Do you really think we're all in this together re Covid, or is your main priority yourself and your family?

[Marcellemouse]

I keep hearing we're in this together etc. However, my family are not vulnerable to CV and are one of those families who were not eligible for any government funding. My DC are also in vital years educationally. I am not remotely concerned about catching CV. I have compiled with all the rules but quite frankly now I'm absolutely sick of this. To the vast majority CV is a mild illness, I appreciate there are many people susceptible to this but they are not my concern just as I am not theirs. The final straw was finding out the average age of death from CV is 82. The thought of this continuing for another year or two is sending me over the edge.

@MynamarisBurma

My mother is very unlikely to die of covid so I would simply ignore your ridiculous "choice

Well good for you. Mine is 87 and in 'good health' which would give her fuck all chance with Covid.

Which proves my point. ! If you think you and yours will be fine you care not a fuck about the vulnerable!

But you're asking me to make a choice which doesn't exist. Your mother still has more chance of surviving it than dying of it, as does everyone else.

I do give a fuck about the vulnerable. I have vulnerable relatives but I'm not thick enough to believe that covid is the only, or even the biggest, risk to them.

As a family we should be ok.
I have seen the affects of long Covid in family members who should have also been fine, and it is not nice at all.

However I have been perhaps overly cautious for the sake of others, I would hate for me to do something that could cause someone else to lose someone or be ill. So only going out when completely necessary, Food shop and that’s it really, masks, distancing. We do mostly stay at home. Seems sensible.

I take it you would be voting Trump if you were in the States then TrusttheGeneGenie .. i'll leave it there as there is no arguing with the self absorbed and delusional I really hope you and yours suffer no ill affects, despite your selfish views.. because they are grim. Meanwhile I have living children and an elderly mother that need more attention than I am devoting to this pointless discussion with someone who gives not a flying fuck for their fellow man.

Here is what I dont understand.

To keep vulnerable people safe, vulnerable people who are being told to shield, we all have to live by restrictions and we are being told those restrictions are going to be increased. Surely if the vulnerable are shielding, they wont be in softplays or on the high street or going for dinner.

Or am I supposed to not go to see my family, go to softplay, feel bad for going shopping, go for dinner, so they can go out without fear of being infected? I sit in so they can go out?

Why are we all not living? Is it some form of equality thing? I honestly dont understand. I sat in throughout the whole of lockdown, as did majority of us. I dont know anyone who is highly vulnerable. I dont see any old relatives because they are shielding by choice. Most of us sat at home during lockdown, and we are still here, so what is the benefit of doing it again?

@MynamarisBurma

I take it you would be voting Trump if you were in the States then TrusttheGeneGenie .. i'll leave it there as there is no arguing with the self absorbed and delusional I really hope you and yours suffer no ill affects, despite your selfish views.. because they are grim. Meanwhile I have living children and an elderly mother that need more attention than I am devoting to this pointless discussion with someone who gives not a flying fuck for their fellow man.

What? How do you come to that conclusion?? Why am I self absorbed and delusional for caring about child poverty??

I don't give a flying fuck?

You've just fabricated all that in your own head haven't you?

@southeastdweller

"We're all in this together" ranks alongside "Stay Home Save Lives" as one as the most laughable and ridiculous pieces of propaganda from this shit government.

This.

It can be both. I keep to the rules to protect others, but my priority is m6 family. I do have a medically vulnerable child, so she comes first

We've done it all, stayed at home, clapped for the NHS, wear masks, shopped for neighbours and so on.

My DD's hospital appts have been cancelled "due to Covid" and nobody can tell me when they will be rescheduled. The same consultant is seeing patients in a private hospital though so it must be possible technically.

I used to consider myself a caring person but it is getting harder and harder to care about unknown others, the Covid-vulnerable, feeling like there isn't the same level of care for my family's vulnerabilities.

