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!

Probably not ,but it will become less and less of an issue as time goes on.

Life IS back to normal for most 🤷🏼‍♀️

I know, not the point of the thread but re. groping: no, not acceptable but it's basically like the London Tube, isn't it: people crammed into a tight space means you can't really see who it was, so some arse or another will take the opportunity! Does it suck?! Sure! Am I rather resigned to it? Well, I used to commute on the tube during rush hour ...

As for COVID: I'm triple vaccinated and, to the best of my knowledge, haven't actually had it. So maybe there's my residual fear of getting it and it being bad also playing into my mixed bag of emotions.

but things have pretty much got back to normal, with no restrictions for over a year.

it hasn't been "over a year"

'Freedom day' in England at least was July 19th, so yes it has been over a year

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!

i think this is the key. It isn't as bad as it was in 2020 (for most people - I accept that there are vulnerable people who are still very much at risk). I believe that it will continue to end downwards to the level of flu and maybe colds. When DS had it at Christmas, he had a sore throat and that was it. Less than a cold.

I've just come back from a holiday where we went to the last day of the Carnival, their first since 2019. Last year it would have been unthinkable.

we do have to get back to normal life for the good of the economy and general mental health.

I haven't taken precautions at all to be honest. I stuck to the letter of the law, been vaccinated as offered but nothing beyond (might have bent rules but for good reasons). I've not been ill - I've been living very normally for over a year including large indoor gigs

I’m getting on with life but still being careful. I’m passed clubbing age and I don’t go to really crowded places. Public transport can get quite crowded but it doesn’t seem to get like it was. At work I go to meetings but I still maintain a bit of distance. I don’t stand quite as close to people as I used to when talking. I’ve been to the theatre but even that wasn’t packed full. I’ve never really liked crowded places anyway.

I can’t get worked up about it now. I’m classed as CEV. Shielding took a serious toll on my mental health. I’ve been going out and about as normal this year, including mass gatherings. Btw I got covid from a relative at a small family gathering, not a mass gathering!

But even assuming you're only talking about England and not the rest of the UK, you can't possibly have forgotten that the legal requirement to isolate lasted until well into 2022 and that laws mandating masks returned for a couple of months over the winter? Obviously there are arguments to be made about the significance of these things, but they certainly existed.

Me. Plenty of friends of mine. In fact, for me it wasn't even anywhere near as bad as a cold. I got hot sweats a couple times overnight on one occasion, and other than that it was pretty symptomless. Maybe you're just unlucky with the people you know?

My MIL followed all the rules at all times. When things started to lift she carried on with some of them. Didn't come along to any gatherings, no indoor events, theatre etc and had only actually stepped in our house a couple of times. I said a couple of times to DH that she was only half living. She never caught Covid.

She is now in the last few days of a very short battle with cancer. She's only in her 70's and was previously very fit.

We have to start living. Now it's reached this stage, it's time. And I was terrified at the beginning and also followed all the rules.

As a secondary school teacher, I never had the luxury of being able to avoid being around hundreds of people every day during the height of the pandemic, and despite being unvaccinated for most of that time (I was too young to have it until the worst of it was nearly over) I never caught it.

Most people I know who still live in fear of covid without good reason (i.e. they're not living with a serious underlying medical condition) are people who have and always did have the luxury of being able to avoid it. Working from home, online supermarket deliveries, etc. Going back out into the 'real world' has been terrifying for them because they have an utterly disproportionate level of risk.

The VAST majority of people who get covid now aren't going to die or get long covid. They're going to feel a bit rubbish for a few days and then be absolutely fine. I finally caught it last month after 2.5 years - I had to take to my bed for a day and then I just had mild cold symptoms that in pre covid times I would have gone to work with.

Now tests aren't free and symptoms of covid are so mild for the majority we're in a situation where there will be people now actively living their lives with covid rather than isolating and they will be spreading it around and that's just how it will always be, just as it has always been with other diseases. Going anywhere where there are other people carries some risk of catching an illness, because humans carry illnesses - often asymptomatically - on a permanent basis. And there will always be people who become very ill from what is a mild disease for most - I've got a friend whose dad got debilitating ME from tonsilitis thirty years ago and hasn't worked since - but we can't live our lives in fear of that happening to us.

I'm glad it's no longer in the news every day, I'm glad we're no longer being pointlessly forced to put bits of handmade cloth over our faces and I'm glad that life has gone back to normal. At this rate we're all going to end up dying of the effects of climate change or nuclear war soon enough anyway so coronavirus is the least of our problems!

