We are fucked

[WindChimeTinkle]

The country is falling apart, mass unemployment looming, unrest, mental health crisis, education of a generation screwed, people in care homes isolated and alone......what the fucking hell is going on. I can't take anymore

@grenouilleescargot

Get a grip. You are not living in a country where you have no access to clean water, where you have no access to medical care and not enough food. People are not dying from a famine here, people are not being killed in a civil war. We have wall to wall entertainment, good quality food to eat and houses to live in.

Exactly

@Caroncanta

PLEASE STOP VOTING TORY,

Labour wouldn't have done any better that's for sure.

Yes, I do think Labour would have done better.

They would have given extra funding to the NHS to deal with track and trace and testing, not fucking SERCO and other mates of the Tories. So we wouldn't have had that absolute fiasco.

Plus, I can't see Labour forcing care homes to accept residents straight from hospital with no tests. Care homes is where loads of the Covid deaths were in the first wave.

Plus they'd be trying harder to actually help people deal with the impact of Covid. The Tories are all about big business and fuck the rest of us.

Plus, I'd be surprised if they'd be ploughing on with a no deal Brexit amid all this.

This is how the Tories can continue to screw us over, so many of you just refuse to see it. I don't get it.

Maybe look at is an opportunity for humans to live differently in the wake of this pandemic

Gosh imagine the 191& pandemic hot on the heels of wW1. Humans are resilient and adapt

Get a grip. You are not living in a country where you have no access to clean water, where you have no access to medical care and not enough food. People are not dying from a famine here, people are not being killed in a civil war. We have wall to wall entertainment, good quality food to eat and houses to live in.

Riiiight. So until it's so bad it's like we're living in a war zone, we're just to stand back and let our country and our children's future be bled dry by disaster capitalists?

@Dawnlassie

My main worry is that how on earth are the government going to afford benefits/ payout to keep all these people afloat. There aren't going to be enough people paying taxes at this rate not to mention how much all the testing must be costing and the massive NHS bill

I think the time has come for able bodied people to start working for their benefits if they have been claiming over a set number of years. Essential tasks to help the community. Too many scroungers and we can no longer afford to carry them.

The long term unemployed will not suddenly start working though especially if competing against highly qualified people who have just lost their jobs. There are huge numbers of long term unemployed who are effectively unemployable. The government have already increased basic Universal credit by £82 month. If they try to take that away in April there will be uproar and they can't afford to raise it any more.

Disaster Capitalism, for those not familiar with the term: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/04/disaster-capitalism-tory-right-brexit-roll-back-state

Yes it’s rubbish but it won’t last forever,

Christ there are alot of dramatic people on this board, and that's coming from somebody with an anxiety disorder.

Turn off the news and talk about something else.

@EvilPea

Just keep plodding. That’s all you can do. Get up, have breakfast, sort the kids (if you have them and they are at that age), go to work, come home, do dinner, sort kids, go to bed. Rinse and repeat. Interject with nice walks and the odd takeaway. It’s all we can do right now. Don’t predict the future, you don’t know. So just keep on.

My life in a nutshell, and my approach too. We just have to keep going, one day at a time, and have hope we’ll come out the other side of this and bounce back to a more normal life. I’ll also add, when and where ever possible, take pleasure in the small things. Two recent examples; the beauty of the leaves changing as I cycled to work today, and a recent discovery of the tv sitcom Ghosts (BBC1) - v funny.

Things look bleak right now and actually, it's because not one of our generation has ever faced such a universally challenging time
I look on it that actually, compared to my late gran's generation, we've mostly had it easy. When she was around my age (30s) there was no NHS, no welfare state, abject poverty and war, actual bombs falling out the sky war. She lost a child due to having him just at the end of the war, she went through that alone as my Grandfather was still abroad. Lack of medications, early birth and her living with next to nothing, things that very rarely happens in the UK now.
Whenever I feel like the current situation is never ending, I think of her and how she would've looked at me moaning and probably come after me with a rolling pin. She grew up without her mum or dad in abject poverty.
We really do need to keep thinking we will overcome, we will see this pass.
For every era of suffering akin to this, it passed, yes things may be shitty for a while but concentrate on positives like you're still alive, you have people who love you, friends who think the world of you.
Even if it's raining, get outdoors, for a walk, or a jog. I've been known to walk to the end of my garden, into my shed and then I say all the really, really bad swearwords without DD hearing. It's a mega way of getting that anger out without lashing out.
It's shitty this there's no denying it. But for mental health reasons we must try and keep on going.

@T33l9

Christ there are alot of dramatic people on this board, and that's coming from somebody with an anxiety disorder.

