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).

"f I got covid and died I would consider it part of the way the world works*"

*

How would you know. You would be dead.*

On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland from the west; two days later, France and Britain declared war on Germany, beginning World War II. On September 17, Soviet troops invaded Poland from the east.

I dont think todays situation compares???? Are we invading other countries.

@BogRollBOGOF

Let's hope the Covid 19 vaccine is more effective than the flu vaccines. Get the wrong flu strain and 50,000 can die (2018). No body blinked at that. We didn't close the schools, shut down business and reduce the NHS to an empty shell and let people with any other health condition prolong their suffering. Broadly the same high risk demographic (elderly, imunocompromised, respiritory difficulties...)

And we did shut everything down for Covid and still that many people died.

[quote RingORingORoses]@SelkieQualia was reading about ‘issues’ with this vaccine. It’s apparently rushed so there’s disclaimers with it.[/quote]
Any vaccine carries risks, it's just that they are outweighed by the benefits. The UK vaccine (as opposed to the Chinese and Russian ones, which are already in use) is going through the full safety and efficacy testing. The recent pause in the trial signifies that the safety rules are working as they should. The trial has re commenced.

Read up to page 10 and now have to vent.
I worked in ITU during the outbreak. It was bloody dire. How dare anyone not respect the relatively mild restrictions we have in this country.
This pathetic and frankly sickening attitude about how young people are going to suffer? Really. No they will adapt. Same as the rest of the population.
Get your head a bloody check OP. Realise that this is about protecting the greater good not you.
ITU is already pretty much full, my hospital is already on OPEL 3- 4 is disaster by the way. Staff are off continuously with their children.

If we raise the R rate then it will be awful, why would you want that? And no, I won’t be going back to ITU if I can help it. I have my own MH to cope with, as do many of the other volunteers who helped out. .
Are you going to go and learn all those skills in a couple of weeks? Are you going to be telling their loved ones they can’t even see them on their death beds?
Just give over and behave and do your tiny bit to help.

@Flyonawalk

Puzzled, you are right. The number of UK people without an existing condition who died of covid up the the end of August is 1,390. And for this we have hampered education, destroyed businesses, compromised healthcare. I am not suggesting that covid victims with existing conditions did not matter, but surely this changes what the virus response should be from fit and well people. Wow.

@Flyonawalk do you know realise that many of those people who died who had existing conditions had conditions that had little impact on them and were not fatal eg high blood pressure, high cholesterol.

I have (mild) asthma, so if I died of covid, in your mind this is not a big deal? I'm sure my 6 year old and the child I am pregnant with would disagree.

I know someone who died from covid. He had diabetes. He was in his 50s and had a primary school aged child. Having diabetes does not make his death not worth trying to prevent.

I am not too worried about the safety of the vaccine. Medical ethics will prevail over political urgency in that many experts will speak out if they feel that things have been rushed in a way that compromises safety. Listening to an interview with Prof Michael Osterholm about whatever vaccine may be rolled out in U.S., he was adamant that he and collegues will speak out if they have any concerns. He did say that he would not be so confident about something rolled out in say,
Russia. I would not say I am without concerns, especially as someone with a family who has a had an extremely severe reaction to a vaccine before. But I don't think the wider scientific community will stand for the kind of rush job some people seem to fear.

@IwishIwasyoda where are you?
anywhere he needs a mask because he cannot see well - glasses steam up a lot (children over 5 need to wear masks here), we now can no longer meet up with other families (rule of 6) ... I could go on.

AntiHop, you quoted my post but I am not sure you read it. Fourth sentence of the post you quoted: I specifically said that I was not suggesting that people with pre-existing conditions did not matter. Rather that people who are lucky enough to be healthy are at small risk and could keep society functioning.

Why do people begrudge wearing masks so much? That's what this is about, isn't it?

@Gizmo79 thank you for your service & for being voice of reason. Seriously people, wake up. Can you not see what’s coming? These are not normal times & trying to pretend we can just go back to normal in the midst of a pandemic is driving us ever further from that normality.

