Mum still in lockdown !!

[Kissingfrogs25]

I am getting so worried about my mum. She is in no way vulnerable, in good health and 72 years old, she lives with my dad, for context she smokes, but is a healthy weight no issues.

Mum has been in lockdown since early march 20 and has not been anywhere inside or outside since this date, she says she is too terrified she will die of covid. She has had all vaccines, its the only time she has been inside a building. She cuts her own hair, hasn't been to the dentist, doctor (will speak on phone if needed) in all that time.

She won't even eat a takeaway in case its contaminated

What on earth do I do? I managed to get her to call the dr, who put her on antidepressants and other medication, but this hasn't changed anything.

I have been meeting up with mum outside, but even then she looks nervous. My dad is not allowed to go anywhere either.

It is now getting colder, I didnt see her for eight months last winter because it was too cold to sit out. She won't even see her friends, the few she has left have to sit on a bench in the park.

Anyone else in this position? What can I do? The years are going by and I feel like I have lost my mum 😥

😳what have I just read 😩

What a waste of a life. If this thing had a 90% mortality rate, there’s be no discussion (nobody left). But imagine being 2.5 years in and believing you can mandate Mother Nature.

im a right ol’ pessimist pragmatist and believe one day there will be something which takes us all out. But omicron it ain’t!

Already been explained several times. Also stop trying to live with Covid would be an idea, follow the trite public health science as to what to do to make it less prevalence and attempt to get it to go away rather than just repeating to us that it hasn't, which is a statement of the bleeding obvious that I only need to be told once but is clear most people need to be repeatedly reminded of lest they forget what they likely find uncomfortable and wish to deny to themselves. The public health science being the science rather than "research" that officials do on behalf of government in order seemingly to try to find no evidence by having parameters unable to pick it up if it exists (which we know from worldwide independent research it does) - like looking for the winter solstice in November. Hint: try looking in December and you might find evidence it exists.

Another thing people should do is exercise critical thinking, which seems largely absent and stop being led (misled) into doing nothing about the virus and perpetuating the continued bad situation, enabling it to be worse almost each time I look (now got a subvariant that seems likely to be the one to take off in a month's time and happens to be the one that defeats the two anti-virals - but essential that they do this, especially as they tried to rely on the anti-virals as a way out of the pandemic, it is essential that they thwart their own attempt - we've been saying it for years now: it will not work. Reliance on the vaccines alone, a simple message, will not work and neither will reliance on vaccines and anti-virals, instead proceeding on mass scale as if normal life will simply spread and create the virus even more in all the countries now doing this and give the virus the edge and, surprise, surprise, we have all these multiple subvariants now and therefore 'living with the virus' simply means the virus gets more ahead of our vaccines by trying to rely on them and not using and not using all the other measures (ventilation, high-grade masks etc.) in addition to reduce transmission). And of course no-one could possibly have foreseen this foreseeable situation in which we are now in.

@Paragon59

No-one has yet explained what rationality they used to think behaving as if it is normal life back was appropriate or what has convinced them to do that.

The risk of developing anxiety, depression, dementia, and a host of other illnesses is orders of magnitude greater from isolation than the risk of dying from covid or getting long covid. The probabilities speak for themselves.

I think pretty much everyone foresaw that this was where it was going to go though @Paragon59 there was never going to be any other way out. Smallpox is the only thing we have ever been able to eradicate. The fact is for all of our knowledge and power we are and will always be beholden to viruses.

What do you think the end game of this is?

But nowhere in any of your posts do you accept or grasp that others have access to and see what you see, exercised as you put it critical thinking and decided that there rational choice is do what we are doing.

That people understand and know the risks of this path but chose it anyway - chosing life. Because there really is no other choice.

I really hope this is a turning point for your mum! @Kissingfrogs25

The virus clearly does need to evolve into a much much more dangerous state as, until it does, people won't be forced to do anything. The actual long-term damage of this that deceptively seems lesser harm will be ignored since it goes under the radar and Omicron behave in this stealth way, slow burn incrementalism of more deaths in the end though avoiding them all being caused in one go as that would shock people. Until you have so much that then causing more doesn't shock them as much and gets them into accepting it. Instead, we have this nonchalance to the continued slower causing of death at a more stable level that continues and amounts to more deaths in total that, even if had been done all at once, people would have done something. But that's fine - cause more deaths instead as long as you get it under the radar by constantly doing it at a lower rate and continuing to burden the health service incessantly throughout as long as you just keep it below capacity and keep replacing patients with yet more patients as soon as they leave and constant throughput on health workers that we don't care about, just as long as the NHS doesn't collapse in one go but does so over an extended period and in a slow motion car crash that's fine.

