Guilt Free Railing 17

[WouldBeGood]

Happy New Thread, Railers!

@IsurviveonCoffeeandWinein2021

The tories want to keep them as well.

I agree with most of the list of demands from the Tories (assume this is what you mean) but I genuinely don't get the love for masks in public spaces. Unless you're going to mandate N95s (and I can't see them doing that at the end of the pandemic having said that any rag was OK throughout the peaks) they do precious little to stop spread, which is now very well established. It's just pure virtue signalling at this point. And if we're phasing out isolation requirements and 'moving forward' something that is purely a visual reminder of the pandemic isn't what we want anyway.

Yes @Y0uCann0tBeSer10us I just seen it quickly as was in a teams lecture.

They are a waste of time it's nuts.

X posted with @Lockdownbear - not disagreeing with you for the sake of it. It's the bullying, authoritarian coercive tactics driving this policy that worry me as much my great sympathy for women who are trying to conceive. And the worry that this sort of government behaviour will become normalised, especially by younger people.

Are the potential dads required to be vaccinated too? Hmmm women's bodies and control of their fertility as the place to start with rationing healthcare by vaccine status. I'm not a fan, they've picked on the weakest group as usual.

I fervently hope we move away from mass vaccination over the next few years

But it's not the men who will be at risk of ending up in ICU, babies born very prematurely etc. Is it a cost/risk analysis do you think? It costs X for IVF, and they don't want that to be money wasted (sounds dreadul but you know what I mean?)

I don't know how I feel about this one really. Mostly I think 'vaccinations have been shown to be safe for pregnant women for, what, a year now, so why wouldn't you' but also have a concern about the overstepping of clinicians.

I have no idea why the Tories are saying to keep masks. Ludicrous.

The mask thing is simply because polls will be showing that the majority of the public, especially certain demographics, will be in favour of retaining them.

IMO most of the policy decisions over the last two years have been around appeasing the majority or bowing to public opinion or covering up poor policy making in the first place (eg social care staff going into people's homes not getting access to PPE for a long time etc)

I’d make the masks voluntary. Each to their own.

Potential dads could bring covid into the house though - if we're having state coercion on vaccinations, they should get on with it and include non birthing people rather than starting with a weak minority group that nobody cares about.

It's the overstep that concerns me @IKeptYouLikeAnOath. We let people take all kinds of chances with their health and wellbeing, whether it's drinking too much, smoking, not exercising enough... Generally Drs will advise on healthy habits (although not necessarily follow them themselves) but not withhold treatment if you don't comply. I can believe that statistically the vaccine carries lower risks than COVID in the short term (although whether this accounts for natural immunity or not I don't know, and it seems very one sided to assume you can only get protection from vaccines), but those risks won't be zero, longer term subtle effects eg on development can't possibly be known yet, and there probably will be some pregnant women, particularly at the younger end of the scale who've had COVID, who are worse off with the vaccine than without. I think the woman's right to choose what happens with her body should be respected.

@WouldBeGood

I’d make the masks voluntary. Each to their own.

'Voluntary' is the approach I've re-adopted in the last week and no longer wearing mine.

I’m back to that too, @Pootle40, but have had a couple of incidents with big men coming right in my face (ironic) to berate me, so I’m a bit scared.

One day the guy shouted at me and DD, but not at the big unmasked guy near us…

I think it's disgraceful to withhold IVF treatment they have moved the goal posts with these women but an actual clinical person not sat down with them to explain.

I completely understand advocating pregnant women to be vaccinated the statistics are scary if unvaccinated. But to hit them with such a big stick on a journey which is already emotionally stressful and long is wrong.
They will no doubt be using a risk argument a bit like many very overweight people cannot have elective surgery without weight loss but for this one it stinks!

There is sufficient data available that vaccines poses no risk to mother or baby and large datasets of this nature including babies born in the States who will be approaching their first birthdays but this should be presented and explained properly!

