How long do a lot of people expect people to stay locked down for?

[annabel85]

I've just got off the phone to my Auntie. She's reasonably healthy and not in a vulnerable category, but she has followed every rule to the letter since lockdown, which is fine. I have too near enough.

However, she's just gone on a massive rant to me on the phone about how football supporters last night and people going to beaches are willfully killing people and protesters don't care about the health of their own families and blames the police for not arresting people breaking rules to set an example. A long diatribe about selfish kids who should be staying at home and need to be taught a lesson.

Now, i've complained myself about the scenes in Bournemouth yesterday and some of the scenes at protests, but how long are they expecting bored and restless kids and younger generation to stay at home for? I ask because we were never sold lockdown on it being an indefinite thing, it was a temporary measure 'to save the NHS'. Covid is far from gone but what recent scenes have shown is that many people have reached the end of their tether with lockdown/restrictions. 3 months seems to be beyond the limit for many but there's a lot of people like my Auntie who expect everyone to be staying indoors indefinitely and it's just not realistic.

I don't want to turn it into a government bashing thread but this could have all been avoided if we weren't asleep at the wheel in February/March. Other countries were able to recover quicker and have now opened up with still lower infection rates than what we have now before opening more things up.

I just think expecting people to stay indoors now with what's left of the summer and with summer holiday season approaching, you're fighting a losing battle. We risk a summer of social unrest as it is. It's expect people to carry the can for the bad decisions that were made in Feb/March time.

[YeOldeTrout]

I agree the kids as individuals are resilient & will be overwhelmingly fine in themselves. That's not the problem.

The problem imho is this:
The economy is a giant machine that (via education, training, internships) churns out new professionals every year that we all rely on. HGV drivers, engineers, mechanics, electricians, nurses, social workers (etc). This machine has stopped. The longer it stays stopped, the greater the shortage of those key workers will be down the line. We have never just stopped the education system like this before. In meantime, existing professionals will just keep retiring when they can, as they want, not to mention the HCPs who actually die from COVID. We are setting ourselves up for massive skills shortages in a few yrs if we don't prioritise education of our young people. We can't just import skilled people like we already done in past bc rest of world has stopped their education machine, too. We should prioritise education and training to avoid extended period of skills-shortage crisis in future. All types of education and training didn't grind to a halt for virtually everyone_ in WWI or WWII, so those experiences aren't comparable.

Plus protecting the health of our young people and letting parents get back to work, etc.

[rosie39forever]

I'm a privileged lockdowner (dh shielding) and severely disabled dd. DH has worked from home for years and thankfully we paid our mortgage off last year., but to expect the whole of the population to give up their lives is utter nonsense the whole fabric of society would crumble.
People have to pay their bills and feed their kids there's no way around that.
BUT we all need to take responsibility to suppress the virus by following certain rules and being mindful of others, if we just go straight back into our pre Covid lives we'll be back to exponential growth and all of the health and economic fall out from that.

[LaurieMarlow]

Totally agree with irma

There are a lot of highly privileged lockdowners not owning it at the minute.

[IrmaFayLear]

I am a group 2-er and also in the shielding category. I am staying in, but don’t want to sail my dcs’ down the river for the sake of “saving” me.

Some group 1 people are absolutely entrenched in their position and, I agree with pp, blind to the fact that without many, many people going to work they wouldn’t be able to sit in the comfort of their own homes. I asked on another thread that the vaccine or bust hardcore lockdowners should declare if they had secure incomes, nice gardens and no dependents. There was one person helpfully suggesting an end to holidays, pubs, shopping etc as we all need to return to a simpler life (mediaeval?). As I suspected, they were retired and had had, I assume, holidays and a social life themselves, but now wanted to put an end to all that for upcoming generations in order to preserve their own life ad infintum.

[daphne87]

Childhoods aren't being "stolen" FFS!! Our Children are living through disruptive times like much of humanity has before.

Education has been disrupted yes, but can be caught up on. Even at worst case scenario, repeating years exist, colleges exist.

If we pathologise it to them then that's how they'll see it.

[PomBearsyummy]

Until they give up on the hopes of a vaccine. Lockdown will be replaced with advisory shielding. Gets to a point where the problems caused by lockdown are greater than the virus. IMO thats round about now.

[daphne87]

I don't know many people, but of those I do know, I can only think of one, possibly two, who stuck to the rules throughout.

Unpopular opinion coming up ..

Many people nowadays are selfish and as a poster put it the other day, many have very little resilience. There's a lot of wah wah wah going on.

I don't like the wartime analogies, but how did we get through two world wars before?? Not by being selfish and bickering and division that's for sure.

I understand the economy argument, but things like wearing face coverings and keeping distance from others, cutting right down on time spent with friends in person and when doing so meeting outdoors, and shopping as infrequently as you can, limiting public transport, these things can all be done but many people baulk at the thought.

Also aside from completely understandable SEN issues, I think Children are way more resilient to these changes than we give them credit for. My own Children have adapted, even my teenager who hasn't seen friends in over 3 months (due to shielding family member), she used to work in a cafe after school pre lockdown so she's been cooking up a storm. My son has been thriving with homeschooling. My nieces who are younger have adapted as well when age appropriate explanations have been given.

[mightbealittlebitmad]

I'm in group 2 but I have broken the actual rules so things like exercising more than once a day, shopping more frequently than was advised right at the beginning. A few weeks later I met up with a friend for a walk outside, taking the kids to the park even though it was closed then letting the neighbour cut the kids hair, letting her inside to give me something or her to borrow something then me and a friend having inside playdates.

