Are we approaching another lockdown?

Does anyone live in Wales? Shops are open there. I live on the border, but the first minister says: "Don't think you English can come here to have your hair done". Very frustrating. Businesses there won't be pleased with him.

Shielding ends 31st March though presumably people can carry on if they are happier doing so.

I thought we had already heard that there should be no foreign holidays abroad this summer.

Wouldn’t want to risk Europe right now though salt water bathing really helps my skin condition.

www.gov.uk/coronavirus

I hope the EU start to see sense and bow to international pressure to stop trying to punish other countries who got their act together and ordered their vaccine in a timely fashion.

With the world heading for a recession it’s not a good time to advertise just how duplicitous they really are.

So much pessimism! I have managed to get a hair appointment for 20th April - Yay! Also booked a restaurant table in the garden for 6 of us on 17th May - they are booked solidly from 12th April until then. What is the point of us all having our vaccinations if we aren't able to do anything. I am back volunteering (I'm 77 but not health problems) - I do a lateral flow test twice a week and it is wonderful to be back among people. We have to keep moving forward - we're not going to eradicate it but we will learn to live with it like 'flu. thousands usually die of 'flu each year, but not this winter.

I can't see life ever being as it was before all this began..even with vaccines we won't know who has really had it or not just by looking at them will we? The ones who dont take it up will always have a death knell over them, and also endanger everyone else.This is why i said it ought to have been made compulsory..(medical safety permitting).. but then folk jump on the bandwagon about right to choose & freedom of choice etc..But this is a serious killing virus, with many different strains, why cant they see its the VIRUS that's leaving them with NO choice- and just, for once in their lives, just accept the ruddy vaccine?!How are they going to feel further down the line if theyre own grandkids& great grandkids ask about this time, to be told their own relatives helped keep it going by refusing to have a life- saving vaccine which could have helped put an end to it sooner? Not be as smug then eh? Provided covid hasn't got them before then.?My son said, give it 3 days after they open up pubs etc again, and we will be heading back into another lockdown...which, as so rightly pointed out, we ARE still in at the moment.

I do fear that Easter will be another Xmas with people being careless and causing another spike. I think this country is doing well but until the rest of Europe at least is at the same level we will not come out the other side. At 68 I too have wondered if this is how I will spend the rest of my life. On the up side I am mostly happy and content, Spring is nearly here and warmer weather is coming. Play music, dance and be happy, get out and walk, all good things to keep the spirits up.

Oh forgot to say she works setting up Covid testing centres and vaccination sites.

Sorry to be doom and gloom. My best friend has been seconded to public health from the NHS. Her contact has been extended to September 2022.... I think we can all do the maths.?

I am thinking we will stay in lockdown for a while longer depending on what happens in Europe can’t see us being able to travel abroad even here in uk doesn’t look promising as I have noticed from my COVID app in my area cases are increasing again this maybe because more people in school are being tested but it doesn’t look good I’m in south east

"Confused and sad" that's me, all right.
I can hardly believe 'normal life' will ever be possible.

I fear the prospects of another set of restrictions (I'm not going to call it a "lockdown", but in practice that is what it could be...)

Infection rates are rising in Europe, and it would only take one person to go to Europe for an entirely legitimate reason and come back...remember the fuss there was over the person who didn't leave contact details with his/her swab, and had to be tracked down - in part - by the media? That ended well but it need not have done.

In my more gloomy moments I do find myself wondering if we will ever be free from this - and if not this, when will the next pandemic come along, and will we be any more prepared?

And regarding "Carrie & Boris" and their wedding - she would be well advised to remember that when the mistress marries, she creates a vacancy. And "Boris" has form in this area.

Foreign holidays should not be allowed this year! What is wrong with people? I as much as the next person would love a holiday abroad but there is absolutely no way I’ll be going it’s far to dangerous to contemplate. Why risk getting covid or bringing back variants, old or newly discovered ones?! It is how others have described as though lockdown doesn’t exist I see what my neighbours do and despair-daily! Eldest DS and DDIL are now going to stay with her parents, they are both well educated and until now abided by all the government lockdown/restrictions. I’m so disappointed in them but kept it to myself although I’m pretty damned sure they know exactly how I feel. I miss my family dreadfully but seeing others openly flouting the rules makes me very despondent for the future especially now all of Europe has seen such a surge in cases and hospital admissions. Sorry I’m having a bad day today ?.

