‘Living with covid’

[TweenTrauma]

Just wondering if this is it now? Since all restrictions were dropped the cases in my area have gone absolutely crazy. Schools having to close year groups due to staff shortages, and just about everyone I know either having it or recently had it in their household. Myself included, for the 2nd time in 6 months.

I can only imagine cases are going to soar even higher with the imminent end of free testing.

I totally get we’re all sick to the back teeth of covid, and I’m not a supporter of restrictions and lockdowns, but I hate to say that it’s all looking a bit grim. People may not be getting seriously ill, generally speaking, but for many it’s a virus nasty enough to put you on your ass for a week or two. With so many reinfections at the moment I’m also not holding out too much hope for the herd immunity theory, because it just doesn’t seem to be happening from what I’m seeing. It seems quite common for people to be getting it 2-3 months after the last time which is kinda alarming when it makes you ill enough to disrupt everything in your life (and if like me you’re self employed so aren’t well enough to earn any money).

It’s just dawned on me that this could well be it now, just constantly taking turns with covid every few months. I know other bugs existed before covid, but I can’t remember the last time I was ill before covid came along, not for quite a few years.

Sorry for the depressing thread, I’m just lying in the bath with my lungs on fire feeling a bit bleak.

Yep, living with Covid means the government pretends it goes away unless deaths and hospitalisations rise enough that the NHS is under severe pressure. If that does happen then they will find it tough to reintroduce restrictions as they have given everything up. There is no consideration given to the effects of many people being sick at the same time on the effective running of the country. Ending the legal need to isolate does not mean people are necessarily well enough to go to work - it actually seems like the latest Omicron variant is making more people feel ill enough to have to stay in bed. I work in education and staffing is at crisis levels.

It would have been easy to keep some simple restrictions like face masks which everyone was used to anyway.

@raspberryjamchicken I really feel for those working in education, it’s a bloody nightmare for them. I was halfway through doing an application for teacher training recently, but covid has made me reconsider (I have ME and don’t think my immune system could take so many assaults to my immune system).

I certainly feel too crap to be able to work this week but I’m going to have to (luckily I work alone so won’t infect anyone), which will probably knock me back and make my recovery slower), but I just can’t afford any more time off after taking time off for recent surgery.

The trouble is that international comparisons really don't support the idea that face masks make any particular difference. (Have you see South Korea and Hong Kong recently?)

Full scale lockdowns and mandatory out of home quarantine can (probably) suppress the virus, but quite obviously no country outside China is going to actually do this.

OP, I agree that it's all a bit shit. I just hope that better and better vaccines (for flu as well as covid) and the gradual buildup of immunity in the population will result in symptoms becoming progressively less severe over the years, because it's hard to see any politically feasible alternative.

I've just had it, it was unpleasant, and I don't want it again. Joy of joys though because I work at McDonald's and come Summer every person imaginable will be flooding through those doors. 😭

@user1477391263 no I agree that face masks and lockdowns were massively ineffective, I think what we’re seeing now is the end of people testing so much (soon not at all), no contact tracing, no legal requirement to self isolate (and people simply not being able to afford to self isolate in many cases). And of course the vaccines didn’t turn out to be the golden goose that everyone hoped for.

So it just seems we are now stuck in a constant cycle of re infections, with no tools to tackle them. Me and both DC all had covid in September. DD2 got it again, along with her whole year group pretty much, about a month ago. Despite living in a pretty small house and dd2 being a bit mucky by nature, neither me or dd1 caught it again. I assumed maybe because I was really quite unwell in September and dd2 just had a minor cough, that perhaps I had enough antibodies not to get it. But then a month later now I’ve gone down with it, so there goes that theory.

It would have been easy to keep some simple restrictions like face masks which everyone was used to anyway.

And they’re working so well in Scotland.

It’s also so hard to plan anything when you don’t know when you’re going to be hit with covid. Holidays, weddings etc, could all turn to shit if a key participant has covid. Was just talking to a friend in London tonight who met up with a big group of friends the day before she became ill, now pretty much everyone she saw that night also has covid and they all had holidays booked for Easter (private schools so just broken up), and so now she’s wracked with guilt at ruining all their plans/losing their money, as well as making them ill.

So it just seems we are now stuck in a constant cycle of re infections, with no tools to tackle them

But we have tools: firstly, our own immune system, then increasingly better adjusted vaccines, anti virals etc.

And privately educated families worrying about missing holidays isn't exactly a huge 'worry' is it?

@Lilaclavenders no perhaps not the most devastating part of what’s going on, but even as a skint single parent living in a council house I’m able to possess enough empathy to understand that having your first family holiday in over 2 years ruined at the last minute must be really disappointing. It was just an example of the kind of disruption which people are seemingly having to learn to live with.

