To be hopefully that things will be back to normal by April

[Tellmelies65]

I’m convinced things will be mostly back to normal by April. Am in denial?

I used to think April but now, as a nurse, I see the vaccination programme is being rolled out far too slowly. For most care homes in my area, they aren’t scheduled to receive their vaccines until end of Feb. The majority of care staff in my local area haven’t had their jabs yet and again, are looking to February to be invited, the vast majority of the over 80s I know haven’t been invited either. So that’s the first group on the priority list and it’s taking longer than it should. Then there’s the rest of the over 50s, the CEV etc etc.

Maybe June?

I’m hoping for late summer or autumn, and even then I don’t think it will be exactly as it used to be. I think April is far too optimistic.

I have optimistically bought tickets (well, moved dates with my flight voucher) to fly to the Med to see my parents for Easter. The country they live in is starting the vaccine roll out this week and they are 81 and 77 respectively so I am really hoping they will be fully vaccinated by then if not before. Of course we won’t go if it’s too much of a risk but I am hopeful that we will be able to. We managed to get there for summer.

Like a previous poster said I hope to hunker down for the next couple of months of restrictions and then hope for fewer restrictions and more freedom come spring.

And yes to seeing people (and being at) parties and festivals and pubs etc etc. Cannot wait.

I am definitely hoping for Easter/Spring time. I've just started Maternity Leave and due my baby end of next month.
I could cope with maybe the first month in a cosy bubble at home but then I'd love to be able to be out and about, going to baby groups and visiting family.

This podcast (Adam Rutherford for the BBC, he also presents More Or Less which is all about making sure statistics are used and interpreted correctly) has a really good explanation of the numbers needing to be vaccinated in order to get pressure on the NHS down - it’s well worth a listen and makes me feel positive that even if only the over 70s and CEV get jabbed by April, it will make a substantial difference:
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000py6s/episodes/player

Sorry, Tim Harford! Wrong BBC science person.

I think once the Oxford vaccine gets approved things will speed up considerably and there will be a huge govt push towards getting it done. As long as that happens fairly smoothly we'll Ivan hope can't I? then I think by April hospital admissions and deaths will have dropped significantly and everything will feel more comfortable (most of the country tier 1 with the odd tier 2 patch) it won't be fully normal but it will certainly feel much better and more optimistic.

I think April 2022 is more likely.

Vaccinating everyone takes a long time and in the meantime huge numbers are still mixing at shops, school and work despite tier 4 so cases etc will remain high.

I keep reading about it taking a long time to vaccinate everyone so we will be in tier 4 for at least until that's done- but no one answers my question about why we would bother worrying about how many people have it once the people having it arent going to hospital or dying from it?

If those who will potentially die or be sick enough to need overnight stay in hospital (let alone ICU treatment) arent catching covid, and the only people catching covid are the majority who will be sick for a few days then bounce back, whats the point in restrictions?

As soon as all the vunerable and elderly have been vaccinated (or enough so the numbers left over arent going to crash the NHS if they all catch covid within the same fortnight), surely that's the point we just get on with life as if covid is a normal flu bug, why would we wait until everyone has been vaccinated?

Why do people on here think we will wait until everyone has had the vaccine to lift restrictions?

I’m in the second to bottom group on the vaccine list.

Vaccine calculators have me at June/July. And there’s a group below me.

I think April is too early. July/August maybe?

@Aquamarine1029

I don't think there is any possibility of things being "normal" by April, sorry. I fail to understand why you're convinced it will be.

Stereotypical MN post with posting your crappy opinion as though it’s a fact because you’ve CLEARLY got more insight than the rest of us. Bonus points for the ‘sorry’

It’s getting old now. Can people not at least be original in their gloom spreading and find some new material???

@QuantumJump

I hesitate to use the word normal, but I certainly hope that the worst will be over by April.

This

It depends on what your normal is OP, that’s my take on it.
If you’re a frequent traveller and gig-goer then I suspect ‘normal’ may come a bit later for you than simply being able to socialise with friends and family. I do things will be much better by April but not sure by how much.

