Keeping things as the status quo is also bringing about those issues you ment due to the constant closures of schools. Once close contacts no longer have to isolate then people can get back to work, assuming they aren't ill.
In normal times if I called my boss and said I might have chicken pox and I might have been near someone contagious so need to have a week off, my sanity would seriously be questioned.
When rotavirus was rampant the only time whole departments and classes closed was if they all got it. To protect the vulnerable we have never had mass periods of isolation involving everyone they may or may not come into contact.
And how is being locked at home any good for those vulnerable children who look forward to school to escape home? It's the only thing that is seriously keeping some of them going.
How is it doing the vulnerable any good when nhs staff have to take time off? Not because they are ill but because their child may have come into close contact?
How is it helping the vulnerable to isolate thus having their minimum wage cut down to ssp.
With the guidelines lifted from schools how will it really disrupt education? A majority of the teachers will have been double vaxed for starters. Schools should already have plans in place to support pupils absent due to illness. Schools will also be able to use substitutes again to deliver lessons, which ideally the teacher should have a couple of lessons planned out in advance and copies given to hoy.
Yea I know this isn't the same as x,y and z. But we have to look at this logically. We know it's here to stay. So we either carry on with the restrictions and extend this to include all those other illnesses that can be critical to the vulnerable, or we accept we have to get used to having to live with it.
If we don't do it now, when? In a year's time, when we have gotten over the winter bugs seasons?