Turn off the news and talk about something else.

One person's drama is another person's keeping up with what's going on in the world.

No, I'm not going to bury my head in the sand and pretend it's not happening, but all power to you if that's how you get by.

I grew up watching my parents' generation be politically active and actually change things. They didn't win on everything but did on some pretty significant stuff. That couldn't have happened if they all turned away and pretended bad things weren't happening.

Previous posters may have seen the foot and mouth crisis as nothing to bother about, but in an area that farms livestock for a living, both meat and dairy herds, it was appalling to drive back though a section of fields where carcasses were being burned and buried by the thousand.

@PumpkinetChocolat

TheLobster You are the moron

Cancer patients are still being treated here. I can give you the example of someone who not only is in remission as treatment was successful but still get a face-to-face follow-up every month.

So stop talking rubbish to make you feel important

Okay make sure to inform the thousands of people who will die from untreated cancers that you know one person who got treatment. I'm sure that will make them feel better.

World scientists have announced that the first wave of vaccines are in final tests now and are due to be rolled out. They don't provide immunity (yet) but stop the serious aspects of the disease taking hold, so risk of hospitalisations and death is significantly removed so will make a huge difference if widely available. So, firstly, there really is hope. And secondly I think the push on the UK government now should be to act to make sure the vaccines are available widely as possible as soon as they have been passed through the final tests, and swiftly, and to provide some decent countrywide information so that people are re-motivated and clear as possible about timescales. Alongside some really sensible measures about brexit and other challenges, more reliable sensible information to engender a bit of confidence.

Christ some of you lot should try living with disabled children on a day to day basis.

And a likely hard Brexit still to come, including a likely 8% drop in GDP (equivalent to £2400 per person), and a certain rise in prices of much supermarket stuff, clothes etc. But Boris Johnson said it’s good as we will get to make our own decisions and countries are queuing up to give us better terms they give the world’s largest trading block.

Some very flippant responses given that many people are facing job losses. Your job is a roof over your head and food on the table and a big part of many peoples’ identity.

This is very true - but what people are conveniently forgetting is that people face job losses all the time, not just now, and yet no-one thinks about that at other times. As a pp said, people don't really care unless it affects them.

It's awful. It bothers me that my kids have missed out. That I can't do simple things like take them to Asda for a treat. Well technically i can if I remember my mask, which I am good at doing!

My child's had two weeks off school because of a cold and no tests.

I've barely seen my parents this year.

My two year olds forgotten his family. Never been to playgroup and missed a whole summer of things.

My five year old missed her first year at school too.

I've developed anxiety too.

It's a mess and I just hope after this winter the only way is up for people.

@needanewidea
The hardship of the next couple of years will almost certainly be thanks to a fairly equal split between Brexit and Covid. But now the Tories get to blame everything on Covid and the right wing press will spread it as gospel.

Labour will be blamed for not applauding the government’s mistakes throughout the Covid crisis and not “believing in Britain enough” as living standards fall thanks to Brexit. It will all be Labours fault despite being out of power for 15 years.

In rural areas, the foot and mouth epidemic was more hugely damaging than anyone in a city can imagine. It was like COVID19 on steroids. No one bothered to understood the transmission, just that a single case could condemn entire pedigree herds of 500 cattle or 5000 sheep to death, losing the UK's food security with a stamp.

I am very sorry for anyone trying to raise a disabled child in the current situation, and I know you adore your child (we all do), but for most of recorded history, you are rowing against evolutionary principle. Only a very rich society can afford to fund disabilities.

I'm scared, too. You are not alone.
I go to buddhism class (live streaming mostly in covid times) and listen to how to manage uncertainty and anxiety in the real world and it helps me lots.

Covid is mild for many if not most people. It is weakening over time. We have roofs over our heads and food on the table (most of us). We are living in peaceful times. The weather has been beautiful this year. Wee are innovating new communication tools and technologies. There is lots of room for hope.

@DownToTheSeaAgain

I'm watching the Handmaids Tale. Watching another dystopian mess helps put this one in perspective.

It also makes me look at the similarities in how that all came about and the freedom we seem to willingly hand over because we ‘need to be safe’ and ‘protect people’

@XingMing

In rural areas, the foot and mouth epidemic was more hugely damaging than anyone in a city can imagine. It was like COVID19 on steroids. No one bothered to understood the transmission, just that a single case could condemn entire pedigree herds of 500 cattle or 5000 sheep to death, losing the UK's food security with a stamp.

Oh God, I had to put up with the Foot and Mouth epidemic, too.

That was also crap.