Is this it now? Covid on the way out?

[ToJabOrNotToJab]

Now that a lot of people are less scared, particularly vulnerable people who have had it and only suffered mild illness, generally the feeling seems to be that it's moving to endemic and people just want to get on with it. With isolation now being slashed to 5 days as well, is this the end of all the covid hysteria and restrictions? Or is it simply that omicron has peaked in London and nowhere else matters?

Hope so....those that were adamant a lockdown was coming on Boxing Day have mysteriously vanished from MN......

@zafferana

I bloody hope so!

But the doomsayers and the 'I haven't left my house since March 2020' brigade on MN won't give up that easily.

Well they can continue to stay in their houses then if they want, whilst the rest of us get on with life.

@MaxNormal

Still early days, mask wearing will be here for a while to come, COVID passports maybe and still need people to be careful, this is not over for a long time

Leak today suggests that all measures are being scrapped apart from 5 day isolation after a positive test, and lateral flow tests to travel, as of 26 January.
That includes scrapping masks and covid passes.

Please let it be true!

I've just been reading a horrible thread about masks on AIBU and sincerely hope they are scrapped.

littlepeas tbh after the last two years I'm scared to get my hopes up and dread the discovery of another scarient but I do honestly think it might be. Or at least they will scrap some measures then and probably any remaining in spring.

It may be coming towards an end end in our little corner of the world but we need to remember that it isn't over until its over everywhere. For example hospitalisation rates in the US are rocketing.

Yes, DS's swimming classes still aren't allowing parents in to watch. Everyone has to wait outside in cars. Utterly ridiculous and I'd like to move him but there's not much availability elsewhere and he's made good progress.

Not having to sit and watch swimming lessons is the best bit of Covid!

I went for a fabric shop this weekend and asked to take one of the fabric sample books home and was told "oh we can't do that anymore because of Covid". As if we haven't learned anything. Utterly ridiculous. I can't wait for some common sense to prevail.

@CarrieBlue

Yes, DS's swimming classes still aren't allowing parents in to watch. Everyone has to wait outside in cars. Utterly ridiculous and I'd like to move him but there's not much availability elsewhere and he's made good progress.

Not having to sit and watch swimming lessons is the best bit of Covid!

I wouldn't mind in summer but it's bloody freezing being outside at the moment!

@CarrieBlue

Yes, DS's swimming classes still aren't allowing parents in to watch. Everyone has to wait outside in cars. Utterly ridiculous and I'd like to move him but there's not much availability elsewhere and he's made good progress.

Not having to sit and watch swimming lessons is the best bit of Covid!

My ds swim club allow spectators. So do the leisure centres own learn to swim.

It's a balcony above the pool and hardly anyone sits SD. We all wear masks to wander in but take them off when sitting.

I've noticed myself that I don't worry about masks in places I know with people I know. But not wearing one in Tesco feels weird 🤦🏼‍♀️🤷‍♀️

However swim England and British swimming still have strict covid guidelines at meets.

Yes thank goodness but the hysterical on here will persist. Roll on saying goodbye to masks, getting back to the office and any other pointless restrictions put on our lives.

And yes wax I agree it's freezing. Especially when my ds trains at 5am! I have NO desire to sit outside at that time of the morning. Much nicer inside where it's warm with bbc sounds and a coffee!

I hope the masks go in a few weeks but where I am everyone still seems to be wearing them. I’ve been in York today, masks were not required in the restaurant for lunch but in the shops I didn’t see anyone without one. I just can’t see the logic and I think that’s what’s really getting to me. The rules are so random, there doesn’t seem to be any science behind it.

@MrsTerryPratchett

How is it early days? We are two years in and pandemics usually last two years.

Well the plague's been around for a few hundred. So it's early days, yes! In terms of the disease.

There hasn't been a plague pandemic lasting hundreds of years though.

Hope so, although I read Sage said we could have 10k daily hospital admissions in the summer. Quite how they came to that I don’t know, perhaps just picked a random number? And in the summer when viruses generally don’t circulate much

They not particularly known for very accurate predictions though, if we didn’t lockdown over Christmas then 1M cases a day by the New Year which didn’t happen. 6k deaths a day by now which also hasn’t happened. 100k cases a day with “freedom day” last year that didn’t happen.

There's no end in sight in hospitals (which I really want to see!)

Non stop masks and social distancing for 2 years now. LFTs to visit, only one 1 person can ever visit, our covid wards has had to expand to 2 wards over Xmas and third opening this week (not due to covid sick, due to infection on top of other illness, but need to segregate), endless outbreaks closing wards so no capacity, no social care due to carer isolation so no hospital throughput, pretty much all ICU level illness = death, no staff due to isolation and bed expansion - redeployment started again this week, told to discharge all waiting lists etc.

It's so far from normal it's untrue and I'm SO fed up of it. If everywhere else is sacking covid off, I'd like the same in hospital please or I'm not sure how much longer I'll continue working in the nhs!

Funny, I was I in a busy pub this afternoon. We were in between an elderly couple and a couple with a tiny baby. All chatting, no one worried about the distance. Lots of people by the bar. People are over it- that’s it now. I’m so happy.

@LadyGAgain

I went for a fabric shop this weekend and asked to take one of the fabric sample books home and was told "oh we can't do that anymore because of Covid". As if we haven't learned anything. Utterly ridiculous. I can't wait for some common sense to prevail.

Completely agree with this. It's time for businesses to actually employ logic rather than theatrical nonsense practices. I had to stand outside Specsavers in the rain having my new (expensive!) glasses adjusted and then use the shop window as a mirror because they wouldn't let me in. Utterly ridiculous.

@JesusInTheCabbageVan the First Plague Pandemic lasted from 541-mid 8th century. The second plague pandemic lasted from the start of the Black Death to the 19th century. The third plague pandemic lasted from 1855-1960s.

They’ve ALL lasted more than a century!

I’m not suggesting covid will last that long (of course!), but it's inaccurate to say that no pandemic has lasted longer than 2years.

I can’t answer the question in the OP, as I don’t have the scientific knowledge and can’t predict the future. All I’m personally worried about is ensuring the vulnerable are protected, and I don't know the best way to achieve that because (see above).

I flipping hope so. It must be getting better though as I have noticed that the 3 "harbingers of doom" posters (I'm sure some will know who I mean) haven't popped up for a while.

I would absolutely love to get rid of masks. I’m in NI and we haven’t got rid of them at all since they came in.

I just hate, hate, hate wearing them.

@solania happy to be proven wrong, but that's not my understanding. While plague outbreaks may have occurred around the world throughout those periods, I don't think it would have been considered a pandemic for all that time.

www.livescience.com/worst-epidemics-and-pandemics-in-history.html

Here for instance.

Well my DD has it as does most of her class but none of them are really that unwell so yes I think it's just doing the last rounds.

And Guinness Book of Records (OK, not the most scientific source, but still...) says that the longest pandemic is the Seventh Cholera Pandemic - 1961-present.

Btw I don't think anyone IS saying that no pandemic has lasted more than two years. Just that that's the benchmark.