If this takes five years

[alfieum]

I keep seeing people saying they are happy to wait as long as it takes. Are there really people on here who would live like this for two, five, ten years?

@Iremembertheelderlykoreanlady

I believe the restrictions in place at the moment are necessary.

I don't believe restrictions will be necessary for the next 5 years, because a) vaccines b) booster vaccines to fight new strains (as we have with the flu c) a certain amount of herd immunity d)better treatments which are being developed all the time.

So for me the question is a bit irrelevant.

Fully agree with the above.

Perhaps people aren’t comfortable drawing a line and quite honestly don’t have the information right now to be able to make that assessment. The best you can really assess is that the majority of people are willing to continue with restrictions for the next few months based on the current level of risk. If the risk changes their timeline will, if it doesn’t then they will continue to evaluate month on month until they reach a point they can’t do it anymore. Many people have adapted to life with restrictions and so may well be able to cope for longer.

@Pyewhacket

There are many diseases I don't want to get (and who does want to get sick?) but Covid would be some way down the list. I'm much more unhappy about society and the economy locked down indefinitely for fear of what would very likely be a mild illness for me

The youngest patient I've treated was 18. No previous medical history. He didn't make it. I spent all last night looking after 6 patients, we normally look after just 1. Just before I left I was with a 36 old mother of 3. She was bleeding from just about everywhere. We couldn't stop it. She arrested and died. She was admitted on Friday. Fit, with no previous medical history. I've been doing this day after day since last April. I haven't taken a day's holiday and I worked all of Christmas. I've lost count of the number of people I've seen die a long long time ago. Just before I left this morning, I found a junior nurse on the floor of our locker room shaking uncontrollably. She'd wet herself too. We picked her up and put her under a hot shower. She was OK..ish after that but she'll be back again this evening. I've been an ITU/Critical Care nurse for 20 years, and not just in this country either, and I've never seen death on this scale. Last year was bad but this is twice as worse. Our Raspatory consultant said that taking your chances with Covid is like playing Russian Roulette with your health. Let's hope you are lucky then.

If this is the case it just makes me think even more why the hell vaccines are going to people as unwell as my 92 yr old incredibly unwell grandparent instead of protecting younger far healthier people if the risks are such?

There aren't any particularly good choices but protecting incredibly elderly and unwell people at the expense of younger healthy people, if they are vulnerable as this post describes, does not seem to make sense?

Covid is like playing Russian Roulette with your health. Let's hope you are lucky then
Doing anything is playing Russian roulette with your health. Going up the stairs, driving a car, eating, wearing shoes with laces, going swimming, cooking, riding a horse, smoking, drinking alcohol, taking any drugs (including paracetamol etc), having an medical procedure. Everything in our lives involves some form of risk. For many, the risk of covid is minimal and not worth not seeing friends for a year. Just like we think it is worth the risk of doing all those things above. In "Russian roulette" the risk of death is 1 in 6. Covid it's more like 1 in 250,000 for me. Hardly comparable. I might be "one of the lucky ones" but so are the other 249,999.

@tinylittleyou

I’m sure if furlough ends that will change a lot of people’s minds 😬

I agree. Not just furloughed staff though. Lots of public sector staff (who can't be furloughed) are on full pay but not actually doing their normal work (if any work at all). When everyone whose not currently working/commuting gets the call to get back to their usual work/workplace, there'll be a lot of howls of anguish. An awful lot of people are in a very protected bubble at the moment (financially and physically) which makes it easy for them to be "happy" with how things are.

@ChocOrange1

Covid is like playing Russian Roulette with your health. Let's hope you are lucky then Doing anything is playing Russian roulette with your health. Going up the stairs, driving a car, eating, wearing shoes with laces, going swimming, cooking, riding a horse, smoking, drinking alcohol, taking any drugs (including paracetamol etc), having an medical procedure. Everything in our lives involves some form of risk. For many, the risk of covid is minimal and not worth not seeing friends for a year. Just like we think it is worth the risk of doing all those things above. In "Russian roulette" the risk of death is 1 in 6. Covid it's more like 1 in 250,000 for me. Hardly comparable. I might be "one of the lucky ones" but so are the other 249,999.

Thing is though, for most "normal" things, you can take steps to reduce your own risk, i.e. looking before crossing the road, waiting for cars to stop rather than relying on the green man lighting up, not taking drugs, not drinking excessively, not smoking, and just generally being aware of risks and taking sensible precautions. With covid, it really is Russian Roulette unless you never leave the house, never let anyone in and sanitise all your shopping deliveries. With Covid, you're relying on everyone around you to take precautions, follow the rules, etc.

What gets me, is this won't be the last pandemic, the next one might be worse. What then?

The decade is already a write off, if not through all the restrictions then the financial collapse that it'll all cause.

What is it about this bloody virus that has made everyone suddenly stop being able to understand nuance and see everything as black and white? Honestly, people hear "pandemic for 5 years" and interpret that as "lockdown for 5 years, can't see my friends or family for 5 years, schools closed for 5 years" and so on. Categorically NOT the case. Absolute worst case scenario it'll be 5 years of occasional restrictions such as quarantining cases, potentially locking down small areas for finite periods of time to contain outbreaks, distaning with strangers in certain conditions, mask wearing on public transport in winter.

Not lockdown for 5 years FFS.

What gets me, is this won't be the last pandemic, the next one might be worse. What then?

Cross that bridge when we come to it, what else can we do. Nothing in life is certain. Something "worse" may always be on the horizon.

What’s the Russian roulette stats for a healthy 44 year old though? It’s not like a gun loaded with 12 bullets is it? More like thousands....

