ccorona virus isn't going away so we're all going to have to learn to live with it... wtf does this actually mean?

[Mynydd]

I've seen the above statement on so many threads advocating lifting lockdown. What does living with it actually mean?? Going back to plan A - herd immunity - and just allowing the virus to rip through society? Wearing masks and maintaining social distancing while working from home as much as possible? Chucking the kids back in school and hoping for the best?

I personally thought lock down was living with it. Can someone please tell me what you all mean with this phrase?

I think a lot of people will feel,like you op
You were told to hide and now you’re told to face it

The hiding was a huge mistake.

@cornersteps
"So the shielding and vulnerable are just washing their time staying safe as thy eh are inevitably going to die anyway?"

No, for a start those shielding and vulnerable, death isn't a certainty. They have equal change of catching it as everyone else, there's a higher chance the symptoms they experience will be more severe.

ofwarren The point you are missing is that we need to have only a few sick at a time so they can get treatment which will enable them to survive it.
Also we can hope to get a vaccine before everyone is exposed to it. That is why shielded is is different. We're trying to save them to last so they may not have to face it at all. Because they are the ones most likely to die from it.

Mynydd I do agree they could have done better. Also I happen to think there should have been a contingency plan written decades ago for this.

At first no one knew this was that serious and we can't treat every cough and cold as an epidemic so the hesitation at first is understandable, but once we knew they should not have had to look at each other and say "ok what do we do now"

There should have been a detailed plan on a shelf with options for different circumstances and warehouses with at least some of the needed equipment stored. There could have been legislation for lockdown and financial help already written and just needing to be activated.

The point was I thought not to overwhelm the NHS? If left unchecked we could have theoretically all been ill at the same time .As far as the future goes ,I am expecting further lockdowns TBH .Even if we delay easing of Lockdown restrictions until say September Unless a vaccine is developed by then we are in a similar position ,but with winter approaching as well!

@LastTrainEast
My family is shielding because my 5 year old has an organ transplant. My original comment was referring to the posters who say that everyone will get the virus eventually which I don't think is true.

We weren't told to hide. Across the world the majority of governments have put similar measures in place to slow the spread of a new and potentially deadly virus. Seriously, what do you know that every top epidemiologist, chief scientific officer, population health expert etc etc doesn't? What would have been the better option?

It’s a personal choice but I’d have gone for the Swedish approach, or the Florida approach. There may be other US states who took the same approach.

But Florida has a high population of elderly and managed to look after them without banning them from things like going out to play golf.

In Germany you can sit on a bench, or the beach. You can visit family!

The Luggage15 Indeed we did have to live with illnesses like Polio ,Whooping cough ,and so on but it was a different time and not one I would like to return to TBH! My DPs friends DD was in an Iron lung after she caught Polio ,and my GPs remember when TB was a serious issue with no cure (pre Antibiotics )! Spitting in the streets in London attracted a fine ,and my Aunty remembered passing the Sanitorium seeing all the patients out in their beds in the "open Air " ( seen as beneficial!) Obviously times have changed somewhat ,but it would be better not to have this illness in our midst at all if we can help it!

We never left Plan A. Things got a bit derailed by our Great Leader getting ill and not being there to tell everyone to chill out. The intention was never to have quite as good a lockdown as we actually got - the model on behaviour seems to have overestimated British people's stoicism - and of course the Great Leader nearly dying didn't help matters. But our policy has never been to eliminate it (see NZ if you want to see what that policy looks like). It probably does just involve the shielded and vulnerable dying in a timely and tidy manner. We locked down to save the nhs. It's in the simple slogan they gave us. Living with it means get back to normal with tweaks to keep the vulnerable dying in a way which doesn't overwhelm the nhs. So staggered work times,no pubs or clubs, social distancing in shops, but otherwise stop hiding in your basement unless you plan on staying there for the next few years, in which case fund yourself on that and good luck to you.

OP

Here’s just one epidemiologist who doesn’t believe in lockdown as a health solution

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-science-is-becoming-clear-lockdowns-are-no-longer-the-right-medicine-k5c652wk8

Google will bring you plenty more.

