The OP may have just been venting frustration but he raises a reasonable point.  If in January you everyone was asked if they would give up social contact with family and friends, security of employment, easy access to non emergency medical care, holidays and the rest of it for a few months extra life expectancy* how many people would have thought it would be worth it? It feels like, out of fear for doing badly by others, we have taken a course that is worse for everyone.

Of course it is scary, I have elderly parents who have chosen to take a trip round Spain despite the uptick in infections there. I might lose them, but I recognise that it would be selfish to guilt them into sheltering at home to humour my anxiety. They probably only have a few years left when they are strong enough to enjoy themselves so if they try and hide corona out there is a fair chance they will never be able to have such an experience again. If they go on holiday there is a >95% chance that they have a great time and come back healthy enough for me to continue to enjoy their company.

The risks of getting long term effects are also scary, but are relatively uncommon given the number of people who have been infected. It seems not hugely different to the CFS associated with Lyme, but we still all go mountain biking.

* The chance of dying if infected goes up with age, but so does the number of years you can expect to live without coronavirus. The young have little risk because the chance of adverse effects is so low, and a 90 year old has little to lose because they don’t have much chance of living out the pandemic even if they don’t catch it.

I don’t know about where the op lives, but round my way there isn’t an awful lot you aren’t allowed to do. I can go to the pub if I want, cycling club is up and running, I can even go on holiday if I want. I choose not to do many things because I’m wary of catching a virus that may severely damage my health, but that’s my choice.

Ultimately life may not be great right now, but a sense of perspective is sometimes required. You may have it a bit shit, but I’m willing to wager you still have it better than 95% of the population of planet earth..

If I offended the op or yourself dannyh with my earlier comments I apologize. I’m generally quite blunt when I speak to customers in my shop about covid and the internet tends to have a way of making blunt speak even blunter.

Not a problem. Having your own business throughout this must be stressful. Try to stay positive – just not in a covid test kind of way*.

😉

*Attempt at humour.

Ultimately life may not be great right now, but a sense of perspective is sometimes required. You may have it a bit shit, but I’m willing to wager you still have it better than 95% of the population of planet earth..

Totally agree, but pointing this out to someone who might be struggling with anxiety/depression (even if you don’t consider it ‘warranted’) doesn’t help.

+1 dannyh, a sense of perspective can be the first thing to go when the mental health is struggling. We all need to appreciate that people will struggle throughout this – and just try to be a bit more pleasant to each other.

I hear you OP, it’s pretty shit at the moment relative to the freedom we take for granted. Apart from my Daughter, my Dad and my Stepmum, all my other relatives live in Australia, so I’ve seen them on average once every couple of years since 2000. At times, this is crushingly painful, I love my family and miss them all like crazy. But you know what, those visits roll back round in the calendar and they are **** AMAZING when they happen, because we’re all so happy.

I guess what I’m saying is this too shall pass, and the people and places you miss will be appreciated that little bit more when you are able to see them again.

Having your own business throughout this must be stressful.

During lock down it was – moved out of home and managing the shop solo, ± it was trading at 3x normal. Financially it’s relatively firm. But I’ve also lost one other buisness (rural taxi) which I honestly can’t see recovering (may have to start a thread on that, see of an taxi drivers are about).

I think the thread shows that whatever way we are coming at this, people are just trying to get through it as best they can. The methods and priorities are different as you would expect but that’s because we *are* all different.

For my part, I don’t expect or want the country to go into lock down for “us”. I know the consequences of lockdown will affect my son at some point too and to minimise the agonies of Covid, the nation and many individuals will experience other tragedies instead.

The small stuff helps I find, both practically and emotionally to be honest.

For instance, being able to nip into the coop occasionally knowing people will be wearing a mask and doing their best to keep a bit of distance from me means a huge amount, it really does. It’s when that isn’t the case I just find that day a little bit harder than it needs to be.

I really feel that I should be more alarmed, but I’m not.
None of this is meant to diminish the experiences of others in harder hit regions and with more personal experience of this virus.

I am a key worker, so I’ve thankfully worked throughout this entire period and to be honest, not much has changed for most people I know.

