So much for 'This too shall pass'....

[ssd]

How many times have I read that on mn?

Except its not passing, is it

No it's not and for the first time since the start of this both ds and I are starting to lose positivity.

And I'm someone usually accused of being too happy, too positive and not slagging people off enough!

Hate these threads. It's fine and understandable to have a personal 'this is so shit and right now I'm not coping' wallow, but to have it written down, in black and white, for all the doom-mongerers to gleefully agree with, helps no-one, particularly those who are vulnerable and fragile.

Is Spanish flu still killing vast numbers of people? No. Black Death? Of course not. This WILL pass and it's really cruel to suggest otherwise.

It will pass. The saying is true but it comes with no guaranteed timescale.
It's been a crap year. It's going to be crap for a while more. The aftereffects will be crap too. But this isn't forever. We (general we. Humans) will get through it like we've come through every one before it and we'll come out the other end.

The virus will be with us forever but we are already finding ways of preventing infection and better ways of treating it.

To pretend it will go away is foolish but we will adjust to living with it.

This news is encouraging:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55913913

There’s such GOOD news today re the Oxford vaccine, it stops transmission by up two thirds. Which means cases are going to come down very quickly as the number of those vaccinated, increases.

One thing this Govt have got right is the vaccination programme, keep looking at those numbers increasing, that gives me hope.

This time next year we will all be worrying about the increasing likelihood of nuclear war or something equally as fun.

Of course it will pass. Every other pandemic has why should this one (when we have far more tools at our disposal) be any different.

They usually last around 2 years (those that last longer it usually due to spread around the world rather than an individual place)

We are between 12-18 months in so we have another 6-12 months of this which I think to be fair fits in with what most are saying.

It’s doing what viruses do

As for a zero COVID policy no. Even Australia/Nee Zealand are going for limiting until vaccination is done

As I have said before we have eradicated one thing smallpox and that took years

You're right - it hasn't passed in 10.5 months, therefore it will last FOREVER AND EVER! That's how things work...

*You're right - B&M is the sole cause of this mess.

As is The Range*

MN is blinkin obsessed with B and M ! It's the scapegoat every time.
It sells food, toiletries, san pro, cleaning items, toilet rolls...all if which I consider essential. Why shouldn't it be open?

SeriouslyMole You don’t understand what a virus suppression strategy is. As lots of countries have shown if you have effective test track and quarantine logistics, individuals take infection control (masks, social distance, hygiene ) seriously and control who is coming into the country then you suppress the virus and protect your economy. It may damage tourist industries but it enables the rest of the economy to continue. Taiwan’s economy barely faltered and is now growing, and they have had just 7 deaths. It is like a leaky sieve, no one virus suppression strategy is 100% effective but put together they demonstrably work.

Having an effective test trace and isolate system means that fewer people’s lives are affected because you bring infections down. We had the resources to do that, and still have but the government did something nowhere else in the world did except the USA, they sidelined the public health resource and instead directed all the funding to cronies who have manifested their inexperience in test, trace and quarantine processes that never worked effectively and failed to enable people to isolate . Only 20%, and declining, isolate even if they get tested. Hence the sky high infection rates and high death rates, and putting the onus on us as the public to control the virus by closing our lives down with all the adverse effects on the economy and mental and physical health.

It has also allowed the virus the perfect environment in which to mutate.

This is a pandemic, it was never going to be easy but we could do so much better if the government focused on funding our public health experts to use their expertise to deliver effective testing and tracing and to enable people to isolate. We still could.

Zero COVID was a fine strategy, but most countries that did this (or have maintained cases at VERY low levels, crushing clusters as they appeared) got on the case and did this very early on.

Trying to do this once a virus is endemic is going to be next to impossible. China managed this after the mess at Wuhan, but they practiced mass centralized quarantine (ie, all cases AND their contacts get put in an empty hotel room for a couple of weeks). I've floated this idea on here a couple of times, and there is even less appetite for such an idea than there is for endless severe lockdown. And in the absence of centralized quarantine, even the most severe lockdown would be of limited effectiveness.

We need to focus on hammering that vaccine out while keeping borders tight as hell to avoid new variants being brought in.

Sorry if this isn’t the right place but I get non-answers every time I ask.

So there is no answer as to how countries like NZ and Australia can ever open up to international travel again. The only people for whom it is practical to do a two-week hotel quarantine are returning nationals. So are these countries forever closed to visitors/tourists? I know they are held up as the beacons of having done it right, but these seems like a HUGE deal to me.

