What do you think will happen over winter?

[brideyb]

Restriction wise. I'm feeling very gloomy / anxious about it! My sister is getting married and I desperately hope it can go ahead.

Depends if you can catch CV multipletimes? if not, why would there need to any restrictions?

But otherwise, it will be the NHS unable to do much other than AE/Covid/influenza and terminal treatments.

I don't think people have quite understood what 5m to 13m waiting lists mean.

But The Guardian article is quoting the personal risk assessment of a 58 year old man who feels personally vulnerable. This is not the objective assessment of the absolute risk across the population. There is some seriously weird post pandemic thinking going on at the moment and we will all need time to adjust.

I wish they would just make it a priority to invest in the structure and support of the NHS long term and start now with a proper approach instead of a band-aid approach. We have had worse years with flu and the NHS at breaking point, so regardless of whether covid ever gets under control, the weakpoint is an undervalued and under resourced national health service.

@PigeonPink - TWENTY YEARS?!
f**k that!
I genuinely don’t understand the pessimism on this forum. We have the vaccines, things are looking up hopefully? Why should we back to square one in a few months?

@thecatsatonthewall

Depends if you can catch CV multipletimes? if not, why would there need to any restrictions?

But otherwise, it will be the NHS unable to do much other than AE/Covid/influenza and terminal treatments.

I don't think people have quite understood what 5m to 13m waiting lists mean.

You can catch CV multiple times. Many people have.

That guardian article is a load of tripe. My mate who works in a vaccination centre says….. I volunteer and the vaccination centres are so busy with constant updates asking for more volunteers

But The Guardian article is quoting the personal risk assessment of a 58 year old man who feels personally vulnerable

He's vulnerable in the same way that all ICU and covid ward staff are - though extensive contact with patients - one duff bit of PPE and their exposure is extensive.

I can see why you would have firm views when you see, day in day out, what covid does to the body.

We have the vaccines, things are looking up hopefully? Why should we back to square one in a few months?
It’s not safe to go in pubs or crowded places now. I don’t foresee it becoming safe either. They’re open to support the economy and pacify the people who don’t care about dying, not because it’s actually safe to go.

There's aliens coming in 2022 apparently. So that'll be something to look forward to.

I think ok I hope that we are past the point of blanket closures.
I think masks and distancing measures will come back in the early autumn when schools go back.
I think we'll get more instructions around "fully vaccinated can do x, unvaccinated need to show a recent test" for higher risk activities.
I think they'll start pushing forward with vaccines for under 18's when cases surge as soon as School’s reopen.
And they may well start trying to control how many people we can have in our house again.
We won't have another winter like last year but we'll have to be quieter and more careful than we're being now.
I do think this is a pattern we'll repeat for several years to come but we'll get used to it and adapt accordingly.

Boosters will need to be issued promptly or we’ll be back in lockdown by mid-winter. Israel have released data showing Pfizer’s protection from severe illness waning from 97 to 81% already in over 65s. Seems neutralising antibodies are indeed the best correlate of immunity with C19 and they wane.

One thing that won't chnage so id bet mt life eon it that there will still be multiple covid threads and negativity, pessimism and some still screaming for lockdowns

If you’re worrying about school closures could you consider signing this...

www.change.org/p/department-for-education-make-in-person-education-safer-by-scientifically-recognised-mitigations

In New York you can check the ventilation for every classroom.

We are spending nothing on making schools safe - infections and closures seem to have been accepted as an inevitability.

The only thing the government care about is looking silly, you don’t need to actually keep off, nobody will hold you to it, threatening to might just embarrass Boris enough to actually spend some money on making schools safer and open!!

I think Covid will be just as much a threat as other respiratory viruses this winter. I sense that's the fear with very young children having not been exposed in their lifetimes to the usual winter viruses and there's going to be a big push for the flu vaccine opened up to more people. Maybe with less old people sitting in GP waiting rooms and hospitals finally being more hygienic, it might not be so bad.....

@PigeonPink

We have the vaccines, things are looking up hopefully? Why should we back to square one in a few months? It’s not safe to go in pubs or crowded places now. I don’t foresee it becoming safe either. They’re open to support the economy and pacify the people who don’t care about dying, not because it’s actually safe to go.

