Is mask wearing, temporary social distancing, and vaccination asking too much from the individual to sustain the weakest and most vulnerable in society?
Those are the most minor, trivial aspects of what has happened over the last year in the UK, and what continues to happen as we speak.
How about we make a trade.
I'll wear a mask in situations where others are concerned, take my vaccine, and you may distance from me as much as you'd like. You know, like I am and have been doing for eleven months now.
In return - I want my life back. Let's reinstate the democratic process, let's make it legal for me to go for a walk without an excuse, run my own business without having goons lock the doors, you know, stuff like that.
You keep your end of the bargain, I keep mine.
Fair trade? Or is this the part whereby you call me names, shout at me, and expect me to respond in kind?
I am choosing to do this, for you. It does not benefit me. Take it for granted at your own peril.
IMO, the UK handled Covid exceptionally poorly by repeatedly being afraid to act until it was too late.
Here in Australia (Specifically the Northern Territory) we locked down hard early on while we had around 20 cases, I think it was for 2 months, after which no further lock downs have been required. Quarantine for travelers has prevented Covid getting in to the community. Basically due to how we have handled it life is pretty much the same as before Covid here, restaurants are open, the shopping mall is packed and the only thing we had to give up was 2 months and international holidays.
By locking down hard on age groups who aren't vulnerable to the virus you're enabling the clown world that OP is referring to.
Sure lock down the elderly that's fine but making national health policy based on one demographic is full on straight clown world stuff.
With an infectious disease like this, what you want is to curb its ability to spread. That means disrupting the entire social network, because while the virus is most dangerous to the elderly, it spreads best through the young. Also lung damage, the fact that small chance of disability or death multiplied by whole country getting infected equals to more harm than inconveniencing everyone a bit and nipping the problem in the bud, yadda yadda. These are all tired points.
The main way UK (and US, and a chunk of EU) response was a "clown world" was pretending there's no problem until it was too late, and then doing too little, and then doing stupid things that nullified the effect of previous interventions.
But right now, we're eleven months in and it's illegal for me to have a single friend over for a cup of tea.
Not advised against; not something we should limit; illegal, punishable by law.
I'm at the point at which I've been told by medical health practitioners to ignore this nonsense and see people for my own wellbeing.
We have a vaccination program running in the UK and it's going fairly well. The thing that is keeping me clinging to sanity is the fact that once the vulnerable groups have been vaccinated, I'm just getting on with life.
Without that; well the news is saying 'social distancing until 2022' and the Government are telling us that maybe in a month it'll be legal to sit on a park bench with a coffee.
This is not me being hyperbolic. It is currently illegal for me to leave my house and sit on a park bench.
If I followed that stuff to the letter, I'd have already gone postal or just thrown myself in front of a train.
This is a policy that, if it works at all, works for specific types of people; nuclear families, introverts, etc.
Those might even be a majority.
But it's not viable at a population level because a significant percentage of people are either in situations whereby they need to mix households in order to function, or have brain chemistry which means that avoiding social mixing for prolonged periods (months or more) causes them to become depressed, anxious, or in extreme cases psychotic.
We're doing all of this stuff in an attempt to reduce coronavirus cases prior to vaccination, because we care about public health, not purely for the sake of it. That would be "clown world".
> But it's not viable at a population level because a significant percentage of people are either in situations whereby they need to mix households in order to function, or have brain chemistry which means that avoiding social mixing for prolonged periods (months or more) causes them to become depressed, anxious, or in extreme cases psychotic.
That's absolutely true. The long-term effects of social restrictions on public health and general morale was something somewhat unexpected, or at least not thought much about early in 2020 (and, hindsight being 20/20, only confirms that the big mistake was not doing hard but short lockdowns early on). I'm just hoping we can vaccinate our way out of this in the coming months, because even introverts are having troubles taking this much longer. Myself, I started this pandemic in a state of being burned out by interacting with other people - a year later, I now desperately crave some socialization, but I'm not sure if I'm even capable of it anymore.
I actually had to look this up in order to make sure I had the dates right, but it's absolutely correct.
It is also illegal to meet a single person in your garden or outside unless you're exercising. I don't have exact timings on that, because in order to protect my mental health I've stopped following the news.
"A tad excessive" is understating it a bit. It's inhuman. Writing it down makes me feel ill. When people talk about it as if it's normal and okay, I get an intense feeling of anger and a desire to cause them pain.
So if you want your perspective on why people are acting like "covidiots" or whatever offensive name we're applying to our brothers now - this is why.
I am done with bureaucratic despots telling me what to do, I am not a guinea pig to be experimented on.
I've felt like you for a long time, after monitoring the actual statistics instead of the news.
Do you think Covid is following an exponential growth model in the under 55 age group if in a YEAR there's still less deaths than car accidents?
Covid is way more complex than "SHUT IT ALL DOWN, EXPOENTIAL GROWTH, FLATTEN THE CURVE".
