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?

I’m definitely not making my own predictions - if anything this year will have taught us it is that this is just pointless. So too other self determined decisions where we have no expertise.
I do listen carefully (and critically) to those who do have expertise who themselves build in caution as some of their work is of necessity projection and modelling using scientific method.
Better that than listening to my own ‘herons musings’ about what is happening and what might happen. I’m a lawyer not a virologist/medical statistician etc.

My best advice to you is to read the book published all about Spanish Flu. It arguably was far worse than Covid, far faster, more deadly, and the youngest and fittest died. The biggest lesson of that pandemic is how human life started to carry on regardless. They had no vaccine, the illness ran its course and things returned to normal.

We now have half our adult population vaccinated, the half that affects the NHS the worst (which is the reason for shutting the nation down). Evidence is fast coming out about the vaccines cutting down the transmission rates as well as stopping severe illness.

My husband has been treating Covid patients for a year now, this week his unit got down to zero Covid patients for the first time in a long time.

We are getting there, we really are, just that last little push whilst the rest are vaccinated. Have hope!

If all failed with the vaccines our tolerance has reached a point where we’d be getting back to normal anyway.

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

www.amazon.co.uk/Pandemic-1918-Deadliest-Influenza-History-ebook/dp/B078WCDK3Q/ref=sr_1_8?hvlocphy=1006483&hvnetw=g&keywords=spanish+flu+1918+book&hvadid=448272572127&qid=1616318525&dchild=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw3duCBhCAARIsAJeFyPWQHT54JbXzh7JURKY3KEohZL42UPY3p-FqlQ-TQE_mAy6chToiSTcaAox3EALw_wcB&hydadcr=24428_1748934&hvdev=c&hvqmt=b&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&hvtargid=kwd-313616905568&adgrpid=99466056890&hvrand=7662076609575317861&sr=8-8

We will absolutely get back to normal OP. Does the flu affect the way you go about your day to day life? I very much doubt it. Once we’re all vaccinated Covid will be akin to that.

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously

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.

Sorry about your nan

My point was wider though sadly. In that people with dementia and covid, unintentionally spread it. Whether in a care home, in the community, or in hospitals.

@Cam77 But the initial sneering response of the West towards China regarding strict quarantine, masks, stricter punishment of rule breakers etc looks pretty foolish now

Um, dragging people away, people gone missing etc?!

I’ve read here before people saying they’ve never had a ‘normal’ -not in the way others have. Of course we all experience different versions of ‘normal’.

All sorts of personal challenges and tragedies have landed on many of us during our lives. We get on with it. This is what we have to do now.

Having said that, I’m happy to deal with the pandemic itself and wait for that to pass, but not so happy to put up with this growing authoritarian power grabbing government.

It’s the government and it’s lies - democracy being bled from the UK - that is what will change our ‘normal’. We don’t have to put up with that. We must not feel passive and put up with that.

People are getting fed up of this way of life - it's not sustainable.

While staying absolutely neutral on the pros and cons of mask wearing, no it literally isn’t sustainable because at some point social distancing becomes incompatible with species reproduction! 😁

However at the moment we are still just rolling out the vaccine.

Logically we would reach a point where our expectations of social behaviour would change if vaccinations and treatment failed to control the virus, but we aren’t there yet.

We are still able to maintain and defend social norms like providing medical care for the elderly, which I think most people agree is a good thing.

I wonder what would have happened if they just ''Let the virus rip''

Maybe it would have disappeared eventually.

No Plague or Flu lasted forever.

It tore through a World population and then disappeared.

I worry much more about the other diseases not treated or diagnosed as the NHS has been just geared up for Covid?

@Dustyboots

I’ve read here before people saying they’ve never had a ‘normal’ -not in the way others have. Of course we all experience different versions of ‘normal’.

All sorts of personal challenges and tragedies have landed on many of us during our lives. We get on with it. This is what we have to do now.

Having said that, I’m happy to deal with the pandemic itself and wait for that to pass, but not so happy to put up with this growing authoritarian power grabbing government.

It’s the government and it’s lies - democracy being bled from the UK - that is what will change our ‘normal’. We don’t have to put up with that. We must not feel passive and put up with that.

This is it exactly!!

Having said that, with prolonged restrictions we would also have to recognise that isolation has been brutal and awful for many elderly people.

I suppose the point I am making is that there is no way that lockdown restrictions will ever be permanent, but at this moment, with vaccinations being rolled out, the balance is in their favour.

@lightand bloody hell if I'm post 80 and have dementia end me dont vaccinate me! I've seen two close family members loose their minds and then their lives to dementia and it's a horrible process.

It feels awful, life is on hold ..............

@JuneMoonstone I feel exactly the same. This isn’t living it’s just existing. I’m one of the extremely lucky ones in this pandemic and I’ve reached my limits, as have many people I know.

What people just can’t seem to remember is that whilst COVID is dangerous to some people, it isn’t dangerous to the vast majority of people. The main groups of 1-9 have had a first dose and will get a second dose regardless of the shortage. It’s the constant moving of the goal posts which makes me furious. What more can we bloody do?! We have to just accept that we’ve done all we can to protect the vulnerable but that life really must go on.

