To ask regarding COVID - what does 'we just have to live with it' look like in real life?

[Fay2121]

I keep hearing the phrase.

What is the reality of 'we just have to live with it'.

Right now, living with it appears to be, I'm ill, I'm not paying for a test, I can't afford to lose my wage for the day/week, I'm going into work.
DHs work colleagues, staff and clients are all doing the same. Only one said that they'd tested positive to DH and kept a distance knowing I'm heavily pregnant and not particularly well myself.

It's just like when people had a cold prior to 2020. No one felt the need to keep a distance or stay off work.

Recently went to a & e needed to stay in and have operation really instead treated in a and e and sent home as no beds due to covid cases and larhe amounts of staff off
Still under hospital care now as should of been all done properly
Was also on a trolley in the hallway along with others again due to amount of covid
So in some places living with covid is not so easy

Ds has been off many times as not enough teachers around

Cancelled leave, working over Christmas and other festive holidays, unpaid hours of overtime was how it was for many

It’s still disruptive do you think it’s gone back to how things were before this is the norm now but you just get on with it

@Invasionofthegutsnatchers

Please just phone in sick for the love of god.

You are obviously unwell and miserable and I don't think this thread is helping you.

@Sharrowgirl

You catch a virus, you feel a bit ill for a few days and when you feel better you go back to school or work. Like you did all your life, prior to 2020.

This.

Come to Scandinavia. We're living with it. It's almost like it's 2019.

You catch a virus, you feel a bit ill for a few days and when you feel better you go back to school or work.

Why were people taking time off for being 'a bit ill'? Really?

For me, as for many of us with elderly parents in care homes, “just living with it” has entailed only 3 open weekends to visit Dad this year without the home being closed under Public Health England guidelines due to Covid outbreaks.

Couple this with Dad being in hospital for a fortnight due to a clot in his leg, on a ward where there was absolutely no visitors as there were patients who had active Covid infections. Returning to the home last Friday, we’ve not been able to visit…due to another outbreak.

If he was nearing end of life, then we’d be granted access to ONE visitor. I have an identical twin as my only sibling, should we toss a coin for who gets to say goodbye?

As one nurse told us on our daily call, all wards in our local hospital have cases. As the elderly have a higher proportion of needing emergency transfer to hospitals for treatment or observation, cases are just bouncing too & fro between care homes & hospitals.

Add in a decline in his mental illness as he’s now lonely even within his care home as no one can visit & phone calls aren’t enough.

As for my Mum, she’s become a virtual recluse (having been CEV due to cancer treatment in 2019). Her arthritic knees are very painful; operation was elective so was cancelled in 2020, and now can only walk a very limited few steps & uses a a wheelchair. She refuses to go out, her mental health has suffered, as has her hygiene, home etc.

All of that puts extra pressure on us as a family as any spare time is either attending to Mum’s physical & home needs, or shopping. She refuses external help for chores or bathing due to Covid. With a good heap of my sister having schizophrenia (and working every day throughout as a utility essential worker) not having the mental capacity to do all of this in her spare time just adding to the demands of my time (to be utterly selfish about it). And this I’m the one to deal with all of the extra stuff (alongside a disability of my own & deteriorating health).

At least with compulsory mask wearing the case rates were a little more under control. Now, it’s everywhere, there were 4 of us at a funeral recently out of a hundred mourners wearing masks, no one in Costco last week was masked (except us & staff), Sainsbury’s & Lidl likewise.

I wonder how many of you who are happy with “just living with it” are telling their elderly relatives, crying on the phone due to loneliness, that yet again, their home is closed to visitors? Or that you can’t visit them in hospital, in pain, lonely & scared, due to Covid?

So that’s my life just living with it.

And it’s more than just a little bit shite when mask wearing & social distancing (not lockdowns) could make things just a little bit bloody easier.

@Invasionofthegutsnatchers. Just wanted to say I think you and teachers in general are amazing and really appreciate everything you do. I help regularly at my son’s school with a reading scheme and with school trips and see how hard you all work. Perhaps off topic but we couldn’t do without you all

The real issue is that there isn't another option. The mitigation that are plausible permanently are things like washing hands more, maybe more cleaning, maybe improved ventilation - and then things like making sure people are in good health generally, they aren't obese, etc.

Masks and social distancing as practiced in the community are not viable permanent changes and frankly probably not even all that useful with omicron anyway. Lockdowns work, temporarily, but are not viable on an ongoing basis.

So, figuring out how to live with it is really the only option. As far as places like seniors homes, people need to decide what is really worth it. And when I say people, really I mean the actual individuals living there. I daresay the majority would not agree to permanent restrictions on their movements and guests.

In developed countries, it looks like it entails a sustained loss of 2-3+ years of life expectancy, taking us back about 20 years and wiping out all the mortality gains associated with the reduction in smoking and improved traffic safety.

I'm convinced that, unfortunately, after 2 years of publicity about Covid, some (but not all) people think they are more ill than they really are with it.
I have friends who say they were terribly ill with Covid and its something to be afraid of, but they were getting friends to run to McDonalds for them and eating curries and mac 'n' cheese dropped off by mates (me included) and pulling sad faces on social media every 5 minutes!
Well, there's no way you could eat like that with the flu. But people get positive Covid results and think "Oh god I've got that scary thing I've been reading about for 2 years!" and ham-up their symptoms.

