How will ever get out of this?

[Toria84]

Cases are continually rising, vaccines don’t stop transmission, vaccines don’t prevent infection.

You can be infected with Covid more than once and by the looks of things we will need a vaccine every 6 months.

How will we ever move on from how things are now? How can things change?

It’s absolutely rife in my area and in my DS school.

Are we now just expected to accept these levels of infection, hospitalisations and death?

There are 130 Covid patients in our local hospital which isn’t far off the number of the second wave!

[quote Toria84]@Remmy123

I think that’s a particular ignorant thing to say.[/quote]
Nothing ignorant in that statement at all

Ah,so it’s the people with the underlying conditions who need to stay away from everyone, limit their contacts, just generally live something of a non-life that everyone else can get on with?

Yes.

@soredust

So we’ve had months of shouting about how isolation impacts on mental health but people with conditions that make them vulnerable should just suck that up? Why can’t you wear a mask on the shop, or accept a socially distanced table is a restaurant, or wear a mask in a cinema? Would it kill you to be kind to others, their families, colleagues and friends? Or would you prefer that the vulnerable in people facing roles (including health professionals and teachers) felt that they could not continue and just resigned. Why does the health and mental health of those around you not matter when yours does?

@Bordois

The 3 weeks that covid "ripped through" my sons primary school have been far less disruptive than the months of bubbles popping, repeated isolations and last minute changes to provision ever were.

Absolutely.

@Bordois

The 3 weeks that covid "ripped through" my sons primary school have been far less disruptive than the months of bubbles popping, repeated isolations and last minute changes to provision ever were.

Exactly

@Puzzledandpissedoff and @JovialNickname

I shouldn't read threads like this as they are so annoying, but it's great when people like yourselves speak such sense in a non confrontational way. It's true. We have to live with it now. We cannot lockdown again and we need to stop testing and reporting cases every single bloody day.

Why can’t you wear a mask on the shop, or accept a socially distanced table is a restaurant, or wear a mask in a cinema? Would it kill you to be kind to others, their families, colleagues and friends? Or would you prefer that the vulnerable in people facing roles (including health professionals and teachers) felt that they could not continue and just resigned. Why does the health and mental health of those around you not matter when yours does?

I don’t mind taking a socially distanced table in a restaurant but the restaurant will certainly mind. They can’t make enough money with limits on how many they can have. And watching a whole film in a mask is not my idea of a good time and same for many others. They also need numbers to make money. Places like these should be able to open how they like and serve who they like and people can avoid them if they’re worried. Everyone else gets on with life how they want.

@Bordois
i agree totally

@Bordois the figures in Scotland show clear peaks, albeit smaller, in the age groups of the parents.

[quote cttontail]@Bordois the figures in Scotland show clear peaks, albeit smaller, in the age groups of the parents.[/quote]
Didn’t Scotland do various things at once?

Go back to work etc

@PanicStationsAhh

Just live your life and don't worry about it

This is pretty much what we're doing. I've stopped ready the news about it, we don't test, we're just carrying on as if it doesn't exist. Fed up of my DCs education and all our lives being affected so negatively.

That's just such an ignorant thing to say. My kids' education is still getting disrupted because so many teachers are off sick. My MiL has just had her hip operation postponed again because there's too much sickness and not enough beds available. One of my colleagues has just been admitted to hospital w covid. So how nice that your life is unaffected, thats not the case for all of us.

“ My MiL has just had her hip operation postponed again because there's too much sickness and not enough beds available.”

I think this is the nitty gritty. Once we cease to have a functioning healthcare system then pretending Covid isn’t a problem becomes more and more difficult for more and more of us, including the government.
So far, the government have always acted too late making restrictions less effective and more prolonged.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

What is this ‘immunity?’

I know a fair few people who’ve had it more than once. There is no herd immunity.

If that's the case, all the more reason why we shouldn't keep trying to suppress it with restrictions, as those restrictions will literally be permanent.

In reality, the more people have it, the more immunity the population will have... It will never eradicate it in the same we will never eradicate flu or the common cold.

So just heard that our 1 members of staff eith covid is now 3 members of staff with COVID so that's two work teams that wont be working next week, two clients who wont be getting their works and a whole lot of headache for everyone as everything has to be rescheduled. Yay for just not worrying about it.

@Remmy123

Whoever thought vaccines stop transmission and prevention infection are very naive.

