When will people be happy to start living with the risk of catching Coronavirus?

[wakeupitsabeautifulmorning]

Considering there possibly won't be a vaccination for quite some time, if at all, but things are going to have to start returning to normal for the sake of everything else - economy, education, other health issues etc. There is currently so much opposition to easing out of lockdown, people will have to get back to work and schools cannot be part time for years (childcare issues plus the massive impact on disadvantaged dc, plus the dc not engaging in home learning). Spoke to a few people today who are horrified at the thought of a return to normal as they are frightened of catching the virus. I was a bit surprised a they were under 35 with dc (no known health problems). It's like they think it's just going to miraculously vanish.

I’m fed up of people bashing the government. Were they perfect? No- it was unprecedented and they did their best. The furlough scheme is something no other western country have had. It’s been an incredible financial safety net but is anyone actually grateful the gov have at least tried? NO they’re just bitchy and critical that they couldn’t work out every single kink and issue within the 1-2 weeks they had to put it together- I honestly wonder why they even bothered.

Let’s just take a moment to consider other ‘western’ counties (like the USA) and maybe for once in our lives stop slating our gov/free health care.

@Pumpertrumper Totally agree with you. Our government has been exceptionally generous.

It wasn't unprecedented actually.

I'd send both my DC back to school right now if I could and I accept that we probably will get the virus at some point. I understood the need to lock down for a brief time to allow the NHS to prepare and to flatten the curve and spread the peak out over several months, but I don't understand what we're doing now. We seem to be in a never-ending lock-down with a never-reducing R rate with DC and working parents the collateral damage of the government's incompetence.

The genuinely vulnerable, as opposed to the anxious well, should continue to do whatever they need to keep themselves healthy and government support should be provided. Everyone else should get back to something approaching normal. Working from home, if you can, makes perfect sense, as does social distancing where possible, mandatory face coverings in any indoor public space, but DC need to return to school and childcare needs to reopen.

Now. I'm a nurse so been at work throughout. And social distancing is absolutely impossible at work.

The genuinely vulnerable, as opposed to the anxious well, should continue to do whatever they need to keep themselves healthy and government support should be provided. Everyone else should get back to something approaching normal. Working from home, if you can, makes perfect sense, as does social distancing where possible, mandatory face coverings in any indoor public space, but DC need to return to school and childcare needs to reopen.

I totally agree.

Pumper,

I am sorry but there are very few situations where you can clearly say the government got it right or wrong, but this is one of them, and our government got it horribly wrong.

We locked down too late and released the lockdown too early, for political reasons. The government tried to influence the science by packing the advisory committee with their own people and then ignored the advice anyway. It has cost many lives and will cost many ££££.

When we view our continental cousins having a normal summer, going out to restaurants, shopping etc and we are either as we are or in second lockdown, with continually increasing deaths, the comparison will be easier to see.

There is a solution to a pandemic: lockdown as early as possible and enforce it, thus squeezing the infection out. You then, when there are very few cases, rigorously and aggressively test and trace. You do not go for herd immunity at whatever cost or have semi voluntary lockdowns (and then let your own advisors ignore the advice).

We locked down too late and released the lockdown too early, for political reasons

For political reasons? I assume you mean ‘because lockdown triggered a spectacular economic crash that’s already caused several large household name retail companies to call in administrators and thousands of small businesses to face ruin?’
If you had subsequently lost your employment you may have a very different view of lockdown being too short.

It has cost many lives and will cost many ££££
...So has lockdown itself. Unfortunately we won’t be able to quantify the lives lost due to lockdown for some time but I think it will be shocking. The cost to the economy I’ve already raised.

lockdown as early as possible and enforce it

Ah yes, let’s deploy our over staffed police force and military (who would have to not lockdown themselves?) to nail people into their homes and release tear gas in the streets...?? I’m not sure how you suggest police ‘enforce’ it without breaching human rights. How would they ‘safely’ contain all the people they arrested? I mean that would cost ££££. You can not force people into lockdown unless you really force them and frankly that would look very much like America is right now.

When we view our continental cousins having a normal summer, going out to restaurants, shopping etc
MN loves to compare us to the rest of the EU like an awkward fourteen year old idolising their glamorous seventeen year old cousin. If you’ve ever been to Italy/France/Germany...etc you’ll know we are not them we are a pin dropped half way between them and America. As a society we are less obedient and more densely populated in urban areas. I’m pretty sure nobody went around Italy nailing them into their homes for 10 weeks+
Have you considered that perhaps the U.K. people who have defied lockdown might be more to blame than bojo himself?

Pumpertrumper

I'm with you on lockdown as it currently stands, but if they'd done it earlier the economic impact would be much less, that's the point. We'd be out of it by now.

I'm over it. Luckily the people close to me are all reasonably young and in rude health so the virus doesn't pose a massive risk. Life can never be free of risk, for me it's about balancing that against enjoying all that life has to offer - relationships with loved ones, travelling abroad, enjoying shops and pubs etc. I am living as normally as possible now.

Have you considered that perhaps the U.K. people who have defied lockdown might be more to blame than bojo himself?

Did large numbers of people defy lockdown though? I thought the message the govt gave out was that they were amazed at how compliant people were and that they had factored in much larger levels of rule flouting than actually happened?

Place marking

Now fucking now. I was happy to start living with the risk from day 1. Every time you get in the car you are risking your life, let's not forget that. I want my recreational sport back, I suspect that the fabled second spike will be as mythical as Bliar's weapons of mass destruction.

