SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

[Hound Dog]

I am starting to think that less and less people will be following the measures next year. Fatigue is a part of the problem, while another part of the problem is that it is becoming less and less clear what it is that we are trying to achieve exactly. Yes yes we dont want to overwhelm the medical system, I know, but:

If you go back to March or April and read this thread, a common claim was that a vaccine would gradually get us out of this, but a vaccine might not be possible at all and, if possible almost certainly will not be ready for years.

Now it looks more and more likely that it will be ready in a matter of months but now the claim is well, you know, a vaccine will slow down the spread but will not really change anything.

This seems to leave us with the option of living like this for decades which I am not sure is the optimal solution gor the medical system as well as you are unlikely to produce too many top doctors if the current volatile education system climate goes on for years.

Pogue has stated in a recent post that humans have adopted to new pathogens through exposure which is fine but how are we going to get exposure if we keep applying measures never seen in history.

So, what I am trying to say I guess, is that I think that most people will say feck it when they realize that not even a vaccine will end this.

 

[golden_blunder]

@Wibble

I kinda already assumed that life as we know it is changed forever.

 

[Wibble]

Now it looks more and more likely that it will be ready in a matter of months but now the claim is well, you know, a vaccine will slow down the spread but will not really change anything.

It will hugely change things. Not at the click of your fingers but R will be hugely reduced on top of existing measures to reduce R. And without the associated chaos of just letting it spread. And this is one of the problems with BoJo's shambling response. People are losing hope rather than being rallied to cope until things start to get better throughout 2021 and beyond.

 

[Mb194dc]

I am starting to think that less and less people will be following the measures next year. Fatigue is a part of the problem, while another part of the problem is that it is becoming less and less clear what it is that we are trying to achieve exactly. Yes yes we dont want to overwhelm the medical system, I know, but:

If you go back to March or April and read this thread, a common claim was that a vaccine would gradually get us out of this, but a vaccine might not be possible at all and, if possible almost certainly will not be ready for years.

Now it looks more and more likely that it will be ready in a matter of months but now the claim is well, you know, a vaccine will slow down the spread but will not really change anything.

This seems to leave us with the option of living like this for decades which I am not sure is the optimal solution gor the medical system as well as you are unlikely to produce too many top doctors if the current volatile education system climate goes on for years.

Pogue has stated in a recent post that humans have adopted to new pathogens through exposure which is fine but how are we going to get exposure if we keep applying measures never seen in history.

So, what I am trying to say I guess, is that I think that most people will say feck it when they realize that not even a vaccine will end this.

A reasonable supposition, the evidence from a lot of studies and now confirmed re-infections has pointed to immunity only lasting 3 months in mild cases and up to 12 in pretty much the best case scenario for serious infections. Pretty hard to see how vaccination will be a solution, at least any more than the flu vaccine is if that is so. Covid likely goes seasonal and will come every year, forever ?

What I am wondering is how governments react if that is confirmed. Given as you say, all the measures taken will just string the crisis out for decades or even longer.

 

[Hound Dog]

I kinda already assumed that life as we know it is changed forever.

I think that what is more likely to happen (if there is no stopping this thing) is that, long-term, life expectancy will go down.

There is simply no way people can keep living like this for years, suicides will go through the roof, the economy will collapse completely.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Yeah, I'm sure I read before that experts tend to fall prey to confirmation bias a little more often than the average person, largely because they're better at creating convincing arguments to refute other people's views and to solidify their own. The reason we don't associate it with scientists is because the framework of science is exceptionally good at combating those tendencies. But then even the pinnacle of society in that regard runs into problems! So once people step outside of that framework, we should expect them to be every bit as flawed as the rest of us. And for experts talking about something outside of the field of their own expertise we should be even more wary of them, because they're just better at convincing themselves and others of things they know very little about.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds

(and to round that circle, it's entirely possible some of the experiments in that article would have some of the same problems in the replication crisis!)

Agreed that conspiracy theories prey on immaturity! Unfortunately, my dad's just started getting into them. All the same markers of falling down that social media rabbit hole captured in that podcast. Started just before covid and I reckon at christmas he'll be talking about microchips. Definitely the main thing he's getting out of it is escapism from the reality that a lot of the shit things that happen in the world are subject to an incredible amount of randomness, how those events get distributed is almost inevitably never fair because of that randomness, and even if the right actions were followed every step of the way, it might not have been enough to solve that problem.

