Time to move on

[Clotsaway]

This virus is here to stay and will always be around. So my question is, do we as a country move on once we are all vaccinated and get on with life as it were pre pandemic. Go out with friends, no face masks, travel Internationally and enjoy holidays, no bubbles at work or school. Not isolating untill we have a negative test ect ect. Or are we OK with going back a step everytime a new mutation pops up.

Personally for me, I think as this is around forever now and eventually will be controlled, I want things to go back to normal normal not go back a few steps if a variant appear. We can't evade them all and eventually one will evade the vaccines to an extent, but to lock the country up as we have and are doing, it's intolerable.

Florida? Where they suppressed the true statistics? I can assure you De Santis’s strategy made no sense to the people I know that live there whose lives were considerably restricted by the fact that the pandemic was raging around them, and you did not want to find yourself in an emergency room. The only saving Grace was that the weather has been good so you could go out and eat outside safely.

And you are right about lockdowns to the extent that the countries that actually do have low death rates did not lock down to the extent we had to, so their economies were protected. The key is effective track, trace and isolate (both cases and contacts) and border control. Keep a lid on case numbers and fewer people are affected and more people can be out and about. We are only where we are now because thousands of people were allowed back from India without strict controls on isolating when it was clear India was in the grip of a more transmissible variant.

It should not be political, it is just the boring logistics of effective infection control which is like a leaky sieve, no one measure works entirely but put together you limit cases. Our lockdowns only had to be repeated because they didn’t put the other sieves in place effectively and case numbers ran out of control.

@Poorlykitten - @LoveNote is correct. Just from Mumsnet you could learn that, without looking any further.

I have know several people who had the virus, all to differing degrees, all recovered.

I don't know anyone who has died from Covid-19.

I know many children who have had their education severely disrupted by this, people who have had cancer treatment delayed, people who have lost their businesses and people who have lost their jobs. I also know people hanging on with furlough "on and off" who may well end up out of work when it ends. I know families who have been separated for far too long because of travel restrictions.

I have attended a "socially" distanced funeral for a dearly loved relative who died with most of her family unable to see her for months, all stood in spaced out pews, unable to meet afterwards to console each other. And I considered that we were fortunate, as I know someone whose parent died early on, when funerals were banned, and they drove to the crematorium and stood outside the fence watching as their father's coffin was taken inside.

Deaths are down, infections are down, people are getting and less serious, the NHS isn't overrun with covid patients, the country has rolled out vaccines to all the vulnerable groups and now this is just another virus that we learn to live with.

If people want to carry on wearing masks, not travel anywhere etc, they are free to do so.

The rest of us should be able to go back to normal, before we all forget what normal was.

from the Telegraph, explaining the rationale for caution for the next few weeks

www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/face-third-wave-covid-19-die-may-already-have-cast/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

Yeah, you can do anything.

Apart from see a GP face to face; go to a big hospital appointment with a loved one with a bad diagnosis; go to a parents night; enter your child's school; watch a school graduation; visit your new school if you’re a child; sing in a choir; have live music in a pub; go out to dinner with your whole family; stay in a restaurant or bar for more than two hours; visit a historic property or gallery without pre booking and masking up; travel; visit a hospital or care home; play or watch many sports;go to the theatre or a concert; get married with unlimited guests; go to a festival; travel to see loved ones, or just for travel’s sake; go to your office; walk to a checkout in a supermarket without bracing for having the arcane and arbitrary rules barked at you; sit in school all day mask free;

Or go to the bar; stand up and mingle for a drinks reception at wedding; have a party for a big birthday; go to a nursery sports day; have a shower after swimming; go swimming or a gym class without prebooking. Loads of leisure centres are not open or fully open. It’s hard to get booked into things. You can’t wander round a car showroom or sit in it until your car is ready. So many things. And all of the things that are allowed are supposed to be with masks, one way systems; plexiglass and just utterly abnormal and stressful.

@WouldBeGood

Yeah, you can do anything.

Apart from see a GP face to face; go to a big hospital appointment with a loved one with a bad diagnosis; go to a parents night; enter your child's school; watch a school graduation; visit your new school if you’re a child; sing in a choir; have live music in a pub; go out to dinner with your whole family; stay in a restaurant or bar for more than two hours; visit a historic property or gallery without pre booking and masking up; travel; visit a hospital or care home; play or watch many sports;go to the theatre or a concert; get married with unlimited guests; go to a festival; travel to see loved ones, or just for travel’s sake; go to your office; walk to a checkout in a supermarket without bracing for having the arcane and arbitrary rules barked at you; sit in school all day mask free;

So we've had face to face GP appointments all the way through (if warranted, for example for suspected cancer diagnosis).

I have been to hospital appointments several times with my now teenage son, who started immune suppressant therapy 2 months ago.

Parents night works very well online and I have never had so much contact with or feedback from teachers.

Shopping - it is not much of an inconvenience to wear a mask and the staff are usually very helpful. And a lot of it is still online (to be honest we were using online previously also)

I can also visit my son's school (for particular reasons) as I have got more involved with it.

My daughter is signed up for sports sessions every day, effectively.

My son's school is fine with them sitting in school all day masks free. (Son chooses to wear a mask unless he's doing a presentation etc)

My understanding is that people have been able to travel overseas to see and support loved ones who are ill and need support in at least some situations.

We've been away on air b and b breaks twice now in the UK, especially to support my MIL (who was allowed visits in hospital from her children).

We have chosen not to eat out as CEV, so don't do that, no. The occasional takeaway or tea served outside, yes.

I can understand the rules around weddings, but I can also see how frustrating and expensive it must be for so many families to put plans on hold.

