Is the pandemic over for good?

[Ashleighz88]

Is the pandemic finally over for good? I really can't see it getting worse again now Or am I naive?

They said on the news that a new variant of Omicron has emerged, but also that this is now endemic rather than a pandemic.
Make of that what you will

@vodkaredbullgirl

It's never over till the lady sings

Which lady would that be?

@GiveMeNovocain

The pandemic will never be over on mn.

I’m beginning to think that too.

@Mamamia7962

I was listening to a microbiologist on the radio last week and he said that COVID is here to stay. He explained that there will be times where it goes from pandemic to endemic and vice versa. There will be different mutations and some strains will be more severe than others, but there will also be very mild strains. There will be times when we will live with few restrictions but other times when more restrictions will need to be put in place.

We will learn to live with it and as time goes on scientists will learn more and more about it.

isn’t this where we look at the health of the nation now and realise what damage bad diets and sedentary lifestyles are doing to the population? If more people can get healthier and lower their risk, we can take better care of the vulnerable too by keeping society functioning, especially medical services.

No.

@TheScenicWay
I couldn’t agree more. But a lot don’t want to have this conversation. It’s undeniable that other than age, poor diet, obesity, inflammation from too much alcohol/cigarettes etc is a huge risk factor for both COVID and well most other illnesses you could think of. Diabetes, heart disease, cancer, liver disease, autoimmunity, the list goes on.
I thought that the pandemic might spur people on to eat better, exercise more, lose excess weight & unhealthy habits in general but I don’t see it happening sadly.
Add stress in too.

MN is currently colonised by a very vocal group of posters cut from the same cloth as U4T and the loony fringe of the Tory party. They are desperate to proclaim that the pandemic is over and that only the over-anxious care about restrictions, the vulnerable don't matter and that future variants will never be anything but mild

Don’t forget the other colony who want restrictions tightened and be forever.

Then there’s the reasonably normal people in the middle…

It's not just the UK, you need to look at how the rest of the world is faring because variants can come from anywhere.

No the pandemic is far from over, especially globally.

On the positive side medicine is wonderful.

I think some people are confusing the end of the pandemic with the eradication of the virus. They are very different things.

It’s likely the virus will never be eradicated and like cold and flu we will live with it. But the pandemic itself will end and likely soon enough, it pretty much already has in many western countries.

I thought that the pandemic might spur people on to eat better, exercise more, lose excess weight & unhealthy habits in general but I don’t see it happening sadly

Realistically a pandemic was never going to do that.

We spent months living under restrictions that severely limited many people's access to exercise. This group contained a disproportionate number of people who were already vulnerable due to disability, poverty and age. Lockdown also exacerbated inequality, which we know leads to poor health. For children, a group we should be particularly concerned about, the provision for many was for them to simply be shoved in front of devices so their parents could work, and the state considered that sufficient. We had months where primary aged kids weren't able to go for a walk outside with a friend while provision was made for other groups. It's no shock at all that child obesity rose as it did.

To that we can add people drinking more to cope: with loneliness, lack of space and privacy, too much work, too little work. With the attendant problems that causes. And for people whose incomes dropped suddenly, simply getting enough food had to be a bigger priority than anything else. The cheapest way to fill your stomach, especially when we take into account the costs of time and space to cook, is stodgy crap.

Certainly over for good in our house;
Husband is finally going back to office
Holiday without tests booked
No more mask wearing

Time to move on

isn’t this where we look at the health of the nation now and realise what damage bad diets and sedentary lifestyles are doing to the population?
If more people can get healthier and lower their risk, we can take better care of the vulnerable too by keeping society functioning, especially medical services.

Restrictions have been enormously counter-productive to general health. Losing incidental movement/ exercise (school runs, moving around an office), closing gyms/ sports courts/ playgrounds/ after school sports, putting people off getting out to buy fresh food, additional restrictions e.g. an hour of exercise.

While China maintains a Zero Covid policy and keeps locking down supply chains in addition to other international economic pressures (gas/ oil prices) inflation goes up, and the economy suffers both at an individual level and at a level that allows us to recover and invest in improving health services.

We are rapidly approaching a point where to the vast majority, Covid is another temporary nuiscence and for a minority it's another standard health threat alongside flu, gastric infections.
The only benefit of suppression is that it stops an immediate overwhelm of the health service. Long term it's a false economy on public health. For so many years our health service reaches red or black status on health capacity as standard and health services aren't well managed to deal with seasonal demand. Social care was already strained and forcing care staff out over mandatory vaccination banks up the strain back into hospital wards.

Ultimately the pandemic is political, and most of the effects we feel are due to political decisions (e.g. isolations) and policies about contact and length had to change because decisions made in 2020 were becoming out of date due to viral change and vaccination and were completely unsustainable.

Covid itself is here to stay alongside other coronaviruses and respiratory and seasonal illnesses, but ultimately the pandemic is "over" when political policy stops regularly impacting on our lives. That's not just actual mandates, but guidence through authorities/ regulatory bodies/ organisations that filters down to impose additional rules and risk assessments.

@Sparklingbrook

MN is currently colonised by a very vocal group of posters cut from the same cloth as U4T and the loony fringe of the Tory party. They are desperate to proclaim that the pandemic is over and that only the over-anxious care about restrictions, the vulnerable don't matter and that future variants will never be anything but mild

Don’t forget the other colony who want restrictions tightened and be forever.

Then there’s the reasonably normal people in the middle…

True there is a group that want restrictions to stay long term

I don’t think it’s based on what will happen though

The incidental movement point is such an important one.