Just live your life and don't worry about it.

Yep. That's what I've done and will continue to do

@siestalady

It astonishes me that anyone continues to think there is an opportunity to "get out" tbh. Where have you been?!

As the overwhelming majority on this thread have said, this is life now, we get on with it.

The thing is though it’s not just our decision to ‘get on with it’ if shops and schools abs family indoor mixing is made illegal again is it? How can you get on with it with these restrictions which could be brought back again and again?

@Porcupineintherough but once the teachers have had it and recovered and your DC have had it and recovered then what’s the problem?

[quote Getawaywithit]@soredust

So we’ve had months of shouting about how isolation impacts on mental health but people with conditions that make them vulnerable should just suck that up? Why can’t you wear a mask on the shop, or accept a socially distanced table is a restaurant, or wear a mask in a cinema? Would it kill you to be kind to others, their families, colleagues and friends? Or would you prefer that the vulnerable in people facing roles (including health professionals and teachers) felt that they could not continue and just resigned. Why does the health and mental health of those around you not matter when yours does?[/quote]
Yes quite frankly they should just suck it up. Kids have had to suck up so much shit for something that really doesn’t affect them.
More that enough has been done abs tried these past 18 months but now it’s a case of negatively impacting the life chances of many to improve the life chances of a few.

[quote Silverswirl]@Porcupineintherough but once the teachers have had it and recovered and your DC have had it and recovered then what’s the problem?[/quote]
My dc have already had it, one twice. They get a jab today so hopefully can avoided a third go. But the point is, the disruption is happening now. Dc1 sits exams in June, after two already very disrupted years of education. The last thing he needs now is yet another few months of disruption which is exactly what's happening.

The truth is we could have found a halfway house bw constant restrictions and this wonderful "freedom" we are all enjoying. A halfway house where a few well chosen precautions avoided this shitshow.

@ADreadedSunnyDay

Yes we have to I've with it. And stop testing. Deaths are not really spiking the way they were with vaccinations doing their job and better treatments. The reason we are finding more and more cases is because a lot of the population are lateral flow testing frequently. Covid will become like a cold in time - multiple infections over a course of a lifetime.

Absolute stupidity right there.

The UK is not living with it, the UK is ignoring it. It isn't working.

Whoever thought vaccines stop transmission and prevention infection are very naive

I don't disagree, but promising more than the vaccines could deliver may have been the best hope of persuading folk to continue living a half life while they were developed/rolled out
I'll say again that if they're perceived not to have made enough difference there's a real risk of poor take-up in future; ditto the experimental drugs being bought from Pfizer which will doubtless be declared fit for use with miraculous speed

And I don't imagine government want that ...

Whoever thought vaccines stop transmission and prevention infection are very naive

I think that's unfair view taken with the perspective of hindsight. I think the general perception pre-Delta was that although vaccines wouldn't be 100% efficient, they would be sufficiently effective to reduce Covid levels to a very low level if enough people were vaccinated. Remember when schools went back in the spring - pre-Delta - infection numbers continued to decline, despite large numbers of adults not being double-jabbed.

I agree Warher each new variant has changed the landscape. Alpha meant schools closed when before hand we were below 1

Then delta again

You can see the big change in Aus /NZ with what worked and now hasn’t

Haven't rtwt so someone may have already pointed this out

vaccines don’t stop transmission, vaccines don’t prevent infection.

You're thinking in black&white but reality is rarely either. Vaccines reduce transmission partly because they reduce infection (at least halve - someone who doesn't get infected doesn't transmit)
And partly because even if a vaxxed person does catch it they don't spread as much (those studies on viral load which show the peak load is as high as unvaxxed yes, but it's shorter & the virus shed by vaxxed is less viable i.e. less likely to infect even when there's just as much of it).

You can be infected with Covid more than once and by the looks of things we will need a vaccine every 6 months.

No no no and again no. Black & white thinking again. You can be reinfected but it's much less likely. The Siren study for e.g. showed hospital workers previously infected were about as protected from alpha as those who'd had a single jab.

Just because a booster at 6 months is looking necessary doesn't imply further boosters every 6 months will be necessary.

Yes covid is currently rife but that's predominantly in the unvaxxed i.e. under 16s. It would've been far better &more ethical to vax them but either way once everyone has a degree of immunity, this will finally calm down as all pandemics have. It's just this time we've done it with less death of the elderly

Well said ArianaVenti.