Are you looking forward to the 19th..? Can you slip back in to “normal” life.

[loobyshoes]

As above….

How do you feel? Can just go back to Pre Covid life?

Well all the hospitals Drs surgeries are still keeping them, 9n fact I feel weird now without one, just brought a new one.

@ClaudiaWankleman

I find all the gloating about not having to wear a mask really distasteful. For CV people and people with CV children the 19th is basically another lockdown.

Except CV people will have been vaccinated and those with CV children will be going back to the normal they had pre February 2020, as they will have been CV vulnerable to things like the flu. It's not a lockdown.

Do you think the flu runs rampant in these figures all year round?

I'm clinically vulnerable (type 1 diabetes) and any illness can cause my blood sugar to shoot up and put me in hospital (it's happened to me in the past with things like a chest infection or ear infection resulting from a simple cold)
No-one wore masks and socially distanced around me prior to covid so I didn't get sick- nor did I expect them to. Personally I don't see the changes on 19th as a lockdown for me- I will carry on pretty much as I am.

I can’t go back to ‘normal’ life atm. Was retired but came back to vacccinate so looking forward to retirement again in the future. Will still have to wear a mask for 12 hour shifts and probably will wear one when I’m shopping etc to protect other people because i can see over 100 people a day at the vaccination centre.

Bad news:

Sainsbury's and Tesco have joined the bookseller, Waterstones, which has said customers should wear masks to protect staff and other shoppers.

Do you think the flu runs rampant in these figures all year round?

Why does it matter if it's all year round or not? The parallel still exists.

I can very much slip back into my old life.

Shops like the supermarkets saying shoppers 'should' use masks are playing with words as I see they aren't making them mandatory so on Monday I won't be wearing one if I have to pop in.

Already been to lots of pubs and restaurants this week and won't be doing the obligatory mask wearing to go to the toilet next week.

Very happy to take a risk on covid, long covid or death tbh. But then pre covid I was always mindful that lots of people die before old age and to just enjoy life.

Pretty much. I will still wear masks in some public places as so many others are so fearful. So I will wear it out of respect for others but I am not going to let fear stop me.
This is here forever now and we have to find a sensible way of carrying on with living. Some people I know have basically stopped living, they hide away (and I can see why some immuno suppressed people have to - I’m not talking about such people).

Keep healthy and take sensible precautions, beyond that life must go on.

If staff go off in high enough numbers, supermarkets will do what they can make mask mandatory again.

@ClaudiaWankleman I have an older teen with Down Syndrome which is classed as an underlying condition, he also has another underlying condition. He has the flu jab each year to protect him from flu. We will be effectively in lockdown from the 19th until he is fully vaccinated in March 2022, in 5 months time when he turns 16 he can be vaccinated, I don’t understand why he has to wait another 4 months but there you go. It’s children like him who have suffered the most throughout the whole pandemic.
Saying we have always had to avoid contagious illnesses simply isn’t true, he’s had all the usual childhood illnesses, covid is a completely different beast for children like him.

Other than the masks and booking a lot of things my life is fairly normal now. The only thing I’d say is that it’s taking quite a lot of effort for it to feel normal as there’s less spontaneity but I’m making a real effort to get out and about and do things almost every day.

I’m hoping when the new school term starts I can actually see inside DC’s classroom.

Can’t wait , no more masks 🙌🏻 Think it’s stupid places are still carrying rules on when they don’t need too. My leisure centre had said you still need to book ..why 😐 I get people are scared but we can’t live like this forever.

I've been kinda 'slipping back' by having my first in-person meeting today

However, we were all wearing masks, the door and everything open, and it involved discussing how a local secondary that had been following the national guidelines had gotten into such a bad state with staffing and forms closing that they were back to full time masks and having an alternating schedule with some years out, some years in on a rotating schedule for the last few weeks of the school year. So many 'we're not yet in a place to know how this will work in September, but...'

For me, things won't be "back" to anything until I can go swimming as a family in the evening again in the family pool at my local leisure centre. Not yet there.

Normal for me does not resume whilst it is necessary and sensible to wear face coverings, where some travel is restricted or difficult, and while we still have Mr Johnson as Prime Minister.

Waterstones and the supermarkets are not going to enforce mask wearing from what I've seen.
They are just recommending that people wear them.