Your thoughts on when life will be normal-ish

[charcb]

I realise this is purely speculative but what are people's thoughts on when we will be back to a semi-normal reality? Knowing what you know on vaccinations, when, according to you, can we expect the most simple of things to be back up and running again? I am referring to the simplest of things such as getting people back to their offices/places of work, having shops/gyms/entertainment venues permanently open, and the like?

I know we are a long way away from normal as we know it and that it may take several years to go back to it so I am not talking to getting back to total normality - ie no masks, no social distance, no restrictions.

When I say ended. I don’t mean eradicated. I mean life has gone back to normal. But yes this time, even with vaccines and modern medicine we will all stay locked up for years. Definitely 🙄

After Feb half term: Reception, Y1 and y6 back to school, but in bubbles of 15. 3 weeks later primaries schools allowed to take back any years, again bubbles of 15

Unfortunately, this absolutely won't be possible this time. There are so many 'keyworker' children in this time round that many schools are already at least half-full - with children in bubbles of 15 or more.

We simply cannot get any more children in, there is no more space and there are no more staff.

Not to mention the fact that bubbles of 15 requires full staffing and all classrooms occupied - not possible to also offer online learning to the other year groups.

Keyworker children will have to stop coming in, and all online teaching for other year groups to stop, for any kind of '15 children in school' rota to work at all.

@FranklyTruly

Personally I wish people would stop referring to 'normal' and asking when we will be back to it. There will be no normal I'm afraid - life has changed permanently and that will have to continue in order to keep people safe and save lives.

Vaccines may prevent serious illness, but they do not stop transmission. As a result, COVID will still be with us unless everyone in the world is vaccinated- which will never happen.

Therefore, everyone will still be at risk of permanent disability through Long COVID and 'mild' illness that will leave them in bed for a week.

Restrictions will therefore need to be in place permanently. Lockdown will stay for this year. We will when move to a slightly more relaxed regime in summer 2022 with people allowed to meet in gardens and go on holiday within the U.K.

But there will be no more large wedding, no more drinks with friends and no more large Christmas family gatherings. In order to keep people safe and save lives

The sooner we all accept this, the better, I'm afraid.

Stop scare mongering. You are so so so wrong.

There’s has always been a risk of long term post viral fatigue or other long term impacts from flu or other illnesses. Healthy people have always been at small risk of permanent disability from mild illness. I have friends this has happened to, I can think of two previously healthy people I know of who have been left disabled by flu. We previously chose to ignore this and carry on our lives as normal.

I suggest you get help for the level of anxiety you are clearly feeling if you truly believe we’ll be locking down forever due to the small risk of long covid.

We will be going back to normal.

DirtyDancing Well, this will be an interesting thread to come back to in 12 months time.. much like some of the threads in Feb/ March last year, where opinion was divided on whether Covid was anything to worry about... wonder who will be right?

This. Its amazing how many denier and head in the sand posts there still are.

If this is life forevermore, that makes me really depressed and sad.

I'd quite like to see my family again.

@Jourdain11

If this is life forevermore, that makes me really depressed and sad.

I'd quite like to see my family again.

Of course life will not be like this forever!

We're already on the road out. It will be a bumpy and perhaps long-ish road, but we're on it!

I know I'm being a baby. I'm just so fed up. It's been a horrible year going through chemo and it would have meant so much if I could have seen my mum and my sisters, who are in France. Of course we've done Facetime and everything, but it's kind of not the same.

Sorry for the self-pitying moan.

I agree that we will come out of it, but then people say "oh, you're deluded" and so on.

You are totally not being a baby.

I don't care about gigs, huge weddings, etc, but I can't wait till I can have my mum over for dinner, and give her a hug.

I can't wait to see my new niece and nephew, and have cuddles with them.

My auntie died last February, just before Covid kicked off, so we weren't able to have a proper funeral or say goodbye.

I'd love "extended family" normal - I'm hoping by Easter! Mixing 2/3 households indoors would be enough for me for 2021.

Jourdain11

You're not being a baby or self pitying at all. You're discussing what you're going through and there is nothing at all wrong with that

The good news is that the vaccine programme is going really well and something else, that doesn't seem to get mentioned much, is rapid, cheap, easy testing. This would, and is starting to, make a big difference and would mean some restrictions will definitely be eased or lifted completely in the near future.

So many epidemiologists all gathered together here, quite astonishing.

