That everybody seems to be acting like it's over?

[Twinklelittlestar1]

I don't get it. We had more deaths yesterday than the day we went into lockdown. Everyone is acting like Covid has gone away and so many people seem to naively think the government easing things is because the situation is magically going away now rather than driven by their economic priorities. We already have the second highest death rate it the WORLD yet it seems lots of people are desensitised to hearing about people dying now. I get that everyone wants to 'think positively' and feel like things are getting better but I feel like people are naively celebrating the governments easing of lockdowns with such faith rather than caution.

irregularegular I can’t find the article, nor the data for Europe. It was just for Europe not the U.K. in particular. It was an article about acceptable risk and came out about the same time as the government changed their rhetoric to try and get everyone to go back to work and school. I will keep looking.

YANBU OP. I’m going out, taking my children for walks etc. In the past few days the number of people walking dead centre on the pavements etc has massively increased. Little attempt by a number of them to social distance, which would involve walking a few feet to one side. IRS not much to ask!

Why people have any faith in satistics is beyond me. There is no internationally agreed protocol for counting death due to Covid-19.

Right now I'm much more worried about my DC's mental and physical health than I am about any of us getting Covid-19. If you are in one of the at risk groups, then lockdown makes sense. No one wants to die, even if they are elderly and/or in poor health. But for the rest of us, lockdown has been largely unnecessary IMO and it was only ever supposed to be a short-term solution. Because we locked down later than we should've done (one week earlier would've been much better), we've had to endure months of it. I'm amazed that people have largely complied and I'm not at all surprised that those of low risk are eager (for the most part), to get back to something approaching normal life. So people are risk assessing and doing what they can see makes sense. Meeting one other person - fine - but why? It makes zero sense to see (for example), two people who live in the same house separately if you are social distancing. I will obey guidelines if they make sense, but I'll disregard if they don't.

Lots of reasons. (This is a very TLDR post!!)

1. The 'lockdown' way of life is unnatural for most of us, difficult for many of us, dangerous for some of us, causing significant harm to some of us. It was always going to be difficult to get the entire population to abide by the restrictions in place for an extended period of time. I know common responses to this are to scoff that ^all you are being asked to do is stay home it's not much of a hardship", but I am tired of that line of argument. Sure, not a hardship for some people, but a real hardship with real negative effects for many, whose right to wellbeing and safety are as important as anyone else's.

1. People are reassessing the risk. There are people like me who have continued to attend work as normal throughout lockdown, been exposed repeatedly to risk situations, had colleagues and service users contract the virus, etc, and not been noticeably ill themselves. It is hard to remain terrified and sure that if someone breathes near you in a supermarket you will die when you have been in close contact with people who within a few days have been confirmed to have c19 and not been ill. It is hard to remain terrified when colleagues with serious health conditions have had c19 and recovered. It is hard to remain terrified when you are not in a high risk group and you are aware that the rate of deaths for people outwith these groups is very, very low indeed.

1. Economic necessity. People need to get back to work, and again, I am tired of the sneering about how there are more important things than money. Because you need money to access essentials, like housing, utilities, food, clothing. And we need to limit the collapse of businesses and surge in unemployment.

1. Recognition that there may well not be a vaccine or effective treatment for a very long time, if at all, and that it is just not possible to suspend normal life entirely whilst we wait for one.

1. Being so damned tired of being afraid and anxious and miserable, that anything that suggests things are improving is grasped and held onto.

1. Remembering that the point of the lockdown was never to ensure no one got the virus, but to manage the rate at which the virus spread so that the NHS did not get overwhelmed. I'm not sure when that became "everyone must stay inside or people will die". People will die. It is a fact. It is a horrible, saddening fact, but it's unavoidable.

