Anyone else find this slightly dystopian now ?

[Whitechocolatemarshmallow]

We may be 'allowed' to see families etc. Over Christmas but should be expected to 'pay' for this with subsequent lockdowns, and hugging will be banned.

Now, there's talk of a 'freedom pass' for people who test negative twice a week to allow them to live a more normal life, which they will be able to present should they be stopped and questioned.

What's coming next, having to show proof of vaccination status ?
I'm no conspiracy theorist and i'm fully aware that Covid is real.

Why are we willing to give up our old lives like this ?

"Lockdown does not protect the elderly. It protects anyone who needs health care for any reason by ensuring that all hospital beds are not full of covid patients"

That was the theory but the death rates never justified a lockdown in the first place and certainly not a second or third lockdown. More will die as a result of lockdown and those are the deaths I care about as they were preventable.

Honestly, I just get more and more astounded by the naivety of people who would casually throw away the economy as if we don't really need it

This whole thing has been such a eye opener for me in terms of how little people understand about the world they live in.

The same poster will presumably be up in arms when, in the next few years, there is a much reduced job market, no prospects for people, public services cut to the bone, huge public sector layoffs, tax rises, etc, etc.

hamstersarse

Slightly easier to avoid sharing bodily fluids with someone that to avoid sharing air/ casual contact with them.

I know few people who don't know someone who has been ill with covid, I personally know several people who have it, more than one now has long covid, one is dead, more than one were ventilated and came close to dying. I'm not getting my impression of covid from news hype or social media.

Once we roll out a vaccine we should be able to treat COVID more like flu.
Plus the long term effects of COVID appear to be more far reaching than flu. Yes flu can cause post virus syndrome but COVID affects do many different organs

You have a greater faith in a possible vaccine than I do. It might work. It might not. It might only be partially successful like the flu virus.

Lots of diseases cause long term negative effects. We don't lose our minds over the rest of them and send the world into economic meltdown, especially as the death rate from Covid isn't that high. It is very comparable to flu, although flu at its worst has been far more devastating historically.

There are other countries who have been giving oxygen to people in cars and in beds in their under cover car parks. Belgium have done this

Belgium has had one of the most severe lockdowns in Europe.

@youkiddingme

hamstersarse

Slightly easier to avoid sharing bodily fluids with someone that to avoid sharing air/ casual contact with them.

I know few people who don't know someone who has been ill with covid, I personally know several people who have it, more than one now has long covid, one is dead, more than one were ventilated and came close to dying. I'm not getting my impression of covid from news hype or social media.

That's not quite the story of AIDS.

They didn't really know how transmissible it was when it first arrived.

People were unsure whether you could get it from a toilet seat, by being in the same room as someone. Princess Diana was actually one of the people who broke that stigma by visiting AIDS patients and shaking their hands.

So we had a new virus, with an IFR of 100% and we weren't sure of how it was transmitted. Imagine how people today would cope with that?

I think the way we get our information has changed how we respond to these 'crises' - yes, social media and 24/7 news cycles. It creates fear, it creates totally risk averse politicians who are worried about the next damning headline, and it divides people into camps who then get more and more entrenched

Yes. Politicians make decisions based on headlines and PR now, not on what is best for the country.

Similarly, SAGE, which is being increasingly discredited and questioned by other scientists, is delivering wildly pessimistic and unscientific scenarios, to encourage lockdowns, so they are not blamed for any deaths. The 4,000 deaths a day prediction, used to justify the second lockdown, was discredited within minutes of it's being announced. Scandalous.

It certainly feels like we're living in dystopia
What about all the people who won't want the vaccine? Will they be barred from living amongst the rest of society? Be given court orders to make them have it? Or be fined or jailed in a facility for like minded people until they give in?

hamstersarse

Yes HIV was a new and frightening virus. But we weren't all seeing friends and relatives ventilated or dying. I have just heard of a second death in my circle this morning. Thankfully for me not someone as close as the friend I just lost, but equally devastating for his family. I have two friends with serious heart damage. Another who is still bedbound at home and needs carers for every need. Several who have bad chests, no energy, etc and are awaiting further tests, which they may be waiting an awful long time for. One friend who nearly died was in his twenties, got it in March, is still slowly improving.

How many people did I personally know who had HIV? Zero.

This may have some bearing on me viewing the two slightly differently. Yes I was initially afraid of Aids when I saw the tombstone ads on TV. No, I wasn't afraid because the disease was taking, ruining, and threatening lives of people I cared about all around me. Big difference to me.

Yes I think if you know lots of people who have died or had it badly then that would cloud your judgment. I know lots who’ve had it mildly, only one person in the household who’ve had it and not spread it to others in the household. Friends parents who have been elderly but recovered fine.

It does shape your view.

Interesting wording Delatron.
My experience clouds my judgement but yours shapes your view.
If, as we have been led to believe, viral load can have a significant impact on how severely you get the disease, might it not be worth looking at how strongly the correlation between cases, severity of symptoms, and deaths fits with compliance regarding social distancing and other preventative measures?
I know that I live in an area where compliance is poor, where hundreds of firms were found to have breached lock down regulations, where it is rare to see masks being worn. This may in fact be the reason my experience is very different to yours. That added to the fact that our hospital currently has over 350 covid admissions, and it is not a huge hospital.

@youkiddingme

Interesting wording Delatron. My experience clouds my judgement but yours shapes your view. If, as we have been led to believe, viral load can have a significant impact on how severely you get the disease, might it not be worth looking at how strongly the correlation between cases, severity of symptoms, and deaths fits with compliance regarding social distancing and other preventative measures? I know that I live in an area where compliance is poor, where hundreds of firms were found to have breached lock down regulations, where it is rare to see masks being worn. This may in fact be the reason my experience is very different to yours. That added to the fact that our hospital currently has over 350 covid admissions, and it is not a huge hospital.