I'm sure IVF must be granted on some sort of criteria already, for example someone who is morbidly obese would be unlikely to qualify. This is just another criterion then, to make sure that the limited resources are going to those with the best chance of having a healthy baby at the end.

My experience of fertility treatment on the NHS your are made to be grateful for scrap of help. And any excuse to bump you off the list.
Even clomid which is very cheap (about £16 for 6 rounds) from the point of GP referal will take you two years.

I had a positive pregnancy test on IUI, and lost it within 24hrs, they insisted I waited 3 mths before trying again, then it was Christmas you have to wait, Oh dear your had a birthday its against our policy to treat you.

Going private for IVF was so much less stressful than clomid and IUI on NHS. Hindsight i should have gone private at the very start.

Private clincis are normally BMI 40 NHS is 30
Age is 40 on NHS and 48 i think privately.

I'm not happy at all that even the Tories are hanging onto masks. It keeps the whole thing alive in people's consciousness, without actually doing a damn thing beyond that.

I won't wear one any more (I know, I'm the worst cliche horror, unvaxxed and unmasked) but I'm not totally Billy Bigballs so I wear a lanyard if I'm alone.

DH is large and shaven-headed so I can guarantee no bullshit when out with him. @WouldBeGood that is absolutely awful that someone shouted at you. Cowardly bastard.

Gosh @Lockdownbear that's awful.

I do think that how this was done was particularly poor, although I don't know what the alternative would be. Dozens of Zoom calls/appointments was probably not deemed the best use of time, ultimately.

It's so clinical, but the NHS is so huge and unwieldy that I suspect that's the only way it operates.

Mask wearing is the one thing that annoys me most of all. As a glasses wearer I've not found anything that stops them misting up with a bloody mask. I can't imagine how anybody would be happy to continue wearing them if they didn't have to.

Anyone else's schools back to eating lunches in the classrooms? We haven't been told why and it's a nightmare. Also we have to be 2m away from other staff members - absolutely ridiculous when we could go out to a cafe or restaurant and sit next to each other. Nobody ever tells us where these rules come from.

So, so fed up

Rail over

RaraRachael it's the petty pointlessness of much of it, and the lack of logic, and the total lack of any way to question it.
It seems almost designed to send one quietly mad.

Absolutely @MaxNormal. No evidence, no logic.

I think some kids (S4+) have been in masks since Oct / Nov 2019. I know it was all pupils after the 2nd lockdown.

They really, really don't care about kids and schools. At all.

There's Douglas Ross on the news saying that most restrictions should be removed - apart from face masks. What is the bloody obsession with these useless things?

My sister is happy to live like a hermit, staying in her house, barely going out and wearing a mask for the rest of her life "to protect other people". Well, suit yourself, but I want my life back.

It’s ridiculous. We now know they don’t protect other people. If people want protected they can wear their own fancy masks

@RaraRachael

Mask wearing is the one thing that annoys me most of all. As a glasses wearer I've not found anything that stops them misting up with a bloody mask. I can't imagine how anybody would be happy to continue wearing them if they didn't have to.

Anyone else's schools back to eating lunches in the classrooms? We haven't been told why and it's a nightmare. Also we have to be 2m away from other staff members - absolutely ridiculous when we could go out to a cafe or restaurant and sit next to each other. Nobody ever tells us where these rules come from.

So, so fed up

Rail over

Yes, DSs school is back to eating in classrooms for no discernable reason. Just "keeping the school community safe" guff in the newsletter... which you just can't argue against without it sounding like you don't want to keep the community safe. Fuckers.

And railing with you all on the masks. I'm getting really, really fed up with it being just accepted that it's something we have to do for the forseeable, and no great hardship, for some possible slight benefit if everyone does it properly (being generous there...). Why have even the tories gone full mask? Are they trying to separate themselves from WM? I mean, I understand if that is the case, but, really??! Are they supporting masks in schools as well? And if not, why not if it's worth insisting on it everywhere else, so public health wins out over communication difficulties/ general discomfort etc etc? Gaaahhhh.