We are going to have to live with covid

[Cloudsurfing]

Thank goodness the government have acknowledged this. Hancock says it will become a virus we live with, like flu. Once the vaccine and treatments have done their job of bringing down hospitalisation, and cases are under control, we will get on with everything again this year.

We aren’t going for zero covid, and all the doomers who say we will be like this for years are most likely wrong!

No more lockdowns. Life will still be changed.

My point still stands though, I will try and make my life as close to the old normal as possible. I will not be avoiding people, I will not be social distancing, I will have more than 6 people in my house if I want and if there becomes a time when masks are no longer a legal requirement I won't be wearing one ever again.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

No more lockdowns. Life will still be changed.

My point still stands though, I will try and make my life as close to the old normal as possible. I will not be avoiding people, I will not be social distancing, I will have more than 6 people in my house if I want and if there becomes a time when masks are no longer a legal requirement I won't be wearing one ever again.

Same here. I’m not putting my life on hold any longer once I’ve been vaccinated and I’ll be comfortable doing everything I did before.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

No more lockdowns. Life will still be changed.

My point still stands though, I will try and make my life as close to the old normal as possible. I will not be avoiding people, I will not be social distancing, I will have more than 6 people in my house if I want and if there becomes a time when masks are no longer a legal requirement I won't be wearing one ever again.

I don't know yet how I will react because I don't know how things will be in four, five, six months' time. But I can imagine a number of different scenarios.

I can imagine there will be a range of responses, and that will mean it will feel different even if I personally feel relaxed.

Surely New Zealand need to have a mass vaccination campaign before they can start to relax their quarantine restrictions? Otherwise they will go through what we have over the past year.

@PuzzledObserver

Surely New Zealand need to have a mass vaccination campaign before they can start to relax their quarantine restrictions? Otherwise they will go through what we have over the past year.

Yes, but they won't need restrictions whilst it happens and the people who can't be vaccinated or for whom the vaccine doesn't work won't be at risk.

Also as they won't have high circulating virus, they'll have lower risk of variants getting a hold.

@PracticingPerson

The government have to go this route because they have fucked up so badly.

Every counrty will 'live with it', New Zealand will live with it and we will live with it. It is just that the UK will have far worse impacts, so what we will live with is higher circulating virus and therefore higher costs, both in terms of population health and the costs of dealing with those health impacts.

This is nothing to celebrate with this admission of failure, but we are where we are. We had the worst possible PM at the worst time, and we have all paid badly for that.

Spot on.

@PuzzledObserver

Surely New Zealand need to have a mass vaccination campaign before they can start to relax their quarantine restrictions? Otherwise they will go through what we have over the past year.

Yes I think they will only “open up” once everyone who can be has been vaccinated, and they will want proof of vaccination before allowing entry.

This probably won’t get them zero covid going forward but should be enough to stop them having exponential growth or further lockdowns.

I've got no problem living with Covid, just dont want to die with it.

Of course things arent going back to normal in 2 seconds flat. Hospitalizations need to be brought under control first.

@Allmyarseandpeggymartin

It will just become another respiratory disease that the old and vulnerable die from in flu season.

People will get a tweaked annual jab and we will get on with life as normal as a nation can that have been terrified by the government and have lived through a pandemic.

We have horrendously bad flu seasons of 30k dead and the NHS in crisis but no one bats an eyelid afterall

1st paragraph - largely yes

2nd paragraph - Hopefully yes

3rd paragraph - I thought it was more like 15k? But yes, strange how no one bats an eyelid as you say over 15k dead per annum by flu. Wonder if they will with say 15k annum dead with covid as well. My guess is very much yes. So flu deaths doesnt freak people out, but same number of deaths with covid, will.

The costs of long covid alone are going to be astronomical in the UK. They are setting up these regional hubs and research will be required. The number of people with it is very high, and increasing all the time. NZ will have none of these costs.

Keeping those numbers manageable is important from a costs POV going forwards. Hopefully the vaccine limits this aspect soon too.

The costs of long covid alone are going to be astronomical in the UK. They are setting up these regional hubs and research will be required

hmm. Not so sure. Is it 60,000 people with long covid? I have had it and am out the other side. Yes, I had 1 ultrasound in hospital and about 3 GP visits/consultations. So not that much extra NHS cost in the great scheme of things[ordinarily I dont go to the GP more than say once in two years about something or other].

I am thinking a bit about the people on the long covid support thread. Yes, I would say some on there at least have had more need of NHS than I have.

But not sure it could be said that long covid costs are going to be "astronomical".

