So when the vulnerable are vaccinated the lockdown experiment ends right?

[orientalknife]

Because life cannot go on like this and we are ruining kid's future

@UneFoisAuChalet

I really worry about the mental health of posters who are worried that their kids can’t have a play date

^This, and brilliant post

@HoppingOnSteppingStones

I have 2 nurse friends who allow their kids to go on play dates and has kids to hers

The fact that they are nurses makes it x100 times worse

I had friends, I played with my friends, I met up with them in the neighbourhood and I didn’t even own a mobile phone. Kids will find a way to amuse themselves without their parents interference

Are you a bit dim? You may not have had "playdates" but by your own admission you were HANGING OUT WITH OTHER KIDS. Which is what kids are NOT ALLOWED TO DO RIGHT NOW. See how it works? Also, your kids are a pair of siblings. Only children are having it really hard right now.

I am NOT against the restrictions at the moment. I am just saying, please do not write stupid posts like this which minimize the difficulties other families are having. And please understand that most of us will quite reasonably start rolling back the restrictions once the old and medically vulnerable are vaccinated.

JS87 "Whilst there are some children for whom lockdown is damaging this doesn’t mean that children with a perfectly happy life can’t survive without play dates for a while.

DS is an only child but he’s coping fine. Don’t forget they could see friends outside all summer (indoors in some areas) and then they were at school all last term. I don’t feel like 8-12 weeks is that long to cope without play dates."

There is no end date to school closures but even if its in 8-12 weeks that's a long time in a child's life. It's good that he's happy but perhaps that's a sign that he has become accustomed to isolation or is personality wise is not very sociable and prefers his own company. Both indications that he may find future social interactions more difficult than other children who may be expressing unhappiness from being isolated from their peers. In many ways it is a sign of healthy social development to feel sad at being isolated.

Once 23 March comes and a year of this shite I think compliance will really drop. Once I’ve had my vaccine and my parents (and it’s effective) I will be visiting my parents as normal.

Hops - that child either has a developmental issue or parents that let them stay in nappies or was having a lot of accidents but had to be nappy free for school. It certainly is not going to be a common lockdown issue. Also bear in mind year 1 kids might have just turned 5 so not all that shocking.

Im sure the other kids would quickly get back into english after all many of the world speak it without even being in english speaking country so learn it from tv etc.

@MadameBlobby

I think compliance will really drop

People will be fined then

hopsalong your posts have a scary whiff of eugenics about them. You want to limit ICU care to covid patients, even though those who make it to ICU are those actually more likely to survive - they're not putting 80 year olds on ventilators, you know, or the most ECV, because of poor outcomes and the brutality of it for those groups. But you want to limit it so your child can have play dates.

Chilling.

I missed well over a year of school through my childhood due to chronic illness. I had no work given to me (good old seventies and eighties) yet still managed to get a first class degree, become a teacher and then a writer. This time out of school is not wrecking every child's life forever. For some it's actually enhancing their lives, as a recent thread shows - some who are bullied in school, who struggle with their mental health in school for many reasons have found themselves set free and are now in a much better place (a friend of mine's DD has changed beyond recognition. I never saw her smile before.) Of course some children are more at risk (and always were.) Of course some children are not getting exercise and in front of screens all day. But this hyperbole about all children's lives being utterly ruined does not reflect the nuances of the situation and is unhelpful.

Yes I think we all realise that human power over mortality is limited. This isn't about overly delicate sensibilities regarding death, this is about practicalities - not getting to a position where critically ill people with any condition (other acute illness, after accidents etc) can't access critical care because its choc a bloc full. We carried on with minimal restrictions over the summer accepting that some (far fewer) people were still dying of Covid in hospitals - so that doesn't point to being overly precious about our own mortality. I think the lockdown sceptics are the ones who are not being realistic

This can't be said enough. People keep making it about saving a few lives of people who were going to die anyway, because that narrative justifies their position on lockdown or maybe helps them cope with the situation - people minimise to block out fear. But the reality is a practical one: hospitals are overrun and, in the vast majority, with people who will survive this with hospital treatment, so this is about protecting the ability of the NHS to do this without collapsing so much that no one at all can access treatment. And without restrictions this would happen very quickly, and all these ruminations about a dystopian world would become scarily true.

It's. Not. About. Only. Deaths.

I read this morning (on the DM so take
It as you will) there is a new super strain in Brazil and fears it could be resistant to the vaccine which will cause setbacks for returning us to some sort of normality (if it reaches here) .. feels like this is never going to end.

It’s not only about deaths but equally who pays for the sainted NHS when the economy is in the toilet and no one has a job? Covid isn’t the only threat to the NHS. No one being able to pay for it isn’t great either.

[quote trulydelicious]@MadameBlobby

I think compliance will really drop

People will be fined then[/quote]
Yeah I’ll believe that when I see it. I can’t remember the last time I saw a copper round here

[quote hopsalong]@LimitisUp. I've seen the graphs. I can understand the presentation of data. In fact, I'm even capable of accepting (maybe it's that PhD!) that two people can both interpret data correctly, while drawing different political or moral conclusions from it.

Very little NHS care takes place in an ICU. Those patients are both the least likely to survive and the most draining of collective resources. If resources are straitened, basic ethics demands that they be allocated as fairly as possible, with no one having the right to more medical care or more expensive treatment than anyone else.

I visited my father many times in a critical care unit and have the highest level of admiration for the staff and the care provided. But he was a very sick man in his 60s. Six months later he was dead from a different cause. He would have hated to think that he received round the clock nursing while a younger, healthier person with a much simpler problem (an accident, needing a vaccination, appendicitis) was given nothing. If the hospitals are overrun then they need to be more selective about admissions, so that everyone in the country has a shot at getting at least a few hours of medical care, if not many weeks of careful nursing.

