Will we have to socially distance until there’s a vaccination?

[sunshineanddaffodils]

This horrible thought suddenly occurred to me last night. What do you think?

No. I believe The numbers will fall without a vaccine. There are people who won’t have the vaccine and others for who the vaccine won’t work. That’s my belief anyway !

If we can get transmission low enough we can look at alternatives to 2m social distancing - this has been sold as an all or nothing to the public when there are ways of reducing the number of overall contacts in society and high risk events. Some parts of Australia (obv very low transmission) now allows gatherings of up to 10 people. Other countries are doing or looking at similar approaches. A prerequisite will be a low infection and transmission rate in the community and an effective contact tracing system, neither of which we yet have. that doesn’t mean we never will though.

No. Never in human history has that happened long term, through many diseases far scarier than coronavirus. We find the deaths shocking because we’re used to good healthcare, living until we’re elderly and surviving multiple diseases that would previously have killed us. We will adjust to a fractionally higher risk of death (for most people) and carry on. Might not have Glastonbury or ski bars where you share ping pong balls (yuck) for a few years, but the idea we’re going to not see family, close up, for potentially years, no.

I don’t think I could cope being in this fucking house until there’s a vaccine vulnerable or not , I’m 29, I was doing a degree for a career working with Alzheimer’s disease,, I want to see my friends and family and just do normal stuff . Even to be able to go to a chemist and get treatment for period pain would be a relief .

Dfriend’s son exact same, 26, starting career as a lawyer, long distance runner , very busy life but now totally housebound at his parents, because of IBD . It’s devastating .

I think a lot of mumsnet users will socially distance and not see friends or family but in the real world, people will just take their chances and learn to live with it.

Just worked out my chances of dying of covid.
covid19-phenomics.org/PrototypeOurRiskCoV.html

As a middle aged female with no underlying conditions I have a 0.06% chance of dying in a given year from non covid causes. This results in 1202 deaths in a population of 2.1 million in my demographic bracket.

The excess mortality associated with covid under social distancing for my demograpic group is 60 deaths so by going out I have increased my chance of dying by 0.003% (60/2.1m)

If I go out and no one is social distancing there are an extra 281 deaths in my group so I have increased my chance of dying by 0.013%.

I think on this basis I will visit restaurants providing social distancing is in place.

Whoops meant to post above on visiting restaurant thread, but probably still relevant here too....

Weeping - it's not just about dying though is it? Even if the risk of death is low, who wants to contract a disease which will potentially have them struggling for breath, requiring a spell in hospital and possibly intubation? And potentially leave them with long-term lung damage?

@PicnicHamper Depends what they are classing as 'underlying conditions' though. It covers quite a vast array of things from what I can see.

@Medievalist. I take your point about the other long term health impacts from contracting covid but I think the evidence is for my age group and gender suggests that they are relatively low. Not social distancing though does raise them substantially so I think I will risk going out when things start to reopen but be sensible about it to minimise risk.

Other people may choose to interpret the data differently but at least it provides some basis for decision making at the individual level.

No, not unless the vaccine is available this year - it is not sustainable. I have been happy to follow all the guidelines so far as it has seemed reasonable but I (and imagine many others) won't be prepared to continue socially distancing long term.

@Medievalist of course no one wants to catch it but no one wants to exist in this miserable state indefinitely either - for some people taking their chances with the virus is a risk worth taking.

I’m already over social distancing.

The difference that where I am in Australia there hasn’t been a case of community transmission since March and there are currently no active cases in the state yet we can only have 10 diners at a cafe outside with no alcohol.

We keep being warned that the ‘second wave’ is coming after there barely being a frost wave. I feel that some of the politicians are really enjoying the power trip.

No I don't it people are already only following it as much , it's not natural and I think doing it for a few months weeks is one thing but potentially a lifetime ( a vaccine is not a guarantee )

@Casino218 are you in the uk ? Did you have a confirmed test that you Had the virus and then an antibody test ? As I didn't think we approved one just yet in uk ?

Also realistically if we had to socially distance for years how would youngster ( welll anyone ) meet new partners etc , how will we get back to hairdressers and dentists etc

bluetongue

But you understand Australia’s low level of cases is due to social distancing and our ‘stay at home’ policies? And now that it is being eased somewhat, the country will see more cases - particularly if people don’t think to keep 1.5m apart? (You really should, BTW.) And politicans aren’t doing it just for the power trip, jeez.

Govt policy is clearly not about elimination so this will be with us for years.

Socially distance for years? No. Shan't.

No not at all, there may never be a vaccine.. if the ones that are under testing are are unsuccessful, life will return to normal and we will just have to live with it!

OP, if we make lockdown work now, and have the best social distancing and hygiene as lockdown is phased out, and have really good testing and tracking and all follow the rules about isolation when ill, then we'll end up with hardly any circulating virus. That's the jackpot. We'll then be able to do lots more meeting up with family and hugging them. Even if it's ages till a vaccine, that need not feel too awful at all. It does depend on us doing the social distancing and hygiene really well now though, and carrying on with it in many situations where there's less of an emotional cost to doing so (business situations for instance - doing without unnecessary face to face business meetings).

Basically the sort of social distancing you'll need if there's not much virus going round your local area is really mild - hugging family will be fine, schools and restaurants will be open. In an area where there's lots there might need to be further lockdowns. Personally I hope my area is one where we can be more relaxed, so I hope people are still doing their best to follow the stricter rules for now, so we can get local infection rates right down, and testing and contact tracing up and running.

I know this is really hard and stressful at the moment, but it really won't be as bad as this all the way until a vaccine.

I'd like to add - wont socially distance, but will happily never kiss strangers and acquaintances hello again.

Happy for that to go in the great cultural scrapheap.

No. There will be a decent percentage of the population that end up immune so transmission will slow, people will calm down and realise that we’re going to be living with this among us for a long time. More vulnerable people will probably be more cautious though and might try to keep up social distancing as much as possible.

Yes, I think so.

Also, making this work means helping people who are finding it hardest to go on without giving up on the distancing too early. The more people who just stop trying in an area, the longer that area is likely to have its schools and businesses closed. Businesses like hairdressing, services like dentists - these need there to be very very low levels of circulating virus in the community.

We can make that happen by being as careful as possible and if we do break any rules we should be incredible selective about which ones. The worst thing we could do is just say fuck it, they can't make me do this, and break the whole lot at once. If we do that before the infection rates locally are very low and testing and tracking is fully working, then we might set our local area back weeks compared to the rest of the country.

Vulnerable people staying in while everyone else relaxes seems like an easy solution, but it won't work, because vulnerable (not shielded) people are too big a chunk of the population and include vital parts of the workforce (BAME doctors, for instance). For our economy and society to keep rolling along as close to normal as possible, we must have very low levels of virus circulating. This means everyone trying very hard to avoid spreading or catching the virus, regardless of whether they themselves are more at risk. It needn't mean extreme social distancing, so long as we only relax restrictions gradually, once we're sure local rates are low, and don't get ahead of ourselves and all stop trying before local rates are low and testing is working.