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'.

I can live with it if it was just the mild sore throat and runny nose I had with it but I'm not prepared for the inconvenience it caused. I couldn't go to work, I will get paid, but we were short staffed and now it try to catch up time. There is a big difference to being off work and choosing to stay at home and being off work and having to stay home.

It means no matter what we get on with it ! Yes loads off with covid at the moment , lots where I work and apparently Manchester airport is in chaos due to staff shortage. But other people going on with their lives . Yes it’s not ideal but majority feel unwell after a few days are fine so we make the best of the situation. I admit it’s not ideal but nor is any suggestion of restrictions either in my opinion.

@MiniatureHotdog

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. I'm genuinely not being facetious to say that I don't know a single person to have been more than run of the mill unwell with it (three chilrdren different schools, both sides of family, DHs colleagues, friends, neighbours etc). I can't think of anyone we know who hadn't had it yet at least once, and no one has been badly ill.

Yes, of course, some unlucky people are more seriously ill, but life has to go back to normal eventually. Vaccines are here. Mortality rates are low. Everyone who says life shouldn't be back to normal, when exactly will you be comfortable returning to normal? What else is going to change?

Well that’s it, isn’t it. I was a bit unwell for a week. NBD. My flipping kiddo had to have ten days off school, and only had a temperature for about two hours.

But my uncle died, my cousin was in ICU for a fortnight, my cousin in law was blue lighted to hospital, another two cousins-in-law (I have a large selection) got long covid and is one still struggling months later (none are related to each other, so this isn’t genetic, just chance) Most of the neighbours have just been coldy, but a couple have been really unwell (although not hospitalised)

The Covid experience is very varied. Which is one of the issues with it. Living with it for me is just meh. Living with it for some other people isn’t.

It's 'not ideal' until YOUR child doesn't get their 1-1 provision as per their EHCP. Or YOUR child is shipped out to another class combined with another with an unfamiliar adult. Yet the hugely unrealistic standards for education must still be met. Fuck off

Like living with a cold or flu 🤨

"For the great majority it is far worse than that?"

How do you figure that @chloemol?

An awful lot of elderly and CEV people will still die of covid, no doubt about it. Horrible.

Living with it for us has left a parent looking like they are permanently disabled and without a job having had to resign due to ill health. They were healthy prior. A direct effect of covid. They cannot function independently after a supposedly 'mild' dose at the start of the pandemic.

Living with it has meant most of our child's class has been off with covid, some on second infection in a short space of time. Their regular teachers off too. Disrupted education, poorly children.

Ignoring potential future health of children is disgusting. Very little acknowledgement of long covid and poor research and support for those suffering.

I'm all for getting back to normal, but ignoring covid and its effects will cause a lot of people to be incredibly poorly in the future. A more sensible approach was and is needed.

@Invasionofthegutsnatchers

Teachers with no access to LFTs unless they pay for them out of their own pockets, coming to work with a temperature and flu symptoms, battling through 10-12 hours of a highly stressful day because apparently it doesn't spread in schools, only hospitals and prisons

But surely if you had flu symptoms or even “the flu” you wouldn’t be going into work anyway?

@A580Hojas

An awful lot of elderly and CEV people will still die of covid, no doubt about it. Horrible.

I think they will too.

@Fay2121

Yes, good to hear that some are treating it like a cold or flu.

I suppose I was thinking about it based on the news this morning of over a 100 flights cancelled as the airline have too much staff illness and not enough time to get new staff security checked to replace them.

Airlines don't usually cancel a 100 flights because staff have a cold.

Haha I work in this industry and I can already feel the roster chaos coming as hundreds of cabin crew suddenly "have covid" over the Easter weekend so can't possibly come to work 😂

I suspect what will happen is that people who were asymptomatic the first time, or who had mild symptoms, will have scarier experiences the third, fourth or fifth time they get it. By then the NHS will have been either overwhelmed or privatised so many people won’t have had boosters, and their treatment won’t be covered by insurance. We will encounter covid mutations that are much worse, because there’s no reason to think that mutations will always be milder. And lots of people who thought they were immune or were quite happy to live with it will end up with long covid, unable to work, unable to pay their mortgages; their houses and cars repossessed; with nothing but the memories of the foreign holidays they used to enjoy.

