To think the lockdown needs to end now?

[Fr0thandBubble]

I could understand a lockdown being imposed for a few weeks to make sure the NHS was up to capacity, but it’s gone well beyond that. The NHS now has lots of excess capacity and yet here we still are.

I am horrified by what has happened to our civil liberties, what it’s doing to our children’s education, what it’s doing to everyone’s livelihoods and mental health, what it’s doing to the economy, how people are not getting life-saving treatment for things like cancer, etc.

I don’t understand why people aren’t given the right to choose to self-isolate if they need to but for the rest of us to be allowed to get on with our lives and to take responsibility for ourselves.

I don’t understand why people who are not old and don’t have underlying health conditions are acting hysterically and why people have decided it’s OK to police other people’s behaviour and shout at them in the street.

I feel like I’m living in some kind of awful dystopian society.

I realise I’m in the minority here but does anyone agree with me?

I agree
I feel like I’m in the minority where I live (Scotland) although I do think a lot of people irl do agree but are too frightened to say...

Too many people want to live in a darkened room, wrapped in bubble wrap whilst being spoonfed bland food. Just in case.

I'm still recovering from breast cancer. I could have huddled in bed feeling sorry for myself. No thanks [shudder]

@phoebesphalange so sorry about your mum x
You make such an interesting point: it has seemed to me a lot of people extremely terrified by COVID are people who have not really experienced ill health in their lives.
I was speaking to my dad this evening; he is 90 but in very good health. He told me that when he was young illnesses transmitted and peaked with no cures (antibiotics hadn’t been developed) eventually either died out, became weak or a vaccine was developed. Life carried on and yes, unfortunately people died. If it was very serious the infected person was quarantined for as long as it took (my dad was quarantined with Scarlet Fever and my mum, hospitalised for months with Polio). But the world didn’t stop.

The lockdown is to save lives. Being alive is more important than money, education seeing family. You can never do anything ever again if you are dead.

You can never do anything ever again if you are dead

Quite. But the vast majority of us WILL NOT DIE.

This is not living. It is existing.

@LavenderLilacTree

The lockdown is to save lives. Being alive is more important than money, education seeing family. You can never do anything ever again if you are dead.

No. The lockdown was trying to save the lives of people who, in all likelihood, would have passed away in the next year or two. Statistically speaking.

And in trying to save those already frail, twilight lives the lockdown has devastated and potentially ruined the lives and health of millions and billions of other people. Don't be a lemming. Stop mouthing platitudes. Start exercising some critical thinking.

Being alive is not all that matters. You won’t care that you’re dead! I’m all for preventing preventable deaths, but not at any price. If the alternative to this lockdown is a doubling of my risk of death this year, sign me up. I’ll take a quadrupling in fact. I do plenty of other stuff that risks lives all the time. I assume however that you don’t drive, are a perfect weight, never drink or smoke, have all your vaccinations, have sold everything you have and donated the money to health related causes....

I agree op. Life is for living and there will always be risk.

But Covid isn't the only way to die. If the economy goes to shit, millions will be plunged into poverty, and poverty literally takes years off people's lives. People in the most affluent parts of the UK live over a decade longer than people in the most deprived parts. My own stepfather committed suicide in his early fifties - he was longterm unemployed and it just wore him down mentally & emotionally. So somehow we have to find a balance which causes the least misery.

OP - agree 100%.

Coronavirus can be awful for a tiny percentage of the population. And I mean real Covid 19 - not a high temperature like drama queen Johnson allegedly had.
But for the rest of the population the lockdown has been an absurd over reaction.
But the Government will never admit it was wrong which is why that cannot and will not say ‘lockdown over’.
So the charade goes on.......

I agree. It should be phased out over June.

@peaceanddove

Second time I have agreed with you today.

My colleague's wife is very senior NHS in our hospital (Scotland). She talks with frustration of empty wards, cancelled appointments, staff with nothing to do and itching to be seeing patients again.
When C-19 broke I was terrified by all the media doom mongering. In my family alone I have a father in a care home, an elderly mother living alone, a daughter with a heart condition, husband with diabetes and I have asthma. It didnt look good. Of course, none of us have had it and, more to the point, none of us know anyone round here ( central Scotland who has) But we are furloughed and locked down and slowly going mad. And all we get from Scottish Govt is " behave, or we will lock you down again." I'm actually more scared for our futures now than I was at the start of this

I'm actually more scared for our futures now than I was at the start of this

Me too. I am no longer scared of covid. I am scared for my future, my child's future because I am not sure what's going to be left after this shit show.