I would think it most likely that it’ll act like the hundreds of other common respiratory viruses floating around. So illness, and the disruption from it, will continue to decrease over time as more people have immunity.

I know people feel like this must be really different to all the viruses that cause ‘just’ a cold or ‘just’ flu, but what’s different about this one is that it is new to us. At one point all those other viruses were new too, and lots of them were very disruptive and dangerous. Spanish flu didn’t go away at the end of the pandemic, it just wasn’t able to cause so much devastation any more.

OP, you've summed up how I feel too. It's pretty shit. I think unless a sterilising vaccine is invented and administered to the whole world (will be impossible), this endless cycle of infections won't end.

Italy's graphs for cases and deaths look like the rest of Europe, even though Italy has continued to require mandatory isolation, loads of testing and compulsory medical grade masks in public (and kids are still wearing them in schools).

OP, I empathize and I agree it's shit, but there don't seem to be any quick n easy fixes with this virus: the only things that actually seem to help are vaccines. We will just have to keep on with the annual boosters and also press on with developing better vaccines. As other posters have said, pandemic viruses settle down and cause less havoc over time, as they cease to become "novel" to our immune systems. It's already happening but will be an ongoing process.

I'm surprised people think that facemasks will make much difference. Still legally required in Scotland and our cases are sky high. Face masks do work, but not in the way we use them (i.e. using a single-use mask all day, touching it all the time).

It's already becoming less dangerous and, if previous similar bugs are anything to go by, will continue to do so. Life is normally full of illness. We've just been cosseted for a few decades. Yes, we do need to exist alongside it. What other options are there?! Luckily we have freely available vaccines which help reduce the severity, by a great degree. Life is hard. Sooner one accepts that, the easier it gets.

I agree it’s shit that we now have another virus to contend with that isn’t going anywhere . I would hope at some point (and we’re not there yet). Everyone will have been exposed so many times we start to get some good immunity that means you can either avoid it or it’s mild.

I would like to also see more work done on treatments and vaccines. The current vaccines have such little impact on spread. Earlier variants they were more effective.

February’s age standardised mortality rate was the second lowest ever recorded. Source: the Office of National Statistics.

Living with Covid is overdue and appears to be working.

OP, I empathize and I agree it's shit, but there don't seem to be any quick n easy fixes with this virus: the only things that actually seem to help are vaccines.

I totally agree with this. There just aren't easy answers. Masks have limited efficacy. Track and trace has been a dead duck for a long time. It's not clear if testing and isolation aren't causing more disruption than they're saving.

Get vaccinated, get boosted when you're offered one and get on with it, seems to be the only way.

@raspberryjamchicken

Yep, living with Covid means the government pretends it goes away unless deaths and hospitalisations rise enough that the NHS is under severe pressure. If that does happen then they will find it tough to reintroduce restrictions as they have given everything up. There is no consideration given to the effects of many people being sick at the same time on the effective running of the country. Ending the legal need to isolate does not mean people are necessarily well enough to go to work - it actually seems like the latest Omicron variant is making more people feel ill enough to have to stay in bed. I work in education and staffing is at crisis levels.

It would have been easy to keep some simple restrictions like face masks which everyone was used to anyway.

Worked out well for Scotland right ?

And in fairness, the vaccines have been totally game changing in keeping people out of hospital, which is an enormous step forward, even if people are still spending a week or so in bed.

It would have been easy to keep some simple restrictions like face masks which everyone was used to anyway

It may or may not have been easy. It would seem to be totally pointless however.

Yep, living with Covid means the government pretends it goes away unless deaths and hospitalisations rise enough that the NHS is under severe pressure.

There's no need to 'pretend'. Nobody is expecting Covid to 'go away'!

We have to accept that. And get on with our lives. We won't save every life but we cannot continue to restrict our lives and livelihoods any longer due to a virus that's fairly mild for the majority.

Masks we’re ineffective as we were only wearing surgical and fabric. Other countries that made everyone wear FFP2 or 3 for their healthcare and general public did so much better. We can’t even do that for our healthcare workers looking after covid people

Other countries that made everyone wear FFP2 or 3 for their healthcare and general public did so much better.

Really? Which ones?

The end of ridiculous levels of testing will surely see it become just another virus that’s out there. It’s always been the case (for us anyway) that every so often you catch something that makes you feel ill. Sometimes you get off lightly and sometimes not. We’ve never obsessed in this way over what strain of cold/flu you have. If you’re actively unwell then stay at home, otherwise it’s business as usual.