I'm happy with my choice to break the rules, I haven't purposely set out to infect anybody, the people I've been in close contact with are happy to take the small risk and those who I've seen outside/at the shop our interactions have been extremely minimal.

Group 3 are likely the people who are holding illegal raves and mass gatherings, the kind who break the law anyway. I don't even include those who have been meeting up with friends and family in group 3 unless they are causing a public nuisance. Most people are just trying to abide by the rules but live their life in a way that keeps them sane.

Group 1 are frustrating when they judge group 2 for just trying to get on with life and when they call them murderers and selfish. It should never be selfish for trying to do the best you can when life has changed completely. We all have to take responsibility for ourselves, if someone can't or doesnt want to take the risk of catching the virus then they need to take steps to protect themselves, there is only so much other people can reasonably do to protect other people.

[UserAccessDenied]

The police in the UK barely bothered to enforce any of the lockdown rules. In Italy, there were police/army on the streets challenging people who were out and about.

I still don't understand why people think this was required. The vast, vast majority of people were just doing what they were allowed to do. There never was mass "rule" breaking. Having army on the street would have been completely unnecessary and smacks of some people wanting totalitarianism

[BlusteryShowers]

Clearly it hasn't been designed to fuck up the lives of the young, but yes it is harder for some than for others.

In my own circles, the ones advocating to stay in strict lockdown are those who have had a pretty decent lockdown as standards go, with regards to finances and home circumstances.

If my only personal hardship in all this was being bored of Netflix I'd probably be happy staying in lockdown as well.

[Orwellkitty]

@ssd

I agree op. I think young people have carried the burden for all this more than we realise. I'm happy to Potter about at home but I'm not 21. At 21 I'd be out my mind with boredom and probably anger. This just isn't fair to the younger generation.

The notion of a pandemic being "unfair" on a particular group of people is odd. It isn't as though the sentient virus has picked them out for special treatment, although reading MN you'd believe so. The Government has taken measures to shield groups, but it hasn't done so vindictively. Fair/unfair or otherwise isn't an effective measuring tool here.

[Midrangecolours]

Agree wholeheartedly with the 1,2,3 list

[lljkk]

Lockdown is rather alive in my world. There is long list of things I could do before that I have no idea when they will be 'normal' again. DC's lives are in serious upheaval.

[NotEverythingIsBlackandWhite]

I think it's unreasonable to ask how long 'lockdown' will last. We are hardly locked down:
We can go to work (in most types of business) if we can't work from home.

We can go out on day trips.
We can be our of the house all day every day.
We can go out for exercise for as long as we want.
We can visit most shops, zoos, safari parks, playgrounds, beaches, countryside, beauty spots, churches.
What lockdown?

[Stellakent]

Yellowbutterfly1 I've never understood this either. It was mentioned that at some point the over 70s might be asked to stay in for 12 weeks but not implemented and the letter which we all received after lockdown was clear that the same conditions applied for over 70s but that they should be extra careful.

Yet I know several over 70s who think they're supposed to be staying at home, or families who think that their parents shouldn't leave the house.

[Yellowbutterfly1]

Why do some people still think that the elderly were told to stay inside until the end of June?
There was talk about it at the beginning but it was just talk, never implemented.

[Kazzyhoward]

What do you mean by "hard enough"? The only way in which our lockdown was a bit looser than the likes of Spain or Italy was the fact that we were allowed out for exercise.

The police in the UK barely bothered to enforce any of the lockdown rules. In Italy, there were police/army on the streets challenging people who were out and about.

[rosie39forever]

I really feel for young people they've been asked to sacrifice a lot, I live in a large university town and the students have been wonderful, many have stayed behind and set up groups to help in the community. I'm in my 50s and quite antisocial so this hasn't been to much of a hardship but my 18 year old self would have partied through the whole thing.

[Splodgetastic]

I know I am being slightly irrational as the increased risk to me is probably about the same as for if I caught flu and I did skip the jab one year.

[ssd]

I agree op. I think young people have carried the burden for all this more than we realise. I'm happy to Potter about at home but I'm not 21. At 21 I'd be out my mind with boredom and probably anger. This just isn't fair to the younger generation.

[Splodgetastic]

I’ve been out for exercise since the beginning and also to a public garden, but I’ve not been to a shop since March. I would very much like to get a takeaway, but I keep thinking that I’ve been careful so far and why chance it now if no one tells me I have to. If I have to go into work I might decide that as I am out and about anyway I would also get a takeaway, but maybe I would still choose not to. I can only control what I choose to do. At the beginning I was very blasé, but I have an underlying condition that puts me in the vulnerable category and take meds with slight immunosuppressant effect, and the more I heard about the effects on the lungs, brain and blood, the more concerned I became. I’m not shielding and generally not prone to health anxiety, although I do get the flu jab. I recently read that for someone like me the risk of dying isn’t as high as previously thought, but it’s still slightly higher than average, so I’m not sure what is best. I even managed to put DH off buying an ice cream from the van the other day!

[Littlebelina]

Also agree with pertella, there is a lot of shaming of perfectly allowed activities.

Also think there may be a boy that cried wolf effect about the second wavers, the more people hear that ve day, blm, beaches, Easter etc are going to cause a second wave and don't, the more likely they are to become complacent and start to behave in a "riskier" fashion.

[Immigrantsong]

In respect to group 1, I think we need to also factor people's fear and understand we cannot judge an emotional response that ultimately has no effect on anyone but that the person experiencing it. I don't see how these people's reaction should attract anything but empathy.

[rosie39forever]

When group 1 is mentioned I think we need to recognise that it has 2 subsets, those who are shielding who need to be protected and supported by us all abiding by the rules and those who are terrified for no good reason.