To think people are deluded when they say ‘when this is all over’

[Lannaaa]

Not a conspiracy theorist! At all. But this is never going to be over. It really grates on me when people say this...like there’s a day where suddenly all is ok. This is going to go on for at least another year and will be here in some way or other indefinitely. It makes me sad that people seem to really believe that their freedoms will resume at some point. Maybe many many years down the line but not soon. Not sure where the ‘when this is all over’ even came from?!

@BonnieDundee

Well Priti Patel was on the radio today saying once we get everybody vaccinated we can get back to some sort of new normal which I thought was fairly depressing

I don't think strolling into a pub without giving contact details is coming back soon

@RichardMarxisinnocent just read around on MN, plenty of people happy to subscribe to lockdowns/limits forever (and not just that, also happy to berate and police others, keep others locked-up for the sake of the greater good). Any risk of death is now unacceptable, so even if Covid subsides we’ll have lockdowns every winter for flu etc

There has been a massive cultural shift

@Burnthurst187 true, but they didnt have vaccines and we do.

@TomasinaTiers what a crock of shit.

@Porcupineintherough I hope you are right!

This is catastrophic thinking OP. Have you tried CBT?

God forbid people try and be hopeful in this situation eh

This thread reminds me of those a few months ago with people 'predicting' that it was highly unlikely a vaccine would be developed before 2022.

It's not over until we can buy a Covid vaccine like we can buy a flu vaccine

Covid is really unpredictable compared to flu - I've had flu before and I buy a flu vaccine every year as it was awful

I'm being very careful to not catch Covid - I'm not prepared to return to normal life without buying a vaccine twice a year

I think people who believe that people will just accept not seeing friends and family in a social setting, no parties, no celebrations etc are deluded. It will just not happen. Each lockdown is seeing less people complying.

"I also think we’ll be in lockdown on and off from now on

There won’t be a “going back to normal”"

No, no, no. We will just refuse. If it looks like it's going on for ever, we will just have to take our risk.

Unless it mutates into something more sinister I think it will be over within a year and we will be back to a sort of normal.

[quote TomasinaTiers]@RichardMarxisinnocent just read around on MN, plenty of people happy to subscribe to lockdowns/limits forever (and not just that, also happy to berate and police others, keep others locked-up for the sake of the greater good). Any risk of death is now unacceptable, so even if Covid subsides we’ll have lockdowns every winter for flu etc

There has been a massive cultural shift[/quote]
No, we won't be having lockdowns for normal flu. The lockdowns have been to stop the NHS being overwhelmed. It doesn't happen in the same way with flu. The NHS does have some kind of crisis in a normal winter, but that's because it's under-funded. We can change that if we want to.

Even if it takes a long time this is not going to go on forever, pandemics have happened before and ended. We will probably be wearing masks for a long while, restrictions will gradually reduce over time.

We have a vaccine, things are moving forward, what good is doom mongering?

False optimism is harmful too

Doom mongering obv not great

But I honestly don’t see us go back to “normal”

@LaurieFairyCake

It's not over until we can buy a Covid vaccine like we can buy a flu vaccine

Covid is really unpredictable compared to flu - I've had flu before and I buy a flu vaccine every year as it was awful

I'm being very careful to not catch Covid - I'm not prepared to return to normal life without buying a vaccine twice a year

Isn't that the plan though? The Oxford one has been heavily hinted at to being approved and that is easy to make, cheap, easy to store.

what good is doom mongering?

Well, you can just be hopeless and helpless and it forces everyone else to do your emotional heavy lifting and offer a more nuanced perspective.

@southeastdweller

MN needs an edit function.

I meant household mixing won't be on the cards for ages.

We were able to mix households this summer (with social distancing yes, but you could have people stay over) so the idea we won't be able to in 2021 with the vaccine seems unnecessarily pessimistic

Op, sorry but I think you're the one who is deluded.
The elderly and vulnerable are in the process of getting vaccinated. The end is in sight. What makes you think differently?

I think our nearest comparison point was the Hong Kong fly epidemic of 1968 which taking into account the smaller world population back then actually killed twice as many people worldwide than Covid.

It basically burnt itself out after two years. The did develop a vaccine but by the time it was available most people have developed natural resistance (not immunity) so the vaccine wasn't rolled out. The vaccine did however provide the foundation for the annual flu jab which also needs tweaking every year as new flu viruses evolve.

Interestingly the 1968 flu virus has been in circulation ever since just as Covid will always be with us, The only difference s that we accepted living with the 1968 virus.

I think a lot of whether you see ‘back to normal’ depends on your starting point

I am CEV.

I hope that, once vaccinated, I can live by normal tier regulations, and that would be a huge step towards normality

Yes, what most people on this thread are seeing as increasingly tiresome restriction would be really liberating to me

@LobotheBotanist

False optimism is harmful too

Doom mongering obv not great

But I honestly don’t see us go back to “normal”

I think a lot of people are suffering the ill effects of false hope.

I like to ponder in advance as it helps me make choices

I just went to a restaurant before they closed - a good decision made by thinking over what was likely to happen next. (Might not seem a big deal but I don't often go, so glad I went before they closed down).

I wouldn't say I am an optimist, I wouldn't say things like "this will be over by march" it's going to take time but I can't live with complete pessimism either. A lot of the worst predictions on here never happened, if people listen and believe them that it can't be good for mental health.

Hapixmas

Yes, I think it is the plan - I think that's optimistically 18 months to get everyone who wants it though - and then a rolling programme

That's going to feel like a long time since the last 9 months have felt like 3 years

@LobotheBotanist

False optimism is harmful too

Doom mongering obv not great

But I honestly don’t see us go back to “normal”

But why when we've gone back to normal after the 1918 flu which was much worse?