Endgame

[Username198]

I keep hearing people saying they’re expecting some sort of normality from April 2021 and I really hope I’m wrong but I just can’t see it. They’ve spent all year telling us the virus can be deadly for anyone and young people are more at risk of long covid. On the basis no one under the age of 50 has been vaccinated by March/April (again could be wrong but just can’t see it) how can they start to lift restrictions until everyone has been offered the vaccine?

On the basis that ICU isnt full of covid patients I guess. The rest of us get it and once the most vulnerable are taken out of the equation it becomes just another endemic disease we have to live with.

I'm sure things will be better by April too, but with covid still doing the rounds just with less deaths ( let's hope)

I imagine they are hoping the vaccine will turn out to have a noticeable impact on spread and by the time they have jabbed half the nation the numbers will come down overall.

I just feel now I’m definitely going to get it before the vaccine gets to my age group

Are you genuine OP? The government have always said it's about bringing the R rate down and protecting the NHS. If few people get seriously ill from April, and few people are hospitalised, why wouldn't the country return to some semblance of normal?

I desperately want the country to go back to normal but the younger generation is surely likely to catch it if that happens and I know plenty of people my age who have been really ill with it and some have been left with serious health problems.

Thousands of younger people are catching it every week now. That isn't stopping them going to school, or playing with their friends, or meeting in bars.
Long Covid? It's a real concern and I think funds and research will be thrown at that next. But it doesn't overwhelm the NHS. So no need to shut down the economy for it.

There isnt a lot of human choice here is there? Covid calls the shots. If there are a lot less beds taken up in ICU and treatments are better then life can start again.

We dont get to decide if it's safe or possible to vaccinate everyone before spring. That's down to what is realistically possible.

It's going to be a semblance of normal, not 2019 type normal. We wont see that kind of normal until 2022.

Once hospitals can back to treating other cronic and acute diseases things have to start up again or life as we knew it will not return for decades. Otherwise its ( among other things) a entire generation of school kids we as a society have to pay for a life time on benefits.

Anyway no point thinking too far ahead. There is very little individual choice about what does and doesnt return in 2021

For you to be protected indefinitely from a minuscule risk, other people have to die - from the total destruction of the economy and everything that goes with that. Is that what you're expecting?

Yes it means that a lot of younger people will get it. But that was always going to be the case, restrictions are all about protecting the NHS and other services, not individuals. Once the elderly and vulnerable are protected deaths and serious cases will drop enough to be able to open everything up. The younger groups may not get the vaccine for a while as there needs to be enough vaccine for poorer countries to vaccinate their vulnerable first. Do you really expect everything to stay closed and restrictions in place until everyone is vaccinated? If you personally want to stay in for many more months then you can choose to do that but the rest of us want to get on with their lives (I’m in the younger groups too by the way, perfectly happy to take the risk when we are allowed).

I think there is a combination of wishful thinking, misplaced optimism and understandable denial going on.

Yes, best case scenario, things will be changing positively soon. But there’s a lot of ifs and buts and maybes to get through first. Things like how fast city’s mutates, how effective/long lasting vaccine is, whether manufacture/rollout goes smoothly, whether lag in vaccinating other countries will allow significant mutations to arise etc

So I personally think better not to count your chickens before they’ve hatched, but some people need to focus on there being light at the end of the tunnel to get through this. Which I get to an extent. I just think it’s better not to get your hopes too high and then see them dashed. Hope for the best, plan for the worst sort of thing.

I disagree slightly with one or two posters above - I think most (if not all) over 18s will be offered the vaccine as fast as supply allows, obviously in priority order. The cost (AZ vaccine) is relatively small and we already have sufficient doses on order.

Sadly this will trump any commitment to vaccinating poorer countries "first" - whatever schemes the government has signed up to it undoubtedly wants to get as many of us safely back out there working and spending money ASAP. And being given the vaccine may give many the psychological strength and license to do just that.

However - yes - there will be an interim period where the vulnerable have been vaccinated but not that many of rest of us. Accordingly, some restrictions may still be in place. Those remaining restrictions plus a degree of herd immunity in the vaccinated and "post CV recovered" population (which should hold even if the vaccines don't offer full sterilising immunity..) should make things safer for all of us.

I appreciate our risk may go up slightly (especially those of us in the 40something bracket) but I would think it would not rise too high for too long before we too are vaccinated in turn.

But yes - 2022 for normality to return. I doubt it will be next year.

@CheesePleaseLoueese

I disagree slightly with one or two posters above - I think most (if not all) over 18s will be offered the vaccine as fast as supply allows, obviously in priority order. The cost (AZ vaccine) is relatively small and we already have sufficient doses on order.

