Do you think we will ever go back to normal?

[Mummypig2020]

I just can’t see how the government will turn around one day and say “that’s it, no masks needed, no social distancing”. I feel like everyone will going to live in fear forever!

that is not going to revert back

Even if - as is likely - one or more vaccines and/or effective treatments become available?

Much more lethal diseases have been in circulation before and haven't permanently changed society. Not sure why this should be hte exception.

No I just cannot see how its going to happen. Doesnt look like a vaccine is happening anytime soon and stories about people having limited immunity.

I think whats making me depressed more than anything specific. Is just how crap our existance has become and how far away from normal we are. In fact I do feel like I am just existing rather than living. Does anybody feel the same?

Doesnt look like a vaccine is happening anytime soon

What makes you think that? 3 or 4 vaccines are at an advanced level of testing and last time I heard, the Oxford group were cautiously optimistic that their vaccine would be available - obviously not on a global scale - this year. Have you heard otherwise?

Of course it will. Its not as if this virus is the only thing like it that has ever happened in human history.
Also the fatality rate is looking low so there maybe an adjustment to peoples' fears or risk assessment.

I’m sure that if this had happened 30 years ago it wouldn’t have been the same as there was no internet, wfh SM etc etc just the telly and radio and there may have been small closures but nothing like now with all the drama

@Beccatheboo

Nope. I typed a longer response but basically, like another poster, I’m grieving. I have no power and have to accept that my one and only life - which I’m already half way through - is controlled by others.

That very much sums up how I feel.

@icedpurple

www.sciencefocus.com/news/covid-19-vaccine-ready-in-first-half-of-2021-if-trials-go-really-well/

[quote SkinnyChicky]@icedpurple

www.sciencefocus.com/news/covid-19-vaccine-ready-in-first-half-of-2021-if-trials-go-really-well/[/quote]
I've not read the whole article, but the title says they hope to have a vaccine by early next year.

That doesn't seem to support your assertion that it "Doesnt look like a vaccine is happening anytime soon".

Maybe read the full article. Just a thought.

No one knows if "this is it now". Even before antibiotics, pandemics came along, disrupted life but them died out. We have discovered the cause relatively quickly and we understand lots about how to reduce risk.

We can develop safer ways of interacting, and thank God we have electricity, the internet etc,

We can find new ways of living and coping,.

Maybe read the full article. Just a thought.

No need for weak attempts at sarcasm. Just a thought.

From your precious full article:

"Asked if there was a chance a vaccine might not work, he replied: “Now I think that’s a very low, low risk. I think we’re very lucky in the UK that we have two very strong candidates, the one from Imperial, the one from Oxford, and so we’re pretty well placed, but there’s still not a certainty that either of those two will work.”

"Appearing on Sky News’ Sophy Ridge On Sunday, he said: “So we anticipate if everything goes really well that we’ll get an answer as to whether it works by early next year. And we have put in place the infrastructure to make that vaccine for the whole of the UK.

“So, assuming that the funding is there to purchase that vaccine, we could have that vaccine rolled out across the UK in the first half of next year.”

Still not clear how this article supports your view that it ""Doesnt look like a vaccine is happening anytime soon", since it is cautiously optimistic that a vaccine could indeed be ready early next year.

Social distancing won't last forever. How would humanity continue if people arent able to go near each other. I mean literally if it is against the rules to have sex with another person because they live in a different household and arent allowed within 2m of you, then the human race will cease to exist!

Furthermore the amount of mental health problems which will be caused by people not being allowed to hug or go near others will be catastrophic. We are social animals who need social interaction to survive.

Maybe masks in shops and more frequently cleaning/ handwashing will become the norm. But most of us can get on board with that. Social distancing from family and everyone else wont continue forever and it is frankly ridiculous to suggest that it would.

Also even if a vaccine isnt discovered (and currently it seems that at least one will be), we will develop new and better ways to treat the illness, or to test for its presence. There are far more dangerous diseases out there which we live alongside every day.b

This virus is here to stay. Almost impossible that it will vanish in any way, shape or form. The question for everyone sooner or later will be quality of life versus ever-diminishing risk of death from communicable disease.