In his case, right now he's looking at his life's savings gradually disappearing, his perfectly planned retirement becoming much harder to predict, and his wife's business and main source of pride being shot to pieces. He needs to attribute that blame to somewhere, and it is more comforting to think this bunch of shadowy individuals orchestrated it. The idea that this once in a lifetime event happened just because of a biological quirk, a series of exceptionally unfortunate events and a big dose of randomness is incomprehensible. It's completely at odds with his worldview. He lifted himself out of poverty because of the decisions he made, he is the author of his destiny, etc. He deserved to be where he is now, and he doesn't deserve this, so something must have interfered. Any other hypothesis just strikes at the core of what he's chosen to believe all this time. And conspiracy theories come with the added benefit of feeling superior to others. If only they could see the matrix like I can.

Oh man. Sorry to hear that. Must be so tough for you. Hope your dad catches a break soon.

 

[Hound Dog]

It will hugely change things. Not at the click of your fingers but R will be hugely reduced on top of existing measures to reduce R. And without the associated chaos of just letting it spread. And this is one of the problems with BoJo's shambling response. People are losing hope rather than being rallied to cope until things start to get better throughout 2021 and beyond.

When I say "not really change things" I mean "not allow people to walk around not fearing that they will die of covid". Okay, the risk will be reduced but it will not be zero. So nothing has changed dramatically.

 

[Hound Dog]

he is the author of his destiny, etc.

I am very sorry to hear he is struggling, but I have to point out that I absolutely cannot comprehend how anyone who listened to a single history lecture in his life can think this.

 

[Heardy]

I kinda already assumed that life as we know it is changed forever.

Its too early in the morning to be hit with this dose of realism.

 

[Arruda]

Gotcha. So the median age of people dying has increased and there’s a higher % of multi-morbid deaths.

Combine this with the longer time to death and super-infections etc it all points towards better access to ventilators. Fewer people dying for lack of a vent. That reflects well on how the Italian health service is coping with the second wave (so far) but wouldn’t make me feel any more confident about a better outcome as a young person, with no co-morbidity (which would bump me up the queue for a ventilator anyway)

It's a somehhat chilling

https://www.epicentro.iss.it/

Analisi sui decessi is the deaths data, its updated twice weekly.

Thanks!

 

[Tony Babangida]

A reasonable supposition, the evidence from a lot of studies and now confirmed re-infections has pointed to immunity only lasting 3 months in mild cases and up to 12 in pretty much the best case scenario for serious infections. Pretty hard to see how vaccination will be a solution, at least any more than the flu vaccine is if that is so. Covid likely goes seasonal and will come every year, forever ?

What I am wondering is how governments react if that is confirmed. Given as you say, all the measures taken will just string the crisis out for decades or even longer.

It’s been covered a bit in this thread but there are reasons to think that immunity arising from vaccination will last longer than from natural infection. Also it is still not clear how frequently reinfections occur. I think it’s highly likely that SARS-CoV-2 will end up as endemic and seasonal. Over time some degree of immunity will build up in the population, hopefully with vaccination playing a significant role.

 

[Hound Dog]

Let’s say the vaccine works in people 65+ and you vaccinate them all. I

Dont get me wrong, I am not in the "we are fecked forever" camp.

I am just saying that I cannot see the manner in which we are tackling this being sustainable on the long run.

 

[Tony Babangida]

Dont get me wrong, I am not in the "we are fecked forever" camp.

I am just saying that I cannot see the manner in which we are tackling this being sustainable on the long run.

Haha I started writing that reply and then gave up. But I guess I was going to basically say hopefully the vaccine works in old folks so we can protect them.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

They’ve literally made this their goal though.

I think @Smores was on the money about what the Tories are up to in Manchester so disregard my thought there. That said, they're always talking up devolution, the 'Northern Powerhouse' and 'levelling up' but very little is actually done.

 

[golden_blunder]

Its too early in the morning to be hit with this dose of realism.

Sorry

 

[Hound Dog]

Sorry

Could you please shed some light on how you figure this will happen?

 

[golden_blunder]

Could you please shed some light on how you figure this will happen?

I figure the virus will still be around like the common cold even with vaccines because not everyone is going to take them. So there will still be a percentage of the population still at risk.

life will open up again but I think that measures around travelling, etc etc will be part of life forever. There will still be people dying but it won’t be reported anymore so for most people it will be liveable

 

[redshaw]

When I say "not really change things" I mean "not allow people to walk around not fearing that they will die of covid". Okay, the risk will be reduced but it will not be zero. So nothing has changed dramatically.

