AIBU to think that every winter from now on there will be a lockdown?

[HopelessBlue192]

Once we've vaccinated against Covid enough, then Flu will be back (with social distancing relaxed). With Flu overwhelming the NHS every winter before this year when it's been Covid, I'm really worried that every November to March, we are going to be locked down again.

We've shown as a country (UK) that we're willing to accept lockdowns, strict or not, and frequently now, so what's to stop them doing it again? When they think that the NHS is going to be overwhelmed and they can argue that it's an emergency and in our interests / safety? And who would stop them if it isn't?

No but I do see some changes hanging on post covid:
Hygiene stations at supermarkets
Home working / partial home working / working from home with colds etc so contagious but otherwise well enough to work being more common/generally accepted
flu vaccine uptake

No.

Op, you have been given reason to think it won’t happen every winter, from the vaccines to the unwanted impact on the economy

Is there anything you can do to try to help yourself through this?

For all the people who think that OK is totally bonkers, I would just point out that Matt Hancock suggested recently that we keep the covid testing facilities once they're no longer needed and use them for flu testing instead: www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/24/matt-hancock-wants-to-use-nhs-testing-system-to-fight-flu-after-covid. I think that was just his own half-baked musing but I did think it showed a worrying openness to mission creep (and also that it's a bit alarming that the health secretary can't think of some more urgent uses of money in the NHS).

Unreasonable, ridiculous, goady

*OP

Asian flu led to 20,000 deaths in the UK according to the Lancet and the 50,000 excess deaths was a sensationalist headline from the DM. Swine flu was nasty - I should know my OH was delirious with it but didn't lead to organ damage or long term complications like Covid and really the two can't be compared, this from the NHS website:

The H1N1 flu pandemic was announced by the World Health Organization on June 11 2009, after the strain first emerged in Mexico in March. So far, this well-conducted investigation into all deaths in England known to be attributable to swine flu from July-November 2009 has found 138 deaths out of an estimated 540,000 cases, which is about 26 deaths per 100,000 people (0.026% of those affected).

I think they be long term changes after covid, more hygiene in schools, hospitals and work places.

Possibly a change to smaller more local offices rather than big centralised open plan offices.

It's become very clear that we need more medical staff, Docs, nurses, etc. We run the NHS as a slick machine but actually we need much more slack in it.

You can convert a Exhibition Centre into a hospital overnight but you need staff to work it. We cannot rely on the army or the TA to back up the NHS.

What a ridiculous thread.

I think there will be an increased uptake in flu vaccines in future.

But no they'll not be lockdowns every winter.

Blimey op, I thought I was glass half empty. There is a vaccine for flu every year and, unless another deadly strain of something or other comes along, we will deal with it as we've always done.

I hope that the government will put more money into the NHS as a result of this. Obviously tax payers will have to help fund this, but I think the will do do that is there after 2020.

Hope this isn't yet another conspiracy theory slipping under the wire. They all seem to look like this - imagining that we are now going to have an authoritarian country because the government loved 2020 so much and it was such a success for them.

You’ve lost the fucking plot.

That’s the most ludicrous thing I’ve heard in a while

FFS. If you have to discuss ridiculous suggestions like this, at least get it moved to the CV board and spare the rest of us.

@TW2013

I really doubt it though there might be less presenteeism and less tolerance for people who struggle into work when ill spreading germs everywhere.

That would be a good outcome. Germany doesn’t expect it’s workforce to battle on whilst on their knees. But companies will need to scrap Bradford scoring.

Not every year, no. I do think that the general public finally understand that pandemics can happen though. The hygiene protocols will stay I think. I expect that infectious disease/quarantine and travel restrictions will become more common to try and prevent a repeat of this year.

I hope we will have a revival of socialist principles in politics as people realise they are not immortal, but I think the right-wi g press are already plotting to prevent this.

Hopefully not!
But maybe things might be different in years to come (in a much less drastic way)
people more enabled/encouraged to wfh especially if they are not 100% well
being more mindful of surface transmission of germs
better hygeine
possibly wearing a mask in winter or on busy public transport.
But the cost of lockdown has been astronomical and we'll be paying for it for generations to come, so I don't think that will be an annual option.

Don’t be rediculous

YABU and slightly paranoid.

Look at the bigger picture. What would a government gain by attempting to impose lockdowns which would have virtually no public support?

We all know that the lockdowns this year could not be ‘enforced’, for want of a better word, if large numbers of people did not comply with the rules.

I am sorry about your business, that must be tough and stressful, but surely you must see that for a (Tory!) government to have implemented the financial measures that they have, the situation must warrant it?

I don’t see why you think a government would want to lockdown unless they thought it was truly necessary? I think you would benefit from looking at the bigger picture here.

OP I apologise for being insensitive. You've clearly had a difficult and worrying time of things and it's understandable that you might be expecting the worse. I hope very much that conditions improve for you and your business soon, it's an awful set of circumstances

No, but I think there will be more working from home during cold and flu seasons in future, which would be good. The amount of times I've been stuck in an office with someone coughing and sneezing, yet insisting they must stay in the office because otherwise they'll be disciplined for sickness. I once had an Xmas ruined after catching a nasty chest infection from my boss, who was one of those people who always showed off she'd not had a day off sick in ten years.

Also, if mask wearing on the tube becomes the norm when sick, and more people get the flu jab, those would be positives.

I agree OP. Not only is lockdown of the nation an option on the table now; it's the go-to option, the default.

The worst thing is that it won't be imposed on us in the face of any kind of opposition - huge swathes of the population will be begging the government to lock us down, to make them "safe", no matter how low-risk the precipitating event.

YABVU and need help with your anxiety. Your fears are unfounded and irrational and it’s just unhealthy.

PS I don't think lockdown will happen every winter from now on, no - but I do think it will still happen sporadically after the Covid pandemic is over. I think occasional 2 week lockdowns will be a thing to "prevent the NHS getting overwhelmed". The implicit threat of course being if you don't stay indoors no one will treat you or your loved ones if you become sick. The public fear of this, which is embedded and endemic now, will ensure that people in the main comply. Plus the well off enjoy the paid "holiday", which is what lockdown means for them.