How can we show our dissent?

[Downtown36]

Feeling so desperate after the announcement today that essentially has us all in this level of lockdown for another 6 weeks weeks at least.

Rates of infection on a steady decline and already so many vaccinated. I wholly disagree with it continuing at the is level. What can I do about it?

If lockdown is lifted too soon it won’t help anyone to receive urgent treatment for other illnesses as the hospitals and in particular ICU will be even fuller with Covid cases as the transmission rate increases again.
Until Covid is under control hospitals can’t return to normal treatment of other illnesses.

I know but on the other side are all the young people dying of suicide, the potential cancer sufferers not obtaining medical advice and children not catching colds which might sound a minor thing but means they don't build up immunity for later life which has health consequences

I think all these are good points Xenia, but they would also be issues if we let the virus run free I think? The NHS would be even more overwhelmed so people with suspected cancer etc. would not get the appointments they need, people might be too scared to send their children to school etc.

It's natural and good to have debate about what's happening but I think we really need to stop fighting with each other. Arguing on MN is just a waste of time (I do too much of it myself!) Maybe we should put our energies into holding our government to account for their failings. That sort of "dissent" I would support.

Perhaps as a start we could all write to our MPS demanding a public inquiry is held at the earliest possible opportunity.

MPs not MPS!

I think all these are good points Xenia, but they would also be issues if we let the virus run free I think? The NHS would be even more overwhelmed so people with suspected cancer etc. would not get the appointments they need

This. This seems to be a key point the 'what about diabetes' crowd don't seem to get. When hospitals are overwhelmed with COVID, NO ONE GETS VITAL TREATMENT. Not the suicidal, not cancer patients, not someone breaking their hip falling down the stairs. Driving infection rates down is the only way those treatments will return.

Medical treatment regularly goes to people who have taken a risk or not looked after their health, and not to someone in need through no fault of their own. I suppose we all accept being impacted by other people’s choices as a price of living in a wider community.

I do see your point but the way this is working in my mind at the moment (and I am very happy to be persuaded otherwise) is that someone who has not looked after their health doesn’t have the potential to make so many people ill as with a Covid chain of transmission .

Totally get the point about the NHS being over stretched every year but our local hospital has never had to send patients elsewhere as they are doing now (a Nightingale), my friend who lives elsewhere has never worked alongside army personnel on the wards as she currently is and has been nursing for best part of 30 years and they haven’t had a temporary morgue in the car park either.

My brain isn’t letting me imagine how things would be at the moment without restrictions. I don’t want lockdown but can’t see any other choice from where we are now. I’m encouraged by the vaccination program and can see if numbers are low when restrictions are lifted amp we have sufficient numbers vaccinated plus those with immunity acquired from infection plus improving weather and a better functioning test and trace then I can see a way out of this.

[quote Flyonawalk]@Xenia I agree with you. Liberty with a greater risk of harm or death makes sense to me too.

@ConcernedAuntie You remind Xenia that her decisions affect people beyond her own family. Surely that is true in every aspect of our society - we are affected by behaviour we don’t necessarily agree with. Medical treatment regularly goes to people who have taken a risk or not looked after their health, and not to someone in need through no fault of their own. I suppose we all accept being impacted by other people’s choices as a price of living in a wider community.[/quote]
So do you believe that you should have the liberty to drive while drunk? Driving without a seatbelt is likely to affect only you, but driving while drunk could kill or give someone else life changing injuries while leaving you unscathed.

Being prepared to spread the virus amongst other people while you carry on regardless is a similar situation.

@tinselearedcow - I agree and hope there will be a proper public enquiry about the government’s handling of the pandemic- from being too late to initially lockdown, the test and trace contracts, years of poor funding to the NHS etc. Hopefully everyone will remember this at the next election and ensure that the Tories are removed.

Switch off social media, apart from the good news thread on mumsnet - so you feel less desperate.

Or actually read what some of the NHS staff are going through right now, look at the death rates, think about all the people who are not getting the medical care they need to deal with their pain, realise that however desperate you are you are really lucky not be dying or in need of health care and stop your silly "dissent".

Yes, I know that the lockdown supporters (most of the UK) do think those who want lockdowns stopped are in effect killers and I understand their point but I don't agree with it. We could instead have voluntary measures and even with those a lot of people would follow them. I certainly don't want to catch it or spread it.

How would voluntary measures have helped? Idiots would have then carried on ignoring social distancing and then transmission would increase again jeopardising those of us who understand the (disliked) but justified restrictions.

Nobody banned voluntary measures. We had all summer and autumn to test out voluntary measures, and that didn’t go so well, did it?

You weren’t forced to eat out to help out - we didn’t, because it didn’t seem like a good idea. Nobody had to meet up at Christmas - again, we didn’t because cases were clearly rising and we didn’t want to put our family at risk.

Unfortunately plenty of people in the UK felt otherwise, and here we are. Non-voluntary measures are now necessary.

I have four children that I am trying to home school and keep occupied. I miss my friends and family. I'm fed up of being locked down. But I don't want to catch covid. I don't want my family to catch covid. I don't want the NHS to collapse. I would rather stay locked down until its safer to ease back to normality. Even when my kids were at school between september and December they were constantly having to self isolate for 10 days due to someone in their bubble testing positive so what's the point in opening school just for that to keep happening.

Christmas was voluntary to a point and that didn't pan out well.

I might write to my MP about sixth form colleges being completely ignored.

Before Christmas I think the 16-18 age group had the lowest infection rate. My son's 6th form college had 3 cases during the autumn term and they had both year groups in together. If you did one week on and one week off I am sure it would be very low risk even with the new variant. But nobody seems to be mentioning sixth forms.

