If next Christmas is like this one will you still be following rules?

[elleps]

Miserable pessimistic post alert. Feel free to hide the thread!

Just wondering who would carry on with following on with these rules if we are in the same boat next year?

I can completely see things staying like this for many months to come. People will say otherwise, that there’s a vaccine and that things are going the right way. But then nobody thought in March that we would be sat like this on Christmas Day. So I don’t hold out much hope.

Things can’t carry on like this beyond March surely, even if the virus is still spreading as it is?

I Think once they come clean about the vaccine now being redundant we will be back to square one.

Welcome to the new world.

😭

[quote elleps]@Hotpinkangel19 exactly. I fear people assuming ‘this will be over’ by spring are in for a big shock[/quote]
Me too. I just wondered if I'd missed something. I see lots of post saying we are coming to the end of it, or once the vaccine has rolled out we'll get back to normal. It's not going to happen unfortunately.

I think people just feel the need to hold onto some hope, which I get. But looking back over this year, we get to December and there’s two new strains, queries over the vaccine being rolled out in time...obviously even with an effective vaccine it won’t be sorted by spring. I’m not suggesting we have some civil unrest but I wonder when more people are going to be realistic that this isn’t going to ‘be all over.’ I would bet good money on there being some form of restrictions, if not full restrictions, in place in a year. And I’m not a conspiracy theorist by the way!

@Hotpinkangel19

Can I ask why people think that once the vaccine is given, it will be over, it doesn't stop people passing it to each other does it? Just reduces the severity of the symptoms of the person who has COVID?

Because once the vulnerable are vaccinated it won't matter if they, or anyone else, gets covid. If most people who get it only get mild symptoms, and there isn't enough severe cases or deaths to overwhelm the NHS then problem solved. We won't eliminate it, we will live with it once vaccination rollout is done.

I'm more wondering why people think this is the "new world." Do you really think we can afford to carry on like this, keeping businesses shut and furlough forever? It will not happen.

Once the vulnerable have been vaccinated the rest of us will be told to go back to normal and take the risk. The point of these lockdowns is to stop hospitals getting overwhelmed, that is the only reason. If the vaccine reduces severity of symptoms therefore reducing hospital admissions, there will be no need for lockdowns. The government will not close businesses and lock everything down to prevent young healthy people getting the virus, we will be told to get on with it and do personal risk assessment.

[quote elleps]@Hotpinkangel19 exactly. I fear people assuming ‘this will be over’ by spring are in for a big shock[/quote]
I don't think it ill be all over by spring, but it will be for me as far as keeping away away from my friends and family.

@TheDailyCarbuncle

Questions like this genuinely make me wonder at how little people seem to understand how the economy works. If rules did carry on at this level for a whole year then covid would be the absolute least of anyone's worries - the country would be so entirely decimated that the main issue would be fucking starvation. Honestly, are people just totally disconnected from reality? Some smug lockdowners are going to get a massive shock when they start to realise in 2021 that they've 'stayed safe' by setting fire to their whole fucking lives.

I expect the government to have opened up as much of the economy as they can in twelve months time but I don’t trust them to roll out the vaccine efficiently and they won’t want to make having it mandatory so I expect some kind of household mixing restrictions for a hell of a long time.

@Hotpinkangel19

Can I ask why people think that once the vaccine is given, it will be over, it doesn't stop people passing it to each other does it? Just reduces the severity of the symptoms of the person who has COVID?

Because the endgame is not to eradicate this virus, it's to stop too many people getting so ill that they need hospitalisation.

Do people still not understand this?

How long do people think this can go on? The current situation is not sustainable, we cannot fanny around waiting for Covid to disappear entirely, lovely as that would be

@Passmeabottlemrjones I know, some people seem to think we will have restrictions until it's eradicated. It will never be eradicated, we won't have restrictions forever. People will just have to get on with their lives at some point next year. Once the vulnerable are vaccinated there is no need for restrictions.

@Thewiseoneincognito

I Think once they come clean about the vaccine now being redundant we will be back to square one.

Welcome to the new world.

😭

Oh give us peace. Do you doom mongers never have a day off?

@Passmeabottlemrjones i agreed but I think that the government have done a bloody good job at scaring everyone (literally) senseless and young / healthy people think they will be struck down with covid at any point, especially so called “long covid”. We had been sold lockdown as a way to “protect the NHS”. So I totally agree with you that if the NHS won’t be overwhelmed, there will be no need for restrictions. Eradication is simply not going to happen. People will just have to accept that covid is something that will be around and may make you ill.

