Do people really think this is the road to the end...?! Surely NOT!

[Violetsarered]

Do you honestly think we’re on the road to the end of all this...?!

Here’s how I see things...

New variants will emerge - back into lockdown
Vaccines won’t be as effective as thought - back into lockdown

I’m not sure why people believe that life will be normal by June.

I would bet my house on the fact that it won’t.
We are such a long long LONG way from normality.

Don’t mean to be a doom monger but people really need to keep things in perspective

@CuriousaboutSamphire

I’m not the one with the friend.... But you did quote it with a one word Gotcha!

Yes, with all the other posts the op clung to this one 😀

It’s also totally illogical, you only need to look at last summer to know that and that was without vaccines.

Peoole are always saying “my mates at doctor” or “I’m a doctor” or some other claim to try to validate when they are about to post something they know no one will buy. Well no one bar the op that is..

@Cissyandflora

I have a friend on the front line. She says we will be back to deaths of 1000 + per day a couple of weeks after we come out of lockdown. I’m really not a doom monger and neither is she. But she’s seeing it. She’s losing colleagues. She’s normally incredibly strong and pragmatic but after a year she is now traumatised. It is tantalising to think this could all be over in a couple of months but realistically we are not there and it could get worse yet.

Unless your friend on the 'front line' (whatever that means) is a virologist or epidomologist she really doesn't have any special expertise in the matter.

@BillMasen

Great example of how people need to feel either positive or negative to cope

Some need the boost of the positive, believing it’ll all be over soon helps them cope and if it isn’t, well it will be sometime. They’re less worried by the disappointment of delay

Some like the op need to think the worst, have the bad play out in their mind (maybe because it means no surprises, no false hope). They see the risk of being disappointed as greater

Both are fine but both can see the other as “wrong” and try to “correct “ them

AMEN!!!!

This should be pinned to the top of the coronavirus board!!!

I would also add that stating scientific facts or models (with appropriate caveats) is neither of these things.

I am looking forward to the shorter term things which are more likely to happen - rule of 6, haircuts... Not even thinking about the longer term things until we get a bit closer to them. Does this make me an optimist or a pessimist?

Another mood hoover of an OP. Why not try to be positive and cheerful rather than trying to project perpetual misery onto others by trying to drag us down to your level?

People like the OP seem to actually enjoy being miserable and the doom and gloom.

Shame there isn't a truth drug that can be administered through a screen.

Always been a bit sceptical of "my brother's friend is a very high up " after some years ago reading a poster saying she lived next door to a certain person, what they were like, etc etc. Bollocks!! (It wasn't me, btw, but I knew for sure that they were sitting there behind a screen lying through their fingers...

@Cissyandflora

I have a friend on the front line. She says we will be back to deaths of 1000 + per day a couple of weeks after we come out of lockdown. I’m really not a doom monger and neither is she. But she’s seeing it. She’s losing colleagues. She’s normally incredibly strong and pragmatic but after a year she is now traumatised. It is tantalising to think this could all be over in a couple of months but realistically we are not there and it could get worse yet.

How would she know?

Yes, I do think we'll learn to live with this by summer. There will be new variants but vaccines will be adapted just as they are for the annual flu vaccine. Very sadly, the presence of Covid means that there will be higher UK death rates particularly over winter but I don't think rates will be high enough to overwhelm the NHS or to cause another lockdown. I do think there will be some restrictions over the winter months to lower the risk - masks and some form of social distancing. I'm cautiously optimistic that we are past the worst.

I’d agree and was just thinking that, it’s odd how extreme the views are within thr population.

Of course the reasonable approach is a cautiously optimistic one, looking at the vaccine roll out success and the global drop in cases and applying a reasoned judgment.

But there is extremes either end

You get people at one end thinking it’s a conspiracy and Covid doesn’t actually exist/that the vaccine program is an opportunity to micro chip everyone, ,and then at the other end peoole like the op thinking it won’t be over and will be like this for a very long time.

Either extreme has their own demons causing them to react as they do, although seldom do they wish to reveal them, even if they can recognise them,

I do think this is the road to the end. Will all the dates be met exactly? Probably not but it is a good guide to leaving lockdown.

I think come june when restrictions are lifted it will be a case of trial and error..we haven't lived without restrictions in so long that no one can say how it will pan out...it will be a vase of wait and see...it might be a roaring success or there could be other problems arise...
Iv basically just adjusted to live one day at a time and not make plans to be on safe side...i definately wont be jumpin to book a holiday this year..if nothing else i dread to think what the flights are going to cost

No I don't think things will be back to normal by June 21st. It's a shame that this is the message that's being given because I think things are going to improve as the year goes on but giving people false hope isn't helping.
On a personal level I can't imagine being at ease in crowds or at events before being vaccinated but clearly not everyone will feel that way. I'd be happy just to go out for dinner at this point!
The UK variant that emerged last year is now the dominant one so we'll see how fast it spreads once things start opening up more. It's more of a wait and see situation for me.

