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

Or is there in fact a trade off to be considered? Which is all we're asking for as opposed to head on the sand protect the NHS whatever it takes approach.

what are all these many millions sacrificing and who are they exactly?

This list is my close family:

• schooling for 3
• MH support, baby groups, socialisation for a new mum with severe (suicidal) PND
• investigative tests for an unknown neurological problem (1 adult)
• chance to meet a partner in time to have kids (1 adult)
• livelihood and possibly home (1 whole family)

And we were mostly okay a year ago!

@StealthPolarBearat very little cost compared with not protecting it and lifting restrictions too early which is exactly what happened the first time. Not enough people have been vaccinated yet.

Your comment about killing children was weird.

Some of the posts on this thread make me feel sick. Thank you to those who have combated them. I don't have the energy for it any longer. If people have got to February 2021 without any understanding why we (and huge swathes of the rest of the world) have to do all this, they are not going to see the light now.

Is there a trade off to be had or do we protect the NHS WHATEVER it takes?
Sorry you didn't follow. Maybe that helps.

It should be

‘Protect the NHS to save some lives, but only if they’re Covid lives because other lives don’t matter and nor do lots of other things which are quite life threatening but are still quite serious’

But it’s not as snappy and won’t fit on the lecterns at the press briefings

Your tone is vile. "Pretend they are safe" they are safe if people keep to the rules - it's the idiots who don't who are spreading it. Surely you can see that.

You can use dramatic words like vile if it helps. If your intention is to shame or guilt me, then it isn't going to work. Nobody is ever safe, from anything. Risk is a part of life, whether you stay at home (don't go upstairs as you could fall) or have to go out to work. So yes, I do maintain that people are completely kidding themselves that they are 'safe' and that if only the 'selfish' would comply then it would all be fine. It's just bollocks.

Oh and you know absolutely nothing about me or my family or my friends and who among them is or isn't vulnerable. Nobody cared before, don't pretend any of you care now. You care about yourselves and you are hiding behind people who have always been vulnerable in order to bolster your opinion.

what are all these many millions sacrificing and who are they exactly?

A year's income, in our case. Self-employed, events industry.
A year's churning, desperate anxiety has replaced all our hopes and plans. But we're not dead of covid at least. so lucky us apparently.

That’s an extremely simplistic view.

Do feel free to expand?

I get why were doing it now and for the next X months.
I don't get why once most of the elderly and vulnerable have received a fantastic vaccine (these are the people who make up the majority of hospitalisations) why we'd need to continue.
If somehow the vaccines donor work as expected, I don't agree with indefinate lockdown for years.

Who is going to administer the palliative care at home?

Pre COVID I tried to arrange for my grandmother to live her last days at hone and there simply wasn't the resources to facilitate it.

On the flip side I have 3 family members with cancer - all being treated by the NHS. Every appointment is worrying because catching COVID whilst being treated is terrifying but they can't stay locked up at home. For some on this thread arguing that the vulnerable should stay at home- whilst simultaneously suggesting that we are prioritising COVID patients over cancer patients.

I'm not a lockdown enthusiast by any stretch of the imagination but there are no simple solutions given are terrible starting point. Our choices are limited and I'd suggest that we contributed to that by allowing Governments to make cuts to services over the last decade.

@MaxNormal

what are all these many millions sacrificing and who are they exactly?

A year's income, in our case. Self-employed, events industry.
A year's churning, desperate anxiety has replaced all our hopes and plans. But we're not dead of covid at least. so lucky us apparently.

Oh definitely. Sit back safe in the knowledge that your life will be rosy as you don't have covid.

What about those who can't work because their jobs have been lost or their businesses collapsed, people who might lose their homes, people who can't feed their families? And yet you all others selfish.

Sorry, I sympathise with all those people you mention, but I don’t think them losing their job, house or business trumps me (or anyone else) dying. And I’m afraid that goes for children’s delayed education and socialising. It really is shit for everyone and obviously for some more than others, and if it was a case of a younger person dying vs an older person dying then, then yes I’d save the younger person every time. But it’s not. If you lose your house, you’ll hopefully eventually have a chance to buy another one, but if a 60 year old with diabetes (who could have lived another 20 years) dies, that’s it. The end.

