AIBU to be sick of people who think it's all back to normal?

[JanusTheFirst]

Woke to the news that my cousin died early this morning of Covid. No underlying conditions and she was vaccinated. But she was elderly. She hardly ever went out but must have picked it up on a rare outing to the local shop.

People are still dying and we should still be looking out for those vulnerable to this awful disease. It isn't all back to normal. My cousin is dead and she wouldn't be but for Covid.

@SalYPimienta we just won't comply....won't wear masks,isolate,test, minimise life.....if shops/schools close, cool. Most of us will just carry on as we do

Well it will because I won’t comply and neither will millions of others!

That's all that was done last time.....ask. Nobody enforced it

It's incredible how many people can't even maintain a baseline level of hygiene. Don't cough and sneeze into your hands, don't shake hands with people, wash your hands before you eat, try to use hand gel after touching things like door handles, or at least don't touch a door handle and then start biting your nails or picking your nose. Very obvious, basic things that hugely reduce the chances of getting or passing on a virus.

I genuinely think a large section of the population must just be a bit thick. There's no other explanation.

Demographically speaking, the effect of COVID measures could be roughly summed up as “Try to keep every very elderly person going as long as possible, while hammering younger people’s ability (and desire) to meet partners, marry and have children.”

You don’t have to try very hard to see that this is…. Not a long term viable plan for society in demographic terms.

It’s also a big reason why even China gave up on ZC in the end (well, that and the protests). Marriage rates and birth rates in the People’s Republic have tanked to levels that are causing a quiet panic among Party officials.

You cannot endlessly organize society around the needs of older people in ways that involve extreme sacrifices for children and their parents - it is neither practical nor ethical.

How can you 'not comply' if you're not allowed to enter a country or return to the UK after being abroad? How can you 'not comply' if you want to go to to the pub and the pub is shut?

Do you actually ever stop to think before you type?

What a lot of people don't get is that when protective measures such as closing certain premises or implementing social distancing are required, they won't have a choice but to comply.

Even today, Dr Rachel Clarke on Twitter is reporting on the disaster that is taking place in the NHS and how protections are necessary.

You have to be trolling. Nobody could possibly think any of the things you are saying, particularly your comments about schools which are abhorrent.

If people had to test every time they had a sniffle or cough they would soon be bankrupt ffs. Not everybody is willing to pay for them given they used to be free.

Young people have also died of covid and suffer long covid.

Surely the main issue was to keep the NHS going, if 50 million people are going to get covid at some point and only 1% need to go into hospital (I don't know the real percentage) then surely 500,000 people needing a hospital bed is impossible if it all happens in the space of a few weeks, if it is spread out of years because of lockdowns/testing/mask wearing or whatever it is more manageable. That's without thinking of how the hospitals would cope if high numbers of staff are too ill to work.

A lot of people are just thick. Yes, they might be able to go in and out of other people's homes or go for a walk, but if businesses are closed and restrictions are placed on things like travel, then their freedoms are vastly curtailed.

Can't wait for my life to be destroyed again because Karen can't possibly wear a face mask round Waitrose or open a window on the bus.

@SalYPimienta don't be so thick!

By not complying it's clearly meant to mean no masks/distancing/staying in/testing/things which are within our reach!

A minority seem very keen on various things, which is probably an outcome of last few years, but it won’t happen.

Which is good imo but those who do want it will be disappointed this time. Plenty felt the same earlier when they thought it the wrong way to go. That’s life. It’s good we have high immunity generally though.

Absolutely this! ☝️. Well said! My daughter also has long covid, and for her life is certainly not back to normal!

Most of us are too busy working to care about travelling to places!

Of course schools don’t have budgets for this. They are massively underfunded!!
This would be possible if we had a government that gave a shit. Huge long term benefits for kids and their parents.

Actually DIY Corsi-Rosenthal boxes are relatively cheap and some councils are trying to implement them in schools (you can sneer at this too if you like).

