Is life never going back to normal?

[JuneMoonstone]

I feel incredibly lucky that I've lived 44 years of a normal life. I am heartbroken at the way life has become. Like so many others, I feel like I am existing, not living. I don't see any point in making plans, I don't feel any hope for the future. I was feeling quite positive about the progress made in the UK with vaccines and seeing the infection rates and death rates lower. However with the news about the rest of Europe going into lockdown due to escalating infection rates, I can't help but feel that we are never going to get out of this bloody mess. I cannot help but believe that we will have to live our lives under constant restrictions forever now because of this virus. Is life really going to be shit from now on? Will I ever be able to, for example, go into a busy pub on a Friday night and watch a live band and have a bloody good time again? Will we have to wear face masks permanently in public places from now on? I get a very strong feeling that this will be the case. It's my daughter I feel for the most. She's just 5 years old. What kind of a life is she going to have?

@Puzzledandpissedoff

Florida and their lack of restrictions does give some insight

It does indeed - especially considering the demographics in terms of age and obesity

The main thing that's different about this disease is that we aren't used to dying

Another "spot on" moment - but add to that the presence of social media and 24/7 rolling news

Lol at the idea that "we aren't used to dying".

You need to do some research into how bad long covid can be and the potential cost to the NHS long term before you start the one.

The costs of 'long covid' are vastly less than the costs of continued lockdown, and will continue to diminish as the vaccination programme progresses.

Lol at the idea that "we aren't used to dying"

Not sure why the "LOL", when we've got to the point of even the BBC calling the death of a 97 year old "a tragedy"
Deeply sad for their loved ones of course, but tragedy's perhaps going a bit far ... as is the insistence (spouted by even Hancock I believe) that "even one death's one too many"

@IcedPurple

You need to do some research into how bad long covid can be and the potential cost to the NHS long term before you start the one.

The costs of 'long covid' are vastly less than the costs of continued lockdown, and will continue to diminish as the vaccination programme progresses.

Explain that to those suffering from Long Covid.

It will get back to normal. There will be a point where COVID will just be a nasty flu that the vulnerable will receive boosters for.
It just has to.

@IcedPurple

You need to do some research into how bad long covid can be and the potential cost to the NHS long term before you start the one.

The costs of 'long covid' are vastly less than the costs of continued lockdown, and will continue to diminish as the vaccination programme progresses.

Iced you are right of course. But for some reason posters think the economic damage we’re seeing isn’t huge.

We have vaccinated a bigger proportion than anywhere else. Of course we have to wait until everyone else is highly covered before we can travel. The vaccine is like all other vaccines, it isn't 100%. There will always be a risk in life.

@FreekStar

You all need to stop stating your predictions as if they are an actual fact!

I think most people are capable of reading people's posts as opinions not facts.

No-one knows, obviously.

Every post doesn't need a disclaimer.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

Lol at the idea that "we aren't used to dying"

Not sure why the "LOL", when we've got to the point of even the BBC calling the death of a 97 year old "a tragedy"
Deeply sad for their loved ones of course, but tragedy's perhaps going a bit far ... as is the insistence (spouted by even Hancock I believe) that "even one death's one too many"

Just because the BBC article talks about a 97-year-old dying as a tragedy, it doesn't mean we haven't "got used to dying". Dying is the one certainty in everyone's future. Everyone knows that they're going to die one day. They just don't want it to happen too early and they never did.

What I don't understand is that there have been pandemics in the past such as Spanish Flu, but they lasted for a limited period of time and then they ended and life resumed as normal.

Because it ripped through the worlds population, killed 50 million, and you either caught it and died from it, or caught it and developed immunity.

Explain that to those suffering from Long Covid.

It's pretty simple really.

Post-viral syndrome has always existed. We don't normally shut down society because of it.

However, by all means fetch me someone suffering from 'long covid, so that I may explain it to them.

It made me see very clearly that these things have an end.

This pandemic has an end. Future pandemics are much more likely due to aforementioned global issues of climate change & destruction of habitats.

@CovidCorvid

I hope that come Sept, it has made itself better equipped to cope. Covid is here to stay. It needs to have adapted accordingly.

I’m not sure how much the nhs can better equip itself? Doctors, etc have certainly learnt how to treat covid patients better. But they’re not going to have extra trained staff or wards/bed spaces by Sept. Those sort of things take time (years of training) and money.

I don’t believe the govt are chucking more money at the nhs with a plan to increase the workforce or extend hospitals? It’s all very reactive rather than proactive.

I suppose the govt are banking on the vaccine roll out and that by Sept there won’t be a need for the nhs to be better equipped. Let’s hope they’re right. There was a staffing crisis in the nhs before covid and it’s even worse now....I don’t see anything being done to combat that!

