I do wonder, with the vaccinations being as high as they are, would a total lockdown similar to what we saw in the first one, but for a shorter duration, have such an effect on the transmission that it would basically squash it down to levels where you could get close to local eradication? Or is the thing just endemic now at this point?
It would bounce back after any lockdown, unless you made some changes after lockdown that weren’t there before. They’re a blunt tool of last resort really, their only value is to buy you time to make changes (think setting up a test and trace system, or vaccinating your population) so your health care system doesn’t get overwhelmed before those changes are implemented.
We should though try something a bit radical. We have excellent quick lateral flow tests for home use that we really haven’t made as great a use of of as we could. A strategy of getting every person in the UK over 12 to take one of these simultaneously on specific dates - and asking all households with a positive test to isolate for 7 days - could really squash things down and get us through any potential tricky winter period.
Government should pick a week in early November, ask everyone to take an LFT on Friday, Monday and Thursday and upload results to NHS. Publicise it everywhere, offer an incentive (tax break?, extra bank holiday if a certain % respond?). Don’t bother confirming with PCR, just ask all positive households to isolate. Ask any major event, pub or restaurant from that first Friday for the following 10 days to only allow entry to those who can show their LFT results.
Lockdowns work by minimising contacts of those who are contagious, we can replicate it without an actual lockdown and the collateral damage that they cause.