How much longer are we meant to do this?

[Creamteaincornwall]

I have so many friends who are at the end of their tether. Some suicidal, many almost.
I attend a zoom support group for my mental health and emotional well being as I have BPD and ASD. The last few weeks have been horrendous, every person is at the lowest they’ve been since the beginning of all this.
The amount of posts I’ve read on various Facebook groups of people saying they don’t want to get up in the morning anymore, they just stay in bed. Surely this isn’t doing anyone any good physically or mentally?
Surely this will put most in a weaker position if they were to catch covid?

How much more are we all suppose to take of this? With no end in sight?

@bumbleymummy

If it doesn't stop transmission, we either have to have a vaccine that everyone has had, or we have to keep numbers low enough for individual outbreaks to be stopped, one by one.

No we don’t. We need to vaccinate the people who are more likely to end up in hospital - which is exactly what we’re doing. For most people, this is mild/asymptomatic.

Just going to repeat the important word: mutations mutations mutations.

The vaccine only works until it doesn't work.

most likely

People are so blinkered when it comes to the NHS. The number of COVID patients are not the only problem - the problem over the last couple of months has been the number of staff absences due to either having COVID or having to self isolate. This impacts every service in the NHS, especially those who can’t postpone face to face care - like maternity where I work, and other acute services that have to go ahead with face to face contacts like emergency services, A&E etc. Significant case numbers in admin staff has also massively affected the running of services.

Without lockdown when it came, maternity units across the country would have had to close over the last two months - many have been on a knife edge. Many are also bed blocked - COVID positive new mothers in postnatal who can’t be discharged, coming into contact with others, no postnatal beds ri admit to, etc. Having seen from the inside how bad it has been this time compared to lockdown 1 and 2, it’s staggering to me that people don’t see how necessary this current lockdown is, but I think part of this is due to the fact that the public are shielded from the severity so that they don’t stop accessing crucial services due to fear.

The same is happening across all crucial services - social care, mental health services, specialist schools where case numbers have meant that vulnerable children can’t attend as planned etc. The idea that these things would have worked better without lockdown is just not based in reality.

It’s not just that hospital admissions need to go down - we also need to get through this phase where so many staff are impacted in order for services to be able to function. People are short sighted if they think that the number of COVID patients in hospital is the only important metric here.

And yes, this government is shocking - they have been shocking for a decade, it’s sad it has taken this to make people aware of it. And no I don’t believe any government would have thrown over £100bn worth of private contracts to their cronies, and I hope there is a significant inquiry into this.

So I am not someone who believes for a second that this government has our best interests at heart. I do know however that the last couple of months have been horrific, and that without lockdown the impact on all these services and on loss of life would have been catastrophic.

@inquietant well at the moment it is working. It is also possible that those mutations could be a good thing because it could mutate to something milder. But hey, let’s all keep focusing on every negative possible outcome

@myfriendsgivebadadvice Clearly there is some semantic disagreement on the definition of "mild" and "moderate" illness. My understanding was that whilst this can make you feel sick as a dog and take to your bed for a week, it does not put you in hospital. That's certainly what I've taken from the Whitty/Valance definition of those terms.

@inquietant

Unknown unknown unknown

It might mutate into something less deadly

It might mutate into something more deadly and finish us all off

I might get hit by a bus or die of a heart attack before either happen

You can only deal with what you have in front of you - several vaccines that work and are being adapted to work more effectively against the variants we know exist

Why does it matter if it is still transmitting if nobody is getting seriously ill or being admitted to hospital?

Also wtf is with the unbelievable negativity on a thread started by someone who's basically feeling a bit emotional? Why can't people just sympathise, and recognise that none of us know what is for the best, what is going to happen, but we can certainly all agree that life sucks right now. No??

@Delatron

Why does it matter if it is still transmitting if nobody is getting seriously ill or being admitted to hospital?

Arrrrggggghhhhh....

I must have typed this word a hundred times, does no one read the news?

MUTATIONS
VARIANTS
VACCINE ESCAPE

(plus long covid isn't brilliant tbh, fucking expensive nationally)

@ElliFAntspoo

I suspect we will have a bit of freedom in the summer, a firebreak lockdown over the October break, another firebreak lockdown at the end of November, freedom for more than just one day at Christmas, and then really harsh lockdown from 30th November through to mid March 2022.