Protests are breaking out all over Europe now. People have absolutely had enough.

@happinessischocolate

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.

Define "essential".

When people are allowed to ignore the rules anyway

when others are allowed to carry on as normal because they have "bubbles" so they meet friends and family etc..

I am not giving up on my holidays until I absolutely have no choice.
Either the rules are the same for everyone, or I am not being penalised when others aren't.

It is so important you find the good in the bad and live in the now. This is our normal, maybe not forever but certainly until there is a cure found which may be several or more years away. Until the virus is completely eradicated we are going to be in this limbo because as we are about to discover even when the numbers go low after a lockdown, once we open up again they will sky rocket.

1 year in and the mutated strains are everywhere and continue to change further it seems with every week. Masks, social distancing and closures are the new way of life, acceptance is better than reluctance.

There will be at some point this year an easing of restrictions on pubs and bars but expect it to be very short lived and not as you remember it being like. It’s simply impossible to have them open as they were.

Some places may appear to be living relatively normal lives, look at NZ but the chances of travelling out of the country or going in as a tourist have been traded for this, it’s also temporary because as we know, covid has a way of getting in at it’s first opportunity.

Some places are in a far worse situation that we are, look at Brazil, a nation devastated by covid with a leader who denies the gravity of the situation. Brazilians are living in hell right now and their society is on the brink of collapse, all because of inept leadership.

It’s especially sad for the children because as you said OP, what kind of life are they going to have. It will look nothing like ours did on the surface but as long as they are loved, nurtured and healthy they will thrive in their own way.

I think many people are going to be very surprised (and some a bit disappointed) by just how comprehensively and how fast everything does go back to normal. And how keen everyone will be to forget about it as much as possible.

We know this is what’s happened with precious pandemics. And we know that in places where infectious disease is a bigger day-to-day threat (including here until fairly recently), people do not go “oh well looks like social distancing and masks forever, so sad but we’ll learn to love the new normal”, they incorporate the risk into normal life and carry on.

Maybe it will be as PP have said ‘like 9/11’, in that it was a big world-changing event - but the only routine changes it’s made to most of our lives now is that we can’t carry big bottles of liquid on planes any more.

There are things that could change. We could do better at protecting the environment and reduce the risk of new pandemics. But we probably won’t, unless we really want to. One of the biggest pandemic threats has always been bird flu and one of the biggest risks for that has been large-scale poultry farming. But even now, even with a much keener appreciation of pandemic risk - how many people you know have cut down on chicken consumption?

[quote IndiaMay]@lightand bloody hell if I'm post 80 and have dementia end me dont vaccinate me! I've seen two close family members loose their minds and then their lives to dementia and it's a horrible process.[/quote]
But see my post of 9.29am
It is not as simple as that.

I know what you mean though.

There is no such thing as “normal” and never has been. Life is changing all the time. I’d rather this than WW3. I’d rather live here than Syria or the Yemen. Climate change will cause greater hardships in the future. We will be allowed to get close to each other again, but things change - there is no static “normal.” The only certainty is that things won’t stay as they are now.

Protests are breaking out all over Europe now. People have absolutely had enough.

Europe is protesting against restrictions, the UK is moaning about wearing masks that are not even mandatory as anyone and everyone can be "exempt" because they feel like it.

The uk has been embarrassingly weak and pathetic you have to say.

No Plague or Flu lasted forever

Pandemic no. But isnt flu now, the Spanish flu but in a somewhat milder form? Or even just the same??

@PerveenMistry

We'll never be back to the old normal. Too many selfish assholes.

And there are other viruses just lurking out there waiting to bring the world to a halt again. Exacerbated by climate change, overpopulation and crowding of other species.

Mark my words. And be glad you had what you did.

Oh ffs. go and lock yourself in a dark room until your eventual death. We don't need to near your shit.

I think many people are going to be very surprised (and some a bit disappointed) by just how comprehensively and how fast everything does go back to normal. And how keen everyone will be to forget about it as much as possible.

Absolutely

A few probably prefer now as seen with a few posters on here. But the vast majority will move on and want to forget very quickly.

I think many people are going to be very surprised (and some a bit disappointed) by just how comprehensively and how fast everything does go back to normal. And how keen everyone will be to forget about it as much as possible.

You just have to look at the difference between the first "lockdown" and the second. The first was marginally respected, no traffic, most shops closed

The second "lockdown" is a joke. Only a few businesses are suffering and unable to reopen, and they are the real victim. Everybody is carrying on as normal.

If you put a foreigner in this country and tell them we are actually in "lockdown" they wouldn't believe you. Again, shame for the few industries who are respecting the rules, no one else is.

@Thewiseoneincognito It is so important you find the good in the bad and live in the now

Absolutely agree. This is our life, maybe for another couple of years like this.
As I have said before, I always thought it was a 3 year thing, give or take. So got myself ready in all ways, as much as I could with that in mind.

I think many people are going to be very surprised (and some a bit disappointed) by just how comprehensively and how fast everything does go back to normal. And how keen everyone will be to forget about it as much as possible.

Agree with this.