AIBU to ask if people still think COVID-19 is fake

[doodledo92]

Just heard my elderly neighbour speaking to a mother neighbour saying "it's about time all this SHITE come to an end now". The other neighbour agreed saying "yes, people should have realised by now it's all FAKE"

AIBU to ask do people still believe this virus is fake?
I couldn't believe what I was hearing from the 2 of them.

I hadn’t heard that the bat had been debunked, and read the article linked to in The Conversation, which - unless I missed something also didn’t debunk the bat theory - although a nice description of reverse PCR

It’s a virus that kills many people, and a recent paper suggests that it may have long term effects on the heart even in those who are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms. However, it is also probably the most studied virus, and possibly a lot of common viruses have these effects and then we recover. Either way, I find anyone who says it’s a conspiracy, or been over-played irritating.

We did not know what would happen, how compliant the population would be and how effective social distancing would be. We still don’t know the long term impacts - how many people would have had to die to make the government response proportionate?

I wish it was fake and a dream.
My DM tested positive without symptoms on admission to a&e she attended a&e for something else, they kept her in for a week, she was discharged from hospital to self isolate as she'd no symptoms she deteriorated rapidly, gasping for air until she was readmitted and died 2 days later aged 69.

@wanderings

I also think it's been an unintended (yet interesting) exercise in public compliancy. It's made me realise how easily we could slip into a totalitarian society. Not only are people happily and blindly complying, they're eager to show how much of a Stasi wannabe they are - shouting at disabled people for not wearing masks, reporting neighbours for walking the dog twice a day, etc, bellowing STAY THE FUCK HOME every 5 seconds. It's rather alarming IMO Indeed. Now that's what I find utterly terrifying, much more so than the virus itself; and this is why I think we should at the very least be questioning the hell out of the government.

@wanderings absolutely! The "be kind" mindset certainly didn't last long. Society is regressing when there's a nationwide call for disabled people to stay indoors and not show their face

No, disabled vulnerable kids have to go in to school where nobody will be wearing a mask. Cool.

[quote Forgone90]@chickenyhead just for some context... On average over 35000 people a year die from lung cancer.... Just lung cancer not all cancers. I'm not saying its not a large amount of people... But if we are just talking numbers and not bringing in feelings to it then it is a tiny to y percentage of people dying of covid.

Current infections add up to 0.0028% of the population of the world.. That's cases not deaths... The numbers are minescule and there is no argument against that![/quote]
With all the precautions we took, all the sacrifices we made, on your figures we had more than a years worth of lung cancer deaths from COVID in less than 3 months. Arguably we've had 2 years worth of lung cancer deaths as excess deaths in that same time. If we hadn't done this the likely toll was 15 years worth of lung cancer deaths. Neither of those things is minuscule.

I’m so sorry @EmeraldShamrock. That is beyond words shit and sad.

Fake? No, definitely not fake. Hugely overstated, yes. More people are dieing of flu and pneumonia than covid.

I have 2 disabled children and know many. Contrary to what we have been led to believe in the media they have not been 'made to go to school'. The government has used it as an excuse to suspend the efficacy of the EHCP, schools have been able to say they cannot accommodate them.

My children were not in school anyway due to the fact that there are no schools to meet need. This is going to make the plight of disabled children worse not better. In a recession there are going to be cuts in public spending.

EmeraldShamrock I'm so very sorry for your loss.

@Forgone90

Are you serious?

So despite there being over 70k excess deaths, in 4 months (however the government want to massage the figures attributable to COVID (say by err not testing during the peak and dumping old people in nursing homes to die untested) you want to give me context???

It is my job to have my children's health at front end centre of my priorities. Medical professionals have been unable to confirm that my children are safe, yet some idiot on the Internet wants to talk about lung cancer to give me context?

Yer, trot on

Why shouldn't Bill Gates have a conference on viral threats? What is the issue with him?

We know globalisation is making pandemic events more likely. I remember hearing the doom laden phrase about "one day Ebola will get on a plane" back in the late 80s or early 90s and plane travel has increased so much since then.

If I were an international billionaire philanthropist I'd be pushing on this issue too. In between hair appointments.

EmmetEmma and cantdothisnow1 Thank you.

Emeraldshamrock I am so sorry.

@EmmetEmma I posted the article in response to these questions:

How do you know how long it took to adapt to humans? How would anyone know when it began the process?

