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?

Ok but I’m telling you my symptoms, not the symptoms of everyone’s experience of this virus. A family friend was ventilated and has been left with neurological issues as well as the trauma of seeing people on the ward dying in front of him. It’s not just a cold, and I fear that unless people have been affected by Covid, they are able to fully appreciate it and are prone quickly dismiss its affects.

@speaksofty

elli I am not sure you understand what I actually saying. Regardless of what the government says come March we will be having picnics and drinks, dinners and BBQs with friends and family outside as safely as we can. If Hancock wants to carry on with 'lockdown' he can, but I will be done three weeks after the last vulnerable person has been vaccinated (15th of Feb) I am not saying you have to do it, I am saying this is what I intend to do.

I hope there aren't as many people as stupid & selfish as you.

Groups 1-4 will mostly be vaccinated by then, but it takes 22 days to create the immunity

Groups 5-9 are very vulnerable too & won't all be vaccinated until may (+22 days).

There is a reason we have scientists advising the govt. not randoms who have had enough of trying to save lives (from
Covid & everything else).

[quote Delatron]@IndiaMay
If the vaccine prevents serious illness and hospitalisation then there’s no pressure on the NHS and no need for restrictions.
It becomes like any other respiratory virus in circulation.[/quote]
No, it doesn't, because of the risk of vaccine escape.

Listen to those who understand a) viruses and b) medicine

We all wish were over, but wishing doesn't make things happen sadly.

[quote AnxiousAlpaca]@ElliFAntspoo

For how long for?

Your prediction essentially seems to be lockdown indefinitely, no schooling indefinitely and the NHS overwhelmed regardless with no capacity for anything that isn’t an emergency or Covid?

Even the most cautious of scientists aren’t saying that’s the scenario.[/quote]
Compared to what you understand to be life before Covid, this pandemic will remain preeminent in the public consciousness, kept there by the media, until such times as everyone can be trusted to do as they are told, and do so without the threat of government coercion.

Until people have are capable of self regulating in the manner required to ensure compliance, this system of unpredictable instructions and restrictions accompanied by swift action, the threat of force and punishments will continue.

Slowly we will see a transition in the narrative from medical emergency, through precaution, and into a new green agenda. Once people can be trusted to do as they are told without swanning off to Wales or having a barbeque in the woods, we will see people paying the costs of what they wish to do, paying per mile to use the roads, being penalised for having non-electric cars, being deterred from commuting to work, being restricted from public gatherings or public transport with approval and evidence that they are vaccinated.

In the meantime though, we are only at one point, and we must control the narrative to ensure that we can continue to herd the hers down the path with as little need for force as possible. So the vaccine passport system will be developed but you will be told it is never going to be used.

We do not get told whet we do not need to know, the same way the majority of staff do not get told a company will be would up in a month, but the switched on in the company can see it six months off because they watch and gather the information around them, and prepare their moves ahead of time, and senior management know what is actually going on, but only tell staff what they need to know in the best interests of maintaining the company until the change happens. The sheep follow blindly and claim they didn't know the company was going bust, and if asked, say that the staff that did see it coming and prepared for such things were just lucky.

Hopefully when enough are vaccinated and rates of infection fall.
If the anti vaxers spread vaccine misinformation though this could go on and on. Is there any other way out other than lock down as per New Zealand and Australia or vaccine

Groups 5-9 are very vulnerable too & won't all be vaccinated until may (+22 days)

These groups are not VERY vulnerable at all! The over 50s are mostly fine. The truly vulnerable and shielding people of that age will already have been vaccinated. So you are just left with healthy and fit people in the main. Seriously you are being hysterical if you think that the over 50s in general are very vulnerable, they are not.

@speaksofty

I have penciled in three weeks to the end of my lockdown, once the schools are back I will be inviting my friends for firepit drinks and dinner and I am getting my life back.

If the gov agrees with me, great, if not - well thats too bad.
I am not staying in this living hell any longer once the vulnerable are vaccinated and the hospital admissions are steady. The hospitals are already past the worst now, and by next week the vaccination of 15 million of the most vulnerable will be complete. I will give it to March and thats it for us.

It is one of the reasons I woke up feeling much happier than I have done in ages - this is nearly over.

It won't be nearly over if people behave like you intend to.

@SpringIsComingAlways

Hopefully when enough are vaccinated and rates of infection fall. If the anti vaxers spread vaccine misinformation though this could go on and on. Is there any other way out other than lock down as per New Zealand and Australia or vaccine

The best way out is lockdown as per NZ/Aus + vaccine, second best is lockdown as per NZ/Aus with no vaccine.

Vaccine only is a short term fix according to those who understand viruses.

Moreover, you do not seem to be factoring in deaths from cancer, suicide, mental health, preventable disease by worshipping at the alter of covid you have not considered of the groups at all.

It is black and white thinking at its worst.

That is spot on inq the only way out is complete border closure with secure quarantine hotels for those that do arrive.

As a global nation that relies on travel and trade, it is not ideal, but I have come to the conclusion it is the only way too.

@WoodpileHouse Yes I'm quite aware that thousands do not survive. Out of millions. That's how we arrive at the fatality rate. I'm also aware that no mitigation would probably result in overwhelmed heath services. It's just hard to see a way out , isn't it. Vaccination maybe, but as we keep hearing about how it's not effective against all variants and needs to be tweaked, that means the rollout starts again the following year, and what? We spend 6 months of the year (i.e. the flu season) locked in our houses? Someone sent me a good Telegraph column that expressed the challenge better than I can: " the choice is simple and devastating: either society accepts the lower life expectancy of a world with endemic coronavirus, or we suffer limitless ruin to our quality if life, in the pursuit of Zero Covid". Sherelle Jacobs.

