Is Coronavirus the new Brexit? (Dividing opinion)

[mayoral]

So Brexit caused many arguments/debates amongst my family.

Now we argue about coronavirus. My mum is (quote) "shit scared" of coronavirus even though she's a fit and healthy 60yr old. She thinks schools shouldn't reopen till the new year and if they were open sooner and I was still a child she wouldn't send me in. She said she doesn't see herself travelling on a plane for a long time and is happy for lockdown to be extended until a vaccine is found because the mortality rate is "so high" and "worrying".

I, on the other hand, can't wait for schools to reopen and get on with my life. My DH is already planning some business trips to Asia over the summer to get his business moving again. We both think coronavirus is blown out of proportion and the mortality rate is tiny, and that far more people will suffer from financial issues, job losses, mental health problems etc. That's not to say we don't sympathise with lives lost or underestimate the need for the initial lockdown (to create spare capacity within the NHS).

We are having big arguments over C-19, throwing facts and figures at one another and it's dividing us. Just like the Brexit debate did.

AIBU to think coronavirus is the new Brexit in dividing opinion?

The moral superiority is the same, painting leave/stay home as ignorant, hysterical fear mongers who just need to "educate themselves" as you know best.

I say this as a remainer who loathes Johnson by the way.

Well I suppose CV and Brexit have one thing in common. As a nation they have both left us with no good options.

We're soon out of the lockdown anyway so I don't see why some people are getting so antsy.

Kljn- not sure what country you are in but England has no news of exit plan.

Experts disagree, sure. But not about the bare bones of the issue.

There is no controversy on the fact that separation works to slow the spread for example. The debate here is on tiny percentages in scenario A , or tiny percentages plus 0.02 in scenario B.

There is no debate either that lockdown damages the economy. The debate among them is again about tiny percentages, and days not years.

Then we have the mental health professionals, the as schools, the farmers, every industry doing the same thing.

All of them fighting among themselves about minor points of policy, but which when extrapolated to population level makes a big difference.

But nobody serious is saying LIFT LOCKDOWN NOW!1!1!1 They know it has to be managed, they know they cant risk exponential growth and masses of people getting sick and dying without medical care.

Its tiresome and shite and boring. But it is going to be done slowly and incrementally and one would hope, carefully weighing everything up.

No, over half of those who voted in the referendum voted to Leave. I very much a single person has voted for the Coronavirus.

I suppose it's similar in that some people are saying 'for god's sake it'll be all right' and some people are saying 'listen to the experts'.

In both cases the opinion of laypeople is really and truly irrelevant but was/probably will be the deciding factor.

I think Coronavirus is a good dry run for a no deal Brexit - panic buying, travel restrictions, no one to work on our farms while also highlighting just how reliant the NHS and care system is on immigrant workers.

OP, your mother's reaction is extreme. We can't just remain inside and locked down until a vaccine is found and in use because that would take too long.

Your reaction and your DH's are too far the other way and him planning business trips to Asia seems overly optimistic although I understand his anxiety about his business. Few airlines are flying at the moment and the aviation industry is screaming for help. We can't yet be sure what the travel industry will look like post lockdown and many countries are being cagey about who they let in because in some there has been a resurgence of cases (Singapore etc.). That won't change any time soon.

Most of us fall somewhere in between those two viewpoints. We don't like the situation, find lockdown a pain in the arse and (in many cases) depressing. We are uncomfortable with many aspects of it and many of us do want it to end, whilst at the same time understanding why it has been necessary.

Your point of view and DH's are understandable but unrealistic. Do you think that governments in so many countries (not just the UK) have simply chosen to tank their economies simply for the fun of it?

Never argued about Brexit, what's the point? People have differing views. I kept mine to myself and didn't want to know how others voted. My wife could have quite happily voted differently to me (she may well have), it's none of my business.

Coronavirus is already the new Brexit. So many with opinions and if you dare to have an opposing one you are "thick", "selfish", etc. The amount of crap information being peddled as fact flying around is, well normal I'd say.

