When do we end lockdowns and let people live a full life

[frasersmummy]

It's looking ever more likely more cities including Glasgow will go back into lockdown..

Mainly from what I can see to stop people meeting indoors

There has to come a point when mental health is as important as physical health.. Keeping loved ones apart does noones mental health any. Good

So where do we draw the line.. There has to be a point when lockdown is just wrong.

For me it's wrong now.. Enough of keeping friends and families apart

And yet despite there being a vaccine, thousands of vulnerable people die from flu every winter... I always find that a very odd argument, that we don't worry about flu because there is a vaccine, that doesn't stop people from dying in large numbers!

[quote BreathlessCommotion]@latticechaos but that is exactly what has happened. We have decided that dying of Covid-19 is worse than dyinf of cancer. Thousands of people will die of treatable cancers because of Covid-19 and missed diagnosis and treatment.

We decided that saving lives from covid was more important than protecting women and children from abuse, more important than our children's mental health, more important than those with mental illness (who have seen already scant services cancelled).[/quote]
In addition, ee have made dying of anything worse than it could be, because of covid19.

I saw a desperately sad post by a nurse about babies in special care units whose father's didn't get to see them for months because their mother needed to be there to establish breastfeeding and only one 'visitor' was allowed. Since when was the parent of a baby a visitor?! .

About the anguish when babies died with parents given limited access to them and only one at a time because of it.

How can this have been allowed? I don't think we'll look back in 5/10 years time and feel very proud about how we isolated people from their loved ones in the last months of their life.

SheepandCow I was talking about eliminating it and living a normal life eg NZ and some states in Aus.

NYC got it under control but still have cases daily don’t they? What restrictions do they have in place to stop it re emerging? And what proportion of people have had it.

Our deaths and hospitalisations are incredibly low, maybe as theirs are, we have it fairly under control atm.

And yes we've got a vaccine for flu. Still doesn't stop people dying of it though, where's our lockdown for that?

Of course people still die from flu even though there is a vaccine because many people don't/won't have the vaccine. Surely people have to take some responsibility for their own choices.

@Shesingsshangrila

And yet despite there being a vaccine, thousands of vulnerable people die from flu every winter... I always find that a very odd argument, that we don't worry about flu because there is a vaccine, that doesn't stop people from dying in large numbers!

I don’t understand. I get the flu vaccine yearly and it’s free on the NHS for the elderly and others. What more can society do? I wouldn’t call free vaccines “not giving a shit.”

In 5 years if there’s a COV2 vaccine similarly widely available then it will be viewed the same way.

You dont think removing covid controls would cause people mental health problems?

Flu vaccine stats for 2017/18.

It's not just people who can't/won't have it.
It comes down to effectiveness too.
12.2 percent for people in my age group.

Nothing is without risk. benefit of a 12 percent effective vaccine doesn't feel enough to warrant it for me.
Vitamin d, fresh air, exercise, a reasonable diet, attempting to deal with stress factors in a healthy way together feel like more robust approaches for me.

@longwhiskers
I'm David Icke??? My posts show clearly that I'm the opposite of a far right racist fascist. Some others in here, maybe. The continued refusal to see the consequences (despite it staring them in the face) of failing to take coronavirus precautions, and the contempt for vulnerable people's lives. That's the Icke way. Completely opposite to my way.

Re the flu. Yes it still kills many despite the vaccine. But by that argument we might as well not bother restarting the much called for cancer treatments on here. Because afterall it still kills many despite treatment.

It's about mitigating the risks. With cancer treatment, as with the flu vaccine, we do all that we can to limit the deaths. We'd have a hell of a lot more without the vaccine. Not everyone takes it either. The uptake is often fairly low.

@SheepandCow

The sooner we actually deal with it, the quicker it will be back to more normality. My family are in South Australia. Couple of months lockdown at the start. No longer needed because they have closed international ^and^ state borders. Only allowing in returning permanent residents, who have to quarantine (at their own expense). Guess what? Within the state everyone is living a pretty much normal life. We either deal with it properly - with temporary strict measures for one-two months, or it just drags on and on and on.

Yes but the state is far from returned to normal given that both international and state borders remain closed. Just because those living within the state are now able to go about there days as normal they are still unable to have friends/families from outside of its borders visit for example, nor can you travel abroad so to that end the situation for those living there does drag on and on.

@SoManyActivities

People can live like this for many years if needed , it's not so restrictive. The point is if people truly observe the guidelines we won't spend years this way.

How? We can't eradicate this virus without a vaccine - how will observing the guidelines get rid of it quickly? People always say 'the more we observe the guidelines the quicker this will all be over' but how? Technically, letting it run riot through the population would get rid of it more quickly as it would kill the people who were going to die of it anyway and would eventually achieve herd immunity. But obviously that's not an option either!

Can't believe people are actually advocating just shutting the boarders and sitting tight until a vaccine comes - yes, that is totally realistic

Also, Italy's hospital beds were not 'full of 30 and 40 year olds'.

It's because SD and masks and sanitising etc all support a greater chance of breaking transmission.

Virus need a host so that's why they transmit.