@OliveTree75 The projected death numbers are available to see in the SAGE documents published yesterday. 30,000 more deaths is the most optimistic of the scenarios.

I would like to know what the government is doing to support the NHS through the next few months as it will really struggle to cope with the increased hospitalisations and deaths (which are likely to occur over a short period) once we unlock, particularly as there will be an increase in alcohol related injuries/accidents when the pubs reopen.

@Hardbackwriter

Don’t mean to be a doom monger

Gosh, I'd hate to see it if you were trying to be a doom monger if this is you doing it by accident...

But yes, you're very very clever and can see everything so much more clearly than everyone else. 10/10 and a gold star for you, poppet.

Yeah... no. These restrictions will only be enforceable as long as the majority conform. There's absolutely no way the majority will conform once vaccination has widened. So, no. You're wrong.

Admittedly I am a bundle of preggie hormones but I have not stopped crying since they announced all children back- it’s just going to be a nationwide petri-dish of variants and new lockdown by the end of the month.

Purely from a selfish level- moved half way across the country so know no-one near by and family are miles away , partner ended up deployed and now stuck overseas , and I’m due in June. The odds of him coming home for the birth are now non-existent thanks to the state the country is likely to be in and the availablity of flights . The odds of any family or friends being able to come up to help- equally unlikely. I just desperately hoped we’d go in slowly to the return to school so we didn’t have to fully lock down again.

From a selfish level - that there might be scope for people who can’t just ‘meet for walk’ to see family but now we’ll be locked down before there even a possibility.

But it’s just going to be plague pit of doom . I’m being incredibly self-pitying and realise lots of people are in shitty situations but I’m allowing myself a couple days of pathetic weeping at it all.

I think also people need to look behind posts like the ops and think about what’s motivating it.

Often it’s a very negative thing for the poster. It can be an extreme anxiety, or it can be extreme unhappiness with normal life and a horror at the thought of going back to it, it can be many things, but it’s likely to be nearly always a negative for the poster, ans seldom likely to be as simple as “I don’t want to be disappointed” becayse if it was they’d not be online issuing orders and trying desperately to get people to agree with them, whilst clinging to any random who validates their thoughts.

So for the minority who actively hope it continues, even when they pretend they are not doing that just being “realistic” there is usually something they don’t want to reveal behind it.

The OPs assertion isn't based on evidence. Evidence has shown that the vaccines work. Also transmission is lower in warmer weather and spring is on the way.

I dunno I do feel like some people will miss the drama of the whole situation sometimes and can't face the thought of it being over.

I think we are on the road to the end, BUT the stages will probably be pushed back, so it'll be at least a few weeks later than June 21st. So I'm not being completely pessimistic, but with a little bit of realism, too.

Admittedly I am a bundle of preggie hormones but I have not stopped crying since they announced all children back- it’s just going to be a nationwide petri-dish of variants and new lockdown by the end of the month

I think that’s more than hormones and more about your situation, potentially you should speak to your doctor about how you’re feeling. I’m sure you don’t really think that they will shut the schools three weeks after opening them and can sense the catastrophising in your statement?

@LindaEllen

I think we are on the road to the end, BUT the stages will probably be pushed back, so it'll be at least a few weeks later than June 21st. So I'm not being completely pessimistic, but with a little bit of realism, too.

Honestly calling your pessimism “realism” doesn’t really change what it is.

Clinical trials have already started on vaccines to fight the new variants. The vaccine is reducing levels of transmission. In Scotland they've see the effects of the vaccine reducing hospital admissions for the groups they have vaccinated already.
So my take is that Covid will probably become like the flu, partly seasonal with an annual vaccine programme.
In Asian countries where there have been Sars flareups in the past they seem v efficient at quarantining and containing, and that's prob why some have done so well with covid. We need to hope our government has learnt this lesson and that their libertarian shite just puts people at risk when it comes to public health.

We need to get the rest of the world vaccinated, especially densely populated, poor countries so that mutations become less likely to occur. Foreign travel will be the tricky bit over the next couple of years.

I could see the July timetable being stretched out a bit but who know.

@10storeylovesong

Well I've booked my hairdresser and a table in a pub garden with my friends for 12th April. If they get cancelled, they get cancelled. But if not, I'll be the one drinking a G&T with friends and no roots!!

I'm with you.

All of the 4 models published by sage (available on gov websites), show higher transmission rates as things open, further deaths, and possible further 2020 level waves. The gov has plumped for opening up in some sort of middle ground of the models. So you know....

Hasn't stopped me making plans for seeing family at easter, going to my holiday home, seeing friends for walks and so on. Make hay while we're allowed.

I’m sure you don’t really think that they will shut the schools three weeks after opening them and can sense the catastrophising in your statement?

So not at all like opening schools for day and then closing them?