The overwhelming majority of people I am in contact with are not affected beyond wearing masks and sanitising everything more than normal.

I keep an eye on the local and global statistics and a lot of this really doesn’t make any sense to me, especially considering Sweden and Brazil.

The UK’s official covid death rate is 6/100ths of 1 percent.
That is 0.062% (Johns Hopkins)

We have a less than 1 in 19 million chance of dying from it (50 to 64) and over 80 % of those infected won’t know they’ve got it.

Sunlight and vitamin D3 can provide a 70% protection against this and other respiratory illnesses (BMJ), so locked indoors does not help.

No evidence of outdoor transmission (WHO)

Neil Fergussons model was once again dangerously useless.

The media have done their usual job of massively increasing the damage caused by this virus.

Rant over.

Harry – look to the US 200 000 dead so far and the virus has still not gone right round the country. If that was the UK it would be 50 000 dead so far. so the measures taken have saved many many lives

We have a less than 1 in 19 million chance of dying from it (50 to 64)

Over what time period? That stat is just word salad without a period.

Sunlight and vitamin D3 can provide a 70% protection against this and other respiratory illnesses

70% of what?

The media have done their usual job of massively increasing the damage caused by this virus.

What kind of damage? Increase in what way? How have the media caused this? In what way is this ‘usual’? What media are you blaming for what exactly?

The UK is over 50k excess deaths tj

How have the media caused this

I don’t know what the OP meant, but the idea that it’s a straight choice between lockdown with zero deaths, or no lockdown and tens of thousands of deaths is just plain wrong.

This has to be an STW love in at it’s very worst!
We’re all going to die. Get used to the fact , and CoronaVirus, in the UK, at it’s very worst has killed less than 5% of those dying in any given period.
Worldwide, CV has killed fewer people than die in Africa from infectious diseases every year. Do we give a shit? Do you give a shit?
It’s not just STW. It’s worldwide hysteria amongst the chattering classes…

maths was never my strong point. stupid post from me.

CoronaVirus, in the UK, at it’s very worst has killed less than 5% of those dying in any given period.

More rubbish stats. Minimum 40,000 deaths due to this single virus this year… realistically 60,000 if you look at excess deaths… and approx 600,000 people normally die in the uk each year… so even if very few more people are killed by it this year, we’re looking at 10% of deaths this year. Take ‘any given period’ around the peak earlier in the year, and it will have been many times higher than that.

Edit: just checked PHE stats, and there were three weeks in April where excess deaths exceeded the number of expected deaths… the death rate was double what it would normally be. That would have continued (and worsened) if it wasn’t for the actions we all took. That, is, the, point.

People keep quoting that ‘relatively’ few people have actually died. But that 50k, which is still alot, would be far far worse if lockdown hadn’t occurred.

And its clearly not justbthe deaths ypu have to worry about.I know one person who’s had it. He’s 43, assuming he’s relatively fit, and it’s knocked him for 6 for 5 months.

Worth a read:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/21/local-lockdowns-begin-no-normal-advice-live-with-covid

I keep an eye on the local and global statistics and a lot of this really doesn’t make any sense to me, especially considering Sweden and Brazil.

Sweden’s death rate is head & shoulders above similar demographic neighbours, economic hit has been bigger & they still locked down, 2ary schools went remote learning etc, it’s held up as a mythical example of no lockdown
But Stockholm was shutdown as tightly as many other cities, activity still way down on normal & similar to London

https://citymapper.com/cmi/stockholm

And Brazil are believed to be way undercounting deaths

Outdoor transmission is not 0 but is very low, so doing as much as you can outdoors makes total sense

We have a less than 1 in 19 million chance of dying from it (50 to 64) and over 80 % of those infected won’t know they’ve got it.

