AIBU to think I'd rather take my chances with the virus...

[User3billion]

...than give up any more freedom?!

I'm in a tier 3 area and I'm so done. I'm sick of people in tier 1 areas preaching on social media about what we should and shouldn't be doing (especially given it can vary from one tier 3 area to the next). I'm sick of feeling like a prisoner in my own home. I'm sick of not being able to trust a single thing our government says.

I don't understand how we've got to a point in the UK, in 2020, where it's ILLEGAL to visit family we don't live with. And what's worse is that people are happy to go along with this! It's all kinds of wrong.

We deride other countries that deprive their citizens of their civil liberties and yet here we are.

Part of the problem in my opinion is the breathtaking hypocrisy of the government insisting we can’t see our families whilst their stupid MPs go for covid drives “to test their eyesight” and carry on affairs and ignore the curfew so they can carry on with their upper class brandies and cigars together. Of course people feel like why the fck should I not see my loved ones when those in government and part of the same medical community who are advising us aren’t abiding by the sodding rules?!

Why does this only apply to us and not them?!

What makes me laugh about the posts on here are that you talk as if we are the only country suffering from this virus and that the rest of the world are just carrying on as if nothing has happened. And also I have yet to see one of you popping over to the nhs thread to see if they think it’s just flu.

Also of course it’s all the fault of Boris and what is happening in Labour run wales is so much better. You are havin a larf

Anyone who observes the restrictions, but watches the news, buys retail items, eats other than hoarded dry goods, is asking others to take risks on their behalf. The food producers, the garment workets, the freight drivers, the petrol station attendants. Oh yes, the power station workers, the teachers, the amazon delivery drivers.
None of these jobs are contact free.
So are we selfish just.for expecting others to take "risks" on our behalf, so we can stay at home "unselfishly".

I saw a.very obese tfl worker, front facing customer service yesterday, underground. Wonder how long he will last. Would he be safer if we all stayed at home (tier 2) or is he just taking the risk that Someone has to, to keep jobs and services going.

It all just feels topsy turvy to me. Im healthy and low risk, I dont go out much. But there are older people (60s) working on the front line, taxis, supermarkets T,,As. The restrictions dont change their risk.

Actually I think Annie argument is flawed, selfish people who make things drag on? Where is the virus.going to go? It isnt going to go away just cos we stop seeing anyone we love, need. It waits for the next round.

@etopp

When I read the level of batshittery on this (and other) Covid thread(s), I am mightily relieved that MN is of no consequence at all, other than to the odd people who post on it.

I hope everyone realises they are typing into thin air.

@etopp

MN skews heavily middle-class with cushty work-from-home jobs and financially secure. They care not for the plight of hospitality workers, business-owners or young people. Feeling warm and safe from COVID is all that matters.

YANBU to take your chances, provided you are also prepared to live with the consequences, without expecting the NHS to treat you. However, if you end up with serious breathing difficulties, I suspect you would want the NHS to help you through it, in which case you would be unreasonable to ignore guidelines and risk becoming a burden to a system that is already at breaking point. It's depressing coping with restrictions for months on end, but if the virus is not slowed down we could end up with a broken NHS and a much higher body count.

"When I read the level of batshittery on this (and other) Covid thread(s), I am mightily relieved that MN is of no consequence at all, other than to the odd people who post on it"

Quite right too etopp, even Boris realises that everyone taking their chances is batshit and with the advice of the cream of this country's most eminent economic and scientific advisers has attempted to navigate a sensible course even if he has fucked up implementing it!

@ArcheryAnnie
I'm so sorry. It sounds awful. Long Covid has been dismissed by too many for too long. It's a very real concern.

I hope you do eventually make a full recovery. The good news (for once!) is we now have the NHS Long Covid treatment centres being set up - and I understand that they will be working with the experts on new treatments and research.

It's like talking to brick thick walls with some people unfortunately. They would do an ostrich proud with head in ground. They just refuse to see that it's the dragged out failure to contain Covid that has the devastating impact on jobs, healthcare, schools, society, and the economy.

@gjejgej This government can't find it's own arse with both hands. Look after yourself and the rest of us will do the same.

@etopp

When I read the level of batshittery on this (and other) Covid thread(s), I am mightily relieved that MN is of no consequence at all, other than to the odd people who post on it.

