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?

@CarolEffingBaskin

I'd rather curl up in a ball and expire than do this until Easter. My life has been utterly destroyed. DH lost his job, children with severe ASD had every tiny piece of support ripped away. I, who had very little 'for me' before now have absolutely nothing. Not even 5 minutes alone.

I'm beginning to think I'd like to go into the local covid ward to rub myself on them so I can die.

I'm so sorry to read this. I wish there was something I could say or do that would help you. You sound broken

I'm in Lancashire - i'd happily meet you for a walk. Are you anywhere near me?

Since about last April I’ve felt increasingly angry in young people’s behalf, especially the less advantaged who pre-covid were already facing massive challenges in life. ‘The vulnerable’ doesn’t just cover Covid, and doesn’t just mean the elderly and those with specific conditions. Our young are vulnerable too, just to less fashionable threats than the virus

This.

There is no answer to the question as posed by OP

The willingness to do what it takes for as long as it takes can't really be quantified as OP demands.

Because hypothesising that people will one day rebel if lockdowns and vaccines don't work is close to just fantasising.

Lockdown made a difference in November (look at the shape of the graph, and how much worse it wouid be without that dip) and is taking the edge off things. We're the of the fastest vaccinating nations in the world, and there has been no diminution of the benefits expected (sharply reducing severe disease in the immunised, potential to also reduce spread under investigation)

Assuming none of this will work is a form of catastrophising that then chips away at the idea that lockdown is the main tool we have at present, and there is major support for it.

Might that change if XYZ changes? Well, yes, but so might all sorts of other stuff.

Would people accept this for the next 5 years? 10 years? Forever?

How will the NHS be funded when nobody has a job to pay tax?

[quote DappledOliveGroves]@Bumpsadaisie I have a mother in a dementia care home, a step daughter with incurable sarcoma, vulnerable in laws in their 70s and a myriad of other elderly relatives.

At the end of the day, for me, life is not about avoiding death. I've watched my father die of a disease - mesothelioma - which is far fucking worse than Covid. I've seen him become skeletal, paralysed and die in agony as the tumours spread throughout his body over a period of seven months.

I've seen my mother descend into dementia when, truthfully, we would all be relieved if she were to die now. She exists. I have seen her once in the last year because of Covid. She won't know who I am. Apparently she is now forgetting how to eat.

I'd rather quality of life than longevity. And I think most of my relatives in their 70s and 80s are on the same page.[/quote]
I am sorry to hear about your father. I do wonder whether some of your intense anger about lockdown (and it drips off the page) is your anger that he died and in such a painful way. Anger rather than grieving.

I have friends who have suffered recent complex bereavements and are also full of rage about the lockdown.

But this isn't the forum for exploring that. I wish you the best and hope you find some peace with things.

On the one hand you suggest making sacrifice for people you don’t know is too much to ask and on the other you’re suggesting people you don’t know protest and riot to regain your freedoms. Do you not see the hypocrisy in this? All for one and one for himself springs to mind! In general I agree with you that quality of life is more valuable then longevity however I am aware that this is my personal perspective and cannot be thrust upon others. I also know many people have good quality of life far later in life than people may think and that this virus attacks quality of life in younger people through long Covid and other complications which aren’t understood. I’m sick of the restrictions the same as everyone else but until there is more information and we can ensure healthcare provision is available then I believe it to be necessary, therefore it isn’t imposed against my will or understanding.

@HazeyJaneII

DappledOliveGroves Riots and civil protests can and do work. The poll tax went away. Ceasescu and other dictators have been toppled. Civil disobedience is a clear way of effecting change. I suppose one thing that will emerge from this farce is the provision of such much sociological and psychological data about human reactions to this. Who complies, who rebels?

Horse shite - rebelling against measure that are put in place to deal with an ever changing global public health crisis, doesn't make you the freaking Rebel Alliance.
People'Not Complying' doesn't make them freedom fighters toppling dictators, it makes them dicks.

But why do you care? That's the bit I grapple with.

Why do you care about people dying in this country - from Covid - but not those dying from something else? Why do you care about UK death rates but not about those dying of TB and malaria in Africa?

Is it because you might catch it? Or someone you know might die? Or some other reason?

But this isn't the forum for exploring that. I wish you the best and hope you find some peace with things.

Why do? This forum is broad and has many angles except against guidelines

April is my cut off point. I’m done then.

We’ll be having family round for a belated Christmas dinner together at Easter and we will hug each other.

My husbands grandparents, both in their late 80’s, have aged horrifically this past 12 months, especially mentally, and they just don’t care about covid any more, they want company and a cuddle with their grandson and great grandson.

I’ll comply until the vulnerable are vaccinated. Then I’ll see family and friends. I’ll do my own risk assessment and maybe avoid crowded indoor areas and keep with the hand washing/mask wearing obv.

We have one life. A year of not seeing family is more than enough. I don’t think I’ll be alone either so they need to come up with a new plan.

@DappledOliveGroves

All I can say is that there are clearly a lot of people with far greater altruism than me. I cannot accept this level of sacrifice 'for the greater good' - an amorphous pool of people I don't know.

I don't care that the NHS is shot to shit - it's been bloody awful for decades. I watched my father die an agonising and painful death in their 'care' over twenty years ago when it was blindingly obvious that the healthcare system was crippled every winter.

