When are things going to start improving?

[Blanketyblankblankety]

I'm so fed up I could cry and I can only see things getting worse not better. The Christmas bubbles are bound to cause a massive surge in cases and schools are going to be a disaster next term because of this. I've got DS self isolating again for the 3rd time this term and due to do GCSES next summer. He's spent so long sat down starring at his screen doing home learning this term he's morphed into an antisocial [redacted]. When DS has actually been in school I've had DD off self isolating. Dh has been WFH since March, I can't remember the last time I was alone. I know people have got things so much worse than me but when is this light at the end of the tunnel going to appear?

I think you can think two things at the same time (and I do):

a) the rollout in the first week was really impressive given the challenges and an achievement and a milestone
b) it is really scary to realise how much that rollout has to be scaled up to have any chance of vaccinating the vulnerable at anything like the pace expected by the public currently

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

It is one of the stupidest articles on the covid response I have read. YES if vaccination goes at the speed of the first week it will be too slow. No shit Sherlock. That’s why the rollout is speeding up with greatly increased numbers of hubs coming on stream in the second week. The DM is being sensationalist and irresponsible by extrapolating from the speed of the first few days to pretend there is a problem.

Also, there is a very good chance the Oxford vaccine will be approved soon, possibly before Xmas. Since it's a much easier vaccine to administer, once it gets appoved roll-out should speed up considerably.

@Blanketyblankblankety

I'm so fed up I could cry and I can only see things getting worse not better. The Christmas bubbles are bound to cause a massive surge in cases and schools are going to be a disaster next term because of this. I've got DS self isolating again for the 3rd time this term and due to do GCSES next summer. He's spent so long sat down starring at his screen doing home learning this term he's morphed into an antisocial [redacted]. When DS has actually been in school I've had DD off self isolating. Dh has been WFH since March, I can't remember the last time I was alone. I know people have got things so much worse than me but when is this light at the end of the tunnel going to appear?

I think a lot of us are really struggling with all this nonsense.

I do strongly believe that lockdowns arent the answer. My area was doing really well, bottom of the table for months then lockdown 2.0 happened and come the beginning of the second week of december we found our cases has soared! I find it hard to believe only schools can account for this, plus, locking people in their homes essentially over winter was never going to be sensible was it.

The vaccine will speed up as the processes are ironed out, I'm impatient too. Not because I want the vaccine as I know at my healthy lifestyle, 40 year old self, I really dont need it. But just because it seems to be the only way the public can be saved from the requirement to single handedly "save the nhs" and ergo be give our lives back.

@SpnBaby1967 I totally agree with you - our cases were very low until week 3 of lockdown 2.0 and they have soared since - we have today been placed in tier three.

I think the public appetite for “saving the NHS” really is waning. It really isn’t our job to save the NHS. Whatever has the government been doing for the last 9 months that we still have no idea but to lockdown to avoid an increase in cases / hospitalisation / deaths?

Vaccination seems to be our only way out now and the government seems to have gone all in with it.

We are often hearing how “slow” the vaccination scheme is going (no one is giving it a chance - this is only the second week!) and saying it will take the whole of 2021 to vaccinate the population. The public seem to be expecting everyone to be vaccinated so everyone can “keep safe”. Rather than recognising that the virus has a disproportionate effect on the vulnerable and elderly. If it was not for this, regardless of post viral syndrome (“long covid”), we would have been unlikely to have locked down. It is the effect on the vulnerable and over 50s that have threatened to overwhelm the hospitals and have seen the majority of the deaths. With the massive PR campaign of scaremongering, this seems to have forgotten.

A recent statistic I saw was that if the over 65s were vaccinated, that would stop 86% of the deaths. Google tells me there are 12 million over 65s in the UK. If there is a 75% uptake, we would only need to vaccinate 9 million to bring those deaths (and the Oxford vaccine has been proved to stop severe covid in 100% of cases) right down.

I hope the government continue to recognise this (hence the Easter date being thrown around) and we don’t aim for complete eradication via vaccination. I think this would take too long and there will come a point we need to balance economic / non-covid health issues / mental health issues etc., with covid concerns

I think we will start to see an improvement going into February, they will ramp up the vaccine program. Some of the most vulnerable will have had there second dose. Hospitals in my area are getting their staff immunised quickly-less staff sicknesses will make a big difference to hospitals.

