Healthy people why are you so scared of catching covid 19?

[wakeupitsabeautifulmorning]

Serious question. I’m interested in why healthy people with no underlying problems are so unhappy about starting to get back to normal. I’m not talking about shielded people who need to stay shielded. But everyone else.

I do agree with a PP that being obese seems to be a common link. I was listening to the girlfriend of someone that sadly died yesterday and he was very overweight as was she (I dont know if she caught it but I got the impression it was just him).

Whatever if obese people are prone to it then we shouldnt be shy of stating that as an underlying health condition. I would want to know so that I knew the risks.

I'm a healthy 50 year old with mild asthma and a bmi of 26. I thought I was strong and healthy but I have two risk factors I guess.

I still think I'd probably get through it but bloody hell, I would rather not get it.

ALTHOUGH, my friend has had it and I find myself feeling a little........... envious that she can just face the summer and enjoy any lifting of restrictions that comes.

Even if they lift the restrictions, I'm still scared I might be very sick!

People may be scared for other people.

If you're horrified about what's happening in care homes (and I hope you are), you may decide that doing anything to exacerbate the spread and cause another surge is out of the question. Or you may not.

Can't you understand that people have different responses and that's ok? It doesn't mean they're scaredy cats?

Those suffering that people should suck up the risk because we all do risky things need to stop and think. We don't take every risk just because we can. We weigh it up against potential outcomes. And we don't take every risk in the book-they all stack on top of each other so each person's risk assessment takes into account how much risk they're at already and factors that in. In this instance it's an intensely personal decision because it involves thinking about your health, finances, relatives and an unknown set of data about how dangerous COVID-19 actually is. (It's not flu). It also should involve weighing up the pros and cons of the costs incurred by simply waiting for a time into there's new data to actually do the risk assessment with.

saying

I think it's too unpredictable. You might be healthy doesn't mean you'll survive it.

Maybe they don't feel like playing Russian roulette

yes we weigh up risks personally and some peoples attitude to risk is more cautious than others

some risk money on the stock market, opening a business that may fail they take bankruptcy as a possibility but factor in for them it might pay off big time, some people will only put moeny upto 85K in secure Bank of England guarnateed account they get much much lower returns on average but their money is safe but they are not going to win big either
some take physical risks bungee jumping parachuting mountaineering, some take personal risks travelling alone into dangerous places because they think seeing Iran is worth it or joining armed forces not because they want to die but they know their risk is more than if they became an accountant, some people prefer to stick with one relationship even if not perfect some others risk anything for love or lust we are all different
so of course with covid peoples attitude varies
some people over 90 may agree that being not allowed visitors or to see their grandchildren to keep them safe is ok others may think that seeing their family regularly and meeting their friends going to church mosque etc is worth more than being saved from dying a year or two earlier from covid, while older people in general are more risk averse a slip could mean a broken hip there is not enough time to make up stock market falls when ension is a year or two away in the way it might be acceptable at 50. We need to accept both views of the elderly not treat them like children and let them decide how much they should stay indoors and how much risk they want to take to see families and friends and what they do with their spare time
my Dad is 96 and he wants to see family not necessarily this week or next but certainly before end of summer as family and church matters to him more than reaching even 97th birthday for him this is a logical decision and while he is vulnerable and staying home just now he is not going to stay indoors for another 6 months

For me it's because I have zero idea how I will react to it. I'm not white so that's a bit scary and on top of that not everyone knows if they have underlying health conditions until they appear through other mediums- such as the coronavirus.
I don't think I'm going to be able to hide away forever though and will have to accept society may have to move on from lockdown even when it's still prevalent in society. Doesn't take the fear away though. And I also fear and feel guilt for the possibility of me transmitting it to someone more vulnerable as well.

I think people are just very bad at assessing risks - there is lots of research on this, particularly long term risks. You could tell people until you’re blue in the face that the risk of a healthy person under 60 getting seriously ill with Covid is less risky than getting in a car, and people would still feel scared or come up with other reasons that they should be careful. I appreciate people don’t want to give it to others but we can’t just all stay at home for 2+ years until a global vaccine is rolled out (which is in no way a guarantee by the way).

