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.

Because I've read the "My Lungs..." threads on here - has scared the shit out of me.

@Quartz2208, @arethereanyleftatall, I don’t think he’s suggesting that Covid is Ebola. His main point is that it’s no mere flu. And having had flu and resulting pneumonia, flu can be pretty appalling too.
We don’t know nearly enough about this virus, its long term side effects, and why it can kill some people seemingly randomly. It makes every sense to try not to catch it. Every month we buy ourselves can mean better understanding, treatment, and yes, a vaccine. There are a lot of good candidates out there and huge amounts of money is being pumped into research internationally.
China isn’t known for tender loving care for its citizens. But it risked tanking its economy and shut down over this. That speaks volumes.

@Quartz2208 I agree there needs to be mass testing and contact tracing.
Yes Daily Mail is an awful paper and often publishes untrue things.

Quartz

“My point was that we have made this virus so all emcompassing we think it has the ability to do things no virus has done before.”

Two virologists were making exactly this point on Newsnight though (possibly Friday?), Kirsty Walk.

Can’t recall their names I’m afraid, but he was a Professor based at Cambridge, I think. Can’t recall where the woman was, but another eminent person in the field.

They were saying precisely that this IS a completely new virus behaving in ways they have never seen before. Rather than a disease of the respiratory system as initially thought, we’re learning now that it is a more widespread inflammatory disease affecting the entire body, the immune system’s reaction and the subsequent effect on the organs.

Their strong point was that it is entirely different than viruses experienced before and they are only just at the very beginnings of understanding.

Germany. Partially ended lockdown a week ago, R rate up already and Merkel warning of possible reimposition.
It already went up within 2 days of the supposed changes (which were actually minimal; just very few slightly bigger shops opening). It can't be related to the changes as the disease doesn't show up that fast.
The change is more likely to be due to people going out over Easter.
The lockdown has never been as strict here as in the UK.

Well because healthy young people with no underlying health issues have died?

That's not to say I'm one of the ones who's worried but I can see why people would be. The chances are small, but if you're an anxious person you'd focus on the fact that it could be you.

@EarlGreywithLemon Yes We are learning all the time. It might be better treatment options can mean we can ease up on measures. Or it might mean identifying those who are at most risk and getting them to shield will be enough.
And I think the current identification is a blunt tool as it is clear that some groups like BME people are at much more risk. But we don't know why. If we do that could make a difference. So one theory is that it could be vitamin D deficiency, very common in this country. If it was just mass taking of a vitamin D supplement may be enough? Or if it is genetic issues making people more vulnerable, identifying those people and shielding they may be enough.

I am old enough to remember the AIDS scare when no one actually knew how people could catch it and there was worry it could be passed on by touch or kisses or even surfaces touched by someone infected. There were even reports in the newspapers that AIDS virus had been detected still alive on surfaces. Once transmission route was understood, it was easy to identify who was actually at risk and target.

Whatever occasion caused the rise in Sherman’s, Easter, lifting or otherwise , it was a result of people mixing more.
Fairly obvious result, surely? Which is why we shouldn't be lifting any time soon.

@EarlGreywithLemon oh no the scientist himself is making a valid point and his research paper is very interesting and helpful

My point was how the Daily Mail have taken his remarks and changed it into a fear inducing headline.

The media does it continously with this and it drives me mad. I go and read the source and it is never quite as bad. I think they are driving a lot of this fear. The problem is it never quite publishes untrue things. It publishes things that it takes out of context and twists

Sherman’s? 😁

Easter!

No, Germany!

And I am worried about possible long term health issues. No one knows. It may be only those on ventilators are at risk of long term health issues, which is common with ventilation anyway. Or it may be even those mildly infected are at risk of long term issues such as impacts on male infertility. We don't know. Why would you risk catching a virus when you do not know if it will affect you in other ways long term?

But watching the TV programme of 5 families who have covid 19 on last night makes it clear you do not want to catch it.

that is why we need to get antibody testing done to see how much this is the tip of an iceberg because at the moment all we see is the top of it and that is nasty!

