Thread 2 - how long will people make these sacrifices

[DappledOliveGroves]

First thread is full.

If anyone has the willpower to continue arguing, please carry on!

@wanderings ... did you see the breaking news that in fact the new variant IS more deadly.

Not saying I don't believe the research, but my nudge radar has pinged at the timing of that news.

“If I need emergency healthcare, I want our health care service to be available. I don't want to die from a treatable disease because there is no space or no staff. To me it's a no brainer. I know people are missing out on treatment, but this would only get worse without lockdown.”

This is a fair point. Given that we are massively in debt anyway, and there are loads of unemployed, why doesn’t the government just throw more money at the NHS and training new nurses.

The government can’t use “protect the NHS” as an excuse forever. They have now had over a year since becoming aware of covid to prepare the NHS. It’s not as though covid cases spiking this winter came as a shock to them.

For people who support lockdowns potentially for years what would you do if a family member or friend called you in tears because they were so desperate and wanted to see you? I would always go to my family in this situation and I think that’s the right thing to do regardless of covid. I have done this in fact and I am so glad I did.

And equally I think it’s right to prioritise your own children and fight for their well-being and future. My DS has spent his whole life under some form of lockdown. It hurts me so much that he is missing out on things and I can only imagine that that is worse if you are watching your children fall behind in their education and social development.

I think it’s a very strange and cold form of morality where you would willingly sacrifice years of your children’s lives or refuse to be there for a relative to marginally decrease risk to a stranger. I don’t see that as selfish at all.

@strawberry that's such a great way of articulating the difference between a young death and old death.
It's also worth remembering that the NHS make decisions every day about whether to pay for expensive drugs using age as a factor and how many years they have to live? It's not nice, but it's life and there are only finite resources.

@DappledOliveGroves

Thanks everyone for joining round 2. I'm now on the wine, since there is little else to do in life.

I hate the relentlessness bleak future. I hate that my mother will have no idea who I am when I finally can see her, whenever the care home opens up. I hate that I haven't seen my daughter for almost a year because she lives in Australia (though I'm so grateful she is out there having a blast and enjoying freedom).

But what still scares me the most is the compliance among so many, for the lockdowns, where anyone questioning the wisdom is accused of being a sociopath or similar.

If you end lockdown early then people die. Ffs when are people going to get this???? I want to see my parents but I would rather miss them than lose them. Christ this gets me sooo cross. Thank god this generation didn't live through WW2. We'd be royally FUCKED.

The government can’t use “protect the NHS” as an excuse forever. They have now had over a year since becoming aware of covid to prepare the NHS. It’s not as though covid cases spiking this winter came as a shock to them.

If only we’d spent a small fraction of the money that goes into locking down into strengthening the nhs. That’s what I don’t understand.

[quote lovelylittlepanda]@wanderings ... did you see the breaking news that in fact the new variant IS more deadly.

Not saying I don't believe the research, but my nudge radar has pinged at the timing of that news. [/quote]
Please can you post a link to it? As I’ve just checked bbc and it says New UK variant 'may be more deadly'
Same as may be 70 per cent more spreadable when they announced about new variant, which is also not confirmed and I’ve seen an article that some research came up with a 35 percent

I think most people have already lost their appetite for 'sacrifice' tbh.

The first time round people seemed to embrace the idea of doing a 'good thing' to help the nurses, protect 'the vulnerable' and so on.

Now, the novelty has very much worn off, we are bored and miserable.

IME most people are only as compliant as they have to be, because places are closed, or they fear the consequences if caught breaking the law. They take every opportunity to grasp a bit of normality and social interaction.

It's only on here that people seem to still be fully embracing the idea of indefinite restrictions, I don't see this is RL at all.

And as for the obsession with policing and judging others, and for making up extra rules for themselves that happens on here, I don't know anyone who does this. Thankfully.

Christ this gets me sooo cross. Thank god this generation didn't live through WW2. We'd be royally FUCKED.

Yawn. Yet another stupid war comparison. Grow up.