If the gov’t had have contained it properly there wouldn’t be so many mutations. It will pass though after thousands of unnecessary deaths

The government isn’t responsible for every variant. They aren’t responsible for the Brazil or South African strain so we would still have those.
Taking that thinking then the Chinese government should have warned the world at the beginning and not tried to cover it all up then we would not have been in this position.
The government can’t be held responsible for the rest of the worlds actions.

Every one of us has ancestors who survived the Plagues. Far more deadly. It does pass

But in previous pandemics like Spanish flu, the disease has been allowed to run its course and there is a certain amount of time it will go on for. I think in trying to stop the amount of infections it is allowing the disease to mutate and find a possibly a more deadly version

@MaxNormal

We need a zero covid strategy.

We really do not. It's a completely unrealistic strategy and attempting to pursue it will do huge damage.

Out of interest, why is it unrealistic and why will attempting to pursue it cause real damage? I’ve seen this said quite a bit on here but no explanation as to why. Not being difficult. I genuinely want to know. Thank you.

Spanish flu has never really gone away. It has mutated and merged with other varieties of flu and caused new strains in later years

Tina Several of the countries that have zero Covid strategies do not confine entry to nationals. If you have a valid reason for travel; study, business, compassionate etc you can enter Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, though you have to find the costs of hotel quarantine. Australia and New Zealand have a logistics problem in that the number of nationals wanting to return exceeds the number of hotel quarantine beds, that isn’t necessarily long term.

Of course the tourist industry is a casualty which is a major hit for many Asian countries but it is clearly one they are prepared to take.

And we do have the promise of vaccines that may enable some travel to start up at some point.

I feel more positive, not less, OxZ 12 week plan seems correct, it works against many variants in that it reduces serious illness.

Looks like Pfizer needs a shorter period between doses but thats not impossible to do, though listening to Matt Hancock this morning, i don't think he acknowledged that, so i expect they won't :(

Corona viruses in animals haven't mutated to wipe out their hosts, so why in humans?

I think in few weeks we'll see dramatic changes... for the better!

Can i just say, I hate Winnie the Poo and gratitude journals. The horse is awful too. Thanks.

What we need is for everyone to stay in during Feb and most of March. We need 8 weeks to get most people jabbed and to start and see the figures come down. Then, life will slowly get back to normal.

Yes, variants are scary. I heard someone on the TV say yesterday that it takes 3 weeks to tweak a virus to see off a new variant. It's not a doomsday scenario. The way I see it is that the Govt. does not want to see the rates rise as this will look like our vaccine is ineffective if people are jabbed and then catch Covid during the wait for jab2 and we need to keep the SA variant at bay whilst we sort out the mass vaccination.

@ssd I think you're taking the medal for the highest number of miserable and depressing threads.

Why? You've been doing this for a whole year. What are you expecting from the discussion?

Surely it's not helping you.

@Exhausteddog

*You're right - B&M is the sole cause of this mess.

As is The Range*

MN is blinkin obsessed with B and M ! It's the scapegoat every time.
It sells food, toiletries, san pro, cleaning items, toilet rolls...all if which I consider essential. Why shouldn't it be open?

Because it’s mainly working class people who shop there, so it shouldn’t be allowed. The local independent deli on the other hand - that’s fine.

Every pandemic in history has passed. It takes a few years but it passes. Now we have a vaccine we can speed this time line up!

The vaccine we were told was never coming or would fail. The vaccine we were told didn't stop transmission. Well, turns out its here, it works and it significantly reduces transmission.

news.sky.com/story/amp/oxford-vaccine-may-have-67-effect-on-transmission-and-protection-remains-for-three-month-jab-interval-12206734

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/15/biontech-vaccine-scientist-says-jab-could-halve-covid-transmission-pfizer

Things have felt incredibly bleak but they are improving now. Cases down, hospitalizations down, deaths down, and the vaccine roll out is going faster than anyone thought possible.

It will pass. The big question is when? Atm it’s just a case of people putting one foot in front of the other trying to see an end. If we knew an end date people would cope, but it’s the uncertainty, due to these new variants popping up everywhere.

ssd

Honestly though. You’ve been a really prolific poster of doom and misery. We’ve got plenty of that already, I always see your username and think ‘here we go...!’

Lighten up, Chuck!