Next week's announcement won't be the good news we think it'll be

[likeamillpond]

Listening to the news and reading between the lines regarding the latest variant that's supposed to be resistant to the vaccine, I don't think it's going to be brilliant news next week.
I dont think it'll be a case of, We've got this. You can all go out now.
Im hoping theyll say for certain that schools can go back. At least.
I think we are still in the shit. They just haven't told us.
I'm prepared to be told I'm worrying over nothing.

@Sparklingbrook

And in the meantime businesses fold, jobs are lost, education and kids futures lost, mental health nosedive, our rights and freedoms lost

I assume by his analogy it would mean if he did whip his foot off the footbrake things would be even worse and for even longer?

Not sure. I'm just posting what he said when he tried to explain.

I think the analogy should go more like this:

Take your foot off the break too quick and someone in the car is going to end up in hospital. There’s a 0.6% chance they might die.

Do it more slowly though and you’ll all make it down the hill, but it’ll take so damn long, you’ll all lose your jobs, you’ll struggle to keep your home and you’ll be blighted by poor MH the whole time.

Neither are great really.

Ilikegrapes

You speak with such authority about long term social distancing.

Please reveal how you know this information. Are you privy to government policy or just spouting shit?

I wish I hadn't posted it now @DBML. As I said I'm just the messenger. Maybe he should just get out of the car completely, walk away and see what happens?

@Sparklingbrook
Lol! I know.
I’m just venting.

I think our government does both at the same time. They release the break and the hand break as far as schools are concerned and because they can see the crash happening, they make everyone ease down at a very painfully slow pace.

I just want them to pick a freaking method and run with it, rather than both crashing us and ruining our lives at the same time.

Apologies, I didn’t mean to vent directly at you though.

[quote DBML]@Sparklingbrook
Lol! I know.
I’m just venting.

I think our government does both at the same time. They release the break and the hand break as far as schools are concerned and because they can see the crash happening, they make everyone ease down at a very painfully slow pace.

I just want them to pick a freaking method and run with it, rather than both crashing us and ruining our lives at the same time.

Apologies, I didn’t mean to vent directly at you though.[/quote]
I get that. I really do. He needs to get an automatic car maybe.

I'm as impatient fir anything more normal than this shit we're living right now but why does everyone still expect everything set I stone.
Covid is expert at throwing twists and turns. Since last February all Covid has done is shock and surprise us. Its not sonething we ca just say 1st May we can dance around the village Maypole enmasse.
We can hardly plan a week in advance.
By next Tuesday night I predict a Skegness variant that will fuck over the Pfizer vaccine and turn our hair blue.
So much changes in a week with Covid.
Covid is fighting for survival as much as we are and so far the crafty bugger seems to be putting up a bloody good fight.

@MaxNormal

All this 'locked up' talk. So dramatic. Nobody is locked up

Don't be so dismissive. People have had, among other things, the right to work, travel and see loved ones taken away from them. We are living under enormous personal restrictions. So no it's not particularly dramatic, but lucky you if your personal experience doesn't feel very dramatic.

It IS completely dramatic to talk of being “locked up”; many have also had the right to either health or even life taken away from them. So selfish, we are all living under restrictions

One of those hardly inhabited tiny little islands with zero covid deaths per million in the last 7 days is CHINA dude. @DBML

See also Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Australia.

New Zealand's is 0.2.

The top 5 most densely populated places on earth are all controlling covid better than we are. As are most of the Top 31. (The U.K. 32nd in the world on population density.)

@ilikegrapes21

What are you saying? That even once 90% are vaccinated we still have to keep restrictions because if we don't the virus will become immune to the vaccines? We don't worry about that with the flu vaccine, we just produce a new vaccine each year. We don't tell everyone they can't see their loved ones or go to the theatre or send their children to school

This is what the government are preparing us for though- very long term social distancing. Schools will hopefully stay open and people will be able to see family eventually- but interventions like 1.5/2 meter distancing/masks/rule of 6/WFH will all be staying well into next year.

They will have to if we don't get infection levels right down and keep them there.

We've got choices.

We've all seen the pictures of New Zealanders in the pub.

We can choose that.. or we can do another year pretty much like last year.

There’s lots of treatments in the pipeline.
Hopefully we will get some easing in summer but I can’t see us going back to near normal for another year.
The biggest test will surely be the efficacy of the vaccine in the elderly.
But if after the vaccine people still can’t mix then how will we know how well it works.
There comes a time when we have to take a leap of faith.

