To think 2021 isn't going to be the amazing year we all want...

[Skyshale]

...or am I being massively pessimistic?

Everyone is going on about next year, saying it will be amazing and that we can all travel again, see family and be as normal.

But the virus isn't going to think "Oh, look, the clock has struck 12 on New Years Day. I'm gone now...BYE EVERYONE forget I ever existed".

AIBU to think 2021 isn't going to be the amazing year we all imagined?

Can I just say (I've had a few wines and my thoughts are running away with me) I would LOVE 2021 to be an amazing, incredible year for us all but a horrible dark side of me thinks it ain't going to happen...

YANBU. My MIL is planning on having an "everything back to normal" party to celebrate the end of social distancing/masks/tiers etc. She thinks she will be doing that in March/April. I think no way.

I don't think many people are imagining it being amazing, but definitely better than this year.

Jan and Feb are going to awful, and I kind of expect a big lockdown, possibly involving school closure - but I expect that will be the last lockdown we'll experience from this. Things will look up from spring - I expect more activities to be possible this year and probably slightly larger gatherings allowed in homes, but there will still be social distancing and masks next year because we just don't know how long vaccines will be effective for and roll-out of it will take a while I expect.

As with the vast majority of Covid-related threads (and indeed with most things in life), the more extreme pessimists and optimists are wrong. I'm a moderate optimist. Things will get better... slowly. 2021 won't be 'an amazing year' - that would surely make it better than most pre-Covid years. There will still be restrictions for a while, and it will be a bumpy ride back to eventual normality. I don't know anyone who thinks it's going to be amazing.

I definitely don't subscribe to the "everything will be glorious and wonderful and back to normal in 2021" mindset but I am optimistic that things will be better.

Hopefully once my CEV DMum has the vaccine (and enough other people for the rules to relax a little) I will be able to spend time with my parents and they can see their Granddaughter again.

Even just an improvement in the weather as we go into spring and summer will be better - over the summer we were able to hang out in my parents garden and I'd be happy being able to do that again for a while.

For us personally there's also nice things to look forward to - several close friends having babies over the next few months for example. I can live without the big things (events and holidays) if I can have some of the little things back - my parents coming to stay, a meal out with my husband (we're Tier 3), my toddler being able to have a playdate...

@wigglerose

I think it's best to be pessimistic and pleasantly surprised rather than optimistic. I don't think we'll be back to normal until the start of 2022.

This is where Boris doesn't help.

' 3 weeks to flatten the curve
' It'll be all over by Christmas
' back to normal by Easter

None of which were ever realistic. Then you've got scientists going the other way with years of restrictions and masks forever more.

The messaging is crap.

I'm not sure anyone hoping for next year to be better is expecting a massive change at midnight in 31 December (especially as we're likely to be in lockdown as that happens!) but a year is a long time and there are positives already (vaccine, goodbye trump etc) and on the whole, it can't be any worse than this skip fire of a year for the majority of folk

@elliejjtiny

YANBU. My MIL is planning on having an "everything back to normal" party to celebrate the end of social distancing/masks/tiers etc. She thinks she will be doing that in March/April. I think no way.

This is the other thing. There's no date when we wake up and it's all over. There's no VE day party to celebrate the end of the war.

I'd expect cases will be very high in Jan and Feb with the NHS stretched. Hopefully it'll have cleared off by March. However, if everyone goes mad in March and April and starts throwing huge parties and 'ripping up their ration books' (i.e. masks) and turning up to supermarkets and pubs mob handed, then we'll just be fucked again within weeks.

By March/April there needs to be a gradual back to normal (all being well with the vaccine) but it will be gradual. People need to show a bit of sense and not go over the top.

Can't believe how many of you think we won't be back to normal by Spring/Summer next year. Me and DP have booked a trip abroad in October and are planning lots of holidays and family meet ups. Coronavirus has been awful for us. Yes DP has kept his well paid job working from home/we have not lost any family members/got sick ourselves but before this, we were out every weekend so definitely looking for that to resume very quickly. No reason why it should not.

