down.

I am Spartacas
I am Spartacas
5 years ago

So no ending of lockdowns then?

This would hilarious if it wasn’t so serious.

I have this vision of Boris Johnson and the rest of his cabinet and advisors laughing their socks off wondering just how far they can keeping pushing this insane nonsense … just how incredibly wide-eyed and stupid are the British public. I suspect that we’re in Stockholm syndrome territory here – the public have been kept hostage for year now and endlessly mistreated and so now they have established an emotional bond with their abuser-in-chief at No.10.

When I think about all those gullible fools out there who were eager to roll up there sleeves and get their jabs in the firm belief that when the government said that vaccinations were the exit out of lockdowns they were telling them the truth … dream on.

This has been going on for over a year now – people have worn the masks, used the sanitizers, self isolated, they’ve kept their distance, followed the one-way systems in shopping malls, they’ve applauded the NHS and for the past few months they’ve had god-knows-what injected into their bodies …. and still the the penny hasn’t dropped yet.

What is it… Read more »

E2eTAyTWYAQJeca.jpg
Julian
Julian
5 years ago
Reply to  I am Spartacas

Florida – tempting but very hard to get a Green Card

They have done a very good job of keeping the frogs simmering

As some pointed out at the start, we may have been better off with a full-on Wuhan style lockdown which would have been unsustainable (as it was even in China)

Sandra Barwick
Sandra Barwick
5 years ago
Reply to  Julian

What happened in China? The plausible answer is that it saw, because the West explained it, that the disease only wiped out the economically inactive, so they simply stopped putting it on death certs. In China, I guess, the old still die in the old way.

R G
R G
5 years ago

There it is then. Keep the psychological lockdown in place and reintroduce the physical one in the autumn.

karenovirus
karenovirus
5 years ago
Reply to  R G

Just like last summer but with far fewer people going abroad on holiday.

Julian
Julian
5 years ago
Reply to  karenovirus

Last summer: no masks, no vaccines, no pandemic

karenovirus
karenovirus
5 years ago
Reply to  Julian

Masks were introduced when lockdown 1. became lockdown lite supposedly to give confidence to the Covid timid to leave the house and go shopping.

Hence the mask hesitant* mantra ‘I will not be a prisoner of your fear’.

*Another to join the litany of words that have changed their meaning due to the nudge unit. Hostile now becomes ‘Hesitant’.

Milo
Milo
5 years ago
Reply to  R G

some medics are calling for “21 june” to be delayed by 2 months – that would take us to 21 august, in which case we would be on the cusp of autumn when as sure as eggs are eggs another lockdown is on the cards for us. What would be the point???

Julian
Julian
5 years ago
Reply to  Milo

“What would be the point???” To keep the frogs simmering.

ebygum
ebygum
5 years ago
Reply to  Milo

…to get you ready for your booster shot of course.

Monro
Monro
5 years ago

‘Even if we do un-lockdown, if you are in a vulnerable position, particularly if you’ve not been vaccinated, you do need to carry on being cautious,’

Great advice, not. If you are obese, elderly, infirm, immunocompromised, you need to be cautious. Who knew? What about the 160+ other influenza like illnesses against which no-one has been vaccinated or ever will be?

All this nonsense on account of a common cold, known as such since 06 Feb 2020

‘The Chinese healthcare system is very overwhelmed with all the tests going through. So my thinking is this is actually not as severe a disease as is being suggested. The fatality rate is probably only 0.8%-1%. There’s a vast underreporting of cases in China. Compared to Sars and Mers we are talking about a coronavirus that has a mortality rate of 8 to 10 times less deadly to Sars to Mers. So a correct comparison is not Sars or Mers but a severe cold. Basically this is a severe form of the cold.’

Professor John Nicholls
Clinical professor in pathology, University of Hong Kong, expert on coronaviruses in China at the time of the outbreak

What a lobotomised collection of hypochondriacs ‘Der… Read more »

Julian
Julian
5 years ago
Reply to  Monro

I’m not a socialist but think it’s quite possible to have socialism without medico-fascism

Monro
Monro
5 years ago
Reply to  Julian

Of course it is. It is socialism that leads to the supine acceptance of socialist health fascism.

Julian
Julian
5 years ago
Reply to  Monro

Health fascism has been supinely accepted in many places with varying political traditions and leanings, though I would agree that places where right-wing libertarian culture is more prevalent (e.g. red states in the US) seem to have resisted more than most.

Monro
Monro
5 years ago
Reply to  Julian

‘…many places with varying political traditions and leanings’

The developed world, the most supine because they can afford it (to the great detriment of the developing world), is pretty much exclusively democratic socialist with the exception of about 17 U.S. States, all that remains of the free world.

Sandra Barwick
Sandra Barwick
5 years ago
Reply to  Monro

Sadly – that is not ironic – if the emergency jabs have bad side effects in the long term, more Democrats will be affected than Republicans.

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  Monro

I suggest you go peddle your political obsessions with the vague term ‘socialism’ somewhere else. I’m all in favour of free speech, but using a site focused on Covid for your irrelevant fixations is just self-indulgent. Its a diversion from intelligent discussion of the real issues.

Monro
Monro
5 years ago
Reply to  RickH

I have asked you before not to reply unless you have a debating point to make. Silly atmospherics have no place on here and, as you cannot have failed to have noticed, are very much not appreciated.

Moist Von Lipwig
Moist Von Lipwig
5 years ago
Reply to  Julian

Fascism is a form of Socialism

Mayo
Mayo
5 years ago
Reply to  Monro

The fatality rate is probably only 0.8%-1%

So very close to the 0.9% figure that Ferguson used. 0.8% would be a big problem for a fully susceptible population.

Monro
Monro
5 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

Did Ferguson use IFR or CFR?

This is CFR, and pretty much bang on:

‘our estimate of the CFR as of the 4th of August as 1.5% – and seemingly still falling.’

‘An alternative symptoms-to-death distribution parameterised on data from Stockholm yields an estimate of 1.4%, which is also falling.’

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/the-declining-case-fatality-ratio-in-england/

But all that must be heavily caveated as a consequence of poor data. ‘There’s a vast underreporting of cases in China.’ Prof John Nicholls

Data for mortality of whatever cause in many countries simply does not exist, as WHO acknowledges.

And there is no internationally accepted method of cause of death registration.

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

Mayo – you’re pissing in the wind.

As we don’t know about ‘deaths from Covid’, and testing is shot to hell, and the terminology is so abused, any statement about IFR and CFR is sheer guesswrk.

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  Monro

“That’s socialism for you”

You’d have to be a classic numpty knuckle-dragger of very little brain to believe that one.

The neoliberal free-market right have been in charge for 40 years, and Johnson and Co. are the nutter culmination of that.

Being a neoliberal free-marketeer doesn’t necessarily equate to fascism – the impulse emerges in many disguises – but pretending that it’s down to ‘socialism’ is just bat-shit delusion.

Monro
Monro
5 years ago
Reply to  RickH

This is a democratic socialist country with a manifestly left of centre socialist government. They have outspent even Corbyn’s public spending plans. But why let the evidence get in the way of good old fashioned bigotry

Moist Von Lipwig
Moist Von Lipwig
5 years ago
Reply to  RickH

Lockdown is communist and Kim Jong-Johnson is Prime Minister.

Thank you for reading. Please help us keep the Daily Sceptic going by becoming a donor.