The doom on this thread is unreal. Viruses mutate it’s what they do there will constantly be new variants, but at the moment it seems that the vaccines prevent serious illness and death in all of these (even the one they “found” today) if you read the articles and not just the headlines. Other countries who haven’t locked down as severe as us are seeing cases and deaths drop (Spain, France, the USA Florida especially where it’s been a free for all for months) we are obsessed with finding the negatives and trying to spread more fear.

There will be a gradual easing of lockdown I can see most things being open by May. Schools will be going back so those who don’t think it’s safe had better get used to it. We have to open up we have no other option. The vaccine is proving successful it’s good news.

But are schools going to be operating as normal? There’s already talk at our local school that some of the staff will not be returning in the near future due to shielding. This surely is going to impact pupils’ learning as they’ll have to either lump classes together or trawl for supply teachers.

The Covid Recovery Group (a group of right-wing Tories, they were previously the ERG) are pushing for all restrictions to be removed by the end of April. They won't stand for anything less, I suspect. So Boris will need to have very good reasons for that not to happen. Especially as all people of 50+ will have had the jab by then.

@Katie517

The doom on this thread is unreal. Viruses mutate it’s what they do there will constantly be new variants, but at the moment it seems that the vaccines prevent serious illness and death in all of these (even the one they “found” today) if you read the articles and not just the headlines. Other countries who haven’t locked down as severe as us are seeing cases and deaths drop (Spain, France, the USA Florida especially where it’s been a free for all for months) we are obsessed with finding the negatives and trying to spread more fear.

There will be a gradual easing of lockdown I can see most things being open by May. Schools will be going back so those who don’t think it’s safe had better get used to it. We have to open up we have no other option. The vaccine is proving successful it’s good news.

But that’s my point.

Florida has had a free for all and they are living the normal (ish albeit with masks and some SD) lives.

Why stop at schools and make everyone else wait for months, continuing to damage the economy and people’s livelihoods.

If we’re going to throw open the gates by opening schools, may as well go the whole hog and do it Florida style. At least the majority of us will fee happier again and those who have been waiting can start earning.

@Mittens030869

The Covid Recovery Group (a group of right-wing Tories, they were previously the ERG) are pushing for all restrictions to be removed by the end of April. They won't stand for anything less, I suspect. So Boris will need to have very good reasons for that not to happen. Especially as all people of 50+ will have had the jab by then.

Strange the government should be so beholden to a relatively very small minority group of about 70 MPs who supported Brexit and helped get BJ into power presumably

@Mittens030869

The Covid Recovery Group (a group of right-wing Tories, they were previously the ERG) are pushing for all restrictions to be removed by the end of April. They won't stand for anything less, I suspect. So Boris will need to have very good reasons for that not to happen. Especially as all people of 50+ will have had the jab by then.

Pandering to the ERG by not locking down until deaths are obviously soaring then pandering to the ERG by opening up too soon followed shortly by having to lock down again is how we got here

117,000 British people dead of covid in 11 months. A 10% hit to our GDP, and two rising tides of a) social problems and b) 11 months people who couldn't have essential healthcare because covid was allowed to spread so long it took over the hospitals.

I hope the Prime Minister tells them to pipe down and put country before whatever they're whining is more important.

Essentially to fully open up which is obviously what we all want and can't wait for! But do we not need some resemblance of a systematic accurate compulsory asymptomatic test, track, trace and isolate operation? That's normal globally in opened up nations but we have governmental cronies who rather be on the take instead of being fit for purpose life savers and a population that prefer personal privacy to a system that with constant monitoring separates the ill from healthy. We should have not locked down like other astute nations if we actually looked after the ill separately to recover while the majority healthy continued with social and economic daily life. Is that not our UK downfall plus all the continued mixing and mutations etc. We do have a world beating vaccination program but other important pandemic matters - not so much as bottom of the global class otherwise hence the fatalities and long Covid statistics.

@DBML I’m in total agreement with you. However I think the government will be cautious. Wrongly so in my opinion, schools are important to parents of school age children just as much as my families hairdressing business and restaurant are important to them.