To expect large bodies who've been (or at least will be held up as) responsible for much of the decision making that has been so harmful to row back on that is, sadly, naïve. The modellers predicting hundreds of thousands of UK deaths will stick to their model. Public Health bodies who have called for more strict measures to tackle this one issue won't suddenly go 'actually, its ok now folks - crack on'. The severe measures now have to be worth something and cannot be viewed as a failure or an expensive misstep because the societal consequences of such an admission are impossible to overstate.

Just look at how politicians keep ploughing along with the HS2 debacle. "Can't stop now - look how much money we've already wasted!?"

This would be like that times a million.

Immunity from having had Covid and immunity from a vaccine are not the same thing.

Immunity from a vaccine is expected to last at least a year "or a good few years" according to Oxford scientists developing the vaccine.

For those saying SD is here to stay how can it ? The world is not big enough what people will not see their friends and family ! Mental health is double now i for one don't think I could continue to live like this

The thing is though, the high street and retail has been struggling for a while now. Having an economy based purely on retail and services (ie relying on people having money to spend in the first place) has been somewhat precarious for a while too. I don't think there will be return to 'normal'.

I fully agree. We were far too reliant on "the service industry" which in turn was too reliant on the "pile em in" business model of large numbers of people crammed into small spaces. I think that will change for the long term as we come out of Covid. I think we'll have to get used to paying more for "fun" so that the providers don't need to squeeze so many people in, whether it's a plane, or a football stadium, a nightclub or a restaurant.

We also need to get back to being more of an industrial/manufacturing nation which would be far more resilient and less reliant on discretionary spending. 50 years ago, our manufacturing was largely manual, so it was inevitable it would get off-shored to lower wage countries, but now, even in lower wage countries, a lot of production is automated meaning far fewer workers are needed, so is ideal to be re-shored back to the UK.

This virus is here to stay. Almost impossible that it will vanish in any way, shape or form. The question for everyone sooner or later will be quality of life versus ever-diminishing risk of death from communicable disease.

It's only ever-diminishing because of restrictions, social distancing etc. If we stop doing that and go back to how we were a year ago, there's a very real risk that we'd be back to exponential growth again which would cause another lockdown. As we are doing, we need to relax the restrictions to allow life to carry on in some kind of sustainable fashion - a balance between the economy but not going too far to lead to exponential growth again.

@LovingLen

No, this is it now, on the news today it was said that masks were like seatbelts and smoking so that is not going to revert back, holidays will need a lot of planning and good insurance because of never ending lockdowns. At least house prices might go down.

Agreed. Walk out of the house..wallet, phone, keys, mask. Other countries it is totally the norm so I see no difference with us. Yes, SD will be relaxed, but masks as like seatbelts, absolutely.

What is the context for 'masks like seatbelts'? If there is an effective vaccine or the impact of the virus lessens to the point it's indistinguishable from a cold why on earth would this be necessary?

I'm totally onboard with wearing a mask in the current situation (and anything similar that arises in future) but not once the acute threat is over. I really hope I've misinterpreted some of the comments here.

I'm in NZ (yes many caveats here about how NZ is not the same as UK etc etc) but we currently have community eradication in the sense the only people with COVID have come from overseas and are in full managed quarantine.

Life has been totally normal here for well over a month. No masks, no sanitising, no social distancing. Pubs and restaurants are full, gyms, internal flights, salons the lot. Like nothing ever happened. However foot traffic in city centres is hugely down due to wfh now being the new normal and retailers and hospitality is struggling massively.

The question now is how we do get back to normal re people coming in and leaving the country? We rely on tourism. We can't keep putting everyone into state managed quarantine for 2 weeks as it's costing the country heaps.

My point is even if day to to life goes back to a semblance of normal, if the virus is still out there it can never be totally normal and the knock on effects on the economy and especially 'capitalism's poster children': house prices;retail; and hospitality is massive and long lasting.

What is the context for 'masks like seatbelts'? If there is an effective vaccine or the impact of the virus lessens to the point it's indistinguishable from a cold why on earth would this be necessary?

I'm totally onboard with wearing a mask in the current situation (and anything similar that arises in future) but not once the acute threat is over. I really hope I've misinterpreted some of the comments here.

This !!! Why would you wear. Mask always first of all cost and people won't do it

Masks like seatbelts and not smoking inside was a comment made on the BBC news in the context of they were strange at first but we got used to them and now it seems normal to do these things. Not really a comment one would make about something that was temporary. I can’t remember who made it but it was on the news article about masks

It was also mentioned that offices would probably be next, they were on a proper mask roll