Am I the only one confident we can get back to where we were back in July/August?

[Lockdowner35]

With a tough full lockdown and the vaccine , in a few months maybe April/May we can get back to where we were in the summer time were we could have small parties and only reporting a 1000 or less new cases a day
Keep the faith

Yes, it’s what I hold on to when it all gets too much.

I completely agree with you.

I am predicting July/August 2021 will look like July/August 2020 wrt restrictions. That is my current best case scenario.

This new variant is just very infectious.

@lljkk without restrictions ? I think august more Back to normal even then not sure I will survive until then

Weren't Manchester and surrounding areas in lockdown over the summer? I would hardly call that ideal.
No, I have no faith that by April/May we will be in a great position with respect to figures.

Not unless they take action fast.

I honestly hope that things will be almost back to normal by the summer.
The thought of ending social distancing ( I hate that phrase) ditching masks, going to a busy pub, going to a packed theatre, keeps me sane.
Surely by 2022 this should be a distant memory?

Yes with proper lock down now and a vaccine.. I want it now so we can Al enjoy our summer.

Sorry but summer 2020 wasn’t that great. Some parts of the UK were in tight restrictions and the rest of us could meet with up to 6 people and still social distance.
I hope this summer is better than that, I’d be disappointed if summer 2020 is the best we get.

Yes - but only because the virus will continue to behave as viruses do

Depends on vaccine roll out being successful.

Be great if the numbers would be down enough by summer for medics to concentrate on long Covid sufferers.

Yep agree op - they only need to vaccine 20% of the countries most vulnerable people to stop 80% of the deaths

I think by May we will be back to normal. No reason why not.

@LemonSherbetFancy

I think by May we will be back to normal. No reason why not.

@LemonSherbetFancy thank you, needed that :)

We can, but we need Boris to actually make some sensible decisions

@Lockdowner35

With a tough full lockdown and the vaccine , in a few months maybe April/May we can get back to where we were in the summer time were we could have small parties and only reporting a 1000 or less new cases a day Keep the faith

I think it depends.

In terms of cases, will the vaccine mean people don’t contract covid or just that when they do they aren’t as ill? Because if it’s the latter we might not get to 1000 cases, but it won’t necessarily matter.

The main thing it depends on is a political decision as to how much restriction they feel is proportionate to the extant covid rate at any time. For my part, once the hospital admissions are down (due to the vaccine) and the NHS can cope, restrictions need to go, even though very sadly covid will still be around and still cause a problem for some. But that has to be weighed against the catastrophic harm of lockdowns for the vulnerable in my opinion. However the government may take a different view and say that even if the NHS can cope, they want distancing and restrictions till deaths are near zero, in which case we will be living with them for some time to come.

Finally I assume that this fucker had a natural peak whatever we do so that plus the warmer weather means I would hope summer 2020 national restrictions (rule of 6 etc) is as bad as it will be.

I'm not confident but I am hopeful

The government absolutely won't take the view that deaths need to be near zero

I live in the NW and my summer was pretty shite tbh. But I'm not expecting any positive changes this year. Basically expecting the worst, hoping for the best!

I think there will come a tipping point around April when the numbers vaccinated plus the natural seasonality of the virus mean that numbers decline significantly and stay low without major restrictions.

I wouldn’t say no restrictions by summer (and I wouldn’t bet the farm on big events) but a much better situation all round,

There may be some nervousness next October again though. It will depend on the actual efficacy of the various vaccines delivered by then.

However the government may take a different view and say that even if the NHS can cope, they want distancing and restrictions till deaths are near zero

I don’t think that’s an option. Once the health service isn’t overrun, they won’t give a shit about small numbers of deaths.

I was very positive about being back to normal by summer.

But a few things have made me feel very despondent.

1. New strain - for obvious reasons

2. the government's failure to implement a complete lockdown, including schools online, despite the fact that hospitals across the country are full

3. I did the online calculator to see when I would be vaccinated. I am CV so group 6

2 weeks ago it said March/April

Today it says June to September.

If even the clinically vulnerable are not getting vaccinated until the summer then there is no hope of normality by then.

Trouble is we're at almost the worst point now and will be for a while. BUT Oxford vaccine starts rollout tomorrow, and in 3 months from now lots will be vaccinated and I think we will start to see an upturn from Easter. Got to get through the extremely grim time in between but it will improve from spring.

I think deaths and hospitalisations will fall sharply as the vaccine kicks in. These are so skewed towards the demographic being vaccinated that if the vaccine works at all they should fall off a cliff once the first few million are vaccinated with or without more lockdown. We should also hopefully see the affect of a lot of the people who are mixing most having had it and therefore having some immunity at some point. If 100k people are getting it a day, that's 5% of the population every month.

My worry is that the public won't be willing to accept any risk because they have been so scared into believing that covid is very dangerous to them personally. The government and media intentionally pushed this view early on to encourage compliance (SAGE minutes even recommended trying to make the public more scared for themselves) and it has really stuck in people's minds. We've seen it on some of the teacher threads recently - teachers who are in their 30s with no particular vulnerability not willing to go back to work until they're vaccinated etc. If that persists from a large number of people we will probably be living with restrictions for a long time.

That said, people's minds can be changed quickly too. Look at eat out to help out - the incentive of a half price meal made a lot of people's fear vanish.