1. An unwillingness to continue to abide by inconveniencing restrictions in order to protect others. Which understandably makes many people very, very angry, but should not make them surprised. Humans make selfish decisions all the time. Look at the rates of consumption in the West: we know many of our habits and choices directly contribute to climate change, we know climate change leads to death and destruction and horrible suffering on a wide scale, but we continue to make those choices. We know fast fashion is only possible because of the horrific exploitation of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in developing nations. We know the mainstream meat and dairy industries cause enormous suffering, that animals live horror film existences so we can overconsume cheap meat. I could go on and on, but my point is, why, when our norm is to make selfish choices that have enormous negative impacts on others, would we suddenly act differently now?

Agree @TheOriginalChatelaine. Who the fuck believes China's statistics, or the US who have a president who is firing people who report deaths accurately, because the real figures 'make him look bad'. Even in more honest and trustworthy countries coming up with an accurate count of deaths from Covid are impossible to report accurately. People can die of other things, but if Covid is also present, it's a Covid death. People who have Covid, but haven't been tested, it's not a Covid death, etc.

@thegreenlight

I personally think we should have carried on and only shielded those at risk - with the economy still going benefits paid to them could have been more generous and support would have been less stretched and could be targeted to where it was really needed

Then surely we would now look more like Brazil? though having said that, we ve similar numbers per capita :(
The NHS wasn't overwhelmed because we stopped all other treatments and any elderly bed blockers put into care homes.

The most at risk inc the over weight, anyone with diabetes, heart disease, BAME community and of course the elderly.... shielding all of those would be a task too far.

With a serious illness in the community, the economy would fall of a cliff regardless, no one wants to mix in shops bars etc

It's not about individual safety, it's about breaking chains of transmission so you don't pass it on to a vulnerable person.

Going out and acting like this virus does not exist just because you as an individual are not vulnerable is incredibly selfish.

We have to develop new ways of doing things, so we are collectively safer.

The government seems to have forgotten the purpose of the lockdown which was to slow the spread so the NHS could cope not to prevent everyone getting it. The NHS is coping fine, nightingale hospital was closed so let's get back to normal life now

@Annanimmity

Because your actions do affect others. This is precisely the nature of an infectious disease. Otherwise why bother with rules and regulations at all? Why not let everyone make their own choices?

You are right that if someone is shielding 100% then they will not be affected by anyone else's actions. But that is an unrealistic situation. Almost everyone is going to have contact with at least some healthcare workers etc. And then there are grey areas - those people who are slightly more at risk, but not very high risk. It is unfair and inequitable to expect everyone who is higher risk to shun all contact because those who are at lower risk are doing whatever the hell they want.

Your hairdresser may have a child who plays with another child whose mum works in a supermarket which is used by a careworker who passes the virus on to a vulnerable person. And your haircut may contribute to their death.

Yes we have to make sensible decisions about risk and where the greatest risks lie. Excessive lockdown will cause greater costs in physical and mental health as well as economic costs. But it is not true that we can just let everyone evaluate their own risks and act accordingly, unless they are able and willing to take the risk to everyone else into account too. Which seems unlikely.

I wish people wouldn’t just focus on the death rate. It really isn’t about that. I’ve been very unwell with COVID-19 symptoms, for 3 months now. I’m not at risk of dying, but it’s really damaged my health.

Another thing that’s overlooked is that when people talk about someone having ‘underlying health issues’, they don’t mean that person is at death’s door. My DH has asthma. He hasn’t had a day off work sick in over 5 years. There are many people in that position.

It's because it increasingly appears that the damage lockdown is doing to the population is greater than the protection it affords.

It's easy to get lulled into a false sense of security. Then all of a sudden, it gets brought back home to you. Like it did for us yesterday, when a member of my household was told they have to isolate because their work colleague has it.

I think the lockdown was necessary over the peak. My Dsis is an ITU nurse it was horrendous over the peak they now have less than 10 cases in the hospital and the other trust hospital is a designated covid free green zone.
Now there is hospital capacity it is time to get back to normal, ok so no concerts or football matches but popping to the shops without queuing outside, reducing distancing advice to 1m, visiting family and friends and all the kids back to school but isolating classes of 30 not all 500 freely mixing.
As well as obviously track and trace to try and mitigate small flare ups and WFH for shielding people.
We can't live like this forever, there have always been infectious diseases, they have always killed thousands of people but thousands of people die unnecessarily of all sorts of things - accidents, crime, suicide-the world never stops turning, we live with our grief and make the most of what we have.

jasjas1973 you are confusing more at risk with MOST at risk. There is a formula you can use to calculate your risk of dying of covid. The entire BAME population is not more at risk and neither are ALL the elderly those people who have been identified have been told to stay in after easing anyway.