However, my MP is useless so I may not waste my time.

@FuckOffBorisYouTwat

Christmas was voluntary to a point and that didn't pan out well.

How do you know? I barely know anyone who took advantage of the three household rule.

I really don't understand the people saying "the NHS is always overwhelmed anyway what's new?"

Anyone who works in the NHS will tell you that things are already utterly different this year.

And the more significant point is that without the restrictions this situation would be EVEN worse.

Am I missing something? I can't see how this cannot be understood!!

@borntohula good that you don’t - I know loads of people who had huge, rule-breaking, multi-generational family gatherings over Christmas, because “Boris said it was safe last week” (and yes I’m sure they was an excuse, but that’s how people justified it to themselves - if it wasn’t safe, they’d have banned it).

If you don’t know anybody in real life, there were lots of threads on here just before Christmas, discussing whether to cancel or go ahead - lots said they were going ahead, despite knowing the risks. And we had a massive explosion in cases in January as a result.

Voluntary measures have been shown not to work.

@Parker231

If lockdown is lifted too soon it won’t help anyone to receive urgent treatment for other illnesses as the hospitals and in particular ICU will be even fuller with Covid cases as the transmission rate increases again. Until Covid is under control hospitals can’t return to normal treatment of other illnesses.

I don't know why this has to keep being said. Good on you Parker231 for bothering, but it never seems to be addressed by the people kicking back against covid measures. They seem to just ignore it every time.

@knittingaddict maybe this is the consequence of a society so focussed on instant gratification? There’s no willingness to look beyond the immediate and see that hardship now raises our chance of coming out of this lockdown and sustaining it. There’s always the chance whatever we do we’ll end up back here but why not give ourselves the best chance we can of a sustainable reopening?

I think personally its obvious that we can’t half ass it or delay making tough decisions when needed. The choice seems to be fast and absolute or softer and longer when it comes to controlling cases.

Allowing delays to dither isn’t helping anyone. Firm, decisive action needs to taken in a much shorter timeframe.

@ConcernedAuntie I cannot agree with you that carrying a virus is equivalent to driving drunk or drugged. Many of us carry viruses during the course of an ordinary year, and conceivably transit to vulnerable people. It has previously been considered an inevitable risk that comes with being alive.

What about the two to two and a half million Britons living with cancer in a normal year? They often have compromised immune systems and can be severely affected by colds, flu, chickenpox. We have never shown cancer patients current levels of protection. As a society we have spread infection and germs and left them to manage their own risks.

[quote Flyonawalk]@ConcernedAuntie I cannot agree with you that carrying a virus is equivalent to driving drunk or drugged. Many of us carry viruses during the course of an ordinary year, and conceivably transit to vulnerable people. It has previously been considered an inevitable risk that comes with being alive.

What about the two to two and a half million Britons living with cancer in a normal year? They often have compromised immune systems and can be severely affected by colds, flu, chickenpox. We have never shown cancer patients current levels of protection. As a society we have spread infection and germs and left them to manage their own risks.[/quote]
Finally someone else has made the point I have been upset about since the start

I have serious chronic illnesses. There are some very common infections that if j catch I end up in hospital.

Before this, even though "friends" knew that fact, they often didn't bother telling me until I was round their house that oh x has a bit of a bad tummy ... And by that point I've gone and caught the bit of a bad tummy and am in hospital.

But now...those same people are terrified of covid and their own risk and want me to be understanding (because I'm not worried , I have much more serious and immediate health issues to deal with than a virus I've a) not currently got and b) had and was mild).

They didn't get understanding, they got 'unfriended".... I didn't matter before when I have and always will be at risk...but now everyone is at risk now suddenly everyone is aware

What about the two to two and a half million Britons living with cancer in a normal year? They often have compromised immune systems and can be severely affected by colds, flu, chickenpox. We have never shown cancer patients current levels of protection. As a society we have spread infection and germs and left them to manage their own risks

To pick up on this, yes people are left to manage their own risks but with considerably more support available than there is for covid. There’s no possibility of existing immunity for the majority of the population which also contributes to you statistically being able to avoid outbreaks if needed and we have vaccinations available for flu’s, chicken p and pneumonia which are usually available to people with compromised immune ppp
The reason covid is s destructive

@Cornettoninja

What about the two to two and a half million Britons living with cancer in a normal year? They often have compromised immune systems and can be severely affected by colds, flu, chickenpox. We have never shown cancer patients current levels of protection. As a society we have spread infection and germs and left them to manage their own risks

To pick up on this, yes people are left to manage their own risks but with considerably more support available than there is for covid. There’s no possibility of existing immunity for the majority of the population which also contributes to you statistically being able to avoid outbreaks if needed and we have vaccinations available for flu’s, chicken p and pneumonia which are usually available to people with compromised immune ppp
The reason covid is s destructive

There is next to no support available for those of us who have to deal with being at risk of infections

Do you have any experience of this? I don't think so because if you did you would have just said that. I've been in hospital more times than I can count because there was nothing I could to do avoid catching something

I do wish people wouldn't say stuff they probably know nothing about

@RosesAndLemonade I am sad to read of your health difficulties. Perhaps one positive to come out of the reaction to covid might be an increased awareness of and respect for other people’s health

[quote Flyonawalk]@RosesAndLemonade I am sad to read of your health difficulties. Perhaps one positive to come out of the reaction to covid might be an increased awareness of and respect for other people’s health [/quote]
I hope so. Would be nice