people, please, stay home if you can

[Lua]

Most places that have eased lockdown measures, are seeing an increase in the number of cases. So there is no way around it (at least in the short-term), live a "normal life" and increase the risk for everyone (there are no "personal risk" in a pandemic).

I see a lot of people in mumsnet saying that we suffer too much to save the lives of 80 year olds. While I find this cold assessment horrible on its own, there are so many case of under 60s suffering badly. This is a harrowing picture of 63 year old woman:

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/25/from-cold-to-coma-to-homecoming-one-womans-100-days-of-coronavirus

Sure, the risk is low. Sure, we deal with risks all the time. But we also try to mitigate risks all the time. We use seat belts, and we look before we cross the road, we use helmets, etc There are many reasons why someone needs to go into work, and those are understandable. But do people "need" to go to raves, beaches, cinemas? do we really need to go into shops and buy a new summer outfit?

Life needs to be different, and we need to find new ways to make our economy tick. Lots of opportunities in new fields. Lets support each other and look for new ways to make the world go around.

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

‘Previous generations sat in air raid shelters with bombs dropping on their heads for years without disintegrating‘

You think everyone coped just fine? What an utterly ignorant post.

Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think you could catch the war and bring it home and kill your Gran, which I think is the point most people are trying to make.

@TibetanTerrier. I didn’t miss your point at all. I was trying to disagree with it.

For every person who kept calm and gritted their teeth through the blitz, acting for the common good, there was someone else who was hysterical and self serving and selfish. Some people kept the rules and stuck to the rations. Others stole or lived off the black market. People looted bombed houses. Soldiers weren’t all self sacrificing tommies gladly giving themselves up for good old Blighty. There were malingerers and deserters and rule benders there too. People to get out of essential war work like munitions factories.

Back then, just as now, we weren’t ‘all in it together’. Life was much easier for the rich and the powerful - just as it is now. If you were rich you could eat in restaurants every so weren’t affected by rationing as much. Rich people could return to second homes outside London, they didn’t have to doss down In tube stations or leaky air raid shelters. They could send their children to safety in America and Canada. The particularly wealthy could live off the smuggled produce from country estates.

I think the myths around how everyone pulled together arose because after the war people who had lied or cheated or bent the rules kept quiet about it. They all put the best possible spin on their war stories.

It’s easy to be sentimental about the war, particularly as we won it! But human nature doesn’t change and people were no better or worse than we are now. Enough people tried to do the right thing that we can look back on those times fondly and I think the same will be true when we look back on these times through rose-tinted glasses 75 years on.

Domina you've actually been following what people on the internet say then? More fool you.

Other than Government 'instructions' (and I use that term really loosely), do what you want, there's nobody stopping you.

Or did you just want to rant about your children's freedom? Only the Government has been curtailing that; don't put it on the OP, that was your ultimate decision.

Not just you, there's enormous hyperbole and breast-beating on this thread and there's no need for it... just do what you want, I'm sure you already are.

tired epithets like 'selfish'

It seems one of the facets of the new normal is that anyone who behaves differently to you is suddenly selfish. Covid has been unpleasant in lots of ways.

I bet that people at the time were scared, sleeping badly etc. they just didn't have words like anxiety, paranoia or depression to describe their mental health.

I suspect that if you were a child who had to go through air raid sirens suddenly going off, it would take years before you'd hear an emergency vehicle's siren without your initial reaction being panic. (PTSD)

People were tough and I will never know what it's like to have gone through what they did but people couldn't talk about being scared because of the stigma of poor mental health.

YANBU, but it seems I'm in the minority. I completely agree that this isn't sustainable for much longer, but we will all be stuck in for longer if everyone just goes out and does what they want now. Yes by all means assess risk for yourself and your family, but what has happened to feeling a sense of responsibility towards your community as a whole. What a selfish society we have become.

@Jaxhog

You stay home, I'll do what I want

I hear this from so many people now. Sod the vulnerable, they say. Survival of the fittest, they say. These are the same people who were 'virtue signaling' for the NHS. But ask them actually do something useful for others - sod that.

Is this really British society today?

Can I counter this with "Fuck the poor, fuck the homeless, fuck the families of the disabled with no access to respite or public services, fuck the abused kids, fuck the abused women" Because that ^^ right there either are currently or will be consequences of this utter fucking shit show. Yes covid kills, but so do poverty and abuse. But many people dont care about poverty because its something they cant catch.

There are lot of people who seem to be citing their own boredom as reasons to end lockdown and risk the lives of the vulnerable and healthcare workers rather than because of the risks of not easing lockdown on health outcomes secondary to the economy.

@CloudsCanLookLikeSheep -

It taught me that you cant eliminate risk, the grim reaper can come tor you anytime! So live the best life today, whilst you can, without fear.

Of course you can't eliminate risk, but you don't have to go out waving a flag that says "Come and get us" either.

