AIBU to think this can't go on for a whole year??

[cola2019]

AIBU in thinking that this cannot go on for a year?? My husband seems to think that until there is a vaccine available life cannot go back to normal. I can't envisage not seeing my parents for a year (my dad has cancer so is currently in the sheilding group). He keeps telling me that I need to face up to the fact that we can't see our parents until they have been vaccinated. No shops, no bars, no events, no schools. Surely economically life will have to resume slowly we can't wait till 2021 surely. But as soon as lockdown is lifted and people start mixing then it will spike again.

It’s entirely likely those in the shielded group will have to self isolate until there is a vaccine. We won’t just go back to normal, there will be a new normal and big gatherings won’t be happening for some time

This will be the new normal really.

It would also be nice if people could try to get their heads around the fact that yes people die from seasonal flu and nothing changes in other people’s lives, but this is nothing like seasonal flu!

It literally cannot go on for a year. The virus is not going away and life has to go on.
In the Netherlands schools are reopening (May 11 for primary/creche, June 2 for secondary). Other countries will follow. To continue all of this for much longer amounts to economic suicide. Not worth it IMO for 0.02-0.03% of the population (or 10-20% of cases depending on the country) dying from this thing.

it’s a modern socialist’s dream and there’s plenty to read on the matter if you’re so inclined.

Actually the interesting thing about basic income is that right-wingers often also like it.

It doesn't have to be expensive, my version would look something like this.

• First assume we keep the current tax and benefits system roughly as is.
• Then we add a basic income at a low level
• paid weekly. (Or even daily, if practical) so no-one will ever starve before their next payment is due.
• we abolish the personal allowance and set either the universal income or the basic rate of tax so that there is no net cost to give it to full-time workers, and on the whole none of them are any better or worse off than before.

A basic income like this would give some money to people who fall through the cracks, and wouldn't cost a lot, because hardly anyone will have more money as a result of it.

• we offset Universal credit against it, so no adult who is part of a universal credit claim would get more money because of it. (So it costs nothing to give it to them.)
• although benefits claimants wouldn't have more pounds in their pocket, it would represent a source of income that can't be taken away by sanctions, and that they don't have to wait 5 weeks for.

The sentence starting "A basic income" was supposed to be after the end of my list.

Your husband sounds very controlling.

LTB.

I think some people are going to be really quite disappointed when this is over and life is all mundane and boring again, and it turns out we didn’t in fact have to spend 28 months in lockdown.

As for seeing family...you are lucky to be able to look at your through a window. We moved abroad 3 years ago for my husband’s job but still manage normally to see family every 1-2 months under normal circumstances. Now we cannot see them at all. Not even through a window. Travel for us is a necessity so our parents can form and maintain a relationship with their only grandchild; it’s more than a sodding weekend away.

I do actually know a fair bit about pandemics in history, and let me assure you, they have never meant “everyone stays in their houses for 12+ months and we never have hugs or parties or jobs ever again.”

Which is why millions died in pandemics in the past, however there has been a case of people cutting themselves off from others - look at Eyam in Derbyshire.

Eyam choosing to sacrifice itself is (I hate to say this because I love the story too) probably not quite true, honestly.

But yes, quarantine as an idea has been around for hundreds of years. What hasn’t been around for pandemics is the kind of national year-long lockdown that people on this thread are either worried about or rubbing their hands with glee over. Nor is ‘life won’t go back to normal ever again’. These aren’t inevitable consequences of pandemics.

It's a tough one but it's good that your parents are together and not alone. My dad has cancer and is sadly at the end of his life now as they found it had spread to his pancreas. He had a rare type of cancer and we knew it wouldn't go away but it's sad it spread so much so soon. I saw him in March before lockdown and was glad that I went, I was able to see him this week as they thought he'd only have a few hours left (three days later and he's still with us.) I think you just have to wait until lockdown lifts, it will do in some shape or form so at least you can visit in some way even if you don't go close to him or wear a mask etc.

My mum is in the shielded group too, I can't imagine not seeing her for a whole year but I couldn't live with myself if she broke the rules and got sick.

