To think there’s going to be a time when we have to just get back to normal and start living with coronavirus

[Blahbaa]

With the recent hiccup with development of a vaccination I’ve started to wonder if there’s going to come a time when we’re going to have to accept people are going to become ill, die and possibly have side effects from coronavirus but we need to work, educate and live. We will in effect have to get back to normal with coronavirus being accepted as something else we can become ill with or die from as we accept other illnesses.
Posted similar in coronavirus page but posing here for more traffic.

@secretllama yep this is going exactly as you predicted!

Some people never stopped being normal and living with cronavirus. They're called 'keyworkers'.

All the things you list niceupthedance are important but covid is not overly relatable to these issues and certainly won’t bring about a positive change- we have less money, more debt- regardless of who’s in power it’s not a time where we will see an increase in social spending.

I can kind of see the point here, but if we completely went back to normal there would be a hell of a lot of people needing hospital treatment. More than could be accommodated by the NHS. So what would be the solution there? Make people with covid tough it out at home, in pain or possibly dying in front of their relatives? If so, what's the cut off age for this? Or accept a huge amount (even more than now) extra deaths from other conditions because the hospitals are overwhelmed? Honestly not being goady, I want to know what people who are against restrictions think would be an acceptable answer...

If you are a female in your 40s with asthma your risk from this virus is almost zero. I expect to be attacked for saying this, but really you do not need to worry about leaving your daughter. The scientific studies have shown that asthma barely affects risk and being a female under 50 is very low risk.

@secretllama

I agree OP . But you'll just be told you ( yes you personally) are happy to kill thousands of people... even though we've never had this attitude of blaming individuals for virus transmission before. I dont remember last winter being told im killing granny because I went out to see friends then visited her. But last winter I was allowed to use my own common sense if showing symptoms.

Yes its horrible people are dying in this pandemic. But it actually blows my mind that people think we will get rid of this virus. And it blows my mind that people think humans will live with these restrictions long term .

Your post is full of logic holes @secretllama

The op has made it clear that she questions whether it was worth causing inconvenience and to protect vulnerable people.

Last winter, the Coronavirus pandemic did not exist so of course there no one advice like we have now. Are you that lacking in critical thinking that you don't understand the difference between the level of risk from seasonal flu, for which there is a fairly effective vaccine, and a novel virus which is still not fully understood.

@Porcupineinwaiting

Yes OP there will but the time is not now, it will be in 6-18 months time. I'm pretty confident in some sort of vaccine being available in 6 or so months btw.

I agree with this.

Data on risk if people are interested. It helps to put in perspective what living with the virus means.

www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3259

@IamTomHanks so just getting this straight.. you think that even after the ‘risk’ of Covid has passed, everyone will still be made to wear masks and social distance forever?

The effect the lock down is having on other illnesses like mental health, cancer diagnosis and ivf, just to name a few, I'm starting to wonder if the 'cure' (all these restrictions) is worse than the illness.

Cancer diagnosis is not affected by lockdown but by the presence of the virus and medical staff deciding that the short term risk to the patient is not worth it or that they don't have enough medics to cope

Totally agree

No real point in the tests except when it suits the government

Testing at airports to allow people to get on with their lives
Gov says 'no - tests not reliable'
Testing at House of Commons
Gov says 'Daily - so we can carry on with our lives'

NHS Costs 130 billion - to achieve everything it does
Govt suddenly says they can pay 100 billion for Covid tests.

I think they think they are playing with Monopoly money. And by next spring they will all resign and leave someone else to put us into years and years more of austerity which as usual will affect the poorest more. Lead to poorer health generally and more deaths.

Totally pointless

If we go back to normal it wouldn't be normal because there's be a bloody great surge in infections. So not just hospitals would be affected. Schools would struggle as staff go off (either because they are sick or because they have sick family to care for), many people avoiding theatres/shops/restaurants because they were afraid, and people (again) avoiding doctors and hospitals because the risk of catching COVID is too great - so more additional medical misery.

@AntiHop Sorry if i wasn't clear (not sarcasm). I wasn't referring to the coronavirus pandemic last winter. I was referring to the moral duties we have now in reducing spread of a virus in comparison to pre-pandemic times. I just note that it's interesting now all the restrictions we have in social contact just incase we spread coronavirus to vulnerable people. When we didnt have this shaming of people for having sociable gatherings before. Yes, I'm aware we have annual flu vaccines. But it does not cover all strains of flu. So you were risking granny by your social gatherings. Where was the shaming of people living normal lives before? At what point will this stop? I'm not saying now is the time. Im answering OPs question if there will come a time when we have to live with the virus.

With the recent hiccup with development of a vaccination I’ve started to wonder

I'm seeing this all over and I don't know if the media is to blame or just people who can't/don't read very well.

It's not really a hiccup. It's just a standard and common event in vaccine testing. Not to mention, even if the Oxford Uni/AstraZeneca candidate proves a complete no-go, it wouldn't be the end of the world – there are over 200 others in development around the world, more than 30 of which are in clinical trials already, I think about 8 (last time I checked) in phase 3.

@IamTomHanks

are we just going to accept that the young are going to have a crappy, disrupted education (particularly the disadvantaged) and that many industries will collapse?

You don't need to accept anything. You need to demand that the government steps up to ensure this doesn't happen, while protecting everyone.

How do you suggest they do that?

Perhaps @secretllama after covid is more under control, there might be a cultural shift about being more cautious about spreading winter infections. This definitely happened with HIV- people became much more cautious about unprotected sex. I wonder if workplaces will become more understanding about people staying away from the workplace with cold or flu symptoms, and allowing people to work from home in those circumstances if the job can be done remotely.

I remember years ago turning up to an evening class with a really bad cold. I had dragged myself into work as I was paid by the hour and decided I didn't want to miss my class. There was a Russian woman in the class and she was really surprised to see me there with a bad cold. She said in Russia, people would stay at home to avoid spreading germs.

The difficulty is we don't reliably know the percentage of people diagnosed with Covid who have either died or ended up being admitted to hospital (because we don't reliably know how many have been infected or, to a lesser extent, how many deaths were due to Covid).

Neither do we know what proportion of the decrease in infections/deaths/admissions is due to social distancing as opposed to more informed, better equipped healthcare, better support for those at risk (eg care homes) or herd immunity.

www.coronavirus.data.gov.uk

Looking at the stats here:
Total confirmed Covid cases 358,138
Total deaths 41,608 (so 11.4%)
Total admitted to hospital 135,641 (so 37%)

But the current daily death rate is 0.3% and the admission to hospital rate is 4%.

So the Govt flexes and changes, trying to keep the rate low enough to avoid an overwhelmed NHS. And maybe that rate is somewhere between the above percentages? So neither full lockdown nor full freedom.