What is the 'end' of this going to look like?

[moretolifethanthis2020]

I believed it when we were told it was to 'flatten the curve' to make sure the NHS could cope. I assumed that meant that we had to accept the virus would spread through the country but as long as the NHS could cope, then that was ok. It now seems to be a 'we must lockdown if there are any cases' even asymptomatic ones. Surely it's obvious the virus will spread through the population anytime that more things open up, so I just don't understand how the end will ever be in sight the way we are going?

I feel like I'm at the end of my tether with it all. I don't understand the 'end point' or what the aim is. I also feel we, as a population, are being held accountable for spreading the virus at all....but that's what humans have done forever...viruses are clever.

Is the end point getting a vaccination?

I believe that the only end point will be a vaccine. Hopefully sooner rather than later! In the meantime let's all remember 'hands face space'... cheers Boris

I have been extremely sceptical of the speed of vaccines becoming available.

I worked in this field for many years. But I have to say they are moving at lightening speed and it is very impressive. I am feeling increasingly optimistic.

Just to be clear, they are doing this by massive investment and taking on much bigger financial risks than usual, to allow processes that normally happen in sequence to happen in parallel.

Nevertheless, it is extremely unlikely that a mass vaccination programme will reach the number of people required to bring us back to “normal” before the end of 2021.

That is not to say (assuming all goes extremely well indeed) it won’t start to be delivered to those in frontline healthcare and vulnerable people in the first quarter of next year.

More likely, we will see the benefit of reduced morbidity and mortality through improved standard treatment procedures and drugs e. g. proning, dexamethasone, remdisivir, earlier non-invasive ventilation.

@everythingthelighttouches I could cry with relief sometimes when professional people with actual experience and real knowledge come on to these boards. Thanks for the post.

I agree @Delta1 great post @everythingthelighttouches.

They can't figure out an end. That's half of the problem.

I can see people snapping with it though - quite how that will end up is dependent on the people involved - but there's so much anger about some of the local lockdowns and how they were implemented (and I think the way they announced the latest one over Twitter stupidly late at night was totally unacceptable and Leicester's been treated appallingly in terms of lack of clarity about what is happening to them) that it's now at a point where there's been so much just-ever-so-carefully-couched racial implications about who it is felt is transmitting things... that it's only going to take someone taking umbrage at a group of Asian youths gathered together (and all ethnic backgrounds are having groups doing this) and then retaliation and we'll have the Britain First lot jumping on it and it could escalate very very quickly. Throw in the job losses starting to mount and things are not sitting very comfortably for social cohesion right now - and economic strife is prime breeding grounds for all kinds of groups you really don't want gaining momentum all over the place.

If schools don't open I can see a lot of people's mental health which is teetering badly now really going and suicides and self-harm rising dramatically too. I'd add in alcoholism too - my nice middle class glasses of wine have become more prevalent than I'd like and I keep reining it in - and I'm not alone in this.

We are not going to eradicate this - we need to continue to get a better handle on how to treat it while we work on vaccines but we can't carry on how we are indefinitely.

And hopefully the end involves fucking Boris being strung up by his bollocks of a damn zipwire with that toad Cummings along with him - regardless of anything else.

It was mission creep which is what always happens when someone is given power.
Started ad just a way to delay deaths so that the not fit for purpose NHS could 'cope' and avoid the Lombardy scenes. But the message was overstated and people thought it was to eradicated the disease which was not going to happen.
We should have taken the Swedish approach.
Now we are hearing ridiculous hyperbole of people screeching that teachers will drop dead in droves and their children orphaned in September and we should all hide under a duvet until there is a vaccine. Except that the people developing the vaccine aren't demanding to be allowed to cower at home -luckily. And the people supplying and manning food shops and sewerage and power stations.
Where I live there and surrounding areas no cases for weeks. The Manchester restrictions were a result of 16 cases -on an area of how many million?
And cases are not deaths.
Treatment is better.
We should drop all the restrictions, get back to normal and keep washing hands.

Vaccine yes

It's like taking the lid off a bottle of fizzy pop. You can open it fast or slow but all the fizz has to come out eventually (unless vaccine)

I wonder if suggestions that we will soon get a vaccine are somewhat optimistic: it takes years to develop a drug or vaccine, many of which fall by the wayside during testing because they don't meet the safety or efficacy requirements. I wonder how everyone would feel if they were told that the current situation will be the 'norm' for 3-5 years or more? Maybe the virus will burn itself out in due course - who can say? - but my feeling is that we are likely to have to find a way to live alongside it for a long time to come.

This makes for quite interesting reading: most of the vaccine trials are still in early phases but, considering that only about 10% of trials result in a drug being licensed - depending on therapeutic area - we could be waiting for quite a while.

The 'end' will be when someone finally realises that lockdown and ongoing restrictions are killing at least as many people as covid ever would.

