To Have This Virus Forever

[Dave20]

Just listened to Radio 2s Jeremy Vine show, about the prospect of living with covid forever, which Patrick Vallance has said will be.
Talk of social distancing forever, wearing masks forever and people working from home where they can, still.
Other ideas are staying at home if you’re ill until you have a test.
It’s utterly depressing. What about the financial costs? People having lots of sick leave because they have a cold, and don’t even have covid. People not isolating because they won’t get paid.
How will people form relationships and meet partners?
How can theatres and sporting venues operate with limited spectators?
What about not about ever shaking hands with people or giving people a hug?
What kind of future will our children have? Companies will be smaller meaning less opportunities.
The economic affect of people working at home in mass numbers,ditching the office, leaving ghost towns and pubs and restaurants closing, along with industries in hospitality.
Surely the death rate of covid can’t be worth sacrificing our kids futures? I’m sure even older people who are most at risk of dying wouldn’t want these measures forever?
The one thing I can’t understand is social distancing, the people who want it to stay forever! Many businesses rely on a full ‘house’ to stay open.

Social distancing, especially amongst friends/ family/ loved ones I cannot see how they can possibly expect people to adhere to that forever. It just won’t happen.

Masks, they would have to make it law really, it would have to be enforced. There will be some who will voluntarily wear them, but I suspect most will ditch them as soon as they can.

Quite frankly, I think they will have to start making more restrictions law, as public goodwill is dropping.

Most people I know are ‘happy’ to wait until everyone is fully vaccinated but the prospect that this can be forever makes them very angry. I am also noticing ‘fear’ of variants is reducing as well.

The few people I know who were refusing to leave the house have started going out again.

Personally, my biggest fear about all of this is that we will forever live with restrictions of some sort.

Many businesses rely on a full ‘house’ to stay open
And those at the top of society have relied on the existence of cheap bread and circuses to placate the masses and distract attention away from gross inequality
The times they are a changing🎶

I don't think they will make it law. I think they have decided they can't control people anymore and instead they have to educate people to take personal responsibility. It will become socially unacceptable to put others at risk as spreading covid will damage peoples health and livelihoods. So it think the restrictions will be due to people realising the severity if the threat from covid and going whatever they can in their power to minimise it. I'm sure testing/vaccines will play a large part.

I there there are some bonuses too though. I'm sick of reading that by not going back to the office I'm contributing to the loss of the local Pret or whatever.

Sorry, hadn't realised I was at my most useful as a citizen if I hauled my ass 90 minutes each way to a different city to bring my laptop to a different room for no reason whatsoever.

Just listened to Radio 2s Jeremy Vine show, about the prospect of living with covid forever, which Patrick Vallance has said will be.
Talk of social distancing forever, wearing masks forever and people working from home where they can, still.

@Dave20

But presumably it's not Vallance or someone else saying this? You'll always be able to get someone with ridiculous opinions to say we need "social distancing forever" to make an interesting radio show that people tweet about

Potentially in the long term it'll become socially acceptable to wear a mask if you've got a cold whilst in the shops (already standard in many parts of Asian) and other things like we'll be more aware of the importance of good ventilation, wfh if you're feeling a bit rubbish, better hand hygiene.

At the moment they are trying to protect us by telling us what to do but that's not working. I think once everyone is vaccinated they will let us learn for ourselves that we have to be responsible about it. Behaviour which spreads it carelessly will be socially unacceptable.

Also - stop listening to Jeremy Vine, it's more transmissible than Covid and leads to many years of brain fog.

I believe that living with covid forever will look different as time goes on. Life will not go back to exactly the way it was, certainly not quickly. But it will get a lot better. I think that we will find an ever-shifting balance between infection and restrictions, and I optimistically believe that this will get better in time where both will lessen. It will take longer than we expected though.

Wfh if you feel slightly unwell, or need to isolate, is all very well if you have a job that is compatible with wfh which seems to be most of MN but for a lot of people that have to go out to work this will mean not getting paid.

@SoMuchForSummerLove

Also - stop listening to Jeremy Vine, it's more transmissible than Covid and leads to many years of brain fog.

ha ha ha!!!!

Apart from what SoMuchForSummerLove said, there is a big difference betweeen living with Covid forever and dealing with restrictions forever. Spanish 'Flu didn't disappear - it just because part of the normal 'flu viruses. I suspect Covid will be the same - in some years the Covid wave will be more severe, and we'll all worry in the same way that we did for H5N1, but unless a variant comes out that evades vaccines completely AND is deadly (particularly if a variant comes out which is deadly to younger people) then I think we'll just get used to it.