Are you f**king serious?? Where do you get this info from?? Are you trying to induce a mass suicide or something

@inquietant all viruses mutate. You really seem to be getting yourself worked up. Do you honestly think the scientists working on the vaccines didn’t think they would mutate?

The vaccines can be very easily tweaked. And the current ones still protect against severe disease with the MUTANT strains. Amazing really.

[quote xmasmob]@inquietant

Unknown unknown unknown

It might mutate into something less deadly

It might mutate into something more deadly and finish us all off

I might get hit by a bus or die of a heart attack before either happen

You can only deal with what you have in front of you - several vaccines that work and are being adapted to work more effectively against the variants we know exist [/quote]
Yes of course it could go either way but only an idiot would just take the risk.

Luckily we have a wise prime minister... Oh shit...

@tatutata

Also wtf is with the unbelievable negativity on a thread started by someone who's basically feeling a bit emotional? Why can't people just sympathise, and recognise that none of us know what is for the best, what is going to happen, but we can certainly all agree that life sucks right now. No??

Because the only thing worse than being locked down like this is being locked down and thinking it’s unnecessary. Understanding why it is necessary has certainly made me less upset and angry about the situation. I’m not sure how a load of people saying “yes it’s shit and we shouldn’t be doing it” does anything other than make people feel more angry and depressed and hopeless.

[quote Delatron]@inquietant all viruses mutate. You really seem to be getting yourself worked up. Do you honestly think the scientists working on the vaccines didn’t think they would mutate?

The vaccines can be very easily tweaked. And the current ones still protect against severe disease with the MUTANT strains. Amazing really.[/quote]
I'm not wound up, I've had covid, it was mild.

I am sick of people being foolish.

All we need to do is vaccinate + suppress.

But so many people are saying 'whats the harm in it transmitting... Did no one do GCSE biology?

Mutations and variants may well be the same thing. Typing it twice in capital letters isn’t helping your case really.

OP - I know many people (myself included) that have found the last couple of weeks the toughest yet. It’s completely normal - we are being asked to live in a way that is not natural.

We are a tribal species - we have evolved over millennia to be connected to other humans and we have physiological processes in place to alert us that we are in danger if we don’t have our tribe around us. Thousands of years ago, this would have meant certain death - you’d have no protection without your tribe. Our brains haven’t changed much since then so it is to expected that we will feel this way.

However, I do see so many reasons to be hopeful. I believe in the vaccination program. It WILL make a difference and I sincerely believe it’ll be sooner rather than later.

The media have been reporting on this in such an irresponsible manner. They’re whipping up fear and undermining people’s confidence in the vaccine which will have a detrimental effect on its success! But remember- when you read a story it is just that journalist’s opinion. They aren’t experts. And many people will parrot what they have read - even casting their own uneducated opinions on it as though it is fact. We need to learn to take these so-called opinions with a pinch of salt and wait for things to unfold. It won’t be long now

but @Delatron

HOW WILL PEOPLE KNOW IM HYSTERICAL IF I DONT USE CAPS

@xmasmob I know right?

Type the same thing over and over again in capitals to try and really scare people. But what about the MUTANT VARIANTS!!

What about the fucking mutant variants? They'll just change the vaccine. Like they do with flu.

And you know what if we can't live an actual life then death doesn't seem to bad in comparison in all honesty.

@xmasmob

but *@Delatron*

HOW WILL PEOPLE KNOW IM HYSTERICAL IF I DONT USE CAPS

The vaccines can be very easily tweaked.

Yes... But developing the new vaccine in a lab is fast. Producing it and injecting it takes months.

So we either:

• get lucky
• act sensibly (suppress + vaccinate)
• have more lockdowns

And stop portraying anyone who isn't happy to go with 'oh tally ho, it'll be fine' as panicking.

I'm not panicking. I'm frustrated at watching the same stupidity repeated.

This is the same conversation as before the first wave, as in summer during the too fast unlocking, as before the Christmas mixing.

@inquietant but we are currently suppressing and vaccinating?

So what do you want to happen? We vaccinate the majority, carry on suppressing indefinitely?

The other thing to remember OP (and anyone else reading this who is feeling down) is that - just because someone posts an opinion here with an overwhelmingly irritating level of arrogance confidence, does NOT mean that it is the truth.

Everyone is an expert these days it seems.

@Wherediditgo well except Boris. To be fair, he's definitely not

[quote xmasmob]@Wherediditgo well except Boris. To be fair, he's definitely not [/quote]

.🤦‍♀️