To think we soon won’t be isolating even when we have covid.

[Grida]

If covid is spreading as rapidly as it seems to be, surely people who have tested positive but who don’t have symptoms/aren’t feeling ill will have to carry on working. The country will stop functioning otherwise.

Completely agree.
I refuse point blank to test.
If I or dh got positive. We couldn't afford to live. We would lose our home as private rent. We live month to month with maybe £70 spare a month. That's not going to cover 10 days pay.

I'm so hoping omnicrom is a lot less harmful takes over all other variants ie kills off delta etc and yes it would be a little more dangerous yo those like me who are clinically extremely vulnerable but vaccine programmes keep most of us safe with no lockdowns/isolations etc. Fingers and toes crossed x

Haven't RTFT as it's 20 pages in already (read 1st 3!) but as the mother of a CEV 13 yr old who was shielded throughout until shielding formally 'ended,' I don't know what the best approach is and I can see it from multiple points of view. All I can say is that it's QUALITY of life as well as quantity. DD has been miserable having to be so careful and missed out on so much; the effects on our other children have been awful too as they have had to be much more careful than their peers. Goodness knows it's been hard enough on all young people and the vast majority of society as a whole. My MIL is in her 80's and lives alone, over 3 hours from us - we are convinced that lockdowns and isolating have exacerbated her dementia
I'm hoping that with all the new antivirals and treatments being brought out, this will allow the vulnerable to be treated quickly and bring back some sense of normality (whatever that passes for now!) ASAP.

@PurpleIndigoViolet so true! So many people die in car accidents every year, but we don't ban driving. We make it the law to follow safety procedures and let people crack on with it. I think people get confused as they think the restrictions and lockdowns are to protect vunerable people from catching covid, when actually what it's about is not overwhelming the NHS. I'm pretty sure if all of the population was vaccinated, and therefore would probably only suffer with Omicron mildly we wouldn't be considering a lockdown, even if all the vunerable people and people for whom the vaccine doesn't work caught it and needed hospital treatment.

@Blubells

Can’t believe how selfish these comments are! So knowing you are infectious with a virus that will kill elderly and vulnerable, you’d like to go out because you get bored? You are disgraceful, utterly selfish and disgraceful

No, the virus WILL not kill elderly and vulnerable, especially if they're vaccinated. It raises their risk but does not necessarily kill them!

And no, most people don't want to go out because they're bored

Have you considered the effects of restrictions on people's mental health, on our children's education and life chances, on people's livelihoods, on our economy etc etc? There are more reasons than 'being bored'!

This in spades ^

I have personally seen first hand the impact on both children and young people in terms of MH. We live near a popular suicide spot and we are loosing people every week - business owners who have lost livelihoods, burnt out professionals as well as an alarming number of young people. It isn’t about being bored. It’s about living and quality of life - for everyone.

Apparently the numbers have gone down today, well it obvious people have stop getting the test they don’t want to self isolate for ten days at Christmas, bet loads of people get tested on the 2nd January.

Bearing in mind the government regularly use The Times and The DT to drip feed news, this is interesting.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/covid-self-isolation-period-cut-to-save-christmas-gatherings-j2rznhh6c

@MarmitesMyMate

I don’t really blame you for not testing.

It would be ludicrous too with your financial situation.

Someone right at the beginning of this thread said that "People are still dying of covid"... but actually people are dying of the flu, cancer, all sorts of conditions and have been for a lot longer than we can remember but we've had to get on with life before covid came along whilst people were dying of all the other conditions/illnesses, so now we have vaccines for covid I can't see why we're not doing what we've done for years and managing our own risk levels.

JellyOnAPlatewithicecream
We don't ban driving but we put measures in place to reduce the risk - speed limits, seatbelts, drink driving limits, eye sight requirements etc.
We don't say we need to just learn to live with excess deaths on the road.

@Harmonypuss
Because it’s a pandemic.

@munchbunch12 that us terrible reporting. That 42% spike is less than 300 deaths so a tiny proportion of the 60K ish deaths.
Obviously that figure is probably higher as only hospital deaths are counted but nothing like COVID death figures.