More vaccines will be approved which will be logistically easier to administer.

I am pissed at the government for many things, but not the vaccine. They got it approved fast and started which is more can be said for most countries.

I just don't want to face the shit show that will be January.

January and February will be dire.

But around spring tine with better weather to improve mental health, less cases through socialising outside and vaccine gradually impacting, plus mass testing (yes with all its faults ) things will slowly improve
Summer will be freer but still some restrictions
Next Xmas virtually back to normal. But not necessarily world wide
Economic fallout is a different thing though ☹
Try to count it as say 12 more weeks. That helps me. We are nearly half way through the 6 month winter slog
Hth

If the over 50s and vulnerable have been vaccinated, there will be no need for restrictions. So it will depend how quickly the NHS can ramp this up. It’s accepted the first week went well and it will only improve from here. There will be absolutely no need for restrictions once these groups have been vaccinated (perhaps before if the vaccine programme brings down numbers as well)

It's not our job to save the nhs
What have they been doing for 9 months

Some people really are clueless and haven't got a clue how the real world works

@gebruiker

They can't roll out the vaccine programme fast enough for me. I am frustrated by the fact that each town has one hub and they are working their way slowly steadily through the over 80s. What happened to setting up vaccine hubs all over the place and getting as many vaccinated as possible? I think the government should have organised much more widespread vaccination sites so they could whizz through the over 80s and move onto the next priority levels. They have had months to organise and plan for this. And we have one hub per large town only in my county.

They’ve haven’t got enough doses to do that.

I know 3 people getting their vaccine this week.

@sleepwouldbenice

January and February will be dire.

But around spring tine with better weather to improve mental health, less cases through socialising outside and vaccine gradually impacting, plus mass testing (yes with all its faults ) things will slowly improve
Summer will be freer but still some restrictions
Next Xmas virtually back to normal. But not necessarily world wide
Economic fallout is a different thing though ☹
Try to count it as say 12 more weeks. That helps me. We are nearly half way through the 6 month winter slog
Hth

That's what I'm doing, even though it'll probably be another 12 weeks then another then another...

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel - we have very little supply of the Pfizer vaccine. Oxford / Astra Zeneca hasn't been approved yet. Nothing tells me that this government is capable of rolling out a vaccine at the speed we need. And Brexit could disrupt the supply chain. It's going to be a long haul.

We need more of this realism on MN. Enough is enough. Let's face it, these days we should view every contributor to society as a keyworker. As a society we have become afraid of illness and death, but they are part and parcel of life, figures shouldn't frighten us but they are being bandied around by government 'experts and scientists' in the hope that we will comply and hide away until 'it' is under control. I have lost both my parents in the last 6 months, so I guess may be in the 'used to death' zone, but do we really need to halt the whole economy and stifle everyday life because career politicians tell us that's what we should be doing? I realise the vast majority of the population mock the fear surrounding the great reset, but only time will tell.

It has been stated RAF will fly vaccines in if there are disruptions at ports.

I have been OK ish up until today, today its hit me. We are a family of 7 with a new baby so apart from school, and oh going to work, we haven't been doing much apart from bike rides and walks and the odd trip to the park. One or 2 outside pub visits over summer to keep us sane and family to the garden in Summer.. But I've had it now 😩 and I'm starting to wonder what comes next... Do the kids stop isolating once the old and vulnerable are vaccinated? Am I OK with knowing my child will then be exposed to positive cases more in school? What if they keep having to isolate and do remote learning (which is such a poor substitute) am I happy with that? Neither option feels OK. I'm looking forward to the day I can have family back inside to see us for meals etc. But I feel like the long term impact of this is going to hit home now. And the concern of what if this sort of thing starts to happen often... Its all so shit

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

In what sense would riots be a way out though? If we had riots we’d still have a pandemic, we would just also have some burnt out shops, streets full of broken glass and a few more businesses that were on their knees going under.

Keeping people locked away for anther year is a powder keg waiting to be released.

