If covid policy stays 'as is', how do we tackle the impacts

[NotReadyForAutumnYet]

Inspired by another thread. I think we should be doing more to tackle covid, but that is not for this thread. I'm interested in knowing how if we maintain current policy, we tackle the impacts.

So, impacts on social care,
impacts on healthcare (for everything - not just covid),
access to healthcare (where threat of covid on current health conditions for some means to risky to access healthcare with no infection control), access to healthcare as other issues triggered by covid exacerbate in population, hospital acquired infections leading to longer stays, susceptibility to and impact of other viruses rise post infection,
impacts on mental health and mental health services, impacts on number of people able to donate organs, blood etc (can't if have long covid)
confidence/accountability in/of public health / government messaging (during lockdown, post restrictions, vaccination and current- much can be picked apart on messaging inc. honesty)
impacts on education, impacts on attendance,
impacts on workforce, impacts on businesses
impacts of not being able to exercise, impacts of increasingly sick population (including those sick, but able to work), impacts on finances - increase in poverty, impacts on very vulnerable,
impacts on those in abusive situations, impacts on those wanting insurance policies etc etc.
I know there are many other areas, but hopefully you get drift.
How do we tackle the impacts of current policy?

This whole post feels like a Gish Gallop, but just to pick on one point, since no actual person could address them all (that being your intention, I'm sure):

impacts on mental health and mental health services

This could've been prevented if the Government had taken a sensible Sweden-style approach in 2020, instead of being gaslighted by CCP bots into engaging in an 18-month on-off lockdown where all of normal human behaviour was criminalised and all of society had to press the brake pedal for what the Chief Medical Officer had already stated was a mild illness.

To continue: You need to acknowledge that the UK 2020 response to Covid was dribblingly insane, utterly deranged in its authoritarianism and overreach, for me to even start to take you seriously that we're not doing enough in 2023. It's 3 years on and still feels like a dystopian nightmare.

checks it's not 2020

Why couldn’t you just respond to the OP’s thread without being an arsehole?

Whoops, sorry @Krustykrabpizza my post was mean for @BitOutOfPractice!
now I’m the arsehole!

Arsehole medal goes to this ^ person!

This x 1000!

Im not that convinced when people talk about long covid

The symptoms that people talk about could apply to any number of viruses (and I have life long symptoms from a virus nearly a decade ago), depression, menopause, old age, exhaustion, modern life, autoimmune conditions, the list is endless

Its a lazy go to, to say that someone is suffering from long covid. What tests have been done to diagnose that fully and eliminate other things?

Much of that is policy change though.
Change of government - will help with some aspects but opposition are pretty quiet on covid too.
Air - hard to disagree with what you've written, but again, that is a policy change, as is some of the stuff about messaging/awareness.

As for some people saying they don't care about the impacts because they're from covid - doesn't mean that things like the rise in people who can no longer work, the increase in diabetes, dementia, or literally being trapped at home as now housebound etc aren't affecting others or won't cost the taxpayer. So, assuming nothing changes, what happens?

Thanks @ChChChCherryBomb <preens>

I actually think it’s out people off answering the question. Though I did

Societal breakdown, probably.

Various studies

www.zotero.org/groups/5006109/covidstudies/library

Im Immune suppressed/ former shielding group. I’m back at work and being coughed over by everyone the same as i always was but knowing that some of them have tested positive for covid and still have to be there. Unless they can introduce a work from home scheme for the most medically vulnerable the covid issue is irrelevant to most people. The majority don’t care, those of us who are massively affected when we catch something just have to get on with it.

Again, that's a policy change. People like you will have to get on with it...until you maybe can't.
I'm really sorry. Some people do care.

I love laziness. Laziness is the root of human genius. But it has a drawback. The main reason people don't exercise is because they are flipping lazy.

The main reason healthcare in UK is a total mess is because of decades of under-investment.

The main reason that the public have lost confidence in the Establishment is because misinformation & disinformation & "anti establishmentarianism" have been throroughly monetised. There is a thriving industry making a lot of money out of misinformation.

High spending linked to covid controls, Brexit & the sodding Ukraine war are main reasons British economy is rickety.

Main reason that mental health is such an issue is because... people are allowed to talk about it without stigma. And really there is a bit of wallowing going on, because people get their expectations up their mental anguish can be fixed (actually most of them can't), so then they dwell on it to their own detriment...

I mean sure, fret about all that stuff. But know that covid cases now & in near future are not what is making any of them huge problems now & in near future.

Correct

Should you change the word "Covid" to "winter viruses" maybe?

Parklife!

Your verbose list is things which were impacted by lockdowns, not covid itself

Nobody is ever going to go back

No, because they’re very different things.
A bit like calling a dog a cat - you can do it, but you’ll come over a bit crazy

@MaybeSmaller

This could've been prevented if the Government had taken a sensible Sweden-style approach in 2020, instead of being gaslighted by CCP bots into engaging in an 18-month on-off lockdown where all of normal human behaviour was criminalised and all of society had to press the brake pedal for what the Chief Medical Officer had already stated was a mild illness.

If this is so, why did similar societies across the world do exactly the same thing? Were they also pressured by CCP bots? Lockdowns in some places were also far longer and severe - much more so than anything England saw.

Also, FYI - 'mild' in the medical sense simply means not requiring hospital treatment, ie. not bleeding out of all your orifices and still capable of breath.

To continue: You need to acknowledge that the UK 2020 response to Covid was dribblingly insane, utterly deranged in its authoritarianism and overreach, for me to even start to take you seriously that we're not doing enough in 2023. It's 3 years on and still feels like a dystopian nightmare.

See above. It was actually laid-back in comparison to elsewhere.

Everytime there is a new variant a few people start to panic, and in the end it turns out to be nothing serious at first I was all for lockdowns as we didn't know much about covid and didn't have a vaccine, children missed school, their mental health was impacted, the flu has different variations each year and we have lived with it for many years, yes cases have risen and people going into hospital as slightly risen,but there is no rise in intensive care cases,the worst is behind us,like flu it will always be there we just learn to live with it

Original message was meant to be a list with a bit of context - epic fail. Quick cut and paste with bullets below, minus context.

• social care,
• healthcare - mental and physical
• confidence/accountability in/of public health / government messaging
• education and attendance,
• workforce and businesses
• not being able to exercise,
• increasingly sick population
• finances and poverty
• very vulnerable - physically, mentally, those in abusive situations

This thread assumes covid policy stays as it is - no change. Whether there are better or worse policies in terms of consequences has been discussed on numerous threads.
How do people think the consequences of current policy will be (or should be) dealt with? Also interested in when people think consequences should be addressed. Nothing to do with new variant.

We continue to bring out better vaccines and drug treatments, same as other diseases. It would help if fewer people were overweight, frankly.

Even if we talk about covid as just another winter virus, we still need to deal with it being an extra, new one, and having increased the amount of short and long term time off sick needed across the population. It's an extra winter virus to get and one we seem to be getting more frequently than we get flu (and on top of flu).

Sick staff are bad for businesses, hospitals, schools. I don't know how we deal with that impact, but it doesn't seem to be going away by itself.