Perhaps if previous governments and the media weren't constantly lying to us, and wildly exaggerating things, I and others might have had more respect for the virus, and indeed lockdown. But after years of being told there's going to be Armageddon from the Millennium Bug, mass immigration, death from using your mobile phone, weapons of mass destruction, cancer from your shoes/dog/pen top, there are terrorists round every corner, etc. etc. etc, this is why many people dismiss the government and the media as crying wolf. Also, we don't like being talked down to by politicians who break all the rules themselves (expenses scandal among many other things).

@zafferana And yes, the government did indeed say there was higher compliance than they expected. I actually suspect the Dominic Cummings saga was a deliberate move: even Boris isn't stupid enough not to anticipate that the public would be angry. (The bumbling buffoon bit is clearly an act.) I bet Boris thought "it seems the public are too scared to go back to normal. Let's give them a reason to be angry, so they start deliberately flouting lockdown, and then they can't blame me when it all goes wrong later; also a little bird tells me they need more ill people for the Oxford study".

@pumper that is not true. Lots of Western countries have support. It’s just not called furlough cos that’s, err, an English word. Try the French ‘chomage technique’ or the German welfare state or the Italian bonus system for covid.

I went into M&S today and it seemed plenty of older people were completely fine to be out shopping and give each other space but no masks. So it seems quite a range ready to get on with it not just the lower risk ages

On a personal level, I've always been happy to go to work and send DC to school and live with the risk - I think I've probably had it anyway. But I will always worry about coming into contact with vulnerable and elderly until there is a vaccine for them.

It's the asymptomatic carrying of the virus that is scary. But overall I'm selfish - I can't sustain life as it is at the moment and the sooner the DC can go back to nursery full time so I can work the better.

@wanderings that seems a bit far-fetched, tbh! Dominic Cummings broke the lock-down rules very early on (late March, I think?), whereas the whole saga only came to light in late-May. If the govt had been that cynical, surely they'd have 'let slip' DC's breaches a lot earlier. Their ridiculous defense of him just made them all look bad too and their poll numbers slumped. If it was deliberate, talk about an own goal!

Perhaps if previous governments and the media weren't constantly lying to us, and wildly exaggerating things, I and others might have had more respect for the virus, and indeed lockdown. But after years of being told there's going to be Armageddon from the Millennium Bug, mass immigration, death from using your mobile phone, weapons of mass destruction, cancer from your shoes/dog/pen top, there are terrorists round every corner, etc. etc. etc, this is why many people dismiss the government and the media as crying wolf. Also, we don't like being talked down to by politicians who break all the rules themselves (expenses scandal among many other things).

It's just a rerun of Brexit in many ways. 'Everything in the UK is the fault of immigrants!!! Leave the EU and the immigrants can't come here!!! Britain will be a land of milk and honey again!!!' It worked then and it's working now.

Have a read of this: www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/06/ive-been-ill-for-months-but-i-still-dont-know-if-it-is-covid-19

Younger people and those without health problems are still at risk of long-term illness and complications related to covid. Without more information about what this virus really is, it's hard to feel like life should go back to normal any time soon.

Did large numbers of people defy lockdown though?

The Government isn’t blameless at all, but if some people hadn’t disregarded it, we’d very likely be in a much better place. They’re helped fuel the fire, and we are all paying for their selfishness.

Pumper,

I have been to the continent many times. In fact I have a close relative living in a major European city. They locked down many days before us and health concerns were handled through their GP, who continued to be available through the peak.

He told me that they were challenged by police 90% of the time that they went out. During lockdown they had to remain within 500m of where they lived.

It was tough, but it worked. They have now unlocked and life is getting back to normal.

The idea that it is our fault, as a populace, that the government has not been able to follow a consistent policy or give a consistent message, is to absolve the government of failing in any government’s primary responsibility, the safety of the people.

It was tough, but it worked.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/06/ive-been-ill-for-months-but-i-still-dont-know-if-it-is-covid-19

Doesn't sound like covid, since he doesn't report a single other person in his life had the same illness. Especially if you agree that Covid is highly dangerous to people like his (home-sharing) daughter(s) & partner or all the health professionals that saw him without PPE.

Younger people and those without health problems are still at risk of long-term illness and complications related to covid.

Except that that will be relevant to a small minority of people. We already have lots of the diseases which cause complications and things like post-viral fatigue and they can devastate lives. It's shit and scary and the people who do experience that deserve support and any lingering issues to be researched. It doesn't justify locking everything down though. Most people have mild cases of the virus or are asymptomatic.

We do risk our lives all the time, Anyone may die at any moment and soem things we do all the time raise the risk considerably.

Example above of getting in a car, yes we risk a road accident. But if we knew that for every road accident that occurred, three more would occur in the following three days, and for each of them three more etc...until such a time when huge numbers would be dying in road accidents over a very short time...well, we might not be quite as relaxed about driving though many still would opt to of course.

The effects of covid would be more economically disruptive than the crashes since people would be home sick, afraid to work or go out etc, and the spread much harder to control, we couldn't do something like all stop driving to end it. But if we are going to use getting in a car as a comparison, let's at least flesh it out.

Currently the risk of a road accident is the risk of damage to you and a limited number of other road users and their families. Any risk comparison that doesn't involve exponential growth is a meaningless one in this context.

Compliance with lockdown was more than had been expected. On MN though people think that the only people who ever complied was them.