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To be worried about winter...

72 replies

Derbygerbil · 16/05/2020 18:23

Various people have said: “it won’t get back to normal until December time”... Isn’t winter when it risks getting a whole load worse? If things do improve over the summer as I have expect they will, and bars and cinemas open again by the autumn, people will have be in no mood to resume social distancing in the run up to Christmas, we’ll be in confined spaces as the weather gets cold, the economy won’t allow for more furloughing, and the virus could well reinvigorate like the flu as the days shorten.... Or am I being too gloomy?

OP posts:
FrugiFan · 04/07/2020 18:43

This thread is from 6 weeks ago and a lot of the pessimistic posters have already been proven wrong. E.g.

I cannot imagine any tourism until 90% of the vulnerable & HCPs have been vaccinated. holiday lets, campsites and hotels can open now.

We live in Yorkshire and my parents live in Essex, at this rate I won’t see them until summer 2021 nope you can see them now and stay over

international flights still very difficult, quarantining each end, maybe hideously expensive no quarantine required in many countries

Gatherings in private homes up to 12 people for Christmas will be allowed gatherings are allowed now as long as only from 2 households (although could be 3 or 4 if bubbles are counted as one)

Perhaps this is a lesson to us to stop catastrophising and guessing the worst case scenarios because it just makes people upset and isn't productive. A little positivity is in order.

MorrisZapp · 04/07/2020 18:49

But surely the second wave plus flu plus other winter viruses will be mitigated by social distancing, hand washing etc and by the grim but true fact that many of the people who might have been hospitalised this winter by other illnesses have been carried off already by covid?

MorrisZapp · 04/07/2020 18:50

Sorry didn't the whole thread! See also the endless second spike predictions, none have materialised.

SpnBaby1967 · 04/07/2020 20:43

I expect the usual flu spikes to be far below usual winter levels as frankly those vulnerable to the flu in winter may have already died during covid. A distasteful thought sure but a very likely outcome.

We wont lock down nationally again, or if we do it will be without furlough as the country simply can't afford it again.

But xmas is still over 5 months away and a lot can change in that time both for the better or the worse so let's not start guessing now as frankly people have been guessing about a second wave since mothers day and one has yet to appear.

Heyhih3 · 04/07/2020 20:53

@Chrisinthemorning

I think we’ll lockdown again in October/November until February. This winter will be horrible. Get your stocks and Christmas presents sorted ASAP
This
Lissy23 · 04/07/2020 21:11

It’s my DS’s second birthday mid October, I hope we’re not locked down for his birthday Sad

Lissy23 · 04/07/2020 21:11

@Heyhih3 sounds like a recipe for many suicides.

Heyhih3 · 04/07/2020 21:15

@SpnBaby1967

I expect the usual flu spikes to be far below usual winter levels as frankly those vulnerable to the flu in winter may have already died during covid. A distasteful thought sure but a very likely outcome.

We wont lock down nationally again, or if we do it will be without furlough as the country simply can't afford it again.

But xmas is still over 5 months away and a lot can change in that time both for the better or the worse so let's not start guessing now as frankly people have been guessing about a second wave since mothers day and one has yet to appear.

The second wave was predicted based on other Countries. It maybe didn’t happen as we have only just opened things back up.... Leicester has locked down and Bradford is under watch. So this time next month could be telling.
FrugiFan · 04/07/2020 21:32

@Heyhih3 which countries have had second spikes and full further lockdowns since opening up in the past month or more? Not Germany, France, Spain, Italy...

Israel appear to be in a second spike but they dont have a track and trace system and fully opened everything at once not gradually.

There have been second spikes predicted after every change (mothers day, VE day, beaches, schools) all of these over a month ago and yet cases continue to go down. Let's trade in facts, not speculation 👌

Heyhih3 · 04/07/2020 21:39

@FrugiFan I meant at the start of lockdown the panic about a second wave was based on other Countries. Also we haven’t had a second wave in SOME parts because many people are still WFM, kids are at home and not back at school well some of them. Lockdown has only just been relaxed so we won’t have a second wave of everybody is at home will we??

Funny how Leicester and other cities are under watch since things have opened infact some cities in UK have locked down!

Yes cases were going down as we WERE MAINLY AT HOME!!

FrugiFan · 04/07/2020 22:03

I meant at the start of lockdown the panic about a second wave was based on other Countries. But other countries haven't had a second wave. So which countries was it based on?

We won’t have a second wave of everybody is at home will we??
Many many mumsnet members were predicting a second wave a month after beaches were busy in May, and after schools were partially reopened in June. These did not come to pass. There is no evidence let alone a guarantee that the next phase of reopening will cause a second wave either. And even if it did the country cannot afford a second full lockdown, we would probably just have to mitigate the spread of the virus to keep it manageable for the NHS. The aim was never to eliminate the virus completely.

