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.

And to be honest I agree. Just how much longer are we expected to prioritise random people we don’t know/care about over the lives of our own children?

Or protecting the NHS for that matter. Why is this our job?

What's a light lockdown? If it involves only seeing my friends and family 2 metres away in the garden and never going to a restaurant again, I'm not doing it

I think it might be the bubble thing. Where family and friends can be together and inside each others houses.

Im not sure never going to a restaurant again is that important when faced with the scale of the crisis but it might be screens around tables or restaurants moving into larger premises so tables can be distanced

@NowImLivinInExeter

The thing is, as taboo as it might be to say this, the vast majority of people are not going to be prepared to curtail their own lives and their children's lives indefinitely in order to save the lives of other people whom they don't even know. For a few months maybe, but forever? Forget it. Simply will not happen.

I'm at that point already and it doesn't bother me to say so. The reality is that people become ill and die all the time. Trouble is, that's now seen as wrong in some way - especially the dying part. I don't believe the predictions of a second wave that will hospitalise millions in one stroke and lead in a matter of weeks to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. In most cases, I'll have sympathy for people (as a collective) who become ill or who lose family members to this. But I think the epidemics of hysteria and bullshit currently sweeping England are far more dangerous than Covid and I want my life back before everyone's infected.

And to be honest I agree. Just how much longer are we expected to prioritise random people we don’t know/care about over the lives of our own children?

But those random people are your family and friends

Or protecting the NHS for that matter. Why is this our job?

Because without the lockdown, in order to flatten the curve, it would have completely collapsed

@sausagepastapot me too moving into depression I think the mental health and fear is worse than the virus now

Particularly in the West, we are not used to the threat of death. Malaria kills thousands upon thousands, babies and children included, in other parts of the world, but that is something affecting "other" people and their children. We might feel fleeting sympathy, we might occasionally dip in our pockets and donate some money, or have a bit of a cry at Red Nose Day, but ultimately, because it doesn't affect us, we don't care.

My parents are immigrants. My father is one of 11 children. When he was a child, he lost four siblings in quick succession. My grandmother watched her 18 month old twins die in her arms, quickly followed by her three year old and then her five year old. I cannot even imagine the pain and the grief. But that is the reality for many people in many parts of the world. The daily reality. And it will continue long after this is all over.

It makes me sick actually.

Flaxmeadow that is certainly the (worst) case scenario we were given at the end of late March and I totally agree with you that, on the basis that there isn't enough info about this new virus as yet, proceeding with extreme caution is key.

However, more recently, I thought that scientists in continental Europe anyway, seem to be moving towards the position that once the R number has been beaten down to a certain low level, mask-wearing could be as effective as lock-down measures, if combined with rigorous tracking and tracing etc?

Now! Everything is a risk. Weigh up your own risks.

Getting in a car is a HUGE risk

But those random people are your family and friends

Well actually they aren't, for the most part. Both my grandparents are in their 80s and have underlying conditions, but both have said they would rather take their chances of covid than live like this for the forseeable future, only able to see family from a distance in a garden.

My parents are mid fifties and healthy, my siblings are in their twenties and thirties, my DH is 36 with no underlying conditions, I am 32 with no underlying conditions, and our DS is 4 and otherwise healthy. I have no friends in the vulnerable category.

And yes, I know that there are outliers in every age group and previously healthy people who die inexplicably and tragically, but by and large this is a disease of the elderly and the frail. That does not mean I am saying they are "expendable", as seems to be the hysterical reaction to ever trying to discuss this on MN. But that is the reality. For most people this illness will be mild. That is just fact.

Reading that Wales recorded only 35 new cases yesterday & the Oxford scientists have moved the vaccine trials to Brazil because there isn’t enough cases here I am more than happy with my decision to have worked throughout & carry on where I have been able to .

I'm at that point already and it doesn't bother me to say so. The reality is that people become ill and die all the time

I wonder if people would be as happy to state this as openly if the section of society dying were infants and not (in the main) the "dispensable" elderly?

