No one can fix this apart from us

[notevenat20]

It's clear that numbers of cases are now going up rapidly. It seems likely we will copy either Spain or France but a few weeks behind. The only way to stop this is for us to change our behaviour. There is no other way.

We need to stop socialising, wear masks, wash our hands, keep our distance and not decide to break the law/do the opposite just because the govt annoys us. We don't need to wait for the govt to pass laws or tell us what to do. We already know.

No one can fix this apart from us.

Newsflash - Viruses spread. That’s what they do. AND you can’t see them, so it’s really hard to stop them spreading.

If everyone confined themselves to their houses regardless of work, school, illness, accidents etc for 2-4 weeks, the virus would die off. However, that isn’t at all possible, so it will spread wherever people come into contact with one another.

If people meet at schools or work, the virus will spread there and will be brought home to households.

There is no escaping it and limiting what family you see after teaching over 100 kids in a day, isn’t going to make a blind bit of difference.

This virus will keep spreading and spreading until we either have a vaccine, treatment, until it weakens to something not as serious or it dies off itself.

We CANNOT fix it. We can only ride it out.

That is good news.

I would still be sceptical of how soon it will come. In order to give a clean bill of health they have to be confident of no long-term effects and for that you need time.

Yay for a “medical advance before spring”.

Those silly scientists just arseing around the last 20 years barely even trying. 🙄

My opinion is no less significant than yours

The difference being that I'm not telling other people what to do.

@Eyewhisker. The trial has already restarted.

The pause in the Oxford vaccine was not due to a bloke with a cold

I never said it was

Is there any reason why your opinion about when it will be available should be correct & the leading scientists/specialists incorrect?

I just feel a bit fed up. People rushing back to the UK to escape having to quarantine, pubs and homes etc packed this weekend to get in the fun before Monday's restrictions, best get the birthday party done now... etc. The wrong message is being picked up.

I am really hoping for a medical advance by Spring. It's true that we had a tough time in the Spring but it would have been hugely worse if it had been the same time as the winter flu.

Very wise.

@Tomatoesneedtoripen

but you could still go out every night mixing with 5 people we need to follow Belgium

Only if you maintain 2 metre social distancing from the other people, as per the covid guidance!

People have forgotten about social distancing - that's obvious just from observing what other people are doing.

If everyone confined themselves to their houses regardless of work, school, illness, accidents etc for 2-4 weeks, the virus would die off.

If that were true it would be worth doing. It isn't true!

I know I am wasting my breath, but just for the record, again:
(a) for the vast majority of people, Covid-19, like a lot of viruses that we are exposed to, is a mild infection if even that. And even a "bad" case is, for most, nothing worse than flu (real flu, not the sniffles that half the population describe as flu).
(b) according to the statistics a tiny percentage of the population are positive at any time, and it is arguable that if suppression hasn't worked (which it hasn't) then it is time to think outside that box.
(c) there is a huge difference between those who die "with Covid present and those who die of Covid. All the evidence suggests that the vast majority of deaths are the former and not the latter - in other words, people who have died from other causes. We do not record the deaths of people who die from other causes and have flu/ a cold / some other thing present, so why are we doing so for Covid? Yes, if you are old or have serious underlying conditions, Covid may exacerbate existing risk of death - but that is the minority of people, and it is equally true for absolutely every* virus and bacteria those people come into contact with!

Those silly scientists just arseing around the last 20 years barely even trying. 🙄

Ha! How little you know! It wasn't that they weren't trying, it was a funding issue. There was no point continuing funding for viruses that had been contained or weren't problematic enough to be front of the queue. If you read scientific journals, you'd see scientists warning that the time to do the research being done now was previously (ie are the time of writing) but they couldn't because the funding was not available. Now it's available in unimaginable quantities and everyone is working around the clock rather than asking for funding for a hypothetical pandemic which they would work on in fits and starts which is usually how it's done. See the difference?

Those silly scientists just arseing around the last 20 years barely even trying. 🙄

You mean since early 2020 surely.

I'm by no means anti vaccination but serious very rare side effects are standard. It's not usually considered a reason not to give up on a vaccine and probably won't be now.

If that were true it would be worth doing. It isn't true!

It's not not true. We eradicated SARS by similar methods. It's just that covid is more difficult.

moondust

Not sure you've entirely grasped the concept of excess deaths.

For those who don't believe in any of this, take a look at the number of cases in China at the moment.