@pinkearedcow

Some of the posts on this thread make me feel sick. Thank you to those who have combated them. I don't have the energy for it any longer. If people have got to February 2021 without any understanding why we (and huge swathes of the rest of the world) have to do all this, they are not going to see the light now.

People are allowed to question and debate if what’s happening is best. Or are you suggesting we all follow blindly without discussing or talking about this? Maybe you want to gag everyone and for every person in the UK, like a robot to follow everything a small group of white rich extremely privileged men say at every turn? Maybe you trust those men 100% but many don’t, thank god

@Slytherin

There have allways been different health risks and other types of risks in life though out history/to present modern times.
Such as in medieval times there was The Bubonic Plague (The Black death)in medieval Britain/Europe,The Spanish Flu epidemic etc.

Even a unborn baby is at health risk offrom mother to be, being not aware of at first she is pregnant)catching Listeria,from unpresturized milk,chese, and also samelno food poisoning from chickens not cooked properly .

Also mother to be/father to be, and their families from their lifestyle choices can give unborn baby 1 or 2nd hand smoking/acholic dangers in blood stream etc.!

Also mother to be constantly breathing in air pollution from car fumes,from factories, airplanes fumes etc.!

@walksen

"coming out of lockdown earlier killed people and we need to go in to lockdown for the foreseeable’ and yet in March last year was advocating no lockdown and herd immunity"

It would be pretty silly of him not to change his mind now that we know immunity is only short term

Natural immunity isn’t short term. Studies showed immunity persisted for 6-8+ months in over 80% of people iirc. And they expect it to last longer. This was based on antibodies, T-cell immunity could be even longer term. People would be ecstatic if the vaccine provided that.

@MaxNormal

what are all these many millions sacrificing and who are they exactly?

A year's income, in our case. Self-employed, events industry.
A year's churning, desperate anxiety has replaced all our hopes and plans. But we're not dead of covid at least. so lucky us apparently.

Exactly, there's a far bigger picture than just "save the NHS" etc.

Hope you're ok @MaxNormal

"t. If you lose your house, you’ll hopefully eventually have a chance to buy another one"

That is a hugely oversimplified view.

Its not about going on holiday, or to the pub or any of the other "social" reasons. For me its about the crashing disaster that is the UK economy. It's not money vs lives, its having an economy that functions so that the NHS can actually function, and the schools, police and and everything else can be paid for. You need money generated by business for those things to run. By basing the argument on a facile "people die so you can go to the pub" which is obviously nonsense (as in, no-one REALLY thinks that or has said it) you are simply showing a glaring ignorance of the hard financial reality of how society functions.

If you lose your career, just get another one.
If you have no food just buy some.

Sorry, I sympathise with all those people you mention, but I don’t think them losing their job, house or business trumps me (or anyone else) dying.

I'll be very honest. I'd be more concerned about losing our home than a stranger dying. Strangers die all the time, often of povery and preventable diseases all over the globe. I don't send my mortgage money to them.
This isn't really much different apart from people attempting to guilt/shame me about NHS capacity.

We have one of the most successful vaccine rollouts in the world, I don't understand why were are STILL being berated for wanting to move out of lockdown and towards normality. That completely baffles me.

@needadvice54321 thank you. It feels like it will never end and tbh I'm so angry that some seem to want it that way, but surely it must at some point. I feel like we're having the same arguments as last year as if the vaccines had never been developed.

And on top of losing your homes, you’ll also have to start paying for healthcare if the NHS crumbles. That’ll include mental health as well.

Not worth it in the long run.

This is really shit - but it won’t last forever.

@Collaborate

The countries who locked down hard and fast are those whose death rates have been the lowest. They are also, magically, those countries whose economies have suffered the least. We lock down to prevent meltdown of our health service and paralysis of our economy. The death toll would have been far higher had we allowed this virus to run rampant throughout the country. We would also have more variants, and quite possibly ones resistant to the vaccines that are now being made.

I prefer to follow the advice of scientists rather than the advice of gobshite journalists and others on social media.

Those countries also closed their borders a year ago. We’re only just half heartedly doing it now. If it had been done at the right time a whole lot of misery could have been avoided.

If you lose your house, you’ll hopefully eventually have a chance to buy another one

The sheer privilege in that single sentence just leaps off the page. "Buy" another one. Hundreds of thousands of people rent in the UK. When they lose their homes because they can't pay their rent, what do they do?