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).

ust because your kids haven't been abused by the restrictions doesnt mean others haven't.

Of course I understand that.

@endoftheworldaoife

Re the vaccines likely by next winter (not before)

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

It doesn't work well on the over 55s (who are the ones with the dangerous symptoms)

About half of Brits don't want to take it anyway because it's so rushed

Living in hope of a vaccine is the act of someone who doesn't fully appreciate that we're not in a blockbuster film and Dustin Hoffman isn't around the corner

Amazing how you already know the efficacy data from a double blind phase 3 clinical trial which is not expected to produce results until the end of October.

In any case, there are over 170 vaccine candidates, including 9 already in stage 3 trials.

I can't say I can ever recall a poster genuinely saying this.

Yeah... I've never actually seen anyone saying we're gonna be wearing masks until 2348 either. I was exaggerating a little bit ;)

A vaccine won't eradicate it (just as a vaccine didn't eradicate flu)

Given that the virus is only mutating slowly, there is a chance that a vaccine will eradicate it just as a vaccine eradicated smallpox. At the very least a vaccine will bring it under control.

I see no long term harm happening. For context, I work in a nursery and we have been pleasantly surprised at how the children have just picked up where they left off. This is the same at my DC's school. There is no anxiety or OCD happening amongst them and their friends.

To add more context, I had to be isolated for two years as a teen due to severe illness that massively impacted my immune system. When I was allowed back to school, I carried on as I had before. No paranoia about being in contact with others, despite having it drummed into me the two years previous that I was effectively in isolation. My mum now tells me that they were petrified of me going back out into the world, but never once did they show this to me.

Kids and teens pick up on their parent's anxieties, but are very resilient if you give them the chance to be and model this yourself. I think that as adults, we can see the wider picture and therefore worry about it. Children and teens live in the moment and don't tend to think about the long term implications of events like this. This is a (hopefully) temporary situation. Things will go back to normal for the youngsters.

When TB was endemic, untreatable and couldn't be vaccinated against, people made such choices all the time. People, including children, were sent to sanatoriums, others died horribly over time, often taking the rest of their family with them (and many others in their villages and towns) where they were unable to be isolated. Look long enough ago and you'll find some of the vampire scares/stories were caused on the basis of fear of TB, looking desperately for a possible cause and treatment for the disease.

Even now, if somebody is diagnosed with it, the full mechanisms of public health come into force to contact, trace, test and treat. To stop its spread - and in some areas, TB vaccination is once again available; it's a condition of employment in the NHS - in the hospitals I have worked at any rate - that you either have a blood test showing immunity, a BCG scar or you are vaccinated (same with Measles/Mumps/Rubella as well) prior to starting work.

It was also a condition of starting my biologic medications that I had a clear chest x-ray and a blood test to confirm whether I'd been in contact with it in case of the medication causing latent TB to reappear - not just because of the risk to me, but because of the risk I would then pose to the community. It's a lot more uncomfortable to take strong antibiotics when you aren't actually ill (yet) than it is to wear a mask on the bus and only have 6 people in the house.

The effects of TB are awful. The effects of moves to keep TB under control are awful - entire herds of cattle slaughtered, thousands of badgers destroyed unnecessarily and against the evidence int he case of the latter. Nobody enjoys having a BCG, chest x-ray or superstrong antibiotics for six months. There is now a strain which is resistant to the best treatment we have.

To use your 'logic', nobody should ever have bothered doing anything to try and contain the spread prior to a vaccine, should abandon all attempts now the treatments don't work 100% of the time, you wouldn't mind having tuberculosis and spreading it round the community because it's only fair, everybody will get it sooner or later, as teenagers have the human right to get shitfaced and fuck somebody new every night for Freshers' Week so shouldn't be stopped even if the prevalance and transmission rates of TB were at a level the same as this virus.

2348 either

Well I hope I won't be buried in a mask tbh but but the op is actually claiming these are "lifelong restrictions"

news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-britain-only-has-a-few-days-to-avoid-second-national-lockdown-professor-warns-12070680

This does not feel like child abuse.

Our 11 yr old has been inspired by medicines sans frontieres during lockdown and (at the moment) he wants to pursue a career in medicine to contribute to everyone having access to basic healthcare. This has emerged from this pandemic. He has been a true inspiration. (I mean some of his ideas are utterly sci-fi at the moment involving robotic bees, which he is $5 billion behind but nonetheless let's not quash enthusiasm).

Don't get me wrong I could bleet on about all the problems and sacrifices our family have had over the past 6 months but that gets us no where.

So if an 11 yr old can see that wearing a face mask when distancing is difficult, accept that school is different for a bit and understand fun social gatherings have to be postponed for the good of all in society, he would even retake a year or two of school in the grand scheme of things I fail to understand why some adults don't come to these conclusions.

Try to think of this as a pause, just a pause, in our treadmill lives, that not many get, for our youngsters to have the time a space to think about what they truly want to spend their lives doing. Yes they may have to delay a year or two, but when they are 48 if they started university at 20 it really, really, really will not matter. Perhaps some start uni at 20 on their right course rather than 18 on something less suited. Who knows?

