All this has to stop. We can’t live like this!

[SweetsMum3]

We need to learn to live with covid like we do with all other viruses, illnesses and diseases. The elderly and high risk are vaccinated… that was the goal, remember?! Like Hancock said, we will cry freedom when the over 70s are vaccinated!

There is no reason for mass testing when the young and healthy get covid mildly. My child is in tears yet again because she isn’t allowed to go to school for 10 days. A few students in her year group tested positive and all students are forced to be locked in their homes… again.

Are the sick?! No. Half have no symptoms. The others have a slight fever and feel a little tired.

This isn’t fair. This isn’t healthy. This isn’t sane. This is harmful and destructive to children. An entire generation has been betrayed. For what exactly? Over a virus which does not affect them. Over fear. Over people being immensely risk-averse. Over loss of control and people can’t take it.

It is time we live our lives and get back to normal before it’s too late. If our children hold us accountable and never forgive us, I will completely understand. We have not stood-up for them. Instead, we cowered in fear not giving a hoot about the collateral damage all these restrictions have caused. Shame on us.

Interesting to note the 'protests' will be in London. Where protests are two a penny and so barely noticed.

One of them admitted on another thread that they wouldn't want to protest in a market town or village...because they wouldn't have the support of the locals. (Not that they have the support of long suffering Londoners either, but it's more likely people - and police - would be less tolerant of the disruption elsewhere). If they had widespread public support, they'd be able to hold the 'protest' anywhere.

@Castlepeak

So explain to me what happens in a household where a child brings home Covid to a cancer patient mother or a transplant patient sibling. Sure, a very young child may not make the connection, but you don’t think a 12 year old is going to realize they are the one who brought it home? No one is feeding that line to kids. Kids have vulnerable family members and kids aren’t stupid. It’s our job to prevent it from happening so they don’t have to live with the guilt*

The very sad fact is that the environment in which we live has been fundamentally (and in my view permanently) changed by the existence of Covid.

Whilst cancer patients, and other medically vulnerable individuals might just about have survived in the old environment, this new environment is different and they are not able to adapt to it.

Individuals who are not well adapted to their environments will, very sadly, not be able to survive in them, and I think we’ve reached a point where our attempts to mitigate these environmental changes are having such a huge collateral damage cost, that they are not sustainable in the long term.

We will just have to get used to cancer/transplant survival rates being far lower across the board.

Blaming young people for these environmental changes is an awful thing to do IMO. The problem here is COVID, and people’s unwillingness to accept that people become sick and frequently die from their illnesses.

Pyewackect

How many daily Covid deaths is deemed the acceptable cost of "living with this virus". Serious question ?.

Same yearly amount as flu? Unless you were up in arms demanding lockdown over flu deaths in every previous year, in which case I apologise, I presume that's an amount we are generally okay with as a society.

And before someone says "covid isn't flu!" - yes of course covid isn't flu, but with widespread vaccination, eventually (soon) it won't kill any more people in the UK than flu does. Probably fewer, because the vaccines are more effective and the vaccine programme is more comprehensive.

....which is how many then ?????????

Yep @vegas888

Welcome to Narnia.

Hugo Gye
@HugoGye
PHE's Susan Hopkins: "We may need to do further lockdowns this winter, I can't predict the future, it really depends on whether hospitals get overwhelmed at some point." Suggests that moving freedom day to 5th July rather than 19th would increase risk of going backwards again

@Teateaandmoretea

And there's the rub...if everyone world-wide was locked down at the same time, there would be no more new strains...or they would die out before they could spread. Won't happen. Can you imagine trying to get every leader of every country to agree and then to coordinate it? And then to get their citizens to fully comply? The mind boggles. But it would work.

No it wouldn’t.

You would have to shut everything including supermarkets, hospitals etc.

Even just one remaining infected person could potentially kick off the whole thing again.

Yeah but one (or two) infected person is easy to track and isolate. Small numbers of cases are easily managed - and therefore it is suppressed and contained.

I don't need people to agree with everything, I like to read other people's views, but I am tired of everything being dismissed out of hand.

