How long can we carry on like this for?

[Pseudosudocrem]

Anyone else starting to wonder just how long we can carry on like this before everything irrevocably falls apart?

How will we ever recover as a country?

*Tonemeth my understanding is the rules are being legally enforced

Shielding guidance is not (thank goodness).*

Indeed, but I dont understand your point?!

Shielding isn't legally enforced, but the only person youre putting at risk by ignoring it is yourself.

Lockdown and the strategy behind it means if you ignore it, not only do you put yourself at risk but others too. It's necessarily for the good of the country as a whole, not just one person.

Am struggling with it too . DD needs an op and can’t walk far - it was cancelled 2 days before she was due to have it . Hubby has been very ill and I am worried about him going back to work and picking up Coronavirus . However I studied Economics and am under no illusion that this situation is catastrophic for the economy , if we continue in Lockdown and know that there will be severe hardship in many people’s lives if the economy doesn’t open up again . The government needs to show real leadership over testing and helping to fund research for a vaccine . They can’t leave the latter just to private companies- they will have to help fund so we are in with a real chance of a vaccine becoming the reality we want it to be .

Even if a vaccine is found there’ll be another virus or bacterium or natural disaster or war coming along soon.

Tone, I’ve had this conversation too many times

If a shielding person would rather take those chances, that should be okay. They should get whatever freedom or restrictions a non shielding person gets.

It’s bizarre that the shielding are being addressed like children “it’s for your own good.” Get busy living, or get busy dying. Choice is for the shielding who probably have DNR in place already, if they’ve got any sense.

Birdie “ Even if a vaccine is found there’ll be another virus or bacterium or natural disaster or war coming along soon.”

So much this!

But woodchuck using your logic that we stay under lockdown until there's a vaccine, many people will die waiting for non coronavirus treatment. A vaccine is 6 months away at best.

That's not the logic at all! If we stay in lockdown for longer and it is as effective as it has been in China then the hospitals will no longer be full of people with coronavirus and people will not have to wait for non-coronavirus treatment. If we stop lockdown now infections will increase and hospitals will not be a safe place for many people with other health conditions regardless of whether there is space to treat them..

thesedaysarescary I've suffered from anxiety and depression in the past but this situation actually makes me grateful for what I do have

That depends on some extent to what you have though, doesn't it? For myself, the grief I feel at having no children (or partner) is more sharply in focus because I am alone. And a ticking biological clock and less time to actually meet someone now, let alone be in a financial position for children... this has taken away my hope. Also I'm finding traumatic events from the past resurfacing. Also people I love and want to hold close at this time are far away, and I'm reading it could be a year or more to see any of them. Frankly I'm only trying to remain alive for one particular person who might break if I killed myself.

I don't understand why not being able to go to public events or socialise would make someone suicidal

Public events I can do without. Seeing nobody is a bit different, though, isn't it? Some of us were hanging on by a thread to start with - trying to build our lives into something meaningful, really needing social connection to get by. Trauma thrives when people suffer alone. We're hardwired for community connections.

If I posted on here in normal times about how I felt right now, posters would be falling over themselves to tell me to get somewhere safe, not be alone, etc.

or make them not care if they pass the virus to someone vulnerable.

I do care about that. What I don't see the problem with is myself and another friend who are isolating alone being allowed to meet up. It's less risk that a family living together where one person could pass it on to several family members.

@LilacTree1 the lockdown isn't about trying to hide from the virus though it's about giving the most people the chance to survive this. The economy will recover, life will continue, our children are alive and will have the chance to return to a normal life. For the majority of people it's just about one day at a time. Every country in the world is facing this at the same time, it's not a case that only some countries are going to take a hit to their economic future while others walk away unscathed. More people will die from a collapsed nhs and having no medical care available than they will because life is not normal right now and sacrifices have to be made to protect our society.

I don't understand why not being able to go to public events or socialise would make someone suicidal or make them not care if they pass the virus to someone vulnerable. All I hope for everyday is for everyone i love to be safe?