The costs are predicted to be pretty hefty, I have seen a little of what is going in and yes, we could well do without this extra burden at a time of economic stress. It will all take resources from elsewhere in the NHS.

This is a real area of denial in my opinion, the narrative is very much 'dead or fine' but the numbers seen as 'recovered' but who will need years of support are pretty enormous as a sudden extra group for which there is no planning, no resourcing, no infrastructure.

3rd paragraph - I thought it was more like 15k? But yes, strange how no one bats an eyelid as you say over 15k dead per annum by flu. Wonder if they will with say 15k annum dead with covid as well. My guess is very much yes. So flu deaths doesnt freak people out, but same number of deaths with covid, will.

No one is allowed to due of Covid remember? A 80 year old dying of old age or flu is natural. A 80 year old dying of Covid is a tragedy.

@RedcurrantPuff

I’m amazed at the faith so many people have in masks. They clearly do absolutely fuck all and some people seem to see them as some kind of solution to everything

It's interesting that Germany have now banned the use of homemade masks. They are now only allowing surgical or N95 masks. You don't see people in China or Japan wearing poorly fitting masks with daisies all over them.... although to be fair I agree, they really aren't the holy grail some think they are. Some would argue they made things worse because everything seemed to go back to a free for all once they were introduced.

Re Long Covid, I'm still in poor health 11 months after becoming ill. I don't need support from the NHS particularly and I wasn't in paid work. But I wouldn't be able to hold a paid job by any stretch, and this is unlikely to change, at least in the short-term. So for sufferers who were in work they're potentially going to be on benefits for some considerable time.

But with the vaccine rollout going as well as it is, that will limit the number of people who would otherwise end up with Long Covid.

@lightand I’ve just done a google for flu death years - there were 50k flu deaths in the 2017/2018 “beast from the east” year as an example. I think this was a particularly bad year though due to issues with the vaccine and the horrendously cold winter.
I guess in the future they will be “Flu/Covid deaths”

It's interesting that Germany have now banned the use of homemade masks. They are now only allowing surgical or N95 masks

So disposable basically. Unless it makes an acute difference to infection levels I’m pretty horrified by that. Short sighted.

Posted too soon!

I know what you mean though - all those sad deaths and we don’t bat and eyelid - 50k deaths are 500 a day over 3 months of the flu season - seems so huge

Isn’t it something like 1500 of people die per day in the uk in “peace time”?

Living with it (and the next virus whatever that may be) will mean rolling lockdowns though, right?

The way we live now will go on forever, I think? (Lockdowns, tiers, tier1 for longer periods if we are lucky)

I don’t think there is a way back

As we are an overpopulated and interconnected world, we’ll have to live with COVID ;and the next viruses) and the way we’ll live with it will be by restrictions in varying degrees

I think that has been clear from about April

Yes call me a donated or whatever. All I my life I have been called pragmatic and down to earth.

It’s weird to me how many people are still in denial about the significance of the pandemic and the before-and-after changes

Air travel was never the same after 9/11. We learned to live with the threat of terrorisme and it’s restrictions

We now need to come to terms with the post-Covid world and it’s restrictions.

I do think we’re in the worst bit though now, and we’ll have less restrictions in summer. So it IS looking up.

The typos are from my phone wtf. It changes its to it’s

Living with it (and the next virus whatever that may be) will mean rolling lockdowns though, right?

The way we live now will go on forever, I think? (Lockdowns, tiers, tier1 for longer periods if we are lucky)

No, people will be vaccinated. Do you really think that people will abide by continued lockdown? I've seen a huge change in attitudes to this lockdown of MN and I can't see people continuing to live like this.

Pink, but we have no choice? If schools, gyms, pubs, theatres, museums, sports centres, gigs are closed , how does one rebel?

I think there will be a medium. Can't see masks going anywhere and no way will people socialise as much as they used to. Just can't risk it anymore, you'll always need to know everyone you see is 'ok'. Travel is 😩.

Speak for yourself. I won't be socialising less, and why if I've been vaccinated do I need to check everyone is "okay"?

And I don't know about you but my family and friends already tens to postpone if they're ill, as do i. That isn't a new phenomenon.

@lightand Long covid sufferer here too, 11 months. So glad you’re better, it’s reassuring to see people getting better! Can I ask when you started to get better, would you say you’re completely back to normal and anything that particularly helped?

I don't want to learn to live like this

I don't want to go to shops and wear masks on an EXTENDED basis - 'happy' to put up with it for a limited period of time but not forever - I go to the supermarket once a week for literally ten minutes - just rush around and get out

I would NEVER go 'leisure' shopping/browsing ever again if I had to wear a mask - it's too hot 🤷‍♀️