We cannot cancel life, to preserve every life

[Slytherin]

I actually find myself agreeing with a Tory for once...we’ve given up so much and the goalposts keep moving, yes it’s an unpredictable situation, but it’s also unsustainable long term. The idea that this summer will be possibly worse than last summer makes zero sense, when we have a vaccine roll out that far exceeds any other nation (except Israel) currently.
First it was let’s get the elderly and vulnerable vaccinated, then it was let’s get the over 50s vaccinated, now we’ve got members of SAGE suggesting restrictions have to continue until everyone, including children are vaccinated and beyond, because of the possibility of new variants. Professor John Edmunds said some would have to stay “forever” last night on Peston.

We must at some point live with an element of risk. I’m in no way suggesting we lift lockdown yet, but suggesting that things won’t have much improved by the summer, is, in my opinion encroaching into dangerous territory.

The government were over promising before, now they’re under promising. There’s got to be a middle ground, people’s mental health cannot sustain this level of pessimism and not having a single thing to look forward to. Everything gets dangled like a carrot, then taken away at the last minute. It’s beyond cruel.

Then it’s the mixed messages, Matt Hancock telling us he’s going on a summer holiday to Cornwall and he’s all booked up and Grant Shapps then telling nobody to even consider booking a holiday abroad or domestically this summer.

Yes, I support restrictions to save lives and support the NHS, but I don’t support the way the government are handling this once again. And I don’t support these restrictions indefinitely, especially when the majority of the at risk groups have been vaccinated.

www.channel4.com/news/we-cannot-cancel-life-to-preserve-every-life-tory-mp-sir-charles-walker-on-lockdown?fbclid=IwAR2RnQNKwJoQ4FSBxT9oTbwbFOCTWcIU9wD9WdYkTEA2sVlJ1posWZAfmsU

@strangerontheinternet

I'm personally sick of this. I'm pregnant currently and I'm not willing to have my family and friends miss out on baby's life for this crap. It's gone on way too long they've had their chance to deal with it properly. My mental health can't take anymore

Then I do wonder why you chose to become pregnant during a global pandemic

"Suuurrreee. When you get it the first time.

What about when you’ve had it three, four, five times? What happens then? We’re one year in. Let’s see how cavalier some of you are in a couple of years time when the true scope is realised."

Have you got a link for this @Thewiseoneincognito ? That people will get Covid over and over and it will get worse and worse?

The level of entitlement and selfishness on this thread is shocking.

Not enough people in the benefits agency to process benefits payments because they are off sick, isolating, suffering from long Covid, mourning the death of a relative!
Not enough people at HMRC to collect taxes ditto
Delivery drivers to stock the supermarkets ditto
Sewage treatment ditto
National grid ditto

Dizzy, will you please calm down and stop banging on about national grids collapsing etc.?

The MOST extreme case scenario I can think of was Sweden, which really did go for an extremely "light touch" approach (keeping schools open etc.) at a time when there was NO vaccine and therefore nobody had been vaccinated.

I do NOT think that Sweden's approach was a good one--they had lots and lots of deaths, especially when you compare them to other Nordic countries which serve as a reasonable point of comparison. But I don't recall any mass panic as sewage, banking and electricity services stopped working etc.

And I doubt anyone on here is suggesting anything as extreme as what Sweden did. Just, you know, as more and more adults are vaccinated, the restrictions need to be gradually peeled back.

Then I do wonder why you chose to become pregnant during a global pandemic

OK then. Let's all stop getting pregnant for several years, and keep borders closed for years and years and years too ( = no migration for a long time, which will mean even fewer births and even fewer taxpayers). And stop all the younger single people from forming new relationships for years and years as well.

Have you considered what this would do to the demographics of this country? The current generation of people who are aged 20-40 right now---who's going to take care of us when we get old? Or are we just an afterthought, because it's all about the Boomers and nobody else?

The bed pressure we are seeing right now is an absolute cakewalk compared with the situation that we're likely to see by the time I'm old. Thank God at least SOMEONE is getting pregnant in this pandemic.

There are still over 30,000 people in hospital suffering and dying. The age of people in serious condition is getting younger. The average age of my patients must be 45-55 and people are arresting a lot sooner too. I haven’t seen any reduction in admissions just the age of them. The rules need to stay in place until the vaccine starts to take effect otherwise this will just continue and we will be quarantined by the rest of the world as a health risk and nobody will be going anywhere.