Heyhih3 · 04/07/2020 22:17

@FrugiFan I actually work on a COVID-19 ward so I’m fully aware of why a lockdown was created.... be under NO illusion that if needs be it will happen again.
Schools haven’t been reopened many schools aren’t open only for R Y1 and Y6... many parents could not secure a school place... & that’s with small bubbles anyway I won’t argue I can see you feel your more qualified in this area. If that was the case all kids would of gone back to school by now.

There is evidence though what about the cities? I mentioned or would you just rather ignore this. The Country WILL absolutely go into full lockdown if needs be you want to know why? Because there ARE STILL hospitals struggling with looking after people with the COVID-19 and also we wouldn’t have enough doctors and so on... I am not one of those people who expects to stay in lockdown until a vaccination is produced either.

FrugiFan · 04/07/2020 22:33

I know schools havent fully reopened. What I'm saying is that people thought there would be second spikes when the schools opened to year R 1 and 6, but they were incorrect. People on this thread were panicking about not being able to see their family for 18 months based on the speculations of others who have no idea. And we now know these speculations were incorrect with the benefit of hindsight , just a few weeks later. What I'm saying is that panicking and speculating about these things is pointless - it just makes people panic and worry. These predictions werent made based on other countries because no other countries had second spikes. They were made out of thin air.

Stating speculation such as "we WILL go into full lockdown" or "this winter will be horrible" based on zero evidence just adds fuel to the fire and upsets people. Working on a covid ward doesnt make you any better at predicting the future than anyone else.

Anyway I'm going to bed, goodnight

FrugiFan · 04/07/2020 22:34

Oh and one city remaining in lockdown slightly longer is not evidence that the whole country will be in lockdown for 4 months at the end of the year.

Heyhih3 · 04/07/2020 22:37

@FrugiFan Goodnight.

Rainbow12e · 04/07/2020 22:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

R0bb1ns20 · 04/07/2020 23:03

Just a Little Prick – The Bill Gates Story (Part One)

Dr Vernon Coleman MB ChB DSc FRSA

Bill Gates is often described as a philanthropist.

Interviewers generally seem to treat him as a cross between a saint and a prophet. In a way this isn’t difficult to explain. After all, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a partner with many media companies, tossing money around with remarkable generosity. In the UK, the BBC and The Guardian are just two of the recipients of Gates largesse.

It would, of course, have been possible for Gates to have used his vast wealth to change poor countries in a very straightforward and positive way by, for example, using his billions to help with road building programmes or to help poor farmers to improve their land and their farms by digging wells. Using $10 billion to set up water supplies would have doubtless saved many lives in a simple, honest way. But you can’t control the world quite as easily simply by doing practical, honest things which save lives. And Gates seems to me keen to take control of every aspect of our lives. To me he seems to be a strange hybrid of those mad fictional characters Dr Strangelove and Ernst Stavro Blofeld – the James Bond baddie.

I’m afraid I don’t believe any of Gates’ projects have anything much to do with philanthropy. There is too much intermixing of donations and business. What do the Gates family really want? I cannot help thinking it’s more about power and unspoken plans.

Gates got rich through the Microsoft software company, allegedly because his mum knew the chairman of IBM and got Gates his big break. There are accusations that Gates stole some of the ideas for his business. Personally, I feel that Gates has made himself obscenely rich by making the world a far more stressful and annoying place than it was before Microsoft appeared. In my experience, there were other much easier to use word processing programmes but Gates steamrollered the opposition out of the way with ruthless efficiency. Gates' original partner, Paul Allen, claimed that Gates tried to screw him and charged his partner, with mercenary opportunism. Before Gates arrived on the scene, people who wrote software often gave it away free. Gates took over the world of personal computing, acquired a monopoly position and took full advantage of it to make himself very rich. Additionally, there have for some time been doubts in my mind about how close Microsoft is to the National Security Agency in the USA.

The Microsoft billionaire seems to have learned his hometown boy act from veteran investor Warren Buffett who didn’t get to be rich by being a hometown boy but has a good line in simple charm. Gates has described himself as a health expert. He frequently offers advice and predictions about health matters though personally I’d have thought his only area of expertise with viruses involved those usually found in computers. He has stated that the world will not return to normal after the coronavirus until all or most of the world’s population has been vaccinated. Because he has a lot of money, and tends to distribute it widely, politicians and bureaucrats and scientists listen to his advice and accept what he tells them – parroting his line about vaccination with great loyalty.

It would, I think, normally be unusual for a bloke with no formal medical training to give health advice to the world but Gates has managed to buy himself a seat at the table by giving huge sums of money to organisations such as the United Nations and the World Health Organisation – in my own view now two of the most evil organisations in the world. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is said to be the second largest contributor to the WHO and If the United States really does stop its donations then Gates will be the biggest contributor. That sort of money buys a lot of access and, I think, an unhealthy amount of influence – especially when you also spend a good deal of money on publicity designed to show the world what a good egg you are. Gates is also linked to the World Economic Forum, which reckons that the coronavirus is a great excuse to change the world and which has a plan called The Great Reset which, like most of these plans which have emerged since the coronavirus, seems to me to have been prepared some time before the arrival of covid 19.

