How can you do this to your children (and yourselves)?

[endoftheworldaoife]

It has been six months and it's now very clear that covid won't be doing away in our lifetimes. A vaccine won't eradicate it (just as a vaccine didn't eradicate flu).

Most of you seem to be willing to accept social distancing and masks for the foreseeable. And I don't get it. We are a tribal species. We literally die without contact and get sick without communication. Kids are learning arrange, stilted ways of being that will just worsen their digital reliance. OCD is being normalised. Dating will be neurotic and masked. Freshers won't make new loves or lifelong friends like we did. As for their working lives...

I wouldn't mind catching covid (indeed I'm sure we all will sooner or later) so can someone explain to me what on earth is happening in their heads to tip the balance? If it only affected us, I could understand (well, I couldn't but this feels like child abuse on a giant scale).

it's beyond anything our species has ever had to endure

World War 1.
World War 2
Nagasaki.
Hiroshima.
Concentration Camps - Hitler etc
Mass murder in Africa, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union.
Communism
North Korea
Cambodia - Pol Pot
School shootings
Terrorism

and no doubt many other atrocities.

And in not one of those examples was every single person forced to endure restrictions on their social contacts.

You cope with trauma through togetherness.

You are selfish cold people, I think. To talk about accepting this for years.

I certainly won't and I hope enough others feel likewise that we can force an end.

tbh the OP =

half truths and 'half ' facts' wrapped up in negativity and catastrophe.

C'mon then, here we are.

Tell us what the better road out of this.

The idea that we shouldn't try to control COVID so that cancer treatment can go ahead is a bit misguided, to put it mildly.

How will cancer patients access treatment if the hospitals are full people dying of the virus?

The NHS can (usually) cope fine with flu, colds and chicken pox. COVID is on a different scale entirely. There won't be any capacity for cancer patients at all if the virus is left to run its course.

PS: wearing a mask and standing two metres away from people isn't really forcing people to endure restrictions on their social contacts.

But for the sake of getting a sensible answer from you...what's your plan then?

I haven't had anyone I know yet die from covid very fortunately, but I have had lots of 2nd hand experience with serious depression and a few suicides (over years, not from covid).

So many jobs lost, so many people with no income (not just in UK, but globally) really problems are being stored up which will all come home to roost 1000x.

No one wants the elderly and vulnerable to die and to say they do is hyperbole. It is worrying that everyone is saying it's just till a vaccine is available. Many people will want to wait a few years to have it when it is more tried and tested, and those who rush to get it will want everyone else to have it immediately, and there is going to be a serious divide.

Actually dreading the future. I saw 2 small girls around 7 or 8 having a tennis lesson. When the teacher said they could remove their masks they shook their heads and clutched on to them. They ran around for an hour breathing their own co2 . Such fear in little toys is so awful.

Also, @chloemol , I don't do any of the things you mentioned because I believe good health requires us to live as naturally as possible.

I think I probably had it in February but if I didn't I don't mind getting it asap. We will all get it.

I'm hopeful I can leave the UK before the end of the year because I dont see the point of being alive like this.

You know it's not just happening in the UK though, right OP? I think one of the island countries in the South Pacific is still COVID free - was it Nauru? Is that where you're headed?

London has low rates thanks to early herd immunity

Why do people just make things up?

You do know that there have been serious recessions before don't you? Despite that, people had good lives?

In the Spanish flu, the us states that suffered the smallest recession were the ones with the harshest lockdowns , because they could get back to normal...real normal, not a normal with hospitals and mortuaries overflowing, fear and panic In the street, businesses disrupted due to high sick and compassionate leave . ....

@endoftheworldaoife

And in not one of those examples was every single person forced to endure restrictions on their social contacts.

You cope with trauma through togetherness.

You are selfish cold people, I think. To talk about accepting this for years.

I certainly won't and I hope enough others feel likewise that we can force an end.

Are you seeing people op?

You sound a bit like you’re spiralling. I’m in the park and everyone looks happy, with friends, family, no masks.

