aibu to think people have forgotten what lockdown was for / that life is not 100 per cent safe

[icantthinkofanamehelp]

It has come to a point /coming to a point soon where we now have to learn to live with covid thanks to fab vaccination programme.
All this talk of schools not being ' safe '
They absolutely are safe for the majority of children/teachers.
Cars are not ' safe ' but a lot of people get them in them every day .

We can not carry on like this forever .
We have to live.
Our children need to go back to school.
We need to have a running economy for our kids future.

Lockdown was to stop the NHS totally collapsing. Not for people to ' stay safe ' and not to stop people getting this infection all together

First..

Vaccines that the children aren’t having, that many school staff haven’t had yet

Those people are predominantly not vulnerable to severe illness from Covid. Those who are have either already had their jab or will do soon.

Schools are going back. In a not entirely safe way and at risk to teachers and parents. The vaccination campaign should have been further along before schools opened. And yes, I'm very worried about my teens education, Johnson will provide a feeble catch up effort. I'm also worried about being ill and not being able to cope with with my violent child.

I think some people have forgotten that lots of us have no social lives or foreign holidays to get back to so are muddling through without much drama anyway.

The roads comparison isn’t really much of a comparison, 1700(ish) a year versus 600+ Just yesterday.
Roads aren’t safe so measures are put in place to improve safety to as great an extent as feasible, that is all people are asking for. Not to be 100% protected but for appropriate and feasible protections to be put in place, in a similar fashion to road safety measures.

People have different ideas of what risks are worth taking.

There is a thread about cutting grapes into quarters at a nursery! How many nursery aid children choke on grapes every year?!

With COVID, though, as it is infectious, we have to come to some type of agreement on risks we are prepared to take. Some people may view a nasty illness that could put you in hospital and kill a few (still prob higher risk than a toddler choking on a grape) as worth taking for parties and fun, others won’t.

Within a few months everyone will be vaccinated and, hopefully, the issue will go away.

My mum has been affected to the extreme with the virus, she has changed completely as a person and its so sad to see. She convinced herself she would die if she got the virus. I remember her phoning me panicking as she had opened an online package and afterwards she realised it was from Italy( this was the early days even though she has washed and sanitized everywhere. Even when we could meet outside during the summer she was reluctant and wore a mask. I'm not sure how she will get back to normal as when I tell her things are looking brighter she said things will never do. She isn't a negative person on the whole but this virus has changed her completely.

Yes there are a lot of people wailing "but it's not safe..!" to every normal suggestion. People that have an extremely low chance of dying can be seen wailing and catastrophising. They have bought the message, swallowed it and regurgitate it at every opportunity.

There are a particular couple of posters that are on numerous threads with their band of supporters and because they all believe the same assume everyone else is wrong. I cannot be bothered to read their comments now - no point they just say the same thing over and over - it's not safe. In the real world others of their profession don't seem like that at all so I assume the real over the top ones come on here to congregate together and feed on each other. Some of them spend more time on here than they can possibly do in their jobs although they say they are working harder than before.... The evidence suggests otherwise but they won't listen. They are like broken records. They ask for x and get it then want Y to 'be safe' and are in their little bubble of doom.

There are NO patients in our very large hospital in ICU with covid in the south of the county. There are some on the wards, the numbers are extremely low in are area and falling all over the country.

For children's safety parents should be far more concerned about their kids fitness levels and obesity. That is what is going to kill 100,000s of people prematurely of this generation.

I couldn’t agree more. I have said this from the start.

My favourite example is a friend I know who was happy to take class A drugs pre Covid (which is risky & potentially damaging on both a personal and socially moral level), but is sticking to the rules so rigidly and in a preachy way because it’s the “right thing to do”, and it just baffles me!! Class As are totally fine though

I fully agree. Schools have never been ‘safe’ where do you think flu, chicken pox, hand foot and mouth etc spread? Some children get seriously ill with those every year but we don’t close. The closures have been correct - albeit late. But enough is enough. We have to live if others don’t want to that is their choice but come the go ahead I am going to enjoy myself!