They should have extra trained staff! Takes a year apparently, and they will have had 18 months by then.

The staffing crisis - read yesterday that people are queueing up to become nurses now that there are more people needing work. And nursing is now seen as a relatively safe job in the current economic climate.

Giving back the nhs bursaries would be a start

I feel the same OP.

I feel now they have changed the goal posts yet again. Now it's not how many deaths or hospital admissions but how many cases of infection there is.

We have vaccines with high efficiency which are already proving that they work with drop in deaths and hospital admissions.

If all 66 million of us have Covid, who cares? If were vaccinated and we wont get seriously ill, go to hospital or die, who gives a shit.

Cant believe people are entertaining living like this for the foreseeable future so people don't have flu like symptoms. It's crazy beyond words

What concerns me is the hope pinned on the vaccine programme, whislist everyone turns a blind eye to the SA variant.

The current set of vaccines, will protect against the first strain. By the end of the year we will probably have more strains plus the SA strain which hasn't been tackled yet.

Would you be so kind as to enlighten the world on the cause of the the Covid 19 outbreak so that we can prevent future outbreaks?

While the specific point of transmission has not been identified, scientists absolutely know how it happened, had anticipated it & papers were widely published in 2019.

The prevention is far more complex tho.

Have a listen to the Seriously podcast called 'The Jump'. See link in my previous post.

'A medical procedure to get our rights back??? Oh give me a break! Seriously, this is what you think?

Vaccinations have been the norm for many years now. If not most of us wouldn't be here in the first place because our grandparents would have died of smallpox. Or would have been rendered infertile because of mumps.

I've just been reading bbc news. Dr Mary Ramsay has said social distancing and mask wearing could last for years..

I sincerely hope not. Masks have cut off deaf people, there will be no chance of a semblance of normal life for them.

[quote EarringsandLipstick]@joystir59

I hardly know how to respond. Your view that 70 is a cut-off age beyond which we don't prioritise care appalls me.

Your world is not one I want to live in. [/quote]
Exactly. And she thought her post was so insightful she created a thread especially for it.

Not a single word of that is evident of some kind of retribution from Mother Nature, or a higher plan to show us how much we have meddled with the earth. It’s a huge chain of coincidences.

Your previous paragraph is entirely correct Claudia.

But you are wrong here.

The reason the virus could mutate is that animals (bats & rats chiefly) who have incredibly powerful immune systems, are being forced into closer & closer contact with large human populations, chiefly in Asia.

You are correct that from there it's a lottery about whether a virus transmits to a human - but it's a lottery with very high chances, compared to previously, due to such high concentration of numbers of people.

Covid will just become yet another illness that impacts the old and frail.

Redcurrent except that's not what Covid does 🤷🏻‍♀️

There will be a point where COVID will just be a nasty flu that the vulnerable will receive boosters for.
It just has to.

This is what is known technically as wishful thinking.

Covid isn't flu and has no reason to mutate into a form as mild as flu for the foreseeable future. If we're lucky it won't mutate into something much worse, but we just don't know.

Comparisons with Spanish Flu are false - in a way the initial covid epidemic is over, because the virus spreading today isn't the one that did so in the first wave. And if there's a 3rd wave, it will likely be a different variant again. Covid if you like is a succession of short epidemics.

Spanish Flu on the other hand, if we're talking about the killer epidemic, was a single unusual variant of influenza - after people had gained some immunity to it, it mutated into something milder and more normal for flu.

Every covid mutation so far has increased both infectiousness and disease severity. The baseline with covid is 1000x more serious than influenza. It's a brand new disease and if it becomes endemic then we could see new epidemics sweeping the country every year, as we do with flu, but 1000x worse.

Personally I don't like the look of this future - that's why zero covid is the only sensible strategy. The long term costs of dealing with regular outbreaks are far far higher than the costs of dealing with the problem now. I don't want annual lockdowns.

I think life will go back to normal for the most part but there are certain aspects of the new normal that don’t bother me too much eg. I don’t mind wearing a mask (but absolutely understand why many do not like it). I also much prefer people having to stand two metres away from me in a queue but that’s just cos I hate people breathing down my neck I don’t have any idea of timescale but there have been so many major disasters/pandemics etc in the past and life has returned to mostly normal after those as far as I know. I also think it’s been shit for kids but they do have so many years ahead of them to be in sweaty crowded places and I am sure they will have the chance!

@EarringsandLipstick

Covid will just become yet another illness that impacts the old and frail.

Redcurrent except that's not what Covid does 🤷🏻‍♀️

Except it does. What’s the average age of death? Over 80?

Once it’s not a novel virus, we’ve got some immunity in the population and vaccines why wouldn’t it settle down and become endemic like flu etc? Is that not what the experts have been saying ?