Hence lockdown.

It's what NZ did and they had no cases. In theory we would want to eliminate it.

But you are right that to really do that we'd have to shut borders etc and that's also unrealistic.

So right now the measures are just to keep control of it as it spreads through.

I honestly am at the point where I don't think any way is better than another.

The way will be whatever way the government of a country decides to continue having the least impact they feel in health and economy.

Nothing's perfect @pennylane83
But it's a better normal than ours. Normal hospital appointments, outings, work, schools, etc. It won't be forever. Within a year there'll be mass availability of a vaccine. It's a temporary border closure.

Many many people live far away from friends and family. Most can't just fly all over the place to see them at the drop of a hat. It's too expensive or inconvenient because of work or family commitments. Unlike in the very recent past (before air travel was so common) people didn't even have the wonders of online technology to keep in touch. We're very lucky.

Also, I thought there was widespread support for more limited international travel due to climate change concerns? Last year's protests were very prominently supported by high profile figures representing governments, media, celebrities, and large companies. One minute we're told we need to limit our carbon footprint, the next apparently life is over because we can't fly for a few months.

The problem is that people always say 'we need to return to normal because of the mental health of some people'. But returning to normal will cause mental health problems for others.

Some people's idea of returning to normal means meeting friends or family, hugging each other, not wearing masks in shops etc., going back to work in the work place (not WFH).

But there will be a lot of people who still won't meet up or who may not want to hug when they do, or who may prefer to wear masks or who ask (successfully) to WFH for the time being.

There was a woman on the radio who was getting very het up the other week. She missed her friends at work and thought everyone should be told to get back to the office - she was getting depressed because she missed the chats, friendships, after work pub visit on Friday night. Someone pointed out that, if even a few of those people continued to work from home, her friendships at work would look very different and that many people may well force themselves into go back into the office or wherever, but no one could force them to go to the pub after work. They also couldn't be forced to use the kitchen to make a cuppa whilst she was in there (a 'normal' way of socialising). She seemed genuinely shocked that some fellow workers just wouldn't take the extra risk of socialising or may not want to be in a small room (kitchen) with another person for any real length of time if they didn't have to. Which amazed me.

There's risk and there's risk - I'll go on holiday in a plane but I won't sky dive. My choice. Other love to take the bigger risk of sky diving or whatever. The choice is also mine about when and how I see my family (if they are also willing to meet up and it's OK with lockdown of course), whether I eat out or stay home with a take away, whether I go to the cinema or theatre. My choice - no one else's. So 'normality' will mean different things to different people and we have to get used to the idea that, for some people, functioning in a semi-lockdown for the moment makes them able to face the day, just as doing that for others is extremely hard.

Just because Boris says it's OK doesn't mean people have to go back to how they lived in 2019 and many won't for the moment - they'll watch how things go and put a toe in the water to test it now and then before they take the plunge. That's their right too.

I saw a desperately sad post by a nurse about babies in special care units whose father's didn't get to see them for months because their mother needed to be there to establish breastfeeding and only one 'visitor' was allowed. Since when was the parent of a baby a visitor?!

Since when should the needs of a mother and baby, and a whole hospital, be put at risk for the father?

Sorry the father couldn't see the baby for a few weeks but mother, baby and the hospital must be the priority. Surely hes grown up enough to understand that?

The flu vaccine effectiveness varies from year to year. It depends how good they were at predicting which strains would be prevalent. Some years they get this prediction right more than others.
You can see that 2017-2018 was a particularly bad year when influenza B was highly prevalent and wasn't covered in the trivalent vaccine.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6685099/#:~:text=The%202017%2F18%20influenza%20season,in%20long%2Dterm%20care%20facilities.

@LondonJax

The problem is that people always say 'we need to return to normal because of the mental health of some people'. But returning to normal will cause mental health problems for others.

Some people's idea of returning to normal means meeting friends or family, hugging each other, not wearing masks in shops etc., going back to work in the work place (not WFH).

But there will be a lot of people who still won't meet up or who may not want to hug when they do, or who may prefer to wear masks or who ask (successfully) to WFH for the time being.

There was a woman on the radio who was getting very het up the other week. She missed her friends at work and thought everyone should be told to get back to the office - she was getting depressed because she missed the chats, friendships, after work pub visit on Friday night. Someone pointed out that, if even a few of those people continued to work from home, her friendships at work would look very different and that many people may well force themselves into go back into the office or wherever, but no one could force them to go to the pub after work. They also couldn't be forced to use the kitchen to make a cuppa whilst she was in there (a 'normal' way of socialising). She seemed genuinely shocked that some fellow workers just wouldn't take the extra risk of socialising or may not want to be in a small room (kitchen) with another person for any real length of time if they didn't have to. Which amazed me.

There's risk and there's risk - I'll go on holiday in a plane but I won't sky dive. My choice. Other love to take the bigger risk of sky diving or whatever. The choice is also mine about when and how I see my family (if they are also willing to meet up and it's OK with lockdown of course), whether I eat out or stay home with a take away, whether I go to the cinema or theatre. My choice - no one else's. So 'normality' will mean different things to different people and we have to get used to the idea that, for some people, functioning in a semi-lockdown for the moment makes them able to face the day, just as doing that for others is extremely hard.