My mother is shit scared of this virus to be honest, although she would never admit it. I've avoided talking to her this week as she keeps trying to tell me what I should be doing as I'm meant to be shielding. Im now getting texts from her signing off with "stay safe", FFS!!! I'm 48 sodding years old and don't need her advice. My dad is just getting on with it and is totally unphased by it all and doesn't say much.

It's not Project Fear, more Project Lets Terrify the Nation.

Topseyt, they are discussing lock down strategies for different groups. So some groups can stay in until we know more, if they choose to. Other countries are doing staged exercise and return to normality.

I'm still doing childcare and travelling on public transport. But I think that the measures have been the right thing to do. It was done too late and we have had some deaths because our NHS was unprepared thanks to underfunding. There's been other factors as well.

We had a new virus that attacked the lungs and internal organs, we needed the global response to it. Now we know more, most of us can calm down. We have to accept a level of deaths from diseases that we thought we'd cracked and lower our expectations on how long we will live. So cancer is a double blow, which anyone can have. As are other conditions.

In terms of 60 year olds, they now could have limited years. A lot of other causes of deaths are within our control, this isn't. So I don't think it's ok to tell other people who are at risk to go about their business as normal. If they make the decision to not mix with family because their family has gone back to life as usual, that's their choice.

I see people everyday who obviously don't take this seriously and what they do is put others at risk. You haven't got the right to do that. I see people not maintaining social distancing. I see pretend coughing from groups of young men on buses. It's the equivalent of driving at someone. A percentage will get out of the way, a percentage will end up in hospital and a percentage will die.

I've had pneumonia bad enough to be hospitalised and I've had to decide who i wanted contacting if I died. Even though I lived, I don't want to repeat that experience.

A friend 20 years younger than me is upset that I might not be attending her Son's 3rd birthday party, next month. She is inviting friends and neighbours. I consider it a health risk for me and that's my right.

We've had healthy people in my age group 52+ die in my city. Our local paper features who has died and they are mainly in their 50's and 60's. There's been some in their 30's, the only other factor has been obesity in the 30 year olds.

We've all got to manage our own risk level.

I think Covid has united the country after all the Brexit division. We are all sacred of it and its consequences, hence the difference in opinion of lockdown vs ending it. Unlike Brexit where some remainer would say they ended friendships with leavers, I doubt anyone will end a friendship over a difference in lockdown opinion.

I agree

OP sounds like an outlier in a quarrelsome family, with some optimism that DH will be hopping on a flight to Asia in a month or so

We are all sacred of it and its consequences,

Do you think that's the case? I'd suggest that we aren't all scared of it. Personally I'm not scared of it, it doesn't achieve anything, as ultimately if you get it, you get it.

I do find as I'm getting older people are becoming less tolerant of opposing views. Particularly on social media - 'cancelling' people etc.

We saw it a lot over brexit. Anyone who voted leave was clearly a racist. And we're seeing it now with some people who dare to leave the house being called covidiots. I'm very left wing but hate the whole 'tories kill' mentality.

I'm not sure why I'm seeing a lot of it. Sometimes I wonder if SM makes it harder to see nuances; things are more black and white and people feel like they have to pick a side.

The current coronavirus is a good example. Many people accused the tories of worrying too much about the economy and letting it affect their decisions. Personally I don't think that's a bad thing. It's perfectly possible to be concerned about coronavirus deaths and to be concerned about people losing their livelihoods at the same time.

Maybe it’s going to depend on how you have been affected by it. I very likely had it in a “mild” form. It was fucking awful even though I’m relatively young and fit. It was the worst thing I felt in my life. You could feel the fight going on in your body, there was something inside you trying to do you severe harm. It’s been just over a month and just about over it although my breathing is still a little off after exercise. Someone I know in early 50s fit and healthy - dead. Lots of people I know seem to have had it- all very poorly, from early 30s to 70s. All of them see it as a wake up call and putting the rest of life into perspective. I live in an area of very high infection- I suspect because there is a large proportion of people who haven’t necessarily been following advice.

I can see if you haven’t been affected by the illness you think all this is scare mongering. But I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. Part of me suspects that the current death rate is tiny to where this will end up, especially if measures are released too early. Widespread International travel for most countries without a quarantine period is surely a big no.