I just can’t get over the negativity and sheer doom on this thread from most posters who would gladly stay in lockdown until we have 0 cases. I don’t understand how people can have so little regard for the devastation of lockdowns. I thought seeing other country’s with fewer restrictions following the same curve would make some people wise up but it’s like banging your head against a brick wall. They read a couple of doom ridden headlines about “variants” and think it’s the end of the world.

@DBML You point is not logical.

It's a trade off.

If we take the risk of opening the schools for the good of our children we have to balance that out with reducing risk everywhere else.

Otherwise we'll be back in lockdown within 6 weeks.

And 20,000 more of us will be dead.

@PrincessNutNuts no 20000 more of us won’t be dead the vaccines are already reducing hospital admissions and deaths here and there is very positive news from Israel, where do you get off posting such utter crap?

It's quite hard to find specifics about schools regulations in different states, but I found this about schools in Florida, dated Feb 8th:

With most students learning at home in the age of COVID-19, South Florida’s high schools have taken on the atmosphere of a ghost town or empty mall.

Classrooms that once packed 30 students now have two or three. Picnic tables where eight students once crammed together at lunch are now covered with tape marks, allowing just two students to sit on opposite ends.

<a class="break-all" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-P6ctyWkLDcJ:www.sun-sentinel.com/coronavirus/fl-ne-high-school-low-enrollment-20210208-nporsp4swnealfqretyd3xsmg4-story.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-P6ctyWkLDcJ:www.sun-sentinel.com/coronavirus/fl-ne-high-school-low-enrollment-20210208-nporsp4swnealfqretyd3xsmg4-story.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

I think schools will go back on the 8th March. Everything else I'm not sure.
Unfortunately if he doesn't allow families to mix I think people will break that rule.
I miss my parents so much, even though I did see them Christmas day. I can't keep on waiting, they are both pushing 80 and can't live forever.
But I think your right and it'll just be schools going back and probably not every year group.

The reality is they are trying to keep people a bit worried, it's deliberate. We need to be scared to keep us compliant. Next week they will announce reopening schools and another nugget of opportunity for those of us who don't have school aged kids eg two households can meet outside for a walk. Everything else will be in the future starting with shops then hospitality and close contact services. Large scale events from June/July pending rates staying low, particularly hospitalisations

[quote PrincessNutNuts]@DBML You point is not logical.

It's a trade off.

If we take the risk of opening the schools for the good of our children we have to balance that out with reducing risk everywhere else.

Otherwise we'll be back in lockdown within 6 weeks.

And 20,000 more of us will be dead. [/quote]
But look who has to make that trade off. Many, many people who don’t have kids, but who are watching their businesses go down the pan. Unable to pay their mortgages. Is that a fair trade off for them?

Adults without children asked to continue to follow restrictions which are leading to MH issues. Is it a fair trade-off for them? The children of today will cease to be children one day and become adults...at what point do we stop giving a shit about them? They turn 21 and ‘well hey, you’re an adult now, you can go fuck your self. We only care about kids’. Everyone should matter.

Why are we rushing schools knowing it’s going to mean continued restrictions, continued pain for so many people. Why does the slow/steady ‘Rota’ approach not apply there, so we can ease a little elsewhere, open gyms for fucks sake.

All kids could get into school a bit and all adults could get a semblance of their life back too. Or like I said, open everything up and just let us all take our own chance with the virus and let us be responsible for ourselves.

Im over living to work and nothing more.

Sometimes I feel like, when I read threads like this on Mumsnet (I know I should just hide them but hey ho) that people actually want to be in lockdown forever.

We can’t keep being lockdown for every mutation that comes about.

We have to get out of lockdown this year I think. I get, not too fast, not all at once, but we can’t keep dragging it out and talking of several years of mask wearing and no gatherings for long term etc.

I’m in my 30s, single, living alone.

I’m desperate to be in a relationship, get married, start a family etc. I’m also desperate to see my parents and family and nieces and nephews in person. I don’t have anything to live for at the moment. I don’t have much time left, in my 30s, my parents are getting older (I’m a later born child and their youngest) and I am so devestated that Covid has taken a whole year of my life, and now people are saying they are ok with it taking several years out of their life. It’s all fine and dandy when you are living a middle class life, when you are already married with children. But I am having to come to terms with the fact that this has been postponed for me, and I don’t know if it will now be a reality for me.
(And before anyone suggests online dating, yes I have tried this but it just doesn’t work for me at the moment with being unable to actually meet up with anyone).