Will this level of cases now just be acceptable?

[Tuba437]

Just having a think to myself. We're now at around 30k cases a day in general. The 7 day average daily deaths is about 89 (this was for around 45-50k cases a day). We can assume that I a month or so deaths will be at around 60 a day.

Over a year that works out at about 21k worth of deaths. Will this just be the acceptable number. We know the vaccine doesn't stop the spread so I highly doubt were ever just going to get down to sub 5k cases a day again.

21k is considered a very mild flu death rate for the year. We have a new virus around now so more deaths a year are going to be a thing whether we like it or not.

I also think red list countries should only be for countries with worrying variants. If I don't have to isolate if my wife tests positive (just daily testing) then why on earth would I have to spend 1500 on a government hotel to quarantine as I've been to a country with a lower covid rate than us?

Sorry about the rant.

Brilliant post Angrymum22.

@Angrymum22 are over 40s considered vulnerable? I always assumed it was over 60s? I’ve turned 40 this year and husband is 47 -as per the post we are vulnerable hence the vaccination to protect us?

@Angrymum22

All we are seeing at the moment is the natural spread of infection that has been artificially suppressed by social distancing and isolation in the “healthy” proportion of the population. This was always the plan. We were warned back in April. Vaccination to protect the over 40s and then let it go “viral” and then hopefully back in o normal by the winter with boosters for the vulnerable. Mumsnet membership seems to have the biggest cohort of those who are petrified of Covid. In rl there appears to be much less anxiety. As a critical worker I have come to the conclusion that 50% of the adult population have worked their socks off so that the other 50% can WFH/shield/stay safe. But this has been pretty much ignored by the worriers on MN who assume that everyone has been sat at home stopping the spread. I still have patients who come in to see us ( of all ages) who haven’t ventured further than their front door to take delivery of Amazon or Tesco’s shop. Fortunately the rest of us have just gone back to normal.

There is a large hinterland of intelligent caution between never stirring further than your letter box and "going back to normal", whatever that is.

Most people are actually being still a bit more cautious than before (according to the relevant research).

We've been going out a lot more but still being cautious, wear masks in shops.

Most people I know are the same and vast majority will continue wfh despite now being allowed to.

Re children being vaccinated, I am very very torn. DS is 15 so not eligible yet. But if they do give the go ahead for 12-15 I honestly don't know what I'd do. There doesn't appear to be any serious short term side effects, it's the long term I'm more concerned about.

He hasn't got any underlying conditions.

As a critical worker I have come to the conclusion that 50% of the adult population have worked their socks off so that the other 50% can WFH/shield/stay safe

Thousands of critical workers have WFH throughout, and 'worked their socks off' to boot. DH has regularly started at 7am and finished at gone 8pm (he works in benefits/housing).

I'm so sick of the misconception that WFH = lounging around in your jammies, watching Loose Women, baking and occasionally doing a little bit of work. For many WFH it's been the most stressful, hardest year and a half of their working lives.

Yea and many of the WFH people had to homeschool their kids as had no keywords places. 2 of our 3 have SEN but no EHCP had to get on with it with all therapy withdrawn. Yea living the life of Riley
DH was one if the lucky WFH shielded and WOH part time. Would much rather he was well and not immunosupressed.

Yea and come to think of it my car needed repairs following and accident. Company was quite happy to take my excess but nit carry out the repair as I didn't have the keywords card although potentially DH probably was. No one gave a flying guck that I was a carer for shielded DH and had to search high and low with no transport for specific foods for autistic dd. No poor people bringing us stuff as couldn't even get delivery slots as dh didn't want the food parcels and that triggered the help.

As a critical worker I have come to the conclusion that 50% of the adult population have worked their socks off so that the other 50% can WFH/shield/stay safe.

I have colleagues who were literally sick with stress and exhaustion having to carry on their normal jobs (often with huge backlogs of work caused by the pandemic) whilst looking after multiple children.

My boss and her husband - both in my industry - had to do take turns working every other day because 2 year old twins and a 4 a year old need a huge of amount of supervision. The extra work they had by taking "days off" had to be done when they would normally be sleeping.

Maybe this is preferable to having a high risk of exposure to coronavirus, but still a really shite situation to be in.