To think this will largely be over in two months?!

[ChristmasIvy]

I’m home schooling at the moment and surprised by how many other parents seem to think that this lockdown could continue for the rest of the academic year. I’m expecting the worst of the lockdown to be over by Feb half term - I.e. when millions of the most vulnerable will have received the vaccine, winter is almost over, and the seasonal drain on the NHS is alleviated. What am I missing?! I also believe we will be able to go on “normal” holidays again by Easter...

No, it won't.
We'll still be dealing with this in September, at the very earliest.

@DorisDances

We have a family wedding planned for Easter - do you think we have any chance of it going ahead??

No. Sorry.

No - I see after Easter maybe exam years returning for a trial run (if teachers are on board, we've yet to see how things pan out with numbers of deaths over next few weeks).

Maybe other years returning in May, but possibly not until all teachers have had vaccine that wish to have it and that might be September.

It will be an interesting battle then between the Gvt and the Unions in that case as they have been very clear schools are the first to open. I cant see it going beyond Easter for that reason.

Hospitality has been rumoured to be May - I cant see them wanting to keep them shut for much longer.

No I don't think weddings will be happening as normal at easter :(

OP the reality is that nobody knows for for certain. Which is frustrating and I think when people don’t know, they make a random date up in their head to make themselves feel better and parrot it about like it’s the truth.
It comes down to - are you an optimistic or not?
Your opinion about when things will be normal is JUST AS VALID as everyone else’s on here.
For the record, I agree with you.

@Tiktokersmiracle

If Boris says march, I'd say more like June Remember the first Lockdown was meant to last 3 weeks? That went well didn't it? A combo of not vaccinating 24/7, or properly with the 12 weeks between jabs, plus a large amount of people who don't trust the vaccine for whatever reason is going to cause chaos and a continuation of this

Why do people keep posting this nonsense, no one ever said the first lockdown would last for three weeks. They said it would be reviewed after 3 weeks.

Can you link to anywhere that confirms your assertion?

You need to watch the number of cases, death rate, vaccination uptake, whether there are any new strains of the virus and most importantly can the NHS manage the numbers of patients.
No one knows when anything will change.

Can you link to anywhere that confirms your assertion?

"In twelve weeks we can turn the tide," said Boris.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/19/boris-johnson-uk-can-turn-tide-of-coronavirus-in-12-weeks

@WiseOwlRelaxing

Yes it will go away in the summer and by next winter, enough of us will have been vaccinated to allow herd immunity or they will have invested into icu care, orwe will all just rumble on even though some people are dying. Some people are always dying.

I can't see them investing in icu care , the nurses they have are going to burn out and the student we have now are struggling , I know of a cohort that 1/3 of the year now have to repeat as they have failed . ICU care is specialised and speaking as a nurse of 10 years experience there is no way I'd want to do it.

It will be very sad if after everything that has happened that the government don’t then invest properly in NHS care. The pandemic has shown that every winter the NHS struggles but anything else and it can’t possibly cope.
There is going to need to be a huge programme to try and catch up on treatment and surgery which has been put on hold as there haven’t been any available beds and staff.

In my head I’m adding around 2 or 3 months to your timeline op.
As for overseas travel - I’m not even sure if Christmas is going to be terribly possible.

I think kids are home until Easter but that things will get a lot better after that. Vaccinating over 80's will save lives, but I imagine many of them shield pretty well. It's rampant in the community now and I think that has to be brought down too. Summer did it last time and we may be waiting to a degree for that. I don't expect to be back in the office before July.

Trigger warning! BREAKING News:

news.sky.com/story/covid-19-uk-taking-steps-over-coronavirus-variant-detected-in-brazil-says-boris-johnson-12186933

New Brazilian super charged Covid variant on UK radar!

The reason they're so lukewarm about 24/7 jabs is that it's the ability to have enough vaccine where it's needed that is the rate limiting factor. They could start 24 hour vaccination centres which then run out of vaccine on day 2, and then are start-stop as vaccine supply drios through.

I have a feeling schools will be shut til Easter

There are mutations happening around the world. I don't think normal will ever be again, vaccine or not. Back to school maybe, when.... I have no idea or expectations. Don't think this will be over this year or next to be honest but that's just my gut feeling which is usually right; sadly.

@QuestionEverythingOrBeASheep

There are mutations happening around the world. I don't think normal will ever be again, vaccine or not. Back to school maybe, when.... I have no idea or expectations. Don't think this will be over this year or next to be honest but that's just my gut feeling which is usually right; sadly.

Aren’t you a ray of sunshine

Mutations happen all the time do they not. At the end of the day there comes a point all the crap has to come to an end because society can’t function this way, mass deaths or not.

With these new mutations though, they always say they are more contagious but they don't say whether they are more deadly?
I do wonder because you get other things that are easy to catch like D&V but you don't necessarily die of them.

I haven't read the other replies so this may have been mentioned, but it's not known whether the vaccine stops you from infecting other people (it stops you suffering with Covid, but it's not know if it stops you spreading it). And also there seems to be some doubt about some of the new variants, the South African variant in particular.

There is also a paper out today that suggests that natural immunity (if you've had Covid) lasts about five months.

So, I think we'll see some definite causes for positivity in the next few months but that a) it will probably be Easter before the kids go back, and b) this could be a regular seasonal thing. Given how many people are catching it on a daily basis, we'll see high numbers of deaths for at least another few weeks, which will drop off as the most vulnerable are vaccincated.

Don’t plan any holidays this year, it boils my piss when I see these ‘jab and go’ ads on the TV for Ryanair telling you to book your Easter and summer holidays now the vaccine is here ..... 2022 maybe but certainly not this year

We’ve got a tough year coming, if we are lucky the kids should get back to some normality by the new September term 🤞

I would imagine when we do actually come out of the current lockdown I think we will be going back down the tiers slowly till we get to some kind of normal. How quickly that happens will depend on numbers of cases as the rules are relaxed

I think the schools will be back after Easter break if everything goes to plan. But not massivelly confident in going to plan so I don't think will have distance learning, at least not for secondary schools, until summer.

I think schools will be off until March. They really need to start vaccinating teachers and support staff.