Tibetan Tiger whilst I agree that the blitz generation endured their situation calmly and bravely for the most part, casting them as the opposite to younger generations responses to covid isn't quite right. It's not so black and white. The blitz generation is also the generation that could look forward to jobs for life, subsidized higher education and affordable housing. Pitting age groups against each other serves no one. Each generation has had good and bad experiences

@TibetanTerrier suicide rates were high during the second world war - the mental health effects of it were huge

And are you advocating staying in or starting to reduce lockdown I cant tell.

OP, every person that stays at home reduces transmission. Every person that now goes out, but does their best to go out less often and social distance when they do reduces transmission. People choosing to socialise outdoors reduces transmission (particularly in summer with all the helpful UV)

But many families don’t realistically have the option of staying at home long term. The country can not afford to keep people furloughed in the long term. Many of us that are lucky enough to have stable jobs can’t do them well - I’m a teacher. I’m doing my best, I teach my classes remotely, but I can see pupils falling behind.

It’s a balance of risk. Some people will go out to raves and similar. Obviously that’s not great and could cause increased spread. But there will still be a lot of restrictions and that will reduces transmission. If it gets to unmanageable levels, more restrictions will be out in place. But that’s better for the majority than keeping high levels of restrictions at all times.

Absolutely not.

We've been locked in since the third week of March. In Scotland the community transmission levels are ridiculously low.

I am not staying in thank you, I need my life back, my kids need their life back and you, OP, need to stop preaching at the rest of us.

Life needs to be different, and we need to find new ways to make our economy tick.

How many people’s livelihoods, homes, and even lives are you proposing to sacrifice in the search for ‘new ways to make our economy tick’?

That’s what your proposing. The economy isn’t an ephemeral thing separate from people’s lives. It’s made up of millions of workers and millions of small business owners.

How many of them?

@LivinLaVidaLoki
Absolutely. People are so short sighted.

Did you stay at home the week or so before lockdown was imposed? Did you avoid shops and keep your children off school then? If no, I think it's hypocritical to be saying people should stay at home now.

I think the government wants to keep the economy going and build immunity before the traditional flu season. Most people want to go out and and yes, we might see a rise in cases, but better now than the possibility of next winter and another lockdown and risking Hotspot als be over whelmed.

For the record, we're still not doing anything different than in lockdown, apart from DS now taking public transport and meeting with friends at a distance. - We stayed at home the week before lockdown, although I had to go to work (obviously with no social distancing) I was very uncomfortable about it.

Working in a job where I have the very real effects of the virus slammed in my face every day as I mop up the effects the OP wants to ignore I have to advocate to get more of our services open.

The children I've had to look after have gone through horrors that even the MN imagination couldn't understand. I've cried because its horrific. Child abuse & child murder, poverty and starvation have been very real these last few months.

Tomorrow I have 8 hours of child protection meetings 8 HOURS worth. See if you want lockdown to continue after hearing those.

www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/10-facts-about-crime-on-the-home-front-in-the-second-world-war/

The Second World War was a golden period for British crime. Between 1939 and 1945, reported crimes in England and Wales rose from 303,711 to 478,394, an increase of 57 per cent. What was behind this huge jump? The blackout and the bombs were the most obvious factors, and murder, rape, robbery, burglary and theft all flourished in the dark and the chaos. But there were other reasons. The war brought with it a vast raft of new restrictions and regulations which many people chose to break or circumvent. Rationing of various staples of life offered huge opportunities to fraudsters, forgers and thieves and created a vibrant black market, and there were a variety of other new or expanded criminal opportunities. Below are a few striking particulars of criminal life on the wartime home front…

I want my son back to college asap (obviously not until September now) but actually I've been following the rules. And although I've been a bit rude on here about Wales' 5 mile rule, I probably haven't been more than about 5 miles from home since lockdown started. I wear a face covering in the shops, I am still giving people 2m space where possible and I've not been to any beaches!

Ah, I see the ‘mental health problems didn’t exist during the second world war’ brigade have arrived. I wish this myth would die. People then were just the same as people now. Many coped fine; many didn’t.

I think this is showing up most people for what they are, selfish. But then this country votes Tory so hardly a surprise

Good point, LynetteScavo. I was exasperated by the shielding people going on and on about how terrified they were, but I bet they - like me - were merrily going about their business before they received the shielding letter, when the chance of getting the virus was much greater than it is now.

@CountreeGurl

I think this is showing up most people for what they are, selfish. But then this country votes Tory so hardly a surprise

problem is some people suggest that those who want to continue with lockdown are being selfish

and some people suggest that those who want lockdown to be lifted are being selfish

one thing i've realised as a result of coronavirus is that there is no common consensus about what constitutes common sense

@bookworm14 exactly and circumstances can play very much into that as well. Just as they do now.

Someone who is financially secure/wfh with a nice house and garden is going to be differ net from someone who is at risk of losing their job no savings and living in a flat

I think as well though todays world of knowing everything makes such a difference and fuels anxiety