My GGS who will be 4 on Monday will be celebrating his second birthday in lockdown.

I know this will be unpopular, but as somebody already said, the young people are not being asked to go and fight in the trenches. Thank goodness, and we hope they never will. But look what previous generations had to suffer with 2 world wars one after the other. We just have to put up with it and stop wingeing. It will pass. So what if we can't have a holiday this year !

grandtanteJE65

Sooner or later we will return to a more normal life, and I have no doubt our grandchildren will bore their children with stories of lockdown in their childhood and youth.

Our parents bored us with WW2 stories!

That's exactly what I said to my grandchildren, grandetanteJE65!

EllenVallin the Spanish Flu spread from the train marshalling yards in France to the whole world via land and sea. We had an empire and they took it with them. It is thought it came from American Farm Boys in the boats to France to serve in WW1. So no holidays abroad this year. Please no more lockdown.

Is Carrie in her right mind? Johnson has had unknown number of liaisons with resultant offspring. He left t his last wife when she was having treatment for cancer! Disposable man!

The seven day rolling average for new cases in the U.K. is down almost 10% in the past week. Given that the schools are now open, that’s great news. I was expecting a bit of a rise.
If we can all keep following the rules, I am hopeful we can stick to the roadmap of lifting restrictions.

I met my son outside a coffee shop yesterday, he lives barely 10 miles away and cycled to the coffee shop. It was lovely to see him, sat outside perched on a wall drinking coffee and eating cake. I am getting totally fed up with the restrictions but can bare them as long as I can meet up with someone other than Mr B now and again. I just feel we are heading for another lockdown later this year but I hope I am wrong. I have read somewhere that Boris will be out if he has another lockdown.

This is a very divided thread which probably reflects national opinion.
My fear is that we are all becoming institutionalised and actively looking to obey 'rules' rather than using our common sense. And the govt and its advisers prefer to keep it that way. Always jam tomorrow.
I like to hope that warmer weather will help things along. That and agreeing not to talk of other people as 'selfish'.

My DGC went back to school on the 8th March. On Tuesday afternoon (16th) my DGS was sent home as there was a confirmed case in his year group. Back to home schooling! He is due to go back the day they break up for the Easter holidays. My DD works in a pub/restaurant, and has been told that they will be opening on the 12th April for outdoor service. Her concern is, as Kitchen Manager, that she will not know what stock to have in, and how that stock will last if there is a few concurrent days of bad weather, especially as the restriction of needing to order food to be allowed alcohol will have been lifted.

All people in the top vulnerable groups should have had the second dose of vaccine before we move to no restrictions, currently stated as not before 21st June I think. As someone who suffers with anxiety, I don't intend mixing in larger groups or going to busy shops or restaurants even when they can open. Just collecting the grandchildren from school twice a week and seeing them and being able to travel further in this country to walk in different surroundings will be fine for me.

I believe we just have this one chance to come through and get out of a continuous cycles of lockdowns this coming year, as will be happening in Europe unfortunately. This will only be achieved by continuing the vaccine rollout AND not rushing out of lockdown as we did previously with disastrous results. If people start going abroad again this summer and/or gallivanting all over the place ignoring Covid precautions then, sure as night follows day, we’ll be under lockdown again in Autumn, possibly battling a variant resistant to our vaccines.

We are still in lockdown in Ireland. So fed up with it.

I don’t think it is wise to lockdown again. These lockdowns are causing economic suicide which in turn will increase annual death rates. If theses vaccines are unable to inoculate against new strains then tbh it’s time we learned to live with Covid. If your elderly and retired then be cautious but let the rest of us get on with our lives and provide the income that pays for pensions and healthcare.

I really don't think so, vaccination roll-out is going well and the numbers of patients in hospital are falling. But I don't think foreign holidays should be allowed this summer - it's just asking for trouble and the possible import of new variants, which I think is a big danger