There's other risks that aren't zero but life went on.

Vaccines were never going to have us back to normal in 2021 but immunity is being built up still, especially with younger people. Vaccines will take a while to roll out and be distributed but older people will get them first and they will help out somewhat.

I hate to bring up the flu but we can get this down to flu like levels of risk and humans will adapt to the risk and live life more freely in the coming years. I don't think it will be decades of this.

The biggest worry long term is more viruses as human civilization expands as well as more environmental changes. The more we mess around the bigger the punch back will be.

 

[Hound Dog]

There's other risks that aren't zero but life went on.

I agree, but the point I am making is that life is not going on at the moment. Will people keep applying measures en masse after the vaccine rolls out and after more than a year of living this pseudo life? I doubt it.

 

[Fingeredmouse]

There's other risks that aren't zero but life went on.

Vaccines were never going to have us back to normal in 2021 but immunity is being built up still, especially with younger people. Vaccines will take a while to roll out and be distributed but older people will get them first and they will help out somewhat.

I hate to bring up the flu but we can get this down to flu like levels of risk and humans will adapt to the risk and live life more freely in the coming years. I don't think it will be decades of this.

The biggest worry long term is more viruses as human civilization expands as well as more environmental changes. The more we mess around the bigger the punch back will be.

I agree with this and your last paragraph is key. This is a warning shot. We're fortunate that this is, relatively, a fairly benign disease. It is entirely conceivable that some day a highly virulent disease achieves pandemic status.

 

[Wibble]

When I say "not really change things" I mean "not allow people to walk around not fearing that they will die of covid". Okay, the risk will be reduced but it will not be zero. So nothing has changed dramatically.

I'd say if we get one or more vaccines things will have changed dramatically and as fast or faster than we could have hoped for. I know moral in the UK has unsuprisingly tanked so seeing any bright side is really hard at the moment. However, if a worldwide roll-out of a vaccine and better treatment puts us on the road back to normal by the end of 2021, and at or close to normal a year later then that would be a very dramatic recovery in my book.

 

[Wibble]

I agree with this and your last paragraph is key. This is a warning shot. We're fortunate that this is, relatively, a fairly benign disease. It is entirely conceivable that some day a highly virulent disease achieves pandemic status.

Although a combination of highly infectious and highly fatal tends to burn out too fast to become a pandemic - killing the host too fast for mass spread. There are unusual scenarios that this could happen e.g. long asymptomatic period of a highly infectious virus followed by a late onset high fatality rate, but covid is pretty much in the sweet spot for a pandemic.

 

[Honest John]

There's other risks that aren't zero but life went on.

Vaccines were never going to have us back to normal in 2021 but immunity is being built up still, especially with younger people. Vaccines will take a while to roll out and be distributed but older people will get them first and they will help out somewhat.

I hate to bring up the flu but we can get this down to flu like levels of risk and humans will adapt to the risk and live life more freely in the coming years. I don't think it will be decades of this.

The biggest worry long term is more viruses as human civilization expands as well as more environmental changes. The more we mess around the bigger the punch back will be.

The only time I have ever had proper flu was in November1989. I was totally wiped-out and off work for 2 weeks. If you look back at the records there was a spike over the winter of 1989/90. It actually killed 29,000 in this country. No press, no lock-down. Eventually we will have to live with Covid-19. There will be a range of vaccines and treatments, none of which, on their own will be a panacea, but they will provide the medics with an arsenal to deploy. So you might catch it, you might wind up in hospital but, in most cases they will get you through it. There will of course be outliers - as there are with flu and umpteen other diseases.

 

[Brwned]

Oh man. Sorry to hear that. Must be so tough for you. Hope your dad catches a break soon.

Ah, in the grand scheme of things my suffering is absolutely miniscule. I come from a large family (4 brothers, 4 sisters, 4 parents and countless close extended family members) with pretty diverse life experiences, philosophies, priorities and current realities, so it's pretty much impossible to get too down about things from my perspective. It's why I've never been sure what the right approach to deal with this is.

For those of us living alone there was the experience of social isolation that was previously unimaginable, for those of us with young kids there was the experience of an outrageous amount of juggling between work, childcare and selfcare (and in one case, a new and very difficult pregnancy on top!).

