Once we're all vaccinated...

[MissEllaWater]

...or most of us are anyway, do you think that self isolating/track and trace/all that jazz will still be a thing? And fines and so on if you don't comply? I'm not talking about in the next few months, more like in a year or two when it's all bedded in. Surely if the most vulnerable can be protected, we won't need to be quite so vigilant, inasmuch as we won't have to SI for ages if we've been in contact with a positive case?

@QueenBlueberries

Problem is, if we don't vaccinate children, then they will have to self isolate if there is a close contact case at school, and parents will still have to take time off work. Education will be disrupted.

And even in many months time, when everyone over say 40 years old is vaccinated, so many teachers and staff in schools are under 40, and at uni, colleges and secondary schools there will still be many cases and local outbreaks.

Unless a significant proportion of teenagers and young adults are vaccinated as well, which is likely to be in a long time, then life will not be completely back to normal.

why though - children dont generally get ill - if nobody vulnerable is getting ill and dying - why cant we just let children get it like they get other stuff?

We will let children get it. And it will be fine. The vulnerable will have been vaccinated. We won’t be obsessing over testing and isolating. It will be like any other virus. If you feel ill you stay at home.

Of course we wouldn’t carry on disrupting education and by consequence parents ability to work for a virus that would have little impact.

Think foreign travel will need proof of vaccination for at least the next 5 years.

I would say this is unlikely. Easyjet and Ryanair have both said they don't plan on making vaccination a condition of travel. And since most countries aren't planning on making vaccination compulsory for their own residents, why would they insist on requiring it from visitors?

Plus, healthy people under 40 - probably the most frequent travellers - are unlikely to get the vaccines for some time. Making vaccination compulsory would lead to the collapse of the tourism industry in many countries.

@ILoveYoga

As was in the briefing the other night, covid isn’t going away. We’re going to have to live with it in society. So society will have to change from what was the norm before particularly as this pandemic has shown there are many selfish and entitled people who think wearing a mask/refuse to be socially distanced, anti vaxers etc is more about their civil liberties rather than care and concern for their fellow humans.

So gatherings of fewer people (ban on large gatherings - or health standards for larger gatherings ) and mask wearing where social distance is hard to maintain should remain as well as more sanitising/cleaning.

There’s absolutely no way people will accept this. People are beginning to get angry and protest as it is (not that I agree) so there’s not a chance people will stand for these kinds of restrictions after a successful vaccine has been rolled out. Just won’t happen.

@Grobagsforever

Of course life will return to normal. Why would we social distance if we are vaccinated? We didn't social distance for flu, chicken pox, measles etc.

Because not everyone will get the vaccine. SD will become the norm for many years and I am glad because people already spread germs every winter as it is. Large events will return but with small crowds and lots of sanitizing. People will wear masks when sick like they do in Asia, no more shaking hands thank god. The likelihood of new viruses has increased so we will be encouraged to stay vigilant to protect the more vulnerable. It's definitely a sacrifice but there is no going back

Also, I predict this is how the human race will end in the future. Imagine a virus like Ebola that has a high death rate? Seeing how idiotic and selfish humans have been about SD and wearing masks, we are guaranteed to be extinct at our own doing.

Because not everyone will get the vaccine.

But surely (hopefully) most deemed vulnerable will be vaccinated, so the virus circulating amongst the unvaccinated won’t be too much of a problem as it will likely be experienced as just another cold/flu-like illness for the vast majority. Plus the number of vaccinated people will mean it doesn’t spread as quickly.

If there’s not the same risk to the NHS then surely there will be more weighing up the costs to businesses/economy/education by continuing social distancing and other restrictions?

SD will become the norm for many years

SD means that whole swathes of the economy - such as transport, tourism, entertainment and hospitality - will not be viable. That means a loss of millions of jobs and billions of £ in tax revenue. It's not going to continue beyond next year, no matter how desperate you are for it to do so. However, you may lock yourself up as long as you wish.

@IcedPurple

SD will become the norm for many years

SD means that whole swathes of the economy - such as transport, tourism, entertainment and hospitality - will not be viable. That means a loss of millions of jobs and billions of £ in tax revenue. It's not going to continue beyond next year, no matter how desperate you are for it to do so. However, you may lock yourself up as long as you wish.

No it really will not.

No amount of wishing will stop the pressure from constituents on MPs. They won’t vote for it.

@Grobagsforever

Of course life will return to normal. Why would we social distance if we are vaccinated? We didn't social distance for flu, chicken pox, measles etc.

I hope so!

Exactly. Even now, very many people are fed up. Come the spring, with vaccination well under way and a natural fall in cases due to warmer weather, there will be huge pressure for measures to be relaxed.

I really wonder if those saying 'SD will be the norm for many years' are living in the real world.

I think they secretly love social distancing and wish it to continue. It won’t. Feel free to hide away and social distance all you like.