These have just become buzzwords for simple minds to cling to a simple narrative and don't model the world accurately at all.
Honk honk! Welcome to Clown world!
Anyway, my point is that the UK choose their current situation by being afraid to act back when small steps could have made a huge difference.
No no it doesn't.
What is the percentage of people who have that type of reaction? Have you even looked at that? It's miniscule.
It's argued not to be from Covid directly but by comorbidities and would happen with any illness.
The news media blew it up out of proportion to scare you and millions of other people like you who have a poor grasp ofstatistics and risk... for money and it worked!
Welcome to clown world. Honk honk!
Your leaders not taking it seriously to begin with is the reason you are in this situation now.
Where I am we took this seriously early last year, and as a result have been able to live life mostly like normal since.
Anyway, you live in a democracy, so maybe convince as many people as possible to vote someone else in at the next opportunity. And if you think they are all stupid then run yourself.
Honk honk!
I'm tired of it as well, but rather I feel the length of the lockdown is a result of the prevarication that took place in the beginning and a continuing series of poor choices intended to save political face afterwards.
My opinion is that had we locked down hard and early, banning foreign arrivals until the pandemic passed globally, we'd have quickly been able to meet without putting anyone's health at risk and at a lower economic cost.
Initially, at the start of the lockdown in March 2020, people voluntarily acted far in excess of legal requirements, or even guidelines.
I think that this made sense, and I'm proud of our behaviour on that front. I remember walking out of the house, once a week, in my homemade mask, to do the weekly shop.
Beyond that, as we learned more about the virus, but bizarrely went the other way and started to make everyday activities unlawful in an attempt to control the population, well, I've been increasingly choosing not to comply for the sake of retaining my sanity.
The Government simply does not get to decide on my behalf whether I have my friends and family over for dinner. I don't give them that power; if they wish to send men with guns like an authoritarian despot, that's their choice.
I think that if we'd enacted sane policies it wouldn't bother me as much.
Amazon, Deliveroo, Uber etc should have had an 80-90% windfall tax for the duration given that their competition is essentially illegal.
Tenants with no income should have had their rent cancelled. Not delayed - cancelled.
Working from home policies should have been optional for employees. Students should not have been required to pay full rent and full fees for Zoom calls.
But we haven't done any of that. We've taken a public health crisis and used it to absolutely destroy the country.
It's a leadership problem, and hard to fix for regular Joe.
It leads me to my original post:
> They will throw you under the bus immediately and comprehensively as soon as there's even the slightest microscopic threat to their wellbeing.
> And they'll cast the blame on you. They'll say it's your failing. They'll say - never mind our responsibilities to you - you need to do your bit regardless.
I'm just repeating myself now though.
I voluntarily restricted myself for a long while. Far, far longer than I should have, to the point that I may have given myself brain damage.
Now I am visiting my family because I'm not willing to do it indefinitely. The UK government is waffling on about restrictions until 2022 despite the fact we'll have vaccinated most of the vulnerable in a month or two.
Everyone has their breaking point, and I've reached mine.
Two weeks to flatten the curve, yo.
I'm opening up from March 23, they can do whatever they want.
But I can't help but wonder if there wasn't another way, like making only that most vulnerable part of society go in lock-down -- and nobody else. Most of the elder people aren't exactly spending hours outside every day anyway (by my observations at least which can of course be wrong). And many of them don't have the physical energy to be active outside, so maybe making only them go in lock-down would have been the best outcome for everyone?
Who knows. But in general the COVID pandemic has been handled extremely poorly almost everywhere. And businesses are closing down forever.
Thankfully it appears the vaccines will be effective if enough people get them for life to return to normal soon.
"Just a few weeks to flatten the curve" was a once in a generational play. I did my bit, and so far I've been punished for it.
I really hope for our sake it doesn't come down to this again, because this time it really will be a bloodbath, rather than a particularly bad year or two.
You are absolutely correct that there might not be "next time" even if that means humanity's doom.
Careless reasoning risks under reacting just as much as over reacting.
I've read a study in my home country about children suffering from bronchopneumonia (I was one of them) at early age and how does that affect their adult life -- and how much does it reduce their life expectancy (especially in terms of increasing the chance of pulmonary diseases in elder years).
I mean, all diseases are awful -- especially those that leave lasting negative effects.
The whole thing seemed to turn into a campaign to gain political capital at one point. Enforcement was loose, rules changed many times (the WHO organization didn't help matters there), and data gathering was unreliable for months.
What are we to do? Just bow our heads and pretend that the people in power are oracles? I am willing to obey well-informed decisions but at least where I live clear facts were extremely hard to get throughout at least half the 2020.
I don't necessarily disagree with you -- making this clear here. It's just that the pandemic was handled in a rather totalitarian manner and results have been... questionable.
:(