The virus is no longer a threat and we should all just get on with our lives.

[RhodaCamel]

That is exactly what my boss said to me yesterday when she asked me if I was still concerned about the virus and I had said yes, I was. She asked me this because I was putting on a mask to drive as I have to share a car with someone else (I wear the mask in line with government recommendations. The other passenger chooses not wear a mask, just me).
I told her that I was concerned that there will be a second wave in the autumn/winter and she replied with a ‘pfff! They are just saying that to scare us, I’m just getting on like normal. Anyhow, it is only a threat to the old and obese’.
Now, I admit that I am a worrier and this virus has freaked me out but surely she is being naive/blinkered to what is going on in the world? I believe that she thinks that as the government have lifted most restrictions that equates to the virus no longer being around! How can it no longer be a threat? It hasn’t gone anywhere, there isn’t any heard immunity yet and no extremely affective medication.
Just wondered if you were with me or my boss?
YES - YABU it’s on it’s way out
NO - It’s still a major threat to our health.

So all those saying low-hanging fruit, sweat shops etc- what should I tell my three colleagues who are still incapacitated more than 3 months after contracting the virus? None of them in sweatshops, none of them old, none of them disabled, none of them even mildly overweight, would not have gone on the later shielding list.

YANBU
And it will take more than Rishi offering me a half price meal for me to risk my life, thanks!

You shouldn't be sharing a car. I didn't think that was allowed yet.

This is what irks me a little, I am wearing the mask to protect him but they can’t do the same for me. I don’t think it has crossed their minds that we all wear masks to protect others not the other way round, I really need to verbalise this next week.
I don’t know what the guidelines are for day centres (I have tried googling but it’s a minefield). Carers, family members, drivers etc are no longer allowed in the building but according to the man I drive for, the staff do not wear masks they only wear them when they have to perform personal tasks ie taking to toilet etc. I really don’t know if that conforms to the guidelines or not?
ravenmum you are correct, I am employed and paid by the man and not his mum but everything is done by her and he goes by everything she says.

Well I wouldn't be getting within 2 metres of anyone not wearing a mask in enclosed spaces like a car!

Why do you think there isn't any herd immunity yet? I'd have thought there was a strong level of herd immunity which is what is largely causing the infection levels to stabilise.

I'm 36. I'm overweight, but not obese. I'm a suspected case - I've been told to isolate as I have the symptoms. Your boss is an idiot.

Cases are only down bc it is summer and we have been in lockdown for ages. D‘uh.

Yadnbu

Somewhere between the 2. I'll do everything reasonable to avoid catching/spreading it.

That needs some context. Far more people die every week from cancer, heart failure and a whole raft of other causes. 1900 people died on the roads last year but nobody ever suggested we should all stop driving. 10,000 people died of flu last year.

Road deaths and flu didn't cause schools and hospital wards to start closing due to staff shortages in early/mid March did they? Covid DID!

I would not be sharing a car with someone not wearing a mask.

OK, I did drive mother in law with severe dementia around without her wearing a mask but I had to take a calculated risk of leaving a very vulnerable member of my family without care or not.

A work colleague - no way

@VeryQuaintIrene

Just look at the US and all the people who didn't wear masks once things started to open up and where their rates are going. While I do think we need to get on with our lives now , try for some normality and get beyond lockdown, we also need to have a bit of common sense and keep on with masks and caution.

I read today that 67% of New Yorkers tested are showing CV19 antibodies, which is getting close to herd immunity levels. So while we are not out of the woods yet, especially in areas that have seen small numbers of cases, there are grounds for optimism. Not that I think that sensible precautions like masks, hand-washing and social distancing should stop.

comefromaway The problem is that he’s not a work colleague, he is my employer and that’s my job, I’m his driver/pa, how do I get out of that other than loosing my job? I really feel stuck between a rock and a hard place, I don’t know what to do!?

losing!

More and more the advice now is to wear a mask. At first they said it did not make a difference to now virtually every authority saying it does help lower risk. You are correct OP. Your boss appears not to be an authority on the virus so should not tell others what to do about it.

I think we will all have to get used to making individual risk assessments. I'm taking into account that in my rural county none of my 160 colleagues and none of our 200+ customers have been affected since mid April, and then it was 3 cases, all sorted out now. In this county there seem to be 1 in 35,000 with the virus. Taking this into account I've now decided to go back to my yoga class, held in a very spacious airy studio, get my hair cut and to go shopping wearing a mask. I will not sit indoors at a restaurant yet but happy to sit outside. Once you have put your own plans into effect there is less reason to be anxious or concerned.
I think that if you are under 40 and have no vulnerable people in your contacts you would logically be laxer than me, and if older or with close older family members maybe less relaxed. This is now an illness that is established but low level. It won't be going away just yet and in the meantime we need to learn to live as full a life as possible within the risks.

Who is your contract of employment with, OP? Are you paid directly by him?

I think it's very selfish of her. Even if the big risk is to the old and obese, I have elderly relatives who I love dearly and even though i'm not scared of it myself, I am scared of passing anything on to them.

I do think that the "scaremongering culture" that we have lived in for decades has a lot to answer for here, causing some people like this lady to think the way she does. Over the years, the government and the media have delighted in telling us that there will be some impending disaster or other, such as the Millennium Bug, our mobile phones killing us, weapons of mass destruction, cancer from your dog or pen top, people on benefits living the high life while you work hard to earn much less.

Because of this diet of media scaremongering, blatant mind manipulation, and playing "divide and conquer" all the time, it took me a long time to treat the virus with any seriousness at all; for a long time I was thinking "they're crying wolf as usual", just as they have done regularly. Because of all these tactics, they had nothing left to persuade with when faced with a genuine danger. Although I am reluctantly believing in the virus, I'm sure that lots of lies are being told all the time.

I know it is your job but I personally would not sit in a car for several hours on a regular basis with someone from outside my household unless they wore a mask (obviously I'd wear on too).. I can't force them of course but I can refuse to drive them . I know it is a different thing when it is your employer but I'd be really pissed off with both of them .

DCs friend's grandmother has just died from it. A friend is just waiting test results - it could easily kill her husband.
Your boss is a nob.

I don't pretend to know either way.

I have spoken to an expert in this field, however, who told me that we are likely to have ongoing lockdowns/eased retrictions/ lockdowns at intervals for the next 12-18 months until a vaccine is developed

The virus is undoubtedly still a threat, but life is full of threats and we just have to learn to lie with them.

Significantly more QALYs are lost to road accidents every year than have been lost to Covid, but we don't ban cars.

The threat presented by climate change is undeniably going to be the thing that wipes humanity out, yet we remain largely apathetic.

If we really do want to 'Save Lives', we need to address the issue of zoonotic transmission at source; we need to halt deforestation and the destruction of the habitats of the wild animals from whom these viruses jump to Humans.

Covid 19 isn't the first of these novel diseases, and certainly won't be the last if we carry on as we are.

The point is, we are too busy worrying about unsustainable and largely ineffective measures like face masks and social distancing, when we need to get to grips with the way we interact with our wider environment. This is why people get frustrated with people like OP fretting about trivialities.

I genuinely fear the next pandemic will be a virus that threatens young children and babies. Imagine how awful that would be.

PerditaProvokesEnmity my contract is with him and I am paid direct by him.

YANBU, people are idiots.