Yes I do agree with you on this, that's why I was honestly confused about your stance on vaccinating children (or more, that you couldn't understand why other parents might be against it).

@Tealightsandd

You are entitled totally to your view. The absolute arrogance that you are right and speak for the majority however is staggering.

You need to open your eyes to what is going on out there and what other people think. Actions speak much louder than words.

@Pyewackect

Pyewackect

How many daily Covid deaths is deemed the acceptable cost of "living with this virus". Serious question ?.

Same yearly amount as flu? Unless you were up in arms demanding lockdown over flu deaths in every previous year, in which case I apologise, I presume that's an amount we are generally okay with as a society.

And before someone says "covid isn't flu!" - yes of course covid isn't flu, but with widespread vaccination, eventually (soon) it won't kill any more people in the UK than flu does. Probably fewer, because the vaccines are more effective and the vaccine programme is more comprehensive.

....which is how many then ?????????

Why not just google? It’s all in public domain. Although no one pays much attention.

Yeah but one (or two) infected person is easy to track and isolate. Small numbers of cases are easily managed - and therefore it is suppressed and contained.

Track and trace is absolutely never ever easy. A ridiculous statement.

Agree, the vulnerable are all vaccinated. If anybody is vaccinated but still terrified of catching covid they can manager their own risk.

Some people have behaved in a really controlling crazy way. A friend was telling me how awful a relative has been to her because she said no thank you to a vaccine. You'd swear she cracked a vial of monkey pox in a creche.

@Mamanyt

Guys, I so understand everyone's frustration with all of this. Here is the problem...this virus is mutating quickly, and in ways that we do not totally understand. Eventually, there will be a mutation that is just as dangerous to young people as it is to older ones, and probably more lethal to everyone, and POSSIBLY vaccine resistant. AND NO COUNTRY HAS EVER GOTTEN 100% COOPERATION WITH PRECAUTIONS. None. Nowhere. Especially in my poor country, where we had a madman at the helm for 4 years.

If every country could/would enforce strict guidelines for 90 days, and if everyone complied to the fullest, this virus would be gone. Not going to happen. Whether you are trying to be part of the solution, or saying "I'm tired of it all, I'm doing what I want," it isn't going to happen. This stuff will keep being part of our lives.

I agree. The world has changed as it does over time. We are not going back to exactly how it was before COVID because its here to stay unless we alllocked ourselves up for 90 days...

DH and I run our own business, and employ 8 staff. We've come through this by the skin of our teeth, and only because we had had a very good Christmas beforehand which buffered us through the worst of it. We're trying so so hard to get back to normal - but our suppliers are in the main a complete fucking nightmare. Due to lack of staff on the ground due to social distancing and Covid restrictions, they're struggling to run effectively and in return that's impacting on the service we can offer.

We have to stop hiding from a virus that for the majority is a mild inconvenience. People have lost jobs and businesses; children have been denied their education and the elderly forced into isolation damaging their mental health. Enough already. And I'm scared to even begin to imagine the health consequences for those who've been denied healthcare in the last 15 months.

@MercyBooth

Yep *@vegas888*

Welcome to Narnia.

Hugo Gye
@HugoGye
PHE's Susan Hopkins: "We may need to do further lockdowns this winter, I can't predict the future, it really depends on whether hospitals get overwhelmed at some point." Suggests that moving freedom day to 5th July rather than 19th would increase risk of going backwards again

Yes one step forwards, two steps back

Hence why it's better to do it properly in the first place, instead of keeping on fucking up at the last minute and therefore prolonging it. Again and again.

We need to take mitigation measures now. Get the majority vaccinated. Not keep on dragging it out, making matters worse, allowing the risk of the UK developing a potentially vaccine resistant mutated strain from un or semi vaccinated people.

@serenjico

I don't need people to agree with everything, I like to read other people's views, but I am tired of everything being dismissed out of hand.

Yes I do agree with you on this, that's why I was honestly confused about your stance on vaccinating children (or more, that you couldn't understand why other parents might be against it).