So because you can't understand mental health issues and differing opinions, everyone else is wrong and should be just like you? I for one can't understand corona hysteria like a poster above said, and that people seem so surprised about the facts of life (hint: it ends in death and we could fall ill anytime, even pre-corona).

It's ridiculous that in people's timelines there'll be some day, like January 2021, that's just "vaccine" and then this is all over. It will takes AGES to manufacture and distribute millions of doses, and ages to actually dose everyone - it won't happen in a day. Are people really going to sit at home for years? Fine, but quite unreasonable to expect everyone else to do the same, and lose their house/job in the process.

I'm not arguing with you Lilac, I just dont understand what your point is.

I'm shielding and will continue to do so as long as it is advised and I can unless something massively changes - I'm 32, my life has been on hold before and it was worth it.

China locked down for 2 months and then started reopening. We have another 3 weeks which puts us at 7 weeks and maybe then a couple more

No one is saying end lockdown now - most I think are saying mid to late May start the process of it throughout June

Why can no leader say “we don’t know- therefore we need to figure out a way to live with this virus?”

Oddly that is the message I have been getting. I haven't heard anyone proposing lockdown forever or even until a vaccine may be developed. It's obvious then that compromises and ways to live, or die, with it are going to be happening. One of the ways they think we may be able to 'live with it' as in open things up more, is to reduce transmission and case numbers by having a lockdown. Once those case numbers are down, other ways to manage transmission can hopefully come into play.

I know that we might not have needed the same kind of lockdown if we had taken stronger measures sooner. I also have very little faith in the UK govt to effectively track, trace and quarantine. But in theory that is the plan I think, alongside hope for drug treatments, scaling up capacity etc.

But you are not having no contact you can see the person you're talking too. I agree it's not the same and physical contact is removed. But imagine if we didn't have this technology how much worse it would be! What has happened to social responsibility and making small sacrifices for the greater good?

“ Even if a vaccine is found there’ll be another virus or bacterium or natural disaster or war coming along soon.”

So much this. Imagine we get a pandemic like this every few years, which is likely with global warming and an ever-increasing population. Are we going to lockdown every few years? At some point we have to just get on with it.

It's quite a priveleged Western outlook to be ready to sit in your house for years until a cure is released. People in Africa and other countries never have that privelege, they just catch these diseases and we do nothing about it because it doesn't affect us. Ironically if they did all sit at home until all the illnesses there were cured, we would have no consumer goods or natural resources. It's fine for us to sit at home as long as other people carry on working and we have our smartphones and cars.

We can only stop the virus with herd immunity, we may never get a vaccine and if we do it will be many months away.
Whitehall estimated earlier this week that 150,000 people may die indirect as a result of the lockdown, way more than projected covid deaths

@LilacTree1 I'm shielding and definitely do not have and won't have a DNR in place why on earth would I?

What has happened to social responsibility and making small sacrifices for the greater good?

It's small if you have a big house, garden and nice WFH job. Some people will be unemployed and homeless because of this.

Tone my point is, you should be free to shield or not. There are people in that group who would rather have a week of normal life than years of this.

Client some people on MN seem to think it’s only fair that you do refuse treatment, if you want to go back to the life the rest of us have.

Sorry, I’m probably on too many of these threads to keep track.

If one thing's become obvious in all of this, it's that the whole 'Accepting Mental Health issues' trend was never anything more worthwhile than a passing fad on social media.

@LilacTree1 I want all heroics. I'm 35 with a normal life expectancy, work FT and am not unwell

Social responsibility and the greater good, to me, means pushing for relaxation of lockdown so people can pay rent and eat food. Or just not go mad in their tower block.

But why would we start getting pandemics all of the time when we haven't had one for 100 years? Of course there might be another in a few years, but there is nothing to suggest it is likely they will pick up in frequency

Client “ I want all heroics”

I’m advocating for your choice. Including your choice to have the same life as others do.

We've had bird flu, swine flu, SARS, MERS, Zika, Ebola, foot and mouth disease. Every few years something new pops up.