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 think if it does turn out that Chinese scientist let this virus escape from fridges with faulty seals in September 2019 and tried to keep it under wraps for too long before informing WHO and it can be proven the shit will hit the fan.

edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/04/10/barack-obama-2014-pandemic-comments-sot-ctn-vpx.cnn

Here's Obama talking about pandemic planning in 2014. I've always been a bit of an Obama fangirl, but this is just common sense isn't it? For all governments.

He is talking about "flu" here - it needs to be recognised that a flu pandemic isn't the only threat - this is a SARS coronavirus, but the threat of a future bacterial infection resistant to antibiotics (plague like) is very real too. But the answer to all pandemics - from the flu to the plague - seems to be just one thing: isolate to stop the spread. That means, in this day and age, locking down, testing and contact tracing.

Bahhh bahhhh
Because I'm a sheep, we're all sheep or puppets on a string.

I'm angry - at our incompetent, lazy, arrogant government for their sloppy, negligent handling of this crisis. Of course there is no point in being angry with the virus! But there is a point in channeling anger into pressure on this government to sharpen up and save lives. It's nowhere near over. In this situation anger is a helpful and positive emotion. Suppressing rational anger will only result in cognitive dissonance which is much more stressful and damaging.

I am angry at the useless UK government. And people who voted Tory believing their media manipulation and lies.

I don't think you are quite grasping the severity of the situation.

Yes, localised epidemics kill thousands around the world. Hunger kills millions, as do associated diseases, mostly the under 5's. The world is full of problems.

But this one is affecting ME. My life, my job, my loved ones. My education and hobbies and holiday plans.

There must be something afoot. Someone must pay.

I'm being facetious, of course, before anyone starts. But making a decent point at the same time.

It came from the Wuhan lab who were working on bats in the local caves on a project on coronaviruses (backed by the US government to the tune of 3 million dollars), governments all over the world are conducting similar experiments.

Couldn't contain it, it's proved fatal to humans.

We've had outbreaks here or all sorts from farming animals... they were only supposed to be testing on sheep in the most rural of areas.

Couldn't contain it, it proved fatal to humans, however, could not be passed from human to human.

OP,the first line of your post has been the very same one that's been running through my head for the last month. Your post could have been written by me. I too have been staggered at the level of meek acceptance that seems to be the norm. Even from people who usually get fired up the moment their freedoms are challenged.
There seems to be a general air of apathy towards issues such as vulnerable individuals left to fend for themselves,people with mental health issues and the shocking numbers of people not receiving medical treatment because so many aspects of health care have been put on hold,everything from cancer treatments to organ transplants,and people who have suffered strokes or heart attacks having to wait 2 hours for an ambulance.
Honestly,I find the aquiescence of the majority of the general population really at odds with how we usually are as a nation.

This really isn’t anyone’s fault. The next big thing could just as easily come from a dog in England passing on a mutated virus to its owner. People will respond with all kinds of nonsense about dirty wet markets and how dogs noses are cleaner than humans but where humans are in contact with animals the risk of zoonotic novel viruses is a constant even if you take precautionary hygiene measures (although given how many people let their dogs lick them etc it’s a bit far fetched to say that they’re being safe about animal contact). Unless we are going eliminate all unnecessary animal contact from our lives it would be very hypocritical for wealth western states that have far less need for human to animal contact to jump on China for the emergence of the virus.

However, there are questions to be answered about the reaction to the virus. Chine failed badly in reporting it, the national government isn’t somehow free from blame for punishing the local officials responsible in an attempt to scapegoat them.

The WHO has failed terribly in holding China to account. One wonders what the point of it is. If it can’t even question China how effective is it going to be in implementing vaccination schemes (the answer to this historically is not very) or giving reliable information (this has been seriously undermined).

Other states need to be challenged as well for their failings. Why is the NHS so crap? Why is trump spreading misinformation? Why did Australia let cruise passengers off a ship where an illness was present on board without checking them? And so on.

However any challenges we make, especially to forge in governments need to take into account our own shortcomings.

@SeaWitchly what would labour have done differently?

You sound quite certain cheesemongery.
What is your evidence? Besides the fact that it sounds plausible. It does sound plausible, imo, bearing in mind that labs work on obscure viruses all the time. It's also plausible that biosecurity failed, someone tried to cover up, and things just went to fuck.
Its also plausible that hunting and eating wild animals released it. Bats are a known reservoir species, and disturbance of their habitat has long been flagged as a possible site of the next zoonotic emergence. Theres nothing new in this, we have seen bird flu, swine flu, Ebola, HIV all in our lifetimes. And history is chock full of examples.

I'm a 'hear hoofbeats think horses' kind of person. Unless there is some other evidence. But right now I am not seeing it.

I am puzzled & curious as to how this will change us as a society. I also feel we were desperately in need of change - so maybe long term this change might be better for humanity. We were about to over consume ourselves into obliteration and very few people gave a damn enough to even think of change. We seemed to be able to grasp change as long as it involved more consumption- oh the irony.

I totally agree with this, and think that if society goes back to behaving the same way as they did pre-covid 19 then we have wasted a huge opportunity for change.

As for being angry - what is the point, especially at the present time. Be angry when this all settles down, as long as you use it for good. Also be aware, angry people, that not everyone feels as you do - neither is necessarily right or wrong but please don't try to make others angry just because you are.

The next big thing could just as easily come from a dog in England passing on a mutated virus to its owner.

Not too likely. Tends to be an avian or swine - in farming - transferred from wild to farmed animals, then onto humans - then mutates for human to human infection. Or a wild animal (bat, pangolin) caught and then sold for food (in Chinese wet markets, say) - and not too much of that happens in England.

