Worried About Coronavirus- thread 37

[TheStarryNight]

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Oh yes the future.
I was supposed to be going back to uni to retrain (hate being a teacher nowadays). My youngest is supposed to start school in September. My FIL has terminal cancer and we can't spend these precious last month's with him. Life seems to be in limbo

I did not put that superfluous comma in there!

And what will the future look like? Will we be socially distanced for years? What if there's never a vaccine and immunity doesn't last?
It's all too much

With re food donations-I feel bad taking stuff that could go to foodbank. It's not a monetary thing for us-budget is the same as it always was. It's a time thing-it takes at least one person out of service for hours at a time due to lines to get into the supermarket and we just don't have that resource at the minute. I'm planning on going for 7am tomorrow and begging to be let in despite not being NHS. Sometimes they have let me so far and some times they haven't.

It's highly unlikely there'll be no vaccine. There's also a number of different treatments that look hopeful (not just the antivirals). It shouldn't need to be like this for years.

@ToffeeYogurt

If it's not somewhere they need to "escape" from, why does it matter if they leave?
Because they often end up in rural locations where resources from the availability of food to the provision of healthcare and ICU beds are already in short supply.

Do you mean they should stay where they are to avoid the risk of spreading the dangers elsewhere?
Yes yes yes a thousand times yes and not forgetting that tiny matter of not making non essential journeys and being asked nicely to stay at home.

Being told by the police to return to the place you shouldn't have left in the first place hardly constitutes non essential travel.

I’m having a wobble today - have been doing ok over the last 5 weeks but the anxiety really kicked in. ( shielding with a complex sick 6 year old ) including taking over IV antibiotics as well as everything else I wanna doing. But today was the day I finally just hit rock bottom :(

Is there anywhere nearby that could deliver to the home @MurrayTheMonk? If not, you shouldn't feel bad about donations. Your care home residents are in as much need of help accessing food as someone struggling financially. They're vulnerable.

It is hard. That sounds especially hard.i canwobble beside you if it helps

Can't get supermarket delivery slot. And the sheer amount of food and the very specific stuff we need for some residents make it hard for smaller shops to deliver is the issue.
I just hate going to the supermarket currently anyway never mind to do the huge care home shop. But it is what it is - just need to
Toughen up and get on with it.

@ToffeeYoghurt creating a vaccine could take years and then there is testing that needs to be carried out safely before we get onto the problems of manufacturing a vaccine for billions of people, distributing it and delivering it safely and effectively.
Production couldn't take place at the risk of other vaccines and risking an epidemic of measles or whopping cough for instance. We are talking about large scale complex production in a clean facility with skilled chemists and production staff.

Yes all those thoughts going round my head too WhyNotMe. My teens look to me to tell them it's all going to sort itself out but I'm inwardly thinking I have no fucking clue!

Charlie the priority is no essential travel to avoid the risk of spreading the virus. The rules set in place by the government allow for people to stay in second homes (if they travelled before lockdown) whether locals like it or not, impact on resources or not. Very few have travelled after lockdown. The people a PP referred to might have a genuine reason for travelling not known to the poster (because people don't always tell neighbouring homes their private business). If not, yes you're right they shouldn't have travelled after lockdown - but now they have, they shouldn't be going on yet another unnecessary journey.

@MurrayTheMonk I'm sure if the likes of Asda, Sainsbury, Tesco would be more than willing to help if you asked, maybe worth contacting customer services or even better asking to speak to the manager of a store close to you. If you were able to give a weekly list of essentials that could just be done on repeat for click and collect it might ease your burden considerably

Haven't experts suggested a vaccine could be ready by September? Of course nothing's certain but it's good to think positively. It wouldn't be mass production at that stage, no, it would at first be available for healthcare workers and then other key workers, but it's a start.

I'm sorry it's so difficult for you Murray They really should include care home workers in the NHS shopping hour. It's such an important job you're doing.

@ToffeeYoghurt Do you not watch the news or read the papers? People were travelling to their second homes in Cornwall, Devon, Scotland, Rural Wales and the Lake District in significant numbers which is why the Government issued the guidance in the first place. Even after lockdown it was still happening which is why the Police were stopping cars and asking the drivers to return home from lots of locations around the UK.
Of course the police should be telling people to return home to not do so makes a mockery of the stay at home rule and allows people to do as they please and put the lives of others at risk.

You have no evidence that far more people will die directly of covid than indirectly as a result of other conditions not treated and ensuing poverty as a result of the the economic effects of the lockdown....

Currently the virus isn't widespread in most of the poorest of areas in the country (Walsall being perhaps the exception). Instead they generally have the lowest infection rates in country. This is possibly because there is less contact with those who travelled abroad, less ability to travel outside those areas and less incentive to travel to those areas. Yesterday someone linked to research showing a list of the most vulnerable areas of the country to an outbreak, which confirmed my thought that a widespread outbreak in these areas would be even worse than we've seen elsewhere because underlying health and living conditions were so much poorer - and health care provision less well resourced because they are small town provincial.

So what we don't want is to let the virus get a hold in these areas in particular because the effect would be catastophic.

Ending lockdown prematurely therefore risks those in those areas.

It's really a no win situation.

Haven't experts suggested a vaccine could be ready by September? Of course nothing's certain but it's good to think positively. It wouldn't be mass production at that stage, no, it would at first be available for healthcare workers and then other key workers, but it's a start.

Having found a potential vaccine is a world of difference from having found, tested and manufactured a vaccine ready for rollout.

What's being asked is if the UK can follow the example of Bill Gates and start production of vaccine before approval and completion of trials to make sure the second it is approved there is mass availability of the vaccine taking months off the time to get it out there. This means it won't be rolling out in six months but it won't be the longer end of the scale of 18 months either.

@WhyNotMe40 I am sorry about your FIL. It is nice to have this thread we can share our wobble moments.

RedRoothBrush There's a link on another thread to an article from the Guardian suggesting poverty stricken urban areas with high density housing like London and Birmingham are worse hit? Perhaps different interpretation of research?

Charlie The news reports roads as being mostly clear now. Those people travelled before lockdown. The government Stay Home message is to prevent spread of infection. They've made it quite clear people who'd already travelled to second homes could (and should) stay there. It's worrying if police are unlawfully removing people from their homes. No non essential journeys means that people who've already travelled need to stay put. Even if they've breached the rules by travelling after lockdown.

Found it.
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/virus-hitting-hardest-modern-equivalent-victorian-slums

@ToffeeYoghurt There seems to be a bit of a two tier system of rules being applied here. Someone who should not have travelled to their second home gets "oh well youve done it now" while a man delivering food to his vulnerable mum gets threatened with pepper spray.

That was awful Helena We're probably hearing about a minority of silly decisions, I hope? The police have such a tough job at the moment and being on the frontline they're facing an increased risk. I don't want to damn all of them by a few publicised incidents. With the people travelling to second homes, there's possibly an argument for fining people who've wilfully ignored the rules by travelling after lockdown but the priority has to be avoiding any additional unnecessary travel. Sending them off on another journey is irresponsible. In this case it's all anecdotal as the PP doesn't know if they had a genuine reason to travel.

I find this headline terrifying "South Korea reports more recovered coronavirus patients testing positive again" www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-southkorea/south-korea-reports-more-recovered-coronavirus-patients-testing-positive-again-idUSKCN21V0JQ If recovering from it doesn't give immunity will we ever be rid of it?

Just trying to stay positive here so perhaps I'm clutching at straws. But could it be something like chickenpox? You test positive to the antibodies if you've had it but you don't get ill again from it and are no longer contagious after a certain period (although later in life you could develop shingles).