The good news is that the vaccine programme is going really well and something else, that doesn't seem to get mentioned much, is rapid, cheap, easy testing. This would, and is starting to, make a big difference and would mean some restrictions will definitely be eased or lifted completely in the near future.

I think the difficulty with this is that the current Innova lateral flow tests are not accurate enough for anyone to be able to have confidence in a negative result, and thus don't really free anyone up.

If you get a positive test - for example if you are tested every week at your place of work, as an attempt to slow spread through asymptomatic cases - then yes, they are a good indication that you are positive, and indeed that IS a good thing in terms of reducing transmission.

however, if you get a negative test, this is not a particularly good indication that you are indded not infected. Depending on who does the test, even under optimum conditions only around 50-70% (and the latter only if administered by trained medical personnel) of people who are infected are identified.

That means that getting a negative test ISN'T any kind of indication that one can go about one's daily life without stringent SD, masks and handwashing, or indeed do something that is not at the moment allowed, such as mix inside. It's a really big limitation, and is why in the various scenarios it has been touted for - care home visits, in schools to replace isolation etc - regulatory authorities have repeatedly failed to endorse it.

So rapid testing does not have any potential to ease or remove restrictions, unfortunately. It is another weapon in the identification of positive cases and their removal from the chain of transmission through stringent isolation measures, but it is specifically really quite useless in allowing people to do things that are currently restricted.

Summer 2021 pretty much over. 1st Jan 2022, completely over.

cantkeepawayforever

I was talking more about the future of testing

@Flaxmeadow

DirtyDancing Well, this will be an interesting thread to come back to in 12 months time.. much like some of the threads in Feb/ March last year, where opinion was divided on whether Covid was anything to worry about... wonder who will be right?

This. Its amazing how many denier and head in the sand posts there still are.

Re last point

It’s hard to know which posts you mean

What are reasonable expectations in your view?

@Flaxmeadow

cantkeepawayforever

I was talking more about the future of testing

Absolutely. A quick test that was at least as accurate (especially in terms of false negatives) as the current PCR test when used by an untrained member of the public would be a real gamechanger.

I haven't seen much talk of anything more accurate out there (possibly because the Government is trying to keep quiet about the limitations of the test they have spent so much money on). Do you have links to specific initiatives?

My post was to Flax just quoted whole thing

@Jourdain11

I know I'm being a baby. I'm just so fed up. It's been a horrible year going through chemo and it would have meant so much if I could have seen my mum and my sisters, who are in France. Of course we've done Facetime and everything, but it's kind of not the same.

Sorry for the self-pitying moan.

I agree that we will come out of it, but then people say "oh, you're deluded" and so on.

Hey you're not being a baby! Blimey it's been a pretty crap situation for everyone and we've at least been healthy and together through it!

Moan away, I think you're very justified

@FranklyTruly

I wish people would stop talking about the vaccine as some sort of panacea.

We know that it does not prevent transmission- so if the virus is allowed to let rip, millions of people will be left permanently disabled by Long COVID. It is also not 100% effective- so thousands will still get ill and some will die.

Susan Michie and Independent SAGE (the actual experts) have been very clear that restrictions will still be needed for a long time to come and full (ideally stricter than now) lockdown must stay in place until everyone is vaccinated.

twitter.com/susanmichie/status/1350559207490252800

Wow full lockdown until all are vaccinated?!! It might be necessary but bloody hell that's a scary prospect

@FranklyTruly

I wish people would stop talking about the vaccine as some sort of panacea.

We know that it does not prevent transmission- so if the virus is allowed to let rip, millions of people will be left permanently disabled by Long COVID. It is also not 100% effective- so thousands will still get ill and some will die.

Susan Michie and Independent SAGE (the actual experts) have been very clear that restrictions will still be needed for a long time to come and full (ideally stricter than now) lockdown must stay in place until everyone is vaccinated.

twitter.com/susanmichie/status/1350559207490252800

Everyone vaccinated isn’t too far off. Did you say years of restrictions before?

I doubt it will be btw as we are not trying to avoid Covid but we are trying to avoid overwhelming hospitals.

So we’ll likely see lowering of restrictions before then.

I expect this summer will be normal-ish - better than the last one, but with social distancing still in place and limits on large gatherings.

By Spring 2022, I'm hoping we can be fully back to 2019 normality - packed theatres, night clubs reopened, massive weddings and hugging all our friends