But its never been safe to go to the pub has it? You could fall over and crack your head open. You could get run over in the car park. You could die from alcohol poisoning. You could choke on a peanut etc etc etc etc.

Newsflash: life has NEVER been "safe".

Before covid, we were all under this misguided impression that we are largely in control of our own destiny, that if we were cautious enough, we could keep ourselves "safe". The reality is that this has never (and will never) been the case.

I think vaccination means that lockdown is done and in the past. We can't afford it and complience would be poor in domestic settings. Far too many people couldn't cope with another winter of it. Nor businesses.

Having become much more cynical over the past year, I suspect the wind is blowing towards vaccine passports. Businesses/ sectors that have only just reopened might struggle to resist the pressure. It stinks, but the personal cost of boycotting out of principle is too high after the mental toll of surviving last winter.

Faces might be banned again. I bloody hope not though, I'm just begining to look back at face level again now there's a 50: 50 chance you might be able to lip read and get facial expressions.

I reckon a bit less shit than last winter. (Glad my optomistic streak hasn't snuffed it completely )

I think the plan is to stop the twice weekly lateral flow screening tests at the end of September. With no masks, vaccinations for teenagers and no self-isolation for close contacts, I’m imagining a bit of a shit storm by Christmas. Hopefully I’m wrong.

It’s not safe to go in pubs or crowded places now. I don’t foresee it becoming safe either.

Life isn’t safe, it never was.

You are free to participate in as much or as little of it as you like. Just don’t expect others to take the same position.

@Puppylucky

But The Guardian article is quoting the personal risk assessment of a 58 year old man who feels personally vulnerable. This is not the objective assessment of the absolute risk across the population. There is some seriously weird post pandemic thinking going on at the moment and we will all need time to adjust.

Yes agreed. The psychologist adjustment to the pandemic has had quite an impact on so many people. But to believe that life won’t ever return to normal for decades, you’d have to believe that either:

a) government (and all subsequent governments for what, 30-50 years?) will be willing and able to impose mass restrictions on people’s social and working lives with no end in sight, on increasingly unwilling populations, with either no furlough support or massively reduced public services to pay for something like it, after we’ve vaccinated everybody who wants to be;

or

b) people will, of their own free will, avoid things like pubs and clubs and crowds and visiting families, for decades, despite vaccines etc etc. In a way that they’re not doing even now.

I don’t think either of those are massively likely, and more importantly they’re not the way we’ve ever responded to any of the other numerous pandemics or endemic nasty diseases we’ve ever dealt with as a species. This all feels very new and scary and totally unprecedented to us, but in the bigger picture it’s really not.

I think winter will be rough because of some covid plus lots of other diseases. Hopefully the public conversation will turn from “close nightclubs again!” to “NHS needs more investment”.

Excess deaths from seasonal flu are common in winter months. I believe many thousands died in 2018. The media didn't report it on it extensively and no one bothered about it much. But this year, I'm sure we'll be treated to daily figures as though it's the first time it's ever happened.

I think businesses will need to step up and ensure the safety of their staff with covid polices, testing, temperature, hand washing etc and maybe either double jabbed or having a positive test result.

Those who rely on crowds - pubs clubs and theatre etc will need to convince people they are doing everything in terms of safety and attending.

I think as long as people think about LFT prior to meeting the vulnerable and being sensible in shops trains etc then things can get towards more normal.

@PigeonPink

I’m seeing my family at Christmas irrespective of what restrictions are in place though I’m praying for restrictions to let me enjoy a second Christmas away from MIL!

Me too 😆

@TheKeatingFive

It’s not safe to go in pubs or crowded places now. I don’t foresee it becoming safe either.

Life isn’t safe, it never was.

You are free to participate in as much or as little of it as you like. Just don’t expect others to take the same position.

This is the health anxiety problem that MSM has created.

or

c) much if life will return to normal-ish, but high risk activities, such as yelling at the rugby for a couple of hours in a crowded pub, will be inadvusabke even if not banned

It's the 'open up but be sensible' approach, isn't it?

I think the NHS will get overwhelmed every year like it does every year