On children: no, no one is intending to harm them. But that isn't a very compelling argument. One doesn't have to have malign intentions to injure someone. Car accidents don't usually happen because the driver decided to run someone over for the fun of it.
[/quote]
Very wise and sensible post.

I couldn't agree more.

The decisions will be data driven.

Just vaccinating the first 5.5 million people, which will happen in less than 2 weeks, reduces death risk by 68%.

Once all 4 high risk groups are vaccinated by mid Feb, you'll see that jump to a 93% lowering of deaths.

By the end of Feb new hospital admissions should be a few % of what we have now.

@orientalknife

In my childhood I played in another kids house just a handful of times - there wasn't a culture of play dates then - some kids played in the street but my mother didn't let me . Your child won't be damaged by having to play with their siblings/alone!

People moan about lockdown all the time. We all hate it. But every country in Europe is doing it, they aren’t doing it for fun.

I missed a term of school in Year 10. Still got a 2:1, postgrad and good job. It’s not for ever. The more strictly we do it, the sooner it will be over.

All these ‘I’m not complying’. Are you trying to rouse everyone to join in with your civil disobedience in some sort of defiance? If we don’t comply, lockdown lasts longer. It’s as simple as that.🤷🏼‍♀️We’re all sick of it, worried about it, feel like prisoners.

Report from RCP came out a few weeks ago. The mental health aspects of Covid are causing much more serious damage through deaths, frontline staff and effect on family members than by the actual lockdown no matter how much people moan. That’s where we should be focusing our priorities as a nation. Not breaking cover because we’re sick of it.

We are all sick of it.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow - lockdown lasts until vaccine rollout is sufficient to reduce the pressure on the NHS. This shouldn't actually be too long.

I think they won’t unlock until all the over 50’s have been done.

It really is starting to get me down, all these people moaning about lockdown and how they are ‘going’ to break it, as they can’t stand it anymore.

No one can stand it anymore, we’re all struggling, but what is breaking it going to do?

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

I think they won’t unlock until all the over 50’s have been done.

It really is starting to get me down, all these people moaning about lockdown and how they are ‘going’ to break it, as they can’t stand it anymore.

No one can stand it anymore, we’re all struggling, but what is breaking it going to do?

Breaking it would mean my parents and in-laws get to see their grandchild who they haven’t seen since she was a couple of months old. That’s all I care about at the moment really. We are breaking it in March when I go back to work as they’ll both be coming to stay to help with childcare for a couple of weeks at a time each.

We all have stuff like this.

This is yet another question that makes me very grateful I am not PM.

Once groups 1-4 are vaccinated the number of deaths should drop to about 10% of what it was before. At that point, it makes sense from a national and economic point of view to open everything up as it really will be no worse than the flu. Of course a lot of people will still get ill and some people will die. Then the govt needs to tell us that people do die from illnesses and that this is normal. Boy this is going to be politically hard.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

I think they won’t unlock until all the over 50’s have been done.

It really is starting to get me down, all these people moaning about lockdown and how they are ‘going’ to break it, as they can’t stand it anymore.

No one can stand it anymore, we’re all struggling, but what is breaking it going to do?

This is where they turn to the behavioural science experts. Stay at home to normal is a massive shift in public psyche.

You'll see gradually improving stats and newspaper headlines come February, which will hopefully put people in a better mood and make them more open to the end of restrictions.

I think restrictions will be eased gradually, not really science based but more to allow the narrative to shift. If you just opened up suddenly, you'd still get half the country shitting themselves as "it's not safe".

@Billie18

JS87 "Whilst there are some children for whom lockdown is damaging this doesn’t mean that children with a perfectly happy life can’t survive without play dates for a while.

DS is an only child but he’s coping fine. Don’t forget they could see friends outside all summer (indoors in some areas) and then they were at school all last term. I don’t feel like 8-12 weeks is that long to cope without play dates."

There is no end date to school closures but even if its in 8-12 weeks that's a long time in a child's life. It's good that he's happy but perhaps that's a sign that he has become accustomed to isolation or is personality wise is not very sociable and prefers his own company. Both indications that he may find future social interactions more difficult than other children who may be expressing unhappiness from being isolated from their peers. In many ways it is a sign of healthy social development to feel sad at being isolated.

I can assure you he is very sociable and does not prefer his own company at all and does miss his friends. However, chatting with his friends on video calls whilst playing roblox keeps him happy enough. I appreciate not everyone likes playing computer games or has access to video calling but I am just saying that there are many children who are coping ok and that he hasn't been without social interaction with friends since last March. I'm not saying children shouldn't feel unhappy about being isolated from their peers, simply that it is possible to survive without a sleepover and play date in a house every week.

@EmmanuelleMakro

We shouldn’t have to stop all normal life to ‘save’ a government service. The NHS is not fit for purpose -still fossilised in a 1940s model -sending ‘letters’! We need s new and agile model of health delivery based on what works in other countries.

I could not agree more with this.

And yes OP, I entirely agree with you too. Lockdowns evidently DO NOT WORK. We are on the third one - if it worked we would not be in this position yet again.

And yes, our children's lives are indeed being wrecked at the moment. If you can't see that then you really are not seeing the situation for what it is.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

We all have stuff like this.

Yes, which is why there will be a massive shift in public opinion once it hits the year mark in March. The government know people have lockdown fatigue, they know people will only take so much. Which is why they keep saying just wait a little longer for the most vulnerable to be vaccinated. They know people won’t do it for much longer than that.

In the playground, a lot of the children stand alone in their 'square' (they were given a 'square' in reception, when they went back in the summer; this changed in September) and make no effort to play with other children.

Where is this?
Has any complaint been made to the LEA?