It simply boils down to 5 options

[whyarepeoplesostupud]

1. You know no one vulnerable or anyone who has died of Covid therefore hate ALL restrictions as an infringement of your civil liberties.

1. You know someone who has 'had it' and think it's a mountain out of a molehill. They had a sniffle and got over it .. stop restricting our lives ..

1. You know someone who has had it.. in hospital or very ill at home and still recovering months later ... and are taking strong precautions. A rule follower

1. You have had personal interaction with someone /friend /family who has died and are not taking risks /socialising unnecessarily. Don't want your kids at school /don't want to travel to work.

1. Don't know anyone who has died but follow the science and am sufficiently worried to go out and about at an absolute minimum.

Human beings have a 'self preservation' gene. We tend to respond to things that affect us directly .

Which are you. ?

That’s so simplified it’s ridiculous. I am none of the above.

None of the above.

Ok I accept I can't cover everyone's feelings.

Please feel free to add a 6th

I don't even know anyone who has had it...

7th 8th 9th or 100th.. just interested in everyone's thoughts...

This is rubbish frankly. I’ve had it, been really quite ill with it. I also look at the data and know I was very unlucky at my age, weight, health to be so unwell, and the economy is tanking and people will die as a result of that too. It’s not a science versus ignorance situation. It’s a finely tuned balance of enough risk to keep economy going, our mental health intact whilst not risking too sharp a rise in cases that hospitals are overwhelmed. Track and trace being an absolutely essential part of that fine balance and completely failing.

You can also find it very very objectionable that law is being made by emergency powers (never worked out well throughout history), want proper democratic accountability, whilst acknowledging the need to restrict civil liberties for public health.

None. Was ill in Feb/March and still not 100% but I don’t follow every rule religiously as some are ridiculous. I know of one person that died of Covid and three that committed suicide during lockdown. I therefore value mental health more and, seeing the decline in my children whilst they were being homeschooled, I know that they are far better off at school.

@Thenneverendingstorohree

This is rubbish frankly. I’ve had it, been really quite ill with it. I also look at the data and know I was very unlucky at my age, weight, health to be so unwell, and the economy is tanking and people will die as a result of that too. It’s not a science versus ignorance situation. It’s a finely tuned balance of enough risk to keep economy going, our mental health intact whilst not risking too sharp a rise in cases that hospitals are overwhelmed. Track and trace being an absolutely essential part of that fine balance and completely failing.

You can also find it very very objectionable that law is being made by emergency powers (never worked out well throughout history), want proper democratic accountability, whilst acknowledging the need to restrict civil liberties for public health.

There is nothing in your post I disagree with...

I’m none of those and I don’t think they fit my friends/family.

I’m worried about the serious physical health risks of Covid but I’m also concerned that we are currently only clearly addressing that risk with local lockdowns and social distancing. There are risks of the ways in which we are trying to manage this and I’m not convinced that those have been calculated and certainly haven’t been shared with the public. I want to understand the government’s full strategy and how we will manage this long-term without a vaccine, as I don’t think a vaccine will a) be available quickly or b) be 100% effective.

So, having followed advice to the letter during the national lockdown, I now make my own decisions. Eg I’ve cancelled going to the pub with friends but my 20yr old stepson has come to stay (area in local lockdown).

@BunsyGirl

None. Was ill in Feb/March and still not 100% but I don’t follow every rule religiously as some are ridiculous. I know of one person that died of Covid and three that committed suicide during lockdown. I therefore value mental health more and, seeing the decline in my children whilst they were being homeschooled, I know that they are far better off at school.

Yes MH is a definite consideration.. but 4K died from suicide last year.. and 45 k (excluding those on ventilators over 28 days...)

Which would you prioritise? Not a 'trick' question.. just a genuine question..

@whyarepeoplesostupud

Ok I accept I can't cover everyone's feelings.

Please feel free to add a 6th

The thread title is literally “it simply boils down to five options”

I know people who have been asymptomatic. I know people who’ve been quite ill for three weeks with it. I know people who ended up in hospital with it. I know people who are having issues months later.

I’m happy for my children to go to school. I’m happy to go out shopping/for a meal/to the pub.

I practise social distancing whilst out and about. I wear a mask.

I think the rule of six is ludicrous. I think the government have made so many illogical rules that people are fed up and making their own minds up.

I would happily meet with one other household if that took us over six. I wouldn’t meet up with five people at one from different households.

