Conducting our lives as normally as we can. Returned to eating out once or twice a week as soon as we were able to in May (April was too cold for outside hospitality). Went back to meeting with friends in London for regular drinkies. Travelling by train and bus no problem. Shopping as normal. I rarely wore face coverings throughout (for reasons I have explained on here a few times). They are now abandoned entirely though I shall have to wear one when I (hopefully) fly abroad in October. I’m going to an area where the level of infections is far lower than where I live so far from my exacerbating the problem and being selfish, I’m doing people here a favour by spending time in a place where I stand less chance of contracting (and thus spreading) the virus.
We need to move away from the daily reporting of infections and deaths. During July the three highest causes of death (dementia, cancer and heart disease) each claimed more than four times as many victims as Covid. Even “ordinary” ‘flu and pneumonia claimed more. In the last “normal” year there were more than 17 million hospitals admissions in England. That is over 46,000 a day. At its height last winter, when the NHS was in danger of becoming "overwhelmed", the number of daily Covid admissions in England hovered between 3,500 and 4,000 for a week or two. Currently it is around 800.
It is unsurprising that the country is still gripped with fear of this disease. The government’s strategy from the outset involved ensuring compliance with its many restrictions (some of them less than effective) by instilling irrational fear into the population. It continues this even now that its restrictions have been all but ditched. It still “advises and encourages” the use of arguably ineffective face coverings ; It still publishes largely meaningless figures showing infection numbers , hospital admissions and deaths without any context; it refuses to mandate its own employees to return to their offices when there is no reason for them to remain away; it continues to run an unnecessary furlough scheme when all it is doing is meeting the pay of employees of businesses that are clearly not going to resume business.
People need to resume their normal activities. They should assess the “risks” they are taking in a realistic fashion (that is, the likelihood of something happening coupled with the effect it may have). If they did, most people, unless they are particularly vulnerable, will find that resuming most normal activities is not taking too much of a risk at all. The question that is the subject of this thread would then not need to be asked at all.