[Nursie]

I'm in between the two groups. I live with my partner in a mid-sized house in the centre of a small city.

Financially I'm doing great, I've worked throughout and there's literally nothing to spend the money on. My mental health is starting to deteriorate though. I'm not sleeping well most nights, I've turned very much inwards, I feel angry and despairing a lot.

Part of the current problem is that we don't have a timetable. There is no plan. There isn't even a set of criteria around which a plan could be built.

I don't agree that this is "a risk aversion play" here in the UK though - we have well over 100k people dead from this disease, hospitals beyond capacity and all sorts. Cancer treatments being pushed out, causing more death down the line. I don't think you can say that trying to control the spread is unwarranted.

Poorly communicated, yes. Mishandled, screwed up, too little, too late every time, yes. But unfortunately necessary to stop it just getting worse.

[nicbou]

One thing that helped for me was to treat this period as also life, rather than something I must sit through.

I still highlight dumb holidays (next week is International I Hate Cilantro Day), read by the candlelight, explore abandoned buildings, ride my bicycle around etc.

I had to delay the plans for which I have strived for many years, but I don't consider that time lost. I got to try things I wouldn't have tried otherwise, and to invest my time in different places.

When I get hit by a wave of despair (usually after they push the dates further), I do something that reaffirms this.

[Nursie]

I'm trying to treat it as a good time to get things done.

I can't go anywhere so I have time to finish painting the hallway, fixing the garden etc etc. It helps I also have a home-based hobby (brewing) so I can carry on with that.

I should cycle more, and I'm sure I will when the weather picks up a bit. It really helps my state of mind.

[michaelt]

> Part of the current problem is that we don't have a timetable.

I can understand why people want things to look forward to - and why businesses and people whose jobs will reopen would want dates in advance so they can plan.

But the dumbest thing the government could do is schedule reopenings before we know if it'll be safe to reopen.

That's what they did with the second lockdown - announced upfront that it was from to 31st October to 2nd December. Then they kept to their timetable and reopened things even though every metric on https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ made it clear we hadn't stopped the second wave - and now we have a third lockdown.

[Nursie]

> But the dumbest thing the government could do is schedule reopenings before we know if it'll be safe to reopen.

Sure. But while there is no end in sight, despair will rule. Whether it's reasonable to want a fixed timetable or not.

This is also why I mentioned criteria - even if not a fixed timetable, we could at least know what sort of criteria would trigger a rule change. I.E. when we get down to X cases per day, X deaths etc etc, the schools will open. If it keeps falling then the rule of six reapplies in outdoor public spaces ...

At least something rather than just being locked down indefinitely.

I agree the lifting of Lockdown 2 was a really poor choice.

[kelnos]

> Sure. But while there is no end in sight, despair will rule. Whether it's reasonable to want a fixed timetable or not.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. After the second timeline turns out to be completely made up, people will stop trusting them and add "more distrust of government" to their despair.

[_uwiz]

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.

[Nursie]

Again, I think that's why criteria need to be set out, rather than a strict timetable.

[brailsafe]

I'm so confused as to how excess money can be enough fuel for so many people's positive feedback loops that it keeps them working. That already wasn't working for me, but as soon as there was almost nothing to do, I crashed and lost my job.

[Nursie]

In my case there's a goal. I'm putting together enough money for a house deposit in another country when we emigrate later in the year.

When I'm tired as all hell and wishing I could just go back to bed, that's what keeps me going. When I'm not tired as all hell I actually still enjoy the work, so that helps.

[Nextgrid]

Out of curiosity, where are you planning to go? I am planning to leave the UK too and would like to know some options. So far my plan is to end up somewhere in Eastern Europe. Cost of living is low enough that I can actually afford a property instead of burning piles of cash for a shitty London flat.

[Nursie]

Western Australia. I lived there for a couple of years about 10 years ago as a skilled migrant, then came back to the UK. I was (really, really unexpectedly) lucky enough that when I applied to reinstate my long-expired visa they said "sure, you have a one-year window to get back over here".

Cost of living is pretty high, salaries are pretty OK (better than a lot of UK perm, not as good as UK fintech contracting AFAICT), houses are big if you live out of the city centres, the sun shines and the beaches go on forever :)

[ghaff]

I guess I don't know what the alternative would be. I miss travel/events and getting together with people socially. But it's not like those would exist if I weren't working either. I almost certainly have more personal contact than if I weren't working. Plus I'm fairly close to retirement so I might as well put some more money away.

[saalweachter]

The part of me that isn't horrified by the death toll or frustrated by the inconveniences in my own life has thought about a million times, "man, I bet we're getting so much interesting data out of this pandemic."

Beyond the bucket of cash dumped onto new vaccine technologies, the international DiRT for all of our emergency preparedness, the data on pandemic spread and transmission reduction strategies, we're also getting all sorts of psych and social data on how people respond to a crisis, to government orders and to isolation. A thousand dissertations and new departments of study will spring from this.

[nicoburns]

There is actually a provisional timetable now: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9267563/Roadmap-loc...

[Nursie]

Heh, the old "leak it to the press and if there's no immediate outpouring of rage, announce it properly next week" trick.

Been very popular over the last year or so. Yeah I've heard a few of the trickles of info. I'm hoping for the official reveal on Monday. Guess we'll see.

(and thanks for the link)