Getting Back to Normal - fat chance

[CarlaH]

Seeing a fair bit of support for thinking about things other than the pandemic and trying to get life back to some sort of normal.

Lots of comments about the fallout from things not covid related such as mental health and the economy.

However it seems that even if the government and some members of the population think this is desirable the problem might be the workers themselves.

I keep seeing threads, there's one currently on the Active page, about how dentists are only seeing emergencies in some places. Plenty of comment about how some GP's are still not seeing patients face to face even when it would seem that they should.

One poster is in a terrible state of anxiety and needing a face to face appointment but the GP refuses to see them because they cannot bring themselves to wear a mask. Their mental health is in shreds but a GP is not prepared to see them even at a safe distance at the very least?

Some school teachers fearful, possibly with good reason, about returning to work in September.

Any amount of people saying enough is enough and we just have to live with the virus now and get on with our lives means nothing if you can't actually get people to do their jobs properly for fear of it.

Workers are still people and although doing a job/ giving a service they may have their own anxieties about the virus. They may have a close family member who has been shielding, they could have had someone close die from it, they may have something which makes them high risk themselves.

The virus grew expenentially, if/ when we go back to normal (no provision in place/ just living with it) it could well be that it does the same again.

I have no idea what the way forward is but I think we all have to do what is right for our own situations and well being. They just don't always mix with what is right for others.

Fingers crossed the Oxford vaccine (any vaccine) which sounds promising will be rolled out by next summer, yes I think we have one winter/academic year of strangeness.

Then back to normal.

Workers are entitled to use any available protection measures,
as they would for other possible risks

Workers are people too.

Workers are entitled to protect themselves, and to speak up if they feel things are unsafe.

I am just holding out hope for a vaccine. Oxford has the potential for October although haven't heard anything for a couple of weeks. Just keeping fingers crossed. We will have to get back to normal at some point.

I expect you to get a lot of confrontation from this post even though I agree with most of it

In a lot of ways, I understand what you mean, however, people doing jobs/providing services are entitled to work in a safe environment.

My dentist is seeing 'routine' patients though but fewer in a day than normal. Not sure about the GP as haven't needed it.

I am a secondary teacher and I am looking forward to being in school again, I want my students to be there so that we can work towards the exams. I also want to be as safe as possible so we are changing some of the ways we work to allow this.

Believe me I am not pointing the finger at people unwilling to return to doing their normal duties. I completely empathise with them.

I was really just wondering how those who think we should just suck it up and get back to normality, whilst taking care of those who are vulnerable, think it's going to work when it is clear that people who you might think would be starting to try and provide a normal service still aren't doing so.

Workers are entitled to protect themselves, and to speak up if they feel things are unsafe

Yes but some GPs are taking the mickey. They're barely even doing virtual consultations never mind face to face ones. Where's the risk (to the doctor) in doing virtual consultations?

... and then you get MN threads "How terrible that people don't care and don't bother because Things are pretty much back to normal here!" which super baffles me because nothing is normal in my corner of England. The posters don't mean they live on Isle of Mann either.

I agree with Carl Henegan (Prof of Evidence Based Medicine, Oxford) who says the government should start being honest with people about their actual risk. People are seriously overestimating their risk of falling ill or dying with covid so it is making them prioritise not getting covid above anything else. That is not sustainable. Even the WHO are telling us we may never get vaccine.

Where's the risk (to the doctor) in doing virtual consultations?

The risk would be in getting something wrong, because they don't feel confident enough consulting in that environment. They may well be appropriately indemnified from legal or medical repercussions, but they would still have their own feelings of guilt and failure to deal with.

So no, obviously no covid risk, but it's not entirely without risk. However the risks are low, and would be significantly balanced against the risk to the patient of not getting a consultation.

Sadly none of the people who argue most vociferously about how we must assess risk and get back to some sort of normality have declined to enter my thread.

A shame as I would have like to have read their opinions.

Opinion on what? I am not sure what your point of discussion is.

Yes, some people are more frightened than others. I would venture that for the vast majority of people (ie not those over 85s with dementia etc) it's because they have a poor understanding of relative risk.

This is what we get for being a nation that is generally very poor at maths.

In terms of dentists, they have guidelines to follow, set nationally. It isn’t up to the individual clinician what risk they take. This is because it is other patients who are at risk too, not just the dentist. We could very easily be super spreaders if not careful!
From speaking to friends in medicine, it’s the social distancing in waiting rooms as much as anything else that stops that going back to normal. Imagine a full GP waiting room or outpatient clinic with no socially distanced chairs and one Covid positive patient.

*Fingers crossed the Oxford vaccine (any vaccine) which sounds promising will be rolled out by next summer, yes I think we have one winter/academic year of strangeness.

Then back to normal.*

We'll have to live with the disruption until next spring/summer. Then hope some form of vaccine is ready, if not then that's the point we'll have to learn to live with it, but it's going to be like this through the winter unless a miracle cure is rolled out.

Looking at statistics, the risk is absolutely tiny for kids
and still v small for age under 40

From about age 45, getting COVID doubles your normal risk of death

The risk starts to really take off only after about age 60
So more of a risk for the oldest workers and the newly retired, who normally have decades of life to look forward to

Risk of dying increases x 10 with every 20 years of age
==> someone aged 60 has about 100 x the risk of a 20-year-old - so elderly doctors & teachers are understandably cautious -
and aged 80 about 1,000 x the risk o a 20-yr-old

Age is the absolutely dominant risk factor
massively more important than ethnicity, job, sex or even health conditions like T1 (which only increases risk x 3), asthma, obesity etc

@CarlaH

Believe me I am not pointing the finger at people unwilling to return to doing their normal duties. I completely empathise with them.

I was really just wondering how those who think we should just suck it up and get back to normality, whilst taking care of those who are vulnerable, think it's going to work when it is clear that people who you might think would be starting to try and provide a normal service still aren't doing so.

.... Yes, you can only do you

You can't require other people to take risks they aren't happy with
which is why the govenment can have only limited influence on whether people return to work as before and resume spending as before

The risk of getting a serious long-term illness from COVID is estimated at 1 in 20. So even if you are not worried about dying you might worry about that. Not everyone can afford 4 months plus off work.

Well considering that back in April Mumsnetters were telling us that going to the shop to buy Easter eggs were murder and that we were all going to die, I’m not surprised people are reluctant to go outside.

The risk of getting a serious long-term illness from COVID is estimated at 1 in 20

Based on what? You're saying 1% of people in London have a new serious long term illness? Why are the hospitals so empty?

Because they (we) are not in hospital @sirfredfredgeorge. We are at home, on the sofa, in bed, struggling to walk/breath/think.

Most of the people who are refusing to go back to work normally are civil servants, employed by local Government or in heavily unionized industries like railways. They know they can dig their heels in and still get paid full salary regardless.

Unsurprisingly, those who are self employed or in the private sectors are less fussy.

I'm a civil servant and so of my more workshy colleagues are taking the piss big time.

You didn't answer my question - based on what? Where did you get the 1 in 20 cases?