I noticed the sly implication via the careful wording that you just aren't seeing the situation clearly, while they are.

I know lots of people who have had Covid. All are now fine.

Does that cloud my judgement or shape my view? 🤔

To be clear, I'm not saying that nobody recovers from Covid!
I'm pointing out that comparing it to HIV is rather apples and wellington boots.
I'm also pointing out that, at present, it's impossible to accurately assess what impact the measures we have been subjected to have had, since in many area they have not been complied with, nor do I think ample accurate data collected on a comparative basis.

It certainly feels like we're living in dystopia
What about all the people who won't want the vaccine? Will they be barred from living amongst the rest of society? Be given court orders to make them have it? Or be fined or jailed in a facility for like minded people until they give in?

Exactly this, if the responses from people on mnet are anything to go by. Already talk of their taxes not being used to treat us if we are ill, or bumping us out of a hospital bed if someone more deserving needed it...

Lockdown damage is being deliberately over-stated
Just like the covid death figures then?

@youkiddingme

A point about AIDS is that it is a much more deadly virus than Covid-19 but it was treated very differently in terms of how we responded. Responses are politicised and always influenced by the public climate - it is not all about 'the science'. AIDS for example was written off as Gay Compromise Syndrome and it wasn't taken seriously because the groups impacted were marginalised groups at the time - gay men and drug users. Policy is not always straightforward and certainly not developed in a vacuum.

You saying you don't know anyone affected by AIDS is the exact same response that you, and people like you, accuse others of bitterly when it comes to Covid-19.

Actually, 690,000 people died of AIDS in 2019, and 32.7 million people have died from AIDS related illness since it began.

These are numbers that Covid can only dream about, yet you are happy to dismiss it because you don't know anyone who has had it? That is peculiar given your response to people on here.

Every death is a death, right?

Taking it back to the point of the thread, all people are asking for is proportionality. We do not normally take such devastating tactics to deal with a virus, and we actually do know now that the virus is not as deadly as first feared. It just isn't. And that is what feels dystopian about it.

Masks don't protect you from a virus, unless you wear something resembling a spacesuit.

I don’t think I was implying anything or being sly with my wording, I’m slightly confused.

Yes I have been fortunate to have seen friends and family with mild cases and I fully agree that may well be down to the viral load. Though one friend was a doctor in ICU.

We were hit hard in our area in the first wave but not in the second.

If I’d had lots of friends and family dying then I would feel very different and I can understand those that do. We are all having different experiences. It’s not about being right or wrong. Just what you have been exposed to.

@Delatron

I don’t think I was implying anything or being sly with my wording, I’m slightly confused.

Yes I have been fortunate to have seen friends and family with mild cases and I fully agree that may well be down to the viral load. Though one friend was a doctor in ICU.

We were hit hard in our area in the first wave but not in the second.

If I’d had lots of friends and family dying then I would feel very different and I can understand those that do. We are all having different experiences. It’s not about being right or wrong. Just what you have been exposed to.

Cloud my judgement v Shape my view

While both phrases allow for the idea of some one's perception being influenced by what they have personally experienced, the former clearly implies a much more distorted perception.

I have seen this seems to be things moving on perhaps..

Move to personal responsibility after Easter, says Hancock
Matt Hancock, who's faced two hours of questioning by MPs from the health and science committees, said there would be a shift to an emphasis on "personal responsibility" rather than social distancing restrictions after Easter - once the vaccine has reached the most vulnerable people.

He said the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) had recommended that once all those aged 50 years and over had been vaccinated - group 10 on their priority list - social distancing restrictions that "damage" society were likely to be lifted.

"I think that, should we manage to get the number of deaths, the number of hospitalisations, down sharply because of the vaccination programme then essentially I think we will get to the point where we are protecting the most vulnerable and there [is)] the argument for more personal responsibility, he said.

[quote hamstersarse]@youkiddingme

A point about AIDS is that it is a much more deadly virus than Covid-19 but it was treated very differently in terms of how we responded. Responses are politicised and always influenced by the public climate - it is not all about 'the science'. AIDS for example was written off as Gay Compromise Syndrome and it wasn't taken seriously because the groups impacted were marginalised groups at the time - gay men and drug users. Policy is not always straightforward and certainly not developed in a vacuum.

You saying you don't know anyone affected by AIDS is the exact same response that you, and people like you, accuse others of bitterly when it comes to Covid-19.

Actually, 690,000 people died of AIDS in 2019, and 32.7 million people have died from AIDS related illness since it began.

These are numbers that Covid can only dream about, yet you are happy to dismiss it because you don't know anyone who has had it? That is peculiar given your response to people on here.

Every death is a death, right?

Taking it back to the point of the thread, all people are asking for is proportionality. We do not normally take such devastating tactics to deal with a virus, and we actually do know now that the virus is not as deadly as first feared. It just isn't. And that is what feels dystopian about it.[/quote]
Was there ever a time when we were in real danger of HIV spreading fast enough to overwhelm the system?

I'm not trying to be a dick but everyone saying how people need to stay in and lockdown should continue because their friend died, what's the logic? Those poor people who have died have lost their lives during, and despite all these restrictions.

The point I'm trying to make goldielockdown2 is that I'm seeing poor outcomes for Covid in my area, and am aware that my area is highly-non-compliant and that the hospitals here are under huge strain.

If others are seeing much better results in areas that have been compliant then maybe the measures have done some good in the areas where they have actually been followed.

And the problems in my area aren't just from covid, people with other serious health problems are not able to get treatment they desperately need because of the covid numbers. We do have a nightingale hospital not too far, but as yet they have failed to staff it.