@SliAnCroix unfortunately the WHO have said there isn't the evidence to allow us safely to rely on immunity. People have caught it a second time and we don't know how long immunity would last.

I read today that China says there are over 30 strains of covid - it's effecting different countries (and counties) in different ways

The risk of underlying conditions I find a strange one - you don’t avoid going for a run just in case you have a heart condition, you don’t avoid eating new food on holiday just in case you’re allergic... you can’t live you life afraid and the risk is very very low

Just on daily briefing 30% of those tested were positive. So that russian roulette is one in three chance of being a live bullet.

Not many people are actually that healthy are they?

But they’re not doing widespread whole population testing @justasking111 only people in hospitals or key workers are tested so far. And just because they have it doesn’t mean it’s something to worry about dying - the vast majority of that 30% will be fine

I’m 39, husband and 2 kids no underlying health issues.
Don’t want to get it in any way, don’t want my kids getting it and don’t want to unknowingly transmit it to anyone else either

Healthy people DO die of it I don’t want to be one of them!!!

Mild cases can be up to pneumonia how is that mild?

I’m vulnerable, but if I wasn’t and the odds were in my favour then it would come down to circumstance. I wouldn’t want to risk it if I was a only parent for example. Maybe things like that are influencing people?

I'm not even slightly worried for myself, but I'm prepared to put up with a lot of inconvenience to stop other people dying or even just getting really sick. I am really struggling with having my children at home, but if that keeps the elderly grandparents who pick up other children at our school safe, so be it.
I also don't think I want to live in a society that just says 'Well, they're old/disabled/fat, they were going to die anyway, so let's just go to the pub'.
Each of those deaths is of someone who had years of life ahead of them and people who loved them.

Apart from having vulnerable family members, if I catch it, I can spread it on. We've all got to do our bit to stop this spreading.

But as a healthy person unless you get it, or you wait 2 years for a vaccine, you won’t get to hug your vulnerable friends and family again.

My husband is just getting over this virus - he was incredibly poorly and it will take him quite some time to get back to his normal self. He has no underlying health conditions and is a very healthy 40 year old. I think it shocked him how hard it hit him...I on the other hand was fine. It affects everyone differently

@Eskarina1 unfortunately the WHO have said there isn't the evidence to allow us safely to rely on immunity. People have caught it a second time and we don't know how long immunity would last.

This isn't true. The WHO have said, in a statement of the blindingly obvious, that as we haven't yet done any studies on human immunity post Covid 19 infection we therefore have no evidence of immunity. We have done studies on monkeys and do have evidence of monkey immunity, strongly suggesting human immunity too. What the WHO have cautioned against is implementing public policy based around immunity until we actually have evidence of it, not before. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of reinfection. In fact everything about the patients who tested positive after being assumed to be recovered suggests it was most certainly not reinfection as none of their contacts had an infection. So either the tests were faulty or the virus resurged, or a mix of both considering PCR tests only identify viral loads above 3000.

Because the people I know who have had it have been really very ill. One that I know of has died in her early 40s with no underlying medical conditions. 4 in their 50s said it was awful and 1 of those has been told not to expect to be fully back to normal for months.
These are the only people I know who have had it so I suppose it's colouring my view of its seriousness. I don't want to be that I'll myself. I lost my parents at the age my DCs are now and I really don't want the same thing to happen to them.

In order of severity -

Primarily because if I get it then I may pass it on to my parents who are old and have conditions that make their chances a lot less good. My anxiety about them is very high.

I am concerned about either dying (unlikely as it is), ending up in ICU (and potentially dying because of lack of resources to properly care for me or getting something like sepsis as a secondary condition) or ending up with a secondary life limiting condition like less lung capacity as a result.

With my family set up I'm also concerned about being that ill for that long. If I get ill my husband will have to look after the dc and he's a contractor so if he's off he doesn't get paid. We could end up with a double whammy of him being off because I'm sick then him getting sick and so losing a month's pay. Would he even have a job to go back to after being off that long.

If I had no dc, hardly ever saw my parents and was in a permanent job with good job security then I'd be pretty blasé about getting it. But that just doesn't apply in our situation.