Sadly this will trump any commitment to vaccinating poorer countries "first" - whatever schemes the government has signed up to it undoubtedly wants to get as many of us safely back out there working and spending money ASAP. And being given the vaccine may give many the psychological strength and license to do just that.

However - yes - there will be an interim period where the vulnerable have been vaccinated but not that many of rest of us. Accordingly, some restrictions may still be in place. Those remaining restrictions plus a degree of herd immunity in the vaccinated and "post CV recovered" population (which should hold even if the vaccines don't offer full sterilising immunity..) should make things safer for all of us.

I appreciate our risk may go up slightly (especially those of us in the 40something bracket) but I would think it would not rise too high for too long before we too are vaccinated in turn.

But yes - 2022 for normality to return. I doubt it will be next year.

Stop scaremongering.

It will be another year at least before we have anything like normality. Maybe longer. Especially since the conspiracy loons say they won't get vaccinated.

@kittensarecute I’ve no idea how you can call such a thoughtful, nuanced and measured post as the one by @CheesePleaseLoueese “scaremongering”.

Of course it will get better next year, much much better. I also think we have to be extremely grateful that this virus isn't more dangerous. God forbid the next pandemic presents a highly infectious disease that kills 50% of people it infects, including children. Some perspective is needed.

[quote EnPoinsettia]**@kittensarecute* I’ve no idea how you can call such a thoughtful, nuanced and measured post as the one by @CheesePleaseLoueese* “scaremongering”.[/quote]
Because she claims that normality won't return until 2022 and I can't cope with this for another year, I just can't.

@DecemberSun

It will be another year at least before we have anything like normality. Maybe longer. Especially since the conspiracy loons say they won't get vaccinated.

I'm done. Can't deal with all these doom mongerers.

@EnPoinsettia

I think there is a combination of wishful thinking, misplaced optimism and understandable denial going on.

Yes, best case scenario, things will be changing positively soon. But there’s a lot of ifs and buts and maybes to get through first. Things like how fast city’s mutates, how effective/long lasting vaccine is, whether manufacture/rollout goes smoothly, whether lag in vaccinating other countries will allow significant mutations to arise etc

So I personally think better not to count your chickens before they’ve hatched, but some people need to focus on there being light at the end of the tunnel to get through this. Which I get to an extent. I just think it’s better not to get your hopes too high and then see them dashed. Hope for the best, plan for the worst sort of thing.

I think so too, unfortunately. On all the Christmas threads people are telling other people that it's ridiculous to consider seeing family now when 'it's only a couple more months/this will all be over soon', and I think a lot of them are going to realise they were wrong about this. There's a reason why when scientists talked about having Christmas celebrations later instead they talked about barbeques, e.g. outdoor events.

E.g. I just saw this on another thread:

MIL has banished everyone bless her (she's 89 and is sitting by the phone like a lovestruck teenager waiting for the vaccine call smile).

I think there a lot of people who think that it's any day now.

I'm of the opinion that nearly ALL under 40s do not need vaccinating - it is a waste. The Govt and media have done a good job of scaring everyone rigid. This utter paralysis of a normal healthy youngish adult is worrying. Once the older and more vulnerable populations have been vaccinated, it should start to ease.

For you to be protected indefinitely from a minuscule risk, other people have to die - from the total destruction of the economy and everything that goes with that. Is that what you're expecting

^^ This.

You always say everything I want to say TheDailyCarbuncle, only much more succinctly!

kittensarecute don't pay any mind to the misery fans on here, please.

On the basis no one under the age of 50 has been vaccinated by March/April (again could be wrong but just can’t see it) how can they start to lift restrictions until everyone has been offered the vaccine

They’ll probably just use the Nudge Unit to nudge us all back again. All media outlets awash with the polar opposite of the fear messaging we’ve been subjected to so far - it’ll be ‘Get back out there/embrace life in full/life is for living/the economy needs you’ and so on.

@kittensarecute

Some people are enjoying all of this. I find it very odd. But don't listen to them. Things will get a lot better in Spring - winter was always going to be terrible.

Let the miserable doom mongers sit in their living rooms clutching their pearls, peering round the curtain judging everyone else. They can do this for the rest of their lives for all I care.

There has always been a risk of serious and/or long term complications from catching a virus, long before Covid. There have been healthy young adults who have developed sepsis or post viral fatigue/ME, from things like chicken pox or tonsillitis.

That small risk did not stop healthy young adults living life normally, and I don’t think covid will either. If they are allowed.

So, by April 2021, if everyone particularly vulnerable has been vaccinated, yes I do think we will see quite a considerable return to normal.