The end to take us all out of the pandemic might actually have been Omicron as Omicron does seem to have some level of high transmissibility that now develops more subvariants, which may be good in some sense except that people aren't doing the right thing or it may be worse in other ways. People aren't doing the right thing as they are not going for elimination (we have a measles and rubella elimination strategy but not a Covid one but this political Covid exception yet again), people misunderstand what elimination is, that is not eradication, instead elimination and then push to eradication after that. They have this defeatist attitude it will never be achieved. However, even if it wasn't and fell short, it would be better than never trying for it and then falling short of that. There is some argument that Omicron might be easier to eliminate, therefore if that is so that would be good, but people aren't doing the right thing as they aren't attempting it. Whereas a new variant if Omicron weren't so transmissible might not be as easy to eliminate, even though that's someone's argument Omicron may have features about it that make it easier, it seems the allowing the widescale transmission probably makes it more difficult.

Honestly, this is nuts.

You tell the virus then!

I’m sure it’ll listen

Anything that places any limits on or fetters “normal life” in any way is a restriction. They all come with cost, even those short of a lockdown. They aren’t worth doing any more. We need to accept Covid is here as yet something else that may pick off some of us or affect health and crack on.

The WHO have also said the pandemic is nearing its end @Paragon59 . Do they need to listen to you as well?

This virus has been pretty much the most studied and acted upon thing globally that I can recall. What makes you think you have answers and wisdom that no one else have thought of?

We’ve seen what attempts at elimination/eradication have done, not much of any use in getting rid of the virus.

and I do think it’s pretty twisted to wish higher levels of death and disease on people through some sort of weird desire for vindication and because on a personal level lockdown life suits you better than normal life.

Firstly, it's not some sort of "game" as if this is some sort of fun, instead it is people being ill, people still dying (much more than flu and was never acceptable anyway as the Covid lockdowns proved that we could be close to zero flu but we never persisted with it) and people being left disabled.

Some people do have access to and see what I see, perhaps more people than might have been thought, although the impression given to me is that most people don't see it. Again, there has been no explanation as to what their rational decision-making process has been. It may be a rational choice, for them, but how have they reached this choice? I am also choosing life - "life" is being defined by people in their own terms and assuming that I don't have a life, done as an attempt to persuade me to join their groupthink. It does prove the existence of that in fact.

I am not sure people are aware of the risks, as the WHO said that there is this disconnect between the public and political leaders on the one hand and scientists on the other. The fact it seems mostly scientists that are wearing masks, whilst the mass public largely aren't (or else the BBC is misleading me by depicting this as being impressions of normality it wishes to give us) seems to show the public generally don't know the risk, instead think they do and research shows people generally underestimate their risks in a pandemic. www.nature.com/articles/s41599-022-01052-4 Anyway, this is getting way off what the subject was before so I am ending this here.

Apologies I got distracted onto a tangent as usual and failed to deal with the question of what the end of it was.

I don't see any end in sight at present the way we are going. The "end" that people seem to be planning appears to be to leave us with constant high levels of the virus perpetually with no end to it and continued high burden of disease and death never-ending for the future. The "end" is that there is no end - we are stuck in this pandemic forever.

Otherwise the end is I see it eventually ending, but only via this long drawn-out process in which people disagree with me and therefore prolong the pandemic even more as it appears very unlikely it will be ended the current approach. Nothing is being done in order to end it and choosing the path of trying to continue as if normal will likely be unsustainable short-term periods of pretended normality and push off getting to normal in any long-term sustainable way even longer.

Paragon "Already been explained several times."

I genuinely can't find your suggested measures in your blocks of text.