As for indoor theatres, crowded festivals and overseas travel, that seems frankly quite unwise as things are, and we wouldn't do that even if all the putative restrictions were lifted.

However you justify it, don’t mind it, or haven’t been personally affected, it’s not normal.

I want us to get through this as a nation, ideally with as little disruption to livelihood, and as little illness and death as possible.

However, "normal" doesn't really come into it.

I was told on here mm that things are pretty much back to normal.

Whatever one’s views in continuing restrictions, things are clearly not normal.

What is normal? There is no normal that you are entitled to in life. One day you can be living your life doing all the things you want and enjoy and the next you could be hit by a bus or get a Cancer diagnosis (oh the irony of those wanting to end restrictions picking on Cancer patients as one of their causes) and your life can never be that normal again. You just have to adjust to a new normal. In the past 18 months that has happened on a global scale and regardless of whether it is your personal experience this virus has caused a lot of suffering and if you have no empathy for that then I am sure you can feel comfortable with your sense of entitlement to normal. It’s not a conspiracy, or a resonant assault, it’s a virus. I have had Covid with no symptoms but that does not mean I don’t read about the experiences of others around the world and want to make my contribution to getting us through this without further unnecessary deaths. I do get death is a fact of life - I have had to look over that cliff - it is just that depriving people of good years of life or leaving them with debilitating illness when it is a matter of acting as a community to prevent it isn’t OK in my book.

Anyway it seems as if polls show the majority of us feel that way.

@Emilyontmoor what a lot of patronising claptrap.

You know nothing about my life or why I feel as i do, clearly you lack empathy and are simply convinced that you are right.

@WouldBeGood
It's not normal, but the whole situation isn't normal... What should we have done instead of have those restrictions?

My point was that people keep saying on here that things are pretty normal.

They’re not.

That’s all.

@Pennypie

I have know several people who had the virus, all to differing degrees, all recovered.

I don't know anyone who has died from Covid-19.

I know many children who have had their education severely disrupted by this, people who have had cancer treatment delayed, people who have lost their businesses and people who have lost their jobs. I also know people hanging on with furlough "on and off" who may well end up out of work when it ends. I know families who have been separated for far too long because of travel restrictions.

I have attended a "socially" distanced funeral for a dearly loved relative who died with most of her family unable to see her for months, all stood in spaced out pews, unable to meet afterwards to console each other. And I considered that we were fortunate, as I know someone whose parent died early on, when funerals were banned, and they drove to the crematorium and stood outside the fence watching as their father's coffin was taken inside.

Deaths are down, infections are down, people are getting and less serious, the NHS isn't overrun with covid patients, the country has rolled out vaccines to all the vulnerable groups and now this is just another virus that we learn to live with.

If people want to carry on wearing masks, not travel anywhere etc, they are free to do so.

The rest of us should be able to go back to normal, before we all forget what normal was.

Great idea Except the majority are in favour of not lifting restrictions at present So how about you go find yourself a little island to live on with your covid minimising views and anyone who can join you and deal with it

[quote WouldBeGood]@Emilyontmoor what a lot of patronising claptrap.

You know nothing about my life or why I feel as i do, clearly you lack empathy and are simply convinced that you are right.[/quote]
Equally stop assuming that others haven't been impacted by this to an equal or greater extent than yourself . Just as they have a different view to view

Totally agree with your list @herecomesthsun.

GPs triage via phone or econsult @WouldBeGood then see you if needed, which tbh seems a far better method. Hospitals do indeed allow a carer or relative if needed. You really do need to try and be a glass half full type person your defeatist attitude must be exhausting. Tragic that you can't wander round a car showroom

@Pennypie
If people want to carry on wearing masks, not travel anywhere etc, they are free to do so.

The rest of us should be able to go back to normal

That would be dandy, if it didn't put everyone else (who are trying to ge through this) at risk.

Yes it did actually. So what do you actually do to contribute to sorting all this out?

Most of our household's income for almost a year.

There is no normal that you are entitled to in life

Given that we live(ed?) in a Western democracy you'll forgive most people for assuming that the rights to free movement, freedom of association and freedom to earn a living were somewhat of a given.

Can I just ask you, if you support continued restrictions, at what point do you think they should be lifted?

@Blossomtoes

Can I just ask you, if you support continued restrictions, at what point do you think they should be lifted?

when it can be safely assumed, based on triangulation of multiple sources of evidence, that lifting all restrictions isn't going to lead to exponential increase of transmission that translates into overwhelmed hospitals or emergence of new variants that escape prior immunity at a rate that we can't keep up with

Now, in other words. Hospitals aren’t overwhelmed, daily deaths are in single figures.

@Blossomtoes

Now, in other words. Hospitals aren’t overwhelmed, daily deaths are in single figures.

yup, right now this true

However, there isn't enough data yet to understand the delta variant may affect these trajectories (based on the idea it shows increased transmission and vaccines show less efficacy)

lifting all restrictions when it is currently unclear what will happen in the current situation, let alone if all restrictions were lifted, is reckless. Avoiding another emergency national lockdown (ie, all hospitality, education, non-urgent healthcare etc) is the top priority as this far more damaging than extending the current restrictions a while longer.

Presumably if we found ourselves in a war, we would not assume that things would continue as normal?

The current situation of a global health crisis means that many countries have been facing national emergencies.

Not normal, no.

Thankfully however, closer to what we are used to than full lockdown was.

Given the bullish libertarian tendencies of this government, I think they would be keen to prioritise business as normal in all senses of the word if they thought they could get away with it and not have a worse health crisis in a few weeks time.

I think the vaccines have been a great boon but they aren't perfect and I'm sure there is a lot of work going on to look at boosters etc.