It's not just covid... I think that will improve slowly but surely. But we'll have the fallout from brexit/ no deal chaos to deal with too.

A third lockdown is coming, unemployment will reach record high, numbers of suicides, house repossessions and domestic violence will peak, and social distancing and face coverings will be in place for many months.

Yeah, 2021 will be truly amazing . Life won't ever be back to how it was pre-Covid.

I agree.. I think it's going to take a very long time before things get better :(

I completely disagree. I think by April, all will be back on track and unemployment figures will slowly start to improve as the year goes on.

I always hope the new year will be better. I'm always disappointed - usually by mid-January.

@Songsofexperience

It's not just covid... I think that will improve slowly but surely. But we'll have the fallout from brexit/ no deal chaos to deal with too.

Agreed. 2020 was the corona shite year. 2021 will be the no deal Brexit shite year. Shite in different ways though- we'll be able to see our parents, but it'll be over a meal of turnips (semi joking).

@southeastdweller

A third lockdown is coming, unemployment will reach record high, numbers of suicides, house repossessions and domestic violence will peak, and social distancing and face coverings will be in place for many months.

Yeah, 2021 will be truly amazing . Life won't ever be back to how it was pre-Covid.

I wonder what people get out of posting things like this?

I’m not getting anything ‘out of it’ other than expressing an opinion. Why do you post here @HesterShaw1?

I'm cautiously optimistic about the vaccinations, but I think it will take a long time before a significant proportion of the population have been vaccinated and that there may well be further restrictions before we get to the light at the end of the tunnel.

And I think the Brexit fallout is going to be a complete shitshow unless there's a deal of some sort struck very soon.

Personally, I know it's going to be shite because I lost my partner a few weeks ago, which means my retirement plans are up in the air and I can't quite see how I can afford to retire with just one income coming in, plus I miss him terribly. We had clear plans, but they're not feasible or desirable for me to carry on with them now I'm on my own.

So I'm feeling really bloody despondent.

Why do I post? To discuss ideas and to read the opinions of others.

I realise that you posted your opinion - but it was presented as fact. And someone presenting deeply pessimistic opinions as facts to people who might already be feeling suicidally depressed does make me question their motives, yes. Do they just want to make everyone else feel as bad as they do?

But it was obvious they were opinions - I'm not a fortune teller.

I'm not even going to answer your goady and snide second question.

@southeastdweller

A third lockdown is coming, unemployment will reach record high, numbers of suicides, house repossessions and domestic violence will peak, and social distancing and face coverings will be in place for many months.

Yeah, 2021 will be truly amazing . Life won't ever be back to how it was pre-Covid.

Never? You really honestly believe that? Maybe yours won't. Jeez.

I think us being on the brink of a recession that all the leading economists say will be the deepest in modern times and will make the 2008 one look like a walk in the park means that life is looking worse for at least the foreseeable future, whether that be in higher taxes, job loss, suicide, depression etc. What’s the point pussy footing around? It is what it is.

@southeastdweller

I think us being on the brink of a recession that all the leading economists say will be the deepest in modern times and will make the 2008 one look like a walk in the park means that life is looking worse for at least the foreseeable future, whether that be in higher taxes, job loss, suicide, depression etc. What’s the point pussy footing around? It is what it is.

Aren't you a little ray of sunshine. For a lot of us, personally, life will be the same as before. I just want to see my friends and family and send my child to school without worrying he'll get sent home for two weeks. All of those things will happen.

@LakieLady - so sorry about your partner. What a grim year. I hope you have people around to care for you.

2021 is the start of the end of this awful position the world is in. It’ll be slow progress, and I don’t know anyone who believes as soon as the clocks strike midnight all will be well. But, it’s the start of a year in which people will slowly start to regain their lives. That’s a positive thing and something I am looking forward to. I am a pessimist

I think it will go ok. One more vaccines. Yes there will be more unemployment, but I think things will get better and maybe even travel and holidays next summer.