Just because Boris says it's OK doesn't mean people have to go back to how they lived in 2019 and many won't for the moment - they'll watch how things go and put a toe in the water to test it now and then before they take the plunge. That's their right too.

👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

We are black, DH is vulnerable... If I had to go into the office to work, I'd be staying well clear of these types of people. It really would not be personal, she's entitled to want to socialise. Anecdotally, quite a few people who have tried to go back into offices have had to wfh again due to someone testing positive. So now more people who were tentative about going in (who work in these offices) will not bother going in until next year.

Keeping loved ones apart does noones mental health any. Good
Not everyone is going to suffer poor mental health as a result of Coronavirus restrictions, even if they can't see their families. I don't feel there are any restrictions that impact me on major level now.

@Flaxmeadow

I saw a desperately sad post by a nurse about babies in special care units whose father's didn't get to see them for months because their mother needed to be there to establish breastfeeding and only one 'visitor' was allowed. Since when was the parent of a baby a visitor?!

Since when should the needs of a mother and baby, and a whole hospital, be put at risk for the father?

Sorry the father couldn't see the baby for a few weeks but mother, baby and the hospital must be the priority. Surely hes grown up enough to understand that?

How is a mother coming and going from a hospital any less safe than both parents coming and going?

I don’t think there are many worse ways of dying at 80, than dying alone in a hospital and saying goodbye to your loved ones via Zoom.

Everyone, ideally, should have a good death and it's distressing to think of anyone not doing so but I take issue with this. In fact it's hit a nerve based on having had a loved one die an extremely traumatic death which was many times worse than what you're describing. In reality that strikes me as a pretty normal way to die in that great numbers of elderly die alone every single year and few people have ever cared before the pandemic. Lots and lots of people live in care homes where they get minimal visits if they're unlucky and pass away without anyone with them in hospital or in the care home. And in many cases those elderly people who died in hospital early on in the pandemic either wouldn't have been conscious of what was happening thanks to sedation/drugs or had a caring staff member trying their best to give them a good death where relatives couldn't be with them. Don't get me wrong, I care and I don't want anyone dying without relatives present if possible but yes there very much are worse ways to die, particularly outside of our privileged bubble in the UK and that is unfortunately just life. It's not something most people get to have control over. I think in many ways, if you're very frail and elderly, there isn't a vast amount of difference between a death from Covid and a death from pneumonia which has typically always been called the old people's friend for a reason (it spares people from lingering and suffering for a long time). If you are dying at 80 then you are privileged too, in many ways. Not everyone gets a long life.

We aren't very good as a society at talking about death but we should be given it happens to everyone. A lot of people seem to have looked at this pandemic and thought about the reality of how some die for the first time ever (I'm not saying you in particular, but generally speaking).

A lot of people seem to have looked at this pandemic and thought about the reality of how some die for the first time ever

This has very much been my impression too.

[quote BreathlessCommotion]@latticechaos but that is exactly what has happened. We have decided that dying of Covid-19 is worse than dyinf of cancer. Thousands of people will die of treatable cancers because of Covid-19 and missed diagnosis and treatment.

We decided that saving lives from covid was more important than protecting women and children from abuse, more important than our children's mental health, more important than those with mental illness (who have seen already scant services cancelled).[/quote]
I think really what has happened is a new, complex, serious illness has arrived and we don't know what to do.

No one has sat down, gone through the list rationally and said 'i don't give a shit about cancer deaths'. We have a grossly underfunded public sector, we weren't prepared (failure by government) and now we are in a mess.

NYC got it under control but still have cases daily don’t they? What restrictions do they have in place to stop it re emerging?

nyc have a miniscule amount of cases, their test positivity rate has been below 1% for weeks. At this point the lockdown measures are destroying the city- people are leaving in droves, thousands, homelessness is a bigger problem than ever, crime is increasing and at least 25% of restaurants have already gone out of business. They are actually suing to be allowed to reopen for indoor dining which is allowed in other parts of the state.

It hasnt re-emerged anywhere that was hard hit in march, including new york.

Bereavement is very depressing.

I think really what has happened is a new, complex, serious illness has arrived and we don't know what to do

But it absolutely is not a "serious illness" for the vast vast majority of people.

@FromEden

NYC got it under control but still have cases daily don’t they? What restrictions do they have in place to stop it re emerging?

nyc have a miniscule amount of cases, their test positivity rate has been below 1% for weeks. At this point the lockdown measures are destroying the city- people are leaving in droves, thousands, homelessness is a bigger problem than ever, crime is increasing and at least 25% of restaurants have already gone out of business. They are actually suing to be allowed to reopen for indoor dining which is allowed in other parts of the state.

It hasnt re-emerged anywhere that was hard hit in march, including new york.

That reaffirms what I thought. It’s not normal in the same way some Aus states are (apart from border control).

I cannot see my family who live abroad at the moment. It makes me sad and I miss them, but I prefer that they are safe and healthy.