@Kokeshi123
I don’t mean everyone, I know many people who have given birth during this pandemic.
This poster seems particularly distressed about the situation though

"Have you got a link for this @Thewiseoneincognito ? That people will get Covid over and over and it will get worse and worse?"

There's plenty of evidence now that reinfections happen. First there's the study of medical staff on the UK where they compared medics who got infected for the first time and a small percentage of people who had already been infected got it again within 5 months.

Lots of the control groups in SA showed people having been infected by the sa variant after having the original strain beforehand.

I know there is a theory that you might be protected from worse infection if you do get reinfected, but there is no evidence for this yet and one or two of the people I know who have had it twice said it was worse the second time.

I hope this is wrong as my asthma has deteriorated badly after I got infected and I ve been suffering from fatigue for months. Because I'm just under 50 It will be months before I'm eligible for a vaccine I think and my working conditions make me worry I may get reinfected again before then.

@walksen

"Have you got a link for this *@Thewiseoneincognito* ? That people will get Covid over and over and it will get worse and worse?"

There's plenty of evidence now that reinfections happen. First there's the study of medical staff on the UK where they compared medics who got infected for the first time and a small percentage of people who had already been infected got it again within 5 months.

Lots of the control groups in SA showed people having been infected by the sa variant after having the original strain beforehand.

I know there is a theory that you might be protected from worse infection if you do get reinfected, but there is no evidence for this yet and one or two of the people I know who have had it twice said it was worse the second time.

I hope this is wrong as my asthma has deteriorated badly after I got infected and I ve been suffering from fatigue for months. Because I'm just under 50 It will be months before I'm eligible for a vaccine I think and my working conditions make me worry I may get reinfected again before then.

From what I understand it is possible to be infected with any virus again after you've had it, but once you've had it once any subsequent infection will be most usually less severe, e.g. if you have a 'typical' case of covid which is a moderate fever followed by a dry cough that lasts about 1 week in total, the next time you catch it the new infection shouldn't produce an illness that is as severe as the first time, (so a cough for a few days perhaps or a tickly throat and feeling tired but no cough) or you might not get any symptoms at all as it resolves much quicker (as the immune system of most people retains some memory of all infections). Also, viruses tend to get less deadly over time in their mutations as it is not in the best interests of a virus to kill its host, but in the short term you can get all sorts of mutations, more deadly and less deadly, in the longer term the least deadly would become the dominant strain usually.

all Kintsugi17@ totally agree this will not end until the whole world has some decent level of people vaccinated. So we can’t go on holiday for another year people will survive.

@Carrotcakeforbreakfast

I feel like MN is a weird place where people always seem to go the opposite way to people in my immediate circle.

Nobody I know in RL wants this lockdown to end until we have better figures, more vaccinated etc.
The only one I can think of who does, shares questionable YouTube links about how it is all fake.

So with everyone here saying there will be non-compliance en Masse... I couldn't disagree more. I believe after speaking to people and looking at how well the online petions opposing lockdown have done that it is all a lot of hot air and much like now we will have the odd few who still go to their parents but can't do much else. They're insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

Absolutely THIS. I love Mumsnet and it’s really helped me a lot over the years but right now it’s just full of sentiment that I don’t recognise.

100% agree and I'm a 63 yr old asthmatic who has been very compliant up until now. I'm really fed up with the misery of lockdown.

@walksen

"Have you got a link for this *@Thewiseoneincognito* ? That people will get Covid over and over and it will get worse and worse?"

There's plenty of evidence now that reinfections happen. First there's the study of medical staff on the UK where they compared medics who got infected for the first time and a small percentage of people who had already been infected got it again within 5 months.

Lots of the control groups in SA showed people having been infected by the sa variant after having the original strain beforehand.

I know there is a theory that you might be protected from worse infection if you do get reinfected, but there is no evidence for this yet and one or two of the people I know who have had it twice said it was worse the second time.

I hope this is wrong as my asthma has deteriorated badly after I got infected and I ve been suffering from fatigue for months. Because I'm just under 50 It will be months before I'm eligible for a vaccine I think and my working conditions make me worry I may get reinfected again before then.

But this is still anecdotal; there's plenty of evidence to the contrary. Also, this is before vaccinations (they are yet to start vaccines at all in South Africa) which confer different types of immunity. What's the evidence that this virus will reinfect people over and over again? With bad infections each time? If there's no evidence that people won't be able to get infected over and over again because it's too new a virus, that also works the other way.

