ADs and their very long lists!

[LivinLaVidaLoki]

We were up to 999 posts so thought we needed a new thread!

It’s not just hospital beds and lack of nurses. The beds we do have are full of many people with preventable illnesses.

We could have the healthiest nation in the world, if our bed rates are half other European countries with nursing numbers even lower then we're going to get crunch points as people get old and sick and die eventually.

The government pointing the finger at the public for not being healthy (whilst simultaneously taking away 90% of exercise options) is just trying to shift blame from their CHOICE to cut bed numbers over the last three decades.

We've gone from 300k beds in 1990 to 140k beds in 2019 with an increasing population. No amount of healthy eating, giving up smoking or taking up exercise (and all rates have actually improved in the last 30 years) can counteract that.

@wanderings

It’s why it’s so fucking hypocritical of Saint Boris to close the gyms and ban amateur sport, while at the same time telling us we need to keep fit. Arrogant fucker.

Exactly. Which is why we have to figure out ways to do it ourselves and not rely on the government banning bogof offers on crisps. The government say they want us to get fitter but don’t actually do anything about the problem. The sugar tax is a great example of the government pretending to care whilst actually doing their food conglomerate mates a favour as sweetener is a hundredth the price of real sugar, thereby boosting profits, and ignoring the evidence linking sweeteners with obesity. How convenient!

@SirSamuelVimes I hope you get your fitness mojo back. It’s still in there somewhere 💪🏿

Samuel it's an email.

It's hard to explain. I just feel some people with their naice houses and gardens and local areas didn't really care about me so it might just be wise to quietly drop it.

This is interesting

I knew the law was unclear on Verbier but it seems like they were fine to go?

www.wheretoskiandsnowboard.com/blogs/what-really-happened-in-verbier/?fbclid=IwAR3VVlbIIN7yVW2Y8Lyfl1UZ5jgczVmIXuegzvFkoSForskymqiCGGy0pEw

@MargosKaftan

Schools are going to shut again arent they?

probably should start organising for that.

It's feeling like that. I'm halfway inclined to leave the kids at their grandparents for a few weeks and let them shoulder it - but they're my babies and I want them back with me as well.

I semi prepared about late-Sept/early-Oct time and made sure I'd bought them both chromebooks setup with what the school uses for their software - figured if schools did close the stores would sell out of anything affordable quite rapidly. Can't split myself in three though unfortunately.

We'll be moving in with DH's parents' house if schools and nurseries close. My work is likely to be extremely busy with Covid stuff related to schools (ironically) and we can't afford for DH to take time off as his job pays the mortgage. They will be delighted 😁

I'm really hoping primaries will stay open though. DS has been remarkably resilient and is where he should be (in normal times) with his reading, writing and maths, but I know how much other children in his year have struggled. Through no fault of their parents either, as they've all been trying their hardest - it's terrible to think about those children whose parents actually don't give a shit.

Lovely ADs, any thoughts? Ive had contact from someone who I think was a D and I'm not sure I can be bothered to reply.

People do change their mind. The fear could go, or they can see that nothing has improved despite everyone 'being careful' and they could regret such a limited, fearful summer when the outcome is the same.

The only thing is I don't meet people where I feel I'd be treading on eggshells as that's too stressful. I get that they're scared and are managing different risk factors to me with a different tolerance to risk and I love them dearly and can offer any amount of empathy over the phone, but I can't put myself in a position where I might worry I've accidentally slighted them by causing them stress by being too relaxed in real life and potentially damaged a friendship that I'm hoping to sustain for the future.

Found you all!
I took up running again in the summer but find running in current circumstances next to impossible. Too muddy, too difficult to distance from others without running in the road, few accessible footpaths...so back to joyless sit ups in the lounge. Sigh. I've got a big thing about fresh air and 14 days of isolation without it nearly did for me - if we end up not being able to go outside I don't quite know what I'll do.