I find it interesting that on every thread ahead of Christmas where a poster was saying that they really wanted to see family and were thinking of maxing out or exceeding the three households they were told by lots of posters that they were being stupid because 'this will be over in a few months', 'have a big family Easter instead', 'we're just holding on for the vaccine, it's a matter of weeks now so why risk it at Christmas?'. Interestingly this MN optimism seemed to disappear as soon as people had been encouraged to give up their only guaranteed day to socialise properly with family for an indefinite period, which actually seems quite cruel...

I don’t think things will be normal by April at all, or that family gatherings will necessarily be possible. But when it comes to seeing family members who are high priority for the vaccine it does seem madness to risk seeing them over Christmas when cases are so high. I didn’t see my elderly relatives, one of them is due to get first vaccine shot tomorrow. So whatever the wider situation, it has to be safer to see people once they are fully vaccinated than beforehand.

Sorry for bold fail!

I'm hoping things will have improved, but I think the Summer might be more realistic.
For us, I'm not sure...ds is medically vulnerable and without a suitable vaccine on the horizon, it all feels a bit blurry.

@MargosKaftan

Of course you are correct, once the people who would need hospitalisation are vaccinated, we should be able to get on with life.

This is still a minor illness for the majority of people, much like a bad cold.

My fear is that people like @IceCreamAndCandyfloss shout the loudest. It’s the tyranny of the weak dominating at the moment

YANBU OP, I don't see how we wouldn't be back to some sort of normality by Easter. I'm actually thinking Feb everything starts opening again, thanks to vaccinations the numbers don't start rising and by March everything will be open with very few restrictions. Perhaps masks will still be required but that seems a small inconvenience.

Also people are forgetting that this is seasonal. The numbers were low last summer not due to restrictions but just due to the seasonal nature. Why on Earth people would be advocating for continued lockdowns in the summer is beyond me

I don’t think things will be normal by April at all, or that family gatherings will necessarily be possible. But when it comes to seeing family members who are high priority for the vaccine it does seem madness to risk seeing them over Christmas when cases are so high. I didn’t see my elderly relatives, one of them is due to get first vaccine shot tomorrow. So whatever the wider situation, it has to be safer to see people once they are fully vaccinated than beforehand.

Maybe this is part of the general MN assumption that everyone has loads of very elderly relatives - I don't, mine and DH's grandparents are all dead and my parents and in-laws are in vaccine groups 5 and 7. As it happened tier 4 restrictions meant we couldn't meet at Christmas anyway, but if they hadn't I absolutely would have taken my first chance to socialise comfortably and in a relaxed way with them in months and probably for many more months, but MN was absolutely convinced that that would be akin to murder.

I’m not sure it is seasonal. Loads of hot countries have had it. India for example.

@lovelemoncurd

Who do they think is going to administer this vaccine. Nurses and docs stretched to capacity already! Maybe the milkman?

Pass it over and I will do it myself or get my daughter to do it she injects herself 4 times a day

Its the odd idea that many on here have - people in their 30s/40s/50s without underlying health issues - that the restrictions are to protect them and their dcs.

They are not. the government does not care if you or your dcs have covid. They care who you might pass it on to, and if the people you pass it on to might need ICU treatment and/or die.

Once people aren't needing hospital treatment for covid, who cares if you feel rough for 4 days?

I'll give up the things I enjoy for a year to save the life of a stranger, but you can fuck right off if you think I'm cancelling theatre tickets so you don't get a bad cold.

And any government that tries to make us all continue to give up fun stuff purely to stop people being off work sick for 10 days then recovering fine - will find themselves very unpopular. And Boris will do anything to be popular.

Its the odd idea that many on here have - people in their 30s/40s/50s without underlying health issues - that the restrictions are to protect them and their dcs.

There's also the fact that many people overestimate their own risk - both on MN and in real life I've seen loads of people declare that they 'would die' if they got Covid because they have mild asthma/are obese/have diabetes, despite being in their 30s or even 20s. They often get very angry and upset if other people point out that this is just not true, statistically - a lot of people are, for complex psychological reasons that I don't fully understand, very attached to their status as vulnerable.

@hamstersarse

Also people are forgetting that this is seasonal. The numbers were low last summer not due to restrictions but just due to the seasonal nature. Why on Earth people would be advocating for continued lockdowns in the summer is beyond me

Exactly, all those people that were getting grief for a day at the beach or a picnic in the park (when nothing else was open) and numbers still continued to fall.