Yes, it's a pandemic but many of the deaths over the past 22 months that have been logged as 'covid deaths' were people who had other conditions/illnesses/extreme old age that were actually responsible for their deaths but they had had covid (regardless of its severity) at some point in the previous month.
Yes, it has been the cause of many deaths but many of those in my above category would probably have died if they'd got the flu.
My point was that despite what I've just said, we've now got the vaccine and millions of us are vaccinated (I'm referring to the UK), the Govt and scientists said once we were vaccinated we'd be able to go about our lives, so why do they think that (despite us now having had a third dose of the vaccine) we should be locking down again? With 3 does of the vaccine we should be able to decide what risk levels we're prepared to take, so is you're not happy to mix with others, don't, but don't stop others from doing so if they are happy with their personal risk levels.

@Harmonypuss but COVID is mentioned on the death certificate of more people than those who died within 28 days..

Funny then isn't it that people who've had it and fully recovered from it then died of something totally unrelated are still having it cited on their death certificates.
But that wasn't my point, the point was that we should be able to decide for ourselves what level of risk we're prepared to accept and not be treated like a bunch of 5yr olds by a Govt who don't even pretend to stick to their rules themselves!
I'm dropping out of this thread now because I've had to say the same thing 3 times now.

YANBU
I do live in hope. We can’t carry on like this forever.

No wonder the UK is fucked.

I wonder if everyone's attitudes would be the same if the disease was killing kids instead of the seemingly disposable older people and disabled.

Really not surprising the Tories are still in control reading some of the views on here

I don't know what the answer is, but no one on this thread seems to take account of long covid which has left hundreds of thousands of people disabled and sick, including tens of thousands of children. The more spread, the more disability. People don't realise how debilitating a post viral condition can be and so minimise it.

As a CEV person I'm really tired of being blamed for all of this. We have tried to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed for the sake of us all, not for a few persky elderly and vulnerable people.

I also want to live my life and want everyone else to as well. The pandemic has had devastating effects on me and my family. And I do not want to be in the way of othdr people. Yet I keep being told that I am. :(

@Madhairday

'As a CEV person I'm really tired of being blamed for all of this. We have tried to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed for the sake of us all, not for a few persky elderly and vulnerable people.'

I agree that the reason we've have restrictions is to prevent the NHS from melting down, as opposed to to protect vunerable people. The thing is, when you suggest that everyone needs to get vaccinated so we can then just get on with our lives (as it will generally be a mild disease), people always seem to bring up - but what about the vunerable and people for who the vaccine doesn't work.. as if we'll need to be in this state forevermore solely to protect those people!

Been confirmed that isolation is reduced from 10 to 7 if lfds negative on day 6 ams 7

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59749447

@Awalkintime
'We don't ban driving but we put measures in place to reduce the risk - speed limits, seatbelts, drink driving limits, eye sight requirements etc.
We don't say we need to just learn to live with excess deaths on the road.'

Well we kind of do say that be because a huge amount of deaths still happen on the roads despite all those safety measures. My point is it would be totally reasonable to say that after most people have had the vaccine we shouldn't then have to overly worry about passing it on to people and should be able to go about our daily lives, even if certain people will still die from catching it.

It would be safest if we totally banned driving (ie. Stay in permanent lockdown in the case of covid) but we don't as that would disrupt of daily lives too much.

1752 road deaths in 2019, 1460 road deaths in 2020. That is not a huge amount compared to covid due to the amount of measures put in place.

We also have additional measures where there are vulnerable people such as 20mph outside schools or care homes. If a vulnerable person says they are scared of crossing the road we don't flippantly tell them to stay inside then, we help them by providing safe places to cross and even walk with them if we need to. With covid we are saying let's remove those additional measures that help the vulnerable despite many being really simple.

At no point have I suggested any lockdown which makes your point totally invalid to suggest it. However, given the low death rates on the road do you support the removal of safety road measures like you support the removal of covid safety measures?

Well we are slowly getting there with the reduction to 7 days.

I think there are too many vocal opponents of any less restrictions and measures that they have to do it bit by bit.

Charging for LFTs I think will be next which I again think will be good as I am tired of seeing the posts which say 'why wouldn't you lft whenever you go out the door as they are free'.

[quote EasterIssland]Been confirmed that isolation is reduced from 10 to 7 if lfds negative on day 6 ams 7

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59749447[/quote]
Excellent news.

[quote EasterIssland]Been confirmed that isolation is reduced from 10 to 7 if lfds negative on day 6 ams 7

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59749447[/quote]
At last! A step in the right direction.