@ElliFAntspoo I saw a post where you mentioned you were obese? Do you want everyone to stay locked down so you don't catch the virus and suffer badly (which even if you are obese you are still more than likely to be ok). Why should the majority of the nation continue to stay locked down when those that need the vaccine have had it? A year of our lives, how much longer do you want this to continue for?

As ever, the truth will be somewhere in the middle, between the wildly optimistic "society will be open by Easter" and ElliFAntspoo's equally ridiculous apocalyptic predictions. Slow restart until the summer for sure, but I don't believe for a second we'll have another full lockdown again, even with variants.

The next inevitable pandemic is another matter entirely of course...

@inquietant You should read the rather interesting article on the potential effects of lockdown on virus mutations: www.spectator.co.uk/article/stresses-and-strains-the-evolution-of-covid-is-not-random
He talks about how the spread of the 1918 flu and its virulence may have been influenced by the fact the sickest patients were moved the most, and were often repatriated from the front line - whereas in the past, the sickest patients were the ones who moved around the least. This is then the theory of how this might apply to Covid:

"There is a worrying parallel with Covid-19. In the early wave a lot of cases were spread by attendants in hospitals and care homes. One South African hospital traced how a single outpatient seeded an epidemic that spread from ward to ward, infecting 39 patients and 80 staff. The virus had a means to get from victim to victim even if they stayed put: it was attendant-borne, like the 1918 flu. Did that encourage the virus to be more lethal? An estimate published this week by Public Health England finds that the B117 (Kent) mutant is roughly 65 per cent more fatal than previous strains.

By contrast, because of lockdown, a mild case of Covid kept you isolated at home. Last week the Financial Times carried an article about the huge but surprisingly mild epidemic of Covid that India is suffering. It quoted one doctor as saying that ‘we are seeing a lot less severe disease than the rest of the world, and a lot more asymptomatic infections’ and another that ‘it’s pretty generally accepted that in India, we have a very mild form of the virus’. There are lots of possible explanations, but because lockdowns have been mostly ineffective in India, could it be that mild variants have done well and an attendant-borne evolution to greater virulence has not happened?"

" the choice is simple and devastating: either society accepts the lower life expectancy of a world with endemic coronavirus, or we suffer limitless ruin to our quality if life, in the pursuit of Zero Covid". Sherelle Jacobs

Sherelle Jacobs is the most outstanding journalist of our time, she is the only reason I still buy the paper, and as usual she eloquently takes us to the heart of the matter. That is precisely where we are. There is never going to be a zero covid life ever again. But some people just can not accept that mere fact.

Covid will be with us forever now, the same as the flu.

@tatutata

I am sure the scientific community will read the article in amongst all the other data they have and it will be afforded the appropriate level of weight.

Didn't take long for the usual suspects to show up with their SELFISH placards.

@inquietant yes it does. Even with new variants (which were completely expected by scientists)

All the vaccines stop serious illness and hospitalisation. For those who haven’t had the vaccine or still get seriously ill ( and yes there may be thousands per year just like flu) the hospitals will cope and the economy will open up.

We’re past the peak and more and more are vaccinated. It’s looking very positive from Spring onwards.

I’ve not heard one single argument to explain why these restrictions will continue. Once the hospitals aren’t overwhelmed it will be life as normal. Maybe international travel to certain areas will be restricted but that’s it.

I think some of the doom mongers are actually petrified. Maybe they are overweight and unhealthy. Don’t project this on to other people though. Especially those who are struggling.

Most people have nothing to fear from this virus. Once we have protected the vulnerable we will be in a completely different situation.

@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.

Well that's all of our family birthdays fucked, my DD will have her 3rd consecutive birthday screwed and DS1 and 2 will have their 2nd consecutive birthday screwed.

Apparentely when there are fewer than 1000 positive cases. Maybe when they start reporting how few are actually dying of covid, not just tested positive in 28 days.
You can die of anything and it be clssed as covid if you are positive.
We are going to be here a long time, yet.

@speaksofty

Moreover, you do not seem to be factoring in deaths from cancer, suicide, mental health, preventable disease by worshipping at the alter of covid you have not considered of the groups at all.

It is black and white thinking at its worst.

If the duvet is the best place to hide, by all means hide there, but this is a situation that, to one degree or other, is here for a long, long time, and it will continue to appear to be imposed at random on an ad hoc basis without much of an explanation.

We will only be told what we need to know to get us to do what is required until we are required to do something different. We do not get to control this. None of it at all. The sooner we accept that there are things we do get to control and things we do not get to control in our lives, and focus our attentions on the things we do get to control in our lives, the easier life becomes and the healthier we are for it.

I fill that gap in no longer being able to control where I can go and shop, and who I can go and see, by controlling the level of knowledge and forward planning I can do for my family, concealing the reality from my children, and supporting their education. If this is to be with us for the next few years, so be it. I choose to flourish, not fold.

@pistachioglace take no notice, that poster knows no more than me you or anyone else what restrictions will be in place in future.

That’s interesting @tatutata
I always wondered if lockdown would prolong the virus and make it worse.

I think it would have been better to have come out of lockdown earlier last May, when seasonality would have helped. People would have had higher vitamin D so could have flight it off better. Instead we locked down then shoved everyone back to work and school in September. Stupid idea.

I've had covid. I was fine (as far as I can tell).

I simply listen to the scientists and try to understand what they're saying.

@speaksofty Yes it was a good article. I don't really like the Telegraph, so I didn't know her, but it was a very interesting argument.