The third study in the world that shows a clear relationship with vitamin D deficiency and covid 19 severity has been published. It's a study from Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans.
20 patients, randomly sampled.
Conclusions:

''Strikingly, 100% of intensive care patients less than 75 years old had vitamin D deficiency. Among these, 64.6% had critically low (less than 20ng/mL) and three had less than 10 ng/mL.''

Only one of the randomly sampled patients was caucasian - the other 19 were afro american and hispanic.

The study also cites 33 references of causal evidence.

Here is the link.

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.24.20075838v1.full.pdf

A number of the patients were taking vitamin D supplements. So safe sunlight exposure must be more important and the much lower deaths rates in equatorial and southern hemisphere regions are surely explained by this.

SAGE, the group of scientists that advises Public Health England only meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so they will not have seen this study. I doubt whether they have read the previous two conclusive blood studies.

Even if SAGE does read these three studies, they do not have any specialist molecular virologists or immunologists to professionally interpret and evaluate the scientific evidence:

'Government rushes out request for experts to work with Sage panel Notice sent to universities amid concern over lack of expertise in parts of Covid-19 advisory group''

''The government's secret science group has a shocking lack of expertise''

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/27/gaps-sage-scientific-body-scientists-medical

www.theguardian.com/science/2020/apr/29/government-rushes-out-request-for-experts-bolster-sage-panel

In the meantime thousands of elderly are dying in care homes. The government can't even be bothered to test all of them for covid and vit D def. and administer any vitamin D3 supplements. If only they knew.

Ah yes, ze Sherman's.

Who have such a reputation as being all sensible that people can't believe they might not have been social distancing strictly. (It's far less strict than the UK!)

The change in R is actually not very clear as it could be due to differences in testing.

Because I'm 60, I might not be as healthy as I think I am (I hardly ever go to the doctor to find out), and because I've read some of the horror stories - and a simple cold sends me to bed so goodness knows what this will do!

I'm unemployed at present and won't be looking for another job in a hurry.

@LWJ70 That is shocking that the SAGE group are lacking scientific knowledge.
Also interesting that vitamin D supplements are not as good as exposure to sunshine. I have long suspected that anyway in relation to other issues, but being ridiculed for saying it on MN.
But that is what I mean, simple measures may have a significant impact in reducing risk.
I know my parents who are late 70s do not get enough sunshine, but as they take supplements they always tell me they are fine. And lots of people wear sunscreen all the time. Public health advice about how long in the sunshine daily without sunscreen and not in the hottest part of the day, is really needed.

People keep talking as if we need magic bullets so without that we do nothing. But the reality is usually that lots of different smaller measures can reduce risk.

Because my friends healthy father died from it. Simple as that.

Chillipeanuts that’s an interesting supposition that it could be more of a whole body inflammatory response rather than a purely respiratory infection. A lot of covid patients have developed ARDS but it differs from the typical presentation I believe and some of the customary measures to improve oxygenation and reduce co2 levels aren’t as effective or need doing repeatedly such as proning. Ards (adult respiratory distress syndrome) in itself affects multiple organs and isn’t necessarily caused by a respiratory insult.

A big part of the reasoning behind the lockdown is to try to cause the virus to die out. If enough people can isolate, the virus won't be able to find new hosts to infect. Ending the lockdown too early would be abandoning this strategy and would put lots of people at risk of infection and all that follows.

If the majority of experts in medicine, immunology and virology think we need to stay at home I'm happy to go along with them. We can all find outliers in the science world who disagree with this. We can all cherry pick stats that suit our own narrative. The people making the lockdown calls are much more knowledgeable about how to deal with this than the rest of us. They won't get everything right but I have much more faith in them to make the right calls than outliers in the scientific community and completely unqualified people shouting from the sidelines.

Silversquid, I hadn’t heard that, do you have an article you can link to?

@silversquid, I'd like to read the facts backing up your claim too.

silver I agree. Great post.

outward I thought everyone knew this??