To ask for a definition of safe?

[SockYarn]

Lots of discussion around covid and what is "safe" and what is "dangerous".

AIBU to think that these terms don't really mean anything? Most of us travel by car regularly, people die regularly in road accidents but we don't think of that as dangerous? I'd personally say parachuting or bungee jumping is dangerous, but it's probably not, given all the gear and ropes you have to wear.

AIBU to think that in general, we're all a bit shit at working out what is safe, what is dangerous, and the massive grey zone in between?

especially on here - risk assessment is a rare skill on MN. Witness those panicking about a plane trip but driving to the airport in a car full of screaming kids with their smartphone switched on.

Nothing is 100% safe because we will all die. There are no guarantees (for example) that a vaccine for anything is 100% safe.

Totally agree. I think bombing down the motorway at 90 mph is not particularly safe, as is whizzing down a mountain side on two sticks, but plenty of people love those activities

YANBU. People on here seem to want to define safe as “no risk of catching covid” which is ridiculous.

I don’t see people clamouring each year when there’s flu, norovirus etc.

80% of people will get it mildly or have no sympathy all. If you don’t have a clinical vulnerability, you’re already safe

Risk is a combination of not only how likely the thing is to happen but the severity of the consequences if it does. The consequences of something are more easy to see compared to the likelihood which is more difficult to predict. Travelling in a car for example we know it could kill us but we have done it many hundreds of times without consequence so perceive the likelihood as being low. Coronavirus we see people dying on TV and don't have enough experience of not getting it yet to feel the likelihood is low so it feels more dangerous. As time passes and confidence grows people will be able to assess the risk more constructively.

I totally agree.

This isnt helpful for me! Im terrified of car journeys and driving in general. I do go in cars but its a necessity thing. But i can get an upset stomach from the worry. Im way more relaxed about covid..

Safe vs dangerous in these situations are always limited to one very specific thing, and completely ignores the rest, both comparative risks (such as driving to the airport being riskier than flying in a plane) and also absolute risks that can be mitigated (never going outside removes almost all the risk of catching a disease)

It's nothing about all risk - we have no idea on the risks of isolation in a pandemic - we have loads of evidence that isolation is hugely correlated with a higher chance of death, but don't know for sure that applies to pandemic isolation, or really what the long term effects of isolation in children is particularly. The only kids who are normally isolated have quite a lot of other things that harm them (bullying, abuse, disability etc. which is why they're isolated)

So because no-one is able to quantify those risks of not doing something they purely focus on the thing they can control - not going to school, removes the risk of catching a disease. Regardless of what that risk is, they can control it, and the alternative is so unknown, and possibly unrecognisable to them at all, that it's not considered.

As someone who manages a mental illness which is being made more and more debilitating by the isolation caused by lockdown, I'm sure I'm judging the risk that if my child suffers the same as much more important a consideration, 'cos it's right there screaming in my head.

I don't actually care if the schools go back, it's kid isolation that I want addressed, but schools going back appear to be the only route to that. Even now we can't meet another kid in the park (since the advice is meet a single person from another family, so no child who needs a parent to get them there.)

People who worry on educational aspects and struggle with that at home will want the school back to meet those.

None of this is wrong, it's just psychology, people can't know everything, they can't control everything but end up focusing on things they can control - or fears that they can't control, but can address. So for many, the fear of the disease (even when it's by proxy and it's not their own child they're worried about) override the other risks that just aren't ones that they grasp.

It's why we need more information provided, not just the risk of a child catching a disease, but what the risks are about them not being in school, people only seem to think about lost education.

It's also about the risk to one person as an individual versus the risk to many. Skiiing many be risky to the individual but rarely impacts on many others. Driving may be risk to the driver and passengers, and pose a risk to other road users (a pedestrian, 2 or 3 other cars, at worst a bus). A school full of children with unknown levels of an infection potentially spreading it to a population who may / may not have had it and may / may not have immunity - that one is full of uncertainty. That's why it causes anxiety.

When we are judging personal risk, though, we also look at the benefits provided by the activity and weigh those in our minds.

People generally aren't good at judging risk, and most are not domain experts epidemiology; we need experts for that. My problem with schools returning is not that it was not "safe," it is that the supporting argument and evidence was not made available for scrutiny by the people who can make that judgement. Now the medical and teaching experts have viewed the risks and proposed controls, significant flaws have been exposed in the approach. Those flaws should have been identified and mitigated BEFORE the policy was announced.