@JangolinaPitt

We may need restrictions again in future, depending on what comes up. That's stuff for crystal balls - it'll depend on characteristics of the virus at the point and whether and how far it evades immunity. I don’t think people will be suckered again. Sure there will be a vocal minority clamouring for restrictions but most people understand that the hysteria and panic was misplaced.

I don't think the hysteria and panic was misplaced It was a very different situation two years ago we had a brand new virus and people were naturally worried . We now have vaccines it's been a game changer.

No, it's not over. Covid will be around for a long time, and there may be future variants that cause concern again. Disease isn't something that comes to a nice neat end with a "That's all folks!" title card.

The UK Government (and others) has indicated that it could take up to five years for Covid to settle into an endemic state and vaccines may be needed for a decade. It is likely though that this will be a much lower level of seriousness. But, it will be a complication every time winter 'flu season rolls around.

Keep calm, carry on. The kids will be alright.

True there is a group that want restrictions to stay long term

Really?

I see plenty who want them to stay for as long as needed, and that this is often twisted when quoted back at them as wanting long term/ permanent.

I don't recall any who want them to stay beyind times of need (exception being when specifically discussing clinical setttings, where're safety for the already vulnerable remains essential, when it's not necessarily permanency but is longer term than other situations) - clearly I must look harder!

(Barring of course jokes about desirability in the germ soup of the Tube)

My experience is that cohort tend not to be very clear about what they want beyond the short term, and don't always appreciate being asked. So for example people who think things like vaccine passports, more masking, limited numbers in venues etc are sensible restrictions tend not to say what they'd want to do if these restrictions didn't stop cases rocketing. It's all quite unclear.

@VikingOnTheFridge

The incidental movement point is such an important one.

I worked out that I lost 5k a week on our very short school run, and nearer 5 miles by the time other local activities and "popping" out were removed. That's a significant run to add in to subsitute what was lost. But it's not just that, it's the movement of up and down the stairs to get ready on top.

In lockdown, life was reduced to go to the kitchen, sit on a chair to battle at "home learning" then retreat to the conservatory and sit in another chair to escape the sound of DH's phone calls echoing through the house and rabid gaming youtubers on the TV, and sit there MNing because other than cooking and doing the homeschool battle, all my purpose had been removed. I couldn't do things like vacuuming because of the way sound carries.

It must have been so much harder for people with smaller homes and lacking gardens.

Even when things eased up, additional risk assessments meant I lost 2x400m of walking to the DC's karate class as I now had to drive the ridiculous distance to sit in the car so the instructor could send the DCs to me if they needed the loo as access was fire escape only and they couldn't move through the leisure centre and use the toilets This rule finally lifted in September 2021! Not that the seating has returned to allow parents to sit inside, but at least the children can use the toilet and parents can leave the site so walking is now practical again.

It is these kinds of ineffective rules that persist and seem to be surprisingly hard to remove but do stop life from being "normal". We're still walking around a one-way system at school, masks on an exposed open-air playground not revoked and statitically highly, highly unlikely to have ever prevented a case.

I don't think it's over.

I know that, officially it isn't over, regardless of what Boris and his mate want.

It isn't even yet endemic, let alone over.

I'm very much hoping it's in its decline and that it will become a normal virus here and across the world.

But as I lie in bed, recovering from covid for the second time and having had an antiviral infusion 3 days ago to try to prevent more serious illness this time round - and it still being fairly rife in my school amongst the children - I can't say that I even think it's over just yet.

If you weren't going outdoors at all, then you or someone in your household must have been CEV. And even then it was only the first 12 weeks when CEV were told not to go out even for daily exercise.

The local rules orr the venue of the karate club sound appalling, but that's what they were - idiosyncratic local rules - not part of what lockdown required (and of course nothing to stop you walking round outside close to the venue if you wanted to get your paces in during the DC's class)

@Avocadoandlemons you need to reread the article you linked to. And then point out the bit that says what you think it says.

@VikingOnTheFridge

My experience is that cohort tend not to be very clear about what they want beyond the short term, and don't always appreciate being asked. So for example people who think things like vaccine passports, more masking, limited numbers in venues etc are sensible restrictions tend not to say what they'd want to do if these restrictions didn't stop cases rocketing. It's all quite unclear.

And always minimised.

Because it doesn't matter if venues can't accommodate enough people to survive financially.

Because ostracising mask-exempt people or clear communication don't matter. Never mind 6 million hearing impaired people in the UK, plus other social, communication and processing difficulties. Or people having trips/ falls because they interfere with peripheral vision and proprioception.

It doesn't matter if people are cocooned in perspex (incidentally too much affects the more effective measure of ventilation air flows)

Losing youth opportunities, community connections, being able to plan events, celebrating life and death, being with loved ones in hospital/ residential care/ hospices... it's all to protect us and it's a worthwhile cost to bear to save the NHS from Covid overwhelm...

Lonliness certainly doesn't matter. Not one jot.

"Children are resilient"

All minimised.

It's accepted just about everywhere other than New Zealand and China that Zero Covid ain't happening... so Covid is permanent... people still fear mutations for the worse... we have flu years that are more virilent and cause excess deaths, so how is "as long as it takes" different to the "permanent measures" that people are denying wanting?

I see plenty who want them to stay for as long as needed, and that this is often twisted when quoted back at them as wanting long term/ permanent.

Yes, this is the discrepancy, peoples views on how long they are needed. It’s already been two years, and most people in many western countries no longer feel they are needed, as do most governments who are now easing up. The issue is a small minority feel they are “needed” longer.

A Nightingale now has seven patients.