Do you know OP, I don't think people will continue to put up with it.
It's why Boris is suddenly pushing the Brexit agenda again.
The numbers speak for themselves, even though the press likes shock value, only 2.5% of those having a test have been positive in the last month. Hospital admissions are very low as it now seems to be prevalent in 17-50 year olds. It's when it hits the over 75s that the death rate creeps up again.
I think the government wants us to revolt against the rules. The fines are mediocre at best and barely given out as the police have said they don't have the man power to investigate all reports.
This is the same government remember who said to us all to go forth and eat our, 3 times a day and 3 days a week, indoors to help out. Who then, when people do exactly that as what else was there to do after months indoors, told us all off for getting it spreading again. If they truly wanted to aid the economy whilst stopping the spread, they would've encouraged the offer not in eat in restaurants where you don't need a mask but in take aways where you do to collect.
They knew what they were doing. They know they cannot keep us locked in and segregated for much longer, and frankly, if they lock us down at Christmas that will be it, people will lose their shit and they will go off and ignore it.
I genuinely think vaccine is a false flag, how many other illnesses are there that we've never succeeded in having a vaccine for?
I don't doubt we may see a small increase in hospital admissions in the next 3 weeks but nothing like March/April. Deaths now are hangovers from June and July in most cases.

OP I think economic necessity will bring about an end to the worst of the restrictions. Not because money trumps lives, but because without a functional economy there will be no healthcare, education, pension funding, infrastructure.

You're quite right, Flyonawalk, it's extremely inconsistent

So, IMO, are the remarks about "think of the war / those in refugee camps / when kids were shoved up chimneys", when seen against the context of the usual MN insistence that "it shouldn't be a race to the bottom"

Except now it seems it is ... so it'll be interesting to see how views shift when the mass job losses start really stacking up and the argument's no longer theoretical for many

No we will not all get it (or at least not until it's treatable )
Unless we are stupid enough to secumb to that kind of negative thinking

If we want everyone to get the virus AND not overwhelm the NHS it takes over 10 years, or more if you don't want cancer treatment halted at any time

I for one am confident of treatment and vaccine in less than 10 years

I'm a young adult, still in the youth that you seem to be so worried about us missing. Yes, it is hard. Yes my mental health isn't great (although I got help much faster than I would have in normal times bc of the availability of zoom appointments via my university). Yes, I'm looking forward to getting back to normal and seeing my friends who live scattered across the UK and Europe. But my mental health and general wellbeing will be significantly worsened if my best friend dies. She's a young person too, who will be "deprived of her youth" for even longer than most, (and has already had a lot of isolation due to illness before covid). For her, and people like her, I'm happy to do all I can to reduce the spread of covid.

Meant to say, it is very frustrating to read that only older people die, why should young people be curtailed

What makes me mad is that with better testing tracing and supported ( £) isolation and an we could still avoid a lot of this

I read somewhere that the high income countries are doing worse than middle income ones because the middle income countries have a population united in controlling the virus , not protecting their individual rights and freedoms

Kids are far more adaptable than adults in the main. What makes you think most kids are suffering? They do most of their socialising at school, which they are now able to attend. My DC's extra-curricular clubs are up and running in a socially distanced way. They are missing seeing their grandparents but they live a long way away and we don't see them much anyway. My DF has hypertension, an underlying condition that would make him at greater risk if he caught Covid, but which is completely controlled by medication leaving him able to lead a normal life for the next couple of decades so I'm not risking us passing it on to him.

Teens can still meet in groups of 6, which is plenty of people to socialise with.

Covid might not kill me, but I still don't want to catch it. My good friend (aged 45) has a partially collapsed lung from when she had it in April.

These threads are so pointless. Lot of people just parroting what they've been told or making up what they reckon. None of us really know anything about covid 19 or the political manouvres surrounding it.

I'm still curious about your solution OP?

I mean obviously you're not 'doing this' to your kids or yourself...so maybe what you are doing could teach the rest of us something.

The Oxford vaccine won't stop you catching or spreading it, it just lightens symptoms

There are many vaccines under development. There are currently 7 in phase 3 trials. Hilda Bastian is excellent at updating information about the trials.

And in not one of those examples was every single person forced to endure restrictions on their social contacts. You’re right, during the Holocaust Nazis could still have parties so that was definitely better than Covid

Yeah things are a pain but it's not like we are living with being bombed every night.

Oh I dunno

Doubtless if mumsnet existed in WW2, OP would refuse to switch off lights during blackout because it was dictatorship and child abuse and it was her risk assessment as to whether her house got bombed so she would do as she damn well oleased