Guilt free railing

[WouldBeGood]

The place to vent, moan, rail, cheer: whatever you’re feeling about Covid, and the rules, and life and the universe.

I’ve started this as I’m feeling scared and fed up with increasing restrictions despite vaccines. I feel that what should be a more positive time is instead bringing more and more doom.

I want the simple pleasures of life back, as well as all the big stuff.

Welcome to the dark side @jabbathebuttI went of Chris Whitty near the beginning when he and ano used out of date projections of deaths just to scare folk when they had in their possession the more up to date les scary versions. I can't stand any of them.

Jabba its so shit and pointless of them to do these random speculations and guesses. Very unfair on people as every pronouncement is bound to cause huge stress for no good reason.

He was the scientist I liked. I can't stand Devi, Linda and Jason who all seem to want fame

He's the only actual scientist in that lot lol. But yes I'm rather off him too, he seems to forget that humans are human.

Well South Africa has stopped the AZ vaccine rollout due to concerns about it's effectiveness @Pootle40. They now have no vaccine to use. And they have the highest mortality rate in African countries or so BBC says. I imagine that is a problem.

It’s not really up to Chris Whitby whether we’re socially distancing in winter though (and I don’t think he thinks it is). None of these measures work without broad public support. There was broad public support for doing this during a short-term crisis, but there would be a lot less for a long-term plan after vaccines.

Imagine there will always be some people who want to stick with face masks and keeping 2m apart, but they’re going to really in the minority. Most people won’t think that the hassle outweighs the benefits, and it would be very hard to justify as necessary outside of a crisis.

“Keep apart to stop Granny dying and the hospitals being overwhelmed!” - okay, “keep apart to slightly reduce your statistical chance of getting mild flu-like symptoms!” - no thanks you’re good.

@titsbumfannythelot

The strategy we seem to be adopting just makes the future seem so bleak and insular. I want my kids to travel and see other cultures. That seems a lifetime away.

A big yes to this @titsbumfannythelot. There’s so much more to life

glad to have somewhere I can vent without needing to (hopefully) name change yet again due to some nasty messages and attempts to out me!

I'm no emailing Nicola unless its to tell her where she can go.

Hi @jabbathebutt!

This is indeed the place to be to moan about stuff.

I really struggle with masks but fortunately don’t have to wear them much.

I really hope you get your vaccine soon. DP has MS and initially had a shielding letter, though not ECV and he rang the helpline today: told to ring his surgery but they’re not taking calls 🙄

@jabbathebutt

glad to have somewhere I can vent without needing to (hopefully) name change yet again due to some nasty messages and attempts to out me!

I'm no emailing Nicola unless its to tell her where she can go.

I would love you to tell her to do one! On behalf of a lot of us.

As much as I don't like it I think Devi Sridhar is right. We can either be like Australia and NZ or live with on/off lockdowns. Both is a bit miserable.
And in terms of travelling we could all go explore all those lovely northern coastal towns and revel in their chilly rain

The biggest city in NZ is currently in a lockdown...

I think Zero Covid was a fine approach while we waited for vaccines, but now we’ve got them the game has changed.

Nah, there will be no need for lockdowns when the vaccine is rolled out to the vulnerable. It’s shown to reduce the impact of the disease in all strains so no pressure on NHS which is the only conceivable justification for lockdown.

People won’t stay locked up so that they don’t get a bit sick.

I do wonder how long NZ and Australia can maintain that approach.

Callisto1 I think South Africa was very ill-advised to pause with the AZ vaccines but given the absolutely sky-high corruption levels and general chaos there at present unfortunately a lot of policy that is in stark contrast to the best interest of the residents of the country tend to get roled out.

We'll have to agree to disagree on Devi and her ideas. I would imagine our third option, which certainly sounds the most palatable to me, is that we vaccinate everyone, do annual boosters as required and get on with our lives.

I like the sound of the third option. I'm just not convinced it's going to go so smoothly.

Agree that they should have vaccinated anyway in SA. But the initial results look really worrying. Especially because AZ is the cheapest and most robust vaccine.

@Callisto1 you’re on a downer even for the thread of doom.

Really, it’s not all as bad as that

I apologise if that sounded nippy. I’m just heartily fed up. Going to bed and hoping to cheer up tomorrow.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day for everyone

Back to work. I'm all singing dancing this morning. I'm so excited to get a change of scene. Will be my last day of later starts though 😭😭 I have enjoyed my later starts.

Have a good day at work @Groovee!

I need to get on the treadmill!

At least we'll finally find out about some of the early years/school stuff today. Fingers crossed for anyone hoping to have children return next week.

Also yesterday was so much milder, I was in heaven as I actually managed to get the car out and left the house with the kids took them to McDonalds. I also managed to get my DD The Last Snowsuit In Scotland. I ordered it to a local store about a month ago and it's finally here so I'll go to collect that today. Perfect timing for the thaw 👍

Hope everyone has an ok day today. Groovee do you work out of the house? I can barely remember what that was like.

@StopTouchingYourFairyGarden I'm an EYP in a school nursery. I've not worked at home as I'm on the rota for keyworker children. I feel like I'm missing interacting with those who are at home.

Groovee you are an actual hero to parents like me! I am desperate for the children to get back to early years and get some proper early education (and fun) from people who know what they're doing.

My relative is a primary teacher and says it is so, so difficult at the moment. She's working all hours trying to balance the home learners and hub days (and she has little ones at home).

Pretty sensible article on the BBC this morning on learning to live with the virus

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55985916

Haha @WouldBeGood you weren't nippy. Sometimes I need a bit of talking to when I get into a funk!
Fingers, toes and everything else crossed for today.

I’ve been feeling really bad @Callisto1. But have vowed to be more chilled today no matter what!

Yes.. fingers crossed!