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?

@pinkearedcow why would the government not want things back to normal

Same as always. Power money and evil intentions.

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously

Vaccinating 80 year olds who have dementia maybe shouldn't have been a priority.

Interested in why you think that?
I happened to see a charity advert for giving money for dementia. It said that 25% of all those who have died from covid in the Uk, had dementia.

@Neonlightning
Just to add to my comment, it should say a new normality. But in this I can go to my workplace safely with no masks, go to the gym, meet friends for brunch, enjoy Saturday afternoon G&Ts at my favourite pub, visit museums, and travel within Australia.

China is like this also, but for nearly a year now.
When last January and February Western media was squealing about the Chinese government “abusing rights” by throwing the odd nonmask wearer out of supermarkets and insisting people get tested whether they want it or not, the Chinese government was fully focused don the job at hand - fighting the pandemic hard. Their hard response saved literally millions of lives (imagine the UKs mortality stats in a nation of 1.3 billion) saved economic collapse, and kept the country essentially Covid free.
Of course, different countries have different systems and concepts of human rights, and what works in one place isn’t necessarily workable in another. But the initial sneering response of the West towards China regarding strict quarantine, masks, stricter punishment of rule breakers etc looks pretty foolish now.

@EarringsandLipstick

I read how people are suffering in the UK and it makes me so sad as there was an opportunity to implement strict hotel quarantine there too. Being an island has perks.

@tcjotm

This was not possible in the UK, or elsewhere in Europe. Strict hotel quarantine wouldn't have resolved the issue. The context of Northern Ireland specifically made that unworkable (part of UK, so travel possible, but also connected to the island of Ireland, and as we have the Good Friday agreement, cannot - and must not - impose borders or border checks).

The Australia / NZ solution isn't workable outside those countries. Even within the countries it has been problematic eg decisions made re fines in Australia would not get support in European countries.

Aus/NZ are very different indeed. They don't have thousands of vans/lorries every day driving in/out via a tunnel/short ferry crossing. They're more self sufficient and their freight in/out is generally unaccompanied containers.

I think we will get back to normal next year, I think next Christmas should be pretty much normal, not so sure about international travel!!

I’m like you I just can’t wait to go back to the pub watch a live band, watch rugby or a big screen with all the banter!! But if the pubs don’t open soon there won’t be that many left!! So when I live band if playing it will be pretty full.

O just to go for cocktails and dinner!, o the joy it will be!! A dinner and dance on a table of ten friends!! A Ceilidh (will be taking hand sanitizer) and comedy club , the theatre!!, the races, a music festival, a beer festival (gin).

I’m not going to ever take my social life for granted again, and I will go to a opening of a envelope if I get asked!! I’m going to do everything I possibly can in 2022.

I’m being realistic for 2021 but I’m really hopeful for 2022

Your view that 70 is a cut-off age beyond which we don't prioritise care appalls me.

Well, I am now in my 70s, but as far as vaccination is concerned I think that there were better candidates than me for early vaccination. I have hardly been anywhere apart from shopping over the past year - I don't have to travel to work on crowded public transport, I am not trying to look after children. I would happily have seen adults like teachers , health care staff and those who are forced to mix with a lot of people be the priority before me.

lightand my nan had dementia. She had no quality of life by the end - didn't recognise her own children. Prolonging her life wasn't doing her any favours. I don't think she would have chosen a longer life, unable to care for herself at even a basic level, to not be enjoying her life or remember any of her family.

I feel similar op. Things will improve and get back to something closer to the old normal but pretty sure life will be different.
Main thing which makes me think this is our increasing environmental ravaging of the planet. Bringing viruses closer between humans and struggling animals whose habitats we’re destroying/diminishing or who we are hunting/farming etc.
Modelling (as reported in ‘reputable’ press) is very strongly suggesting the scale of this pandemic is not an isolated event and that we need to be prepared for more and more frequent events.
My life of relative privilege here in U.K. has always been at the expense of others worldwide and it’s becoming clearer by the day at the expense of the planet.
Sobering and for me galvanising politically and environmentally.

Certain things, like people travelling internationally frequently, racking up air miles, needs to change permanently, or our children are going to be facing a far worse state of affairs than the one we are currently in.

Exactly @Jayparrot

Along with the destruction of natural habitats which has forced animals into much closer contact with humans, enabling virus mutation at much higher levels.