Surely the elephant in the room is not that people are no longer willing to sacrifice their normal lives for "strangers they don't know" but more specifically for people who are" old*?

And don't forget the steep rise in deaths in UK homes for those with physical and mental disabilities..

I wonder if people would be as happy to state this as openly if the section of society dying were infants and not (in the main) the "dispensable" elderly?

I probably wouldn't, because I've got an infant of my own.

I'm really sorry, but the death of an infant is more tragic than the death of an 85 year old with a lung condition. I say that as someone who dearly loves an 85 year old with a lung condition.

I don't know any elderly person who would disagree with me about that either.

That isn't to say both lives aren't equal - they are. But one is more tragic than the other. Sorry if that offends.

And don't forget the steep rise in deaths in UK homes for those with physical and mental disabilities..

That is unforgivable and hideous, but the fault there lies with the government for not dealing with that from the beginning - it should not have required lockdown to protect those poor people.

If there were two people in a burning building, and you could only save one, and one was a 7 month old baby, and one was an infirm 90 year old, which would you choose?

I would choose the 7 month old over my own grandfather, whom I adore. And he would expect me to.

I always have been. Not actively try and catch it so follow all guidelines.

But it doesn't terrify me. It doesn't terrify me if my DH or DC get it. It does terrify me if my parents catch it.

@Flaxmeadow

And to be honest I agree. Just how much longer are we expected to prioritise random people we don’t know/care about over the lives of our own children?

But those random people are your family and friends

Or protecting the NHS for that matter. Why is this our job?

Because without the lockdown, in order to flatten the curve, it would have completely collapsed

DM is 88 and certainly doesn't expect me to give my life up for her. She's also rather tired of life. DH has 5-10 years life expectancy, is in the shielding group, made explicit comments about where shielding could shove itself and is carrying on as normal. Friends? That - or rather they - is something I've been giving a lot of thought to. It's certainly very true that you see people in their true colours in a crisis

As for the NHS, it couldn't cope where I live before Covid. I never thought what was left of it here was worth protecting.

The choices we face are:

a) continue to steadily open up as numbers fall and we increase our ability to suppress localised break, enabling us all to get back to something approaching normal over the summer or by the autumn, as is occurring in much of Europe

b) say “screw this” and get back completely to our pre-March way of living right now, and let infections and deaths rise in the knowledge that the majority are low risk and won’t die. We then “run hot” until we hopefully get a vaccine, or we achieve herd immunity.

Many people seem to want b) but don’t seem to appreciate that society won’t stoically bear a return to months and months of disease and death whilst other countries look on in bemused horror and pity, having quashed and contained Covid. I don’t much worry about getting Covid myself, or my children for that matter. I do want to see my parents again without worrying about passing on Covid to them in a society that’s allowed itself to become riddled with it again. The economy, especially restaurants, shops and cinemas won’t flourish in an environment where we let Covid circulate through the population. Given 8% or so have antibodies, we potentially need a wave 8 times as bad as the one we’re emerging from, or 8 more waves (possibly less if there is more t-level immunity). Society simply won’t carry on regardless faced with that...

I agree Studycast and hopefully that is what we are moving toward

Well ...looking at history ...I think society could be in danger of descending down a very dangerous route indeed if people who are frail and less able have less of a right to life than anyone else.

Well ...looking at history ...I think society could be in danger of descending down a very dangerous route indeed if people who are frail and less able have less of a right to life than anyone else.

Burning building. Who would you save? The baby or the elderly person?

Sorry my last post was responding to NowImlivininExeter not to Flaxmeadow!

And frankly there is already an enormous section of society whose lives are considered more expendable than others. Just ask any BAME person.

As for the NHS, it couldn't cope where I live before Covid. I never thought what was left of it here was worth protecting.

Yes, because we’d all be in such a great place as a society if just closed down the NHS because it’s just not worth protecting.

The NHS has been a fucking shambles for years thanks partly (but not exclusively) to Tory underfunding but also to chronic mismanagement, bureacracy and needless red tape.