@TeaPacks

In developed countries, it looks like it entails a sustained loss of 2-3+ years of life expectancy, taking us back about 20 years and wiping out all the mortality gains associated with the reduction in smoking and improved traffic safety.

Plus increased disabilities amongst the population of all ages.

It is a shit picture.

I've just been told my mum probably won't make it as the covid has damaged her lungs to badly. It's not a common cold for everyone.

@Teacupsandtoast

I'm genuinely surprised by how high Englands rate continues to be when you don't have to test nor isolate. Are people still routinely testing, not including those who must for work (nhs) etc?

The point is that people still have it regardless of whether they've tested or not. If you're ill you'll be off work or school. If staff are off work then the work doesn't get done.

If the work you do affects others - surgeon, driver, teacher, shop worker, factory worker, pilot, you name it, then things stop happening. That's a practical reason why we aren't managing to 'live with it'.

That and the fact that it atrophies the brain and causes organ damage.

@MangyInseam

So, figuring out how to live with it is really the only option. As far as places like seniors homes, people need to decide what is really worth it. And when I say people, really I mean the actual individuals living there. I daresay the majority would not agree to permanent restrictions on their movements and guests.

What are you attempting to suggest here exactly?

All the people I know who don’t get paid when they don’t work …. still manage to go to work with covid.

Incredible that. Don’t know how on Earth they managed to pull themselves out the door .

@Eyedropeyeflop

All the people I know who don’t get paid when they don’t work …. still manage to go to work with covid.

Incredible that. Don’t know how on Earth they managed to pull themselves out the door .

An argument for universal sick pay if ever there was one.

Gosh no you would be getting even more people “ill” off work with covid. I.e - disrupting necessary services for a few days off.

That’s the root cause of disruption. Mass isolations even after multiple vaccinations.

People really have forgotten what it’s like to feel a bit rough…. And get on with it.

There isn't much of a choice.

My concern is that the virus is highly contiguous.

I've never had a flu or regular colds I'm on my 2nd round of covid since December, DD is on her 3rd, DS his 2nd.

I'm vaccinated but we're still feeling very weak and sick with a banging headache.

Why would anyone reject what others have done that worked? I’m not saying 100% worked but worked much much better than what the uk did.

TBF, if any of us could wave a magic wand and get the UK population to the same average BMI as the Japanese with the same lifelong diet, I expect we would. I leave South Korea out of this because their rates are through the roof.

@Dishh

*@MangyInseam*

So, figuring out how to live with it is really the only option. As far as places like seniors homes, people need to decide what is really worth it. And when I say people, really I mean the actual individuals living there. I daresay the majority would not agree to permanent restrictions on their movements and guests.

What are you attempting to suggest here exactly?

I imagine what the poster is saying is that care home closures are not agreed by the residents . It doesn't even make sense - mum's home has Covid so I'm not allowed to visit her in her room despite testing before I go? Most residents would probably make the choice of being able to see their loved ones . The same as the other elderly people who are isolated in the community .

Most residents would probably make the choice of being able to see their loved ones . The same as the other elderly people who are isolated in the community

That’s the thing with communal living though isn’t it? Choices are limited to what doesn’t affect everyone else, including staff. There are very real safeguarding and quality issues with high staff absence. Care homes aren’t places that can ‘just get on with it’ if they physically don’t have people there. If we had similar rates of norovirus you’d see the same thing happening in care homes. The issue is the high rate of infection in circulation not the homes policy.

Incredible that. Don’t know how on Earth they managed to pull themselves out the door

And this is the problem with minimising covid, it opens the door for this frankly medieval approach to getting people into work no matter what, and it’s usually the roles that have very little financial reward for dragging yourself in. The energy put in to trying to convince everyone that this is the only way would be much better spent on calling for better provisions for sick leave universally. Yes it costs money but so does the long term consequences of ill health.

Spanish flu killed more people than covid. But it isn’t killing people like that now. Why do you think that is?

This.

"The pandemic" has happened before and now we have better research and better medical facilities. I don't know why people are so keen to see only doom and gloom.

@shinynewapple22

I imagine what the poster is saying is that care home closures are not agreed by the residents . It doesn't even make sense - mum's home has Covid so I'm not allowed to visit her in her room despite testing before I go? Most residents would probably make the choice of being able to see their loved ones . The same as the other elderly people who are isolated in the community .

Many residents aren't able to make such decisions on their own, so it could be the situation of Covid-positive family members making that decision for them and bringing the virus in (to surmise). Of course, you'd hope that wouldn't happen, but you only have to read this thread to recognise that it likely would.

@Awalkintime

I also think we have to consider the possibility that some staff are At It and using covid as an excuse to be off

Given it is more work being off as you have to adapt plans and send them in and then do zooms from home, and then pick up the bits that have been missed when you get back, I doubt it very much. It is easier to just go in when you are ill.

Omfg not everyone is a teacher and not everything is about teachers. This is not the case for every job.