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).

*Personally I would have had a series of rolling restrictions, with them lightening and tightening back up over time, keeping a steady flow of positive infections at a rate that wouldn't overwhelm the NHS during the summer,
@Flyonawalk *

" a steady flow of positive infections"
That sounds amazing. Like a controlled chicken pox party situation.

But tbh it also sounds a pie in the sky given that society is a big muddled mix of low risk and high risk all interdependant on each other. Diabetic teachers, grandparent childminders, BAME health workers, youngsters with over weight parents, cancer patients with families, asthmatic single parents, elderly carers etc etc all living cheek by jowl with young low risk people who we KNOW probably will have few bad effects. Throw the asymptomatic into that mix and you get get a situation that is very hard to control.

( Especially without ROBUST testing ) cheers Bojo.

I can't see the point of saving people from death (a tiny number of people) by making life below worth living.

This is OP. ⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️

This "tiny" number live among us. They are our people. OP is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

The UK unemployment rate has risen to its highest level for two years, official figures show.
The unemployment rate grew to 4.1% in the three months to July, compared with 3.9% previously.
Young people were particularly hard-hit, with those aged 16 to 24 suffering the biggest drop in employment compared with other age groups.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54146833

@chocolatesweets my child has mental health problems and benefitted immensely from a complete break from day to day stress. Some have benefitted and some haven’t. Support shouldn’t have been removed from families with special needs kids. That’s a different issue.

It's not a different issue. It's down to lockdown. And the issue of a decrease in services due to covid.

Good for you that you benefited. Shall we all go into lockdown again? It's great that you got a break but do it on your own terms.

@CrunchyNutNC

It appears to me that it is those who wish to prolong/increase existing restrictions are the ones that do not acknowledge the damage to the economy, mental health, physical health caused by our ongoing reaction to the virus

Eh? We are living with the effects of the ongoing reaction to the virus, it's very clear the effect it is having. However I am not so naive to suggest that we can simply revert back to normal because we just decide to

How much better would the economy fare if it became the norm to know people who've died from covid, people who don't seem very different to us? Will seeing the mortuary van or ambulance taking people from your street again amid reports of a growing body count make you think 'oh, I'll go and do a bit of recreational shopping today'? Will hearing about a close friend's relative who couldn't receive treatment for a stroke or heart attack because the specialist unit was not receiving patients and they had to be driven a further 90 minutes to another unit, make you think 'oh, I fancy Nando's tonight then maybe the cinema.' No, no normal person in their right mind would respond that way, that's the point- the economy is screwed either way and the current approach is considered least bad.

Nobb bc we cannot go back to normal.

But we can prioritise businesses SD and schools and keep more of a lid on it. Even at 1000 deaths a day we didn’t have these scenes. We have a fair leeway. Must if what stopped us the first time was a successful campaign based on making us fearful.

But we can prioritise businesses SD and schools and keep more of a lid on it.

But we're doing that aren't we?

Schools open
Business open
SD
masks
rule of 6 socially

@sunglassesonthetable

But we can prioritise businesses SD and schools and keep more of a lid on it.

But we're doing that aren't we?

Schools open
Business open
SD
masks
rule of 6 socially

Yes we are. I am arguing for keeping it as it is rather than closing businesses ie going back to full lockdown.

I find this really alarming now. I feel like I’m in some weird reality where facts and figures do not count.

We are at our lowest point of fatalities, more people die a day in RTA. There is concrete evidence that’s been published that’s shows us the fatalities of ages across the board has significantly reduced despite the small pockets of infection rises. Infection rises does not mean fatality rises anymore. The data is showing us this.

Yet we are moving to a place where local lockdown are happening, families are being restricted from seeing each other, elderly people in care homes and hospital patients can not see their families, a spokes person from the WHO has said we are at the point where we should go in to homes and remove ill people and put them in isolation, children are being forced home from school and forced to isolate with out any symptoms

We have the government and police encouraging people to snitch on each other and getting the public to turn on each other.

This isn’t right. Are people not seeing this?

@chocolatesweets I am hardly the one who chose lockdown - that was done by the government! It was for the health of the entire nation - everyone - including those with special needs kids. It doesn’t help anyone if hospitals are overwhelmed and causes a whole load of further issues if people end up with life-changing effects of the illness or die, of course!

Nobody chose the virus. The pandemic is simply happening. It’s a question of how we respond. Do we choose to spread it and kill off the vulnerable or do we act responsibly. Young people are highly adaptable and the world will return to normal once the crisis is over.

The Spanish Flu pandemic lasted about 18 months. Then the world returned to “normal”. Whatever that is as normal constantly changes.

I am a lone parent so I don’t feel I can just say “if it kills me, it kills me” - I have people depending on me.

Our kids have been told that if they just have mild snotty colds they are ok to go to school, so I don't recognise the stay at home without symptoms part of that round up Codexdivinchi.

