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?

@LaurieMarlow There’s a big gap between ‘we need to find a safe way to get people working again’ and ‘we’re just going to have to live with it’.

There’s a big gap between ‘we need to find a safe way to get people working again’ and ‘we’re just going to have to live with it’

Is there? I'd say they're more or less the same thing, and that's probably what most people mean when they say we're going to have to live with it. Resuming something close to normal life. Work, school, goods and services, basically. Not that we should do that with zero precaution or care.

As I keep being told on Mumsnet, lockdown isn’t to stop anybody getting CV, it’s to stop the NHS being overwhelmed in one wave.

I wonder what will happen in NZ once the world starts unlocking? Given that they'll have all but no immunity?

I don't know why people say that everyone will get it eventually. I've never had the flu for example, even when my son had it and slept in my bed every night that he was ill. Unless I was completely asymptotic.

@AndMyHairWillShineLikeTheSea

Phew!! You are lucky, it's crap. I've only had flu proper twice in my life and each time I was hanging.

here is an interesting sandbox simulator that looks at "what happens next re covid"
ncase.me/covid-19/

There’s a big gap between ‘we need to find a safe way to get people working again’ and ‘we’re just going to have to live with it’

Is there? I'd say they're more or less the same thing

Yup. Sounds like the same thing to me.

Thanks for that link @myrtleWilson. It’s incredibly informative and very optimistic (in the context it’s in)

As others have said, learning to live with it involves a phased return to activities where possible and maintaining social distancing.

Shielding people will have a choice about whether or not they continue to shield for health reasons. Given that it seems you do get immunity, you could argue that the best thing the otherwise healthy population can do is to get it and then be immune. At the moment I have no idea when I’ll hug my parents again. Once I’ve had it I can hug them again.

So will it be contained are they trying to eliminate it?
The message has got to change from the top. The Fail are calling it 'coronoaphobia' but them, alongside the scary PHE campaign, have scared people in to gising away. How are they going to convince people of otherwise.

@AndMyHairWillShineLikeTheSea you've been exposed to the flu you just didn't develop symptoms

The other thing we can hope for is better drugs to treat severe cases, think about the advances made in treating aids. In this case every scientific expert in every country has this as their priority so if there are advances to be made they could happen quickly.

Everyone will be exposed to it eventually. Not everyone will get it, not everyone will develop symptoms. Of those that do, they will likely be mild.

An article in the ST today reckons the rate of immunity is much higher than we think as many more people have had it than we know. In New York it is estimated 25% of the population.

@myrtleWilson that link was amazing, thanks.

I hear people saying things will need to get back to normal, but with social distancing. OK, I want to get back to normal, but how does “normal” look with social distancing? Do I get to see my mum? She works in a doctors office. Do I get to see my sister? She lives in a town 30 miles away? Do I get to see my other sister? Probably not, I know already, because she works in the Covid ward. But when will I see her? Christmas? Do my kids get to go back to all their after school classes? Do we wear masks? Do our kids play on the swings? Do we let our toddlers hug in the playground when we’re dropping off older kids? Do I take the toddler to the supermarket with me? Do I walk 20 minutes home with another mum or dad? That was my normal life before.

We need guidance. Learning to live with Coronavirus is going to look different for different people.

We have vaccinations available for the flu and yet every year, around 10k people die of flu in the UK. In the 2014/15 season, 28,330 people died of influenza when that year's strain was a type that hit the elderly particularly hard.

Lockdown is about a combination of not overwhelming the NHS so that anyone who does have it has the best chance of recovery, and trying to limit the spread to the most vulnerable while treatments and vaccines are produced - it's basically buying time.

Coronavirus is not going to disappear, but eventually there will be a vaccine and enough people will have already had it to limit the spread.

Some countries may get off very lightly - they're not major travel hubs, low density of population and in latitudes where these kind of viruses don't spread so easily. Countries like NZ will be hoping that a vaccine arrives before a plane full of infection-bearing tourists.

It's basically a balancing act between people dying of CV-19 or people dying from the consequences of a locked-down society - other diseases, mental health issues, domestic violence etc and the effects of a completely tanked economy. Neither option will result in a zero death-rate no matter who is in charge of the country.