[Closed] Is this what passes for " normal" now? 🤔

Have people then become institutionalized ?, with their home being the institution.

Think I'll place an Outside the Asylum sign above my front door.

Just go to any nearby park and/or beach front and you’ll find all the crowds you want.

I stupidly plotted a running route along my local beach promenade yesterday and it was like Bondi in the middle of summer, not the North East of a Scotland in February. I think I ran an extra couple of KMs just dodging all the people.

I live next to a city centre park and it’s similarly hectic everyday too.

I just hope that this isn't mentally damaging to the kids.

There will be long term collateral damage too this I'm sure, this is one of those ways.

I empathise btw op.

Lock down was the lesser of the evils though but not without cost.

Risk of transmission outdoors is very low

People get used to things pretty quickly, it works both ways.

Ours is anything but a ghost town. Nothing like the first lockdown. For weeks now, queues outside the shops. Cars parked everywhere. People milling about the pavements. Some masked, some not. Park is busy. Groups of parents in circles gabbing on in the play area with kids running everywhere. And now our neighbours just tested positive.

I find it really strange when I watch a TV show that's been recorded pre-Covid and you see characters close to each other, pub scenes and no-one wearing masks. It's going to take me a while to ease back in to regular life, if we ever get there, not helped by being a bit of a loner that shies away from crowds anyway! Strangely would like the limited numbers in shops to continue though, makes shopping so much less stressful.

Can relate to the OP. Not looking forward to going back to work, there's several space invaders there who in the past have made me uncomfortable (ie someone from another room sitting on the corner of my desk to chat shit with someone else from the other room while I'm trying to work). I had returned to the office for social distanced work after the first lockdown due to being de-furloughed, but didn't waste much time opting to work from home instead.

Long before Covid I grew used to little social contact but sometimes worry (briefly) lockdown is justifying it in a way, and I'm getting too comfortable with the situation.

One woman even said she finds watching a film with a crowd of people she finds herself thinking aren’t they standing just a bit too close to one another

I get this too.  But I think it will take me and most others <20 seconds to revert to pre COVID ways

One woman even said she finds watching a film with a crowd of people she finds herself thinking aren’t they standing just a bit too close to one another

I get this too. But I think it will take me and most others <20 seconds to revert to pre COVID ways

+1 for this too. Feels weird seeing it on tv shows etc. But I 100% can't wait for proper close mingling again, honestly. Just maybe not during flu months - but then I've always been that way, dec-march generally stayed away from spluttering crowds.

I keep wondering what will happen when 'its over' eg I hold my breathe whenever I pass anyone in the street (probably pointless, but its totally ingrained behaviour now). When we come out of this, there'll be a fair amount of re-adjusting.

My daughters youngest was born at the start of lock down and is now a happy 1 year old who loves running arounf, climbing and hitting things to make noise. He has never been in a house or place with more than 6 people in it. I wonder how he will be affected.

I wonder if his 3 year old sister will be more affected as she is more aware of 'normal' and 'different'

What really gave me oause for thought yesterday when I went for a walk on the north downs with my lad and his 11 month old (me distanced) is that my grandson doesn't recognise me.

I plan on changing the sh*t out of that situation as soon as I am able to.

Balance bike already bought.👍

Same here with the TV thing!

I was thinking something similar to the OP today whilst at work......I wonder when I'll feel comfortable being around others indoors without a mask again?!

Can relate to the OP. Not looking forward to going back to work, there’s several space invaders there who in the past have made me uncomfortable

At least in future you’ll be able to tell them to back off. And have the whole world on your side!

I think the kids will have been affected, but will bounce back with any luck.

We'll soon forget, though maybe permanent mask wearing in some places (e.g. supermarkets) will act as a reminder.

Maybe we'll see a lot fewer cold and flus for a while too as folk have learnt to be a bit more hygienic.

I hold my breathe whenever I pass anyone in the street

Same here 🙂 For me now it's just an instant reaction but I'll be happy to go back to "normal".

Hopefully, that will happen in 2021 at some point?

Maybe we’ll see a lot fewer cold and flus for a while too as folk have learnt to be a bit more hygienic.

Hasn’t stopped me getting a bloody cold! Fairly mild one, to be fair, I’ve had colds, or perhaps mild flu, that have literally lasted several months of pure misery.
The interesting thing is, at the moment, humans are susceptible to six Corona viruses, MERS, SARS, (the current pandemic is SARS-COV2), and the remaining four being variations of the common cold! So some current research is showing a possibility of there being a vaccine developed which would be pan-Covid, so it’s possible that there may be a cure for the common cold!
Flu is a different type of virus, it doesn’t have the spikes that attach to cels, so not so easily dealt with, it seems.

I just hope that this isn’t mentally damaging to the kids.

I think we're already seeing huge impact, particularly on teenagers and young adults, and it's not good.

I think overall the impacts on physical, mental and social health will last far longer than CV19, and cost more in lives, finance and interruption to life.

I hold my breath whenever I pass anyone in the street

Worse with joggers. You feel as if there is a cloud of infected perspiration that precedes them. The way they puff and pant is disturbing to say the least.

