Is this all life will be from now onwards?

[Tartan333]

I have lost hope of things getting back to normal and I mean normal not the awful phrase "new normal".
This feels like existence, all the fun has gone from life, we are all ruled by covid now. Is this it now for the long term? Will it be years before we can do normal things again without masks, distancing, threat of covid etc?

It seems like a very dark future at the moment.

@lazylinguist but they're missing out on precious years they wont get back. When I look back on my childhood the things I remember are fun days at school mucking around, hanging out with friends on bike rides and having sleepovers with pals, going on holiday with my family and spending long days by the pool, sleep overs with grandparents and spending slow mornings eating toast in their bed. All of those things have gone indefinitely for children in replacement for isolated, sedentary days in front of screens or in gardens

Children could go into this as 10 year old, fun loving kids and come out at 12 or 13 years old teenagers, grandparents dead, lost contact with friends they havent been able to see for years. Isolated and unsocialable and having missed out on key milestones and moments

6 months is a lonnnnnnng time when you are 4 though!
I have a 9 week baby who nobody has met. Thought she was napping in her crib this morning but went up to find my 7 year old son had his christening photos out and was showing them to her, explaining who all her aunties and uncles and cousins are as they have never met her

@IndiaMay you do get that there's no innate right to a beautiful, sun kissed childhood right? Children, just like everyone else, have to survive (or not) bad times when they come - wars, famine, pestilence and death are part of your lot as a human being. It's hardly unique to this generation (ours or theirs).

[quote Porcupineinwaiting]@IndiaMay you do get that there's no innate right to a beautiful, sun kissed childhood right? Children, just like everyone else, have to survive (or not) bad times when they come - wars, famine, pestilence and death are part of your lot as a human being. It's hardly unique to this generation (ours or theirs).[/quote]
Fuck sake. There's no right to it, no, but as a parent don't you want the best for your kids? Aren't you willing to fight for them?

Fuck sake. Stop the world I want to get off.

I'm fed up of being gaslighted into having to think this is ok. Yes I'm making the best of it. Yes I'm trying not to whinge to my friends and family who all have their own hardships.
I'm not normally an anxious person and usually go through life on a fairly even keel but the forcible removal of freedom and separation from people feels wrong on levels that I can't just rationalise away. I'm waking feeling panicky in the night when my subconscious self goes right you've had your 3 hours sleep, it's time to wake right up and remember that this is not normal.

@IndiaMay you do get that there's no innate right to a beautiful, sun kissed childhood right? Children, just like everyone else, have to survive (or not) bad times when they come - wars, famine, pestilence and death are part of your lot as a human being. It's hardly unique to this generation (ours or theirs)

There's no 'innate right' to anything, including life itself. Rights are conferred on you by society. But most people want their children to be happy, and are saddened when it's difficult to achieve this.

Idiotic post.

And what would I fight in this case @TrustTheGeneGenie, the virus? Boris Johnson? The Chinese?

The old world was on a short course to destruction. I may not like this but I dont want to go back, precisely because I have children. I'd like something better.

@Porcupineinwaiting, yes thanks. Had my fair share of difficulties in life, as a child and an adult. I was referencing the things which helped me during those times and which I feel have been denied to children now for the sake of an illness which effects very few people. I dont think there should be a blanket application of shit to society in order to protect a tiny minority of people. To me it would make more sense for those who need to shield to be identified and given extra help (extension of furlough scheme indefinitly, a level of benefit etc.) And the rest of society to get back to normal. In order to give the best life to themselves and their children and to pump some money into the economy to help those who need to continue to shield.

1 in 20 people who catch COVID are "significantly affected" by the current reckoning @IndiaMay. So not that few.

I'm doing better now
Still waiting for most people to catch up

I just found my people, formed what is now called a bubble, and do my own thing. Fyck the rest of you. My coffee is nicer than starbucks. I'm not shopping anywhere with ridiculous rules, they call all fuck off and go bankrupt, and am planning a long summer holiday working 'from home' from the side of a pool. Cheaper and less restrictions where I'm going
I'm seriously considering emigrating to Sweden. Bloody Brexit makes that harder.

@porcupineinwaiting so that's about 15,600 people out of 66.5million in the uk. A lot of people yes but a minority

Given that while the uk is on the way to controlling this and returning to a type of normal a look at the international picture where it is escalating significantly will tell you things will be different for a very long time. And we can either wish for what was or get on and deal with what is.

