Would you be willing to be put under house arrest in order to save lives?

[Treesofwood]

Just that really. Would you be willing to go to prison to save lives? Would you be willing to give up your children's right to an education to save lives? This whole situation brings up many philosophical questions for me, and my theoretical response is not actually the sane as my response when faced with the reality.

[BikeTyson]

Many people die each year as a result of air pollution and yet people aren’t prepared to get out of their fucking cars and walk or cycle more. There’s been absolute uproar in some local areas near to me due to road closures intended to make walking and cycling routes more attractive, people are furious that they’re going to have to either get out of their cars or drive for about 2 minutes longer. The same people were all screaming about the COVID conga and how a second wave was coming (since May), are appalled by people going to beaches, berate people who don’t wear masks etc. It’s completely irrational.

[Michaelschofield]

No

[Treesofwood]

Phil there's probably an element of luck and privelige too. My point was that there is a belief that people who don't earn lots of money don't work hard. Which is definitely not true. Many of them are probably more exhausted from a day of work than your boss.

[Lweji]

@PhilCornwall1

People still believe that others who have lots of money deserve it because they work hard.

If a person has taken a risk, started a business and has made a lot of money out of it, do they not deserve that? They took a risk that could have easily gone the other way.

The person that started the business I work for took a massive risk, but it paid off. The business now turns over in excess of a billion pounds and employs thousands of people. He is a multimillionaire, but he took the risk, does he not deserve that?

The quote was about working hard. You mention risk. Not quite the same thing.
Very hard working people only manage minimum wage or little more.
I don't belive that millionaire works 1000x harder than the lowest paid worker in the company, even though his salary probably is that much higher or more.

[Noneformethanks]

I worked the hardest I have ever worked on min wage as a carer.

[PhilCornwall1]

My point was that there is a belief that people who don't earn lots of money don't work hard. Which is definitely not true.

This I completely agree with.

[Ibake]

@isabellerossignol

Isabelle, poor and stick people still are blamed for their own misfortune.

Yes, you're right. As soon as I posted that, I realised I had been overly simplistic.

I do think that, in general, most people are fairly compassionate towards others suffering on an individual level, if that makes sense, but maybe not at the level of society? When they see a neighbour, and her husband leaves her for a younger woman, and her four children are small, and then she becomes ill and reliant on the benefits system. Neighbours will look at her and think 'poor X, she's having a tough time'. Yet simultaneously they could pick up the Daily Mail and see a story about a stranger who has four children and is too ill to work and they'll assume she is lazy freeloader.

Absolutely. Put a known face to it and it's different. These are the same people who don't think they're racist because they think their Asian postman is a 'lovely man' but who tut and write vitriol in the DM comments re immigration, Eid celebrations etc.

[TableFlowerss]

Who occupied all of the beds in hospital? It certainly wasn't the shielded.

Who was getting ill enough to need hospital care, do we know? We have data on who died but who was hospitalised?

If we look at the US now there are many younger people in hospital. Why are you so convinced that can't happen here


@Hearhoovesthinkzebras

It wasn’t the sheilded... because they were sheilding!

It certainly wasn’t young healthy adults in ICU. It was mainly the elderly.

You’re talking about what’s happening in the US, but again, young healthy adults aren’t the ones in hospital. The exception yes, not the norm.

I don’t know who you’re trying to kid more, prime on here or yourself. I also agree with pp, must people’s actions aren’t due to altruism...... they are just terrified to catch it and for what it means for them.

[TableFlowerss]

People
most

[TableFlowerss]

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras

Also it does seem like your views are contradictory - on the one hand you seem to be saying that the locking down of the general population hasn’t benefited the sheilded -

Buy in the next breath you don’t want to public to go about their normal business.....

So if the general public haven’t been of any help, why are you arguing against things reopening?

[AlexisCarringtonColbyDexter]

@HesterShaw1

Like everything in life these days, it's all so bloody binary isn't it? You're either for us or against us, you either want grannies dying in the street or you want lockdown indefinitely. Nuance and subtlety is dead, it seems.

However I'll try. Most people will put up with mask wearing in shops, for the greater good. Most people will adhere to a sensible level of social distancing and adjustments, for the greater good. Most people are more than willing to be more scrupulous about hygiene for the greater good.

However what an increasing number of people are not prepared to do is stick to arbitrary, restrictive rules which drastically and negatively affect their and their families' wellbeing indefinitely. They are certainly not prepared to live like we were in March and April, indefinitely when they can see that deaths and hospitalizations from Covid are so low now. And when they can see that all those things they were told would cause second waves, spikes, thousands of deaths etc have manifestly not happened

They're especially not prepared to be nagged, hectored, shamed and berated as being "selfish", simply because they want to regain some semblance of normality for themselves and their families, by someone on MN who they have never even met (and quite frankly, if you want people to care about you, you need to be a little, well, nicer. You know, try displaying some of that empathy you speak of.)

No. Enough.