And of course sickness I think everyone who ever has a “sniffle” should be paid to be off sick 🙄

Everything always so black and white to you?!

You’d probably have us all locked down for the next 5 years, children being homeschooled and masks mandatory for the next 20 years with zero covid being the ultimate aim.
Yet the result of the lockdowns have been detrimental to the health of young people and we haven’t even seen the full effect of the postponement of crucial operations for things like heart disease and cancer.

Sorry for your loss but the death of elderly and vulnerable people, of which there will always be many, it’s not other people’s problem to solve.

I love this rewriting of history that lockdowns, masks, and vaccines don’t work

they do. Yes, it didn’t stop covid . But they prevented a far bigger number of people dying globally and being disabled with long covid. We can see that in any data published globally by reputable sources. Despite the internet conspiracy theorists.

it’s like saying chemo therepy doesn’t work - people have it and yet still die. Yes, it is not 100% effective, nor is it clos3 to that . But it still saves lives or even given where best outcome is to lengthens peoples lives. So, we give it routinely to anyone we think it could be beneficial for. We don’t question that even though is way more expensive and invasive than what we could do to reduce covid and even flu infections.

I am not advocating lock downs. But mask wearing is really not an issue when infection rates locally are high. Testing if it was free, would be helpful in ensuring people took precautions like wfh when infected. air filtration in public buildings would make a big difference. It is about political will - covid is an inconvenience to the conservatives- it is linked to party gate, squandered money, corruption with contracts- of course they want to go “move along here, nothing to see”

International travel restrictions are not a “lockdown” - they are international travel restrictions. Pub closures are not a “lockdown” either. A “lockdown” is where people are actually being told to stay at home unless they meet specific conditions.

Of course you will not get people to comply again (and if you close the pubs, people will just meet up in each other’s homes where the ventilation is probably worse).

Lockdowns are dependent on voluntary compliance, and I don’t think it will happen again, because human societies get used to a certain level of infectious-disease death and it just becomes part of the wallpaper.

I’ve lived in parts of the world where endemic malaria (the really dangerous falciparum kind) is a constant threat - in these places (and for that matter, in war zones) people just accept that there is a certain level of risk and get on with things; they take medication if it’s an option and do a few other mitigation type things, but they don’t hide indoors avoiding every activity where there might be a mosquito etc. The point is that people’s criteria as to what a normal/acceptable level of infectious disease death risk is, depends on what they are seeing around them.

@Mariposa26

Councillor Oliver Patrick on Twitter has been arranging air filters for schools and pushing for masking and distancing to keep DC and staff safe.

I don’t just think they’re thick. More like filthy when it comes to basic hygiene. Some folk are disgusting buggers 🤢

Good post

@Thismonkeysgonetodevon

And of course sickness I think everyone who ever has a “sniffle” should be paid to be off sick

You think what??

I'm sorry for your loss.

If by "back to normal" you mean life before covid then you're right. It's not 'back to normal' because that will never happen. we will never not have covid floating around.

Normal now is accepting the fact that covid is here and it's not going anywhere and people are going to continue to get it and very sadly, some of them are going to die.

Same as flu and countless other viruses.

It's another one for the list of things you may well catch, will probably be ok but could possibly not be.

'back to normal' means living life normally. Not living in a covid -19 free world. That option is not available.

This is the entire point. It's not a year-round issue. It's not a cause for hysteria and 'oh my God my freeeeeedoms'. The NHS is under a lot of pressure right now and it's basic common sense to try not to catch a virus that might put you in hospital. We now have Covid on top of the usual flu that causes problems every winter. The NHS just isn't coping.

That doesn't mean locking yourself in your house, it means taking this into consideration when making decisions. I've started to wear an FFP2 mask again when going pretty much anywhere enclosed. I had stopped wearing it last year after the big Omicron wave and I'll probably stop wearing it again in a few weeks, but if I can do small simple things like this to try to reduce my chances of getting sick, I'll do them. I'm genuinely not sure why people find it so challenging.