@TheKeatingFive

The government can’t use “protect the NHS” as an excuse forever. They have now had over a year since becoming aware of covid to prepare the NHS. It’s not as though covid cases spiking this winter came as a shock to them.

If only we’d spent a small fraction of the money that goes into locking down into strengthening the nhs. That’s what I don’t understand.

This is something I don't understand either. We are throwing billions around for furlough, eat out to help out, crisis grants etc and yet just a tiny tiny fraction of that being spent on the NHS would actually have helped wo much more.

@lovelylittlepanda MAY be more deadly. Subtle but important difference.

But yes, timing. Timing is everything. It's funny how the "new variant" came to light just before Christmas. Almost as if Saint Boris thought "oh my gosh, I promised a few days' grace over Christmas..."

@wanderings Fantastic post!

I just posted this on another thread.

At what point would you refuse to stay at home any longer? Another 3 months? Another 6 months? A year? Or would you just stay home indefinitely?

They're already preparing us for the fact that not much will change after the vaccine has been administered as they don't think it will stop transmission.

There are murmurings now that new strains won't work with the vaccine either.

At what point do we have to realise deaths, mental illness, domestic abuse, child neglect/ abuse and many other negative things happen when you force people to stay at home for months on end.

Thank you! I have found my people!
Sorry totally jumping in late to the party but I am totally done it with it all.

We're now in the fourth week of isolation after me and DH getting positives a few weeks ago (somehow DH caught it from work on a building site and gave it to me) and now toddler has tested positive despite us isolating for 14 days from the date of our tests and having no symptoms. He went back to nursery for two days until his bubble burst, nursery asked all of the children to have tests and low and behold he was positive.
My work are pissed off because I'm not productive, DH work pissed off because he'll pretty much have had the whole of January off.

I get it, I really do, stay home, protect the NHs, save lives but for how long?

Other than DH and toddler to nursery going to work we've not seen anyone for months. No bubbles, family miles away (hence nursery for those militant MNetters saying I'm selfish sending DS to nursery).

I'm just done!! I miss my family, my friends, travelling for work and generally just seeing people not on a bloody zoom call.

Sorry this is a total pity party and I'll no doubt get flamed by someone but I honestly don't know how much longer I can do it. Even though there is no choice but to do it

@Chessie678

For people who support lockdowns potentially for years what would you do if a family member or friend called you in tears because they were so desperate and wanted to see you? I would always go to my family in this situation and I think that’s the right thing to do regardless of covid. I have done this in fact and I am so glad I did.

And equally I think it’s right to prioritise your own children and fight for their well-being and future. My DS has spent his whole life under some form of lockdown. It hurts me so much that he is missing out on things and I can only imagine that that is worse if you are watching your children fall behind in their education and social development.

I think it’s a very strange and cold form of morality where you would willingly sacrifice years of your children’s lives or refuse to be there for a relative to marginally decrease risk to a stranger. I don’t see that as selfish at all.

I think this is a moot point. It won't be years. The vaccines are happening now.

I have a primary school aged child. She is miserable. She misses school, misses her friends, misses her activities, misses her grandp. I would like life to go back to normal for her. And it will. We just have to bide our time.

Measures to keep the virus under control are in all our interests, including hers.

@PoppiesinOctober

Christ this gets me sooo cross. Thank god this generation didn't live through WW2. We'd be royally FUCKED.

Yawn. Yet another stupid war comparison. Grow up.

Well. If we all thought in WW2 "I'm soo fed up with the blackout and not seeing my friends" then we'd have been in a mess. Grow some resilience.

@lovelylittlepanda I felt the same as I saw the headlines after the press conference today. I felt like we were being set up for something more, like we are being prepared for more of it all.

I felt myself nudge closer to my breaking point. Like an all encompassing anger. I found myself saying, quite loudly, as I got DDs dinner ready, 'nope. No more. Nope nope nope". My DH thinks I have lost it.