On a personal level, I’ve had cancer (not infectious I know ). With a one in five chance of dying. So I can’t get worked up about a one in thousands...

And before anyone jumps on me for being selfish. Even 80 year olds have more chance of surviving than dying. Throw in the vaccines to stop the chance of death? What are we talking about then?

Hardly Russian roulette is it?

alwaysplayingplaydoh maybe read the OP properly. I am not suggesting this would happen. Just asking if people would go along with the current level of restrictions and for how long, due to people on MN saying they are happy to do this for as long as it takes.

The Russian roulette part becomes more irrelevant as hospitalisation decreases.

Even if individuals don’t want the risk we’ll move on.

Just asking if people would go along with the current level of restrictions and for how long

But the current level of restrictions would not be in place for 5 years, so if that is all you were asking then why bring 5 years into it at all.

@LookToTreblesGoingTreblesGone

Historically, pandemics take about 2 years to run their course.

Indeed. But that's without the fucking around of lockdowns. I wonder if it will be longer now? I suspect that the numbers will have been the same regardless of what we've done but we've spread it out.

In answer to the OP, no I'm done. I never agreed with lockdown right from the outset - it's ruined the economy at a time when it needed bolstering (Brexit) and given that we produce practically nothing and run on a service industry, to have shut down all our services seems completely ridiculous. However, I've "done my bit" but I am done now. If there are not loosening of restrictions by the end of March I will be loosening things myself and the kids will be having friends over and we will be seeing our friends. Not en masse but one family at a time, for sure.

@alwaysplayingplaydoh

What is it about this bloody virus that has made everyone suddenly stop being able to understand nuance and see everything as black and white? Honestly, people hear "pandemic for 5 years" and interpret that as "lockdown for 5 years, can't see my friends or family for 5 years, schools closed for 5 years" and so on. Categorically NOT the case. Absolute worst case scenario it'll be 5 years of occasional restrictions such as quarantining cases, potentially locking down small areas for finite periods of time to contain outbreaks, distaning with strangers in certain conditions, mask wearing on public transport in winter.

Not lockdown for 5 years FFS.

I agree. As I said above, we came out of last year's lockdown pretty quickly in Summer (probably too quickly), and were able to do quite a lot, including foreign travel, pubs, restaurants, zoos, themeparks, etc. No reason at all not to think we'll be in a similar place this Spring (more or less). Yes, probably no huge gatherings in sports stadia, theatres, festivals, etc., but probably smaller scale events and restricted numbers in larger venues. At the other extreme, mask wearing on public transport could well be required for years to come. It will all be flexible for a few years, restrictions will ease and strengthen as the months pass by according to the spread of infections etc.

@alwaysplayingplaydoh

Just asking if people would go along with the current level of restrictions and for how long

But the current level of restrictions would not be in place for 5 years, so if that is all you were asking then why bring 5 years into it at all.

Because people genuinely post things like they would continue to live with these restrictions for 5 years if that were the 'as long as it takes' timeframe. Bizarre and I cannot understand the psyche

given that we produce practically nothing and run on a service industry

The industries that have shut down make up only a small proportion of our economic activity. We manufacture a lot more than people realise and there are a lot of industries (transport, IT, healthcare, education) that have, more or less, continued as normal despite the lockdowns. Our GDP during lockdown was "only" 10-20% down on a normal year - yes, that's bad, very bad, but not as catastrophic as some would make out.

@alfieum

alwaysplayingplaydoh maybe read the OP properly. I am not suggesting this would happen. Just asking if people would go along with the current level of restrictions and for how long, due to people on MN saying they are happy to do this for as long as it takes.

"Current" levels of restriction are already a lot lower than during the first lockdown, where nearly everything closed down for a few weeks, including most shops, factories, construction, etc. The "current" lockdown is really lockdown "lite" as far more things are happening now than last, say, April. The first lockdown lasted 3 months and we came out of it quickly (probably too quickly). Best guess at the moment is that Easter will be a turning point where we'll start easing restrictions, opening things up again, so the current lockdown is likely to be 3 months. That's not years, certainly not 5 years. There's nothing at all to suggest that current restrictions will last beyond Easter. Obviously, some will - we won't be seeing huge gatherings for months to come yet, but I think most shops, hairdressers, schools, etc will be open again after Easter, with pubs/restaurants open a couple of months later.

I dint think we will need to live like this for that long. There is a vaccine on the go. I think we will need yearly top ups for a few years, maybe more, but this right now, it can’t last that long. Humanity won’t allow it.

@Seriouslymole yes lockdowns definitely prolong pandemics. And there is one argument the death rate would be the same regardless. You just have the economic destruction, all the mental health issues etc to go along with it. (And yes I know we needed to protect the NHS).

I wonder how the NHS will do when the economy is so ruined we have no more money to pay for it or anything else.

@Delatron - who knows? Time will tell but the NHS was not fit for purpose before this. Surely at some point there has to be some reform.

Yes let’s hope so. This will have forced a change.

Nope, a few more months and I’m done. I’m much chirpier and less depressed than I was in the last lockdown, but then I’ve totally given up and I’m going a bit batshit. I’m wrapped up in my phone, I don’t care about real life anymore and I don’t have any motivation to interact with my 2 year old. I’ve managed to mask how utterly hopeless I feel. I know I can’t do this much longer.

This may cheer you up.
Or not

Doubt I can another day (I will obviously) but it’s all so crap. Work is a few days a week (if you’re lucky) or it’s online training for half hour a day. FFS I just can’t be bothered. There’s sod all to do . No where to go. I am seriously BORED and utterly fucked off with everything and everybody