To wonder why people can't evaluate risk?

[2155User]

Seeing so many posts of people asking opinions on whether they should go on holiday/go away and a huge proportion of responses are "it's too risky" "don't go something might happen" etc

Yet the chances of catching the virus are pretty similar near identical to the chances of dying in a car crash/dying from falling over etc.

So AIBU in thinking people have totally lost the ability the evaluate the risk out there?

Obviously it'll differ if you have medical conditions that make you at higher risk of catching the virus, and quite clearly a holiday is a 'choice'/luxury but still, people just seem scared

AlaskaThunderfuckHiiiiiiiii

This thread isn't about going out and about though is it? It's about going away on holiday.

Many employers have said, for example, if you're quarantined on return from a holiday that you've booked since Covid then they won't pay you - do you think people choosing not to chance that are just boring individuals not wanting to enjoy life?

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras fair enough but surely people make their own choices based on the risk to them, I can’t get worked up about it all to be honest

[quote AlaskaThunderfuckHiiiiiiiii]@Hearhoovesthinkzebras fair enough but surely people make their own choices based on the risk to them, I can’t get worked up about it all to be honest[/quote]
Err, well quite. So why isn't the op ok with people making their own choices based on the risk to them? Why has she decided that anyone not making the choices she is must be poor at risk assessment rather than acknowledging that risks and benefits won't be the same for everyone?

DH and I have been umming and ahhing about booking a last minute deal to Ibiza or somewhere towards the end of August.

For us, it’s not about assessing risks and worrying about catching the virus, it’s what kind of holiday will it actually be?

When we go away, we like to eat out every night, nice day trips out, days on the beach, drinks in a bar in the evening and stuff like that.

I don’t want to get there and find myself in the middle of a local lock down, bars and restaurants closed and having to wear a mask on the beach

I’d rather save the money and have double the budget for next year

My sons just come back from Tenerife, he had a wonderful time, masks only worn inside areas , restaurants you didn’t have to. He had no problems at all.

I’d rather save the money and have double the budget for next year

This is a massive barrier for the government to overcome because this is natural, understandable and will be very common.

If you're skint - you'll be more keen to save in case things worsen.
If you're not skint - you'll be more keen to save to really enjoy things when they improve

Either way, you're not spending now!

This is a massive barrier for the government to overcome because this is natural, understandable and will be very common.

Definitely. From talking to friends and family, we’re all saying the same thing.

Plus the weather puts me off holidaying in this country - too many years I’ve spent ££££ only for it to rain the whole week. I live in a holiday area, I can stay home and get wet, I don’t need to pay to go to Cornwall to do it. I want beaches and sun and swimming in a warm sea (I know there’s no guarantees of sun abroad, but the odds are definitely better)

My kids don’t have to be back at school until 7th September so we’re just holding out for a while and will see if the situation improves.

YABU to start with "holidays are a luxury".

You think patients in their fifties currently in comas having contracted Covid would have ended up in vegetative states anyway? That their condition today, four months after being ventilated due to Covid is not attributable to Covid? So we therefore shouldn't consider that a complication of Covid? Ridiculous

Another ludicrous analogy. You keep coming up with them, don’t you? If they’re still being ventilated, they haven’t recovered, have they?

@Alsohuman

You think patients in their fifties currently in comas having contracted Covid would have ended up in vegetative states anyway? That their condition today, four months after being ventilated due to Covid is not attributable to Covid? So we therefore shouldn't consider that a complication of Covid? Ridiculous

Another ludicrous analogy. You keep coming up with them, don’t you? If they’re still being ventilated, they haven’t recovered, have they?

No one said they had to be recovered - people have been arguing that anyone who tested positive more than 28 days ago shouldn't be counted.

What are you counting as recovered? Only when I mentioned people dying from conditions caused by Covid (eg heart failure resulting from Covid) you declared that immaterial. So, if someone develops heart failure, or diabetes, or renal failure as a result of Covid infection, does that mean that they haven't recovered?

I’m done with you @Hearhoovesthinkzebras. I don’t know which is worse - your unfailing pessimism (I don’t think you’ve even got a glass, let alone anything in it) or your lack of logic and whataboutery.

@Alsohuman

I’m done with you *@Hearhoovesthinkzebras*. I don’t know which is worse - your unfailing pessimism (I don’t think you’ve even got a glass, let alone anything in it) or your lack of logic and whataboutery.

Oh of course. The error in your thinking has been pointed out so that's my fault?

Ok then.

The error in thinking isn’t mine.

@Alsohuman

Many of us give up on threads at this point - it stops being a discussion and one point of view is hammered.

@Alsohuman

The error in thinking isn’t mine.

I think refusing to consider people dying from complications of Covid as having died because of Covid, because that affects your ability to claim it's a mild disease that everyone must optimistically ignore is a huge error.

You seem to want to stick your fingers in your ears and pretend that nothing is happening.

I'd rather watch to see what the conclusions of properly conducted studies are.

@Alsohuman you are never going to change some people’s point of you on here, you just have to accept it. They are the ones being left behind while we are all getting on with our lives, it’s quite sad really.

@Aragog

We sat for under 2 hours in Eurostar wearing a mask. It was no issue at all. To wear one for the odd 15 minute taxi ride is not an issue either.

I don't like buffet meals at hotels anyway / you never all get to sit down and eat at the same time without someone up and down throughout. . I'm much preferring having table service order for my breakfast at the hotels we are at. Much more pleasant.

No mask when walking about outdoors and no mask when sat at your table, even indoors, at a restaurant and bar. You just pop it on if you need to nip to the toilet, etc. Same as in hotels - you just pop it on for going through the foyer.

There seems to be very little fuss being made about mask wearing indoors at all here in France.

Even in 30+ degree heat wearing a mask every so often isn't that big a deal, and it's not like it's all the time.

How do you wash your hands before putting your mask on and after taking it off in the situations you describe?

@StealthPolarBear
it's perfectly possible to gel hands before removing and replacing masks.

We also all know that few people do this, or not touch the mask or their face once mask is on or in many cases even wear the mask correctly.

Which is why many people wear them to comply with local law rather than because they believe they do any good.

For me CV risk assessment is harder than other risk assessments because the newness of it.

It’s harder because it is genuinely unknown. We only have 6 months knowledge of it, how contagious it is, how badly different groups will suffer from it, what the long term implications are. The information we have to assess risk necessarily changes all the time as the research proceeds.

It’s also hard because no-one has had any long term experience of CV. The factual knowledge I use to assess risk is also influenced by my own experiences, by family experiences, by peer group experience etc. It builds up day after day and year after year so when presented with a risk I make my choices based on a mass of experience as well as facts. That wealth of shared experience isn’t available to us yet.

I don’t think we should judge anyone for how they assess risk at the moment. This is a massive learning curve for everyone in the world. Only hindsight will show us who was right and who was wrong.

Anti bac gel or just using the elastics which helps too. Plus not touching things with your hands much normally either. It's surprisingly easy to not touch stuff we are finding.

Yes very true