To believe that it won't all be over by Christmas

[caroline161]

I hope it will but really. Does anyone truly believe this or do you think that covid-19 is going to cause a lot of trouble this winter?
Yes it will all be back to normal by Christmas
No we are in for a tough winter.

The Government needs to put Coronavirus into proper context alongside all the other shit that kills far more people every year - heart disease, cancers etc.
But it won’t because having fucked up the country with lockdown they will have to continue to play the ‘fear’ card to justify their actions.
So yeah - they will make sure it still makes the headlines at Christmas. I expect the Queen will be asked to give her Christmas message wearing full PPE and behind a Perspex screen........

And yes - as said above - dying of something and dying with something are not the same thing.

The Coronavirus death numbers are and have been reported as high as possible and will probably be revised downward significantly when a cold hard look is taken at what has gone on.

Some honesty from the Government over the whole thing would have been welcome. But the 'facts' had to be made to fit with the 'message'.

The "we will be back to normal by Christmas" is purely a government strategy to get people spending and the economy moving. The government seem to be saying the opposite to the scientists at the moment which is worrying but predictable. I know who I believe more. It was only yesterday a scientist from Sage was saying that he won't be hugging his grandparents by Christmas. I very much doubt government will be either but they won't tell us that because they need the economy to start moving. I personally will be continuing to play it safe, as much as I would like to support my local businesses and the economy, my family's health comes first.

DH and I were talking about this earlier. I feel the same as you. He thinks there won’t be a full lockdown again.

Just spoken to my boss. I think it's fair to say we won't be going back before Xmas. And probably a day or two a week thereafter.

It's not going to happen and I'm ambiguous about it.

Christmas is a dreadful strain if I'm honest so I'm hoping for continued lockdown so I don't have to run myself ragged.

I like my exile.

The Government needs to put Coronavirus into proper context alongside all the other shit that kills far more people every year - heart disease, cancers etc.

Those others don't spread exponentially. They don't cause schools and hospital wards to close due to high numbers of staff catching them at the same time.

@OhTheRoses you can’t compare Covid to HIV, you can’t catch HIV by being sneezed or coughed on.

As for polio my mother and my grandmother caught it during the epidemic, my mother made a full recovery but my grandmother was away from her husband and children for 2 years, the first year in hospital and the second at a rehabilitation centre, it left her legs paralysed at the age of 34, she also suffered lost polio syndrome for the rest of her life. 8 months after they both caught polio the vaccine came out.
But of course she learned to live with it, she had no fucking choice.

We don’t know the long term after effects of Covid, we should all be cautious. What if there’s post Covid syndrome, there are a lot of people out there still suffering months later.

Life will be shit at Christmas, I have no doubt about that, I don’t think there will be an effective vaccine, we will have to ride it out.

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head @TheMurk

😂 at @TheMurks dystopian future vision.

@KatherineJaneway

This is only the beginning

Agreed. If the number of longhaul covid patients also increases, which it seems to, a lot of people will be in for a real shock. The damage to the NHS and the economy based on that alone will be dramatic.

@AlternativePerspective your posts are measured and sensible, thanks.

It’s going to be great fun trying to decide whether you have a run-of-the-mill cold or COVID-19.

@TheMurk
But you’ll be hard pushed to find a newspaper article about the lasting effects of mumps.

Mumps has been around forever and has a vaccine. Why would newspapers have articles on it? Though perhaps they should to counteract the anti-vaxxers.

I desperately, desperately hope it is. Because it won't be worth carrying on if life is still like this. Everything I love doing and get pleasure from has been stolen from me and I don't know how longer I can bear it.

I think the economy, mass unemployment and poverty are going to be a much bigger problem than the virus this autumn and winter, especially when the furlough scheme ends. The gap between the rich and the poor will widen.

Also expecting Boris to announce an end to social distancing just in time for Christmas and New Year, thereby looking the good guy and to distract from other things, e.g. Brexit.

