How long will people agree to make these sacrifices for?

[DappledOliveGroves]

Inspired by another thread here.

Let's assume the vaccines don't do what they should - either because the virus mutates so rapidly or because our government can't manage to adhere to Pfizer's protocol and a lone dose does nothing to protect people.

Then what?

For all those champing at the bit for curfews, harsher lockdowns, further restrictions on civil liberties - I'm genuinely curious - how long are you willing to maintain this status quo?

Would you be happy to still be in this lockdown in a year? Two years? Five years? Even if the lockdowns are eased and clamped down again, would you be willing to accept rolling lockdowns as a fact of life with no end in sight? At what point would those wanting tougher restrictions decide they can't live like this anymore?

Is it a common theme in your life that everyone has to agree with you, and if they don't they are idiots

Yes. If you don't agree and you don't trot out something about the NHS, global pandemics (don't need the word global in front of pandemic but that's another thread) and/or use the terms "on its knees/collapsing/overwhelmed" then you are either a) a covidiot, b) a conspiracy theorist, c) an idiot. Of course all of those options come with a free side dish of selfish.

@DameFanny

"But you imply that lockdown was the only option" I don't imply anything of the sort *@southeastdweller*. Try again.

What are the other options you’d go for?

Even test and trace needs a lockdown to have a chance.

[quote sausagerole]**@DameFanny* - but lockdown is the problem. Let's say 1 in 30 people have the virus (as was estimated of London last week). For the sake of argument let's pretend that that's 1/30 households. With an effective* test, trace and isolate system, 29 of those households would still be free to go about their business. They could attend their jobs, they could exercise, they could visit shops and support the economy, their businesses could still make money, their children could still attend school. Lockdown forces healthy, virus-free people to take the same action as those who have the virus, stopping them from supporting the economy and benefitting from a healthy economy.

I think the confusion might be that people who criticise lockdown are often assumed to be encouraging people to break the lockdown rules. In no way is that what I'm arguing. Flouting lockdown is a terrible idea. But lockdown is also a terrible strategy. Both are true.[/quote]
I agree we should be doing things differently, but posters complaining about their right to infect host friends in their homes never seem to want to do anything about that - just moan about the blunt instrument of lockdown when the precision tools of test and trace have failed because we've a government of corrupt incompetents.

Want to bet how many will then go on to vote Tory again, while bleating that private companies are more efficient and save money?

@LucilleTheVampireBat

Is it a common theme in your life that everyone has to agree with you, and if they don't they are idiots

Yes. If you don't agree and you don't trot out something about the NHS, global pandemics (don't need the word global in front of pandemic but that's another thread) and/or use the terms "on its knees/collapsing/overwhelmed" then you are either a) a covidiot, b) a conspiracy theorist, c) an idiot. Of course all of those options come with a free side dish of selfish.

Oh for gods' sake stop projecting your own insecurities on me

Track and trace relies on people being compliant
And people will only comply if it is in their interest to do so either
1-they are helped and supported to comply, this requires money and organisation,
a government which genuinely cares about the common people
Or
2-they are forced to comply by threat of punishment for not doing so, this requires an authoritarian government which uses surveillance to keep the population under control, and I'm sure we're glad we don't live somewhere like that

Bit of a leap.

@Yohoheaveho

Track and trace relies on people being compliant And people will only comply if it is in their interest to do so either 1-they are helped and supported to comply, this requires money and organisation, a government which genuinely cares about the common people Or 2-they are forced to comply by threat of punishment for not doing so, this requires an authoritarian government which uses surveillance to keep the population under control, and I'm sure we're glad we don't live somewhere like that

You could put money into it but how do you know that people will still comply?

One could show positive test take the £ and go out regardless.

‘People die all the time’ presumably doesn’t include anyone close to you. Easy to ignore the pandemic when it hasn’t affected you. Do you have a list of family members you’re happy to sacrifice? Not just the very old with a poor quality of life, but some random 55 year old with teenage children and a just turned 60 year-old grandma? Which of your cousins are you happy to have long Covid?

As will I!

Well the words you used didn't come from me

Research on the Israeli vaccine programme (where they have vaccinated far greater numbers than ours) suggest that it’s nowhere near 70% effective, more like 40% at best. Therefore I think when we roll out the vaccine and still have lower but still some Covid fatalities, we will start to break the rules more.
A lot of people have been getting through this and complying by saying ‘just a bit longer and then we’ll all be vaccinated’ I wonder what these people will say when we realise that the vaccine isn’t all its cracked up to be, at some point we will have to employ some positive risk taking.
Think about obesity, we know it kills masses of people. The NHS is crippled by obesity but not all at once, we don’t lock fat people in their houses. I believe we will always have Covid deaths from now onwards, maybe this will be hard in winter, but by and large I think we’ll learn to live with it.
I don’t think we should ease lockdown now. By summer we have to think about what we’re more prepared to lose. Also the NHS can’t go on without tax payers, and it can’t cope with a mental health crisis either. I work in MH and it’s at breaking point already.

@DameFanny

Oh for the sake of actual fuck

IT ISN'T LOCKDOWN THAT'S FUCKING THE ECONOMY AND PEOPLE'S JOBS, IT'S THE FUCKING PANDEMIC THAT'S BARELY COMING BACK UNDER CONTROL WITH THE CURRENT LOCKDOWN

If we weren't locked down, illness would be driving businesses and individuals into bankruptcy. Schools would be closed by illness and death. The hospitals would be too full for any additional basic or emergency healthcare. We'd be just as fucked, but with many more dead and probably 1 to 2 million people disabled by long covid.

