Acceptable Covid death rates

It's part of the same wider discussion.

I agree that someone should have the courtesy to cover their mouth / nose when coughing and sneezing.

But it's not always practical for someone to take several weeks off every winter when they invariably get the sniffles. Some people can do it, but not everyone.

Not to mention all the hidden illnesses that we are all in contact with every single day. You can only mitigate risk up to a point, after which it starts to become a bit nonsensical in the wider context of a functioning society.

Government contributing to pressure on health service by cigarettes being legal. Ban them... complicit in thousands of deaths a year and pressure on the health service...

Why is that so overlooked, when they are prepared to lock down the country for close to no deaths a week ?

Maybe it's because a mask stays on your face permanently all day, and is not a natural part of your anatomy. So can be quite irritating when required indefinitely. Although most people were, of course, willing to put up with this irritation in the short term to save lives.

Putting your hand up to catch a sneeze or cough, is generally considered a minor courtesy that doesn't inconvenience people too much.

Masks and social distancing, by their nature, are only really suitable as short term mitigation measures.

You did intimate that staff in your workplace were unhappy that management didn't ask this individual to stay home when sick. Which is why I addressed this aspect of your point specifically.

Look, if you're happy to social distance and wear a mask indefinitely - possibly for years - then work away. Nobody should criticize you for that decision. But I don't think it would be fair to ask society at large to do this. It's not realistic in the long term.

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While I do sympathize with you, I agree with the author. It's been nearly two years, we have to move forward at some point.

Yup, the time to move on back to normal has passed.

Everyone who wants a vaccine has had one. Time to open up. We're at an acceptable threshold and have been for weeks if not longer.

again, i largely disagree, we are all in fact vulnerable in regards this virus, some more so than others of course, but we actually can try protect everyone, theres no need for this approach, we re just choosing it. we re defaulting to think this is how the world works, or should work, it doesnt actually have to be, for example, removing pandemic protective measures for both employees and employers is a choice, theres actually no need to do this, its actually dumb!

take a step back and think about it, we re removing protective measures, measures of which we all need, now is this sensible?

so we should remove protective measures, thats been proven to protect more, than expose more?

fair enough..... lets fcuk up the health system some more, and potentially cause a sh1t load of businesses to close permanently, should be interesting going forward....

Having been forced to up-end our lives for the last two years has given people plenty of time to think about it. We’re scaling back on measures which were introduced to prevent the spread of an infectious disease which posed a significant threat to public health. The measures were introduced at great expense to our economy, so I don’t agree with the suggestion that we put our economy before people’s needs. In order to continue to meet people’s needs, the economy has to be opened up again and people have to be able to start living again, or you’re looking at the long term effects the measures will have on people’s mental health.

It’s a balancing act which isn’t at all suggesting that the economy takes priority over people’s needs, when it’s patently obvious that what people need is to be able to live, rather than spend the rest of their lives in isolation dependent upon their income being a subsidised payment from the State.