To wonder why people aren’t more angry?

[Rainbowb]

Throughout this whole crisis I have really been surprised by the level of acceptance from everyone in this country of the whole situation. I know we haven’t had much choice in the decisions made and we’re probably a very polite nation as a whole but we have been so quick to accept the arrival of a deadly virus and drastic changes to our lives, seemingly without complaint. Is no-one out there demanding to know how on earth this was all able to happen? We’ve faced the huge loss of human life worldwide and it is continuing, surely we are all entitled to get angry and demand answers? I see grieving families, children missing out on being with other children and not having an education, families being separated indefinitely, people’s mental health suffering and vulnerable people potentially at risk and I feel so frustrated and angry. If we got fired up about climate change, why not this??

I’m angry at the Chinese government, isn’t everyone?

catpoooffender

Completely agree with you. It’s not a popular view though, however sensible.

In the end, we’ve no other choice really, have we?

I am so angry that China are allowed to continue to have disgusting wet markets with various animals in cages dripping down faeces urine on other caged animals, causing diseases to spread from one species to the next. I am so angry that this government did not look at Italy and go on full scale panic and preparedness weeks before it came here. At home/work we were discussing how shop keepers could be protected from the public and also said what about all the carers that go in to elderly people and elderly in care homes, this was a discussion in my kitchen when I could see Italy in meltdown!! I am raging at the government for not discussing this and acting on it sooner as they might have had slightly more facts that we all did and we were already discussing it in homes all over the country.
I am raging at this governments slow progress and infact dismissive attitude in just wash your hands etc from the likes of the detestable Rees mogg and Boris complete conviction that it wouldn't touch the likes of him. If we had been Italy I could have accepted that we were not ready but we had plenty of warning from China then Italy and then Spain of what was coming it was like a tsunami coming our way but our govt were still paddling in the water.
I am in total agreement with the lockdown but I will never for get that so much more could have been done and I include Nicola sturgeon in this as she just totally followed on from Westminster's decisions.
Yes op people are angry but at the moment staying safe following rules has to work alongside the anger.

I am angry, very angry. At China because if they hadn't lied at the start about their figures and saying there was no human to human transmission, maybe this could have been contained early on and not spread all around the world. I am angry at the wet markets and their disgusting customs regarding these markets and lack of regulations.

Mainly I am angry at our Government. They acted far too late and in a very half hearted effort. They were too busy pissing around with Brexit to take any notice of the reports coming from China. They have supposedly been pandemic planning for years but seem to have taken no steps in regard to this at all.

I was reading the reports in January coming out of China (apparently our science experts brought this to our Government's attention but it was ignored) I was so worried that I ordered face masks off Amazon at the end of January and started prepping and stockpiling food and medications, etc. If I as a normal member of the public could foresee this happening why didn't the Experts? and take action?

The lack of PPE angers me
The abandoning of testing and quarantining early on angers me
The lack of any sort of prepardness angers me
The policy of "herd immunity" angers me
The lack of ventilators and underfunding the NHS angers me

So yes, people are angry and helpless. This will be the undoing of the Tory government

@LaurieMarlow stop disagreeing with people just for the sake of an argument and assuming things which simply aren’t the case.

Just because I’m criticising the Chinese government does not mean I am not criticising our own government too, and I’m sure many others are similar. Don’t know enough about the Italians and their desire for Chinese labour for clothes manufacturing so can’t speak about that point.

I'm not angry about staying home, having my life curbed for a while because of the virus. I would willing do this to help save others and protect myself and my young family. I see and hear of people sitting at home stewing in anger about this and I just think that this cannot help the situation right now. It's a tense and worrying time and adding overwhelming anger to the emotional soup is not a good idea. I am also not massively shocked that this has happened. I figure we're lucky it has been so long since the UK was hit with such a pandemic - natures laws suggest viruses and bacteria mutate and evolve an we as humans will not always be able to keep up. I also don't 'blame the Tories' for this. I didn't vote for them, but I honestly do not believe any party would have managed this crisis well. The Tories have been a clusterfuck with the PPE, yes, but if it was Labour I'm certain there would still have been clusterfucks .... just of a different, but equally damaging, nature. We'll never know, of course, which again leads me to the conclusion that getting angry about it (right now) just isn't a worthwhile investment of my time.

However, I'm a rational person so I do feel disappointment. I'm disappointed and shocked at the PPE crisis. I'm shocked that we were complacent when we had a few weeks of pre-warning about the potential scale of this virus.

Right now, I honestly feel we need to put aside anger and focus on coming together to help each other. I don't mean forget though. Keep your thoughts and comments and note them down, because when things settle there will be an appropriate time for everything to be reviewed and at that point all these comments will be useful.

@TheMagiciansMewTwo, excellent post.

If you are too old and frail to survive ventilation/treatment, a nursing home (particularly if it IS your home) is very appropriate place to be cared for in your last days. That’s WHY elderly patients are discharged as soon as possible.

What isn’t appropriate is that the staff in many care homes are unsupported/ill equipped and that is dreadful and dangerous. People shouldn’t die in hospital unless they absolutely have to, though.

but I would remind those frothing at the mouth that the UK was one of the sources of a disease that jumped two species because we fed infected sheep brains to cattle and then consumed the product This was identified and not covered up. Similarly with foot and mouth. Every cow in this country has an individual cattle passport. Every movement of sheep from one place to another in this country has to be recorded in a movement book.

I'm angry - predominately at the Chinese government and at all those who in any way use or support wet markets especially where wild animals are traded.