For those of us with normal jobs it's been an adjustment to new working conditions, stresses and job security, for those of us in hospitals it's all of that with an outsized responsibility and constant sense of impending doom, for those of us who were struggling to get jobs before the pandemic it's an absolute hammer blow to be competing against far more people for many fewer jobs, for those of us who are just about to leave education there's the prospect of one the worst job markets in a generation.

And while people are particularly quick to ignore or dismiss the lives of retirees on here, most of them haven't had as much to lose, but in many cases they've lost the only thing that really matters to them now: human bonding, particularly with grandkids. My granny's 89 living out in the country in an oversized house her late husband built, physically frail but mentally sharp, and she's essentially dealing with a kind of isolation that no-one in her lifetime had ever experienced before. And naturally changes in policy impact us all very differently too.

There's absolutely no part of society that has avoided suffering, but the reality is my biggest sacrifice has just been my social life. I'd never realised how much I'd taken it for granted that my life relied on me being able to see mates essentially whenever and wherever I wanted. I've all sorts of freedom but I hadn't appreciated the value of that social network. So I'll appreciate that more going forward. But there's too many people in my circle that have sacrificed that and lost much more severe things. So I do take on their struggles to some degree, but it pales in comparison. And it is just the case that millions of people are losing a shitload.

That's what grates me about the extremes on either side. They can see the callousness of one side discounting the value of long, healthy lives in old age, and the other side can see the callousness in discounting the severity of human suffering that comes with not being able to afford to live, but neither side acknowledges those joint-truths. They just point out one aspect of callousness and use it to attack the other. We don't have the right answers, even the experts. Surely it's helpful in maintaining social unity during a crisis to at least accept that one basic truth.

I am very sorry to hear he is struggling, but I have to point out that I absolutely cannot comprehend how anyone who listened to a single history lecture in his life can think this.

Yeah, it's not so much a conscious thought as a general underlying belief. Not that different to a spiritual belief. Yeah you can point out specific instances where it's not true, but they're just the exceptions that prove the rule, or you're quibbling over details, it's the big picture that matters. It's a difficult one to wrestle with!

 

[Hound Dog]

I'd say if we get one or more vaccines things will have changed dramatically and as fast or faster than we could have hoped for. I know moral in the UK has unsuprisingly tanked so seeing any bright side is really hard at the moment. However, if a worldwide roll-out of a vaccine and better treatment puts us on the road back to normal by the end of 2021, and at or close to normal a year later then that would be a very dramatic recovery in my book.

I surely hope you are right.

What I am worried is that any benefit gained by a limited vaccine rollout could be canceled out or all but canceled out by changes in the behaviour of the general population, which will tend to get worse (from a pandemic-management perspective) over time.

What is happening down under is different, you guys get instructions such as "stay home for 6 weeks and then it will be Okay". However, for the vast majority of us, it is "stay home for six weeks than go out but do nothing you do not absolutely have to and then you will have to stay home again" and this is a never-ending loop. How long will people be willing to follow? Not sure.

What I am trying to say is that, from what I can tell, prevention measures will still be required once the vaccine comes and I just do not see people being able to follow them. This assumption is one of the driving philosophies behind what Sweden are/were trying to do.

 

[Fingeredmouse]

Although a combination of highly infectious and highly fatal tends to burn out too fast to become a pandemic - killing the host too fast for mass spread. There are unusual scenarios that this could happen e.g. long asymptomatic period of a highly infectious virus followed by a late onset high fatality rate, but covid is pretty much in the sweet spot for a pandemic.

Sure but a mortality rate of, say, 10% would still be entirely sustainable and catastrophic.

 

[That'sHernandez]

Rishi Sunak expected to increase tier 2 jobs support

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54639713

Funny how this comes in shortly after London goes into Tier 2 but the North has to beg and barter just to keep people in jobs while in Tier 3, having been in Tier 2 for weeks already.

 

[jojojo]

Rishi Sunak expected to increase tier 2 jobs support

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54639713

Funny how this comes in shortly after London goes into Tier 2 but the North has to beg and barter just to keep people in jobs while in Tier 3, having been in Tier 2 for weeks already.

Agreed, this is very much the Manchester argument. Manchester has effectively been in Tier 2 (and even 2/3+ in some respects) for three months now. With no extra support to businesses or individuals to help them handle it.

Worse still, from a covid control perspective, Manchester's case rates and hospital admission numbers kept on going up. Instead of addressing the question of "why don't/didn't the old restrictions work?" and what might be making compliance difficult, we've just been given another dose of more of the same.