It is also part of my stubborness and resistance that I have had throughout my life, here my refusal to accept the attempt at normalisation of unacceptable death and long-term disability through defining today as normal. I am not having any of it and I continue to point-blank refuse and to remain stubbornly in lockdown caused by other people's behaviour in order to show how wrong that behaviour is. So it is over to everyone else and to fight the pandemic (as I am continuing to do so and fulfilling all of my task on this), for others that have given up to start to do so again and actually do a proper job for once...

there is a risk of death, illness and long term disability in any aspect of life. The risk of death by suicide or long term disability by rampant mental ill health by self imposed years long isolation is just as great as the risk of either from Covid, and the risks of either from any other risk of living life in the world is another factor all together.

You're only harming yourself by your self imposed exile. Nobody is going to change their behaviour because you are in lockdown. You're also never going to convince many people at all that your way is the right way so it's just further self harm that you are doing.

Unfortunately the WHO have themselves caved in to politics on that now and there is no evidence that it is actually nearing its end - in fact they didn't even say this, it was conditional on what likely won't happen. The virus isn't being acted upon now by removing measures in many countries and just trying vaccination constantly and now this 'interesting' somewhat amusing for all the wrong reasons concept of "vaccine fatigue". Seems people can't even handle this - I know, I felt like a guinea pig myself on my third jab, as that is the only answer they keep giving to everything, just keeping trying to vaccinate our way out of the pandemic and never ever actually achieve it, instead the self-defeating "living with Covid" approach which is now clear is giving the virus evolution the edge and putting our vaccines farther behind than any action in these countries to do so. The measures being removed are done on the basis of no science, except science compromised by what people are willing to do, which isn't science but is science compromised instead, or compromised by protection of economic interests whilst the economy and economic interests are not protected by having constant burden of disease weighing down on them.

Surprise surprise the impact from causing Covid to be present at the levels we have caused is greater than they thought, the people whose previous thoughts were wrong on the matter. www.theguardian.com/business/2022/sep/30/uk-is-only-g7-country-with-smaller-economy-than-before-covid-19

It isn't what no-one else has thought of - although I have been repeatedly ahead throughout the pandemic of what our officials have said and, apart from their being correct on advising people to get their vaccines each time, they have been repeatedly wrong whilst I have been most often correct and been right on five separate times now about what this virus may be like only for scientists, different groups of scientists, to say they did not "expect" and they were "surprised" by what I expected this virus might be able to do and comes as no surprise to me that it does, seemingly because many scientists seem blinded by their knowledge into thinking this virus will behave like pre-existing ones that they have experience of, when, whilst this virus transmits pretty much like other viruses do, in so many ways it repeatedly shows us that it is completely unlike any previous virus and making the assumption that it couldn't do something is usually wrong. I can't rule out certain things therefore I do not do so and they come as no surprise to me whilst scientists are surprised. It is usually a bad thing to think the virus will turn out for the best as it repeatedly often turns out to be the opposite and repeatedly penalises those that have hope.

The attempts at elimination are not literally zero, that's where the misunderstanding sometimes is (and I've never heard our media properly explain it as opposed to being hostile against it from the start). It accepts that the virus may get back into countries again, at which point measures are then taken to get it back to zero. This saves many lives and means health services don't end up with backlogs being added to. Elimination proved to be extreme use in enabling long periods of normal life in New Zealand throughout much of the first 18 months of the pandemic, so that people didn't then suffer fatigue from extended lockdowns in countries such as ours that have pursued our flawed approach.

It is flawed, because we have had those repeated lockdowns and they have been as extended as they were and the Government caused all the damage it did by allowing the virus into the country and never getting rid of it, never having any effective border to stop it coming in, simply caused a worse virus problem by protecting the economy instead (and ultimately failing to protect the economy, by then wiping out the pub trade at Christmas for two years in a row) and never having an effective test and trace system, and as New Zealand showed whilst people say elimination can only delay the virus, the period of delay can be substantial and viruses that challenged it such as Delta would not have been created without countries like ours that enable the virus to spread until they are forced at the last moment to close the economy and cause even more damage, to the economy, people's health in terms of more having been allowed to catch Covid whilst doing nothing by trying to protect the economy and mental health from being in extended lockdowns and mental health damage to relatives or people in care homes and also including children who've lost parents whom Covid killed.