Just take it a day at a time and each decision as and when you have to.

It's not just the economy.

Life has to have priority.

We're stuck inside, "saving the NHS" and life passes us by. Illnesses are untreated, pregnant women left on their own, birthdays uncelebrated, families divided, dogs left to die on their own, fruit rotting on the farms, business bankrupted, pubs and theatres empty and most likely out of business, children missing education, women stuck home being beaten up, endless breast cancers growing away.

I think some people are going to be really quite disappointed when this is over and life is all mundane and boring again

What a statement! There is su much resentment from people who refuse to accept current circumstances towards those who do and are getting on with it. Especially from those who are working from home and rely on schools to mind their children. While it is harder to work from home, don’t lash out at those who are saying things you don’t want to hear. Your denial isn’t enough to make 26K deaths irrelevant.

I won't be going out until September - will probably have to then for schools unless I decide to home-ed.
we're quite chilled - kids relaxed, working from home, schooling from home. All pretty ok but I'm still optimistic for a vaccine or dramatic drop by september but we should have closed our boarders and had more stringent lockdown before now. Whole UK gov attitude was too half-hearted.

don’t lash out at those who are saying things you don’t want to hear.

People who are saying that we will be in lockdown for 12+ months and that life will be drastically changed forever are not actually right, though. Whether I ‘want to hear it’ or not has nothing to do with that.

Your denial isn’t enough to make 26K deaths irrelevant.

What is it you think I’m ‘denying’, exactly?

My workplace are hoping we are all happy to work from home so they dont have to reopen the office and save lots of $$$$$

My boss wanted us all to do a risk assessment on our home working until it was pointed out that we would nearly all fail it! I work at the dining room table and use a dining chair and I'd be pushing back against working from home permanently. It's manageable for now as an emergency measure but I'm not turning my living room into an office.

I think some people are going to be really quite disappointed when this is over and life is all mundane and boring again

I agree. For some people, living through COVID has pretty much become their hobby; daresay, for a minority, even their religion. Most of us just get on with things, make adaptations to our lives and cope as best we can, but there are a lot of Mrs Doyles out there who genuinely get off on the misery and how much superior they believe they are to everybody else who isn't flagellating themselves.

My sil who transports vulnerable patients has been told to expect school transport to re start 1st June?

Not by anyone who actually knows anything.

Some of the views on here are just 😮 wow...

SARS/MERS vaccines caused a heap of damage in the lungs and so the notion that Cambridge will magically have one in the next few months is hugely ..ambitious...

What breaks my heart is that 4 weeks in so many people are just saying, oh well, too bad, sick and old just stay at home and suck it up...

Until of course their healthy ass gets poorly. Not every healthy person gets an ICU pass like Boris.

We are barely starting, pandemics last years and measures will be on and off accordingly. I cannot see bars and restaurants opening and certainly not at a profitable level so genuinely worried for these sectors...

I hope the NHS will need to start looking at letting staff get back to their own specialties and hope that new docs and nurses will be enough to sustain them as those with chronic and urgent needs will have to be seen so that their ill health doesn’t lead to equal morbidity numbers...

Also, for those saying thy can’t cope with another few weeks not seeing their family. Is the strain on your mental health as bad as them being dead? Or you being dead? Or knowing you made your mum dead?

Skype/phone sit at the end of the garden but seriously. People live through wars/ refuge camps/ true poverty and hunger. We are so so so fortunate in this country...

I spend my childhood living in a very poor area of Africa where still 1/4 kids die before 5. We are so so flippping blessed in the west it staggers me folk talking about starving to death. That ACTUALLY happens in Mozambique/Namibia/Malawi/Zambia/Zim/ too much of the time to too many of the people. Check your privilege...it will be rough but we will alright...

Coffee the vaccines that they are suggesting may be rolled out in the relatively short term (e.g. the one from the Oxford group that's been suggesting September as the most optimistic timeframe) were originally designed as vaccines against other coronaviruses, in that case MERS, and have already spent a while in development. They're not just going be approved without testing.

