This too shall pass? Or is this just the future now?

[BumbleWumble]

A lot of people seem confident that this situation will pass and we will get back to a semblance of normality. But realistically how will this happen?

Most hopes seem to be pinned on a vaccine. We are told this could be available next year, but how likely is that really and how safe would such a rushed one be? It's possible in reality it could take years or one could never be found.

They could come up with treatments that make the disease more routinely curable. However we would then still continue to run the risk of catching it and presumably some people would still die. An effective treatment would take much of the fear out of it though and could presumably herald a return to greater normality.

Other than those two possibilities what else is there? Unless there is some miraculous thus far unknown factor, such as a large percentage of the population possessing natural immunity, the only possibility seems natural herd immunity. But this would mean a huge number of deaths and probably an even greater number of people left with serious life long damage. It's not an acceptable strategy, and even if it was, lasting immunity, or even any immunity at all, is not guaranteed.

But if no way to get on top of this virus is found, then the future seems bleak beyond belief. People will be constantly dying or becoming incapacitated by the disease. And life will be the awful 'New Normal' forever more. Social distancing will be here to stay and people will never be able to freely interact with family and friends again. We'll be constantly wary in all public places and life will be lived confined to the house as much as possible. There'll be no more social gatherings, no fun and enjoyable events. Essentially we will have to treat each other as potential lepers forever more. I just can't bear the thought of this being the future, as I'm sure most people can't, yet realistically the options for getting out of the situation seem very limited and might not even be possible.

@orangedigger

The issue isn't one of personal risk but global risk and this is why this pandemic/illness will have and continue to have a lasting impact for some time yet.

Although only life threatening to a small percentage of the world population it is highly, highly contagious and left unchecked will overwhelm and would have overwhelmed not only healthcare but the economy and productivity worldwide, the knock on impacts of these situations would still affect you and I and our families in significant but perhaps different ways, probably much worse. It really isn't flu!

It is very difficult for most people, we have all had personal struggles and are facing huge change and loss and will all be going through the different stages of fearfulness, denial and acceptance at different times. This wasn't something that any of us had in our plans or could have been prepared for.

My advice myself, my Mum and daughters to just roll with it, take each day, try to see ourselves as part of a local, national and worldwide community working together to do our bit to prevent this thing getting out of control and to be kind and understanding about how difficult it is for everyone for all sorts of individual reasons. In our family we have between us, lost jobs already, had a family member die too young and too soon, had to give up work to educate children, lost months of critical schooling, missed each other, shown our greys, cancelled pet insurance and lost holidays, retired 5 years early (without the income needed) put the family home on the market to downsize to help all of our financial struggles …..but, we are intact and have taken what control of what we are able to, we will ride it out and be more resilient and we won't take anything for granted and we will embrace our love for each other to get through this (and recognise that we have taken each other for granted perhaps in the past)

This virus will not be around forever, or it possibly will be, but will be controlled through vaccines or losing strength or through low level controls of outbreaks. However this shows that we are vulnerable worldwide to something similar in the future and hopefully has given governments a bit of a kick to make sure systems are in place in time to manage it better.

I would love to think that the world will become a better place out of all off this and we will become more compassionate, environmentally friendly and selfless - I doubt that unfortunately, but for some of us, I am sure, it has given us a time for reflection and opportunity to prioritise what is important for us as individuals; this will be very different for me and you, and equally valid.

So for those of you really struggling, you are not on your own most of us are struggling in different ways, we are in this together and should support each other.

For those of you that this situation will change your life for the better, then this is positive and we should all look to these positives for reassurance.

For these of you who feel like they are living some kind of groundhog day with no light at the end of the tunnel, this isn't true, we are getting more freedom but because you are at a different stage of acceptance it probably feels worse - it will get better, might take a few steps back sometimes but it will move forward.

I don't understand the comment that 'it's not a flu!'

In some years, flu has killed over 600,000 people across the world. It kills children and young people far more often than covid does. That's with a vaccine.

Do people just not understand what flu is at all???

@BumbleWumble this is not what life will be forever.

At some point even Jacinda Ardern is going to have to admit that trying to completely control a virus that is asymptomatic in up to 70% of sufferers is a pointless exercise and that continuous ongoing restrictions are too expensive and difficult to maintain. NZ is already struggling a lot with financing their quarantine centres. They can't go on indefinitely. At the moment politicians are just too cowardly to admit that along with devastation wreaked by lockdown in terms of destruction to the economy we're just going to have to accept an ongoing risk of contracting covid, just like we accept an ongoing risk of catching other illnesses. There just isn't an endless pot of money to fund the forced inactivity of healthy people.

I don't understand the comment that 'it's not a flu!'

In some years, flu has killed over 600,000 people across the world. It kills children and young people far more often than covid does. That's with a vaccine.

Do people just not understand what flu is at all???

Absolutely. Most winters, it's flu that brings the NHS to the brink.

For the majority, flu is an unpleasant but temporary inconvenience, for the vulnerable and the very unlucky it is a killer.

In nearly 40 years, I'm not actually sure that I've had it. I thought I did once but it turned out to be a nasty gastric infection. Goodness knows where that came from but I managed to keep it isolated from the rest of the household.

There are flu vaccinations, but small pox renains the only disease to be eradicated.

Measles and Mumps are growing again due to the legacy of Wakefield and the MMR "research". Both carry the risks of permanent conditions or death.

It's the lack of end-game that worries me. Progress on treatments and vaccines is fantastic, but at what point is normality "safe enough" to be able to resume, because it will never be "safe".

We all die at some point. We just hope it's not too soon or too unpleasant. I don't fear being dead, I just want a chance to live well first and live reasonably healthily and look before I cross the road to help my odds.