'We won't be back to 2019 for five years'

[RainbowParadise]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54661843

Has anyone else seen this? I feel completely on the edge after reading this, people surely will not comply with this shit show indefinitely?

[Kokeshi123]

I was born in the 1950s and much of the 'deprivation' people are angry about was just normal life. People didn't have cars so no popping to theatre or whatever. Or popping to relatives if they lived avdistance away. You walked/ bussed to the shops then carried it all home. Much plainer diet. Hardly anyone went to uni. You worked local to where you lived with wives often at home alone.

People lived much more collectively and had relatives close at hand! They shopped locally and knew the people at the shops. Women socialized in each others homes. Relatives very often lived walking distance or bus ride away. Kids played outdoors in the streets and parks. Nothing like today.

[Wheresmymind]

@Snog Completely agree.

[IcedPurple]

What surprises me is how little value people seem to put on just seeing other people in the flesh - that alone can give you energy and motivate you. If you're constantly alone in the same building all day, with no division between home and work you can really start to lose focus and start to feel things are a bit pointless. Being with other people is, for a lot of people, the main benefit of working. It can't just be removed with no consequences.

A lot of MNers live in comfy homes and have established families, careers and social lives. They forget what it's like to be a young, single person living in a poky flat and starting out on her working life without the normal human nteractions and support. Teams meetings are (just about) tolerable when you've already built up a relationship with your colleagues, but it's no way to start out on your working life. Not to mention that so many people make lifelong friendships and meet their partners through work.

A world where everyone sits in their living room and 'interacts' via Teams seems dystopian to me.

[TheDailyCarbuncle]

@IcedPurple

People thinking/hoping that WFH will be the new normal across the board or that occasional popping in to a hotdesk environment for all office workers are in for a nasty surprise

I agree.

There's been an assumption on MN that the office era is over, that city centres are going to turn into residential zones, and that they'll be able to enjoy a perfect balance between WFH and going into the office one or two days a week to network. It might work for some, but many employers won't see the point in paying for premises to allow workers to 'pop in' once or twice a week. Not to mention that, while everyone insists they are 'so much more productive' WFH, employers and customers don't neccessarily agree. I wouldn't predict the end of the office just yet.

I also agree. WFH seems fantastic at first - no commute, no need to wear fancy office clothes, your own comfortable surroundings - but for a lot of businesses, long term WFH means that staff lose touch with each other, start to get distant and separate, don't discuss things when they should, don't exchange ideas or help each other out in informal ways. For staff WFH can have a massively detrimental effect on their career by preventing them from feeling part of a team, and restricting their access to informal information-sharing and training. When you have to explicitly call someone to interact with them, there's no chance for casual networking and getting recognised by senior staff - the whole coherence of company can get lost and people can feel adrift and demotivated.

What surprises me is how little value people seem to put on just seeing other people in the flesh - that alone can give you energy and motivate you. If you're constantly alone in the same building all day, with no division between home and work you can really start to lose focus and start to feel things are a bit pointless. Being with other people is, for a lot of people, the main benefit of working. It can't just be removed with no consequences.

[Snog]

I am deeply concerned about the erosion of human rights and democracy and the moves towards a totalitarian police state.

These are way more terrifying to me than death by COVID. I also fear the results of our inadequate health services for non COVID and mental health provision. And the lack of decent education and jobs for so many young people. And the erosion of social and family lives and breakdown of community and future civil unrest.

And I feel powerless.

[IcedPurple]

People thinking/hoping that WFH will be the new normal across the board or that occasional popping in to a hotdesk environment for all office workers are in for a nasty surprise

I agree.

There's been an assumption on MN that the office era is over, that city centres are going to turn into residential zones, and that they'll be able to enjoy a perfect balance between WFH and going into the office one or two days a week to network. It might work for some, but many employers won't see the point in paying for premises to allow workers to 'pop in' once or twice a week. Not to mention that, while everyone insists they are 'so much more productive' WFH, employers and customers don't neccessarily agree. I wouldn't predict the end of the office just yet.

[notanoctopus]

[quote BuffaloCauliflower]@midgebabe there’s still a choice going on there. They could choose to treat the cancer patients and not the covid patients couldn’t they? Why they assumption that is HAS to mean reducing services for everything except Covid? These lockdowns were meant to protect the NHS so it could continue vital services, not turn the NHS into a Covid only servicez[/quote]
The problem is of Covid is allowed to run free, how safe are other treatments with Covid running rife? I don't think Covid treatments should take precedence full stop, but if the virus is not suppressed, then nhs simply won't cope. A small percentage of people dying is a large number in a big population. I don't know what the answer is. I don't know how you truly make some hospitals Covid free. It feels like living just biding our time at the moment. Hoping a vaccine and decent mass testing can help get back towards our old lives.

[Rabbitholebonkers]

@Caeruleanblue

All sounds very lovely except the isolation is much worse these days. I remember by council estate childhood and the sense of community, in and out of everyone’s houses etc. The mums would pop in for cups of tea after the school run... walk to the shops together etc etc.

Can’t compare then to now. It’s not just about deprivation, it’s the sense of isolation, lack of communities etc etc!

[KatherineJaneway]

People thinking/hoping that WFH will be the new normal across the board or that occasional popping in to a hotdesk environment for all office workers are in for a nasty surprise.

That's why I said some companies. For some it won't make sense as it won't be efficient. For mine, I know we will be hybrid with very few returning to the old model of 4 or 5 days in the office for a majority of roles.