R0bb1ns20 · 04/07/2020 23:04

Gates, of course, also gives a good deal of money to Imperial College in London – the place where Neil Ferguson works. It was, of course, Ferguson whose rubbishy forecasts about the coronavirus resulted in the lockdowns, the social distancing, the ruin of the British and American economies, untold deaths in care homes and so on. Gates has also funded work done by Dr Chris Whitty, the UK’s current Chief Medical Officer. And the Gates Foundation has even given money to Public Health England – a UK Government organisation, sponsored by the Department of Health, which allegedly exists to protect and improve the nation’s health. Public Health England appears to be desperately keen on vaccinations which is a big surprise, of course. One of their documents carries the slogan Keep Calm and Carry on Vaccinating – which seems a little cheesy to say the least.

Before I go any further it is important to point out, and bear in mind, that Gates believes the planet is overpopulated. He thinks this is a real problem. Is it still a secret passion? Who knows? Interviewers, who often seem to come from organisations with financial links to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation rarely ask searching question about difficult issues.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is an odd organisation in that as well as having philanthropic aims it also invests in a good many companies designed to make a profit. Indeed, the Foundation seems to be doing very well and seems to me to operate as much like a family investment trust as a charity.

The Gates Foundation has a mass of interlinked projects and commercial holdings. And it seems to an outsider as though he is more interested in controlling the world than in helping people.

Here are just a few of the things Gates is currently doing with his money.

First, of course, there are the vaccines. I have already dealt with some of the controversies associated with the Gates’s obsession with vaccines in previous videos.

Gates seems obsessed with vaccines and now seems to favour ones using very new technology. He is terrifyingly keen on giving his experimental vaccine to billions of people – ideally to the whole population of the planet. It doesn’t seem to occur to him that even relatively safe vaccines have been known to cause many thousands of deaths, might enhance susceptibility to disease or indeed cause and spread infections. If it has occurred to him it doesn’t seem to be something that worries him unduly.

On the surface Gates seems to see vaccination as the answer to most of the planet’s health problems and sees them only doing good and incapable of doing very much harm. We’re not going to return to normal until most people have been vaccinated,’ he has said, after warning that the coronavirus would otherwise result in millions of deaths. You will never be free until we have a vaccine,’ seems to be the mantra. Naturally, the politicians and the scientists agree with the man with the money even though experts seem to agree that a vaccine may never be found. If no vaccine is found then much of the world will remain in a state of terror and social distancing and masks and occasional lockdowns will become a normal part of life. Is that what Gates wants? The politicians and the big business people with a yearning for control will be delighted.

Moreover, Gates seems to have decided that we won’t have a vaccine for 18 months – and, naturally, the world’s politicians and scientists (many of whom are on the Gates payroll) agree with the world’s least qualified but most powerful `doctor’. So it seems that the artificial lockdowns and the unnecessary social distancing and masks will remain in place.

Incidentally, I usually avoid the words vaccine and vaccination because they tend to result in censorship. On this occasion, however, it seems impossible to do so.

Since Gates is convinced that the planet is overpopulated it seems odd that he would be keen on vaccinating huge swathes of Africa. You might think that vaccinating children would mean that there would be fewer deaths and that the population would go up. But Gates argues that if you vaccinate children and they don’t die then mothers will have fewer babies and instead of having eight babies in the hope that two will live they will just have three, believing that the vaccines will keep them alive. I am not at all sure how this means that vaccination will result in a fall in the population but Gates says it will and the politicians and the scientists and the journalists all nod wisely, pat their wallets and agree with him. I haven’t been able to find any real, solid evidence for this claim, which seems to me to be a combination of the bizarre, and the unbelievable, laced with wishful thinking, apart from the evidence from Gates himself. I don’t like to point this out but religion seems to play a part in the number of children a woman has. In the UK, for example, the figures show that Muslims tend to have an average of three children per family whereas Christians usually have only two.

R0bb1ns20 · 04/07/2020 23:05

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Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Komacho · 05/07/2020 12:29

@R0bb1ns20

Don't you have anything better to do than to copy paste walls of text from an aids-denialist conspiracy quack?

Delatron · 05/07/2020 14:01

@Thewheelsonthebus23 you are allowed to visit family now and stay overnight. Two households only.

My parents are in Yorkshire, not seen them since Feb and they are coming down next weekend. On the whole I think now, just as we are coming out of lockdown and infection rates are generally low, is a good time.

If we don’t do it now and cases go up in Autumn/Winter?
It’s unacceptable for me to not see my parents for a year and for them not to see grandchildren. I don’t know how long they have left!

I think come Christmas there will be lots of people isolating for a few weeks so they can see family.

AlaskaThunderfuckHiiiiiiiii · 05/07/2020 21:39

If people really believe there will be another full nationwide lock down they are living in cuckoo land. The economy is already in dire straights and wouldn’t make it through another lock down and highly doubt a lot of the population would be compliant again either

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