I think masks will stay the norm, and it could be a year or more until international travel is normal again, but if the vaccine programme can turn this into a less serious disease then we'll see individual countries opening up to normal.

This is clearly a huge question exercising far greater minds than my own, or indeed, the minds that appear on the Jeremy Vine show.

Ok so say it comes to pass that some Covid restrictions are in place, human beings are inventive, creative, adaptable.

Things have changed. Things always change, albeit at a slower pace. Humans are social animals, we all will find a way to adapt.

Perhaps not having city centric offices will lead to more, smaller urban areas, local grassroots theatre might take off giving opportunities to more performers rather than a handful of stars. Big events might ask for LFT, whilst you wait for 30 minutes something will happen that will be part of the evening.

Yes it's possible to despair, but it's also possible that the change society needs might be accelerated.

Not sure what the choice is really.

I could bemoan to our children that life is never going to be fun again, which really doesn't help ours much. Or I can admit I have no idea what will emerge from the ashes but it could be a brighter future with less inequality, more spaces to mix outdoors, smaller but more local opportunities.

Who knows?

I can see things being a bit different for the next couple of year but ultimately the majority of people want to get back to 'proper' normal so I can only imagine thats what the Governments aim is ultimately.

There's no possible way to force people to do this long term or even short term.

Who has actually said that social distancing is going to be forever?

Nobody! In leaked documents yesterday they said social distancing would be scrapped but that masks might remain in some situations.

I don’t think we will have restrictions forever. Hardly anyone is social distancing now, we don’t even need to when mixing with family and friends. No one will go back to distancing again. We might have things like masks abc distancing in public for a while but it will naturally phase out.

Or they might become seasonal, and become the norm during winter months for public transport, for example.

@Pinuporc

Wfh if you feel slightly unwell, or need to isolate, is all very well if you have a job that is compatible with wfh which seems to be most of MN but for a lot of people that have to go out to work this will mean not getting paid.

Exactly

In real life I know one person who works from home

Everyone else is retail / maintenance/ engineer/ nhs / etc

I actually found the government broadcast the other day quite depressing. I do feel life has changed forever and I wonder how my adult children and grandchild will cope with it all. Sometimes, I feel Im not coping. I hate bl**dy queuing with a passion. I have to use public transport and will definitely keep my mask on for that. Nothing spontaneous anymore, book 6 months in advance if you want to do anything. My only pleasures were theatre, library and live music. I feel the joy has been sucked out of everything. The one thing that did concern me was when Mr Vallance (I think it was), mentioned something about future variants. This ain't over by a long chalk. Re masks etc people are already pleasing themselves, but personally I listen to Profs Whitty and Vallance and up here Mr Leitch. They know their stuff and give me more confidence than any politician.

@SoMuchForSummerLove

Also - stop listening to Jeremy Vine, it's more transmissible than Covid and leads to many years of brain fog.

Long Jeremy Vine 😂

There really can’t be a legitimate case for keeping this stuff going ad infinitum. Once all adults are fully vaccinated there will still be some people who catch it, get ill from it, get hospitalised by it, die from it but those risks will have been reduced down to the level of other viruses that we don’t respond like this for.

I’d happily pay a bit more tax so the NHS didn’t fall over every winter if it meant I could go back to work in person and we could drop the nonsense of isolating non-household contacts of cases.

Patrick Vallance also said last February that covid wasn't serious and it was unlikely to ever make it to the UK.

He then stated that a natural herd-immunity plan was the best way for the UK to cope with the virus.

I really have absolutely no interest in anything he has to say any more!

@JeanClaudeVanDammit

There really can’t be a legitimate case for keeping this stuff going ad infinitum. Once all adults are fully vaccinated there will still be some people who catch it, get ill from it, get hospitalised by it, die from it but those risks will have been reduced down to the level of other viruses that we don’t respond like this for.

I’d happily pay a bit more tax so the NHS didn’t fall over every winter if it meant I could go back to work in person and we could drop the nonsense of isolating non-household contacts of cases.

those risks will have been reduced down to the level of other viruses that we don’t respond like this for

Please name one that is

1. Contagious to the extent you cannot simply change your behaviour to avoid it (like aids)
2. Potentially serious to otherwise healthy people
3. Transmits relatively easily through fully vaccinated people (i.e. no herd immunity)

It also stated in those documents that there would need to be an overhaul of how isolating is funded:

www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/politico-london-playbook-living-with-corona-work-from-home-long-term-perspex-screens-scrapped/