Are you ready for another 6 months of restrictions ?

[Xtfc123]

Does anybody think that this will all be normal by March/April, no more masks or restrictions ?
Ready to 'do your bit' and not see family and friends and have restrictions on your lives until potentially summer ?

Aren't the restrictions in place to protect the NHS? Therefore once hospital admissions start going down (which hopefully they will once the most vulnerable have been vaccinated) the government should ease the restrictions on the rest of us. However I think a lot of people will still be very cautious, but only initially.

The main issue with covid is surely the hospitalisation and deaths - so it's not necessarily for everyone to be vaccinated to deal with that. If all the elderly get vaccinated then surely the restrictions can be eased a lot as the vaccination program continues with everyone else? Since that's the group most likely to end up in hospital.

@hugchocolate

Marsha, yes you have had this going on longer, but in a big way because the UK decided to have summer "off" virus precautions.

We watched in horror as people flitted all around Europe in summer.

People can watch in horror but still not here nor there. Economic hit is so vast they needed spending stimulus. The way we are behaving is no great mystery nor is it much different to what Aus would do in same situation.

@MadameBlobby

I’ve had endless huge painful cold sores since I started wearing a mask. It’s utterly miserable and makes me feel so run down and sick.

But I’m not allowed to care about my own health and well-being any more in the time of Covid. Protecting strangers and the NHS is more important.

Fine with it tbh. I can do this for as long as it takes. It will take ages to vaccinate people to the numbers required and we still don't know how long the vaccines are effective for. I'll probably carry on wearing a mask too. You can't just decide a date it will all be over, it doesn't work like that.

For how much longer should we have to 'protect' the bloody NHS ? It's not our fault that it doesn't have the capacity, they have had ages to get it sorted. Drs and nurses reporting that their wards are empty.

I am seeing less and less mask wearing...people pulling them down, cashiers not wearing them. I applaud this!

@Againstmachine absolutely

The trouble is when people are fed up the result isn’t ok let’s overwhelm NHS - it’s ok let’s shut stuff down. And it’s unbearable to keep dealing with that.

@Wigisfashion83

For how much longer should we have to 'protect' the bloody NHS ? It's not our fault that it doesn't have the capacity, they have had ages to get it sorted. Drs and nurses reporting that their wards are empty.

Wards are not empty these days. Total lie.

I'm also a dual citizen living in the UK. The UK has done it hard and the antipodean experience doesn't come close. It really doesn't. Attempting to suggest any similarity between the covid experience of the UK and Oz and telling us to buck up and try harder...

We did what needed to be done - we got on with it and made a vaccine.

You can't just magic qualified doctors and nurses out of your bum after a decade of Tory under funding and telling great numbers of them that they aren't welcome with Brexit.

Well hopefully once the vaccines get rolled out to more people in the community, the rates will go down, or at least the mortality.
It's going to be a shit winter, but surely and hopefully by Spring, there may be some light at the end of the tunnel.

Hospitals are no more overwhelmed than any other winter.

No chance I can do another year of this.
The only reason I'm still here right now is for my baby and my toddler.
The longer is goes on the more I think what life will my children even have now. We'll be paying for this for the rest of our lives and probably there's.

Yeah, I'm ready. It would be nice for it all to be over but I'm not surprised that it's not, and it's not affecting me too greatly. I don't like how my glasses steam up with a mask on, but then I only wear it in the shops - 1/2 an hour a week doesn't have that big an impact on my life.

I'm not too stressed about the risk to my family, or myself, as we're in tier 1, and as an introvert I don't at all miss 'gatherings'.

The absolute worst thing for me is that I work as a nanny and the children's parents at home so we're all getting under each others' feet, they're undermining me, the kids go whining to them etc. I would love to banish them back to the office. But I can put up with it for 6 months - a year.

You can't just decide a date it will all be over, it doesn't work like that.
Exactly this.
What the fuck is this thread...stamping your foot and saying I'm not joining in, isn't going to make the virus have a huff and piss off.

Anybody that thinks we'll be back to normal by the Spring will be in for a big shock. 2022 may be more normal but even then I'm not that confident. It will be a very gradual phasing out of things like distancing, masks, plastic screens etc. I think hand sanitizer is here to stay which I encourage tbh

A young girl at work came back this week, she's been off with her first baby since January. Coming back in must have been so strange, big plastic screens around her desk, one which system throughout, the canteen all socially distanced tables

@Dundundunnn

Hospitals are no more overwhelmed than any other winter.

Not by numbers of patients, no, but in my partners hospital, multiple staff are self isolating because they or a family member tested positive and most of the wards and departments are short staffed. It all has a massive knock on effect on patient care and length of stay.

After keeping us in tier 3 restrictions for months and promising mass testing but not delivering anything at all and now offering mass testing to London school children but not us, they can fuck right off. I’m not doing it anymore.

@Correlation

Aren't the restrictions in place to protect the NHS? Therefore once hospital admissions start going down (which hopefully they will once the most vulnerable have been vaccinated) the government should ease the restrictions on the rest of us. However I think a lot of people will still be very cautious, but only initially.

Hospital admissions are going down fast in Scotland. According to the excellent Travelling Tabby site the first peak was about 6th April with 203 admissions on that day. Very, very low all summer with 1 admission a day on average (yet Nicola still had us all very restricted). Started to climb again beginning of September, peaked again at 127 daily admissions on 27th October, falling steadily since.

Big Nightingale hospital never used. Although tehy are talking about using it as a vaccination station so at least that's something.

Next year is going to be tough - ongoing Covid cases, struggling economy, more redundancies and now it look like a no deal Brexit. The combination is a disaster.

@HazeyJaneII I accept that but at what point are we going to be ok? as a PP said hospitals are no more overwhelmed than normal, our economy is on its knees - adults need go be able to make their own decision on risk.

I do believe it will be pretty much okay by April. The vulnerable will be vaccinated. Children and students will have already had it. Longer daylight will be helping.
Yes I'm prepared to stay home and wear masks whenever shopping and live a very quiet life until then, or longer if I need to. I'm very community spirited and generally tend towards being a bit of a rule taker.
Yes the NHS is underfunded but there is no way even at optimum funding they would have been able to cope with unrestricted behaviour. No one funds for that level of catastrophe, nor should they.

Some hospitals are at capacity with Covid patients being admitted and staff shortages. (DH is a GP). There are over £4m on NHS waiting lists.