You might find this interesting if you liked that article.

www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/covid-19-genetic-network-analysis-provides-snapshot-of-pandemic-origins

As for debunking the bat theory, it was never suggested that SARS-CoV2 came from a bat in the wet market in Wuhan. It was always believed that it came via an intermediate host, like a pangolin, but none has been found. This article from Nature explains:

www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01541-z

There is planty of evidence that the epidemic did not start in the market. For a start, the first known patient had no contact with the market or the people infected at the market.

www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/wuhan-seafood-market-may-not-be-source-novel-virus-spreading-globally

Just to clarify, that doesn't mean that the virus came from a lab. Or that it didn't. But it definitely didn't come from a bat and probably not from the wet market in Wuhan.

Don't think it's a fake, but someone I know thinks it is a government conspiracy. "Disproportionately affects old people, disabled people, obese people, diabetic people...Government sure does spend a lot on pensions, PIP and the NHS... Covid certainly seems to be reducing the numbers of those drawing out of the pot, doesn't it? The aging populations are a problem for most countries. This has probably been cooked up in a lab to ease the strain" (Not my theory I hasten to add!)

Thanks @orangenasturtium, they are interesting articles. I was speaking sloppily about the bat theory, I thought it being debunked meant it had been proven to have not arisen naturally from bats.

I did know that it came via an unknown intermediary and should have been clearer on that. I suppose that also if it did come from a lab it would also quite possibly have originally been a bat virus.

I understand that we might never know where it came from.

My mum doesn't believe it's real, and it does my head in, but she's too arrogant to be told otherwise.
Example today, I was getting my car scrapped but had to pick my little boy up from football camp so my mum said she'll keep a look out for them. I had gotten a text from the company to put my driving licence on the floor and stand 2 meters away so they could take a picture of it. As soon as I told her this she flipped and rolled her eyes saying, there's no deadly virus people need to get a grip 😡
What makes it worse, my dad (they're not together) was admitted to hospital with it and also had pnemonia, but my mum says he just had pnemonia and the tests will show positive for everyone but when his wife had her test done and it came back negative, she said they must have done it wrong.
She also asked if I would give my children the vaccine and i said if they needed it then I possibly would and she shouted 'child abuse' at me.
Arghhhh she does my fucking head in and wonders why I don't stay that long when I come to see her.

A conspiracy theorist I know blamed lock down on the Chinese needing us curfewed so they could put up 5G masts. Now it is to cover a massive paedophile ring of the rich and famous.

I don't know anyone that thinks it a hoax! But I do know many people (getting more daily) that believe its been over exaggerated! Funnily enough the ones I know that are questioning things are the most intelligent people I know! Also those that I know that have been seriously ill with it! Make of that what you will!

Hugely overstated? No. Simple as that. My small hospital has four ITU beds. At the peak of Covid we surged to twenty. Just from covid. That’s a FIVE fold increase. A bad flu year we go up to five or six beds. That was replicated in every other hospital in the region. Outside of ITU there were countless other ill patients on oxygen or CPAP (kind of half way house between oxygen and life support). Any other time these pt would be on ITU.
Some of the sickest people we had we previously fit, healthy working men in their 50s. That doesn’t normally happen.
Now I totally get that there’s a balance and we have to open up safely and learn to live with it. But that’s not because it turned out not to be as bad as we thought.
You can have your opinion that it was overstated but with evidence to back it up it remains just that - an opinion

It’s definitely been over exaggerated. People who’d had it months before and recovered from it were added to the number of live cases. Also if you died from an unrelated death, eg got knocked over by a bus, but had had covid months before, then you would be added to the number of covid deaths.

The excess death figures have not been exaggerated. They are what they are.

The idea it has been exaggerated is a conspiracy theory pure and simple.

Getting knocked over by a bus during a lockdown is no mean feat.

Someone on my FB feed says "Prove to me that it's even a virus!" and has put up some ridiculous letter to send to school, citing the Magna Carta in relation to beliefs that school can - and will - take their child and forcibly test for Covid, and keep that child away from parents for at least two weeks.

On my city Facebook news page today they said how about reinstating a lock down measure and i thought a surprising number of people kicked off saying it was fake. Its frustrating for those of us trying to be safe! These idiots will be the ones spreading it

@lovelifehope - that is simply not true. Death certificates need to show the cause of death and contributing conditions. Covid would not be in the death cert unless the person was delirious due to infection and walked out in front of the bus.