I hope everyone realises they are typing into thin air.

...and you are responding. Why?

Thank you SheepandCow. And, yes, indeed.

[quote SheepandCow]@ArcheryAnnie
I'm so sorry. It sounds awful. Long Covid has been dismissed by too many for too long. It's a very real concern.

I hope you do eventually make a full recovery. The good news (for once!) is we now have the NHS Long Covid treatment centres being set up - and I understand that they will be working with the experts on new treatments and research.

It's like talking to brick thick walls with some people unfortunately. They would do an ostrich proud with head in ground. They just refuse to see that it's the dragged out failure to contain Covid that has the devastating impact on jobs, healthcare, schools, society, and the economy.[/quote]
@SheepandCow

You can't "contain" an endemic virus. Never been done. Stop living in cloud-cuckoo land.

Masks and "social distancing" (an oxymoron) are ineffective. We'd have to don Hazmat suits and be fed through tubes to actually contain it.

Care home workers have weekly/daily tests if needed to ensure safety.

Up until now, that hasn't worked. It might if the faster tests come through.

They're not the only vulnerable group either.

Your ideas are woefully inadequate and indicate how little you actually care about this issue.

It's not 'beyond the will of mankind' but given that test and trace has not been successfully achieved, I think any argument that something can't be done competently at pace in the UK is very plausible.

This is not theoretical. This would actually have to work. Not just on your soap box but in practice, next week.

You are not alone OP - we are basing all of society's health, social and economic policy on just one particular virus, whilst making the long-term causes of 'early' death - poverty, mental health issues, obesity etc - worse. But of course the government knows that people are looking only at Covid deaths, so that is what they have to prevent. There are no long term goals because they would be too nebulous to matter. Ditto the change in emphasis from death to long Covid. People care about long Covid because it's in the news now and that immediacy is how society works. We ignore glandular fever ('kissing disease' - to minimise it), ME ('yuppie flu' - ditto), many other illnesses thought to be post-viral like fibromyalgia, and of course pneumonia. Even cancer, which will affect at least a third of us, is now relegated to being an understudy in the drama of Covid. They are not 'now' so they don't matter. Anyway, there is nothing to be done, so I guess it's just chin up and grit your teeth.

Rofling at MN being middle class.
It hasn't been that for a very long time
As can be witnessed by the abuse spewed at people on this thread.

@Halliehallie9828 😂 goody two shoes?? No, I’m just not a selfish inconsiderate person.
My great grandmother had a saying, ‘don’t care was made to care’ it never made much sense when I was a child. It now makes perfect sense, let’s hope you and others who think like you aren’t made to care.

I find it strange how some PPs' main issue seems to be that they don't like being told what to do - it's not about anybody trying to control you, it's about keeping people safe. Like others have said, unfortunately our responsibility is to protect others, even if we're not bothered about catching it ourselves.

Having said that, I'm also very pissed off with it all and blame the appalling leadership and hypocrisy of those in charge.

[quote SheepandCow]@ArcheryAnnie
I'm so sorry. It sounds awful. Long Covid has been dismissed by too many for too long. It's a very real concern.

I hope you do eventually make a full recovery. The good news (for once!) is we now have the NHS Long Covid treatment centres being set up - and I understand that they will be working with the experts on new treatments and research.

It's like talking to brick thick walls with some people unfortunately. They would do an ostrich proud with head in ground. They just refuse to see that it's the dragged out failure to contain Covid that has the devastating impact on jobs, healthcare, schools, society, and the economy.[/quote]
This "long Covid" stuff drives me insane.

Has nobody on here, ever, suffered from post-viral fatigue, illness, etc, after seasonal flu?

I have. It didn't have a Special Name, though, because nobody genflects before the Almighty Covid.

I had Swine Flu, which was shit. I got over it. It took months.

I don't wish it on anyone else, but why is this not of any importance?

Not to mention all the other lung things I've had as a result of asthma.

But I absolutely refuse to give Covid this special status. And if the world had shut down when I had swine flu, I'd have thought it was completely fucking insane, and would still have wanted my job back.

I would have to be actually dead not to go to work, btw. Or under sodding, fucking, bastarding lockdown/social distancing bollocks.

Oh yes, I am angry about this.

