How region can learn to live and work with Covid as fears ease – Andrew Vine

ON the first Thursday evening when the country clapped for the NHS and carers, getting on for two years ago, I stepped outside my front door and greeted neighbours who had done likewise.

A family across the road watched proceedings from inside their home, and when several of us beckoned to them to come outside and join in, the father opened a window and said they were reluctant to do so, for fear of catching Covid.

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Fair enough. They were far from alone in being so deeply worried about coronavirus during that first wave when none of us had any idea how it was going to end. How times change. The last conversation I had with my neighbour was notable for how relaxed he is now. “If we get it, we get it”, he said, adding: “We’ll be fine.”

How can Britain learn to live and work with Covid? Andrew Vine poses the question.How can Britain learn to live and work with Covid? Andrew Vine poses the question.
How can Britain learn to live and work with Covid? Andrew Vine poses the question.

Yes they will, all having been fully vaccinated. Covid has touched his family once, causing a miserable week off work and school, but thankfully nothing worse. His family’s journey from fear to acceptance that we’re just going to have to live with this damned thing, in the same way we cope with colds, flu or winter stomach bugs, is one that must be mirrored in households all over the country.

Wherever the Omicron variant takes us in terms of hospital admissions – and even against the grim backdrop of Britain recording 150,000 Covid deaths – this has to be the year when we get on with life.

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The former chairman of the UK’s vaccine taskforce, Dr Clive Dix, said at the weekend that Covid should now be regarded as an endemic virus like flu, and a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Modelling Group, Dr Mike Tidesley, offered a similar opinion.

Britain's outlook on Covid has changed since the first Clap for Carers celebrations nearly two years ago.Britain's outlook on Covid has changed since the first Clap for Carers celebrations nearly two years ago.
Britain's outlook on Covid has changed since the first Clap for Carers celebrations nearly two years ago.

There was more good news yesterday, with Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, saying he believed hospitals would not now be overwhelmed by admissions.

This time last year, with vaccination just getting under way, one in 10 Covid patients needed hospitalisation. Now it is fewer than one in 50, and that figure is heavily skewed towards those who have been foolish or misguided enough not to have their jabs.

Though the Government’s record on Covid has often been woeful – and is likely to be officially classified as such by the public inquiry – it has been right to keep England free from even tighter restrictions this winter.

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Whilst the leaders of the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have given the impression of nations under siege from a rampant virus against which there is little defence, the Government’s line in England has been much more in tune with the public mood.

Britain's outlook on Covid has changed since the first Clap for Carers celebrations nearly two years ago.Britain's outlook on Covid has changed since the first Clap for Carers celebrations nearly two years ago.
Britain's outlook on Covid has changed since the first Clap for Carers celebrations nearly two years ago.

We all know that we’re immeasurably better equipped to get on with life than a year ago. Then, virtually everyone knew of someone who had died or been seriously ill. That’s much scarcer now, when the tales we swap about Covid are not about deaths, but about being poorly at home for a week or 10 days.

Christmas with loved ones did much to boost public confidence that Covid can be lived with in a way that seemed unthinkable to many during the darkest days of 2020 and last year.

Families know that their dinners and parties have overwhelmingly not resulted in loved ones becoming ill, let alone ending up in intensive care, and that has been invaluable in getting the country into the mindset of accepting that although we’re stuck with this virus for the foreseeable future, we needn’t be frightened any more.

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There is a new fatalism around that is a very British trait – that an overwhelming majority of us will catch Covid at some point, just like we catch a cold, and we’ll recover from it.

How can Britain learn to live and work with Covid? Andrew Vine poses the question.How can Britain learn to live and work with Covid? Andrew Vine poses the question.
How can Britain learn to live and work with Covid? Andrew Vine poses the question.

The fear factor has gone. Vaccination – and a variant that scientists believe causes less severe illness – have turned catching Covid from a major worry into a nuisance that has to be put up with. And if putting up with it means reporting for further booster jabs when summoned, or mask-wearing in shops and on public transport becoming a familiar part of everyday life, then that’s fine.

This has to be good for people’s emotional wellbeing. One of the concerns about the two years we’ve all endured is the toll they have taken on mental health.

The effects of bereavement, isolation and worries about earning a living have worn people down, and so has living in a constant state of apprehension over catching a virus that might prove fatal. We may still have some way to travel before being fully on top of Covid, but the fact that fear of it has diminished means we’ll get there all the faster.

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