To think there's still that teeny weeny bit of a pandemic thing happening?

[IAmOldNow]

Not complaining, just observing:

Figures say: cases rising, hospitalisiations rising, fatalities: flat at best but if anything that'll be thanks to large scale immunisation, largely due to vaccines that may not prevent infection altogether but are, largely, proving to be pretty good at making sure the vast majority of us don't end up on a ventilator and/or: dead!

Currenrt reality says: huge client party tonight. Cue some 3k people crammed into a mostly indoors space, free alcohol, hugging, air kissing, any old thing you'd imagine from people who, literally, know and do not actively hate each other and haven't met in the flesh for two years.

AIBU to think that this is a) human and understandable but also b) bound to see 1/3 of the organisation out cold with COVID within a week?

For the record: I don't know the right answer! I went, too!

I oh actually o think you answered that sorry.

YABU. There is nothing selfish about anyone wanting to prioritise living a full and unhindered life over your mum, who they don’t know and is unlikely to suffer any serious covid effects given she is presumably jabbed and boosted.

i find this ‘terrified for my 70+ year old relative’ to be 🙄 to be honest

I know this will be seen as controversial but you asked…

I think this too. Nothing will ever be ‘enough’ to protect their relatives from an illness that is very unlikely to have serious consequences if they’ve been jabbed

I just wish people would go back to being as considerate to folks like my DD as they were pre-covid.

Obviously id love more in our circumstances as it would enhance my DDs life, but I know that’s not reasonable. But just back to the way they were when the people close to us stayed clear of us with coughs and colds.

My shit immune system hasn't gone away so covid is still a big thing for me
I don't want to get it, be unwell, go through the whole annoyance of having to get the medication etc, time off work

I understand, but that’s for you to mitigate now.

What people have shown is that, left to manage Covid themselves, they won't act responsibly. Lockdowns are the best idea, but WFH were possible, mandatory mask wearing indoors and on public transport, limits to the number of people who can gather for social events and a return to limited numbers of people in shops at one time are easy wins that will make the difference between life and death for tens of thousands this winter.

Tens of thousands?

Lockdowns?

Mandatory masks?

None of those things are going to happen!

@Wouldloveanother I know. That's why I said up thread I wear a mask and ask people to test. I'm just replying to say why some of us are still thinking about Covid

Less than 0.25% of people in England died of covid .... how many of them were very elderly and/or had serious health issues anyway. I'm not saying they're lives weren't important, but we need to keep this in perspective.

There shouldn't be any more restrictions at all for covid. If people feel they are vulnerable they should take the necessary precautions.

WFH were possible, mandatory mask wearing indoors and on public transport, limits to the number of people who can gather for social events and a return to limited numbers of people in shops at one time are easy wins

Easy wins? Really? Easy? Do you STILL have no idea about how the economy works? Do you still have no clue about the amount the financial impact these easy wins cause, about how much less money people are able to spend, how much less money is circulating, how much less tax is paid, and how much less money is available for public spending, including health spending?

I always think it's interesting when things are too complex to be able to evidence, but not so complex that a poster can't claim they're easy wins and engage in daft cod psychological analysis of people who don't take their word for it.

Thank goodness. Why not go the whole hog, we can all just live and exist inside sterile tubes like that episode of the Simpsons? Never encounter a microbe again?

But CoViDz OvEr innit.

Oh and what a neat little way to try and diminish the intellect and education of people who don't agree with you 🙄

Unless there is a new vaccine / treatment resistant new varient, that causes the NHS to be overwhelmed, then lockdown is not going to happen again
Masks might be advised over the winter months but even when they were mandatory, they were never enforced .

Not single poster here is saying Covid is over. The reading comprehension among some is abysmal.

There will never be a lockdown like there was in spring 2020 ... the vast majority of people would take no notice whatsoever.

I can't see that lockdown could even happen then.

Lockdown requires the state to pay lots of people to stay at home, and a relatively quiescent population. It needs a sweet spot where the public are scared enough to mostly observe the rules but not so scared or pissed off that people working in the essential infrastructure (which is a lot, and includes the likes of delivery services) start refusing to work. Can't see how we hit either of those prerequisites again in the near future, much less both.

Agreed! Me included!

I just think as well, can you imagine either Truss or Sunak trying to sell it to the public after they spent months minimising Partygate?

This is exactly the kind of post which made the tide turn on MN.

The vindictive and bitter sounding moral high ground, the vanity about "caring for others".

Remember that woman from Bolton who was on Twitter loudly calling for school strikes? She made out that it was because schools were so terribly dangerous and that she and her friends were meeting outside in parks only, because they were the caring responsible ones, and everyone else was JUST PURE SELFISH. Turns out she was apparently "clinically vulnerable" after all. She didn't mention that bit.

I don't think this is going to happen but hypothetically if a dangerous new variant came in that was killing people in their thousands every day and people of all ages were getting very sick then the government would have to bring in restrictions and people couldn't just ignore them
I don't think we will have a lockdown anytime soon nor is there any need for it but nobody can rule out the possibility that it won't ever happen again.

Restrictions and lockdown are not the same thing.

But of course people could ignore restrictions and even a full lockdown. There are some who did last time. I had whoever I liked in my home and visited others, for example. There were also some businesses illicitly functioning and would be again.

On a more visible and damaging level, people could take to the streets and there could be significant unrest. Many people are going to rely on access to public, heated spaces this winter given the cost of fuel now. You think the population would all accept withdrawal of access to that and comply with an order to stay at home and freeze? Nah.

This is all moot though, because lockdown requires people to be paid to stay at home and it could not be more obvious that the government won't be doing that this winter.

I think a lockdown would be more likely for another virus though rather than COVID

But we didn't have covid when anyone here was a child. In my childhood, our danger was polio. We were vaccinated against it, so it died out in this country (though I read today it's been detected in London again).

Two of my friends have died of covid. Many others are still suffering the after-effects, which are long-term in some cases. One relative (a child born with a heart defect) has had his life very much restricted by the need to avoid infection. The infection is passed on by people, unknowingly infected, not wearing masks.

Our government has done a lot wrong during this pandemic, some of it, I agree, very harmful to children. But I don't think pretending it's not happening is the answer.

I remember being terrified of polio when there was a big outbreak in the midlands in the 50s, we hadn't been vaccinated then. I wasn't afraid of dying, I was terrified of being in an iron lung. They would occasionally have a "human interest" story on the news and you'd see a smiling child, or maybe more than one, trapped in an iron lung. I really hoped I'd die if I got it as I couldn't bear the thought of being in one of those things for years.

I also remember smallpox outbreaks in the 1960s. Out local GP had queues for vaccinations all day every day for a few weeks and he would stay open till quite late at night.

It was all fun back then wasn't it.