[user1497207191]

@KatherineJaneway

Companies will eventually go back to being mostly in offices.

For some companies, that type of office setup has truly ended. Some companies will end up with some sort of hybrid. A smaller office base with desks being used as and when needed. Some will want / need to be in the office full time, others far less.

There are so many "cracks" in areas like customer service, staff training, efficiency, etc., that quite a lot of firms/staff will need to go back towards the old ways. It will have highlighted which roles are ideally suited for homeworking, which roles need bums on seats in an office, and which roles can be done with a mixed working pattern.

People thinking/hoping that WFH will be the new normal across the board or that occasional popping in to a hotdesk environment for all office workers are in for a nasty surprise.

Customer satisfaction is at an all time low, efficiency is suffering, etc at many firms, especially B2C firms which deal with the general public. B2B firms, technical roles, and back office functions are more suited to WFH with occasional business trips/office visits as necessary.

[WouldBeGood]

Even the most compliant people I know are now sick and fed up of the random and paradoxical rules.

It can’t last.

[KatherineJaneway]

Companies will eventually go back to being mostly in offices.

For some companies, that type of office setup has truly ended. Some companies will end up with some sort of hybrid. A smaller office base with desks being used as and when needed. Some will want / need to be in the office full time, others far less.

[DigitalGhost]

Well this is just depressing.
Guess it's time to accept that life is just a bag of shit now.

[Wannaflyaway]

@TheDailyCarbuncle I hope you're right.

I also hope that we go back to working in offices, but with some flexibility to work from home at times. I hate working from home all the time, I know I'm lucky that I can work from home, but I find it draining, relentless, all-consuming and totally unrewarding.

[TheDailyCarbuncle]

In five years time there will be countless books, articles and studies examining why there was such extreme panic about one illness. We'll look back and think 'god that was mad.' You'll still be able to catch covid, some people may be terrified of it, but most people will just treat it like any other virus and not worry too much about it.

Companies will eventually go back to being mostly in offices. It'd be great if some flexibility remained to work from home but I wouldn't bank on it.

In five years we'll still be dealing with the horrendous debt and damage to the economy that the panic created. That's the 'not normal' bit.

[Oncemorewithfeelin]

They have poor leadership. The economy is crumbling, they took too long to get covid under control and then rushed trying to get things back to normal which resulted in this second wave.

It’s now going to be a balancing act trying to keep the economy going and covid down. Throw in a no deal brexit too.

I’m not saying that the uk is going to be in dire straights for years, but expect for social distancing to be in place. Which will mean crowds at sporting events/ concerts/ ect will be a third of what their capacity is. If pubs and restaurants open sensibly then it will mean reduced tables that should be set out with the 1.5m rule adhered to.

[Wannaflyaway]

@Oncemorewithfeelin Why do you say that you can see it taking 5 or more years for the UK to get to its pre-covid days? What is it specifically about the UK that makes you think it would take such a terribly long time?

[Oncemorewithfeelin]

I’m in Australia, in a state that’s only new cases for the last 4 or 5 months have been from people in the quarantine hotels.

Life here has been fairly normal but it won’t be fully normal until the rest of the world has it under control.

We still have to social distance. We have maximum capacity of places reduced, any outdoor events that can’t have numbers policed are cancelled or rearranged. Everywhere has to have covid marshalls.

Not to mention we can’t leave the country!

I’m hopeful that it won’t take 5 years for real normality to happen.

I can see it taking 5 or more years for the Uk to get to it’s pretty covid days but it doesn’t have to mean lockdown the whole time.

[GoldenOmber]

@Fawnfour

Oh great, another thread for people to complain and not comply, your just ruining it for the rest of us who actually care and want to comply so as to look after ourselves, others and the nhs.

Did you miss all the bits of the thread where very many of us were saying precisely the opposite of this? Or did you post in the wrong place? Bit puzzled.

[Fawnfour]

Oh great, another thread for people to complain and not comply, your just ruining it for the rest of us who actually care and want to comply so as to look after ourselves, others and the nhs.

[BlueBlancmange]

@Kokeshi123

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/19/uk-needs-follow-swedish-model-learn-live-covid/

Curiously, Mark Woolhouse cited in that article also appears to be pro-Swedish approach.

Something odd here.

Ah good find. Not odd at all then, he has an anti lockdown agenda. He presumably wants people to think scientific intervention is unlikely to help any time soon and as such hopes they will agree we should abandon restrictions and just get on with things. We see similar arguments on here all the time (not that I understand how that could ever work). Meanwhile it's sounding ever more likely we will actually have a vaccine very soon, as well as better treatments.

[Wheresmymind]

@Kokeshi123 It won’t let me see it 😫what’s it saying and what’s odd about it?

[DownstairsMixUp]

Salty and fresh your the only commenter that has come across selfish. You seem to only care about covid. Shame on you! I know far many more people who have died from other terrible things, I know people whose mental health is on the brink after losing jobs. Sounds like you just don't care about anyone unless it's corona related.

[RJnomore1]

Weirdly the thought that it’s “just” 5 years and things might be back to normal at some point gives me hope. In my darkest moments I just see this going round and round forever while our lives diminish and our society collapses and I find that hard to deal with.

ANY end gets me through.

[DownstairsMixUp]

People won't comply.

Also, people seem incredibly naive about vaccines like once they are here that's it. Lots of people they just don't work for, I've had countless boosters for MMR and Hep B and I just never keep the levels up. Also no one can be forced to have it. Not sure why it keeps being hailed as the answer.