I don't look for conspiracies and Chinese labs in this, personally - I'll be surprised if this came out of a Wuhan lab, because nature does it all by itself. Bird/bat /swine/pangiolin/whatever to human - mutates to human to human. Nature of pandemics.

@Naithnira

By your logic , should the entire world be angry at America for the H1N1 flu? Your comment is nonsensical and hypocritical.

The origin of the deadly flu is from a pig farm from Kansas, USA.

https://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/informationh1n11virusqa.htm

I'm so fucking angry I think I might be depressed.

I'm angry that the government didn't take action sooner, I'm angry that their decision has put so many lives at risk and caused so many deaths.

I'm angry that my dh (39)who has stage 4 terminal bowel cancer and only 6-12 months to live, is spending this time stuck at home with no options of any treatment because the NHS are having to make shitty choices on who lives and who dies.

I'm angry that these last months with my best friend and soul mate are going to be riddled with crap memories.

I'm just angry 😡

On an ordinary day people hop up and down about the timing of bin collections and want vote after vote about comparatively minor changes to the functions in our lives, yet we’ve all just handed over our free will no questions asked.

Maybe because this is an actual global crisis as opposed to a first world problem, and most people can differentiate between the two?

I am angry but riots won't help anyone, they will just spread infection and divert services needed elsewhere. I mean there have been protests by a minority of Americans. Some of them didn't need to worry about catching it at the rallys because apparently God is their vaccine.

I'm furious with the government for getting it so wrong. For not learning any lessons from other countries' experiences. For being so arrogant that we could beat the virus by just being British. It sums up everything that's so wrong with them. The errors over austerity which went on far too long and have decimated our infrastructure. The disaster that's Brexit, which has cost us as a country a large proportion of the money saved by austerity but not benefited us at all.

I'm also furious with Jeremy Corbyn who hung on so long after everyone apart from a few acolytes knew he was completely unelectable and allowed this shit show to continue. I'm furious with fake news which has allowed people like Boris Johnson and that nutter Trump with his ramblings about bleach and light as a cure to thrive.

But people who are rambling about civil liberties are a massive part of the problem. They clearly are in the camp of those who didn't want their skiing holiday cancelled or their trip to Cheltenham. The government tried to appease them, or are in the same group as them, so didn't take measures early enough.

Other countries haven't been rioting in the streets apart from nutters in the US that are largely made up of the group that don't agree with publicly funded healthcare (many of them are in Republican states and are reported to wear Trump for President badges).

When we're going to end up as one of the worse affected countries in Europe, I can't agree with people being furious about having to stay at home for a few weeks. That seems pointless to me. It's not being sheeplike to be able to think critically and independently about how much worse it could have been if we hadn't taken measures when we did.

And I don't think it's fair on those people who would have been most seriously affected, who work in the NHS, in shops and restaurants and public transport. It seems clear that the more of the virus you are exposed to in a short period of time, the more dangerous it is even if you are young and without underlying illnesses. Which is why healthy, young medics have died.

We do need to start thinking about how we are going to get the country moving again. But we need to implement it sensibly and not as a knee jerk reaction to people marching in the streets.

Because, generally us Brits are sticklers for "the rules". We've been given rules by the govt and the majority are following them. You only need to take a look and local FB groups and MN threads complaining about those that are not following "the rules".
Besides, what are the alternatives? Take risks and protest in large groups and potentially catch a deadly disease. What does that achieve?
It's a worldwide pandemic, who can we be angry at other than the disease that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Pandemics happen, and experts knew that we were (on the balance of probabilities) overdue for something like this to occur.

If it hadn't started in China, another virus would have started somewhere else.

Might as well be angry at an earthquake or hurricane for all the good it will do.

Loubie. I'm so very sorry

I'm angry at whoever ate the 🦇

If the investigation (that China have blocked btw) but nonetheless is taking place to find the source of the virus turns out to be the Wuhan lab theory then I do think people will feel very angry indeed, and the backlash could be huge and long lasting. This is very damaging for China regardless actually.
Coronavirus has exposed China's dishonest propaganda about the casualties and deaths, and this has wounded their creditability across the world even Covid is a natural phenomena. We all know that the few thousand deaths reported can not possibly be true.

However if the pandemic started naturally, then no one can be blamed per se, then we have to accept Covid as another danger in life, and it is likely to continue in the future.

There is no point feeling angry. No point to overly stress your body and mind with something you can not change. Yes it is totally shit, we all wish it wasn't happening but we have to get on with it. We save our energy for something more positive, to keep our immune systems working well, and the small and shrinking world in which we now inhabit a pleasant place. Anger is however a natural and normal reaction to loss, and we have all lost a lot lets face it. This stage will pass, like all others.

I don't understand how people are pissed off at China and not the British government.

You can't do anything about China. You can absolutely do something about the government and its piss poor response that has left thousands dead.

I've literally seen more people pissed off about NZ having controlled than at the UK government.

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?

Ok OP, you first. What have you personally done about this Corona fiasco? Have you been frothing, writing to government, campaigning to get China banged to rights?

No, probably not, because like everyone else, you've probably got to conserve whatever reserves of energy you have to keep a job down, to earn enough money to pay the bills and put food on the table, or somehow make ends meet.

Oh and then there's the small matter of people actually getting sick - you know, from the virus. So are they expected to get angry too, while they're self-isolating and trying to get better?

Save the frothing, and save the anger. Conserve your mental health by focusing on being calm and positive, not expending needless energy being bitter and expecting everyone else to be.