But I saw something that said only 11% of people want life to get back to where it was before, which suggests the previous system wasn’t working for the vast majority. I think this is actually the dividing line. The vast majority of people want changes, some people are desperate to get back to how things were before because they were in a very small minority of people for whom the previous system worked. Unfortunately for those people I’m not sure the world will ever be the same. The fall out on the international political stage after the health crisis is over is probably going to be even scarier. A lot of countries are going to be demanding answers off other countries and certain international organisations. The world will have lost a lot of people. Many survivors have been left with both physical and mental health issues. Ptsd will be off the scale after this, leading to many not being able to return to previous existence.

My DH is already planning some business trips to Asia over the summer to get his business moving again. We both think coronavirus is blown out of proportion and the mortality rate is tiny,

Good luck with that. None of the Asian countries I was supposed to travel to this year with work will let me into their country. If coronavirus has been blown out of proportion, the overreaction is happening in every country in the world. Funny how all these countries are trashing their economies for nothing, isn’t it?

I also think the media have behaved appallingly throughout this whole thing. Their reporting was based on hysteria and even now they phrase things in a way which imply they're facts - lockdown to end by 11th May etc.

I particularly loathe the shaming of normal people going about their days. All of the photos of 'idiots' filling up their parks drive me insane when clearly their photographer was one of the idiots and common sense says in quite densely populated areas even if everyone staggered their daily walks, at any one time there probably will be a lot of people out walking.

They also change their pov every day and I've no idea why. One day it's 'covidiots' spreading the disease by going to b&m bargains for non-essentials. The next day it's 'coronaphobics' driving the country into a depression. Actually most of us are neither an idiot or terrified we're just making decisions on a daily basis under new and unusual circumstances using the best of the information that we have.

Going completely back to normal could lead to millions of deaths in the UK alone. This seems to be a gross exaggeration, wasn’t the projected worst case figure more like 250,000 - still bloody awful but not anywhere near millions.

Please don't let this be another Brexit.

There’s definitely a big split on Mumsnet. Some people think we should reopen tomorrow and have everyone back at work and school for some reason which I just think is bloody daft. It’s almost like some people don’t read the news.

Other people are extreme at the other end and don’t want it to reopen until a vaccine is found which is obviously daft.

We need a staged return but only when new cases are almost at zero. There’s currently still thousands of new cases a day, it’s not the time to reopen.

So I don't think it's ok to tell other people who are at risk to go about their business as normal

I haven't said that at all, if that was aimed at me. I'm not telling anyone else what they should or shouldn't do and I am abiding by lockdown rules and will continue to do so even though it may well mean that I never see my elderly parents alive again (yes, really) having already not been able to visit since late last year. I'm allowed to struggle mentally with that be uncomfortable with other aspects too.

If it wasn't aimed at me then I apologise. I'm struggling enormously at the moment for very many reasons.

I think coronavirus has exposed the nonsense of brexit. You wanted to control your borders, you kept them open during the pandemic. You wanted british workers picking fruit, you couldn't find enough so flew in eastern Europeans. Britain had supposedly lost its identity but is now applauding foreign healthcare workers keeping brits alive. The economic damage of hard brexit was a price worth paying but the economic damage of covid is unacceptable.

There’s definitely a big split on Mumsnet. Some people think we should reopen tomorrow and have everyone back at work and school for some reason

In the real world, polling shows the majority are opposed to ending lockdown soon. It's certainly not the tight split of the Brexit vote. As someone has already had, social media (and I include MN in this), and increasingly the MSM, love tribes and actively try to shepherd us into one. There is no longer any nuance in public discourse, just two oppositional and simplistic positions. It's sad when people play into this and let it affect relationships with family and friends. The media has such a corrosive effect.

OP, your mother's reaction is extreme. We can't just remain inside and locked down until a vaccine is found and in use because that would take too long.

Some people can. My parents could, for example. If you don't work, then you can certainly remain locked down. Possibly the OP's mother is in this situation. Often people who don't work, like my parents, completely lose touch with what life is like for those who do and forget that we can't simply do what we like.

Not irl but on here more so