If we maintain some social distancing measures it won't rip through society like it would have prior to lockdown.

I think living with it means still maintaining some social distancing, as In no large group gatherings, still being very careful about hand washing, and anyone with symptoms having to stay home (before this it was very common to be expected to work in a crowded office or shop with a cough or cold, I can't see that approach ever being popular again)

I guess in the same way we lived with measles / polio / diphtheria. Up until now we’ve been very fortunate.

I was talking about anti-vaxxers with a colleague in his 70s once. He said while he was at school you’d hear that xxxx in your class had Polio and wouldn’t be in school that day. And you’d never see them again.

LastTrainEast
There should have been a detailed plan on a shelf with options for different circumstances and warehouses with at least some of the needed equipment stored. There could have been legislation for lockdown and financial help already written and just needing to be activated.

This is what I found most surprising. I assumed, apparently wrongly, that we employed risk and strategy planners for this kind of thing. I just assumed that the government had specific contingency plans in place for stuff like this happening.

I think a lot of people when they say ‘we’re just going to have to love with it’ have a subtext of ‘it probably won’t be me or people I care about dying, so I’m fine with that’.

It clearly means it's going to be there for ever and not go away i.e. like the common cold or flu - but I don't believe this for a second - mutations occur - flu jabs are for different strains every year, plus researchers have said there were at least over 30 different strains of this virus "out there" back in February.

Combination of social distancing, hand washing, protecting the most vulnerable and yes understanding some will catch it. Just like other diseases without vaccines. Herd immunity is partly the long term solution, it may be only partial but it seems once you have c19 once it's milder second time around (the only reason colds are mild are because we catch them all the time, they can be very dangerous to uncontacted tribes!)

I think a lot of people when they say ‘we’re just going to have to love with it’ have a subtext of ‘it probably won’t be me or people I care about dying, so I’m fine with that’

Equally, a lot of people who want to lockdown for a significant period are probably not facing significant cuts to their income and impending inability to pay their mortgage.

If I can’t feed and house my family, I can’t keep them safe from anything. CV or no CV.

"Live with it" means resuming some semblance of normal life. Since the economy will collapse if we remain in lockdown for much longer.

So I'd say yes, what most people mean is we will have to begin lifting lockdown, gradually going back to school, work, etc. but while retaining social distancing, bans on large gatherings and events, etc.

To me living alongside covid means new ways of living - higher standards of hygiene, preventative measures like not gathering in public places in huge numbers, international travel restrictions, face masks where large crowds are unavoidable (like public transport), self isolating when sick (much like with chicken pox - employers may have to suck it up and dispense with the shitty Bradford formula) and much more testing to be able to trace and contain.

All of this is a lot more effective protecting NHS resources and the vulnerable if our lockdown achieves low enough numbers. Which is why this would have been better done much earlier so that it was more about making sure we were properly resourced for the above but without the huge death figures. I don’t think we would have complied without that unfortunately though. Even we clearly seeing what Italy was going through the public had no appetite to consider it was possible here.

I think a lot of people when they say ‘we’re just going to have to love with it’ have a subtext of ‘it probably won’t be me or people I care about dying, so I’m fine with that’

I don't think it's that at all. I think it's people being aware that we can't stay in lockdown forever... so what do we do? Except "live with it"?

When I’ve seen this said, it is usually because a poster has said they won’t send their kids to school because it’s not safe, they don’t think various things should open because social distancing isn’t possible etc

I take it to mean that as we can’t lockdown for much longer, the idea that we can protect everyone from the risk of CV is not realistic and that arguments that x,y or z shouldn’t happen because people might be put at risk of catching it are pie in the sky. We need to accept that life needs to start happening again to a certain extent and that it isn’t possible to do that without there being people exposed to CV.

Hopefully, also, there will be better drug treatments etc.

I take it to mean we are going to have to get back out there, as it's suddenly not going to disappear as an illness and we'll have to accept it's a possibility we will catch it, just like anything else contagious.

All this hiding away isn't going to change a think ultimately.

All this hiding away isn't going to change a think ultimately.

Change a thing I mean