@Cocacola12 I know what you mean! I’m in a rural area that had very little cases/deaths (thankfully) and people are literally frothing at the mouth at the thought of lockdown lifting! They think that because we are now allowed to see someone in their garden that things are now back to normal and are screaming it’s too soon! Er no I can’t go and see my family in their house, go shopping as normal or see my hairdresser! I think they would gladly stay like this for the next 2 years or whenever a vaccine may be found! Sick of it, never realised I lived with so many sheeple. At this moment in time our hospital has 0 in intensive care and no new cases in nearly 2 weeks

And yes to those who seem to be loving this having never had a health scare or going on about lasting effects. I had very serious pneumonia a few years ago which put me in HDU with talk of ventilation which wasn’t needed but I have never been worried about this virus. Pneumonia left me with on going breathlessness and the need for an inhaler but would still rather live and enjoy my life as short as it is already it’s like flipping ground hog day

Absolutely 100% with you OP. I work in an industry where I see on a daily basis what this is doing to businesses. People are suicidal and on the edge. People are going to lose their homes, their livelihoods and some will take their own lives. Let the elderly continue to self isolate and let the people with underlying health issues self isolate. The rest of us should return to our lives as normal. The current situation is absolute madness and will destroy more lives than COVID ever did.

@dementedma I work in community nursing and when all this started out we were all scared of this massive tsunami of patients coming home to die with covid, the gps were terrified etc but thankfully it never came, we never had one person with it on our caseload (that we know of of course). Things have been changed irreversibly we have been told this, we were told that figures submitted for a surge in may didn’t happen, the next surge in July isn’t looking likely either so now they are submitting for September! I’m well and truly fatigued

No. The lockdown was trying to save the lives of people who, in all likelihood, would have passed away in the next year or two. Statistically speaking.
Actually research from the University of Glasgow shows that “men who die of Covid-19 losing average of 13 years, while women have 11 years cut off life expectancy.” www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/23/coronavirus-cutting-decade-victims-lives-scientists-say/

Apart from the physical differences between us and Sweden, there are cultural differences, people there seem more socially aware and responsible, whereas many here are thick, ignorant and/ or too bolshie to respond to common sense.

Please tell me you’re not seriously advocating going back to a time when diseases like this rampaged through the population. If so, what on earth is the point of almost a century of medical advances??

I work in a hospital, I’ve had a couple of colleagues die from this. Lots of us caught it in that first big wave. The wave which almost filled the hospital calmed down quickly and the hospital has been relatively empty for weeks. We are now focussed on trying to catch up with cancer diagnostics and treatment, as a first step.

Everything has been on hold for covid. So many people are going to now die from other untreated illnesses.

I know many people who have lost or are about to lose their jobs.

If schools don’t return then parents can’t both work.

DH and I are both going to work and poor DD has been left on her own 5 days a week for 3 months.

A short lockdown was reasonable, but it has dragged on far too long.

Yep I agree with you op. Time to get back to normal as best we can. Or at least do localised lockdowns depending on the demographic of people and industry.

what on earth is the point of almost a century of medical advances??

We aren't using advanced medicine to treat Covid. We are locking everyone in their homes to stop them catching it in the first place.

[quote EarlGreywithLemon]No. The lockdown was trying to save the lives of people who, in all likelihood, would have passed away in the next year or two. Statistically speaking.
Actually research from the University of Glasgow shows that “men who die of Covid-19 losing average of 13 years, while women have 11 years cut off life expectancy.” www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/23/coronavirus-cutting-decade-victims-lives-scientists-say/[/quote]
Really? Because the studies I read out of Italy indicated that the average death was 80 years of age with 2 or 3 (let's say 2.5) underlying co-morbidities.

From the article you posted:

Office for National Statistics data shows that most people dying in the UK are aged between 75 and 84. The Scottish research argues that many of those could have expected years, even more than a decade, more life if they had not caught the virus.

The average life expectancy in the UK is 82.

"why people have decided it’s OK to police other people’s behaviour and shout at them in the street." Ah that's what his is about. Your friends and neighbours were unimpressed weren't they.

Of course every rational person wants the lockdown over with. It's just a handful of people whining about it who think that they and only they are finding it hard and believe that everyone else is part of some plot to ruin their life.

As though the whole world (no it's not just the UK Tory party) would risk recession just so they could take away your right to get your hair done.