Oh, I see. I rather interpreted that as being you thought the vaccines didn't work.

I am a) knackered and b) also watching telly, so apologies for misunderstanding

the vulnerable are all vaccinated

It's like a brain washed mantra.

No the vulnerable are not all vaccinated.

And because of Long Covid risks, everybody is potentially vulnerable.

....which is how many then ?????????

Varies year by year, but say somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000?

@LucilleTheVampireBat

Children are being protected from being the vector that kills their own loved ones

I think it is disgusting that people find it acceptable to say things like this. To put that burden and that responsibility on children. It's genuinely chilling.

Agreed. This is same sort of mentality as the suggestion that mothers who die in childbirth were 'killed' by their own child.

It's a cruel and unfair burden to foist upon a child; not least totally inaccurate. Of all the people with any form of culpability relating to the pandemic. children bear none. This post disgusted me, too

Yeah but one (or two) infected person is easy to track and isolate. Small numbers of cases are easily managed - and therefore it is suppressed and contained.

But it's not one or two. Even imagining we could get most people to somehow stock up 90 days worth of food so supermarkets could close... people are still travelling all the time for work. Those people don't have to quarantine or leave their details so they can be contacted in the event of a positive case.

So variants are still getting in, ready and waiting for when we finally emerge, utterly fucking done with it and expecting it to be over.... only to realise it's not actually over AGAIN.

What do you think that would do for compliance with further restrictions? For pandemic fatigue?

Obviously in a hypothetical world with enough agreement and resources it might work.

But considering the gov's last version of lockdown was shutting down gov owned buildings and having the contractors in everyday to aimlessly wander around and not give them any sick pay if they needed to isolate... no I'm not really willing to bet 3 months of my life on the hope that they'll throw the correct resources at it this time...

@Tealightsandd

Interesting to note the 'protests' will be in London. Where protests are two a penny and so barely noticed.

One of them admitted on another thread that they wouldn't want to protest in a market town or village...because they wouldn't have the support of the locals. (Not that they have the support of long suffering Londoners either, but it's more likely people - and police - would be less tolerant of the disruption elsewhere). If they had widespread public support, they'd be able to hold the 'protest' anywhere.

Don't be daft. Protests are done in London because it's the easiest place to get to from other cities due to coaches and trains. If they were in a village only people who can drive would be able to come. Also, the Trafalgar Square protests had about 40k people attending so it's safe to say they were noticed.

And how do you know there would be no support for an anti lockdown protest in a village? So you have to be from a city to be able to see the harm in lockdown, to be able to have a business that was ruined by lockdown etc.? What utter bollocks

The latest research indicates that Covid can have neurological effects even on those who have it mildly. I would absolutely not assume that this is a safe disease for children or young people to get, even if they appear to get it mildly at the time it presents.

@unim

The latest research indicates that Covid can have neurological effects even on those who have it mildly. I would absolutely not assume that this is a safe disease for children or young people to get, even if they appear to get it mildly at the time it presents.

If the risk is higher than than from vaccination then do that. If there’s a benefit to the group being vaccinated then it will be in decision.

I agree.

I would have agreed a whole year ago.

@TheSockMonster Thank you. I should stay off these threads. I find them so triggering and some posters deeply self-absorbed. Yes, totally asymptomatic and contracted via either DH (teacher) or DS from school despite shielding as best she could in those circumstances. She's so very very poorly now and frankly it's hard to care what the rest of the population is up to or what they deem reasonable anymore. Life will never be normal for us again, sadly. But hey, at least she's one of the 99.9% who supposedly 'survived' whatever narrow definition people have of what that means!

Yes, totally agree. Stop testing kids to end this farce

@Mamanyt

“this virus is mutating quickly, and in ways that we do not totally understand. Eventually, there will be a mutation that is just as dangerous to young people as it is to older ones, and probably more lethal to everyone, and POSSIBLY vaccine resistant.”

This virus is mutating more slowly than the flu virus and there is absolutely no guarantee that there will be a strain that is more dangerous to young people or more lethal