And before I hear it "has to be" this way "because otherwise there won't BE an NHS" can I just say that actually, there isn't for us, and hasn't been for 6 months.

said by someone who has never seen a malnourished child... in Asia.. bless you

I've seen plenty in Africa where I grew up. Lockdown and economic consequences have been way way worse than covid itself.

@MynamarisBurma I get what you are saying. I think I did a similar job to you many years ago, but in various African countries rather than Asian. It's a totally different world and only someone of supreme ignorance and selfishness could possibly ever compare any situation in the UK to those countries and refugee camps.

My father is also elderly and wouldn't have a good outcome.

Do I care for him more than children in this country missing a bit of education and playtime. Fuck yes I do.

However, my family are not vulnerable to CV

Yes they are. Nobody is bulletproof with this bastard disease.

And the pandemic is a perfect illustration of the situation where doing what's right for society at large is also doing what's right for our own families.

Lockdown currently isn't "working" (though we don't know what the situation might have been if there were no restrictions at all) because we aren't actually doing lockdown - too many people are just ignoring the rules. Maybe if we gave it a proper go, we'd see more benefit.

I'm complying because I need want to keep my kids at school. That's my main aim with everything I'm doing / choosing to avoid doing.

And quite honestly whenever any new rules are announced my first thought is how it will affect our household. I don't know of that's selfish or just normal.

I don't have anyone vulnerable (in a medical sense) in my family circle, a couple are pensionable age, but fit and well. We still don't spend time with them as our kids are going to school and I need to preserve the risk rate of transmitting something into their school this causing them to have to be sent home.

That the average age of death from Covid is actually higher than the life expectancy of someone in the uk.... Well, of course it is. There's a high death rate in infancy from other causes, but babies are well protected from Covid, and children don't seem to be quite as susceptible to it. So of course the average age of death from all causes is going to be lower than the average age of death from Covid.

Or am I supposed to not go to see my family, go to softplay, feel bad for going shopping, go for dinner, so they can go out without fear of being infected? I sit in so they can go out? You do know that the vulnerable also can't see their families, go to softplay, can't go shopping? They have the same restrictions as you, with the added bonus of having been told that if they do get Covid, their chances of being treated are less - that treatment will be prioritised for the non-vulnerable.

ketchupthebear I'm 100% with you. I know people who have died who shouldn't have, because everything's cancelled..."because of COVID". Why should it trump everything?

I hope your DD gets her appointments soon.

MynamaisBurma do you actually believe though that the general population should stay in lockdown so your 87 year old mother is kept 100% safe from COVID? Does your mother actually share this view?

Thanks @tempnamechange98765, I started a thread about it and it's not just us. One poster was only offered a telephone appointment to re-dress a wound! If it weren't so shocking it would be funny. Of course death from septacemia is the same as death from Covid ... but you wouldn't think so from the disparity of care and concern.

We’re not all in this together anymore. It’s a north south divide. As an 80 year old living in London, I could meet 5 friends indoors, go out for lunch with another 5 friends and have dinner with my family. In the same day if I wanted to.

As a healthy 34 year old WFH in a small northern village, where I know a grand total of 1 person who has had corona virus and they live in Manchester, I can’t see my own parents, sister or nieces indoors or outdoors.

My also perfectly healthy 11 year old can spend a full day with his friends at school but can’t go into town with those same friends after school, play out with his friends or have a friend in his house.

Oh and now it looks like they’re going to shut pubs and restaurants. So they can throw northern businesses and jobs under the bus but not southern ones. And the north/ south divide gets bigger...

Ok. So you don’t give a shit about Joe Blogs age 82 who ends up dying a frightening death before his time, leaving a grieving family unable to comfort him in his final hours and that you may have inadvertently caused that. Fine. Up to each individual’s moral compass and ability to feel empathy for others.

However, the reality is that if we have too many excess deaths, excess serious illness then that effects what the NHS can do. It will leave doctors and nurses burnt out and off sick. It will close down hospitals.

Your personal risk from covid may be low but your risk of cancer, being run over etc is the same as anyone’s - but if you let covid run rampant the ability of the NHS to look after you will be effected.