Last week, a couple of my teenage family members were sent home from school with an instruction to stay home for two weeks as a kid in their class had tested positive. That "two weeks" was changed two days later to "8 days in total" as whilst the test result had been reported to the school on the day it arrived, the test was from 5 days earlier. The instruction was then amended again as it was realised that they hadn't actually seen the kid for a couple of days before his test, as he was off school with symptoms.

The credibility of the system is shot full of holes by incidents like that. When it happens to an adult in a fragile or low paid job, a request to name your contacts can sound like, "ruin your mate's finances are well as yours."

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Ah, in the grand scheme of things my suffering is absolutely miniscule. I come from a large family (4 brothers, 4 sisters, 4 parents and countless close extended family members) with pretty diverse life experiences, philosophies, priorities and current realities, so it's pretty much impossible to get too down about things from my perspective. It's why I've never been sure what the right approach to deal with this is.

For those of us living alone there was the experience of social isolation that was previously unimaginable, for those of us with young kids there was the experience of an outrageous amount of juggling between work, childcare and selfcare (and in one case, a new and very difficult pregnancy on top!).

For those of us with normal jobs it's been an adjustment to new working conditions, stresses and job security, for those of us in hospitals it's all of that with an outsized responsibility and constant sense of impending doom, for those of us who were struggling to get jobs before the pandemic it's an absolute hammer blow to be competing against far more people for many fewer jobs, for those of us who are just about to leave education there's the prospect of one the worst job markets in a generation.

And while people are particularly quick to ignore or dismiss the lives of retirees on here, most of them haven't had as much to lose, but in many cases they've lost the only thing that really matters to them now: human bonding, particularly with grandkids. My granny's 89 living out in the country in an oversized house her late husband built, physically frail but mentally sharp, and she's essentially dealing with a kind of isolation that no-one in her lifetime had ever experienced before. And naturally changes in policy impact us all very differently too.

There's absolutely no part of society that has avoided suffering, but the reality is my biggest sacrifice has just been my social life. I'd never realised how much I'd taken it for granted that my life relied on me being able to see mates essentially whenever and wherever I wanted. I've all sorts of freedom but I hadn't appreciated the value of that social network. So I'll appreciate that more going forward. But there's too many people in my circle that have sacrificed that and lost much more severe things. So I do take on their struggles to some degree, but it pales in comparison. And it is just the case that millions of people are losing a shitload.

That's what grates me about the extremes on either side. They can see the callousness of one side discounting the value of long, healthy lives in old age, and the other side can see the callousness in discounting the severity of human suffering that comes with not being able to afford to live, but neither side acknowledges those joint-truths. They just point out one aspect of callousness and use it to attack the other. We don't have the right answers, even the experts. Surely it's helpful in maintaining social unity during a crisis to at least accept that one basic truth.



Yeah, it's not so much a conscious thought as a general underlying belief. Not that different to a spiritual belief. Yeah you can point out specific instances where it's not true, but they're just the exceptions that prove the rule, or you're quibbling over details, it's the big picture that matters. It's a difficult one to wrestle with!

Great post. You’re obviously able to appreciate the full spectrum of hardship this fecking virus (and our response to it) is causing. It’s amazing to me how few people have the same sense of perspective.

 

[FireballXL5]

Has the penny dropped yet that the Tories really don't give a feck?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...es-on-shambolic-111-covid-19-clinical-service

 

[calodo2003]

There’s absolutely no doubt that life as we knew it will be altered forever. It’s just the degree to which it has been changed that is still unknown as of now.

The change might only be as minor having to get a vaccine every ‘X’ amount of time elapsed or having to wear a mask everywhere, but we unfortunately will never be returning to how we lived our lives in 2019.

 

[That'sHernandez]

There’s absolutely no doubt that life as we knew it will be altered forever. It’s just the degree to which it has been changed that is still unknown as of now.

The change might only be as minor having to get a vaccine every ‘X’ amount of time elapsed or having to wear a mask everywhere, but we unfortunately will never be returning to how we lived our lives in 2019.

I am probably going to continue to wear a mask in public once this is over. If that helps prevent the spread of illnesses, I don't see why that shouldn't stay... No one seems to complain about doing it in Asian countries.

 

[acnumber9]

I am probably going to continue to wear a mask in public once this is over. If that helps prevent the spread of illnesses, I don't see why that shouldn't stay... No one seems to complain about doing it in Asian countries.

