Coronavirus: Please use this thread for all COVID19 talk!

I have felt fairly safe from the beginning. I keep fairly healthy and generally look on the bright side. I also, as much as I moan about it, have stuck to all the rules all the way through. I am a rule abuser, even if I don't always agree! I want my life back, thank you!

Edit: gonna leave that abuser in there, but I meant abider!

 

That's the rub, though. Statistically, COVID isn't any particular threat to me. I'm 35, and in good overall health. But it's a threat to my father, who is in his 70s and is a longtime smoker. It's a threat to my mother, who is in her 60s and immunocompromised. It's a threat to one of my oldest friends, who is the same age I am but has a severe autoimmune disorder (and three young kids). It's a threat to my coworkers (median age: 66), and it's a threat to a lot of other people I know and far more that I don't. And for that reason, I've continued under self-imposed restrictions considerably more stringent than the government rules, as have most of the people I know.

To some extent, the continued lockdown is unfair to people who have been vaccinated, but this has always been about collective action, with less-vulnerable people operating under restrictions to protect everyone else. But within 4-6 weeks, the vast majority of vulnerable people will be vaccinated, and enough of the remaining population will have received at least one dose to serve as a firebreak for any outbreaks that do occur when reopening. We've made it this far. It's not long now.

 

We've done much the same with our self imposed restrictions from the beginning. Far to many unknowns to say no more lockdowns. We live in the Netherlands under lockdown with some lifting, bars and restaurants open for takeaway, shopping by appointment but numbers are moving in the wrong direction.

 

We're still at background levels where I am (32 active cases out of ~1m people), but the same can't be said about the rest of the country. The largest province in Canada just reentered lockdown amidst skyrocketing caseloads, and the second and third-largest are seeing major spikes. With those numbers elsewhere, all it takes is a few idiots from the rest of the country traveling here and disobeying quarantine for it to get out of control here, too...mercifully, people have taken it extremely seriously, and a massive amount of credit is due to the university students which comprise a significant part of the population eight months of the year. Quite a few have arrived from the rest of Canada/the US with COVID at the start of the semester and after holidays, but it hasn't resulted in any major outbreaks.

 

https://www.europeanpharmaceuticalr...ows-promise-in-landmark-first-in-human-trial/

That's a long way from an actual vaccine for HIV, but it's a level of progress heretofore unknown. One of the lasting legacies of this pandemic will be the maturation of mRNA immune stimulation, and there's a good chance it becomes the most important medical development of this century. If scientists can identify key regions of viruses that remain largely static even as the viruses themselves mutate, we could well see HIV, influenza and other viruses become rare or be eliminated entirely.

 

Yes, I get that we all have a responsibility to each other. And the old Socialist in me even rejoices at the collective response to a common problem, particularly in right wing Britain where a Conservative chancellor has adopted Socialist policies to protect the population from economic collapse.

But the liberal in me has had quite enough of being told what to do by government, thank you very much. I've said all along that if you ask people to do the right thing for their communities, and they can see the need, generally they will. Personally though, I have a visceral hatred of coercion. Furthermore, I still have my suspicions that our response may have caused more long term damage than the disease ever could.

I'm glad that, in the UK, the NHS wasn't overwhelmed. I'm genuinely grateful for the contributions of every single one of it's employees, including some on this forum. And I'm genuinely sorry for people who have lost loved ones to the disease. But don't ask me to echo the sentiment, prevalent in many quarters, that it's any kind of tragedy when an old person dies. It isn't, because every body dies, and if that sounds callous, well I'm 60 next month, and I have octagenarion parents who I love.

It's not their generation or mine I am worried about, it's my son's and my niece and nephew's. And yours, come to that. Time to start living again, for all of us. Living in the knowledge that our time on earth is precious, precisely because it's fleeting and finite. As I've said many times before, it's not when you die that counts, it's how you live.

 

That's very well put.

 

Thank you.

 

Yes very well said, Archer's!

 

The tragedy as I see it is lives cut short and excess deaths that could have been prevented if the warnings and experiences of other countries been heeded a year ago. That, the refusal to but a "circuit breaker" lockdown in place and the Christmas meetings cost suffering and lives. Everyone wants to live their lives to the full even the old farts amongst us of which I'm one. We'll continue to err on the side of caution and still lead fulfilling existence.

 

Fair enough. We have a slightly different definition of what might constitute tragedy.

But I wish you good health and happiness

 

Thanks Archie, you to. Heathy enough for 71, bit wheezy now and then but still out on me bike daily. Happy to especially now we've moved to a brilliant location in Leidschendam close to the canal, bars and restos which are now open for takeaways. Cheers all.

 

I hope we never get too good at saving lives of elderly and frail people. Humanity is not that great and the planet is already heaving under the strain.

#controversial

#Logan'sRun.

 

We're all ****ed, bring on the next pandemic. Let the young mix, transmit and suffer the consequences.
https://populationmatters.org/popul...Tjy59eGZE8UROyc9Jf4BvT_R4b3grs8xoC470QAvD_BwE

 

Tasty though!

 

Is that Farah Fawcett?

I thank you.

 

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