I don't wish higher levels of death and disease, unfortunately other people clearly need them in order for them to do something, I'd prefer they did it without having to see this. Every time, the hospitalisations are less than they were in the worst wave possible before. Instead, we sit and wait and need it seems more people to be hospitalised as we are just watching and never doing anything to prevent any of the waves. I know, pretty novel idea to suggest we ought to be doing something to stop these entirely foreseeable things in the first place and, through omitting to do anything, are choosing to cause extra deaths and long-term disability.

Lockdown life doesn't necessarily suit me better than normal life, both have their bad and good aspects. The normal life damage was only later on in normal life and caused by people's normal life activities not being altered despite repeated complaints from myself as to what damage they were causing. There are good aspects such as Christmas Parties as long as no-one is harassed at them that are not possible in my lockdown but it is different instead. It would be nice to be able to do normal life again but I suppose that was the period then and this is the period now and I have no view on which is better or worse than any other, my being objective as usual. Just as I wouldn't perhaps have wanted lockdown all the time, equally would anyone want to be at a Christmas Party every day of the year?

Lockdown in itself neither suits me better nor worse, some aspects are worse as it isn't plain-sailing throughout but then neither was "normal life", and I'm rather annoyed by people constantly going on about normal nowadays which is always defined to suit their interests and has its own aspects that are unnecessary pressurising or boring. By the way, I've never found myself looking at four corners in my home, there is always something to do here and I barely have time to do a lot of it. Other people may not be thinking creatively or else may find the activities in lockdown boring.

A lot of this may come from my autism, which affects different people in different ways, but some of it may not and it may be very different in general for people in lockdown that are not on the autism spectrum.

I continue to point-blank refuse and to remain stubbornly in lockdown caused by other people's behaviour in order to show how wrong that behaviour is

An epic version of 'I'm going to sulk and ignore everyone and stay in my bedroom until everyone apologises and admits that I'm right.' I have a feeling that you're going to be like those Japanese soldiers who emerged decades after WW2 and long after everyone else knew the war was over and done with. Ultimately futile and utterly self-defeating but hey, it's your life.

I forget to mention now about "vaccine fatigue", this new strange idea to me again - as I am on my way to my second booster on Monday so, yet again, I am not fatigued by any of it. Somewhat amusing, and inappropriately so, for all the wrong reasons, that people don't seem to be able to cope with numerous jabs, again and again and again as their own apparent likely unsustainable way to never get out of the pandemic, and I do feel for everyone else that seems to find these things difficult and seems not able to do the right thing. It is only - and unfortunately - going to me it will be a worse situation than before, when people now get fatigued about getting vaccines. People generally don't seem to be able to keep things up, in order to actually end the pandemic and keep caving in and giving up after such a short time. Even Nicola Sturgeon showed evidence on three separate occasions of caving in each time, after resolutely maintaining an approach for a while, and seemed herself therefore emotionally affected until she finally gave up like everyone else now some time ago and by doing so effectively admitted defeat to this infernal virus.

Should be going to mean, rather than going to me.
There doesn't seem to be a way to edit posts on here once posted?

All these people determined to isolate and never leave their homes again for fear of dying from COVID........ Here's a heads up - you're already dead. You just haven't had your funeral yet.

I know exactly how you feel. You don't want your DM to be unwell but at the same time it might break her fear barrier. I was the same with my DM. Then she got Covid and was certain she was going to die. A week later she was surprised to find it had been no worse than a normal cold and now she is back to doing normal things.

No sulking at all. It's quite amusing though. The war, as in the pandemic, isn't over and done with. People are behaving widescale it seems as if it is, which only makes it continue much longer in fact. We have more constant infection in this country throughout this year 2022 - the pandemic more here than ever as part of the prevalence of infection of a virus that is present in many areas and around the world. The prefix "pan-" literally means "all", so the UK can't opt itself out of it, it remains ongoing around the world and especially in places with numerous virus presence such as ours.
"Ultimately futile and utterly self-defeating" seems to me a perfect description of the living with Covid policy and of the behaviour of people widescale, as simply perpetuates the virus, keeps spreading it and even more and continually and is futile as enables the virus to evolve more and self-defeating of the vaccines that then get left behind whilst people aren't doing some minor additional things to control transmission in any way, given that the vaccines are now very little protection against infections that Omicron now causes repeatedly and repeated infection much more common to what was the case before - the gamble and bet the farm on herd immunity that the Government lost earlier and has had these consequences for us all ever since. An approach I would never have taken and proved wrong in the way I imagined months in advance that it might.