@shamalidacdak of course social distancing won't stay. You, and others, can stick to it for life if you wish but the vast majority of people won't be. I won't be sticking to it after the vulnerable have been vaccinated. The government have already said we will be returning to normal next year once the vulnerable have been vaccinated. I don't know how much clearer you need it to be spelled out. Not everyone needs to be vaccinated before we return to normal. Return to normal will be next year.

@Delatron

I think they secretly love social distancing and wish it to continue. It won’t. Feel free to hide away and social distance all you like.

I think they're also addicted to doom and drama and love the chance to say 'We're not getting back to normal for a long time I'm afraid' even though they have no more clue than anyone else. They're going to hate it when they can no longer tell people to "Stay the f*k home" or "Just wear a f*king mask!"

Shama how long do you want sectors to remain closed or operating at non viable levels?

I honestly think we’ll be back to normal very quickly once everyone in that phase 1 list is vaccinated. I reckon the people who are trying to insist social distancing measures are here to stay are either massive introverts who SD suits, people with major FOMO - this has been a big leveller in many ways. No one has been going on fancy holidays or to lots of lovely get together as with friends so if you felt you were missing out on those thing I can see this year having been quite nice in that respect. Plus all the people who are dossing WFH ( not everyone I know but there was a whole thread on it today!)
Tory MPs are simply not going to vote for further restrictions if we eliminate 99%of deaths.

The huge financial investment in the vaccine is to let life get back to more or less normal.
Once known vulnerable people are protected by vaccination the rest of us can catch it without collapsing the healthcare system. For the small number of people who unexpectedly get very ill with it there will be capacity to treat them in hospital and most will be fine. It will be exactly like flu.
The problem isn’t people catching COVID, it isn’t ebola or smallpox. The problem is loads of people becoming seriously ill at the same time.
However, it would be nice if in the future people revived social distancing measures when they had any illness in the family to avoid passing it on. Perhaps the people who only started washing their hands this year could keep it up.

I think things will pretty much be back to normal by 2022. Things will get better with the better weather naturally and keep improving from then on.

I do however think that there will still need to be a serious work behind the scenes. We still don’t know how long any vaccine would be effective for and have no control over mutations. We can’t afford to be caught off guard again.

I think covid testing will still be required and it’ll be treated like something like chicken pox, so people will be required to stay at home for two weeks if they test positive etc. It will definitely be a notifiable disease.

I think they're also addicted to doom and drama and love the chance to say 'We're not getting back to normal for a long time I'm afraid' even though they have no more clue than anyone else. They're going to hate it when they can no longer tell people to "Stay the fk home" or "Just wear a fking mask!"

Suspect a lot of people have both had quite a nice time over lockdown and also love the doom and drama of having their own personal disaster movie unfold to thrill them. The idea of everything going back to normal must be so terribly disappointing.

Things will return to normal for a bit.

Unfortunately a precedent has now been set and as new virus arrive, or if there I a particularly bad flu season, or COVID season (as we will now have both) then we can likely expect restrictions that we had never seen this time last year to be rolled out again.

Having taken all these measures what’s an acceptable level of excess deaths before restricting us again? Is it more or less than the last bad flu in 17/18?

@Gretnacastle, I completely disagree. It would take another virus capable of taking out large proportions of the population at the same time to see these kinds of measures again. I believe they’re needed for covid but they haven’t been implemented lightly. The acceptable level is whatever our health system can cope with on top of what they normally do.

I remember the swine flu pandemic, the most memorable thing that happened was statutory sick was increased to fourteen days and that was because the GP’s were overwhelmed with people seeking sick notes.

Because not everyone will get the vaccine. SD will become the norm for many years and I am glad because people already spread germs every winter as it is. Large events will return but with small crowds and lots of sanitizing. People will wear masks when sick like they do in Asia, no more shaking hands thank god. The likelihood of new viruses has increased so we will be encouraged to stay vigilant to protect the more vulnerable. It's definitely a sacrifice but there is no going back

You crack on with your social distancing and mask wearing but don't expect everyone to do it

Agree with PP

I also wonder if the drive to see vaccine status will be driven if this allows airlines and the like to drop measures. I’m not flying until masks are dropped , and don’t really go anywhere where I have to wear a mask unless I have too. I guess they will do opinion polls on which option is preferred .

It’s be interesting to know if any private cos are holding focus groups o whether their customers prefer

1. entry to only those vaccinated
2. continuation with masks and SD until infections are nominal (flu levels)

I expect self-isolating when you have covid will exist long term. Maybe some form of track and trace too, since there is already contact tracing for certain other illnesses, e.g. bacterial meningitis. But with many fewer people getting covid, it would become a rare event.

I expect that other things like social distancing, bans on gatherings, and whole school 'bubbles' being sent home will stop within the next year.