That’s what I think living with it will probably lead to.

@A580Hojas

An awful lot of elderly and CEV people will still die of covid, no doubt about it. Horrible.

Yes they will, just like they would from the flu or pneumonia. By 79 year old CEV grandad just had it, bit run down but got over it within 5 days. My 85 CV Nan had it, quite ill for 5 days but managed it at home. Everyone is different, even CEV!

Shorter life expectancy. So an ironic phrase, really.

The assumption is that we will achieve herd immunity and the virus will mutate to become weaker and weaker. This is only an assumption however, and even with herd immunity, it will still kill off a lot of elderly people every winter, probably including you and I when we’re old, which is why I mention shorter life expectancy.

it will still kill off a lot of elderly people every winter

Like flu. It's still an improvement on how flu epidemics were in the past.

Surely if unwell they phone in sick. Teachers get sick pay. There's no need for them to work when unwell.

This is untrue, almost all teachers are expected to work from home in bed if they are sick. They might get sick pay but they do not get time off from work.

@Neverreturntoathread

Shorter life expectancy. So an ironic phrase, really.

The assumption is that we will achieve herd immunity and the virus will mutate to become weaker and weaker. This is only an assumption however, and even with herd immunity, it will still kill off a lot of elderly people every winter, probably including you and I when we’re old, which is why I mention shorter life expectancy.

Because having herd immunity worked so well when omicron suddenly swept in…

Also, why do people believe the myth that viruses mutate to be weaker? It’s not true. Some viruses do but plenty don’t. Measles is a good example of an exceptionally dangerous virus that in all the time we’ve experienced it, has not mutated to be milder.

@A580Hojas

An awful lot of elderly and CEV people will still die of covid, no doubt about it. Horrible.

Well of course they will! I hate to tell you this but elderly and CEV people die all the time, of all sorts of things.

@Invasionofthegutsnatchers Your posts are weirdly aggressive. Lots of professions have had it tough throughout.

@ChloeHel teachers will struggle in to work with the most horrendous symptoms because we care about the children. Last week I felt utterly shite with a flu like virus but I turned up every bloody day so my class weren't shortchanged. This is nothing new. The dedication of school staff is ridiculously unrecognised

Do as you did pre-covid.

I do hope people don't go back to not washing their hands after visiting the toilet though, always amazes me how many do that in public toilets.

Being ill more often and hoping that employers make allowances for that.

So yes, we are doing it anyway as we always have done. Under increasingly stressful conditions

Reading here, 'living with it' seems to mean without any empathy for those who are having an awful time.

So sorry for those that are having such a difficult time. Really concerning.

Again back to the news just watched, such huge waiting lists for gynaecological issues. Women in agony, women losing their fertility. How are services going to catch up, when staffing shortages are such an issue.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-60941950

For me, some of it is 'difficult' rather than horrendous and I'm thankful for that.
For instance, DC stuck in a city late at night with no train (cancelled due to staff shortages caused by COVID), another not able to travel to football, we were looking to go away next week but the channel tunnel has delays, DC's learning at home because school is part shut, worrying about exams.
It is all very unsettled.

flu like virus

Flu means you can't get out of bed. And if that unwell stay at home and stop spreading it to other people.

Please.

@Fay2121

Reading here, 'living with it' seems to mean without any empathy for those who are having an awful time.

So sorry for those that are having such a difficult time. Really concerning.

Again back to the news just watched, such huge waiting lists for gynaecological issues. Women in agony, women losing their fertility. How are services going to catch up, when staffing shortages are such an issue.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-60941950

For me, some of it is 'difficult' rather than horrendous and I'm thankful for that.
For instance, DC stuck in a city late at night with no train (cancelled due to staff shortages caused by COVID), another not able to travel to football, we were looking to go away next week but the channel tunnel has delays, DC's learning at home because school is part shut, worrying about exams.
It is all very unsettled.

It sounds truly awful.