What an inflated sense of your own importance you have OP. Do you think those who are having house parties etc are going to read this and say ‘oh thank you @KitKatastrophe for helping me see the error of my ways’?.
People who are obeying the ‘rules’ will continue to do so. Those choosing not to aren’t going to change their minds because of a post on Mumsnet.
Of course cases were going to rise when things reopened and people started mixing again (and by mixing I mean going back to work as well as socialising). Anyone who is surprised by this must not really understand how virus transmission works.

I am not sure most people are doing what’s needed

There are literally hundreds of posts on here of people who want to bend the rules and others piling on saying yes that’s fine just use common sense like I do.

Look at all the posts across all social media of hundreds if not thousands who are not going to follow the rules, who are going to go to work even if track and trace contact them, who are going to give false information to restaurants etc

Lots of cases are down to people not SD, not following the rules

I dont know what the answer is because we can’t force people to do it, and if they are not following the rules they are not going to start now

Ye Gods, enough already with the heroic martyr complexes please......

It's a muddle, it has been since the outset, it's been appallingly handled from the get go from on high and now the buck is being passed onto people who have ostensibly been following rules and guidelines and trying to boost the economy at the same time.

As many have pointed out, it is utterly illogical to start restricting domestic and family gatherings when social distancing is scant in workplaces and schools even if you try your best.

It is no wonder people are asking hard questions and chafing against it all.

Some people are utterly wired to point fingers and be sanctimonious ..... and I say that as someone waiting to hear the result of a family member's friend's test, which may lead to a domino effect in our circles. It's a crap shoot. If the result is positive, it's likely because person in question works in the hospitality sector and some poor bugger probably bought a pint of him, following guidelines before they even developed symptoms.

No tests without symptoms, even then it's almost impossible to get tests, you can have it and be asymptomatic and possibly infectious but how would you know without a test?

But am I sharpening my pitchfork? Am I fuck, because most people ARE TRYING to follow all the rules and the virus hasn't been copied in apparently.

It's taken till today for the Guardian to report that authorities are warning people not to have a last hurrah over the weekend. Well, shouldn't that have been emphasised when they announced the 6 people thing (where people's diaries are going to start resembling Venn diagrams) - or was it left this late because it will mean a weekend boost of the economy? And why not put it in place after 24 hours? Why wait till sodding Monday? I despair, I really do.

I am already doing all this.
I am socialising within the guidelines.

I agree people shouldn’t just make things up as they go along because they don’t like who is currently in power. I despise the Tory party & BJ but I’m doing my best to not catch, and therefore not spread Covid.

BUT - this goes both ways and the government need to see that confidence in them is at an all time low. People are far less likely to conform to these measures as a result.

@notevenat20

If that were true it would be worth doing. It isn't true!

It's not not true. We eradicated SARS by similar methods. It's just that covid is more difficult.

We so did not! When SARS-CoV-1 developed there were no massive lockdowns and nobody paid very much attention to it at all. In all cases of outbreaks, SARS-CoV-1 has been largely self-limiting and nobody knows why. In the end, it appears it largely died out - quite possibly because it isn't a very efficient virus due to the fact it's kill rate is relatively high. Efficient viruses tend not to kill frequently, which facilities their spread. One of the most inefficient viruses in the world is also a scary one - Ebola.

BTW, not to burst your bubble about SARS being eradicated or anything, but you do know that Covid-19 is actually SARS-CoV-2. In other words - both are SARS!

PP's saying everyone is following the rules..... they really aren't. Full train from London to Cambridge this morning, only DD was wearing a mask.

We do not record the deaths of people who die from other causes and have flu/ a cold / some other thing present Yes, we do.

Oh. Silly me. I didn’t know cash could change science.

@Baaaahhhhh

We do not record the deaths of people who die from other causes and have flu/ a cold / some other thing present Yes, we do.

Evidence please. We do not. We may - if we have tested for viruses or bacteria, record a secondary cause of death if that virus or bacteria actually did have a significant contribution to the death. We do not apply the same measure to Covid-19, which is recorded as present, but we haven't tested for anything else and being present does not make it a contributory cause of death. At the moment is is entirely possible to die of a road traffic accident with Covid present (clearly not the cause of a RTA) but not have flu recorded on the death certificate of someone who died of cancer because the cancer was what killed them. This is a nonsense. As many experts have pointed out.

@BeyondMyWits - its not that the wrong message has been picked up, its just that the bulk of the population aren't scared of covid anymore.

They know they are unlikely to die. They know they are unlikely to be particularly very sick.

The vunerable are better shielded, if you catch it and get sick, medical staff are better at treating you, and importantly, the hospitals aren't overrun.

For most people, there is nothing to fear from catching covid. (Not even factoring in those who have already had it.)

The benefit from avoiding covid doesn't feel worth the cost.