The handling of this pandemic is psychological torture

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Who agrees? I have never ever felt so continuously anxious in my whole life. It feels like psychological torture to live this way. There is no leadership, it feels like anarchy.

Literally we are told that test and trace will make life normal again, it doesn’t. Told it was 3 weeks to flatten the curve, told they’ll never lock down again, then told that they will, told that the tier system will stop full lockdowns, then told a November lockdown will save Christmas, then it won’t, told schools will open, told they might not, told they aren’t opening today at 5pm last night. Various MPs saying more restrictions coming, others saying tier 5. How many tiers can there be? Media leaks and drip feeding, terrified constantly incase we can’t work again and our home is lost. Told a vaccination will save the day, and then told it won’t...

Now hinting at more lockdowns but not actually telling us what it will be.

This is hell. This is torture. It can’t just be me? I will never forgive this government for the handling of this pandemic.

I am not saying other countries aren't struggling with the virus but we do seem to have a particularly extreme problem with bullshit and u-turns.

[quote iVampire]Hardly anywhere is doing better

Exceptions are remote islands with low population densities and highly authoritarian regimes

Nations which are attempting to balance normal freedoms with pandemic restrictions, and their economy with public health closures, are having the hardest time of it.

Complete hyperbole to call it torture.

www.jurist.org/news/2020/02/un-rights-expert-defines-psychological-torture-in-new-report/[/quote]
Agreed. There's no point to compare us to places like NZ, it is not a straight comparison.

At least the shielding guidelines have been well communicated throughout, that is one thing.

Completely agree. It’s the bureaucracy that drives me mad. Provide parents who wish to shield their kids at home with online learning support. Make it easier for potential vaccinators to cut through the ridiculous red tape. Treat everyone in tiers the same across the board not this half in half out nonsense where some schools are closed and some are not. I believe all schools should close before this National disaster gets any worse. Gavin Williamson should stop this dangerous farce of opening schools at any cost.

I agree! I feel like I’m doing the Hokey Cokey of the corona virus. I understand that this is a new thing that we are dealing with, and I understand that the politicians are not going to get it right all of the time nor please everyone with the decisions they make. However it’s clear for all to see that this is not working! The tier system is not working, schools and unis being open is not working ( kids and teachers are in and out of isolation like yo-yos near us with whole classes being sent home and re tested. The last lockdown was a joke people were carrying on as normal. People are getting bored of it all now and I think some just are not taking it serious that’s human nature I suppose. When the new strain started to sweep through London and Tier 4 restrictions were coming into place people flooded the public transport to get out of London before it came in taking the new strain to the Midlands and beyond. My personal opinion is we need a proper lockdown again believe me it’s not what I want but I think it’s what we need, including schools or I cannot see us getting off this hamster wheel well into the end of this year. It’s hard also because there are so many differing opinions

Yes, neither will I (forgive them). But I suspect we're not the ones who voted for them so it won't make a blind bit of difference.

Agree completely OP.

Agree also with people differentiating between the global virus itself and our government’s woeful handling of it. But we’re even doing worse on outcome than other similar nations. We have a comparable death rate per 1000 population to Trump’s America. Actually worse iirc?

The government’s handling has been pretty crap but unless you or loved ones have been ill, or you’ve lost your jobs, I can’t see how you can describe the last few months as akin to psychological torture. I’ve experienced far, far more upsetting things than 2020.

Whoever said that they were being crap at communicating the plan... that assumes there is a plan!! And - fucking hell - if there ever was a plan, it was so very bad. And they still manage to pop up sounding smug and talking about how well they’re doing. End. Of. Days.

@Raspberry681

The government’s handling has been pretty crap but unless you or loved ones have been ill, or you’ve lost your jobs, I can’t see how you can describe the last few months as akin to psychological torture. I’ve experienced far, far more upsetting things than 2020.

I have experienced far more upsetting things too, but I have never had such a prolonged period of chaos. That is a legitimate point the op raised.

It is not kind to dismiss people in this way.

And I’m sorry, but I don’t agree @Raspberry681. I’ve lost loved ones in the past - older relatives at the end of their lives. They lived full, wonderful lives and then they died, which was sad, but not crushing. Frankly, watching my family and friends being slowly ground to dust over months and months has been much, much worse.

@raspberry681
I have lost my job and my husbands business is struggling. I have tried and tried to get another job and am finding it impossible, I am definitely the wrong side of 50! The worry is terrible. I have applied for every temp COVID job going and nothing. More than happy to stand in the rain directing traffic but you don’t even get a reply. I have also applied to the bank NHS staff for admin positions, apparently they are crying out for staff. My application is still waiting for review from 19th OCTOBER!!!!

I completely agree with you. The way the information is being shared (or not shared sometimes!), the lack of any proper plan, the backtracking, the drip drip of the media is all very psychologically twisted.
Even the media is bipolar - there can be one huge scare article next to an article telling us how we will get out of this by Easter 🤔 very messed up.

It’s shit and has been handled poorly but I’m broadly speaking ok. However, I appreciate that a lot of people are in a very different and more difficult situation than myself. I’d quite like my mother to see her granddaughter at some point before she turns 25 and I’d quite like to see my 87 year old grandmother before the inevitable.

Well if we'd stuck to the plan we'd be in a worse state as the plan did not expect a variant - why can't people get that the situation is changing - the worst part is the constant self-pitying whingeing.

@Raspberry681
Me too. I am 39 years old now but I was widowed when I was 22 years old. Please don’t make assumptions. My husbands previously very successful business has gone down the drain.