Hasn’t stopped me getting a bloody cold!

Ha! My Mrs was just saying a couple of days ago that there had been a lot fewer colds going around this year (she's in community healthcare).

Hah! In glad I'm not the only one that holds their breadth when passing people.😁

There must be loads of period all walking padt each other whilst not breathing. Pretty ironic/funny when you think of it.

It's when a group of plague carries approach (kids/teens) that I just cross the road instead.lol

Don't burnt me at the stake, in reality I assume everyone has the virus, which is the best way to be outdoors. I look forward to that changing.

Quiet? Far from it this time the first lockdown they were ghost towns, far from it this time.

No, it won’t be the normal people will return just recall how it was in the summer.

I agree with Matt, I worry that this will have a longer term effect on teens. Tthey are formative years; not sure how I would have ended up if I had spent a year sat watching tv and playing Xbox. Uni

Tthey are formative years; not sure how I would have ended up if I had spent a year sat watching tv and playing Xbox.

Depends on the Teens, locally there are plenty that just carried on as normal regardless of lock downs/infection risks.

They’re long term problems will be linked to dropping out of school/degrees of lost education, drink/drug problems and in a few verified cases criminal records.

Risk of transmission outdoors is very low

Yes, when everyone is 2 metres apart. If everyone sat cm's away from each other then not so much.

Here its still like a ghost town - probably largely because its mainly pubs and restaurants around me

However local parks and walkways carry far more people traffic than normal

not sure how I would have ended up if I had spent a year sat watching tv and playing Xbox.

Has that actually happened? We had a few months break in the summer where groups could meet back up and do outdoor sports, even in this lockdown they could still get out with one other.

eg I hold my breathe whenever I pass anyone in the street

You understand that this isn't normal behaviour though, right?

But I think it will take me and most others <20 seconds to revert to pre COVID ways

^^ This will be me.

Never thought I'd miss being crammed against a bar waving a £20 note waiting to be served! And gigs, oh I so miss jumping around at the front.

I can see where the OP is coming from though having to work in a supermarket through all this. I've been working pretty much on my own.

I think it will take a period of adjustment to go back to "normal" (or wherever we eventually land that is an approximation of it).

But if we went from pre-pandemic to this, then it will surely be easier to go back the other way, as it were. I say that as a 39 year old though so I've had plenty of experience of how things used to be but I guess it'll be a different kettle of fish for children or people of a certain younger age.

I do think my hand-washing habits are now almost borderline dysfunctional but I'm not too worried as I'm fairly sure I can de-programme myself as it were, when hopefully we reach a point where the infection rates are minimal.

I can't imagine going to a gig or a packed bar at the minute but no doubt it will be an incremental change anyway.

Same here 🙂 For me now it’s just an instant reaction but I’ll be happy to go back to “normal”.

Hopefully, that will happen in 2021 at some point?

I'm expecting 2022. I think we'll have rolled out vaccines just about in time to enter the 2021 winter season where hospitals etc get busy anyway, so with CV-19 still floating around we'll still be being careful as they'll be new variants coming in from abroad and 10-15% of people who refuse to get vaccinated etc.

Risk of transmission outdoors is very low

Yes, when everyone is 2 metres apart. If everyone sat cm’s away from each other then not so much.

There was a study looking at hospital admissions for CV around the time of the black lives matter protests in the US - they went down! I was watching them on TV thinking 'bunch of idiots, they'll all give each other CV'; but apparently not....

My daughters youngest was born at the start of lock down and is now a happy 1 year old who loves running arounf, climbing and hitting things to make noise. He has never been in a house or place with more than 6 people in it. I wonder how he will be affected.

I wonder if his 3 year old sister will be more affected as she is more aware of ‘normal’ and ‘different’

How many mass attendance baby events are there normally? I would be more concerend for the 3, 4, 5 year olds, who may have missed being "eased in" with nursery/reception classes before they are expected to sit still in a room with 30 others for hours on end. Especially only children or those with a big age gap to siblings.

The way they puff and pant is disturbing to say the least.

Do you read The Daily Mail?

The UK had growing levels of anxiety before this, after it we are going to see a lot of people who are very uncomfortable at the idea of busy trains, the tube and mass gatherings will result in some panic attacks I'm sure.

The desire to move to/visit more remote places will increase and make them busier, so perhaps your high street will remain deserted, there probably won't be many shops to tempt people in anyway.

That got me thinking am I going to find it really uncomfortable when we all start emerging from our sanctuaries?

It'll be no different from any other zombie apocalypse - move fast, remember if in doubt, decapitation is the surest solution. And stay out of dead-ends and alleys,

I’ve worked all the way through as a lowly supermarket shelf stacker

Do they not trust you with the ones higher up or are you just very short?

Think about previous big things which at the time you would imagine would have changed behaviour for good - but didn't.

AIDS - when I was at college we thought it would mean casual sex was never going to happen - we were wrong.

9/11 - we thought no one would work in a high rise building or get on a plane - we were wrong.

Tube/bus bombing - we thought no one would get on a tube/bus - we were wrong.

People are social, adaptive and forgetful. We put up with stuff then resort to normal very fast.