@Anna12345678910,

But you seem to be in the opposite camp.

Objectively, there are still just under 20,000 people in hospital with COVID, only just under the peak of the first wave. There are 2,500 patients being mechanically ventilated, over 80% of the peak of the first wave, and we still have around 3,000 people dying weekly.

I think and hope that these numbers will start moving dramatically downwards over the next few weeks, although the rate of decrease of cases already seems to be slowing.

Once the numbers go down substantially and, anecdotally, people no longer know friends abs family sick with COVID, they will start to relax. We are still living far from normally. Sun and a more normal life will allow people to mentally recover.

you were arguing for closure full stop, or early closure so you could safely take your kids to see relatives

I wasn't.
That's the governments fault for letting it get so bad again and having to resort to school closures again.

I have supported every lockdown fully. Followed the rules until now. I am now letting my 7 and 5 year old visit my grandparents . Grandparents are actually the ones who brought this idea up.

Enough is enough now. Kids lives on hold. Parents unable to work. Mental health.

Deaths should decrease even more so because of vaccines even if cases rise a bit .
If we are seeing a lot of deaths after the over 50's have all been vaccinated then we have a problem but frankly they've explained that vaccines will dramatically reduce death rates.

I'd like to know what other option we have but to live with this ? I don't support any more lockdowns or major restrictions after this spring and summer .

Objectively, there are still just under 20,000 people in hospital with COVID, only just under the peak of the first wave. There are 2,500 patients being mechanically ventilated, over 80% of the peak of the first wave, and we still have around 3,000 people dying weekly.

If you put that into perspective. There is 66 million people in the UK
It is very sad but the govt have said right from the start unfortunately we could not stop everyone dying from this and the govt left it to late every time.

Thank goodness for science and vaccines

Personally ... I think lots of people are as scared of ongoing/future lockdowns as they are of Covid. I’m in that boat.

Children aren’t as likely to get sick- but they are as likely to pass it on (particularly as schools arent able to set up for social distancing with a full class of students ) . We run the risk of cases spiking again and going back into full lockdown.

I worry that we open too quickly and rather than being able to stay open - and get back to normal (a normal with sickness and danger and all that) ... we are regularly thrown back into lockdown to protect the NHS as it’s intended. But once back in lockdown, we have the added the threats of loneliness/isolation and unemployment plus the increased threat of Covid.

Yes

I now think we need tv advice on other health issues - cancer etc

We lose around 2000 people a day anyway through pneumonia, cars, cancer etc and I know we lost more on top of that to covid and we needed the measures, but I think people don’t really like to think about ‘usual’ death figs?

I read the title and thought 'I bet it's someone telling school staff that schools are safe and to get on with it.' Yep.

@sherrystrull
I am a teacher and I am definitely not saying that. The question I come back to is ‘if not now then when?’

We run the risk of cases spiking again and going back into full lockdown.

It's never been about cases.
Lockdown was level 5 alert which meant ' nhs at risk of being overwhelmed'
That is why we locked down.
We didn't lockdown to stop people getting it or long covid.
Vaccines mean we don't need to lockdown again

People think it's all about cases as we have been told to ' stay safe ' ' act as if we have it ' ' can you look a bus driver in the eye and tell them your journey is essential'

It has caused unnecessary worry and fear.

@icantthinkofanamehelp... cases spiking was meant to encompass the nhs getting overwhelmed. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.

Vaccines will hopefully mean we don’t have to lockdown again- they have done an amazing job but most people haven’t had their first, much less their second so it’s possibly a tad premature to assume that in the immediate future we won’t face yet another lockdown to prevent the nhs being overwhelmed. (And to be fair, IMO- it’s slightly redundant WHY the government calls another lockdown. They could call it because the grass is green, but the socio-economic impacts of it are unlikely to differ- and those impacts scare people. )

The thing that annoys me the most about all of this, is that the people that covid is most likely to affect and make seriously ill, are those who were at just as much risk from the flu.