Life is completely normal in New Zealand. They can meet up in whatever group sizes they want, undertake whatever activities they’d like. No masks in sight.

How many people would accept the economic cost of restricting entry to the UK to go back to our old way of life?

@TrustTheGeneGenie

Apologies, the percentages I quoted were rough ones, from my imperfect memory.

Here's a link to some proper stats: www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/

Looking at those stats, the mortality rates range from 0.2% for the youngest age group, to 14.8% for the over 80s. I believe the overall death rate for flu is around 0.1%. So, I feel the fear of the virus is justified, but I understand why young people may have less fear and might be more keen to get life back to normal. I am in my 50s, so am conscious I might be affected fairly badly by the virus. My MIL is in her 80s, and is terrified of catching it. I understand that people with young children must be struggling a lot and will have a very different perspective from my generation. These are hard times for everyone, in different ways.

@Porcupineinwaiting

And what would I fight in this case *@TrustTheGeneGenie*, the virus? Boris Johnson? The Chinese?

The old world was on a short course to destruction. I may not like this but I dont want to go back, precisely because I have children. I'd like something better.

You could use your brain and write to your mp, join a campaign group, sign a petition? Break some rules even.

This is not going to create A better world. Sorry to disappoint you. It'll be the same eventually but taxes will be higher, things will be more expensive, unemployment and suicide will be through the roof and we'll all hate our neighbours because they're nasty judgemental arseholes.

Nothing good is coming from this. Nothing.

@Defenbaker what you are looking at there are case fatality rates. The real rates are lower again.

@IndiaMay check your maths, it's over 3 million people.

@TrustTheGeneGenie I already do some of those things funnily enough. What comes from this is, to a large extent, up to us. Good can come of this - if we choose it to.

@IndiaMay check your maths, it's over 3 million people

So the whole population has caught Covid, have they?

Great news! Herd immunity has most definitely been achieved!

*This is not going to create A better world. Sorry to disappoint you. It'll be the same eventually but taxes will be higher, things will be more expensive, unemployment and suicide will be through the roof and we'll all hate our neighbours because they're nasty judgemental arseholes.

Nothing good is coming from this. Nothing*

Yeah, this whole notion that this crisis is going to make us all discover our inner Greta Thunberg and that we'll all be home enjoying a better 'work-life balance' by cooking wholesome food and nurturing our children, is pie in the sky. Besides, many people could already have been living that way for years if they'd wanted to. But they didn't want to.

Some people are obviously quite sheltered and have never faced adversity
This has made my blood boil. I’d say I am resilient and we have been through some pretty tough things as a family, infertility, miscarriage, pnd, 16 month old getting cancer surviving then an autism diagnosis at age 3. These last 3 months have been the absolute pits- just horrific. We rely on grandparents and family for respite to help us as a family of 4 to cope. My gorgeous ds is 5 and has ASD and learning difficulties. His older sister needs respite, we need respite to keep sane and be good parents. That’s all been whipped away in an instant.
My daughter who is 7 has developed anxiety and isn’t sleeping. Lack of school, needing socialisation from peers and a break from her brother has caused this along with worry of corona and missing family.
My son has an ehcp but his mainstream school can’t take him back as he can’t understand distancing and needs personal care. Luckily they have offered respite days for my daughter but only after I laid bare how much I was struggling. I’m back on antidepressants and clinging on by a thread. Families with disabled children have been totally neglected in all this.

That 1 in 20 figure only accounts for symptomatic people. We know at least 40% of people are asymptomatic. And like chris whitty said a significant amount of people will never get the virus. So saying 3 and a half million people will have long term effects is a bit over the top.

[quote Porcupineinwaiting]@TrustTheGeneGenie I already do some of those things funnily enough. What comes from this is, to a large extent, up to us. Good can come of this - if we choose it to.[/quote]
But we won't choose it to. Because it's not what we want. Most of us want our old lives back.

If I wanted to live a green, home schooling, isolated boring as fuck life where I didn't drive anywhere, didn't fly anywhere and basically did fuck all, I could have done that of my own volition pre covid. But I didn't. Because it's my idea of HELL.

Many people feel the same.

Jrobhatch29 posted:

"@Defenbaker what you are looking at there are case fatality rates. The real rates are lower again."

Do you mean because of all the cases in the community that are not on the stats, due to people being asymptomatic or suffering only mild symptoms? If so, might that also be the case for flu, as perhaps only the serious, hospitalised cases make it onto the stats? Genuine question, as stats come from all sorts of sources and this is not my field.