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

Oh gawd I cannot stand mindfulness drivel even in non Covid times🙄🙄🙄

'Resilience, unprescedented, WWII, the NHS . . . pass a bucket.'

Is it too much to have to read a bit of balance?

Just join in the others wailing it's not fair and old people are gonna die anyway. Lovely.

Education is easily caught up on death is irreversible death is inevitable, they are 99 ffs- you cannot fathom the harm you have done to our children, self harm is on the rise and depression. And there does come a point where children won’t catch up.

old people are gonna die anyway

Which part of that statement isn't true?

@hamstersarse thought so.

Maybe this is our opportunity to teach our children (and ourselves) about resilience and real life. You cannot plan everything in life and sometimes illness, war, viruses etc will happen and we have find ways to deal with whatever life throws at us.

Is that not what we have been doing for the last year or has it all just been a figment of our collective imagination?
How bloody patronising and rude.

I shouldn't need to point out that resilience is like everything else it is not infinite resource we just tap into at leisure, it does not come from an endless reservoir. Every one eventually becomes tired, depleted and exhausted. This is well documented in war, fatigue sets in. It is one of the reasons why wars end! Unfortunately the virus won't care if we fatigue, if we drop down dead it will carry on its slow and steady march, and perhaps that is why it is so difficult to deal with.

The most striking thing to me over the past year is how the NHS needs either a lot more funding OR a move to an insurance based system. The current model is unsustainable. Esp with an increasingly unhealthy population.

@hamstersarse So the hard work done by nhs frontline workers was pointless ? Waste of time ? Thanks

@Radio4Rocks, where are you getting the fact that many children are keeping up well from?

[quote mamaatthegym]@hamstersarse thought so.[/quote]
Great?

@Meinelieblingskatze I was really hoping no one who’s front line would come on and see that comment. Sorry you had to.

The damage is untold, neglect and abuse has risen massively and to dismiss those kids out of hand like they don’t exist, that’s the tragedy not a 100 year old dying. So many kids must feel like they are trapped in hell and forgotten.

[quote Meinelieblingskatze]@hamstersarse So the hard work done by nhs frontline workers was pointless ? Waste of time ? Thanks[/quote]
I think front line workers would prefer to use their skills, knowledge and integrity in an organisation that actually functions

'old people are gonna die anyway'

'Which part of that statement isn't true?'

Well let again let me explain as you clearly haven't rtft. It isn't about old frail people sadly dying, it is about vast amount of people in their 50s and 60s and younger requiring critical care. Therefore ICUs won't have capacity if you or a loved one needed a bed, I mean lovely that you have private healthcare but they don't have private ICUs. I do hope someone's mentioned that.

Is it too much to have to read a bit of balance?

A bit of balance would usually involve acknowledging at least the slog this has been for the vast majority of people, whom have already shown great resilience for the best part of one whole year and counting.

You just sound goady to me, it is very poor form given the desperate dire straights some people are finding themselves in now. If you can't help constructively, then skip over to another thread where your resilience lectures might be better received.

[quote Meinelieblingskatze]@hamstersarse So the hard work done by nhs frontline workers was pointless ? Waste of time ? Thanks[/quote]
I didn’t read it to mean that at all, of course it means something. The NHS not being fit for purpose now and pre pandemic does not take anything away from those who work within it.

*straits

@snowydaysandholidays

Is it too much to have to read a bit of balance?

A bit of balance would usually involve acknowledging at least the slog this has been for the vast majority of people, whom have already shown great resilience for the best part of one whole year and counting.

You just sound goady to me, it is very poor form given the desperate dire straights some people are finding themselves in now. If you can't help constructively, then skip over to another thread where your resilience lectures might be better received.

Exactly this, no balance just denial of facts.

@ejhhhhh

I think what we're living through is a failure of government policy in the early stages of the pandemic, which we're now all paying for and their isn't a clear route forward. It's very obvious that the correct thing to have done at the start, was to shut down our boarders, and speedily implement a highly effective track, trace and isolate programme. We didn't act decisively at the start, and we've been paying for it ever since, but the government are just floundering now. What we need, and what other countries who have been successful have managed, is to ensure that virus levels are very low in the population, so that any outbreaks are quicky spotted, and that isolation is adhered to. We don't have the policies and support in place to ensure that isolation is adhered to. For a long time the vaccine has been the great hope of our government, but we know that a virus circulating at high levels in our population, and imports from overseas, threaten the vaccine programme. We're left with the prospect that distancing and lockdown measures will be repeatedly brought in, as vaccine resistant strains emerge. New strains would not be such a threat if we had an effective test, trace and isolate programme, and if the virus was at low enough levels to keep on top of. But that's not the situation we're in, and the government don't seem to have a strategy for getting us there. We're all sick of this, lives have been destroyed by the lockdowns/the Tier system, but demanding a premature end to restrictions at this point won't help. When people, and some politicians, demand we just learn to live with it, don't attempt to suppress the virus, get back to normal because we can't live like this forever, that's just what they're arguing for. THIS is just what living with the virus at hight levels in our population looks like, and it will be still be the case to a certain degree after the completion of the vaccination programme, due to the inevitability of strains which mean the vaccines are less effective. We do need to suppress it properly, using all tools at our disposal, otherwise we'll be living like this for a long while longer. We could be living like Taiwan at the moment, but we're not, because if poor management at the start. Giving up and making even more poor decisions is not the answer. What we should be demanding from our government is an effective strategy, based on what has been shown to work elsewhere and the scientific data that is available, even if that means making unpopular decisions. All this pandering to sentiment (We can't cancel Christmas/stop foreign holidays! Let's all Eat out to Help Out! Back to the Office!) etc is what has got us into this mess.

I agree with this completely.

@ClaudiaWankleman so without lockdown, what do you think would have happened with Covid? What do you really think the alternative is? I'm really interested as people are against all of this but then what is the solution?

I'm very aware of all the issues surrounding covid but these issues wouldn't go away without lockdown either
The hospitals would still have covid
Schools would still have to shut but because of bubbles constantly bursting.

You can't honestly think the only way forward is to let covid do the rounds without any intervention?

I think front line workers would prefer to use their skills, knowledge and integrity in an organisation that actually functions

I think someone who doesn’t use the services of that organisation, which saves literally millions of lives, should stfu.

'A bit of balance would usually involve acknowledging at least the slog this has been for the vast majority of people, '

Well I've said repeatedly it is grim and it is hard. I've sympathy for anyone struggling, but the suggestions on this thread that it's 'just to protect old people who are at going to die anyway' is wrong. HTH.

I thought this was a discussion about lockdown ending not that it should never have happened?

@Fembot123

The damage is untold, neglect and abuse has risen massively and to dismiss those kids out of hand like they don’t exist, that’s the tragedy not a 100 year old dying. So many kids must feel like they are trapped in hell and forgotten.

Well said @Fembot123