MN skews heavily middle-class with cushty work-from-home jobs and financially secure. They care not for the plight of hospitality workers, business-owners or young people. Feeling warm and safe from COVID is all that matters

Exactly! It’s so easy to harp on about how brilliant lockdown is and how we should all lock down until 2023 out of sheer selflessness and isn’t it just wonderful doing yoga in the garden and homeschooling our kids with Pinterest projects! It’s no coincidence that those people have secure well paid jobs where they can work from home for months at a time on a very comfortable income , live in large spacious houses where they can retreat to another room to have some alone time if they do wish, relaxing in their large gardens to practice their lockdown yoga in etc..,
Not quite so easy when you’ve lost your job, can’t pay the rent, have no money for food or heating and you live in an impoverished high rise one bedroom flat. This latter group is just plain SELFISH according the the first group!

Oh the irony.

@Rainbowllama4 - you are a goody two shoes! I don't care! Jesus H Christ, some of the posters on here are like petulant toddlers.

@TheSeedsOfADream

Rofling at MN being middle class. It hasn't been that for a very long time As can be witnessed by the abuse spewed at people on this thread.

Actually, this is true. I have been here for almost 20 years. It's very different now.

Masks and "social distancing" (an oxymoron) are ineffective. We'd have to don Hazmat suits and be fed through tubes to actually contain it
Yet Taiwan Japan and other Asian countries numbers proved masks and social distancing does work granted they've been wearing them since SARS.

*@ArcheryAnnie

How is it fairer to restrict the lives of EVERYBODY instead of just the vulnerable?

Explain that one to me because it doesn't quite compute.

I guess it's okay if people lose their livelihoods/education/prospects so long as ArcheryAnnie feels safe. Fucking fantastic.

If only a cure for stupid was coming as quickly as some kind of vaccine.

You really need this explaining, now...still?

I cannot really be bothered, it has been said so many times and is so obvious anyway.

The 'vulnerable' are not some small group, easily contained and isolated.....they are an essential part of this country functioning. Even the so called non vulnerable, if sick in large numbers as they would be during the rise to a natural peak, will include many off work and a small percentage, but large number hospitalised.

During thhe natural progress of this virus that you are arguing for, you will be losing livelihoods, education and prospects and then some. If you can't see that and think that only the restrictions and not the virus itself threaten those, you haven't thought it through.

As for all this propaganda conspiracy crap, what a coincidence practically every govt worldwide deciding to go for the same approach at the same time, especially when it seems against their own interests! What a mystery.

So they protected the vulnerable and allowed everyone else to live their lives as much as possible?

What a stupid idea!! They should have locked EVERYONE up!!

Not exactly. Their care homes deaths are about as bad as ours, their numbers of deaths generally are massively higher than their Scandinavian neighbours, and their economy took the same battering too.

When will people realise we don’t get to choose between the economy and Covid. Covid always wins.

The false narrative that it's the wealthy who want to contain Covid has been repeatedly shown up as insulting (to the poor) rubbish.

Why insulting? Because it's the poor who suffer the most from uncontained Covid. It's they who bear the brunt.

Perhaps this is why it's actually the short-sighted greed of some of the richest who want to see no restrictions. They can afford the risks.

They fail to see beyond next week - but that's ok (for them) because they more than anyone else can insulate from the physical risks. Safe in their rural or shire home away from densely populated areas, and the economic consequences - they have enough savings and assets and investments to see them through.

Meanwhile the frontline healthcare workers, social carers, transport workers, delivery drivers are the ones facing all the risks - including PTSD from the extreme pressures and distressing work days.

Hospitality workers too. The failure to contain affects them. Unlike in countries who took effective containment measures. These countries now have everything open as normal. No staff off sick, no deaths, no customers off sick or dead or bereaved, no job losses.

So if we'd let this rip in the name of ''personal freedom'', the death toll of Covid is generally accepted to be ~1%. Sound tiny right?

~1% of the world population - is 78,200,000 people.

For comparison, Influenza, which has a death rate a fraction of 1%, kills ~ 250,000 - 650000 per year. Covid has already killed over 1 million people globally in 10 months.. during a time when half the world has been in complete lock down part of this time and even now many countries continue to exercise behaviour changes (willingly)

I'm confused how anyone can argue this is the same as flu or not deadly. How many people need to be a risk for this to be ''bad'' enough? 10%, 50%?