2% of UK deaths have been in under 50s

And WHO say this

For COVID-19, data to date suggest that 80% of infections are mild or asymptomatic, 15% are severe infection, requiring oxygen and 5% are critical infections, requiring ventilation

15% with severe & other 5% requiring ventilation is not to be ignored

It’s been a v stressful time, list father in law to cancer, worried about my own sons condition & access to NHS, homeschooling 4 kids whilst trying to work from home. Lonely missing friends & family, worry about job as finding cuts are coming to my industry

I’d say do more exercise outdoors

I’ve kept busy, made a coffee table, 2 bedside tables, dug a pond, which now has toads & all kinds of creatures

been staying up lately to rebuild all the Lego mechs we have for the kids (me) to play with

& Regressed 25 years to start painting minifigs again !

So we have to dig in and it is sure as shit not WW2 levels of destruction ,(yet)

Excess deaths in the UK so far this year are around 60k. Civilian deaths during WW2 were 70,000 and that includes crown colonies so yes we are approaching WW2 levels of death if not destruction.

Excess deaths in the UK so far this year are around 60k. Civilian deaths during WW2 were 70,000 and that includes crown colonies so yes we are approaching WW2 levels of death if not destruction.

But nowhere near 1920 levels lost to Flu.
2 million from a population of 45-50 million.
Get a grip boys…

I’ve lost 2 relatives to coronavirus so far…. glad to hear that it’s not too serious.

Very sorry to hear that batfink

But nowhere near 1920 levels lost to Flu.
2 million from a population of 45-50 million.
Get a grip boys…

Crass whataboutery at its finest.

Anyway, flu?!! Pussy. Didn’t the black death kill a third of Europe’s population or something.

Another one here who can see where the OP’s frustrations are coming from.

I’ve followed the rules as best I can.
I’ve foregone seeing friends and family, either totally or with limits.
I’ve not had a holiday or even a decent break since November last year as I’ve been working throughout.
I’ve tried to control myself when seeing people obviously breaking the rules and not giving a toss.
I’ve lost my job directly due to the effects of the virus. I may have picked up a temporary one immediately but it’s not enough to live on.
I have had friends (thankfully no family) contract the virus. Two have died, three have survived, two of those have long-term side effects.

I too have a sense of pointlessness to all of this. My status in society through work is gone. My social circle is all but gone. My savings will be depleted very soon. Any hope of achieving anything in my life seems to have vanished.

Yes, people have had it worse before and do so now. But that’s no comfort when you’re staring another ‘lockdown’ in the face and it’s pushing you down a dark road you’ve been down before and hoped to never visit again. It’s easy to judge when looking in but when you’re the one in the middle of it looking out it can be a dangerous place to be in.

I’m fortunate to work for a company that has been relatively unaffected.

But I keep seeing great businesses just kicked in the teeth, and it’s not sustainable.

Anyway, remember Leicester got locked down because of a spike in “cases” at the end of June?

Here are the positive tests:

Here are the hospital admissions:

And here are the deaths:

Where’s the spike in deaths?

https://www.leicester.gov.uk/your-council/coronavirus/coronavirus-in-leicester-latest-news/coronavirus-data-for-leicester/

And we wonder why men’s mental health can be an issue – responses like “suck it up buttercup” are the sort of thing that we have come to learn to expect should we express ourselves.

The net result is that men just keep quiet.

Hi lunge – it seems to me we are all navigating some pretty rough seas at the moment, and some days we cope better than others. I am optimistic that brighter days will appear above the horizon before too long and, in the meantime, I’ll do the best I can to keep my boat afloat and travelling forwards. Hope you, and others here who’ve been contending with tough times, can find what you need. Wishing you well.

What a lovely post ^^^^

Did you get confused about which forum this is 😛

I think being down in the dumps a bit is a rationale response to the situation we’re in, regardless of how fortunate somebody is or isn’t.

The 24/7 internet news media cycle surely doesn’t help- personally I think I would benefit from not seeing any news other than maybe once a day via a hard-copy newspaper. I’m sure this would keep me up to date just fine and probably improve my mood but working on a laptop all day every day by myself means it is too easy to simply switch to a news page when taking a break from work.

Having said that, whilst I totally agree with people urging caution against any silver bullet solution I do feel myself that, fingers crossed, it is likely we will get a vaccine and likely that this time next year we could be into a programme of mass vaccination.

We’re never going to simply return to where we were before, but a mass vaccination programme should be a significant game changer that will see us turn a corner. So for me, its always felt like a period to be endured rather than an endless maze which I think helps.