Lockdown isn't the problem. Get it into your fat head. Coronavirus is the problem.

You keep saying this. Please evidence it because I’m not sure those things would necessarily happen.

In places that haven’t continued to lock down I don’t think this has happened has it? Eg Florida? The death rate there is terrible (hence my support for the lockdown here) but their businesses haven’t all gone under or their education system ceased to function.

@LucilleTheVampireBat

Bit of a leap.

ROFL

The things I want to do thought I physically can’t

• travel to loved ones living in different country

• take dc on trips away or days out
• do hobby that requires places being allowed to be open
• go to pub

Honestly having a brew or bbq round my mates is really the last thing I miss and the only feasible things I could probably do to “rebel” if this carries on for ages more

Sooo for me it would really just be that I’d still follow the rules by default

A friend of mine who is a massive introvert anyway and is wfh in a secure govt job says she’ll do it forever so she doesn’t “kill dad”. Meanwhile a kid in my city jumped off a bridge because he was so distraught over not seeing his friends in person for months.

It’s not like lockdowns and school closures are just about being patient. They are about mental health suffering, they are about missed surgeries, late cancer diagnoses, huge job loss.

I have a secure, albeit public facing role, my health and mental health are okay, but I can see that on balance this is bullshit. People die every year of viral infections, we just don’t have it on the media at the top of every hour before Covid.

@sadpapercourtesan

I hate this as much as anyone - but yes, I would continue to follow the guidance for as long as it was necessary to prevent unnecessary deaths and suffering.

I have an elderly father who is clinically vulnerable. He would probably die if he caught the virus. He's already survived cancer, sepsis and a heart attack. I've seen posters on MN and elsewhere refer to people like him as "on his last legs anyway" and wonder why we are bothering to make sacrifices to keep people like him alive. But to me, he's my cherished, fiercely intelligent, witty, musical, creative, endlessly loving Dad, and I would do ANYTHING to keep him alive, for however long he has. I want him to die peacefully of old age when the time comes, not alone and terrified, drowning in infected lung fluid.

It's not a great leap to extend that care and commitment to other people's loved ones as well. So I'll do whatever it takes, for however long it's necessary, and I have zero respect and zero time for anyone who bleats about the cure being worse than the disease because they can't go and sit in a coffee shop or take their toddler to soft play.

My god, it’s far more than not being able to sit in a coffee shop or go to a soft play? What an totally insensitive a-hole thing to say. Jesus Christ

I'm a little tired of 'the young will riot' bollocks.

I am perfectly aware there are a number of young people who have broken rules, but I know people a lot older breaking rules too - it's a pointless argument. Some people follow rules, others don't - get over it, they won't change.

I'm young, but I'm realistic and follow the rules. I have two young girls who's world has been turned upside down. We have family we cannot see and haven't met my 3 month old. We have lost family members this year and not been able to say goodbye.

It's awful but my patience is wearing thin. At what point do they just let us get on with life and let natural selection take over - that's the point of disease is it not?

If I die, at least I would have had a chance to live first. Rather than spending any more trapped at home not really living.

Sage are on the news suggesting that because of the R number not dropping, lockdown may have to last till May

@Sirius99

Sage are on the news suggesting that because of the R number not dropping, lockdown may have to last till May

Cases are dropping? How can R not be

Was it SAGE or React

If they take the option of just letting us get on with life then the public will demand that the government pour all available resources into expanding the capacity of the NHS
this is completely antithetical to the government's long-term plan for the NHS
That is why the government are 'arranging deck chairs' rather than doing what really needs to be done

Even in the face of growing evidence to the contrary, people still cling onto lockdown as being the thing to save all the lives

What are the alternatives? Plenty have been offered. The Great Barrington Declaration was a feasible alternative but it's like swearing in church to say that, such has it been dismissed without any examination.

Just imagine if we had taken the Focused Protection approach laid out in the GBD, then perhaps the care home deaths we are seeing right now which are still out of control and no different (possibly worse) than last March would be much less severe. I am sure we could have diverted the billions spent on furlough into proper protection for the care homes? No? Would that have been beyond the wit of man? There were many solutions to the care home situation, but instead we have become obsessed with lockdown and done pretty much sweet FA to protect the people who actually need it

Also I think you can see both sides. My df nearly died from COVID, drs said there was nothing else they could do but their fantastic care meant he survived with some long lasting health problems.
So do I think that everyone’s lives should stop as my dad nearly died? No! He lived his life, a little too much as he smoked 40 fags a day until this event and had a bmi of 50. I think he will be out in restaurants and pubs again as soon as you let him. COVID nearly killed him but he still doesn’t want to waste anymore time in his (probably) limited time left. How happy are the old people locked up in their homes, isolated? How happy are the vulnerable? Has anyone asked them if they want protection to this extent?

MarshaBradyo SAGE,

Or how about, from OP, we assume the vaccines do do what they have been developed to do.

And we are at the beginning of the end.

@Sirius99

MarshaBradyo SAGE,

I’ll wait to hear it hard to get situation from short post. Or a link