If you are cancelling plans/think we should have another lockdown

[Maddymorphosis]

Would you be prepared to do the same next winter, and the one after that and so on?
Last December I heard a lot of "It's just one year"
People not seeing family for "just one Christmas".

Are you prepared to do it again, and going forward maybe every time there's a new variant in winter?

No. To all of it. Time to live with it now and accept that yes people will die. Average age of death 82.
I am not prepared to sacrifice my childrens education and future for that.

People don't want to give up doing stuff in December because, in case people haven't noticed, December in the UK is shit. The weather is shit and it's dark all the fecking time. Having nice, social, things to do makes never seeing daylight hours on working days more tolerable.

Its about managing and minimising risk. Not completely eliminating it.
Agreed, and I think that's what most people are doing.

I don't know anyone offline who is living an entirely isolated personal lockdown other than those who had to briefly due to surgery requirements.

I know a handful of people in the covid conspiracy groups/who come out with illogical nonsense about getting back to normal by living as normal because Covid isn't that big a deal.

Most people seem to be looking at their circumstances and balancing various risks, then changing their plans and behaviours accordingly because they're aware that just because something is legal now, doesn't mean it's a good idea to go and do lots of big gathering events.

@OlympicProcrastinator

As I’m in the unfortunate position of having someone close to me take their own life because of the misery of repeated restrictions and then the lockdown last winter I may be biased but my sense of anger that these ‘necessary lockdowns’ save lives, except if you are a Tory having a good old jolly up at multiple parties is too strong to put my life on hold any more. I’d rather have no life than a miserable, joyless, fear filled one. The fact the people making these rules were packed in a party, squaffing champagne while my loved one killed themselves last Christmas means that no, I will not be ok with any instructions from them ever ever again.

So so sorry* @Olympic* 😢

It's a festive 'season' for me. I've been out for loads of meals with different friends, all my children have had Christmas parties with their clubs, I'm off visiting family today. The kids are in school til the end of the week

Do I personally want to minimise the number of deaths from COVID by not going to a party/gathering? By staying home more? Yes I do. Every early COVID death is someone's loved one, frankly I don't think my right to eat, drink and be merry trumps that.

You might feel differently.

Sorry sent too soon! Basically so many routes of transmission, not to mention work, gym etc. 2 out if 5 of us have had it, the rest of us could at any time. I've given up! I'm not missing out on anything voluntarily...if Christmas Day gets cancelled that's just life. I was really ill about three years ago with a bug from Christmas Day to the new year...I know it's hard to remember, but illnesses in winter were always a thing!

Not changing plans
My Dc are grown up , DD was furloughed and living with us last year and DS travelled back before the lockdown
I think they’ll both make the trip here to visit us this year
The inlaws are old , and FIL isn't in the best of health , we still get the
‘this could be my last Christmas ‘ speech , and have done since before Covid , we will go and see them for an hour or so
My parents , sadly are no longer with us

I’m happy to give up random outings and parties during December in order to preserve family Xmas on the 25th. Of course I’d prefer to have both but that’s not the situation we’re in.

@nordica

Restrictions are not a choice or something anyone wants, if they are brought in then it's out of necessity. To think anything else is very close to believing in conspiracy theories.

These threads are getting seriously tiresome now. It's a virus, we can't just decide to ignore it and hope it goes away.

100% this

SIL is extremely vulnerable (to pretty much everything, not just COVID, as a cold generally results in pneumonia for her), so we are keeping social engagements to a minimum for the next couple of weeks. We did that before COVID as well though.

I am not willing to forgo seeing family on Christmas. I don't believe in keeping people alive in prolonged isolation, as it is a form of torture. Life's about far more than just breathing.

No and no. I'm carrying on as normal apart from wearing a mask when needed.

I'm cancelling nothing. I am vaxxed and boosted, wear a mask and am buggered if I'm doing anything else.

Jeeeeesus wept these misery inducing lockdown threads are getting boring now.

You know the corona virus board still exists?