OP, you’re not stuck working from home. You get to work from home. I wish I could.

@oldnpastit cases this time were in young factory workers

And this time they locked down early, before it spread to older & more vulnerable, with much better treatment regime now, no deaths

Exactly what local lockdown are for

Can we quit it with all the stats please! There’s another thread for that.

This thread was started in the spirit of the OP needing support – people are struggling in many different ways with this. It’s something none of us have been through before.

Let’s try and keep this thread helpful! 🙂

What we are experiencing here is pretty akin to a mental health issue. We are all experiencing it but the way we react is different and not something we can easily or immediately control, because we’re different people. Some people can deal with the tribulations of life more easily than others. One person’s stuck at home / WFH without human contact may be purgatory, to another it may be bliss.

And just as with mental health, it’s absolutely not OK to say ‘get over it / there’s plenty of people worse off / you’ve got nothing to moan about’. That’s a terrible thing to say even if it’s true, it just makes the situation worse. Their experience is their experience and must be respected.

Sure, we’ve got to find coping mechanisms, maybe self-help CBT of some sort but telling someone they’re lucky because they’ve got something you want ….. we’re in this together, it’s not a competition to see who’s suffering the most.

OP, you’re not stuck working from home. You get to work from home. I wish I could.

I’m stuck working from home, I’m not allowed into the office and neither are any of the rest of my team. And I miss it – not everyday, but a couple of days a week in the office would be ideal. I miss chatting with them, being able to walk over to someone else to sort out a problem without the faff of Zoom or Teams and sharing the screen, having lunch together, and so on.

I’m with @lunge – it’s becoming a grind. I’d normally do a trail race or triathlon most months, but not this year. Our club training sessions would usually be for 12-15 people, last night there were only 6 of use. I’m starting to hate having to wear a mask everywhere. I’m concerned about the effect this will have on my daughters’ educations. But that said, objectively I know I’m in a pretty good position, and certainly a lot better than many of the poor sods who’ve lost their jobs, or businesses, or worse: relatives. But subjectively I’m finding it quite hard to stay positive about the whole thing.

Things can be (and are) difficult … but there is a point to it all… we will all do better emotionally and mentally if we give no truck to those people trying to make our that it’s all pointless and the restrictions are unnecessary. They are necessary, and we should continually remind ourselves why. Ignore the conspiracy theories… we are saving lives… hundreds of thousands of them… and helping prevent many more from suffering from life changing ill health.

I have to say, I absolutely hated working from home when I was forced to a few years ago by my employer at the time, so much so, It was one of the reasons quit my job as the position and roll completely changed.

It works for some, not for others. I’m now self employed and do run three businesses along with the wife from home now and loving it.

I completely understand where the op and others are coming from on that front.

.. anyway. I read “what’s the point?” as meaning partly at least, “what’s the strategy?” What’s the aim? Try to eliminate (NZ, S Korea)? Or Bob along living with it (Sweden)? Or try to contain exponential growth whilst hoping for vaccines or something to turn up like better treatments reducing pressure on intensive care? Meanwhile we hope some degree of immunity builds in those who mix most with others…

If it’s the first, second or third option (and it may be none of the above as it’s entirely possible this government doesn’t have a strategy) then it would probably help to make this clear. Then at least everyone like the OP would at least know what it is we’re trying to do.

Morning all,

Thanks to the people who’ve messaged me and those that have made kind comments on here, very much appreciated.

I’m aware that what I said was very much “first world problems”, but alas, I was born into the first world, like almost everyone on here, and so of course my problems are first world. It doesn’t make them any less real or less concerning. Taking away thing you hold dear and in many ways form part of your identity is going to be tough irrelevant of how trival they seem to others. And please lets not start comparing this to the war, I’m guessing none us lived through it and it’s the romanticised view of this period of history that’s doing quite a lot of damage to the UK at the moment…

The phrase “what’s the point” was originally from a work perspective, as in “why am I doing a job that is just about bearably in an office, but bloody horrible away from one when all the things I work for are being taken away for the foreseeable future?” That then extends to “what’s the point of anything” when there is no clear point when or indeed if they will ever come back.

