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.

@ILookAtTheFloor
Actually, yes please. Could you do a few lateral flow tests in next days and come back to us? I’m genuinely curious. It’s the wedding and the show I’m more interested in rather then cricket match.
By the way when you’ve said that there were no social distancing at the wedding did you mean people were hugging and kissing or just not distancing?

@Saucery when I read articles like that and comments like yours it hits home just how much psychological damage the government and media's fear messaging has done to people.

[quote greenlynx]@ILookAtTheFloor
Actually, yes please. Could you do a few lateral flow tests in next days and come back to us? I’m genuinely curious. It’s the wedding and the show I’m more interested in rather then cricket match.
By the way when you’ve said that there were no social distancing at the wedding did you mean people were hugging and kissing or just not distancing?[/quote]
Yes, people hugging and kissing and I have zero intention of taking a test.

I've no symptoms.

@ILookAtTheFloor
It’s a pity that you don’t want to do a test. Aren’t you just curious?

@wondersun

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!!

That's awful. If you had a measured statement that it isn't appropriate to reopen schools for another autumn without basic inexpensive measures required to make classrooms safer such as ventilation, with optional vaccinations for those children who choose to take it, then you'd have hundreds of thousands or more sign it. Instead you have a half-mad badly written rant threatening to keep children off school. That simply won't get many takers. What a shame if your intent was to actually make something useful happen.

If your main pleasure in life is sharing watching sport in the pub you are going to make a different calculation to an outdoor sports enthusiast.

@NannyAndJohn

He lost his son, *@PicsInRed*. Have some fucking empathy.

Empathy doesn't mean what you think it means.

After this last 18 months I have a lot more sympathy for people who need people and "events" more than me. Even I got to desperation point and I'm pretty self contained and find an underpopulated art gallery to be about my level of stimulating social event.

I do think we could be promoting being outdoors and ventilating as a useful mitigation..They could cut VAT on thermal underwear for a start😉.

I’m afraid I agree. I can’t foresee a time when I’ll feel safe in a pub or busy place. Maybe in 20 years time.
This is insane.

I think it’ll probably be masks, testing and that’s largely it. I don’t think another lockdown will be particularly adhered to.

@Saucery

How about….I trust the advice of someone who can calculate risk associated with dangerous sports but who wouldn’t choose to swap Covid-ridden air molecules in a crowded pub with others at the moment? Or does your disingenuousness prevent you understanding that also?

But it's not as straightforward as that. For every decision we make a risk benefit analysis, even if it's subconscious. He may get great pleasure from skydiving and decide it is worth the risk but not really enjoy the rugby as much so not think it worth the risk. The absolute level of risk isnot the only factor.

I have no intention of keeping locked up indoors all winter with nobody visiting; I do not expect any rules to be as strict again for double vaccinated nor young children, so I expect it to be more about choice. At least until winter is past, I think it is reasonable to keep masks in places CEV and elderly can't avoid; supermarkets, pharmacies, shoe shops - and regardless of rules I'll wear my mask on those places for others who may not have a choice about being there at risk. I hope there will be sufficient pressure to increase NHS funding and long-term support (e.g.government to fund more doctor and nursing uni places, build the extra hospitals, build permanent test sites at walk-in type of sites and kit them out with x-rays, testing for flu etc too). I also would like to see funding to improve school buildings, but I'm less hopeful of that.

As for our family, apart from the little ones we have all been double jabbed (DNs single jab for a few more weeks), sounds like all vulnerable among us get a booster in autumn, so we are going back to living our lives now pretty much as before. I expect to be exposed to covid and hope the vaccines, plus a mask in any places that might expose me to high viral load like tube or crowded shopping places, will do their job so that I get a mild illness at its worst. I do not think the economy nor our collective mental health can stand us all remaining locked up.

Or does your disingenuousness prevent you understanding that also?

Your point is nonsensical. Because he does a dangerous sport, you decide he’s on point with risk assessing something totally different?

Without knowing anything about his competency in said sport, risk profile, level of engagement, risk factors for covid, general health?

And because he does this sport, he’s qualified to risk assess everyone else’s covid related behaviour? Without knowing anything about their health/priorities/importance of said activities? What if they do dangerous sports too - are they allowed to decide for themselves then?