People are so right. The virus is a nightmare itself but the handling is the issue. Like you say, saying something on a Saturday and changing it on a Sunday. It’s shambolic and happens constantly.

This is the thing that is massively affecting my mental health. The stress of not knowing what the six of us will be doing every time they hint at a new level of restrictions. I have 2 jobs, my DH's job and my 4 children are in 4 different educational settings.

What is really affecting me is the complete shit that falls from the mouths of the politicians. How can teachers not be more adversely affected by this than the average worker. My DH goes to work in place with the majority of people wfh and he wears a mask all day. Not the same as putting a non masked teacher in a small room with 30 bodies that aren't capable of SD. I know that the kids don't seem to be catching the disease and becoming really poorly but surely it's about who they take it home to. It doesn't take a genius to work this out as I'm not one but bloody hell, surely people aren't buying what he says.

I've been on a self-imposed lockdown since October time (i.e. the same restrictions as March/April), which has at least made it easier to not be as worked up about the constant flip flopping and chaotic government. I'm lucky to wfh though.

Just for a bit of balance....and sorry it's behind paywall, but you get the gist from the available paragraphs. France managed to vaccinate 400 people in 6 days. Imagine the headlines if that had happened here.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/eus-coronavirus-vaccination-strategy-in-chaos-as-supplies-run-short-9kfd593w0

What we absolutely should have done at the start was to close all borders. Nobody out of any country to the next, unless for absolutely ESSENTIAL reasons. But our borders are still open for holidaymakers!!

It really does feel like the hokey kokey as someone mentioned!

I agree that the governments handling has been a shambles. I understand that it’s a balancing act, but from the very beginning it’s been a disaster. Too slow to act, mixed messages, u turns. It was obvious that things were going to get bad over winter, so they never should have gotten people’s hopes up about Christmas. I think Boris is a people-pleaser. He wants everyone to be happy, but he should have acted more decisively.

@StopSquirtingBleachOnCaneToads

It is hell but nowhere else in Europe is exactly a roaring success at handling it so not just us

I'm over in Australia and I can tell you now, to us and the rest of the world it looks like the UK government has handled everything much, much worse than anywhere else in the developed world. Hands down.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that in a smug way. I'm originally from the UK and a lot of people I care about are still there. Two of my relatives there have died of covid. Another is suffering long covid since fucking July of last year. I'm extremely angry at the UK government right now. They could not have made a bigger mess out of this if they tried.

The UK government have been an utter disaster with this. Although one saving grace has been just how terrible Trump's America have been which has taken some off the edge off.

I'm in agreement with you OP.

I had similar thoughts to you this morning and was relieved to see this thread as the next thoughts I had were that I'm losing my mind and am just not resilient enough.

But I have dealt with many unbelievable personal crises throughout my 51 years, and have always managed to pick myself up - a little more cynical, a little more jaded, but limping on because the rest of the world was chuntering on and wasn't demanding hands, face, space before I was allowed back 9n the merry go round.

The hokey cokey metaphor is extremely apt.

The whole situation is apparently engineered to make one constantly question both oneself and reality, the aspect of cognitive dissonance is appalling. It is leaving me feeling paralysed and incompetent.

And I'm lucky - I am not a parent with school aged children, nor blessed with grand children, I am not a teacher, nor a HCP, nor any sort of frontline worker. My business is non-essential and closed and was up against the wall before all this - and my attitude to financial ruin has always been that they can't put me up against the wall and shoot me for lack 9f money - well, not yet, anyway ha ha.....

But seriously, it does start chipping away at ones rationality as the good news gets dashed by another new variant or vaccine kerfuffle, as the numbers continue to go up and you find yourself wondering why? Why is it all being handled so badly?

And then you're in the frigging danger zone. You may not want a whole hat, but a small tinfoil cockade starts looking mighty appealing.....

Because seeing blatant incompetence at this level, seeing the conflict between our great and glorious leaders, seeing that this issue of global importance is being handled so badly is so at odds with all the things that are apparently able to be modelled, planned and executed successfully. And it's the perfect scapegoat, this virus, isn't it? It's new, its mutating, we can't keep up, we're doing our best.....

And you do start to wonder why, and you do want an explanation, a reason, anything that makes sense...

I'm not scared of the virus for myself. It's a crap shoot with any illness. I am of course worried for the vulnerable, and can see that the collapse of the NHS and the fallout for people with other illnesses is terrifying too.

The UK could have got on too of this a year ago. Last February rather than March at the latest. It didn't. I want to know why, because now we are dealing with a situation of Kafkaesque implication, and I'm mightily pissed.

Yep, 100% agree OP. I'd argue it constitutes 'cruel and unusual punishment'. When the history books are written, they'll reflect on that.

@Schehezarade

Well if we'd stuck to the plan we'd be in a worse state as the plan did not expect a variant - why can't people get that the situation is changing - the worst part is the constant self-pitying whingeing.

What plan was there? There never was a plan.

It’s a total fucking joke, and yes I agree our country is far more populated than New Zealand but had a similar formula been applied to this country from the start we would be in a FAR better position. These should and could have been totally comparable situations had the pandemic been handled efficiently from the start with exceptional planning. Instead it’s the Punch and Judy show.

Johnson has always been known as a bumbling idiot who likes to look a bit cool to the kids with his messy hair and skewed bicycle helmet. He should never have got this far. To be honest his girlfriend has swayed his hand in the past, she probably is the one screwing up the country here as much as he is.