Whether you like it or not we are all connected and we all rely on each other. Who grew your food? Who made your clothes? Who supplies your water? Who takes your rubbish away?

The NHS has already let COVID get in the way of other conditions though?

I have to say my thoughts are not with the elderly at this stage (and I mean mid 80's and onwards). Yes it's sad, of course it's sad. It was sad when my 91 year old grandfather died from pneumonia. But do you know what's worse? Those with elderly relatives who they can't visit because of restrictions, who could die tomorrow from something unrelated. My MIL's mother is mid 80's with Alzheimer's and dementia, in a care home about an hour's drive away, and as we are in a local lockdown area, MIL can't visit her at all. She's seen her a small handful of times, outside, since March. How is that fair?

Or my friend's mother who had a very slow developing cancer, should have lived for at least 15 years, and who died suddenly because all of her treatment had been put on hold, at the age of 62. Do you think my friend thinks "oh good, as long as THE ELDERLY are protected, I'm glad I sat in my house and didn't see my mother in her last weeks". Or do you think she wishes she'd put two fingers up to the rules and spent time with her mum? Which in no way puts the elderly at risk anyway?

"but if you let covid run rampant the ability of the NHS to look after you will be effected" (sic)

Um, @Msmcc1212 it already is and has been even during the months Covid certainly wasn't "rampant" ... so I'm just not buying that one anymore.

More than just "affected" in fact, NHS care has been blimmin' non existent for my DD's serious but non-Covid condition since March.

 @tempnamechange98765 that sounds very hard to swallow.

I started off wanting to help others and making concessions e.g. I didn't go near a delivery slot as I am fit and healthy and wanted to leave it for a more vulnerable person. I was a key worker during most of the lockdown whilst others were furloughed and so basically I was put at more risk, to make sure others were OK. During this time I had to put up with rude people and put my own household at risk for them.

My main priority now is myself and my family. I say myself, as my young family and my elderly parent, need me to be there for them. I don't break the rules, I keep well within them and I will do things for the people in my village as they are the people I will call on if I need help and vice versa. I will help my "local community" as they have proven they can be relied upon if any of us fall ill.

I have been OK and I don't think I am suffering mentally because of it, but I have disengaged from helping the wider community and "we are all in this together" because we aren't. Other selfish people are wrecking it for us all and so I will look after my own to protect us from the consequences of other fuckwit's actions. I have started to look after myself more as I can see that this isn't going anywhere soon and so I will take action now before it does take a grip on my mental state.

but if you let covid run rampant the ability of the NHS to look after you will be effected.

It already is screwed. I was told at the beginning of March that all my consultant and specialist nurse appointments were cancelled and after querying not long ago when I would get to see my consultant, I was told "maybe next year, covid is too important". Meanwhile, I live in severe pain, taking drugs that don't work (that are potentially very dangerous) and eat over 200 strong painkillers per month.

I'm not buying this NHS argument anymore. We have bugger all cases down here, but still the hospital is "out of bounds".

@PhilCornwall1 I'm really sorry to hear you're in that position. I think you are spot on, by the way (had just posted something identical).

We are only at slightly increased risk due to age (over 55) but are sticking to the rules to protect the vulnerable as DH works with people who were on the shielding list and Covid would, without a doubt, kill them. That said, we have been able to see friends and family and go out for the occasional drink but have just stuck to the 2m rule and been outside whenever possible (obviously that is now getting more difficult as we head into Winter). Yesterday I had a friend over for coffee and we sat inside, but in the dining room with the french doors open for ventilation. She was pre warned so came dressed appropriately.

To me it's not difficult to stick to the rules - yes you can't hug your family, but you can still see them - unless you're in some of the local lockdown area but then if people had stuck to the rules, those restrictions would not, in all liklihood, have been needed. The rules have always been stay 2m apart even in the rule of 6. Don't remember it ever being go out with 5 of your mates and all stand shoulder to shoulder for a selfie on Insta.