I'm sick of people talking about those working for the NHS as 'heroes'. No-one held a gun to their head and forced them into this career.

I'm sick of the hypocrisy - no-one bats an eyelid when millions of children in developing countries die of TB or malaria.

I am so, so angry.

All that.

And I'm so fucking angry that the government continue to guilt-trip us about a service that hasn't been up to scratch for years, because of them and previous governments chronically underfunding the service.

I'll add cancer to malaria. And AIDS. Where's the hysteria for those diseases?

@DappledOliveGroves So sorry about your mother. I had a similar experience with my grandma in a care home - she made it to 100 but had zero quality of life for the last five years, recognised nobody by the end, was doubly incontinent, raving and hallucinating.

She would have begged for death by Covid over what she had (indeed, in her rare lucid moments she did beg for someone to kill her). Wholeheartedly agree with you that life is not the avoidance of death.

My kids need to go back to school and nursery. They are age 6 and 2 and their lives, social relationships, knowledge of the world has been put on hold. They are never going to get these years back and there will be a generation who are at a permanent disadvantage if school and nursery closures go on beyond this summer. I am in Glasgow and we haven't been permitted to visit any other households since last Sept. The weather here is shite, everything is shut and my kids are beginning to lose interest in everything. My 2year olds behaviour has regressed massively since her nursery shut, she is fearful of new people, clingy, and doesn't have any "friends" as all her activities have been shut since March. The only place she could meet other 2yr olds was at nursery and now that's shut too. Its awful.

I’d be ignoring the rules already if I knew any other rule breakers! It’s batshit and the harm being done to children and young people is wicked. Children’s education will never recover, some people’s mental health will ever recover.

If for some reason vaccination doesn’t work we have to learn to live with it - people are existing in joyless lives at the moment and it’s not sustainable

I personally will do it until summer at the rate things are going. Most vulnerable vaccinated- I will be seeing family and having friends round. Not so much for me but for my DC especially the baby as they desperately need to have those bonds with family.

If all goes tits up and vaccines don't work we don't have much choice if everything is closed but I can't see long term (i.e. years) many younger people complying.

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. - But we ALL want that! We ALL want to die peacefully in our beds, and our loved ones to die peacefully in their beds at a good age. But - people don't. They die at all ages, from lots of hideous things. Doesn't matter how creative, fiercely intelligent, witty, loving - or otherwise- they are. People DIE!

It makes me laugh how the white western world is suddenly scared to face death - people die all the time, but if it's not COVID, it's a nice death?

We have suddenly woken up to a virus - how about all the Malaria, Belharzia, Typhoid, Cholera, Yellow fever, EBOLA? This has a mortality rate of under 1% - Ebola is more like 50%.

More than 3 million people die every year from Dehydration - but that's ok, it's in Africa.

BBC Headlines yesterday - 97yo IDENTICAL TWIN DIES! Well, at least she got into the papers! - If she'd died of falling down the stairs, or getting flu, or you know, heart failure, her death would mean nothing. But she died of Covid! Why didn't anyone save her? Who gave it to her? FFS.

Personally, I'd actually rather it takes the old. Better that than a war-type death, which takes the young. At least the old have had a life - young 19/20 YOs in the world wars had nothing.

And I say that as someone with a 92yo mother, 90 yo dad, 91 yo MIL.... - they had a good life. Of course I don't want them to die, but they will.

I think the emergence of the new variant has kept a lot of people compliant, in fact not even doing what they are allowed to do, people in my area seem terrified.

Examples - a friend's household is in a support bubble with her grandmother who lives across the road, but they're not having her in their house and her mother just goes over masked and gowned up to clean. She has mild dementia, I don't know if that's a risk factor for complications. But they were mixing freely until Christmas.

Another one is a friend who is late 30s. She has said no more meeting for exercise due to new variant. She is not vulnerable although she does have a childcare bubble with her parents so maybe that's the reason.

But anyway, if I wanted to break the rules I would not find anyone to break them with.

I don't care about me - I am happy to WFH and don't mind wearing masks and am eg not an avid pub or festival goer, but I am furious about what's happening to our young people. My son is just living in his bedroom (ok maybe that's normal for teens but usually they get out to school/college and to hobbies too).

People taking about "massive riots" are keyboard warriors. What they will generally do is moan a bit more on MN and social media.

I do think it is hilarious the way people think compliance with this law is optional, unlike most others (i am guessing).

I will comply with the speed limit until April. After that time I will do my own risk assessment and, in dry conditions, on an open motorway, I will drive up to 120mph. My car is designed to go a lot faster and this silly National limit is a gross infringement of my personal freedom.

Viva la revolucion!

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

hmm I think covid is a better way to go than a lingering death from dementia or Parkinsons

@DappledOliveGroves The poll tax did not "go away" it became council tax, which in many ways is an equally unfair way of taxation.

Round here a lot of people view speed limits the same way, they're more like guidelines unless there's a speed camera nearby.

I don't know.
Over 1800 people died due to covid in the UK alone yesterday. We're about third of forth highest deaths per million in the entire world according to worldometer.

To me the question shouldn't be how long will people accept / obey restrictions, it should be how many deaths a day are people happy to accept in order to not have to be personally restricted in any way.

@User133847

I see Easter time as a tipping point for many.

I agree