No surprise to me whatsoever that eating disorders are on the rise at the moment. My own experience as a teen coincided with lots of things going on that I couldn't control (so food was the one thing I could), and a lot of pressure in the media about how overweight the population was (I wasn't, but I convinced myself I was, and therefore must do something about it). Combine that with a very strong current of 'if you get ill it's your fault' in the media these days and I could well imagine it being a trigger for many people. The difference being that I had a brilliant GP who was able to support me out of it early on - and heaven knows what's available to people now.
My chickens are fed up too, think we all want to free-range at the moment.

I LOVE Alphaville - take me back to happy times - still listen to my 'Forever Young' album. Summer in Berlin is my favourite, I think...

(Trying to think about happy times rather than prospect of Tier 5/full lockdown/doors sealed shut etc...)

Back to Alphaville, summer of 1984 and 'Big in Japan' - also love 'Self Control' by Laura Branigan..

Agree about the exercise. If my teen has his martial arts class cancelled again for the New Year I am going to be extremely annoyed. Anyone know the tier 3 rules, I can't keep track? Small group of teens and adults. Part of the reason I will sending him to school as a keyworker kid again is because they were doing PE every day in the summer term.

Also extremely annoyed that the small indoor seating area has been shut after I got him to walk into town for a takeaway hot chocolate. Seriously what difference does it make if we sit at tables 2m apart or drink in the street?

I love Alphaville as well. They were played to death on a radio station when I was on a school trip in Holland! Self Control was one of my best friends favourite songs. She died at 36 from breast cancer and it was played at her funeral. Still have it on my playlist.

It appears I have been banned from posting in our local paper’s website. Made a couple of comments about the press fuelling the scaremongering and around the lack of context in any reporting. They didn’t seem to like it.

My dgs is due to start nursery school next week and he really needs to go as he will be starting primary school in September. He didn’t start nursery in September as he was supposed to because of all the disruption in the summer term.

As long as the nursery school doesn’t close he should get a place as both parents are key workers, dd is a teacher and sil is about to start a new job working in the control centre for the fire brigade.

If necessary I could have him but I know he would benefit from being with other children.

Struggling so much with the idea of schools shutting. If it were primary schools ironically we'd be OK as DD is fairly resilient and quite good fun to have at home. DS however (year 7) needs the routine really badly. Even in the holidays he starts going downhill in terms of mental health. I am worrying massively about him.

I am also concerned about the fact that no-one can see outside their middle class bubble - what about those children who don't have parents with the wherewithal technically, financially, educationally to support their kids at home with learning? Yes, most people have smart phones but you can't expect kids to engage on a smartphone all day for 6 hours a day.

I am also dreading them saying that they can go back but wearing masks full time. DS gets so stressed wearing his even for short amounts of time. Says he gets really breathless.

I have felt so relaxed not looking at news or MN for the last 5 days. Now I'm back to work and therefore online. Disaster.

We've agreed to childcare bubble with another family if (heaven forbid) schools close. Not ideal and they are a little bit dementory so not sure it would happen. But takes the pressure off worrying about work and would give the DC some much needed socialisation. Assuming childcare bubbles still 'allowed'.

My sister’s a primary teacher (Y2) and her class is split between compliant middle class children with motivated, affluent parents who came back to school streets ahead of where they’d left off; non-compliant middle class children who went a bit feral during lockdown but have got lots of support so haven’t dropped too far behind and children from families facing significant economic or social challenges who weren’t able to engage at all with the online provision and who are now way behind the others. The attainment gap hasn’t narrowed at all during the autumn term and she’s worried some of the children may never catch up

I am so full of anxiety and dread today at the possibility of schools and nurseries closing. I think we could just about cope if primary schools were to shut for a period, but if our girls' nursery shut then we are pretty fucked tbh. They are aged 1 and 4. We just cannot do our jobs, homeschool one child and look after 2 little ones all at the same time. Both DH and I came close to falling apart (individually and collectively) when we had to do this during the first lockdown. I feel sick thinking about having to do it again.

It is heartbreaking, all of it. I am so, so, so full of rage at the government.

All of them. And why is it not a scandal that that absolute insert expletives as you choose Ferguson has outright said that he took an authoritarian repressive regime for his model? Plus he used the words that he never 'thought that we would get away with it'

Are those people we can believe are on our side? I don't think so.

