To want coronavirus to just run it’s course now and get back to normal

[rosieposiepud]

For most of us, we’ll have a cold/feel quite rough for a few days. Dc will barely be effected yet MN is obsessed with shutting schools again. There may be many more deaths from coronavirus still to come, but they’ll be lot’s of deaths from other causes plus massive long term devastation to the economy etc if we carry on like this.

I don’t understand what you mean.

Who are “most of us”?

What do you mean by “run its course”?

Which countries are you suggesting this strategy for?

For me the saddest thing is that I realised that people rarely think about the impact on children / young people (and if they do they minimise the impact or come out with hackneyed comparisons to the war). Frankly if I was young I would be pretty hacked off by now as their needs / experiences seem to be low down the list of priorities. I also think the impact on people's mental health has been woefully disregarded. And sadly old or frail or people with underlying health conditions do tend to die (and not just from Covid). We just don't like acknowledging this.

YABU, it should stay forever

@froggygoneacourting
* I don’t believe there will be another national lockdown, Johnson will sacrifice lives to avoid it because the economy can’t take it.*

Lives will also be sacrificed if we have another national lockdown. Coronavirus is not the only cause of death and suffering but many people have forgotten this.

Well @IwishIwasyoda everyone dies. I am very vulnerable to coronavirus. I am also an active full time NHS clinician, a parent of 2 young children and, you know, a person. I have no reason to think I shouldn't live another 50 years. Kindly don't write me off as acceptable collateral in the fight to have big parties and BBQs.

Can you enlarge on how your ideas will keep schools open and save economies because everyone wants that.

Quite frankly I wish I'd never heard of Covid19, but that's just wishful thinking.

The thing is if you let it "run it's course", things won't be normal for very long. The huge numbers of people off sick would endanger essential services, so you might be able to meet up with as many as you like, but there's possible food, fuel and medical treatment shortages. Very NOT normal. That's if no one dies from it. We need numbers as low as possible.

if us dispensible people are filling up ITU and using the ventilators

Ventilators actually do a lot of harm to COVID patients so hope they aren’t using them anymore to blow people’s lungs out 😐

plenty of babies are raised in cultures where all woman wear veils and have far more of their faces covered than our masks do, without any negative impact

This is silly. Western culture depends a lot on facial cues, other cultures less so. Openness to strangers and those outside our family is another big Western cultural characteristic, and one that I personally believe has led to a lot of success.

It’s not just a bad cold for a few days - I’m 30 and had it a few months back - I was ill for a month - way worse than any flu or cold I had! People need to stop saying it’s just like a bad cold

Yeah, but most young healthy people barely have symptoms, so you are an outlier here.

alittleprivacy thank you so much, being on MN this week has made me realise how people only seem to read MSM and SM. It also been really infuriating reading posts such as, this will be forever, how can you do this to your DC, etc. So ridiculous, it has been 6 months! I know it has been tough but people really need to see the bigger picture it is a short period of time in their hopefully long lifetime.

One thing I do think we need to do as a nation is improve everyone's understanding of science, critically reading sources, and general resilience.

@Starlingbird
By most of us I mean 99% of the population.
By run it’s course I mean treat it as we do flu, ie staying off work and taking the precautions we do if we have any other contagious virus.

I think we just have to hold on for this winter - it will be tough but I think, at least in terms of the immediate effects of the virus, the worst is likely to be over by spring. We know at least that summer and getting outdoors mitigates it significantly, and I think by next winter there will at least be better treatment (as there already is), possibly a degree of immunity and maybe even a vaccine. No one wants this to carry on, but just shrugging our shoulders is still not an option.

Well if you allow it to run its course and, say, a conservative 60% of the population get it, and 1% of those die of it, that's quite a lot of people isn't it?

Some of those people might have died this year anyway so I guess people like you would see them as dispensable, but a lot would have lived for many more years, decades.

So no, I don't think we should let it run its course because of the comparably minor inconveniences the rest of us are having to endure.

When the government touted this option back in March it was considered tantamount to murder but it seems that lots of people now think it's fair enough.

alittleprivacy, lovely to read facts and well-informed opinion rather than the utter drivel spouted by people who get their science from Facebook.

It's just a horrible situation, isn't it. People might die if we get back to normal, but at the same time people are suffering due to the changes we've put in place.

I'm self employed and haven't had regular work since March. I'm now getting to the stage where I'm seriously concerned, and NEED things to get back to normal, but I understand why they're not.

I had covid myself, and can say that even a mild illness is pretty miserable, but I'm just not sure it warrants what's happening now - particularly as treatments in hospitals have got better.

There are 66.65 million of us

Only 365,000 of us have caught the virus (that we know about)

There are 41,623 deaths

With over 41,000 deaths and only 0.55% of the population infected, if everyone caught it, we could be looking at a death toll of a mere 366,575.

Genius idea, OP. Let's roll it out.

Cannot agree more. It needs to run its course. Let those who are vulnerable or afraid shield. Let the rest of us get back to our lives, work, get the economy restarted and move on. It is an option. In my view the only sensible option.

Sorry, my maths is off.

If 41,623 out of 365,000 infected have died, that's a death rate of 11.4035616438%

66,650,000÷100×11.4035616438=7,600,473.8355927

That's over 7.5million people.

Even better. We are overcrowded after all.

OP so we need at least 90% of the population to get it to achieve herd immunity - there are 6 million people in the UK who are aged between 70-80 and they have a death rate from COVID of approx 2-3% - that's 112,000 people dead and that's just 70-80 year olds.

That's a lot of people. Compared with 30,000 who die from flu (and that's all ages).

I know what you're saying OP but I don't think letting it run it's course to the extent that hospitals and mortuaries cannot cope would be an improvement on this, either for wellbeing or the economy .

I think that's what would have happened if we'd let it go from the beginning but I honestly don't know now. The effects do seem to have lessened but is that just becuase of more testing and/or different groups of people being most likely to be infected?

I completely agree OP

I feel it’s utter madness and I’m raging

No, I don't think this

Watching people die gasping for days for their last breath in agony alone as there is no treatment is a horrific death

It's NOT like other deaths and the PTSD that will emerge from medics is going to be appalling

How on Earth is this the beginning of the end? We haven’t even started! Suppression is not working and a vaccine is a long way off.

Here is my prediction - more people will die this winter from poverty and delayed cancer diagnosis.

People have lost their minds!!!

Let those who are vulnerable or afraid shield

I have seen this attitude rolled out in various forms over the last few months. It fills me with worry and fear.

I think, sadly it will influence the attitude to people in society who we class as 'vulnerable'...people who are elderly, disabled, medically vulnerable...disposable.

@CoronaIsWatching

Yes I've often thought if we just let Corona do its things, whilst shielding the vulnerable all this would be over by now. Like taking off a plaster, better to rip it off quickly than let the pain drag on

But if loads of people get ill all at the same time. that could cause a lot of disruption to every day life and essential services could be affected. Think of the toilet roll panic, imagine how people would react if there were other supply issues due to a high number of the workforce being unwell.

Seriously, the "let it run through" people - do please explain how essential services, you know food supply, supermarkets, petrol stations, national grid, water, sewer works, gas suppliers, telephone and internet providers, emergency services, hospitals, transport systems, schools - remain running while huge numbers of people are at home, or in hospital, with this virus?