It was bad enough last summer with all the BLM marches and destroying statues, it'd be a lot worse than that if there's not more normality over the summer months.

I guess there'll be some restrictions in place through 2021 but it needs to be more back to normal with hospitality opened back up especially.

I don’t know OP but it won’t be long.
This is a massive test of resilience. For more than a generation. We’ve been asked to curtail our lives’ - our routines, our interactions - all things which make us human.

It’s bloody tough. It really is. But we will get through it. We WILL look back on this time one day and learn from it. We WILL appreciate all the things we took for granted and we WILL overcome it all. It’ll just take some time.

I know I’m a stranger on the internet... and this may be lost in a sea of posts and maybe nobody will read it. But in all earnest... I send to you - and anyone else who reads this - all the bloody strength in the world to get through it. And all the future happiness you deserve.

You’re doing just fine x

@gebruiker

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9063133/Britains-Covid-vaccination-scheme-needs-FOUR-TIMES-quicker-meet-target.html

I am not the only person who has noticed this slow pace. Apparently the vaccinations need to be going at 4 times the rate they are being given at the moment to meet the government's own targets.

Is this just down to the logistically difficult vaccine though?

Oxford should be easier to get out quicker.

I'm thinking around March/April for things to start being noticeably better. I've mentally written off Jan and Feb as just more of this glumness, but a few months is enough time for more vaccines to come online and a lot more vaccinations to get done.

I think it's perfectly fine and reasonable to acknowledge that this is a shit horrible time for many of us, but just because it's a shit horrible time doesn't mean it's never going to get any better than this.

I feel the same as you OP

I've had genuine thoughts that if this continues into the summer, I'll just do away with myself and let my husband have the life insurance money.

We'd just started to become financially secure and ready to buy our first home before all this. Now we're set back years. If this destroys another summer of business, I don't think we'll survive.

@Hardbackwriter

I think it's a difficult balancing act because more long-term information is much better for businesses but it's terrible for public morale and so compliance. The 'if you're spending Christmas with family you're a murderer' threads on MN are FULL of people saying that they can easily slip Christmas because they'll be having big family parties 'in a couple of months' or 'at Easter'; people would be even more likely to take the chance to meet now if you tell them upfront that we're likely to still be living like this long past Easter.

Oh thanks for that although I don't believe we will people are struggling to comply now let alone Easter

This was a nice read about vaccine deployment.

apple.news/AIJGgb78WTvWFWoJkxovivw

And surely it goes without saying that the pace of delivery will pick up massively. The first few weeks are bound to be the slowest while everyone finds their feet. And we only have one vaccine, a vaccine that is really complex in its delivery. Having more available (🤞🏻 For Oxford soon) will help even more.

I am confident that by spring things will be looking very different. Having the most vulnerable vaccinated will make a huge difference. We do not need all or even a majority of adults in the Uk vaccinated to really start turning things around.

@gebruiker

A lot of the items under discussion are outside of my area of expertise (vaccine logistics etc).

But I can tell you that the daily mail does not always use credible statistics in their paper. See thread here outline the a focus related example:

twitter.com/neildotobrien/status/1330830796966518785?s=21

One brave MP has asked for Covid deaths to be redefined from “deaths within 28 days of a positive test” to “died of covid”. Big difference.

Yes it is. It means that all those who died after 28 days would be included in the daily totals, and as ONS stats show they more than make up for the less than 5% of the 'with Covid' who died of something else. More than 80,000 dead of covid now, with it on death certificate as a main cause. Excess deaths even higher still.

It really is tough. We're in the toughest time now of all this I think. I'm thinking that even if we are still in the restrictions as they are now over Easter at least then it will feel better. The days will be longer. Hopefully (as long as the British weather doesn't live up to its reputation) the weather will be better. I think it feels as bad as it does now as its dark for too long and its gloomy.

I'm breaking it up. On Monday its the shortest day of the year. Although there won't be much of a difference, the days are going to start getting longer. If we can get past that, then get into the New Year (not too far away from each other) then we really are past the worst (fingers crossed). The next step is to get through January, then get through February. Hopefully by then we will notice the longer days and we can start looking forward to spring. Things will feel better then, even if restrictions and cases are still bad.