We can all think up terrible scenarios for the way the virus will go. We can all think of great ways it could go. And loads of things in between. But to say it's could be that people get endlessly reinfected and to a bad degree without pointing to any scientific evidence to show this is nothing more than extreme theorising.

The initial issue with Covid was that it was a novel virus and we were all therefore vulnerable because none of us had an immunity from antibodies and T cells and all the other complex responses that come into play when people are infected.

Definitely the main issue with the current situation to my mind is not the length of lockdown so much as the mixed messages. We had Jonathan van Tam being the good cop the other day. Then sage's Prof John Edmons being the bad cop on Peston. It's a headfuck quite frankly. But even Prof Edmunds said we'd be out of this by Christmas.

i think back to what people must have suffered during the blitz and the stoic reaction to this.

My gran long maintained that the memory of stoicism during the war was a false one. Actually she used stronger words than that. She said her memory was that people moaned all the time and often bent the rules to suit themselves while judging others for the same thing.

Yes it's bollocks that everyone was stoical during WWII. It's also not comparable to now. My mil, who was a small child in the war, was brought up to believe that everyone pulled together, helped each other out and believed that no crimes were committed during those years. It's a myth created by propaganda.

"Also, this is before vaccinations (they are yet to start vaccines at all in South Africa) which confer different types of immunity."

Clearly this is wrong as vaccine trials have been run in South Africa so people there have been vaccinated even if they haven't started mass vaccination. That's how we know some vaccines are effective against the sa but with lower efficacy.
"
But this is still anecdotal; there's plenty of evidence to the contrary"

Documented studies have shown people can be reinfected so I don't see why this is anecdotal. As you are well aware I'm sure we dont have evidence of a continuous cycle of repeated infections as not enough time had passed to gather it but it has already been stated that annual boosters will be needed.

I do t get this obsession with documented proof for any situations. There is little proof that the az vaccines protects over 65's but we were happy to use it on the basis of protection it offers lower ages and the balance of probabilities said it would do so for over 65's too.

Earlier this month there were people on mumsnet claiming there were only 28 people reinfected worldwide. It's now clear that people can and do get reinfected but have somewhere around 90% protection around 6 months. Less against the sa variant probably

There are people on this thread advocating opening up after groups 1 to 4 have been vaccinated. It's not as simple as this. 80% of people have not been vaccinated and the last thing we need is surging numbers in unvaccinated people and particularly reinfecting people who already have antibodies which could lead to yet more escape mutations.

The poster upthread posted the often misunderstood statement that viruses to become less deadly. We already know that the Kent variant is a lot more transmissible and slightly more virulent.

Hopefully vaccines will provide longer term protection but there is no "evidence" for this either. no one is demanding this but you are quite happy to demand proof that can't possible exist someone who is worried about continued reinfection which even government advisers it is probable.

Granted it is quite likely that the illness will get milder after reinfections but we don't understand why some people get hospitalised and others don't so there's huge uncertainty. Having suffered from a nasty first infection I'm more likely to characterise the pp as being understandably anxious rather than "extreme theorising"

Clearly this is wrong as vaccine trials have been run in South Africa so people there have been vaccinated even if they haven't started mass vaccination. That's how we know some vaccines are effective against the sa but with lower efficacy.

... yes but it was a trial looking for moderate and mild disease in the AZ South Africa variant. It was looking at antibody response not T cell response etc.

TotAlly agree op.

The damage this is accusing is incalculable.

"Documented studies have shown people can be reinfected so I don't see why this is anecdotal. "

Documented studies can still be anecdotal. There are also documented studies that people don't get bad infections second time around. Both are anecdotal.

If I said "Covid will end on March 21st 2021" would it be surprising where people asked for evidence for my saying that? Why not the same for posters saying that we could get infected over and over again by Covid? Each time badly?

I could also say I think everyone is going to die of Covid in the next two years, would you not expect people to wonder what would lead me to say that?

Where do you draw the line as to what is wild speculation and what is not?

The fact that we are approving vaccines in an emergency that haven't had long trials is not anything like the same thing.

"I do t get this obsession with documented proof for any situations."

Ok, then.

Clearly we have a very different attitude to life.

"I do t get this obsession with documented proof for any situations."

Ok, then.

Clearly we have a very different attitude to life.

" Where's you evidence for that"

The with study used antibody and antigen tests to confirm infection and reinfection. How is this anecdotal exactly?

Siren study sorry