Well in 2 weeks time I'll probably be spending 6hr a day with 25 17/18 year olds in a poorly ventilated room with no social distancing and masks not required. Just like last sept to Dec.
Nothing like going from one extreme to another.
Probably seem normal again by the end of the week.

AIDS – when I was at college we thought it would mean casual sex was never going to happen – we were wrong.

9/11 – we thought no one would work in a high rise building or get on a plane – we were wrong.

Tube/bus bombing – we thought no one would get on a tube/bus – we were wrong.

None of those are comparable to what we are living through now, not by a long, long way.

Tube/bus bombing – we thought no one would get on a tube/bus – we were wrong

Eh? people were getting on the tube and buses the same day or so

Eh? people were getting on the tube and buses the same day or so

Exactly - I travelled by train to London then used the underground extensively to get to clients' offices the day after the most recent tube attack in London (I think it was about four years ago). Yes I was nervous but it was nowhere near the level of nobody ever wanting to use public transport again.

Edit: I was also on holiday when 9/11 happened so I had to get on a plane about 5 days after. I was pretty terrified at that one though.

So, basically most people will go back to normal very quickly, a few will take a short time to get back to normal. A tiny few will struggle, but it will be a tiny few. I think.

Risk of transmission outdoors is very low

But for a lot of activities you might do outdoors of any duration there's usually a bit of indoors involved. We could have bolstered the ailing events industry by installing 90s Music Festival  style open air latrines in every town - but the limiting factor is being out for any amount of time or in any numbers or traveling any distance is the need to use a loo and public toilets tend to be the perfect size, shape and contact surfaces for covid transmission.

In terms of what will in future will be normal will be interesting - it'll take a while to see what temporary changes become permanent.

They say it takes two weeks to form or break a habit - so a whole year or more of changed routines is going to leave some marked changes in how we continue to live our lives. Far less profound events have left lasting legacies - The 1976 heat wave turned the UK from mostly beer drinkers to mostly lager drinkers simply because lager was colder - even though that was a relatively short episode the change in habits stuck

War and rationing changed a lot of habits too and we still have a generation around who's tastes and values were shaped by that- especially in relation to food (and food waste)

The nearest peace-time equivalent in terms with its global impact and duration would probably be 'The Year without a Summer' in the early 1800s - a period of global crop failures and famine, plunging global temperatures, yellow skies and blue snow- our aesthetic for Christmas is still an echo of that as its the winters Dickens remembered. We celebrate his memory of Christmas not our on experience of it. In fact its the whole world's idea of Christmas - Australian Christmas cards and decorations  have snow on them even though they celebrate Christmas in the middle of summer. But there's an incredible number of cultural and literary echos of that year. It was a fairly instrumental in the evolution of the bicycle too - adoption of bikes being driven by there not being enough oats to feed horses.

Think about previous big things which at the time you would imagine would have changed behaviour for good – but didn’t.

9/11 – we thought no one would work in a high rise building or get on a plane – we were wrong.

I think you're looking in the wrong place for a lasting legacy from 9/11.

but the limiting factor is being out for any amount of time or in any numbers or traveling any distance is the need to use a loo and public toilets tend to be the perfect size, shape and contact surfaces for covid transmission.

Most public toilets are not rammed with people* even without Covid restrictions, and if you manage to catch Covid from a contact surface in the convenience then you need to question your own hygiene.

*obviously in normal times there are exceptions - services on a bank hol and festivals spring to mind, but even the toilets at the most popular beach locally is never crammed enough to be a concern.

Thought it took 6 weeks to form a habit?

Thinking of all the people I’ve met this academic year (I’m a teacher) and never seen the lower half of their face.

You can form a habit - in whatever time. But the flipside is you can form an new one or unlearn an old one just as fast.

People are motivated by the same stuff whatever situation they are in.

There is a famous photo of some women having their hair done in a bombed out hairdresser the day WWII finished. Rubble and ruins all around them, but they were there having their hair/makeup done with a grin.

People tend to do what everyone else is doing - so it wont take long for the pub garden to fill up in late spring/summer, then when it gets cold in Autumn, we will all be back inside for the winter as if Covid was all a dream or some episode in a show on TV.

Well in 2 weeks time I’ll probably be spending 6hr a day with 25 17/18 year olds in a poorly ventilated room with no social distancing and masks not required. Just like last sept to Dec.
Nothing like going from one extreme to another.
Probably seem normal again by the end of the week.

Same.

In September it took about an hour to feel normal.

The risk of transmission outdoors is do low they've actually said that there have been no outbreaks connected to the beach gatherings that were vilified in the press:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-beach-holidays-safe-sage-uk-b1803367.html

9/11 – we thought no one would work in a high rise building or get on a plane – we were wrong.

Tube/bus bombing – we thought no one would get on a tube/bus – we were wrong.

Even the AIDS claim was pushing it there was a push for safe sex and there still is but those two are complete bollocks. However, people will quickly revert back to how we were, some traits may remain from the last year but overall people will be back as we were.

Hasn’t stopped me getting a bloody cold!

Cold viruses are airborne though.