Over 50,000 positive tests today.

Me and Mrs Darkwolf are sorted...

Picked up a couple of WWII gas masks on eBay, jobs a good 'un...

crodonilson said:

Something needs to be done, the NHS is on the verge of being overwhelmed. We need to make restrictions much, much harder than they are currently and for many months if we are to get back in top of this.

Click to expand...

You really do sit around at home with a mask on? Do the rest of your family?

Mustafa said:

I'm genuinely a bit concerned for your wellbeing.

The pandemic has taken a punch at all of our mental healths... but you seem to be excessively fearful and nosophobic.

We do not need extreme measures. We will not be in this for a long time. We just need to get through this wave, which was predictable given the winter weather.

I do suspect a full national lockdown is imminent, or "circuit break", unfortunately.

Click to expand...

I'm fearful too, as a morbidly obese man in his fifties there is plenty to fear and I'm not the only one. The lockdown won't be a circuit break because it will take many months to get these numbers down to levels where the general risk is low enough to begin tentatively reopening small parts of society again.

Mustafa said:

I'm genuinely a bit concerned for your wellbeing.

The pandemic has taken a punch at all of our mental healths... but you seem to be excessively fearful and nosophobic.

We do not need extreme measures. We will not be in this for a long time. We just need to get through this wave, which was predictable given the winter weather.

I do suspect a full national lockdown is imminent, or "circuit break", unfortunately.

Click to expand...

I think ‘nosophobic’ is a little harsh - it’s not irrational to be concerned at this time. I’m a relatively fit and healthy 35 year old and to the best of my knowledge I haven’t had it yet and don’t particularly want it. My sisters in-laws are in their late 70s, one with COPD, and neither were particularly ill with Covid. But then I have friends and colleagues younger than me who’ve been absolutely knocked for six by it and still aren’t ‘right’. The randomness of the virus’ effects is a little unnerving.

The idea of a highly transmissible, mutant virus hurtling my way (quite possibly via my kids at school) isn’t greatly appetising, even if I’m not exactly rushing to update my will either.

My wider concern though is how badly this could get out of control in the first quarter of this year. We’ve had, what, 75,000 official deaths with Covid so far (make of those numbers what you will) - I can easily see that figure doubling before April, if not worse given the state the NHS will inevitably be in. And in those statistics somewhere could be my mum and dad, or my wife’s mum and dad, or someone else I know.

Where we are right now was probably not predictable for most of us a month ago - this is not a problem borne out of cold temperatures but of a material change in the virus’ behaviour. Whereas I was hoping for a boring but steady glide to the finish line of vaccinated immunity now looks more like it’s going to be a particularly rough crash landing. Bumpy times inevitably lie ahead. I wouldn’t apportion such an outlook to anxious hand wringing on my part but rather a simple extrapolation of the data and the facts at hand.

Few of us will have experienced a shítter January and February than the ones immediately in front of us, I’m pretty confident in that.