Could we be heading for another lockdown?

[RedAzalea]

twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1390390350779461638?s=08

have finally sat down to read this, someone at work was discussing it but i was only half listening....what do you think?

@BeakyWinder
It doesn't need a lot of imagination to realise that those with anxiety are likely vulnerable.
You need to think about why people are anxious regarding covid.
It is likely they are vulnerable to covid in a medical underlying health condition way, or maybe they have health anxiety, or maybe they feel scared of covid in an OCD contamination way , or maybe they are scared because they have lost loved ones to covid, maybe they are scared of picking it up and transmitting it to loved ones, maybe they are anxious about contracting it and being ill and losing wages or their business. If you have no anxiety about this pandemic, then maybe you should consider yourself very lucky, and should have lots of strength to be generous emotionally to those of us anxious people who are not so lucky as yourself. Please think carefully.

Govt officials have already said there won't be a need for national lockdown. There maybe restrictions if an area gets a lot of cases.

@penni00 all fair points, I'm probably more angry at the media that fuels the anxiety, prompting threads like these, which fuels anxiety. It's a viscous circle.

@BeakyWinder
Thank you for seeing my point of view. Regarding the media fuelling the anxiety, I agree. I read the Guardian, which is a bit on the pessimistic side regarding the pandemic, maybe I should switch to the Telegraph and live in a nice optimistic bubble lol. Then I may change from an anxious wreck to a cool cucumber!!!

@Torvean

Govt officials have already said there won't be a need for national lockdown. There maybe restrictions if an area gets a lot of cases.

Yes. The Prime Minister said it very firmly in July 2020.

Read the i newspaper it is a lot more neutral and not all headlines for clicks.

The guardian has been more like the mail all pandemic. Don't know if it was bad before. By Christmas you saw a new thread scaremongering and everyone said "Bet it is the guardian again".

Why can’t we discuss concerns on here, this specific place, not AIBU or chat or anywhere else, but this space that was set up specifically for this topic!!

No hand wringing here, no wishing for lockdowns, not wishing for further restrictions, I’m happy back at work but still, why can’t this be discussed without the backlash!

If you feel angry about someone bringing up information about something other than ‘DATES rather than DATA’ then just don’t bother reading the thread.

I’m grateful that Twitter exists and I can read views from the likes of Prof. Christina Pagel, hey, she’s a Professor for a reason, surely! And she doesn’t spread doom and gloom but rather facts.

Why can’t we discuss facts without some posters making sloppy comments about others, making out they’re loving the thought of another lockdown etc

Surely that’s what this particular forum is about!

Remember that those lines from Bridge of Spies?

"You don't seem worried."

"Would it help?"

But in life we discuss our concerns don’t we? Is there anything wrong with that? Really?

That post is not the only one like that. Whitty has reportedly said that the situation is bleak! I'm sick of it. I think they sowing the seed so that people get accustomed to the next lockdown, possibly late summer/early autumn www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/experts-brian-cox-royal-society-b933678.html?amp. It's getting so predictable

@Sparrowcrane

That post is not the only one like that. Whitty has reportedly said that the situation is bleak! I'm sick of it. I think they sowing the seed so that people get accustomed to the next lockdown, possibly late summer/early autumn www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/experts-brian-cox-royal-society-b933678.html?amp. It's getting so predictable

Whitty knows that the government have no plans to stop the next wave, end covid, beat covid, or get covid done.

He knows what's in place will not be adequate or effective.

So he knows there's going to be another wave.

The only variable is when, which will be determined by our behaviour and the dominant variant(s)

And possibly seasonality, but I don't think covid is seasonal. We only think it is because we were in restrictions until August 1st last year and the kids were off school. The numbers ticked up pretty steadily from mid-August onwards.

Can you post a link to when witty said recently the situation was bleak in the Uk?

Because I think I’m going to have to see the evidence of that..

@DaveMinion a whole case? Shiiiit

@Normandy144

But so many of us are vaccinated now, especially the elderly. Can't really get worked up about this to be honest. We're going to get variants we can't lockdown forever for every mutation.

The variations which evolve to become more vaccine resistant will become most successful and more prevalent and potentially come dominate the picture. That might not be now, with this particular variant, but in general that's how viruses work. It is always a risk. A zero Covid strategy may not be realistic but we do need to keep a close eye on what is happening with variants and that can be done most effectively while numbers are low. The government completely underestimated this back in the autumn with the Kent variant (or chose to ignore the science because they felt that another lockdown was politically undesirable) and look how numbers suddenly took off. We were lucky then, that the vaccines were still fully effective - the rushed-through vaccine programme basically saved our bacon - but next time, they might not be so effective. Then we have a MAJOR problem.

@Bluntness100

Can you post a link to when witty said recently the situation was bleak in the Uk?

Because I think I’m going to have to see the evidence of that..

The link to the article is in my post below. The "bleak " word was about the world overall, however he also said that the vaccine does not give full protection from the virus and that variants would land on our shores, ie UK

The link to the article is in my post below. The "bleak " word was about the world overall, however he also said that the vaccine does not give full protection from the virus and that variants would land on our shores, ie UK

Well that’s very different now isnt it. It is bleak globally. Have you seen India? And no one has ever said vaccines are one hundred percent.

@bishbashbosh99

Oh do bore off

I'm with you.

I think we need some perspective. If the variant (or any other variant) is more transmissible ( and comparing transmission in the UK to transmission in India is like comparing apples and pears even if you disregard ongoing restrictions) then that, in itself, is something to keep an eye on, but not really anything to worry about. Lots of things are easily transmissible, including the common cold and flu. The factor of concern needs to be focussed on whether something is either causing significant levels of serious illness or death. And again, yes, it is happening in India but there is absolutely no evidence that that translates into the same impact in the UK.

As others have stated here, nowhere is aiming for zero Covid. Because there is absolutely no way on earth that, barring a miracle or the virus suddenly burning out (which does happen, but is really rare) that Covid will ever go away. So we have vaccines now that will help (eventually) the entire population to to reduce the most sever cases and many deaths. An artificial form of herd immunity. And in the longer term, transmission is probably going to become a good thing - the more people who get it and successfully fight it off, the more the population builds natural herd immunity. So eventually, in the future, it likely becomes what flu is - something that has some variation every year, and those more susceptible to the worst cases due to age or vulnerability have an annual booster every year - and the rest of the population, if they get it at all, phone in sick for a few days because they are feeling under the weather.

It seems hard to envisage that ever being the case right now after the year everyone has just had, but we need to remember that viruses emerge constantly, and some of those impact on the human race. It has ever been thus. You could argue that the advantage we had previously was that we couldn't have identified it if we tried, we couldn't have done anything about it, and we probably wouldn't have known anything about it either. In an age of mass communications, sometimes we all know far too much, and simultaneously far too little.

I think the truth is a lot of people are scared to “get back out there” in forms of socialism so cling on to the hope of another lockdown.

Well, my partner and I have just booked tickets for the Beautiful Days Festival along with 18,000 others for the first week in August in Devon. We will be double vaxxed by then.

If there is going to be another lockdown, i’m going to make the most of my freedom now. I’m going on holiday to Gibraltar, I have the next 10 weekends booked up, London theatre, hotel stays, bottomless brunch, out to dinner, visiting friends, BBQ’s. I’m going to enjoy every minute.

The summer months are definately the time to make hay!!

Virus does what viruses do and mutates...yeah, nope, no fucks left to give for the hysteria over this. I think I saw my last flying fuck fly out of the building and way off into the distance long ago, in fact