One of the most difficult things for me has been dealing with the dichotomy of the actual stats, which are reassuring, and the general hysteria which is massively disproportionate.
Yes, absolutely. Same here. One of the key things Johan Gieseke talks about is that the majority of the measures governments are taking have no good science behind them in terms of managing pandemics - one of the only things that does is hand washing. Lockdowns absolutely don't. He is asking that the science gets followed, especially in light of the damage lockdowns do.
I linked to a Spectator article yesterday (the one saying COVID has an IFR of 0.2 to 0.5%) and in the comments I see someone had posted updated IFR's by age range (based on a Spanish study). It's still not absolute but it's staggering really. I went to read other papers this morning and they are full of 'this photo shows a healthy man who lost x stone after weeks of being in ICU with COVID and NEARLY DYING' and 'second wave due in weeks' kinds of stories. There is a video on my FB of a poor young child struggling to breathe in hospital. There are the comments of 'you're selfish if you go out.'
Can you even imagine if every news outlet in the world was reporting things calmly and proportionally? I know they won't ever do that but I look at the negative stories and my fear still spikes. I still sit here some days thinking, this is all too scary, I'm going to have to kill myself to have some control and avoid having to watch the world crashing and burning. And I'm not going to do that because I have some good real life support but it's still horrible experiencing those feelings and knowing others are too.