In what way? We cant do what the frogs are doing make people print off paperwork, as we dont have the police to enforce it. Putting army on the streets of a very ethnic city like London, in hot weather, is asking for trouble

At the risk of you biting my head off again, that doesn't detract from the fact that most people do recover. Not everybody though.

Most healthy people recover. Not everybody though.

Most people under 70. Not everybody though.

Sorry to hear that, but still doesn't alter the fact that most people recover without consequence

I do wonder at the point of a piece of paper you print off yourself and then fill in yourself.

And what happens if you don't have a printer?

I think this is open to question until the epidemic has passed and we know how many have been left with long-term damage. I'm not denying that most people seem to make full recoveries but, at the moment, I don't think we can say that definitively. Anecdotally, a lot of people seem to be impaired by the virus after recovering.

At the moment, we don't know that.

It doesn’t but once we start to ease the lockdown they will need to still isolate 

Beast specialises in evidence-free assertions.

BS

It takes, on average, about 20 days from symptoms to death. Include the incubation period and it's about 25 days from infection to death. Recovery times (negitive tests and lack of symptoms happen roughly at the same time) takes just as long.

If I was infected today, I'd expect to die or recover by the 25th April

Boris Johnson developed symptoms on the 25th March.

If he was a very serious case he would not be due for ICU admission before about the 6th April

He would not be put on a ventilator until about the 9th April

And he would not be expected to die before the 15th April.

So no Boris has not 'recovered'. Even if his Fever and cough improve until this time next week you could not say with high probability that he wouldn't then take a turn for the worse. Most symptoms start to improve before the lung damage really kicks in.

Then these people would have to stay isolated until vaccinated, surely? And I don't really see how you can ease a lockdown with up to 15 million people cut off from the rest of society. Is that workable? Don't know.

The complete lockdown. Here is a comment on The Times, which puts forward an alternative case to keeping everything locked down for as long as it takes:

"Yet more evidence, as if it was needed, that this government's policy is doomed to fail. Stephen Powis' comment that " ….and winter could come and those green shoots could turn out to be not the hopeful green shoots that they thought they might be” says it all. We are facing a lockdown not of 3 weeks, or 3 months, but of 9 months or more, because we've got no proper plan for how to address the true implications of this virus. All we've got is a government bleating on about the need to protect our NHS at all costs, when neither it nor the NHS has the faintest idea about the true threat level facing it, which of course means that no matter how well geared up the NHS might become, no-one can ever know whether it's sufficient. So we must carry on protecting it at all costs, regardless of what those costs might amount to and whether or not they can ever be afforded.

But we do know certain things. We know, for example, from what happened on the locked down Diamond Princess, that this virus doesn't appear to transmit at anything like the rate predicted by scientists. Less than 20% of the complement of passengers and crew on the vessel succumbed to the virus, yet according to our scientists it should have been 80%+. This experience seems to be born out by our limited testing of those self-isolating because of presumed Covid19 familial infection. Only 15% positive results in a population where expected results should, according to those scientists, be far far higher.

We also know that the mortality threat is age- and health-related. If you're very elderly, or have a compromised immune system, or are severely asthmatic, you're at significantly increased risk of dying if you catch the virus. If you're not, your risk, should you catch the virus, is most likely around 1 in 5,000 for the under 40's, rising to around 1 in 300 for those in their 60's, 1 in 125 for those in their 70's and 1 in 15 for those over 80. I use the expression "most likely" because best estimates are that actual cases of coronavirus exceed known cases by anything up to 10 times.

So those who are very elderly or have compromised immune systems are well advised to self-isolate, for as long as it takes to develop a vaccine. Whether they are all prepared to self-isolate for anything up to two years is a matter of choice for them - it isn't up to government to demand that people must do only what the government deems is good for them. They have the right to determine whether or not isolating themselves from the life they're accustomed to in order to prolong their safe existence is a price worth paying.

And for everyone else, we have to ask the question, is the government's prescription one that they should accept. We need to consider whether the social and economic consequences of the prescription are ones we can actually afford. The longer we are kept in lockdown, the greater the damage to our economy - fewer jobs, fewer businesses, massively hiked national debt that will need to be paid for by huge increases in taxation for a decade or more. The longer we are in lockdown, the greater the social cost - huge growth in domestic violence (we've already had at least 9 deaths in the past week directly attributable to the stresses caused by social distancing), reduced educational opportunities, an over-powered police force.

This has to stop. Now."

- I am just posting it to show that there are multiple viewpoints in this and the "lockdown at all costs" approach is only one of them.

Spot on.

I though the figure was 1.5m but no matter. If they are vulnerable then they will need to stay isolated to protect themselves. If they choose not to then that’s their risk. You can’t expect the whole country to remain in lockdown until a vaccine is available. 

I also don't understand this. How can you completely isolate up to 15 million people for several months? What about their rights?

The extremely vulnerable (those being shielded) number 1.5 million

The vulnerable (over 70s, people with chronic conditions like asthma, etc) number 13 or 14 million. The CFR rate for these people is north of 10%. Are you suggesting that these people should not be isolated? 

What you are suggesting sounds a lot like 'letting the virus rip/herd immunity'

Indeed, and some people don't have photo ID as its not required by law. I only have my passport

It would be a nightmare to administer and enforce and lead to so many social problems, especially in crowded council estates which are a tinderbox at the best of times

That is all very vague and, sorry to say, does not answer the fundamental point. 

Perhaps, but so does the most powerful man in the world

Sure, but there have were no lockdowns in Asia outside of China. 

A further 16 deaths have been reported in Scotland and further 317 new cases.

Don't have a link but I read an article suggesting another problem with herd immunity. Apparently as immunity builds up in the population the virus is more likely to mutate and it could turn into something even worse. The same presumably applies to the vaccine solution. Ideally the virus would be suppressed in the same way that SARS was.

not to the same extent as China but they’ve all introduced restrictions e.g on travel, school closures etc.

Have they closed restaurants, shops etc.? Again I think we need to learn from them. Bring the number of new infections and hospitalisations down with the lockdown and then implement a massive test, trace and isolate programme (and close borders if necessary).