With you op

Rather that people who are lucky enough to be healthy are at small risk and could keep society functioning.

Except that even though they're low risk they can still spread the disease.

And dam it in society, we're all muddled in together high risk, low risk, elderly, heart conditions, asthmatics, diabetics, overweight, BAME.

I have an idea, let's social distance and wear a barrier cover mask to keep the spread on the low!

We successfully flattened the curve

That’s what should matter

Any tightening of restrictions is just taking the piss

The R figure is above 1 again so the curve is no longer flat.

@endoftheworldaoife

If you wait a couple of years, there will be no jobs, no schools, no hospitals. We can't exist in a half world.

More people are dying from suicide than covid at the moment.

This !!!!! Most people are dying of suicide I know two

At least a quarter of the country have an underlying condition or are the age of vulnerability of the virus.

The majority of the elderly have a good few years left and those younger could mainly live long full lives.

Yet...

Some above seem to think if all these people died, it’d be OK.

Scary.

I’ve lost four friends, family and workmates to suicide before Covid.

Shall we tackle the disease of capitalism too?

We flattened the curve. Past tense. Now we need to flatten the new one.

@Flyonawalk

AntiHop, you quoted my post but I am not sure you read it. Fourth sentence of the post you quoted: I specifically said that I was not suggesting that people with pre-existing conditions did not matter. Rather that people who are lucky enough to be healthy are at small risk and could keep society functioning.

Ok so how would that work? Are you saying that those of us with long term, managed, health conditions should have shielded? Perhaps the government could have paid our salaries for those who couldn't work for home, instead of furloughing lots of people. I would have been happy to be paid to shield!

However, how does that work with the rest of our households? Would my daughter stay off school? What about the many people who live in house shares or multi generation households? Very common where I live (London). Would the whole household shield? What about when I have to get on the bus to go to a hospital appointment? So I'm mixing with people on public transport or staff in the hospital.

All these months later, nearly 30 million cases of Covid-19 worldwide and close to a million dead, and people still haven't grasped the simple concept of exponential growth, or that all of this started with one infected person - or that we have these already awful numbers of deaths only because of lockdowns, quarantines, and restrictions (bungled, irrational, and otherwise), and that without lockdowns, quarantines, and restrictions, the streets would be paved with the dead, as they have been in some poorer countries.

Numbers are rising in many places. Perhaps there will be another maths lesson soon. Doubt those sulking about their social lives being hampered will grasp these facts, then, either.

If this virus was affecting the young and not the elderly and vulnerable would you all be willing to not follow the guidance? Don’t think so

Ah well - maybe the cuntier of posters would be saying:

• well they can stay indoors while the rest of us go about their business
• well they don’t contribute to the economy
• well they’ve hardly lived so it doesn’t - a parent can always have another one

@cbt944 I agree with your post. The second wave is coming and we will need to flatten the curve again. The hard of thinking might have trouble getting to grips with the facts, but hopefully most people will understand the need to slow transmission in order to prevent a total collapse of the NHS this winter. Maybe if the majority of people are compliant with wearing masks, SD and limiting their social interaction then we won't need another lockdown, but from what I've seen lately I think there are too many people ignoring the guidance, so I won't hold my breath (except for when passing a coughing unmasked person who I can't avoid).

My kids are teenagers but their lives will be negatively impacted if I get Covid and die. I am a lone parent as their father pushed off and doesn’t care. They admit they would find it very hard to cope without me - no grandparents or extended family. Think of that as you merrily flout the law.

Agree with you OP. people need to look after themselves. If they’re following the guidelines then they’re safe and about butt out of everyone else’s life. If someone chooses not to wear a mask (which is their own prerogative) then if other people are wearing their magical mask they’re protected aren’t they so what’s the big deal. Yes it affects people and yes people die. Many diseases and viruses do that. It’s life

@CursesAndMagic except the madk is yo protect others from your germs.