Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[Charro]

Am I a bad person for being happy that I don’t have to fork out grands to go to my mates wedding in Spain?

 

[SussexToffee]

Just what is it with the BBC News website with their photos of Covid murals, photos of boarded up shops while a person wearing a facemask is photographed walking past?. They keep posting this photo of a restaurant with pizza slices and “Lockdown 3” as its sign. This is no film, and this is no joke.

Times right now are shitty, but what we don’t need is this to depress us, especially the overused Getty Images photo of a woman wearing a facemask behind a window on every Shielding report they do.

I told my friend who lives in the flat upstairs from me “I turn the TV off when the news starts”, she then replied “But you’ll miss something important if the rules change!”.

I replied that if that happens, someone is bound to tell me, including her. Mental health has taken a battering in this country these past five years and the last thing we want to hear is Covid frightmongering.

 

[davek]

I’m sick of entitled cowards making out that their world has been shattered because they can’t go on holiday or can’t go the pub or can’t go the gym.

the thing that does my head in most is that this pandemic hasn’t created problems. It’s exacerbated existing ones. No one cared about mental and physical health 12 months ago. No one cared about educational poverty. No one cared about the gig economy.

The only reason they care now is because they are inconvenienced. It’s cowardice and it does my head in

It’s a pandemic. It’s awful. But the least awful thing is lack of life experience. Or not being able to go to a gym. Or a pub.

That's magnificent.

 

[davek]

Fully immunised?
Do you know how vaccines work?

Of course I meant vaccinated and then some posters willfully ran with the mistake.

zzzz.

That's such a shame you posted that after that barn storming one earlier.

 

[mill]

Its not just missing out on a certificate though is it. And you know that as well as I do.

What do you tell the business owner who has lost the thing he's built for 20 years go under? What about the wife of the man who commits suicide because he's mentally unwell?

What do you tell the teenager who has been so isolated for so long that he's a recluse and the social skills you build up through high school are not prevalent?

There's no easy answer but lockdown isn't the be all and end all in living with covid.
I speak as someone who has shielded since March 15th 2020. Prior to that I spent a month in hospital.

Continual lockdown won't solve covid.

You think mental illness didn’t exist before lockdown? You think that kid would have been the life of the party without it? You think that businesses don’t go under in normal circumstances?

why do people think that lockdown is forever? It’s mad that people see this in perpetuity.

Its in place because thousands of people are dying. Or getting sick enough that they’ll live with the consequences forever.

If we’d have left this, to just go through the country, what do you think would have happened to business? We’d have been talking about millions debilitated.

What about mental health then?

Do you think it would be worth freshers week?

No one actually wants restrictions. I’ve seen my family 3 times in a year. I’m desperate for it to end. But I’m sick of people complaining about it. We are doing it to save lives. It’s important. It’s hard but ffs. We are being asked to make a sacrifice to save people.

do people really not understand how bad things would have got? Hospitals were at breaking point with lockdown. Do people not get what it would hsve been like without it?

 

[davek]

@davek

Brilliant.

Spot on.

There's some shameful people on here who have. They'll never admit to it though, bar one.

 

[mill]

Of course I meant vaccinated and then some posters willfully ran with the mistake.

zzzz.

That's such a shame you posted that after that barn storming one earlier.

You see, I’m not tethered to a single view point. We need pragmatism. I don’t like extreme opinions in either directions.

Lockdown has been a necessary tool to control a pandemic. But we don’t need to be locked down until ‘full immunity’.

We need to gradually open the world back up when it is safe to do so. Safe doesn’t mean immune from all virus ever.

safe means we can live with it like we do other disease.

Im tired of people being so extreme. In both directions.

 

[SussexToffee]

The only thing I miss is going to watch the Toffees, holidays abroad, gigs and trips to other places in the country as well as my workfriends and friends outside of work.

The pub can wait and I personally do not miss it, especially since a bunch of RS decided to include me in their social group and every time I went there, they were around. After a while, I stopped frequenting the pub.

 

[davek]

You see, I’m not tethered to a single view point. We need pragmatism. I don’t like extreme opinions in either directions.

Lockdown has been a necessary tool to control a pandemic. But we don’t need to be locked down until ‘full immunity’.

We need to gradually open the world back up when it is safe to do so. Safe doesn’t mean immune from all virus ever.

safe means we can live with it like we do other disease.