People would be fine with mixing with others if they hadn’t been misinformed by the government and their agenda. Coronavirus hasn’t changed, yet NOW we can go out? NOW our children can go to school? No one stayed in during swine flu and lots of young healthy people died of that. I knew one of them and was deathly ill with it myself. I’m a teacher and at one point literally 9 children were left in my class of 30 that didn’t have it! We have been played like a fiddle.

What would you prefer, OP? That we all stay in our homes until Christmas? Next summer? 2029?

As others have said we need to learn to live with this. No it's not going away, and will continue to result in deaths. But locking everyone up forever isn't an option either.

Also, there is not much evidence that severity of lockdown changes the curve of transmission. Japan and Spain took very different approaches and their curve is still very similar.

think people have been acting this way for weeks now, certainly since VE Day when many had big parties and seemingly didn’t give a fuck.

And yet cases have continued to decline. Doesn't quite fit with the "everyone having VE day parties is going to cause a huge spike" because we're three weeks on from VE day and the spike would be around now. We don't have a spike.

Hotcuppatea the beach sounds lovely but where did you go to the toilet?

We went to visit my family who I haven’t seen since March yesterday - all spread apart and sat on the grass outside. My mum was so thrilled to see us as she’s been getting a bit down which isn’t like her. Cheered her up no end.

It’s probably “against the rules” but as there was zero risk to any of us I can’t get worked up about it.

@AlexisCarringtonColbyDexter

What do you expect people to do? be shaking with fear? too scared to leave their house? people are adapting to the new rules/guidelines we have now which means we can now go to work, spend time outside etc

Noone has ever said ah its all gone now- and you know it, thats just exaggerated hyperbole to get your point across. Its not normal for people to be living in fear and its not sustainable or healthy in the long run. I'm actually kind of baffled why you'd even want this because its certainly not a healthy way to live. We need to get back to some semblance of normal now and if you want to talk about deaths- there have beenan unprecedented 1700 deaths where people died at home, completely unconnected to covid because they think they didnt seek medical help when needed- but i guess you are one of those who think the only deaths that matter are covid deaths?

All of this.

Why are people saying the gov locked down to save the nhs as it was so underfunded it couldnt /wouldnt cope, as if lockdown was something only the uk had to consider because our government is so shit...? There are degrees of lockdown happening the world over, to try and lessenor slow the spread...

I had someone cough right near me the other day in a queue - he ignored the crosses on the floor and stood right behind me and then coughed. I only go out shopping once a week (walks too) and will be sticking to that for the forseeable. But I agree, people are pretending the danger is over. It isn't.

The risk of me becoming mentally unwell at the moment is probably higher than the risk of me getting covid. So yes, I'm planning to relax a little, when schools and nurseries go back next week, I'll be sending my son to my mum one day a week to be looked after, lkke she did before all this. I'm happy to take that risk and so is my mum. I need some sort of normal life back.

@YetAnotherSpartacus

I had someone cough right near me the other day in a queue - he ignored the crosses on the floor and stood right behind me and then coughed. I only go out shopping once a week (walks too) and will be sticking to that for the forseeable. But I agree, people are pretending the danger is over. It isn't.

People cough all the time for all sorts of reasons - the vast vast majority of them are not covid related, have you never swallowed a fly? I mean come on. There is very little community transmission now, yes it is still around but it shouldn't be the first thing your mind jumps to if someone coughs. This shows the level of fear that has developed, prior to covid if someone coughed near you would you have panicked you would get a cold or the flu, yes they are much milder infections but they are spread exactly the same way.

I'm confused how people still think deaths reported are from the day before, no.