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Coronavirus

Coronavirus - The Poll

  • Total voters
    97
We are now back to normal as far as I can see, mask wearing thankfully now a thing of the past.
And whilst cases are going up very few are actually getting serious illness just feeling a little crap for a few days, the virus is now all but in name endemic.
I don’t think we will ever be completely free from COVID but then we aren’t of flu or colds either, the immunity now out in the community means it’s very unlikely to become pandemic again thus require lockdowns.
 
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Citation needed.
Immunity fails within months/year.
Cases up.
Hospitalisations up.
Admittedly, ICU use low.
Reports of second highest increase rate in infections since the start.
And we have just started the festival season.
Just because you are "back to normal", don't speak for the rest of us!
 
I don't usually where a mask now, but if I am in a really busy place, like high crowd levels, I tend to pop one on, for others benefit more than mine. I know it only makes a tiny different but that tiny difference might well save someone from being seriously ill.
 
rob666 said:
Just because you are "back to normal", don't speak for the rest of us!
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I think equally though, if others want to take precautions over and above those suggested for society as a whole, that's fine, but please don't pull those of us who as desperate to return to normality down, and try and insist that we are still in the depths of the pandemic.
 
Islander said:
I think equally though, if others want to take precautions over and above those suggested for society as a whole, that's fine, but please don't pull those of us who as desperate to return to normality down, and try and insist that we are still in the depths of the pandemic.
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I am not insisting that we are in the depths of the pandemic, but I am not saying it is all over with and things are normal again...we are a very long way off that.
We simply don't know where we are in the pandemic, I'm as sick of it as anyone, but we would be foolish to think it is "all over".
It simply isn't.
 
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I don’t think anyone is saying it’s over however if you travel around as I do you would struggle to notice any difference between now and before the pandemic except for a few face masks here and there and the odd plastic screen here and there.
I went to Holland two weeks ago, same as travelling before except for the queue’s were a bit longer, last week I was at The Festival of Speed in Goodwood, again exactly as before.

Whilst I don’t disagree that immunity reduces over time with the amount of virus out in the community it is now constantly getting topped up whether you realise it or not, I don’t think any citations are needed for that.
 
I know it's not the case for everyone, and some people are still understandably cautious (my mum has been one of these people for example) but for me life has felt pretty normal for the pretty much the whole of this year. I will still wear a mask in certain settings (I had a hospital appointment a month or so ago so did for that) but have become far less reliant on them.

My holiday to Europe in May felt completely normal. Of course this could all change again with a nasty unexpected change in the virus, no-one knows about that. I've learnt it is just best to live in the moment!
 
rob666 said:
...but I am not saying it is all over with and things are normal again...we are a very long way off that.
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I don't get how though? We're very close to normal, as a number of people have said in a variety of walks of life. I don't really understand what concentrating on "Ohh well it's far from over, we are a long way off normal" achieves.
 
As the pandemic has gone so far, I’d say this is probably as close to “normal” as we’ve gotten by some margin. And to be honest, I’d say things feel virtually 100% normal; I don’t even really think about COVID these days unless someone mentions it.

For my money; until I recently caught COVID and started self-isolating, it might as well have been 2019 for me. So while the virus is of course still out there, I think it’s all right to suggest that we are now “back to normal”.

I remember reading during the height of COVID that the end of a pandemic from a disease standpoint and the end of a pandemic from a social standpoint are two very different things. Right now, I think an argument could be made that the pandemic has ended from a social standpoint even if the virus still exists.

While we should of course be vigilant, the chance of rigorous social restrictions being bought back looks pretty small at this point.
 
Islander said:
I don't get how though? We're very close to normal, as a number of people have said in a variety of walks of life. I don't really understand what concentrating on "Ohh well it's far from over, we are a long way off normal" achieves.
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We are behaving as if things are normal. That doesn't mean Covid-19 has gone away or that it is right to forget about it. Cases are rising again, remembering that it exists is worthwhile. I've known many friends/colleauges who have caught it in the last few weeks, many of them even despite mask wearing and good ventilation.
 
Islander said:
I don't get how though? We're very close to normal, as a number of people have said in a variety of walks of life. I don't really understand what concentrating on "Ohh well it's far from over, we are a long way off normal" achieves.
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To repeat from earlier today...
Hospitalisations up, cases up, rate of increase in cases is very high, second highest in the pandemic.
I'm not trying to be negative, I'm being realistic and honest about the current situation.
That is how...and why.
 
So I caught it again this week from my daughter, second time this year but this time was a lot less severe symptoms, if I knew nothing of COVID I would of said I had a cold.
All recovered again after 4 days of blocked nose etc.
 
For those who are bored at lunch like me - it's really just interesting to read the fuss few pages of this thread and how wrong many of us were I our predictions
 
Covid, war in Ukraine, running out of water, an energy and cost of living crisis, everyone being on strike all the time and not having a functioning government was getting a bit boring anyway. About time we had a new virus to spice things up.
 
GaryH said:
Obviously with covid not in the headlines anymore China want to spice things up again and give us a new pandemic too cripple the west even more.

Ladies and gentlemen- Introducing the Langya virus!!

www.independent.co.uk

China discovers potentially fatal new virus passed to humans from shrews

The Langya Henipavirus, known as ‘Langya’, has already infected 35 people, according to Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control
www.independent.co.uk www.independent.co.uk
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It says in that article that human to human transmission hasn’t been reported and that there appears to be no close contact chains among those infected, suggesting that transmission is “sporadic”. So I’m not sure it’ll be the next pandemic, personally.
 
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