Totally agree with this. I think there are probably some proactive demands we could make now but how? Someone else mentioned the crap quality of news we are being given- thats something that needs to be addressed. What are proactive ways we can do that? I don't feel like the fact that people are not creating antibodies and theres are multiple strains of the novel (baby stage) viral Covid 19 going around are being talked about enough. Also, what about more info about how this "baby' virus could mutate and change... we need more from lab to ear info not to be coddled or have info withheld due to fears of how public will react. The gravity of this situation for public health and the economy worldwide cannot be stressed enough.

On the contrary we havent hit capacity of hospitals, the NHS isn't overwhelmed and we managed to build a 4000 bed capacity hospital in 10 days as a back up which we dont even need

We haven’t hit NHS capacity because pretty much everything else has been cancelled. All elective activity delayed, outpatient staff redeployed to the wards to help. Less surgery = more critical care beds available for COVID patients, so makeshift ITUs have been created in theatre recovery zones and previous high dependency units (not usually ventilated beds). If this hadn’t have happened, the NHS would definitely have been overwhelmed. But that activity doesn’t go away, the backlog will take years to clear on top of already long waiting lists. People’s health will definitely be impacted by delays to diagnosis and treatment.
All this clapping for the NHS business will be forgotten and people will go back to being demanding and abusive.
And the Nightingales aren’t hospitals - they’re warehouses with ventilators. If patients are too complex or too sick, or no longer ventilated but not well enough to be discharged home, they have to go back to a proper hospital.

I don't see the point in being angry. Even if China have messed up, what's the point in getting 'angry' now? It will only make things worse. It's happened and we need to focus on how we adapt and move on from here. People could be angry for staying in and for children missing school, but what's the alternative? Get angry because even more people are dying from a virus and schools and the economy are on their knees because too many people are sick? It happened and many people have been saying for a while that a pandemic was on the cards for a while.

What I am a bit angry about is the amount of people scaremongering and sharing scientifically dubious conspiracies theories which are causing even more damage, ie vandalism of phone masts, anti vaxxing attitudes and attacking of nhs staff. It's really irresponsible and I wish some people could educate themselves a bit better and use some critical thinking.

Just because I’m criticising the Chinese government does not mean I am not criticising our own government too

My point still stands.

It is not racist to criticise a government position. I IS racist to focus only on the one government that’s racially different when others are clearly culpable too.

You may not be doing that, but others are.

For those people celebrating Singapore’s response on this thread I think you should read this
www.ft.com/content/956cd327-7279-429b-a9e6-b59b6e9d5ec9

I am living with a mix of anger and despair, if I am not angry the depression will take over completely. Watching someone frantically trying to save the business, and our home.

'No point in being angry? Anger won't help?'
We have no choice but to just suck it all up because there is sod all else we can do. That angers me, I can't do anything to help me or anyone else.

'We will take years to recover from this.'
I won't be alive to see this happen. I am never going to have what I worked for my entire life, what kept me going because there was a light at the end of a long and bleak tunnel, so yes I am angry at having my future taken away but still being here to go through the shit which is going to be even worse than before.

I am sad for all the losses of life, and those that are grieving, and angry that it has happened.

I am angry that we (as a household) were just a few years away from actually being able to have a life and that it has just gone pretty much overnight.

I am in despair, I have been through some real crap and got through it but no longer have the means or energy/health to do it again and I am angry that I can't find a way. I have always found a way, I am angry that I can't do anything.

I can't just suddenly change the way I feel. I am angry, I am sad, I am full of despair and depression and I am bloody terrified and that makes me more angry, at myself for not being better prepared, for mistakes, for being in the situation I am in, for not being healthy and fit, for not being able to live the rest of my life in peace.

If I had financial security maybe I wouldn't feel the 'pointless' anger. Money makes things feel a lot easier to deal with. No mortgage, no anger. I would like that.

I’m quietly angry, but I’m also fiercely protecting my mental health. This isn’t the worst thing that has happened to me personally in the last couple of years, although I realise for a lot of people it’s catastrophic. I’m saving my energy for things I can actually change and achieve- not because I’m a sheep, but because any more might finish me off.

I have said on other threads - immediately crying racism in realise to the hypothetical racism of others when rational non-racists like I am choose to (rightly) criticise the Chinese government really stifles legitimate challenge against and investigation against that government.

In the US, its not been publicized but they are actually finding that the ventilators are less effective and more deadly than first thought. They are finding that neti pot style treatments are working well but obviously highly problematic as they are the perfect breeding and proliferation environment for more viral spread/contagions. This comes from a friend working high up on frontline. Why aren't we hearing more about stuff like this in the news? PS Im not a homeopathic person and was completely taken aback by this finding.

*in response

The tone of some posts here and elsewhere show how angry people are - it's just usually at other 'ordinary' people who have different views, rather than at governments or the corporations and thinktanks that influence global policy.

american totally agree about the news.

So for that reason, @LaurieMarlow I find your position on this pretty obtuse. I sense you’re someone who won’t rest until you have the last word, though, so I’ll bow out gracefully now.

I'm not angry because I'm having to save my energy for recovering from this virus, not tested, but the doctors I've spoken to are sure it was COVID-19 and now is a secondary infection. I've been unwell for 7 weeks.

I could feel very angry about the fact that we were advised to take our DD2 (8) to A&E with flu symptoms back in early March but because we hadn't been overseas in an 'infected area', she wasn't tested. We weren't told to self-isolate. Then 3 days later I developed these COVID-19 symptoms.

The government acted too late, it's no wonder it's spread like wildfire! But what will it gain me by getting angry about it??

Anger isn’t necessarily a futile emotion. If channelled correctly it’s can be a superb catalyst for demanding change.