@Bybbyeblackbird

No Yanbu. With the usual demands on the NHS in winter with flu and winter vomiting bug, and now Covid I think winter is going to be grim. Enjoy the next couple of months I say before the shit hits the fan again.

That's my thinking too. I dont know if we will have a second spike or not, but I'm cramming in the things I want to do now, while I can.

Anyone thought that if we aren't part of Europe we won't be baling out the rest of Europe. We might be the first with a vaccine. The economy might bounce back. There might be some good news soon.

@kittensarecute

I desperately, desperately hope it is. Because it won't be worth carrying on if life is still like this. Everything I love doing and get pleasure from has been stolen from me and I don't know how longer I can bear it.

that was very heartfelt, sorry it is so RUBBISH

@OhTheRoses

Anyone thought that if we aren't part of Europe we won't be baling out the rest of Europe. We might be the first with a vaccine. The economy might bounce back. There might be some good news soon.

I agree and feel there will be good news soon, the anti vaxxers probably won't like it though.

@kittensarecute

I desperately, desperately hope it is. Because it won't be worth carrying on if life is still like this. Everything I love doing and get pleasure from has been stolen from me and I don't know how longer I can bear it.

to you @kittensarecute I'm sorry it's so rubbish. I think many people are feeling exactly the same as you - you are not alone but I know that doesn't make it any easier to bear

I think we will get an increase in the autumn/winter. I don't think (hope) it will be as bad as the first wave as we understand the virus a bit better and have bespoke surveillance systems set up but it is difficult to predict as will depend on people's behaviour/whether social distancing is maintained and how people respond to the the track&trace system. I have more faith in local outbreak management as this has always protected us against disease outbreaks and we now have access to the Pillar 2 (private lab) testing data which has been a big limitation until recently. However the evidence suggests we still have a largely susceptible population and a virus that is capable of exponential spread. I am cautiously hopeful there will be a vaccine but think that next year is more likely than this year (hope I am wrong). I am surprised how confidentially people are asserting their opinions - I think we have learnt a tremendous amount about this virus in a very short time but there is still much we don't know - whether people can be reinfected being one of them and how much the Covid excess deaths overlap with deaths that might have been expected to occur in the next few months anyway. At the moment there is pretty limited evidence of this, so am less confident that we won't get further increases in deaths if cases rise again. I think some people are hoping for easy solutions e.g. we will just have to learn to live with it. I agree to a certain extent and am fully aware that we need to open up schools and the economy as the harms in certain sectors are currently worse than the covid risk but we won't be able to pretend it isn't happening if we get a further epidemic wave which is a very real risk if we try to go back to our old normal.

@kittensarecute
Sorry you feel so rotten. I’ve felt similarly over the last few months but in the past week or so I’ve done pretty much everything I’ve missed-seen friends & family, been to the pub, kids are starting up hobbies again...
What are you still waiting for?

No chance of life being 'normal' by Christmas but I can't see there being another full lockdown, just spikes that T&T deal with and we all continue to contain the virus with social distancing/ hand washing/ masks.

Vaccine news from various sources is very promising so I actually do think we could be in a very different (and much better) place this time next year, but the middle of the coming winter is a very strange date to pick as 'back to normal. I think the winter will be quite hard, but not dystopian, and we'll just have to tough it out and hopefully that will be the worst of it over.

I know two people who have died of COVID. In addition, the NHS Trust I work in is already seeing people with post-COVID effects coming in - people who were previously healthy, who now become desaturated when they walk around the room, have major psychological issues, have heart and lung problems and continuing pain. The increase in our community services is very marked - and the cost to the NHS will be considerable. Let's by all means do what is possible to support the economy, but if we're stupid and get a larger second wave, the economic hit will be all the greater, second lockdown or no.

The Oxford vaccine is looking good, but anyone who thinks that no deal Brexit is going to be good for the UK is a moron.