What would be a preferable change would be workplaces not forcing people to go to work when they’re sick. I don’t think the majority of people will want to wear masks for the rest of their lives.

 

[calodo2003]

What would be a preferable change would be workplaces not forcing people to go to work when they’re sick. I don’t think the majority of people will want to wear masks for the rest of their lives.

That would be a great start.

Not saying that everyone wants to wear a mask forever, but that might be a condition in life going forward. It would be somewhat akin to the seatbelt law being enforced; it might irritate some initially, but doing so definitely benefits the greater good. And that’s what the primary focus should be.

 

[Wibble]

Sure but a mortality rate of, say, 10% would still be entirely sustainable and catastrophic.

I don't know anywhere near enough about the modelling but I'm sure you are right but the "worst" viruses do seem to be either highly infectious or highly deadly but not both.

I bet you could engineer something that was both particularly if you could offset the symptomatic/fatal stage long enough for it to spread.

 

[Wibble]

What would be a preferable change would be workplaces not forcing people to go to work when they’re sick. I don’t think the majority of people will want to wear masks for the rest of their lives.

That drove me nuts before the pandemic. If you have sick leave use it and don't infect me becoming tomorrow.

I do hope we start wearing masks when we have a cold from now on though.

 

[calodo2003]

That drove me nuts before the pandemic. If you have sick leave use it and don't infect me becoming tomorrow.

I do hope we start wearing masks when we have a cold from now on though.

Some of the anti-masker arguments in the States fall in line with what we heard as arguments from smokers who ultimately weren’t able to smoke indoors anymore. Their lives changed irreparably because of where they couldn’t smoke, but the overall good of everyone was improved due to this common sense changing of the law.

 

[acnumber9]

That drove me nuts before the pandemic. If you have sick leave use it and don't infect me becoming tomorrow.

I do hope we start wearing masks when we have a cold from now on though.

I’m a civil servant and even they were actively looking to give people warnings for sick absence and trying to bring referrals to occupational health as soon as somebody went off sick. There’s an attitude that people should drag themselves to work for anything short of a limb hanging off. That attitude has to completely change.

I think mask wearing if you go out with a cold etc is a good and fair compromise. I don’t think mandatory mask wearing at all times is.

 

[Compton22]

I surely hope you are right.

What I am worried is that any benefit gained by a limited vaccine rollout could be canceled out or all but canceled out by changes in the behaviour of the general population, which will tend to get worse (from a pandemic-management perspective) over time.

What is happening down under is different, you guys get instructions such as "stay home for 6 weeks and then it will be Okay". However, for the vast majority of us, it is "stay home for six weeks than go out but do nothing you do not absolutely have to and then you will have to stay home again" and this is a never-ending loop. How long will people be willing to follow? Not sure.

What I am trying to say is that, from what I can tell, prevention measures will still be required once the vaccine comes and I just do not see people being able to follow them. This assumption is one of the driving philosophies behind what Sweden are/were trying to do.

I don't know so much. People in the main are very accepting about these new changes from what I have seen. Whether that was due to the sheer horror stories we all heard about during the first wave that has quite rightly caused most people to buck their ideas up I'm not sure.

We will certainly get more of an idea about how much normal life has to permanently change depending on the outcome of mass vaccination. If it turns out that immunity is quite short, say up to a few months worst case scenario, we'll see regular epidemics occur quite similar to seasonal flu but deadlier, which will require social distancing, mask wearing etc.

People's behaviour may well change if mass vaccination results in less overall infections. Then the worry is that people will let their guard down so to speak and will return to normal as soon as it is rolled out. Therefore, governments responsibility is to encourage the same behaviours even with a vaccine for a time and gradually lessen the restrictions to closer to normal.

I'm hopeful that this will not be a cycle of lockdowns when a vaccine is rolled out but we can't be sure straight away. I think most people would think the same, bar a naive minority but we will see.

 

[That'sHernandez]

I’m a civil servant and even they were actively looking to give people warnings for sick absence and trying to bring referrals to occupational health as soon as somebody went off sick. There’s an attitude that people should drag themselves to work for anything short of a limb hanging off. That attitude has to completely change.

I think mask wearing if you go out with a cold etc is a good and fair compromise. I don’t think mandatory mask wearing at all times is.

Definitely agree. And every printer is touch screen, as soon as one person has a cold it spreads through the office like wildfire.

A few years ago my wife worked at a place that didn't pay for sick leave... so everyone went in while they were sick. The idea that people should just power through is mad really.