There is a big uptick on the Zoe app of cases round Glasgow which although low in numbers now if it gets into the middle aged male population we KNOW will end up with hospitalisations.

It's the exponential growth that's the issue.

Reading these threads I cannot but be amazed how incapable some people are of delaying gratification and how little patience they possess. It has been 6 months only. They cannot produce a vaccine instantly. We just gonna have to bide our time and mitigate in the meantime.

Young people and university students have typically got parents in their forties and fifties who can have Covid severely, the middle-aged are very much susceptible. They have their grandparents for whom Covid might prove fatal. Do you honestly argue it will be better for young generation to possibly lose a parent to this? And they that “won’t mind” bereavements which can be helped with some restrictions to the lifestyle?

We have seen what happened in Italy when the virus got out of control. It affected people’s mental health massively seeing so much death around them. Grieving their friends and relatives who couldn’t get medical help and who were left to die at home or in hospital corridors because the healthcare system was overwhelmed.

We aren’t doing this for the fun of it, you know. Everybody would rather live “normal life”. I wonder if the people advocating throwing any caution to the wind are vulnerable themselves?

I bet not...

I do love this new, reasoned, mature approach to debate. The extremes on one side screeching that if you don't obey The Rules everyone will suffer and die you cruel murderers, the ultras on another howling that if you take any steps to minimise the spread of infection everyone will suffer and die you cruel murderers.

This is a shit situation. People will suffer whatever we do. Some people will suffer more from catching covid. Others will suffer more from 'lockdowns' and the like. Most of us want as many people as possible to be as safe and well and happy as possible. There will have to be compromise. Life being bastardly unfair, some people will be more impacted than others by whatever we agree upon.

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 I catch covid I will probably be OK, but I have spent many years being a twat and smoking, so maybe I won't. DH probably will too, but with the heart condition he has I wouldn't particularly want to risk it in case of complications. The dc would almost certainly be fine. My dad would probably die, which would literally destroy my mum who is barely hanging on to sanity at the moment and reliant on antidepressants to keep going. She would probably survive but not want to. My best friend was shielding, I think she'd die; her kids would mind very much her having caught covid.

Lots of my colleagues have had it, thankfully all so far have survived although some- and not the ones you would necessarily expect- have been very ill for some time. I am amazed not to have had it given the closeness of my contact with many of them in the immediate run up to their diagnosis. My job continues as normal throughout, we make regular changes to SOPs and constantly update lengthy and detailed plans. Our site plans are incredible, back in the days we thought this could be a plague like situation we had detailed plans for which offices on site could be staff dorms and where we would put bodies and so on. It doesn't sound to me like you have had to sit down and plan for that or anything like it, maybe if you had done, you would realise why precautions are necessary. We can cope with covid working its way through much of the population at a certain rate: health and social care services cannot cope when the spread is as fast as it would be were no precautions taken. People need to remember the restrictions are not so much to prevent infection and death as to slow the spread and ensure services are not completely overwhelmed. If I get covid I want it to be at a time when there are actually beds and ventilators and HCPs available, not at a time where we've all gone "ah fuck it I don't like wearing a mask and avoiding unnecessary social contact I'm going back to normal" and thousands of people are all in need of the same care at the same time.

I don't want to prolong or increase restrictions, I don't want covid to be a thing, I don't want people to be living in lonely terror, I don't want my children to experience the isolation of the last six months, I don't want the current norm to be the long term norm. But I have to deal with the reality we live in, not the nice fantasy world inside my head. In my nice fantasy world we would have a competent government which would prioritise real financial support for people who should not be asked to return to 'normal' life as the risks to them are great, and real financial support and resourcing for services so that education, safeguarding, healthcare and so on can adapt and continue and we don't have as many people lost and isolated and unsupported as we did through the last lockdown. But we don't. We have what we have and we need to grow some fucking ovaries and manage that.

This isn’t right. Are people not seeing this?

With the utmost respect code I do think you are the one that is unable to 'see' reality. We now have an infection rate of 3000-3500 daily. This rate will multiply every few days, so in fact if we do nothing we will soon see tens of thousands again. Many of these cases are in the young at the moment but we are aware that these are now already infecting older people and those that are more vulnerable.

The idea to respond now is to STOP the increase and the spread before it gets out of hand, so that we don't have to another 45,000 people dead and a full on lockdown.

I am not sure why you don't understand it. It is not what is happening now, but what is about to happen if we do nothing.

It’s not just the current facts and figures, it is the risk of it exploding like before. We know that the govt waited for more evidence to lockdown - and that was too late.

If they had looked at other countries and prepared for the worst, Locking down hard and early, we would have had fewer problems. Waiting for evidence of more hospitalizations is more risky than locking down harder and then gradually reducing restrictions when the cases have reduced and hospitalizations have not increased.

