What’s going to happen next? Cases rising?

[Racoonworld]

The Wales lockdown hasn’t worked and it looks like the England one has only had very short term effects. Schools and unis still open and a lot of the public just aren’t following the rules now, it’s cold and wet so meeting outdoors isn’t going to happen so people are going inside. MPs don’t want harsher restrictions in their areas. So what will happen? Is it time just to end most restrictions seeing as they aren’t being followed anyway? Or will they try and impose another lockdown? Close the schools?

@cantkeepawayforever

I can see from your many posts that you’re inclined to catastrophise though so I am sure you will find something to be pessimistic about here too...

Apologies for my less than cheery outlook on life!

Being a teacher through this pandemic has not been something to encourage a robust feeling of optimism, especially in anything to do with our political leaders and any 'news' they give us......

I am a good deal more trusting of scientists than I am of politicians, especially this lot. If you’re a teacher I am not surprised you’re pessimistic though, teachers have been treated shamefully through this.

Herd immunity; my arse! Londeners did not all have it in November! We shut the whole country down in March when most towns in the North had cases in single figures- schools, shops, sports, leisure facilities all closed. Yet now, when the virus is peaking in those areas due to the 'eat out to help out' bollocks, schools are open and everyone is back at work and still the NHS is coping! The first lockdown was a waste of time for the vast majority of the country and only served to bugger up the local economy and make everyone's life difficult!

@FreekStar

Herd immunity; my arse! Londeners did not all have it in November! We shut the whole country down in March when most towns in the North had cases in single figures- schools, shops, sports, leisure facilities all closed. Yet now, when the virus is peaking in those areas due to the 'eat out to help out' bollocks, schools are open and everyone is back at work and still the NHS is coping! The first lockdown was a waste of time for the vast majority of the country and only served to bugger up the local economy and make everyone's life difficult!

I didn’t say we all had it!

Jeez, it was just an observation. I won’t bother linking to the articles as I sense you’re angry with London for some reason.

Bye.

PS all lockdowns are a waste of time, life, money, everything.

I am a good deal more trusting of scientists than I am of politicians, especially this lot.

I agree. However, I do think that the Oxford vaccine in particular has become so close to the political message that the scientific detail is being somewhat obscured.

I'm anti-lockdown, not because I don't take the virus seriously but because I don't think our lockdowns work. I have seen the shops/pubs/restaurants just before lockdown and just after and they are rammed, because people are desperate to see friends and family and shop and eat out and have a normal life. It seems to me that if we let people behave relatively normally, but with masks and social distancing then we can keep cases to a manageable level AND keep our economy from completely tanking.

In London, cases were dropping before lockdown even started and our hospitals are not as full as they were this time last year. Now we have the vaccine arriving soon...so no more lockdowns please!

I'm a bit gung ho about vaccines. I'm old enough to remember the polio roll out in the 50s and remember as a 4 year old being lined up at school for the jab. I swear they weren't even changing the needles or sterilising them, just bang bang bang down the line. An overpowering smell of surgical spirit which was being liberally used on our arms.

My nightmare was ending up in an iron lung, I wasn't afraid of dying, well dying doesn't seem very real at 4, but the human interest stories on TV showing the kids lined up with their heads poking out of the iron lung gave me nightmares. Even at that age I was happy to have the jab if it meant I wouldn't end up in the iron lung.

So now we are trapped albeit in something bigger than an iron lung and once again I see getting the vaccine as my way out.

@cantkeepawayforever

But I do appreciate that there are others who quite reasonably believe that the vaccine is the one aspect of the pandemic that the Powers that Be are NOT going to mess up!!

They’re certainly trying a lot harder than they did with test & trace. It’s not going to be plain sailing because too much is out of their control but I am hopeful there will be progress even if not at the ‘half the nation done by Easter’ speed they are claiming.

@AcornAutumn

PS all lockdowns are a waste of time, life, money, everything.

It's difficult, isn't it - we will never see the 'road we didn't travel', so the 'lives not lost because of the first lockdown' aren't there for us to count and see, whereas those affected by the lockdown are all too visible. It doesn't mean that the lives not lost due to the first lockdown aren't valuable, though.

I’ve posted before that I had long held the view that the Christmas Holidays should be three weeks to create a block for normal seasonal flu. I honestly believed it would save a lot of deaths among older people.

Then I realised that as soon as children break up, they spend a lot of time out at the shops.

So no, closing schools won’t help. Because children will mix more, not less.

I read these threads and rarely comment.

My DS school 1500 kids. Zero confirmed cars. No closures. Dd school 150 kids. Same. Rural area, so small primary but plenty of children bussed and driven in fro surrounding villages.

I have followed the rules, more or less. The odd breakage here and there.

I have a big circle of friends. No one I know first hand has had it. Only 1 friend of a friend has. No one has died. Both local hospitals have been fine.

Population density I think is the key factor in all of this and people who can follow the rules/ so those who can work from home, and those of a certain income bracket have choices available to them.

@DivGirl

I’m with Wizzbang. The first lockdown was justified by saying the NHS was going to be overwhelmed. That didn’t happen and this wave it hasn’t even come close to happening.

This is a disease the vast majority of people need a test to even find out they have. And we shut the country down for this. We closed schools, shat on education, closed small business while allowing the huge ones to continue to profit. We stopped the ill and vulnerable from spending time with their loved ones (in many cases stopped them spending their last months/moments with people they loved). We cancelled weddings, told people to attend funerals by zoom, stopped dads being present at their children’s births.