My brain hurts at so much stretching

@MRex

I have no intention of keeping locked up indoors all winter with nobody visiting; I do not expect any rules to be as strict again for double vaccinated nor young children, so I expect it to be more about choice. At least until winter is past, I think it is reasonable to keep masks in places CEV and elderly can't avoid; supermarkets, pharmacies, shoe shops - and regardless of rules I'll wear my mask on those places for others who may not have a choice about being there at risk. I hope there will be sufficient pressure to increase NHS funding and long-term support (e.g.government to fund more doctor and nursing uni places, build the extra hospitals, build permanent test sites at walk-in type of sites and kit them out with x-rays, testing for flu etc too). I also would like to see funding to improve school buildings, but I'm less hopeful of that.

As for our family, apart from the little ones we have all been double jabbed (DNs single jab for a few more weeks), sounds like all vulnerable among us get a booster in autumn, so we are going back to living our lives now pretty much as before. I expect to be exposed to covid and hope the vaccines, plus a mask in any places that might expose me to high viral load like tube or crowded shopping places, will do their job so that I get a mild illness at its worst. I do not think the economy nor our collective mental health can stand us all remaining locked up.

We will generally be doing similar & generally agree.

Except we will not be usually doing indoor stuff with non family/ household members. But then we have reason.

That's a good point @herecomesthsun, we have limited indoor interactions at home and haven't brought it back yet. I didn't mention another winter possible point; if Beta establishes and cases are high then we'll back off on indoor stuff and mixing a lot until we see better how booster vaccinations hold up under Beta pressure.

[quote brideyb]@Saucery when I read articles like that and comments like yours it hits home just how much psychological damage the government and media's fear messaging has done to people.[/quote]
What fear campaign? thats a load of rubbish - the govt message, if anything under played it.

I don't know anyone from march 2020 who has lived in fear aside from the elderly or those with health issues.

Most lived within what was allowed, bent the rules a bit, stopped hugging but not always!

Just because someone has legitimate concerns about lifting restrictions or avoids obv places for CV tranmission, doesn't make them fearful.

Re an outdoor enthusiast we’ve seen it’s easy for people to want activities they don’t do anyway to cease - whether nightclubs, choral singing, sports in pubs

Luckily they don’t get to order the world to their preference.

Actually that just reminded me of a poster who was adamant nightclubs would never open again.

it’s easy for people to want activities they don’t do anyway to cease - whether nightclubs, choral singing, sports in pubs

Exactly. Other people who love these activities will want the option to take the risk. Especially if their specific risk is really low.

My god this thread is just baffling.

Genuinely feel sorry for some of the posters on here who will live some kind of bizarre half life hiding in fear from a disease that the vast majority will recover from with no ill effects.

This thread is sad. Social interactions are essential for humans. There is a real evidenced health impact of lack of social interaction. It’s horrible to read that some think other people they don’t even know should voluntarily isolate themselves in perpetuity. Where does it end?
I hope this is a transitional phase where we come to terms with new freedoms and hopefully people start to feel more happy. Because happiness is not frivolity - it’s living life rather than just staying alive.

we’ve seen it’s easy for people to want activities they don’t do anyway to cease - whether nightclubs, choral singing, sports in pubs

Yes, it’s a bit depressing. I never liked nightclubs and wouldn’t go to one of you paid me, but I would never be so selfish or so antisocial as to expect them to stay closed indefinitely just because I don’t like them.

People who like things I don’t like are still full human beings and not a faceless swarm of germy covid vectors.

Just because someone has legitimate concerns about lifting restrictions or avoids obv places for CV tranmission, doesn't make them fearful.

So someone saying they won't feel safe in a pub for 20 years isn't fearful?

I’ve said this fr9m the start - people are very happy to want to “cancel” activities they don’t personally enjoy or approve of. There was a crew of posters who last year were claiming that education wasn’t necessary in a school situation - online was the future. I think they were the same people who objected to children and teens being out and about, too, so what they really wanted was a curfew on youth from 0-25, at which time they might be allowed to emerge in order to be delivery drivers I suppose.

There was a crew of posters who last year were claiming that education wasn’t necessary in a school situation - online was the future

Ahhh yes, I have fond, fond memories of the “you don’t want education you just want childcare!” crew.

Ha yes that was a long phase.

Re feeling sorry for those who want to live a lockdown type life I’d probably feel more this way if they weren’t trying to get everyone to do the same as them.