The point of local lockdowns is to get numbers down before things really get out of hand. People who say, what’s all the fuss about, there aren’t many hospital cases are missing the point. If you wait until hospitals are really struggling then it’s too late and you end up with stricter lockdowns for longer in order to get it under control.

@unmarkedbythat well said.

@Friendsoftheearth

This isn’t right. Are people not seeing this?

With the utmost respect code I do think you are the one that is unable to 'see' reality. We now have an infection rate of 3000-3500 daily. This rate will multiply every few days, so in fact if we do nothing we will soon see tens of thousands again. Many of these cases are in the young at the moment but we are aware that these are now already infecting older people and those that are more vulnerable.

The idea to respond now is to STOP the increase and the spread before it gets out of hand, so that we don't have to another 45,000 people dead and a full on lockdown.

I am not sure why you don't understand it. It is not what is happening now, but what is about to happen if we do nothing.

You need to look at the new data from Germany. It’s telling us that fatalities across all age groups are declining. We are seeing this here too. Go and look at the evidence rather than being the governments spokesperson. Educate yourself.

The ONS have just released these figures

The number of deaths In England and Wales in the week ending 4 Sep was 7,739 - 16% below the 5-year average (1,443 fewer deaths)

So with all the other non COVID deaths AND COVID deaths we’re are lower than the average of the past five years. Don’t you think that’s odd. All these new infections yet no rise in deaths?? Where is the rise in hospital admissions? 300 people in hospital out of 55 million. 50 of those on ventilators.

You can’t keep using the ‘but it’s young people’ - where do you think the older people are living ? In sheds? Younger people still live at home with older people and like the government keep ramming down our throats the homes are where infections are.

So with the up most respect please go and check the figures out yourself before repeating what you see on the news because it’s bollocks. It’s alarming that a hell of a lot of adults do not have the ability to differentiate from a rise in infections yet no rise in deaths or hospital admissions

@catspyjamas123 i'm not sure those families are better off health wise. Sure they have covid, but what about depression and anxiety and lack of money - loads have lost their jobs. What's being done for them?

@unmarkedbythat brilliant post.

@unmarkedbythat

Your logic is good but I think you're underestimating the suffering done by lockdown and these restrictions.

I might be underestimating the impact on covid if left to it's own devices.

It's a fight between the most vulnerable isn't it?

Surely there's a way for those most able and willing to help out in some way?

They're not just collateral damage.

Surely there's a way for those most able and willing to help out in some way?

The most 'responsible and willing ' should be our own government.

code Again, you are just looking at now, you are not looking at the projections. You are not considering the scientific modelling. I find it incredulous that you are choosing to look at a European country that has one of the LOWEST infection rates, and indeed did very well controlling the virus the first time (with restrictions and lockdowns I might add) but you are not considering the higher infection rate examples like France and Spain, that are now seeing hospitals reaching their limits in terms of admissions, and the infection now leaking into the older age groups.

www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/covid-19-marseille-and-bordeaux-announce-new-restrictions/ar-BB191bs1

My research goes and far beyond sky news code and if your research was more thorough you wouldn't need to post on forums about being 'confused' in the first place.

We are becoming better in hospitals at treating at covid, but we have not yet reached the point of curing or being able to contain the virus easily.

There is no evidence whatsoever that the virus is declining, what links and evidence do you have that the virus is in fact 'declining'?

Seriously you need to add some links, based on real science that the virus is declining. I would say that was wishful thinking on your part, as much as it would be extremely welcome news if it were true.

The majority of people are keen to avoid another hard lockdown and 45,000 deaths, and whatever we can do to avoid that, and lets face it the restrictions are hardly bloody onerous, should be embraced wholeheartedly

You sound like a conspiracy theorist, and prefer my research to be based on facts and evidence.

FWIW the impact of current schooling is far worse on my DD than lockdown was.

Never knowing if someone's off sick with covid or something else. More kids off sick every day 'dropping like flies'. Waiting until they get sick and hoping it's not covid so they don't bring it home to their parents. Trying to SD but being unable to whilst hearing all about how everyone else other than them can't meet more than 6 and have to stay 2m apart (while they are crammed into small rooms with 29 other kids).

Hearing about covid cases in other local schools. Worrying about vulnerable relatives.

The disruption of kids off, coming back, teachers trying to get them to catch up and teach the rest of the class. Siblings off ill, having to isolate. No home schooling provided.

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/world/middleeast/coronavirus-israel-schools-reopen.html

"The lesson, experts say, is that even communities that have gotten the spread of the virus under control need to take strict precautions when reopening schools. Smaller classes, mask wearing, keeping desks six feet apart and providing adequate ventilation, they say, are likely to be crucial until a vaccine is available"

The majority of people are keen to avoid another hard lockdown and 45,000 deaths, and whatever we can do to avoid that, and lets face it the restrictions are hardly bloody onerous, should be embraced wholeheartedly

yep 👍🏻