@TheDailyCarbuncle

Questions like this genuinely make me wonder at how little people seem to understand how the economy works. If rules did carry on at this level for a whole year then covid would be the absolute least of anyone's worries - the country would be so entirely decimated that the main issue would be fucking starvation. Honestly, are people just totally disconnected from reality? Some smug lockdowners are going to get a massive shock when they start to realise in 2021 that they've 'stayed safe' by setting fire to their whole fucking lives.

True

I think that by the coming summer most of us will have been offered the vaccine, and by next Christmas, anyone who wants to be vaccinated will have been.

So, no, I won't be following the same rules next year.

Already not, so no.

If this gov keeps chucking me into a work environment with no real mitigation measures, whilst telling me and everyone else that I'm safe even though I'm not, then fuck 'em. Going to do what I want.

No, I don't think many will. Today will have given alot of people a small taste of being back with a small amount of their family, I can't see many sticking to the rules after this to be honest. Haven't seen my sister in months, and after finally getting to see eachother today we've agreed we're both done with it all.

Lord no.

I’m already pretty through with them tbh.

Absolutely not a chance. We haven't stuck to the 'rules' this year though. We had 5 households together today. Same tomorrow.

I think this Christmas apart from our family has made me realise that family is important and I don't want them to miss out on any more of my baby's life. We will be waiting out this wave because of the risk, but then seeing family again, no matter what the rules are. I'll be going back to work anyway so will set up childcare bubbles instead of nursery for a bit so family can see us. Against the rules but I really don't care anymore.

No way will it still be like this next year!

We are in a very lucky position where the rules don't affect are lives to much. So yes if we have to to help keep others safe.

My mother inlaw has been shielding since March and has had her first jab. So hopefully the children can see her soon. That will be wonderful. The only real change to our lifes was not seeing her.

But we would also have to make our peace with the fact that if the virus was still spreading, doctors and nurses would eventually have to start making some very difficult decisions about who not to treat as hospitals would be at capacity. People would be turned away. And I’m sure there would be uproar when this happened and that might then make people more likely to stay away from family etc because you’d be risking them catching it and then not being treated.

The trouble is that if this happens (battlefield triage and doctors and nurses having to make quick and brutal decisions about who gets treatment), it won't just be covid patients being turned away - it could be patients with any condition. People who've been in car accidents who could survive but who won't pass the triage, people with symptoms that might be a heart attack or stroke but who won't get an ambulance or the close attention they need, pregnant women who need a surgeon to do a c section and so on. The NHS being overwhelmed doesn't just mean a few fewer people survive covid - it could mean hospitals having to shut their doors to all sorts of patients.

To stop that happening people would need to be motivated to avoid spreading covid full stop, not just to avoid spreading it to their own vulnerable relatives. There seem to be far too many people thinking it generally won't matter if covid spreads widely, so long as we can accept a few more covid deaths. It will still matter though and I think those people are the ones who are going to be in for a shock if cases keep rising the way they are at the moment.

Can’t think that far ahead but yes I will.

Just hope there is some point next year when I can go and see my elderly Dad who lives abroad and who is scared he will never see me and my sister again.

Even if it means flying to where he lives and meeting him in a park.

Not in terms of meeting up with close family and I've seen my parents throughout this year anyway (permitted since they brought in the under 1 support bubble but not always beforehand). Most people I know are seeing close family indoors now in a quiet limited way.

For those who are saying they would stick to the rules for another year, I find the reasoning given a bit mixed up.

Either it's due to the risk to relatives. But on an individual basis it is very easy to reduce that risk down to almost zero. You can get a private covid test now or self isolate or partly self isolate if you are very worried. That would reduce risk down to well below what used to be tolerated in terms of passing on flu to elderly people. Equally, someone who has taken those precautions seeing another person who has taken them is of very minimal risk to anyone else. There's quite a high risk of someone over 70 dying each year and I know my parents and in laws would not want to die without seeing their relatives again.

Or it is due to respect for the law / fear of consequences of breaking it. I understand the former but personally don't think bad laws deserve to be followed and a law which bans you from seeing family for over a year is, in my view, a bad law. I actually don't think banning people seeing their family in their own homes is ever an appropriate strategy for managing a pandemic and it doesn't seem to have been very effective anyway.

I hope it's all academic and the worst of the restrictions end soon, though nothing would surprise me now.

I don't know what the rules are anymore. I don't have the energy or will to read them/find out.

We carry on being careful - so as to protect our family and others. But we do it our way - not Boris's every changing way.

I'll be doing the same next Christmas - if it's still like this then.

I can't believe there are so many people here who would still, in a years time be willing to have the government dictate to them who they are allowed to meet up with in their own homes in their own time! I'm really not a lockdown denier I have mostly stuck to the rules, but not for another year!