I think I love you!

So so SO agree!

[bigknickersbigknockers]

Would I be willing to be put under house arrest to save lives? No, absolutely not. I'm with Comtesse on this. I've done the whole lockdown, I'm wearing a mask even though I don't want to but I am sick to the back teeth of this. This virus is not going away. If it was realistic to close the borders and eradicate it I would try harder but the borders and ports wont stay closed and people will bring the virus back into the UK. So we need to live with it. Covid 19 has had serious financial impact on myself and my family so I will not be locked down again.

[BatShite]

Pretty depressing that the fit and healthy have this attitude to the shielding and vulnerable: "just suck it up!"

I agree with this but have actually seen a lot more of the shielding people kind of..expecting the world to stop for them, which is equally selfish tbh. So so many people I know have been proper kicking off that others are having some form of a life as apparently that makes it worse for shielders, both in increasing their risk...and in making them 'feel bad as they cannot go to the beach so why should others, unfair' and stuff.

As for the OP..nope. Sorry. Said as someone who has already had a family member very ill with this too. Life simply cannot stop.

[BatShite]

It has really come to something when the people who told us thousands would die as a result of people having picnics, sitting on benches in parks, exercising more than once a day and for longer than an hour, buying more things than were strictly necessary, hugging mum, flocking in the streets on VE day, on the beaches on Bank Holiday, in the streets during the BLM demos, who went on holiday, who visited friends, who went to pubs when they reopened....have realised that these thousands of deaths have not materialised, so therefore we have to curtail our freedoms indefinitely because some people might have post viral effects.

Also yes, this.

Honestly, reading on here it almost seems some are pissed off that the numbers are not higher than they are, because the doomsday predictions have not worked out.

A lot seem to have gone from 'flatten the curve' to 'noone should ever go out again until there is NONE of the virus left!!!' too. Its..odd.

[bigknickersbigknockers]

batshite I totally get you, Its gone from protecting the NHS to trying to stop anyone from ever getting covid .

[bigknickersbigknockers]

I m sure some people are actually enjoying the whole drama of this shitshow .

[BatShite]

and in their words "it's too dangerous to have a consultation in person", yet the same person who said that to me was sat on the next table to me in a bar swilling wine for a couple of hours. Wasn't too dangerous to do that was it?

This has been a huge issue, everywhere I would think.

Many I know are (or were, most have been made to go now) apparently terrified of going to work. Its too dangerous. OK, fair enough, benefit of the doubt. They might be anxious. BUT, very same people going to pubs, shopping centres, even on planes to go on holiday?! So its too dangerous to go to work, but its not too dangerous to do all other high risk things. The furloughed were the worst from those I knew, my how they wailed about danger..and how furlough should continue indefinitely else mass murder.

Not all furloughed, and not all workers disclaimer. Obviously not all. Not even most..probably. But many of those who I personally know.

[BatShite]

I totally get you, Its gone from protecting the NHS to trying to stop anyone from ever getting covid

Exactly. Now numbers are looking better, suddenly control is not good enough and we should be getting 0 cases at all else doom to the world!!!!!!

[TheKeatingFive]

I m sure some people are actually enjoying the whole drama of this shitshow

Absolutely. Many of the on here.

[TheKeatingFive]

Them

[TheKeatingFive]

Its..odd.

I think it’s natural enough for the goal posts to shift.

And there’s a moment in every country where they think elimination is possible and that’s intoxicating.

But it’s very obviously a pipe dream. NZ can’t manage it ffs. No hope for the rest of us. Everyone needs to be clear about what we can achieve, while maintaining a semblance of life for everyone. Find that balance and get people on board with it.

[bigknickersbigknockers]

I live in a town close to a town in a local lock down and every weekend hundreds of people come from the lock down area into the town where I live to go out on the lash. Whats the fuckin point of a lock down?

[Jrobhatch29]

"in their words "it's too dangerous to have a consultation in person", yet the same person who said that to me was sat on the next table to me in a bar swilling wine for a couple of hours. Wasn't too dangerous to do that was it?"

My friend rang the doctors the other day because her daughter has a skin problem atm. They said a pharmacist should be able to help so she went to the chemist. The pharmacist actually said" if a doctor refuses to see her then so am I" and wouldn't look at her at all

[canigooutyet]

and in their words "it's too dangerous to have a consultation in person", yet the same person who said that to me was sat on the next table to me in a bar swilling wine for a couple of hours. Wasn't too dangerous to do that was it?

Oh is this the version now been trotted out.
Funnily enough consultations aren't happening because the government have stopped these clinics and departments opening aparantly.

Or was it because they are underfunded? Although a nhs hospital did apparently send their nurses with patients to private hospitals for surgery, and this involved the private nurses twiddling their thumbs, whilst the nhs hospital nurses were going between the two hospital theatres. And this has caused delays of some such bollocks because the private hospital had to change the equipment to what the nhs hospital nurses were used to working with.