'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?

@lazyfecker

Well, Boris has spoken. Another lockdown month to get through.

I fear it won't be the last

@Caeruleanblue

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. It is shit just now but I remember my childhood as pleasanter than DCs now pre covid. No 24 hour live streaming news probably helped, what you don't know doesn't bother you.

My dad said the same !!!!! And they had the 1958 pandemic to deal with

@Caeruleanblue

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. It is shit just now but I remember my childhood as pleasanter than DCs now pre covid. No 24 hour live streaming news probably helped, what you don't know doesn't bother you.

Is it not just the case that you can't miss what you've never had?

I'm not disagreeing though that a simpler way of life isn't necessarily a bad thing and one positive thing about lockdown was that some people found there were things that they didn't miss and were enjoying a simpler life. But when I first bought a flat at 21 (I'm 32 now), I didn't drive and used to walk a long way with shopping, I didn't put my heating on as didn't have a lot of money, I didn't have the internet (I used my mobile phone and data or my pc at work on lunch break), I didn't have sky tv. I was lucky to be able to buy my home- this is now becoming a real issue and was before COVID that expectations of home ownership, a stable career and a reasonable pension for the next generation were becoming increasingly hard and unlikely. I think it's a really bad thing for things to actually be declining and not being as good for younger generations and surely it's not what anyone wants for their children/grandchildren? I think it's something that needs to be looked at- I won't hold my breath but part of the recovery from the pandemic needs to looking at improving quality of life for everyone.

I'm so so depressed about what the future will look like. Everyone will just be at home, not living life but watching it from behind a screen. People will be so isolated and lonely. It'll all be virtual reality. Theatres, cinemas all gone. Hight Street shops gone. All shooing done online, in fact everything will be online. Noone will be bothered to socialise any more since it'll have been drummed into us that socialising is bad, that physical contact with others is dangerous. The future looks terrible to me - dull, boring, lonely. I worry so much for my 5 year old daughter. I've at least had 43 years of a proper life (that stopped in March 2020). My daughter has had just 4 and a half years of a normal life before it came to an abrupt end in March. I am so angry I could scream. If it wasn't for my daughter, I'd end it all. Life isn't meant to be torture but this is.

That should say shopping not shooing.

@Wannaflyaway But how do you know it’s going to be like that? It can’t be like that..!

@RainbowParadise

https://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?

Of course they won’t. It’s totally ridiculous. These scientists need to actually get a grip on reality.

Plus who will be paying for the vaccine if this shite goes on for 5 years?! The economy will be completely fucked!

Honestly I think doom-mongering like this (the headline more than the article, although the article/quotes doesn't help) is hugely irresponsible. Right now people are complying with highly restrictive measures because they know it's a short term thing. If you say "life won't go back to normal for five years, sadly", people won't think "oh no, I won't get to hug Granny for five years". They'll think "well fuck it then, I'm not waiting that long, I'm hugging Granny now." And we could really REALLY do with people hanging on for another few months, because even if the roomiest among us think vaccines probably won't do much ("sadly", "I'm afraid", "sorry"), the rest of us would rather not put the Grannies of the nation in jeopardy until we find out.

This. Best comment on the thread.

Will life change forever after COVID? Well, yes, of course, obviously, if we want to think in those terms. I mean, I didn't use to put the toilet lid down before flushing but I think I probably always will from now on (regardless of whether we have pandemics going on or not). The world is therefore slightly changed forever compared to how it was pre-COVID. I'm giving that as a slightly silly example but all historical events leave changes in their wake and this one will too, many quite a lot larger than toilet-lid-placement.

But of course life will gradually return to normal over the next year or so. Governments cannot afford to keep propping up industries indefinitely, and as the risk level of COVID gradually becomes more approximate to that of seasonal influenza, it will be harder and harder to make the case for restrictions and people will increasingly not comply in any case.

@Kokeshi123 I love what you’re saying as it comforts me no end, but how will things recover financially from this? Can they now? Then we have the great reset being discussed

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.

who will be paying for the vaccine if this shite goes on for 5 years?

I also keep asking where people expect the money to come from for health care and all the rest

There's never any answer of course, but I do worry that those shouting loudest for lockdown will be the very ones doing most moaning about the consequences ... often, interestingly, from the position of having secure jobs

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.

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

@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.

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.

@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.

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.

@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?

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.

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.

@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.

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