But those same people will have been able to have the flu vaccine each year, so it's not quite the same.

Until January we didn't have a vaccine for covid, so the fear and the risk was greater than for flu, as we couldn't protect people against it in the same way.

I'm CV and always have a flu vaccine, as I work in a school so I am subject to many viruses all the time. I always make sure I have a flu vaccine as soon as it is available to me each year, as early as I can. I know due to my own compromised immunity this is important. I've also had other vaccines, such as the pneumonia one due to the risk - I had pneumonia a few years back and was ill in hospital with it, so I now take precautions via a vaccine.

I wasn't overly concerned, though conscious of a risk and took precautions to reduce it. Despite this, I caught covid in October and ended up in hospital with it. It's 4 months in and I still have some affects and have now developed a life long condition requiring two daily tablets, on top of what I was already taking. My consultant was very clear to me that it was still a possibility I could catch it again and I was now at greater risk if that happened. So yes, I was concerned. Luckily I've been able to wfh.

I received my vaccine this week and that has made me feel a whole lot more reassured before I return to work in a couple of weeks, rightly or wrongly.

So I don't really get the comparison with flu - simply as those vulnerable to flu complications are vaccinated routinely every year and therefore can reduce their own risk, something they couldn't do until very recently with covid.

@icantthinkofanamehelp,

The hospitalisation figure of 20,000 is significant. Firstly, if this rotates weekly (maybe it is more like 10 daily) it implies 1mio people in hospital with COVID, or 1.5% of the entire population, over 1 year. It is clearly a matter of perspective whether this is small. Personally, it seems quite large to me, and we are certainly not used to illnesses with this hospitalisation rate.

In addition, we have a finite hospital capacity. If it is exceeded, we are in trouble. We are too close to it still at the moment. ICU care should be 1 to 1. I suspect, although not at the worst, we are not back to that yet on average.

I do think that vaccines should massively decrease hospitalisations. If this is the case, we should open up. However, like all theories, we have to see it actually happen to be comfortable that it is as was foreseen.

We are right to be opening up but we are also right to be doing it in stages and cautiously.

The thing that annoys me the most about all of this, is that the people that covid is most likely to affect and make seriously ill, are those who were at just as much risk from the flu.

Covid is 10 times more lethal than flu. It is also many times more infectious. Three out of 10 people who get flu do not continue to suffer symptoms nine months later. When you catch flu, you develop lifelong immunity to that strain. With Covid, immunity wanes, leaving you prone to reinfection.
How many times do you want to keep rolling the dice that the odds stay in your favour?
Sorry if the reality of this situation annoys you.

@TheChip

The thing that annoys me the most about all of this, is that the people that covid is most likely to affect and make seriously ill, are those who were at just as much risk from the flu.

The measures my CEV family members have had to take are pretty much the same as before all of this. I wouldnt visit them if I had any sign of illness, they would avoid me and anyone else who had any illness as best they could.

The governments plan all along was to prevent hospitals overflowing, but so many people have jumped on to save everyone. Where was this level of care for the CEV before covid?

There is the full quote from what I had said. Instead of just the first snippet of it, which completely removes the info that explains what annoys me. Which is where was this level of care before covid. Because I know so many people who didn't give a flying fork about who they interacted with when they had flu symptoms, are now screaming from the rooftops at how selfish people are being.

Yes there is a vaccine for the flu, but it is not anywhere near 100% effective, nor does it stop hospitalisation. I know this from my CEV family members who get the flu jab ASAP each year and have still wound up in hospital.

They were still forced to work during flu season, and would be sacked, and called selfish no doubt if they refused to work because of it. Even though they knew that they were risking hospital and potentially death every time.

@TheChip sorry I hadn’t seen your post, just the bit someone else had highlighted. Sorry to quote you out of context.
Given that covid measures have crushed flu, I hope this will signal longer term look at how we approach infectious disease in this country - better hand & respiratory hygiene, maybe mask wearing in flu season & better support for people to isolate when sick.