This then further developed to “where are we trying to get to?”, a question I’ve still not seen answered by anyone, and again something that causes frustration and concern as there is no end goal to aim at.

I will continue to see the logic in many of the restrictions given the tiny risk to large parts of the populous, but I also know many will disagree with this, and that’s OK. I know what Covid can do as it had a fairly serious impact on my family 6 months ago. But that said, when I look at it in the cold light of day, the person it took was on their way out anyway, and after a month of feeling terrible, my wife is now well, albeit she still can’t taste steak!

Yesterday was a crap day so I took control of myself, went out running with my faster than me club mates and absolutely thrashed myself trying to keep up with them. Turns out that barely being able to breath and then nearly vomiting outside the clubhouse are quite a good way of clearing the mind.

Thanks again all, much love.

Sunlight and vitamin D3 can provide a 70% protection against this and other respiratory illnesses (BMJ), so locked indoors does not help.

I’d love to know more about this, back in the dim and distance past, June I think there was a Joe Rogan podcast (forgive me) in which a Dr. theorised that the reason so many more BAME people in the UK were dying of Covid than White people was their darker skin, an evolutionary defence against too much sunlight in places nearer the equator. This meant that living in the UK where (supposedly) we get almost zero of the ‘right kind of sun’ for months in Winter caused a Vit D deficiency. I’m not sure this was discredited in the UK, but we were all told to get out and get some sun during one of the very many different Covid related sound bites.

I personally am I sod for getting colds, at least twice each winter. I’ve never understood why, my kids don’t, my wife doesn’t, the only difference they springs to mind is I can’t tolerate dairy, which supposedly is where we get our VitD in Winter.

Seems to easy, but could we ‘simply’ reduce infections by using VitD supplements? The NHS is vehemently apposed to supplements as it dilutes the healthy eating message.

@lunge, I’m glad you have a bit more perspective today.

I also didn’t like WFH, it really messed with me.

It’s very unlikely I’ll be forced to do it again. My kids have both already been exposed to Covid and we’ll get key worker spaces and I have my own private office in work.

My positive spin on things (maybe others might be able to see something and relate/ get inspired to look at the half full glass):

– Spent a lot more time with wife/kids (tough sometimes and i’ve got a whole new respect for people that work in childcare!)

– Running has been a great outlet for me. With work/childcare etc I have minimal time so i’ve taken to night running. Decent head torch and i typically head out at 9.30pm for an hour or longer. I”m not fast, i’m usually carrying injury but the feeling of running through the countryside (footpaths through fields and quiet B roads) gives me a HUGE benefit mentally. A nice clear night with no wind…it’s now my favourite time of day to run

– Been trying to cook better. Been growing veg and doing weekly sourdough bread sessions which I really enjoy. Weekly pizza night for the kids too which they love

– Been saving a ton of money. Lack of commuting, eating 3 meals a day in Pret a Manger, cheeky mid week beers, snacks etc all seems to add up aso I can chuck a bit more cash at the mortgage each month

– Less time seeing my Dad (once since March!) sucks. However i’ve probably had some better proper conversations with him over the phone as the kids tend to dominate when meeting in person

– We’ve had a great excuse to not see other family members we usually feel obliged to meet u with every 6-8 weeks or so

– We’ve bought a few OS maps of the area we live and have been out walking with the kids at every opportunity. Found lots of amazing new walks by choosing random routes along footpaths/bridleways…easily as good as some of the NT walks we’ve done locally

– I’ve learnt that worrying about the ‘Rona restrictions (like other news flow) is pointless. Much easier to just be sensible, minimise contact with others, don’t stress about the conflicting advice, stay safe as you can and find ways to get some benefit form tthe additional time you have at home (instead of pub/shopping/etc)

– Re above u’ve been using some of the newfound time to get into calisthenics. I do <10 mins a day and i’m seeing great results

I appreciate everyones circumstances are different…keep your chin up and stop worrying about the govnt/others and try to focus on what you ARE doing and what you CAN do to make your life better in the long run. Peace.