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Yes, of course it will go back to normal @JuneMoonstone.

People who are saying we now have the vaccine and it's not back to normal- really?

Only 50% of people are vaccinated and that leaves a lot of others who aren't yet.

In time, the vaccine will be like the flu vaccine- done every year and tweaked for mutations.

I think that we may well live with vaccination and masks every winter for quite a long time - similar to living with the flu but with masks basically. So I think things will get back to normal eventually. Other parts of the world had SARS and Ebola and returned to normality - but they were faster to respond to this pandemic because of it.

People who never had our "normal" (and who we never cared about) had to carry on,

they still are!

so you'll be fine with our little restrictions.

We might need to do things between restrictions for a while, like going on holiday last summer but banned from holidays last Christmas, but that won't last.

Of course things will go back. No one really cares about restrictions in the uk already, people have gatherings, sleepovers, parties. We have a very mild approach. We don't have great numbers, but we made that choice.

It will be nice to book a holiday without a risk of it being cancelled, and for jo public to go to hairdresser when celeb and royals go all the time, but will get there.

Only 50% of people are vaccinated and that leaves a lot of others who aren't yet.

And that is a much, much higher vaccination rate than other parts of the world.

Vaccination will take time. We won’t ever go back to the old normal because it is gone and doesn’t exist anymore, but what we have now is not the new normal.

I don't think masks will stay. I was shopping in my local town yesterday. Saw about 6 people not wearing masks in shops. Previously everyone was wearing them. People are getting fed up of this way of life - it's not sustainable.

@Wildswim

I don't think masks will stay. I was shopping in my local town yesterday. Saw about 6 people not wearing masks in shops. Previously everyone was wearing them. People are getting fed up of this way of life - it's not sustainable.

I don’t think they’ll stay either but we’re still at 100% at Sainsbury’s I use

@ClaudiaWankleman

Of course it will end. Hopefully it has served as a reminder that we can't just continue living like we were though, nature has its limits... if you think this has been bad, wait til climate change really hits us.

You’re obfuscating and confusing different issues. The pandemic isn’t punishment, retribution or a ‘teaching’ about climate change and it isn’t nature hitting back at us for bad behaviour.

If we were silver birch trees, the birch dieback bacteria would be an pandemic. If we were chickens, it would be avian flu. The pandemic is a natural process that happens to affect us rather than another species.

I also hate the smugness of ‘think this is bad, wait for how shit you’ll feel when XYZ happens’.

Do you actually understand how the virus broke out, Claudia?

Or maybe one / two not every so often

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

Of all the things we had to put up with, masks should be the least of anyone's worry.

People should stop being snowflakes about them, make them mandatory everywhere and get on with it.

If social distancing in public places, pre-booking and the end of overcrowding was the "new normal", I totally vote for that!

In answer to your "will life return to normal" OP.

Yes you will go to a busy pub again with live music.

No we won't have to wear face masks permanently in public forever. But it might change the culture of encouraging people to go to work/school when they are ill which wouldn't be a bad thing.

Shaking hands will become more optional rather than expected, which again might be a good thing.

Ian McKellen is back in training for another go at Hamlet, which indicates theatres are gearing up for a return. Again it might be a grand revival as people who only ever go to panto might now venture into lives entertainment venues for other shows in the future.

As for your daughter, she is 5, she will only remember bits about this pandemic, if face masks become normal during winter flu season on packed public transport that is what she will know. People in the future might think it was insane when we used to travel like sardines spluttering all over each other.

However society evolves you can put a positive or negative spin in things.

Once countries have a chunk of their population vaccinated, bit like the UK now travel, with testing, will resume. You might prefer to get on a plane knowing others around you are Covid -ve.

Society will return, albeit a little changed, first in the UK and Israel, some places are already restriction-lite, Oz, NZ.

Try not to worry you will be able to go to busy places again and your daughter will live a fun filled life.

Things will go back to normal a damn sight quicker if people accept that non essential foreign travel and holidays need to stop for another year.

I would desperately like to be wrong and for the government to restore civil liberties and end their current level of power voluntarily, but I don't see this as likely. Hence, whenever there is something that might bring an end to restrictions, like a vaccine, we get BUT NO BECAUSE THIS*

Indeed. Very worrying. Extending the 'emergency powers' for another six months, and bringing in new laws to curtail protests. Worrying indeed.

'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded. - Friedrich August von Hayek