I'm going out this week with the people I work with, just us for a meal. As I work with them in a school, cancelling that would be a bit like shutting the door after the horse has bolted!

I think the government might be back pedalling over Omicron. The isolating advice has been adjusted on their website. Initially, if you had been in contact with a case, you had to self isolate for 10 days, even if vaccinated.

It’s been amended to say providing you have negative daily LFTs and vaccinated there is no need to SI.

There might be a little bit of optimism here.

@FatBettyintheCoop

"FFS OP! Grow up.

Thank goodness people of my parents generation weren’t selfish fuckers during WW2 moaning about missing a proper Christmas for 6 years despite living with the risks of being killed and struggling with rationing."

Did they though? My GM went through severe poverty in the 30's, rationing was a blessing, as it was to a lot of Northern WC women, there wasn't a standard 'proper Christmas'. A lot of women who I've spoken to born around 1910 (I'm in my 50's and worked in elderly care from 16) had a good time during the war. It was a time for new found freedom and a real sense of being valued as a woman. The difference was that it was everyone's freedom at stake because of a well identified threat that was beatable. There's infectious disease specialists who've been warning for decades that we will be living with these viruses for the considerable future. We can cut down on transmission, or its effects, to a point, but we can't beat it, like we could a war.

I think of myself as having a 'risk allowance'. I have to spend a large chunk on working (in a school, zero mitigations, lots of close contact), so my overall 'budget for entertainment' is relatively small.

I can choose to spend it as I wish (though there is the caveat that if I 'spend big' early on then I may catch Covid, which wipes out everything for 10 days).

So I might, for example, not go to a works do, but go to a concert my child is involved in. I might shop online so that I can visit my elderly relatives in person after a period of isolation.

It's a balancing act.

If you are cancelling plans/think we should have another lockdown

I think lockdown lite is very much on the cards and I am cancelling some plans because they will be in crowded venues. I have a CEV child so would prefer we limit risks at the current time. Yes, I am prepared to do as asked to protect the vulnerable and the NHS.

This is such a silly thought process. You can cancel plans to minimise risk and still be opposed to lockdown.

I never want another lockdown again, but I was happy to not go out with my colleagues this year for Christmas party so I could minimise my risk of catching covid. Spending Christmas with my mum is more important than seeing my colleagues for a jolly. 16 of them now have covid so I’d say I made the right choice for me.

It’s all about what you personally feel happy doing and nobody should be judged either way.

My work has cancelled our xmas do, which I’m grateful for as I hated the last few I was at (different companies). I’d be interested to see what I could do to stop a national lockdown. Surely that’s up to the nuts who run my country rather than me?

"Restrictions are not a choice or something anyone wants, if they are brought in then it's out of necessity"

Yet even the doctors in shanty towns in Cape Town have been saying that the patients don't need oxygen support and less are dying of the Omicron strain. We aren't getting the experts explaining why this strain means restrictions again. They are backing them because they didn't agree on them ending, not because of the new variant.

No I wouldn't be into a lickdown every year.
I'm not cancelling plans, but exercising caution around those more vulnerable.

@Maddymorphosis

Would you be prepared to do the same next winter, and the one after that and so on? Last December I heard a lot of "It's just one year" People not seeing family for "just one Christmas".

Are you prepared to do it again, and going forward maybe every time there's a new variant in winter?

Yes, I would if the variant would cause a significant amount of death. Most pandemics last 2-3 years so I figured at the beginning it would probably be no extensive travel plans until 2023. We are seeing another couple for coffee and cake this weekend outside around a firepit (if it will be allowed) and then it is just DH and me for the holidays. MIL is getting a nice hamper of goodies and a meal I’m dropping at her door on Christmas eve…she’s very nearly 90, and this was at her request. She was a pharmacist and is a sensible person about it. Then again, we have seen her quite regularly throughout the year and we don’t have small children. We are also in our 50s and more vulnerable to getting seriously sick, even after two jabs and a booster.