If I or my children show symptoms we have self isolated and kept doing so until we have received a negative result. I keep my children off school if they continue to be ill even if they have had a negative result as I don’t want other pupils to catch a virus and end up having to do the same.

I have reduced my social contacts (and my children’s) but they have returned to all their extra curricular activities.

Does that help for a sixth option?

None of the above. Humans can't be divided into 5 options, this isn't a Cosmopolitan 1980s quiz

Ok I accept it's probably a wrong thread title.. just trying to find out what people actually want .

I know quite a few people who've had it, some mild, some ill but at home, a couple hospitalised on ventilators one more that died.
I'm taking it seriously, follow the rules but work with under 5's so no social distancing from them, have children in school, not sure how safe we are but just trying to get on with it.

What I want is for it all to just go away, or even to have never happened, and for life to be normal again.

However, in response to your original post, I know someone who died, I know a few people who have had it. I am not scared, even though I am at slightly increased risk, because I know the odds are still quite low. I am living my life as normally as possible within the guidelines, and sometimes slightly outside them. I am happy for my kids to be at school and for DH and I to go to work because I know the risks are still low. I accept that restrictions need to be put in place, and may need to be increased and I will go along with whatever the powers that be recommend. I try not to criticise them too much because I recognise that they are just human beings like you and me who are trying to do their best in a difficult situation where everyone has a different view on what is best and where there is no real right answer.

Or in short, none of the above.

@whyarepeoplesostupud The suicide stats of last year are irrelevant. It’s this year that counts and then the next 60 or 70 for the children of today whose futures have been ruined. Then there’s the increase in domestic violence and alcoholism. The vulnerable children whose fragile home life has deteriorated further - a friend in the adoption team of my local social services department has told me that they had as many referrals in the three months of lockdown as they would normally have in a year.

I've added option 6 below (I feel very sorry for anyone in this category).

You're well aware of the risks, you might even be in one of the clinically vulnerable groups, but for whatever reason (mostly connected to poverty) you're unable to take precautions. You might have a job (that you can't afford to lose) that involves little or no social distancing, or perhaps you live in shared and/or overcrowded housing.

None. I know people who have had it and died, people who are long term affected, people who had it and it was barely a sniffle.

I also know peopke who've been disabled in car accidents, by falling down stairs, died by suicide, of cancer, been thrown off their horses and so on. I feel I want to live as normally as possible and certainly not in fear, as we don't know what is around the corner.

I fit mainly with one and two. I know no one who has officially had it but I was poorly for six weeks end of March. I'm a healthy 30 year old.
The government should never have wasted all that money on everyone for furlough, they should have used it just for the vulnerable/ health problems/ people over a certain age( if they wanted to) and let the rest of us get on with life.

I know three people who've had it, one had it pretty mildly, one who recovered completely after ICU and a ventilator, and one who is at the extreme end of long covid.
I work in a school and feel that my safely is being compromised, but will also go on family days out of go for coffee without being scared of other people. I'm fed up of restrictions but glad it's not my decision to make whether to have them or not. So another none of the above.

I'd be 3.
An aquaintence died from it.

Sadly I'm 3 and 4. Not family, but two well known to me, one passed away, one took a long time to recover. Heard this week someone diagnosed locally never recovered and went into organ failure. I'm out living my life but in a very careful way.

Yes MH is a definite consideration.. but 4K died from suicide last year.. and 45 k (excluding those on ventilators over 28 days...). Which would you prioritise? Not a 'trick' question.. just a genuine question.

I don't understand all these false dichotomies as if it's a binary choice between mental health and covid. They actually go hand in hand.

If we keep transmission low (by funding schools to open safely and not current shitshow) then there will need to be fewer restrictions, and mental health services can get back up and running.

And I'm sure quite a few family members of the 45k who died might also be suicidal. Especially bereaved children.

Surely keeping cases low benefits both mental health and those vulnerable to coronavirus.

It's just so weird that people think it's either or, it's not. Cases rise = lockdown = covid deaths + worse mental health.

If you want to help mental health surely the best thing is to help schools stay open (proper funding and proper mitigation), wear masks and social distance? If you don't do those things then cases will rise and we'll have more misery and more restrictions?

My brother in law died “of Covid” I know several people who have had it, and I work in a high risk environment, and have done throughout.

I am living life as close to normal as possible. I follow the guidelines, not because I’m scared, and certainly not because I think they make a difference, but because that’s the path the country has chosen to go down, so as a team player, that’s what I’ll do.

Don’t have to like it though.