I think your NHS nursery place and then, presumably reception place in September 2020 or 2021 meant you didn’t see the full effect on primary school children. Schools were in no way normal - primary or otherwise.

DCs and I had it and had an annoying sore throat and tickly cough for three days.

Had much worse viruses when schools opened back up after the lockdown.

However back to OP - I think dissonance is a great description of where we find ourselves. I wonder how long it will last

I haven't RTFT but when I have my baby in a couple of months DH and I will both be covid tested. He won't be allowed in if he tests positive. We've had to make the decision to essentially self isolate from mid September as the risk of him not being allowed in is too great. It doesn't feel very normal to me, but obviously it depends on personal circumstances.

Personally I don't think wearing masks in public building, s was such a big deal anyway and for those that couldn't wear masks ,didn't anyway.

I think your NHS nursery place and then, presumably reception place in September 2020 or 2021 meant you didn’t see the full effect on primary school children. Schools were in no way normal - primary or otherwise.
Yes, 2020 for reception. But there were still all kinds of stories and threads on here where parents had been sent information about 2020 starters being in bubbles and having to sit in rows rather than joined up tables and all of that. There was nothing like that going on.

So yes, I have no experience of primary school pre-covid (not since 1990 anyway) but I don't see what could have been different about it. There was some sporadic mask wearing from teachers but it wasn't all the time.

Yes, there was vast variation in the experiences of children throughout the pandemic, with obviously some having much more access to childcare and schooling than others. There are DC who had something approaching their normal routine throughout with plenty of fresh air, exercise and engagement, and there are DC who never saw a day of schooling, whose schools did fuck all, who are toddlers who were expected in lockdown one to be shoved in front of devices for hours at a time while their parents worked and there are DC who were stuck in tiny flats with no garden whose access to sufficient exercise and play evaporated. And this is part of the problem we now face, widening inequality. Which robs years from lives too.

I went to a wedding a few weeks ago where everyone was asked to test and the tests were provided. Everyone tested and 5 had covid so didn't attend.
The bride and about 8 of the guests are CEV though including the brides grandparents who are in their 90's.
Guests took the tests because they care about other people

It is still here and there should be a sensible response, not the current almost denial of the useless government.

To me this includes some restrictions on when hospital visiting can take place (not those denying someone being able to visit a dying relative), proper sick pay and time away from others if you test positive, and for those able to work from home, at least hybrid working. People should be able to opt out of events such as the OP describes without being criticised or pressurised.

There are plenty of other bugs you can catch that aren't Covid. Covid is just the one you can quickly get numbers for as it's being publically tracked.

Tbh regularly mixing and getting small incremental exposure to bugs is better than hiding away and then getting exposed to a significantly different bug. Incremental bugs are more likely to be recognised, fought off and update your immunity, without causing symptoms. You're always going to be at risk if you're mixing in high-density areas, but that's no different to before the pandemic started.

You have to hope that people have learnt something from the pandemic and take personal responsibility when they know they're ill. Although I don't believe the pandemic has made much of a difference. The people who were already careful are just as careful, and those that aren't (and have survived Covid) now have even more evidence to show they don't need to be... after all they survived right?

What I find amusing is that the people who 100% wanted harsh lockdowns are generally the same people who are most vocal about the state of the economy.

I love to remind them that people were warning that lockdown would be disastrous for the economy in the long term but I was always told it was a price worth paying and we should save lives not the economy.

Karma coming back to bite them and no, its not a price worth paying to save people with an average age of 82

Yes, there was vast variation in the experiences of children throughout the pandemic, with obviously some having much more access to childcare and schooling than others. There are DC who had something approaching their normal routine throughout with plenty of fresh air, exercise and engagement, and there are DC who never saw a day of schooling, whose schools did fuck all, who are toddlers who were expected in lockdown one to be shoved in front of devices for hours at a time while their parents worked and there are DC who were stuck in tiny flats with no garden whose access to sufficient exercise and play evaporated. And this is part of the problem we now face, widening inequality. Which robs years from lives too.
I do totally agree and my previous posts have sounded dismissive of this which is not my intention.

I am fully aware that my children were very lucky in that we could do most of the homeschooling and get outside. My point really was that there is a hysterical response which comes out here and elsewhere online that says that all children were subjected to an endless parade of masked faces and no human contact and sat in schools in Victorian style desks or in nurseries where they weren't allowed to hug their friends and are irreparably damaged. Which is nonsense. As with any situation there are some who are hugely and unfairly impacted and there are some who really aren't that much.