I am a person who has very little hope that there will be a vaccine (I wont go into explaining why. There are tons of internet sites and threads where you can have the question of 'why' answered). Therefore, I feel similar to you with my frustration about how this will end. The idea of shutting personal lives down every time there is a surge isnt sustainable. It isnt helpful either that they say 'go to a pub, go to a restaurant, but dont go see your mother in her garden'. The aim is clearly to keep the economy going no matter what, which I understand to a degree and the NHS needs taxes to function. However, humans mentally need certain things to function too, and they include childcare for work, family for support, and socialisation for general mental health and development of younger brains. I am worried about the impact of the government strategy on my work, on my mental health, on the development of my toddler. If there is no vaccine, and I cant see how we can rely on there being one, we cant live like this for the foreseeable future. This isnt living, its existing with the permission of government

@SengaStrawberry

I’m kind of surprised there haven’t been riots so far. Maybe once furlough ends and the impact of job losses truly bites there will be. Maybe then the government will finally get an idea of the public mood.

why would there be riots? rioting against what? a virus? who exactly would you like to see rioting? Maybe me? maybe you?

I think I'll just get on with my life thanks

I actually think it's posters like you that misread the public mood!

The vaccine won't do much anyway. Its a coronavirus. It mutates. We will never get rid of it now.

This is such an interesting question, and I’ve been wondering myself. And, my conclusion is that there will be no hard stop or end. But we will adapt personally and medically .

As Bellebelle and others have said, scientists and medical people have deeper understanding and developments every day. So you might have a better chance of surviving today than 4 months ago.

I think we will end up just living with it, with some medication and procedures that can help plus masks, SD to restrict the spreed etc... I really really hope there is a vaccine, but even then part of the western world will refuse to have it, some won’t be able to take it, poorer countries won’t have the same access to it....

stringbean the 10% figure, I believe, refers to the amount of trials which enter clinical trials So from phase 1 to into humans/on the market it’s only 10%?

I think the chances are much greater from phase 3. There are 5 in phase 3, which is incredible.

Also, there are many reasons why drugs don’t make it to market which are to do with factors unrelated to whether it works or not. Commercial factors, including market size, regulatory issues and the huge hurdle of manufacturing.

The logistical problem of mass manufacturing enough vaccine is still there, and very much underestimated as a barrier to us getting a vaccine, but lots of the other commercial issues that are usually faced by pharma have been mitigated.

On balance, I think it is more likely than 10% now that we will get a vaccine in the next couple of years.

*Iloveyoutothefridgeandback

The vaccine won't do much anyway. Its a coronavirus. It mutates. We will never get rid of it now.*

All viruses mutate. Coronavirus are far less prone to mutation than flu and we still have a vaccine programme for that.

All we are aiming for here is a reduction in the morbidity and mortality (maybe down to similar to flu) for a period of up to one year. It will have to become part of our yearly vaccination program.

And, I do think we will see more civil unrest. With job losses, more poverty, cycles of lock down. People feeling their rights are being removed. Kids not being in school. Increasing disagreement with government action? It might not be riots, but I believe we could see real frustration starting to come to the surface.

Everything good posts. I agree with what you say but good to hear it from someone in the area.

I’m not sure on unrest.

There will be more stress and unhappiness but it may come out in other ways - still bad, DV, alcoholism, and worse for children.

Facing redundancy doesn’t usually mean you take to the street but it can mean you hit out at those close to you.

That is depressing enough to consider so I am relieved government is trying to balance economic and health decisions.

Vaccine is one possibility and probably the only way a politician is going to stand up and say “it’s over!”. But there’s other ways a lot of normality could return. Other drugs are one - the inhaled interferon beta trial sounded promising. But even widespread, fast, easy, regular testing could make a massive difference - if the Southampton trial of saliva testing is successful and can be scaled up that would be very good news.

Well sage have said there might be civil unrest and riots, not me @sashagabadon so not quite sure why you’re being so snarky. We’ve had full scale riots for a lot less. People will be angry when the full impact of this becomes apparent and we’ve failed at managing the virus on all fronts.

And hopefully you will be able get on with your life @sashagabadon. For millions that’s going to be a lot more difficult due to the pigs ear the government have made of everything.

I think the main way to end panic is by staying off mumsnet.

We also need to remember that the UK is a very small part of the worldwide picture. More or less we are on top of it. But look at many other parts of the world. Things won't be normal until the whole world can suppress this.

Sage said in a meeting in July that the track and trace and restriction measures we currently have are not sufficient to bring a return to normality before we get a vaccine.

Thats your bottom line.

Now we have seen improvement in treating covid-19 and we are developing ways to identify who is most seriously at risk fron covid. Thats our back up.

We may not get a vaccine that offers long term immunity either. This means that we could see the need to get a top up jab, particularly when travelling to covid hotspots, indefinitely.

Realistically a vaccine might get approved in the uk in late Nov, early Dec at the very earliest (going off what ive heard publicly and privately). The vaccine will be ready to go as its already being manufactured. However you then have the logistics of immunising up to 60 million people. That involves distribution to local areas, prioritising first line workers and those most in need of it from a health point of view and having enough qualified people to administer the vaccine safely (whilst also ensuring that other health care jobs are not neglected).

Im currently working on the assumption that March is a realistic earliest case scenario for anything approaching reality.

I am frustrated that this hasnt been stressed more explicitly and honestly from the start to help people pace themselves through this.

People have called me a pessimist from the beginning on this. Im not, im a realist in terms of understanding what we need to get to 'the end point' "as stated in the OP.

People need to get their heads around the fact that the autumn and winter and Christmas are going to be bloody difficult.