Well I hope I won't be buried in a mask tbh but but the op is actually claiming these are "lifelong restrictions"

Yeah, that's why I'm saying people are being hysterical about it now. Just as at the start, they were being hysterical about how severe it was going to be. That was all I was saying.

I agree with the OP too. The willingness which people have embraced the masks, the social distancing, the total FEAR around this virus, the desperation to snitch on your neighbours and to "shame" people not wearing masks - it's awful.

Covid isn't going away. We need to learn to deal with it and assess risk in a sensible way.

I agree OP

For me the saddest thing is that I realised that people rarely think about the impact on children / young people (and if they do they minimise the impact or come out with hackneyed comparisons to the war). My DS is still not doing his regular activities (not allowed/ back), he won't go 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.

And for those posters who say it's only been six months ... well that's a huge proportion of a child's life. It's a small fraction if you are 45. And a tiny amount if you are over 70 ...

Frankly if I was young I would be pretty hacked off by now as their needs / experiences seem to be low down the list of priorities.

So I am sort of following the rules but am prioritising my DC needs first and foremost.

It's not just about people dying either. If we stop all we are doing and let the virus have free rein, we will have a situation where huge swathes of the population fall ill at the same time and are unable to work. That could affect every part of our lives and cause serious issues to the provision of essential services. Imagine the panic that would cause.

I'd rather wear a mask etc. for a few months than risk that happening.

You're being hyperbolic. It's rational to be cautious when dealing with a new pandemic we don't understand that threatens to overwhelm our health service.

As you've pointed out, the situation has (only) been going on for 6 months. Of course you're right, we don't want to be wearing masks for years. But pandemics, with a vaccine or not, eventually water down and go away. Viruses change. The 1918 flu pandemic killed millions - social distancing during that time saved lives as it does now. But it didn't go on forever, just as it won't now. A vaccine is (hopefully) just going to speed that process up. You've talked about seasonal flu, but we do vaccinate for seasonal flu and each year that saves lives by preventing spread and reducing the severity of illness. I don't think we will eradicate covid-19 but it will become a seasonal virus like flu, against which vulnerable groups can be vaccinated.

Because we aren't there yet, let's socially distance to save lives. It is weird for kids, but there are children who have lost their parents and grandparents to this illness.

• @PhilCornwall1 and that is your choice. Those that are most vulnerable are entitled to free vaccination on the NHS and that is what we would do.

My response was with regard to us treating it as a normal flu season.*

I've got no choice, I have to have the flu vaccine, as if I don't, one of my medications is immediately withdrawn.

I know quite a few vulnerable people who should have it that don't. I'm looking out the window at one now.

So, no it's certainly not what all the vulnerable do.

the desperation to snitch on your neighbours and to "shame" people not wearing masks - it's awful.

Always reading this on MN! So not my experience in RL at all.

Actually kindness and support has been the big think.

The willingness which people have embraced the masks, the social distancing, the total FEAR around this virus

I've willingly accepted masks and social distancing because it's an easy way to stop people dying. I have little fear of the virus, but if I can help people not die, I will. I don't expect it to go on for much longer anyway.

@sunglassesonthetable

the desperation to snitch on your neighbours and to "shame" people not wearing masks - it's awful.

Always reading this on MN! So not my experience in RL at all.

Actually kindness and support has been the big think.

Yeh I read more about it on mn than I see lack of consideration in rl. I’m not sure if it’s a production of the imagination or not.

I think YABVU, and overdramatic.

This is a temporary situation, until we achieve herd immunity or a safe, reliable vaccine. It's obviously not an ideal situation; neither is millions of people dying so fast we can't bury them.

The kids are fine. They will be fine. It's going to impact them, for sure, there will be positives as well as negatives.

@VestroPrincipiDivino

I can't say I can ever recall a poster genuinely saying this.

Yeah... I've never actually seen anyone saying we're gonna be wearing masks until 2348 either. I was exaggerating a little bit ;)

I can guarantee that nobody on here will be wearing a mask in 2348.

Just waiting for someone to now post "do you have a link to the source backing that up?"

sockyarn

“I agree with the OP.”

“We need to learn to deal with it and assess risk in a sensible way”

What does that mean?
What is your “sensible way” ?

Because we are trying to protect the elderly and vulnerable in our society from DEATH.

But vaccines did eradicate smallpox, was on the way to eradicating measles and rubella.

The point is to make instances of an infection so low other people have a vanishingly small chance of getting it.

What does that mean?
What is your “sensible way” ?*

Indeed. Call up the WHO and let them know too.

Yeah...no. 60% of people have heart inflammation 60-90 days after a positive test, regardless of disease severity or pre-existing health conditions. Herd immunity requires c. 60-70% infection rate minimum, so 36% of the population with long term heart inflammation. You might think that's a good thing, OP, but I bloody don't, not for me and not for my kids.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/2768916