@kowari

Agree about the exercise. If my teen has his martial arts class cancelled again for the New Year I am going to be extremely annoyed. Anyone know the tier 3 rules, I can't keep track? Small group of teens and adults. Part of the reason I will sending him to school as a keyworker kid again is because they were doing PE every day in the summer term.

Also extremely annoyed that the small indoor seating area has been shut after I got him to walk into town for a takeaway hot chocolate. Seriously what difference does it make if we sit at tables 2m apart or drink in the street?

All seats have been removed from our indoor town centre. Able bodied people now sit on the floor to eat their Macdonald's. Elderly people just struggle on, our don't go, I imagine. I guess it's a way to keep one section of the vulnerable safe, by making it as difficult as possible to go to the shops. Yesterday my back was killing me ( possible kidney infection) so I had to have a little sit on a step before I attempted the walk home.

My granny was a nurse, born early 20th century, she worked through the war. I wish you could have met her. As a small child I fell on glass embedded in my hand. Every day she would make me plunge my hand into very hot salty water then she would tweezer out the glass. There was some puss not pretty but she got every single piece out I was left with no scarring. she did not have a degree but attended the university of life. She worked through the war in the centre of London and saw so much death, but a lovelier granny was not to be had in the land. Her sister Kate also nursed for many years.

My mother was a nurse, worked in mental hospital for a time. She did not have a degree but attended the university of life.

The carers amongst us today on minimum wage were once upon a time nurses. They cared for many.

Elderly people just struggle on, our don't go, I imagine. I guess it's a way to keep one section of the vulnerable safe, by making it as difficult as possible to go to the shops.
It's a shame, for some a walk into town for a hot drink or a pastry would have been good for their mental health and their mobility too.

I could be wrong but I don’t think schools will close in the extensively trailered next lockdown. (Everything else will, mind.)

At least I now have PC monitors back again - it's been doing my head in trying to work on a little laptop screen alone!

Today's Telegraph (the least D of all the papers - I believe this because I do a quick front page survey when the supermarket is quiet) reports that NHS data show that between April 2 and December 23, 438 under 60s with no health conditions died of (I think they mean 'with') Covid. In the whole of 2019, 955 under 60s died on England's roads.

Meanwhile the Swiss are getting outraged about British skiers running away from Verbier. You'd think they'd be grateful to see the back of the disease-infested Brits, rather than wanting them to hang around and breath on the locals. It's really confusing because different cantons had different rules at different times.

And Over There there is much baying for schools to be closed. I have tried suggesting that the many schools that have had no, or hardly any, cases - which is quite a lot - should remain open. But no, apparently not having cases doesn't mean they are not about to suddenly become overwhelmed. It seems that it's not possible for schools to watch out and react if cases start increasing. I was speaking to a primary head in London who said they've had two cases in the school since September. Each time they sent home close contacts only and each time they had no more cases within a fortnight. But according to MN they would have had a lot of cases but just didn't know. So sad for our children.

@SufferingFromLongLockdown this is precisely why I now go as few places as possible (so I suppose the government have got their wish) because, as well as few places to sit, there are very few places to have a pee as well. It is absolute torture. I am no big fan of Tesco, but at least our local one (very large) has always left it's loos open. Next week I have a hygienists appointment, for which I have an hours drive to get there. I am going to have to reduce my fluid intake from the evening before in order to cope, because they won't let your filthy body sully their lavatory.

I haven’t been so unfit in years, I had lost 2.5 stone in the last couple of years, nearly all gone back on, I have had no work since March so gone from extremely busy to struggling to fill the days.

I have problems with my foot as well, booked in for private surgery at the end of January so I am hoping that being able to walk without pain will help me getting back to where I was. I was referred on the NHS in July and they couldn’t even offer an initial assessment till the end of March 2021. The consultant thinks I have 6 months to a year until my joint and foot are permanently damaged, I am certain I would just get put on another waiting list and wouldn’t be treated in that time scale. I haven’t got health insurance but don’t feel I have an alternative to using savings.

The government has a lot to answer for in terms of the decline in our health and fitness as a nation, mentally and physically. If they do stop outside exercise then combined with the lack of health care currently available I think the death toll from their lockdown policies may exceed COVID in the long term.