Some of the stages of clinical trials are also done from a cost-saving point of view rather than a safety one. For example after Phase I (basic safety check to make sure there are no severe adverse effects) the vaccine is usually trialled on a small number of people to ensure that it actually works the way it's expected to before a larger study is carried out. This isn't about safety, it's just to ensure that institutes don't waste tons of resources doing large scale trials of a vaccine that doesn't even work properly. In a time-critical situation like this that step could be skipped, shortening the development time without compromising on safety.

@moregin

The strain on my mental health from not seeing any one is compounded by the facts that my parents are both dead, as is my DH. I am an only child and have built up my support network after losing them (most recently). We also very recently lost my brother in law (not c19), who had been extremely supportive since dh's death. I am alone with 2 small children, and trying to hold it together.

4 weeks in so many people are just saying, oh well, too bad, sick and old just stay at home and suck it up...

What actually is the alternative, though? For everyone to stay at home for years in the hope that one day a vaccine or a cure is found? I don't think the lockdown should be lifted yet, but at some point it will have to be, unless you think the government has an endless stash of money to pay more and more people not to work as their employers' businesses collapse, while continuing to fund the NHS and benefits and schools and police and all the other things it already pays for. And the chances are that the virus won't be completely gone by the time the restrictions are lifted, so at that point - whenever it is - people will have to start making their own decisions about whether they want to risk going out, based on their personal circumstances.

By the way, I actually think that this was one of the strongest arguments in favour of the herd immunity approach. It was painted as the government not caring about vulnerable people, but telling anyone at risk to stay home for, say, three months while the virus rages through the healthy population and burns itself out is feasible. Saying elderly and vulnerable people should stay home for years while the virus continues to rumble along slowly is obviously not, so most of those people are at some point going to have to leave the house while the virus is still circulating and put themselves at risk. Herd immunity may well have been the best option (besides containment) for those who are shielding, it just would have been a potential disaster for everyone else if the hospitals couldn't treat everyone who needed it.

In addition, anyone shielding who is currently receiving furlough pay or other government assistance while they're unable to be in work is far more likely to receive it for longer if the government isn't also having to pay it to millions of perfectly healthy and very low risk people, who would in all likelihood be fine if they went back to work but currently can't because of the lockdown. People in the lowest risk categories who have been furloughed or made redundant will NEED to go back into employment in the short to medium term, to take some of the strain off the economy so that higher risk people who can't WFH can continue to receive financial support.

We're nearly six weeks in by the way, not four.

boylovesmeerkats just wanted to say that your family is clearly going through some real shit at the moment and I thought that was a lovely reply to the OP. There are so many people lashing out at anyone who's struggling with "you ungrateful bastards should stop whingeing" posts, and it speaks well of you that you can be so gracious in what must be a really difficult time for you all

I can't think of a way to put that that doesn't sound incredibly patronising, sorry! It's just nice to see people still being kind.

@TheGinGenie,
I had very nasty strain flu about 8yrs ago it went quite quickly onto acute bronchitis, spent two weeks in hospital in which 3 of those days ITU on those C PACK mask , DR says if I was not going improve over 48hrs they would ventilate me . I am healthy adult . people underplay flu and underestimate flu and its a dangerous . my treatment yrs 8 was very similar to those who got this virus , flu is very much still a problem that goes around . covid 19 will still go around even if there is vaccine just like flu, the is going not magically make it go away it . people live with threat flu all time and from my experience from flu still effect the healthy just as bad as elderly in some cases , being healthy helps with you chance survival but thats about all , but it can depend what strain you get too, very nasty strain can end up with healthy people in hospital gasping for breath and killing the elderly too .
there is no harm in being mindful and keeping away from others when a person is sick end of the day you don't know the person you spread to as they might valuable or end up with worse symptoms that requires hospital treatment , keep washing hands is very effective way preventing the spread of things . something I keep trying to do but I can't imagine everyone would want to when there is vaccine as the threat would seem to be gone .

This will be true. Itll be a year or more till life is fully back to normal

Well, you could go and see your parents but keep two metres apart. ie they could stand at the doorway while you talk to them from 2 metres away.