The whole approach is flawed as they are still stuck on the flu pandemic model, and using the excuse of smallpox being the only one successfully eradicated in order not to try for something a little less on this, despite having such a policy on rubella and measles (the latter the most transmissible of all whilst this Covid virus gets more and more transmissible the more we enable this through the futile and self-defeating behaving as if Covid isn't here which is the way people on mass scale appear to have implemented living with Covid, a stupid idea in the first place as I have no intention of living with as in having this disease although I am forced to live with the fact it is still here and take the extra stringent measures I have to take given the risk of catching it continues to be increased by others and the risks of it once caused have been downplayed and even if people believe they've had a mild illness this might not in fact be the case as that is just what they experienced in the symptoms and think they are recovered when they no longer have those, I'm not saying they are not, it is just I have no evidence that they actually are, and therefore by Covid being here I am forced to live with it in this way and do all I can to avoid catching it as that's the unacceptable risk and materialise of the harm in itself, that people don't think is there, and also we've had people being careful for two years and then dropping their guard (something I am almost incapable of) and catching the virus and dying (though I was never concerned for myself about that as the risk was never great in the first place, although Delta increased it for people of around my age that wrongly thought they weren't much risk and failed to get vaccinated), I am therefore not falling into that trap whilst, on so many levels, the risks are now increased for me, and some other people are not living with Covid as they are dying with it instead.

Live with cholera - why not fail to clean our water the way we fail to clean our indoor air?

I think this would make me so angry. My ILs are also still very fearful and don't go out, but they do see their grandkids. Plus the isolation meant their mobility declined. I mostly feel sad.

But in your situation I think I might feel angry, and I think I would say so. It just seems so incredibly selfish.

@Kissingfrogs25 hope she does release herself from prison - and hope she doesn't see it as proof she was right all along - the minute she leaves the house she catches covid !

Yes it would cause me a lot of anxiety if I were to catch Covid due to not knowing what it may cause, and I avoid all of this, which is vital to me due to my ongoing situation both with long-term illness (that isn't my autism since that isn't illness) and with other responsibilities I have, by not catching Covid.

I am not convinced. I had thought it may be a mild illness - I made that mistake with long Covid initially, thinking it was a mild if long term and debiliating condition in some people, but then found that some people end up in a wheelchair and unable to work for months and months and therefore I consider that to be a serious condition not mild illness at all - even if people now have what they think are mild illnesses and they feel or appear to have recovered, I am no longer sure, as of a few weeks ago, that this is actually the case and do not know if the illnesses that seem to be mild have in fact caused something that can't be seen or experienced that increases the risks from further infections in future, whether by Covid or other diseases. Therefore, where people now "find" it to be no worse than a normal cold, I would need them to have scans and tests inside their body to show that this is in fact the case and I'm also not convinced that Covid doesn't or can't cause something that doesn't even show up on tests that haven't even been invented yet so, by definition, there is no evidence there that would satisfy me to prove that it actually is "no worse than a normal cold".

This is not a normal cold virus, which may be caused by rhinoviruses or by previous coronaviruses. It is a SARS coronavirus, another mistake by pursuing a flu pandemic policy as SARS is quite different from flu. Whilst doing normal things is suitable for other people, I am not sure I would want to be doing "normal" things as, being autistic, I am by definition not normal instead I am unusual as perhaps 1% of people are autistic. I therefore cannot do "normal" things, instead only autistic ones as, even when I am sitting here and perceiving the world around me, what I am getting is quite different as many things around me that most people can filter out are possibly not being filtered out, and this constantly at all times, by me. I don't hold my laptop in the same way as normal people do due to some motor skills difference. I perceive motion differently. Nothing I do can ever be "normal", even if only in relation to what I am perceiving around me at any and every time I am alive. A conversation in face-to-normally their chin with me was never "normal" and I think there is possibly some processing difference in which I am a split-second out of sync but so short it doesn't cause issues except I don't know whether they are there or not. The difference in light intensity and how things reach my awareness, which may be so very slightly different time, likely isn't the same as "normal" people, that are so frustrating nowadays wanting other people to be the same as them whilst reinforcing their own normality even when it causes unacceptable issues to me.