Im tired of people being so extreme. In both directions.

Did you actually read that post of mine you just replied to?

 

[mill]

Did you actually read that post of mine you just replied to?

Yes. You were condescending as ever. So I made a broader point about extreme opinions which was relevant given your lack of pragmatism.

 

[davek]

Yes. You were condescending as ever. So I made a broader point about extreme opinions which was relevant given your lack of pragmatism.

FFS, last time I praise you.

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

The only puppets around these parts are you and the rest of the GCHQ cold war posse (you KNOW who you are).

Dave, as a champion of Corbyn's proletariat everything that is happening now is your fault. Suck it up, own it, and understand that YOU have killed 120,000 innocent souls!

 

[BlueToff]

It’s been less than 12 months. The same people who are annoyed at lockdown still celebrate a war that lasted 7 years.

it’s awful and I want it to be over. But people are losing family and you are talking about people missing out on a certificate ffs.

it’s everything wrong with the world. The Instagram generation.

I'm not sure the 'Instagram generation' are the same ones that you claim are celebrating a war from 80 years ago?

This isn't life. It's existence. People want to be able to do things, to see other people. We've all wasted a year of our lives. The vaccine is the first step to getting out of it. Life is precious, you're absolutely correct. That also means we shouldn't waste it hiding away.

The vaccine roll outs will mean that, by and large, the vast, vast majority of people who get vaccinated (even one dose, but two obviously needed) have protection which stops them ending up in hospital.

That's the key. You stop that, you stop the health systems getting overwhelmed and COVID becomes nothing more than any other illness that we live with. Because that's what we do. That's why our immune systems exist.

People's lives have been devasted by this - 3 million people in the UK alone have been left with no financial support though this. So their lives are ruined. Are they worth the trade off? How does 120,000 deaths compare to 3 million people without a penny? I appreciate both are on the government, and we all know that, all know that isn't right. However, you can multiply it across every country - everywhere there are things that are knackered. New Zealand relies massively on tourism, yet have pretty much become a hermit kingdom. How do they get back on track, long term?

The answer is the vaccine. People can bang on about test track and trace and yes, that is needed, but pandemics don't pop along every 5 years. 17m people in the UK have received a dose which gives them a huge amount of the protection. By the time we are even close to seeing some sense of actual freedom, you'll be looking at all the people most likely to 'on paper' end up hospitalised or worse from covid having had the two doses, and pretty much the majority of everyone else having had their first dose.

 

[BlueToff]

You see, I’m not tethered to a single view point. We need pragmatism. I don’t like extreme opinions in either directions.

Lockdown has been a necessary tool to control a pandemic. But we don’t need to be locked down until ‘full immunity’.

We need to gradually open the world back up when it is safe to do so. Safe doesn’t mean immune from all virus ever.

safe means we can live with it like we do other disease.

Im tired of people being so extreme. In both directions.

Right, but you say that, yet you've also painted it as people cry arsing that they can't go for a pint or to the gym, and you've cast an opinion like you're saying that everyone who is disagreeing with you or Dave (who is clearly more extreme) is of that mindset.

 

[BlueToff]

The only thing I miss is going to watch the Toffees, holidays abroad, gigs and trips to other places in the country as well as my workfriends and friends outside of work.

The pub can wait and I personally do not miss it, especially since a bunch of RS decided to include me in their social group and every time I went there, they were around. After a while, I stopped frequenting the pub.

People just miss the little things in life. Condescending pillocks insisting that they can judge what is or isn't important to people is what riles me - and it's been the case long before COVID.

I love going to gigs. I miss it, massively. I go on city breaks to go and see bands, or the odd footy match. I try to see the world and combine my love for music and sport at the same time.

I like to go to the gym, but it's been a year now. I'll go when it's safe. I didn't go last year, there was no point. And yes, I like to go to the pub every now and then. I also like to go and sit in a coffee shop to work on a feature I'm writing or even just read a book.

Those things are all important to me, but I know the world doesn't end if they stop. But, they make my life that bit more exciting. And everyone has their own things which make their life that bit more entertaining.

Existence isn't living. Getting up and moving six feet to your desk every day to work isn't living. Not leaving your house isn't living.

It's not just the 'vital' things in life that make life worth living. It's everything on top. And everything on top is what's been given up. That doesn't just impact us as people, but it impacts everyone who has set up a business based on those things.