The problem of course being that after extreme isolation and/or social breakdown, even those of us that know full well how large those numbers are start to snap.
Approximately 0.2-0.3% of the UK population has died due to coronavirus.
But my personal risk of psychosis as a result of lockdown is far higher than that, it's starting to approach 1, and when it happens, it doesn't matter if those figures are 10%.
Maybe it's just me, but I really doubt it is. Social unrest is coming if we do this for much longer, I can't see any other way.
I can't live in a world that doesn't allow me to have a friend over for a cup of tea indefinitely; compromise really needs to happen soon.
So come up with a timeline that's not made up, then.
In the absence of Government leadership, I've had to do it for myself - I have a set date beyond which I will no longer follow social distancing. If I didn't have that, I'd have snapped long ago, which is strictly a worse outcome.
People individually snapping and choosing to do whatever they want is more dangerous than the alternative of the Government explicitly announcing that lockdown is a time-limited policy (and as such providing more support to the hardest-hit individuals).
Perfect is the enemy of the good.
Well, if that's even a good analogy, since lockdown is clearly nowhere near perfect, it's trading life for life.
I'm simply refusing the concept that my mental health is "opt-in".
If you don't want to interact with me, that's cool. If you want to ban large gatherings and restrict smaller ones for a period of time, I get it.
When it gets to the point that it becomes illegal to be outside without an excuse, 300 days in, you're just subjecting people to cruel and unusual punishment at this point.
The idea that people are going to die in greater proportion than the damage caused by preventing people from going for a walk to the park and sitting down with a cup of coffee is not backed by evidence, and I absolutely believe that you are trolling if you think we can all just endure this indefinitely. You're just gonna have to throw me in prison because I will treat those basic freedoms as absolute until the day I die.
If your country is less restrictive, I'm happy for you.
It's been illegal for me to have a friend over for 100 days.
It's illegal to have a picnic on a park bench.
So yeah, I'm not doing this any more. If you think that's selfish - cool, I'm selfish according to you. I'm not going to kill myself for your social credit score, stop trolling.
I don't know what I have to say to explain this to these people. Maybe it's not quite explainable.
Restrictions haven't pushed their buttons in the same way. The only way to get this across is to describe all of their needs disappearing. But it doesn't hit the same, and it seems petty.
Because I have just about enough left in me, and by then, in the UK we will have vaccinated the groups which make up ~99% of preventable mortality.
At that point, the moral argument of "go outside and you're putting people at risk" completely falls apart in my view.
If there are variants which escape the vaccines, then at that point it's game over since I know I definitely won't be able to make it through another year.
When I see comments like this it reminds me just how different I am to many people. It feels like I'm an alien trying to understand a new civilisation.
I used to have "sex" and the like, but it was only to experience certain transmitters firing in my brain. Now that I've discovered my right hand I don't have to force myself through that hell any more. Comments like this suggest there is something attractive about such acts even if you take the pleasurable transmitters away. I'm so happy, happier than I've ever been, that I don't have to interact with another human ever again.
Yep, the UK went full authoritarian pretty much straight out of the gate, it's been illegal for me to have anyone in my house for 97 days now (and was also illegal or heavily restricted a number of times before that)
It seems that most people are catching coronavirus in private homes.
makes pubs shit to be in with distancing rules and masks etc
people start to socialise at home more
It seems that most people are catching coronavirus in private homes.
closes pubs earlier
people start to socialise at home more
It seems that most people are catching coronavirus in private homes.
close everything else, make meeting up outside illegal
people start to socialise at home more
It seems that most people are catching coronavirus in private homes.
I literally cannot come up with an explanation for this that isn't conspiratorial. For all of Boris' fluff, I don't believe that our Government is this incompetent or stupid - there has to be an ulterior motive here.