If a vaccine or treatment is years off then how will we ever feel happy again?

[Mybrowneyedgal]

I read a thread on here last night with several
posters claiming a vaccine or effective treatment is extremely unlikely for several years.

I cannot fathom the idea of living like this for several years. I am extremely close to elderly family members, one of whom I saw everyday, who have played an integral part in my children's lives. They will miss my children's first steps, starting school and other milestones. If there's no vaccine/treatment for several years then they will have to live in isolation feeling miserable for all that time, and once we are returning to normal life (if they survive) they will be very old and potentially spent the past few years of their life separated from those they love feeling unhappy.

I miss my friends and family, seeing people, doing new things. I miss hugging my elderly relatives. I miss sharing the joy of my children growing up. I feel so sad that my children's childhood is being wasted on this awful disease.

I'm living for the return of normality, and now to hear that that is several years off feels absolutely unbearable.

I am not sure why I am posting. Does anyone feel the same?

I also think tech companies and others are going to come up with amazing new ways for us to keep in touch. Innovation will help us. No it won't be the same, but it could be good in a new way.

"But realistically what is the chance of a 72 year old with asthma and hypertension surviving?"

Early in the disease David Spiegelhalter was on More or Less looking at the stats and said that if you catch C-19 then the odds of you dying are approximately the same as your odds of dying in the next 12 months if you hadn't caught it.

So if that particular 72yo with asthma has a 2% chance of dying in the next 12 months (that figure plucked out of the air, I don't know the actual chance) then that's the odds of them dying if they catch C-19.

It really depends on how you view risk as to how concerning you find that.

Forgive my cluelessness here, but does anyone know what your chances are of being elderly and/or vulnerable and being asymptomatic? Is it only young and otherwise healthy people who don’t present symptoms or have there been the same amount of cases of older people with pre-existing conditions getting covid very mildly?

A friend's mum (v elderly) was tested in a nursing home (RoI) and showed up positive but asymptomatic (all residents were tested as there were 2 known cases). That was 3 weeks ago and no symptoms developed. I can't tell you what the chances are but it definitely happens. If you google for info on testing in nursing homes you might get some stats.

It's best to take each day as it comes. 30,000 deaths but many of those were not confirmed to have had covid. They are not testing all the dead. So the numbers are not accurate or true. Theres alot of tradgedy in the news. But realistically many many more are supposed to have had this virus and not known. Apparently many don't get symptoms. We don't have enough evidence or fact for these things so I know they don't mean much. But it's supposedly is the case.

Whilst I'm not in the slightest saying it's ok for any age to die. They are someone's family and they matter as much as us. It has killed mainly the elderly. They sadly makes sense. People live longer now. Well into their 90s. It's lovely but they are often frail and weak by the body naturally getting old. The younger have mostly survived. Some that have died in their 30s, 40,s, 50s have had medical problems which have sadly made them suffer more. Again that doesnt make them less important. I certainly don't think oh well he was 45 but diabetic. It's still extremely sad when you see a death way before old age.

Things are starting to slowly relax. Perhaps some of your family can come into your front garden to say hi or you can do the same. I have only been to my mum and dad's window once but I stood two meters back. The kids had a biscuit put on the window. They ate those on the grass in the garden. Then 15 minutes later we walked home. I'll do that again in a few days. It's better than never seeing people we love. Especially if your little ones are walking etc. They could toddle past the window.

Try not to freak out with the what Ifs. They will see your children longer before they grow up.

It does feel like wasted time though I understand that. My child's in reception. I'm sad she's missed a whole term of learning and settling into school life. It's very confusing for her. But what can we do? Keep going. Keep going for walks. Keep busy. It will get better.

Think of the war! People have been through hell compared to this. This is mild compared. This is teaching us all a positive lesson I hope. We now realise what matters. What doesn't. It has taught me we are too busy as people and we need to slow down and enjoy our families more. Life is sad and behind the scenes we don't even know what started this virus. But we can't waste energy on what we can't control. It's a very strange time. But we are hopefully through the worst and can keep this virus down. Although winter may be an issue.

Imagine they get a call one day which confirms one of the people who was given the vaccine has contracted Covid. That is basically almost confirmation that it doesn’t work

Not really. No vaccine - esp not one still in development - has 100% efficacy.

I agree with Dolly that we are going to have to learn to live around the virus, both from a psychological and practical point of view.

We manage all kinds of risks in our day to day lives. If you started thinking of all the probabilities of the ways in which you could injure yourself or become ill, you'd never leave the house! However, we learn how to manage them and we get on it with things.

COVID-19 is just another thing that we're going to have to factor in to our daily management of risk on a personal (increased wearing of masks/handwashing etc) and societal (working from home being encouraged/less travel etc) level.

I'm not trying to minimise the risk of COVID-19 or say that we should all rush out now, just that I don't think it's going anywhere for a while and that we will adapt.

Oh honestly think of the war! A time when people clung to loved ones, a time when your neighbour was your friend
A time when people huddled together in shelters
And found a modicum of comfort from.others.

Forced isolation from your loved ones is completely different. It's more like a prison sentence

I meant life has been alot harder in the past. In the war they had minimal food. They couldn't watch Netflix. They were running to shelters when bombs were dropping on their houses. We are all used to a safe easy life. But now we are experiencing a struggle. One where we can still eat and take out kids for a walk and a wave. One where we just need to stay home more for a few months mostly. It's going to be ok.

Forgive my cluelessness here, but does anyone know what your chances are of being elderly and/or vulnerable and being asymptomatic? My almost 90 year old aunt had a slight temperature, care home were having others tested so just got her tested just in case and it was positive. So she had a slight temperature so I suppose she wasn't asymptomatic but symptoms so slight in normal circumstances they wouldn't have been noticed.

Isn’t there some like 20k die a year from the flu yet there’s a vaccine for it?

@mummypig2020

Yes but there's many strains. So the vaccine is usually made for the most likely strains that year going around.

People marched on during polio and Spanish flu.

People travelled and took public transport during the height of domestic terrorism.

We'll get used to it and get on with it.

Vaccines do you provide 100% immunity. I was vaccinated against whooping cough and still caught it as a child

I blame the government for scaring people too much personally. I understand they needed people to take it seriously but now everyone seem to think life can’t restart until it’s “safe” etc whereas I think the truth is we have to accept that covid is out there and it’s just another risk we are going to have to take in our every day lives going forward.

That’s on an individual level.

On a societal level, we need to adjust to ensure the rate of spread is kept manageable and so we need to keep distancing etc for now. That’s very different to people having an expectation they’ll never have to go to work or send their kids to school while they might catch covid.

Haven’t we just been watching pictures of VE Day , a time when many infectious diseases were incurable ( TB, polio, diphtheria tetanus) and there was no NHS so even if you caught something that was curable there was no guarantee you could get treatment .

Until the 1950s infectious diseases were common , we have become complacent about hygiene and also about how precarious life is

Oh I completely agree. I saw a post on Facebook this morning that someone had ordered face masks from China but was too scared to touch them incase they were infected.

It’s ridiculous.

Living with the virus need not equate to lots of people dying with the virus

Whilst for some people risks are no more than normal life , for many millions of others , not just the old and shielded, the risk are significantly above normal

What's more , their risks for everyone , but especially the vulnerable, go up the more normally everyone else tries to live . catastrophically if the NHS gets overwhelmed . That risk has been avoided for now, but remains a very likely possibility

This needs to be managed

Which is not the same as lockdown forever but neither is it pull your socks up and keep going

I know someone in my late mother's care home who has has it and survived. She will be 107 next birthday! Most people do survive. Try not to get too worried, it.doesnt help