Sorry this is a total pity party and I'll no doubt get flamed by someone but I honestly don't know how much longer I can do it. Even though there is no choice but to do it

By all means throw a pity party. 😕

I think the thing that frustrates me most out of everything is that those shouting loudly about staying at home all seem to miss the point that even if everyone followed all the rules to the letter the virus would still spread, people would still die and the NHS would still be at breaking point as it has been for decades every winter before Covid even existed.

Please can you stay here, lovely people? I am struggling so much tonight,

@Someonetookmyname

*Though all the protests to date have appeared to be by deniers and the-vaccine-has-microchips types hmm

Perhaps Sumption will organise one?*

Or even a mass petition would be good. So many of us probably think lockdown has gone too far, but aren’t vocalising these views publicly or on social media. The government probably thinks it has way more support for lockdown than it actually does.

Starting to feel like we live in a totalitarian state where everyone thinks the regime is nuts but won’t say it.

There has been a lot of protests though..from the start of summer. Yes they’ve been hijacked quite a bit by the conspiracy theorists and also the police haven’t come out of it covered in glory Many of them have gone in very heavy handed When we do have a right to peaceful protests..this will no doubt scare a lot of protesters away

@Someonetookmyname

“If I need emergency healthcare, I want our health care service to be available. I don't want to die from a treatable disease because there is no space or no staff. To me it's a no brainer. I know people are missing out on treatment, but this would only get worse without lockdown.”

This is a fair point. Given that we are massively in debt anyway, and there are loads of unemployed, why doesn’t the government just throw more money at the NHS and training new nurses.

The government can’t use “protect the NHS” as an excuse forever. They have now had over a year since becoming aware of covid to prepare the NHS. It’s not as though covid cases spiking this winter came as a shock to them.

My son is training to be a theatre nurse The government did throw some money at them £5000 a year bursary But as a 40 year old dad of three He’s going to have a lot of debt.

Also, new hips, knees and breast cancer ops have been happening here
As part of his training, he has to spend a lot of time in theatre

Well. If we all thought in WW2 "I'm soo fed up with the blackout and not seeing my friends" then we'd have been in a mess.

People weren’t isolated in WW2 the way they are now. People get strength and comfort from others. That’s been denied them.

I wish I could have blind faith in the vaccines. Given there's doubt as to their efficacy with new strains, in addition to the fact they're not being rolled out with 3 week intervals but instead based on an arbitrary and untested regime, then forgive me if I don't have great faith that things will suddenly get better.

@Chessie678

For people who support lockdowns potentially for years what would you do if a family member or friend called you in tears because they were so desperate and wanted to see you? I would always go to my family in this situation and I think that’s the right thing to do regardless of covid. I have done this in fact and I am so glad I did.

And equally I think it’s right to prioritise your own children and fight for their well-being and future. My DS has spent his whole life under some form of lockdown. It hurts me so much that he is missing out on things and I can only imagine that that is worse if you are watching your children fall behind in their education and social development.

I think it’s a very strange and cold form of morality where you would willingly sacrifice years of your children’s lives or refuse to be there for a relative to marginally decrease risk to a stranger. I don’t see that as selfish at all.

Totally agree. In fact I’ve never stopped seeing my family A fact that pissed a perfect person off.

@hollyangel

“Does anyone think there's a high proportion of people in society today, who are mildly agoraphobic or socially anxious and are actually quite happy with the situation?”

Yes! There are so many self righteous lockdown enthusiasts who have grown up children, comfortable work from home jobs and big houses! No more commuting, no more sitting in an office all day eating crappy lunches, flexible working hours.. Lockdown actually benefits some people.

What’s worse is that a lot of these people actually want praise for their lockdown “sacrifices”. I’ve even heard some compare locking down to the Second World War effort! As if sitting on your bum watching Netflix all day is the same as fighting in an actual war!

@Same4Walls thank you!
Totally agree, we've stuck to the rules and still caught it.
It all feels really bloody bleak but at what point is the government going to admit that we can't beat it?
Is this it we'll be in lockdown forever until the risk is zero?
DS nursery have gone as far as to say children can't even go in with a cold even if they have a negative test. I mean really?! Can no one be Ill at all now?