For an illness entirely indistinguishable from a heavy cold in the vast majority of people (and that’s people who even get symptoms).

They can’t stop lockdowns now because the press will keep publishing daily figures and people with too much time on their hands and too much anxiety in their heads will keep lapping it up. They have no choice but to continue with the rolling lockdowns. To hell with mental health, education, the economy, job security, personal happiness. To hell with it all.

This, absolutely!

The irony of all the "just can't believe how selfish some people are" is staggering.

The virus is already at high levels in places in the South- the top 10 places (highest number of cases) today include towns in London, Essex and Kent.

The government is fucked now. They probably know that most people have no intention of following local restrictions, let alone a complete lockdown. And winter pressure is already affecting the NHS in most areas.

@GoodKingWindowshopping

Yes probably both, meanwhile posters on these boards are promoting their anti vaxx agenda. We’re in for the long ride.

I hope they are not promoting anti vaxx agendas. FB twitter and other responsible forums have sat on/deleted those I would think mumsnet will too when they are noted.

The spanish flu lasted four years waxing and waning. It is a roller coaster the whole world is on.

DivGirl
I’m with Wizzbang. The first lockdown was justified by saying the NHS was going to be overwhelmed. That didn’t happen and this wave it hasn’t even come close to happening.

This is a disease the vast majority of people need a test to even find out they have. And we shut the country down for this. We closed schools, shat on education, closed small business while allowing the huge ones to continue to profit. We stopped the ill and vulnerable from spending time with their loved ones (in many cases stopped them spending their last months/moments with people they loved). We cancelled weddings, told people to attend funerals by zoom, stopped dads being present at their children’s births.

For an illness entirely indistinguishable from a heavy cold in the vast majority of people (and that’s people who even get symptoms).

They can’t stop lockdowns now because the press will keep publishing daily figures and people with too much time on their hands and too much anxiety in their heads will keep lapping it up. They have no choice but to continue with the rolling lockdowns. To hell with mental health, education, the economy, job security, personal happiness. To hell with it all.

Yes this

Iagree with @wizzbangfizz*.

Yes, take the consequences if no beds are free. If we did as wizzbang said and If I caught covid and there was no beds then it’s a choice I made

I honestly think things should just go back to normal. People that need help shielding should get it but everyone else should just get on with it now.

But you aren’t just taking the consequences for yourself! My husband had to go to hospital last week and he really needed to stay in on IV antibiotics. He was sent home on oral ones because the risk of staying in was deemed too high. My daughter has hydrocephalus. If her shunts malfunction she needs immediate life saving surgery and possibly an ITU bed. Her life is at risk not from Covid but because selfish arseholes are rammed into the shops spreading virus and will all go breaking the Christmas rules and setting up transmission chains.

@justasking111

The spanish flu lasted four years waxing and waning. It is a roller coaster the whole world is on.

Medical knowledge was primitive then compared to a century later. They didn't even know it was a virus as opposed to a bacteria for some time. With Covid, the genome was sequenced pretty much immediately and tomorrow, exactly a year after the first diagnosed case in Wuhan, people will receive a highly effective vaccine. Science has progressed massively.

In China the vaccine is £45 I wonder how many other countries will charge for it.

@cantkeepawayforever

But I do appreciate that there are others who quite reasonably believe that the vaccine is the one aspect of the pandemic that the Powers that Be are NOT going to mess up!!

The government could indeed screw up implementation but they didnt create it

Be pessimistic about the political side but I think you are in danger of taking that into the science side

@MyPersona agree with you. Sorry to hear of the health concerns in your family.

Yeah @IceCreamAndCandyfloss Some people DO only think of themselves Like the MPs who have allowed this.

www.politico.eu/article/england-scraps-coronavirus-quarantine-for-high-value-business-travelers/

Still im sure Covid knows only to infect the "plebs" for having the temerity to want to see family at Christmas that they havent seen for the best part of a year while leaving "high value" individuals alone.

All in this together my arse!

So no, closing schools won’t help. Because children will mix more, not less.

Oh don't be silly. There are over 200 children in my son's so-called yeargroup 'bubble'. Outside of school, he doesn't come into contact with 200 people from 200 families every weekday. Even if he does go 'to the shops' (which, by the way, is a weirdly old-fashioned view of how most teens spend their time).

@MyPersona Exactly - and you need the surgeon who performs any potential lifesaving surgery, and the nurses who look after her, and the cleaners and caterers in the hospital, and their husbands and wives and SCHOOL AGE CHILDREN to be free of the virus in the event that your daughter becomes very poorly. Why do people spout this bullshit about 'shielding those who need it and everyone else can crack on' as if someone (probably with medical needs) can exist completely separate from society.

This is a disease the vast majority of people need a test to even find out they have. And we shut the country down for this. We closed schools, shat on education, closed small business while allowing the huge ones to continue to profit. We stopped the ill and vulnerable from spending time with their loved ones (in many cases stopped them spending their last months/moments with people they loved). We cancelled weddings, told people to attend funerals by zoom, stopped dads being present at their children’s births.

For an illness entirely indistinguishable from a heavy cold in the vast majority of people (and that’s people who even get symptoms).

Exactly. It’s fucking ridiculous.

Enough of this bullshit. Either get the vaccine out as soon as humanly possible or figure out another plan (and other options are available) to avoid overwhelming the nhs.

Healthy young people hiding away, while the government rides rough shod over basic human rights, the economy, mental health is so fucking stupid I could cry.