AIBU to share The Great Barrington Declaration with you?

[IAmADancer]

I thought this may be of interest to give another perspective on Covid and lockdown and how other medical professionals (They are from Oxford, Harvard and Stanford) view longer term possibilities

gbdeclaration.org/frequently-asked-questions/

@AnneLovesGilbert

No, not at all, I completely understand the need to isolate but it has been very hard. My husband strangely didn’t have any symptoms but a sore throat so we were very surprised he tested positive. But we have followed everything as per the guidance and I have tested negative twice as have my children. And before anyone accuses me of using the nhs when I didn’t need to the tests were done via work.

Don't worry, you're not alone in the way you're thinking, although sometimes its easy to feel that way. Unfortunately, people seem to feel compelled to have a really binary approach to life these days, that really makes me despair. RIght or left, pro or anti, ally or enemy etc. Never has there been a time when we pretend so vehemently to be pro-individuality, yet we are so obsessed with, and controlled by, the collective. Everyone has to be put into a wee box with a load of traits and beliefs (that they may or may not have), to make people feel better about things and themselves. Personally I am more frightened of the knock-on effects of this virus, more than the virus itself.

I’m with you, Dancer.

But if you expect intelligent debate on mumsnet, you’ll be disappointed.

Gin and tonic? X

Well from what I've seen on here and in wider media there is a significant correlation between Conservative thinking and calling for us to get back to normal. So that no surprise.

You posted about drawing attention to this information as if the declaration added much new to the discourse. My point in saying its not particularly radical to say this is that the impact of the measures due to covid have been well discussed. So you're not really introducing new (synonymous with radical) thought.

You talk about communism, which I do think you are using to mean lack of democracy but anyway... How's capitalism working out for the world?

I'm not particularly sure about what we need as a political and economic system. But the bring communism into the argument when you actually mean lack of democracy, it sounds like you don't think we have massive social and economic inequalities? Which actually are exacerbating the impact of covid.

Yes, YABU, given what it is. That said, have you been to Great Barrington? Very nice. I'm considering putting together the Lower Slaughter Declaration. Or the Wotton Under Edge Statement. Other Cotswold names available.

[quote IAmADancer]@Madhairday

Whilst I appreciate you don’t agree with the declaration you must have more to back up your opinion on it then just printing a link to one newspapers perspective on it.

As I said previously, I am aware that some people have decided to sign it with fake names but I am interested to know at what point do we start to have open and honest conversations about the way forward and how we manage that?

I am currently in isolation due to my husband catching covid. I’m isolating with my family and it is taking a huge toll on my mental health and has made me think at length about the current state of affairs. Do we just continue to gradually loose our freedoms and end up in some quasi communist rule or do we have actual discussions to find a way forward that supports the vulnerable and at risk whilst also supporting those with other health concerns and letting the vast majority of the population continue with their lives?[/quote]
I isolated from my entire family for five months. I did not hug or touch my dh or DC. I only spoke across three metres at them. I lived in my room on my own. Oh and I lost my income back in March. My mental health was shot too - and this declaration wishes to condemn millions like me to more of the same, because it seems our mental health does not matter at all - somehow it doesn't count against the mental health of all the normal people.

The shielding list was over 2 million. The clinically vulnerable more like 16+ million. So it's not simply a matter of the fact that shielding people would find it hard - if it was the case that this would work then I would put up with it and simply get on with it - it's the fact that it cannot work unless you send all these millions and their families and their carers off to a gulag somewhere, sealed off from everyone and everywhere. And then suddenly you have a huge problem; you have 50% or more less workforce (plenty of 'the vulnerable' work, and so do their families,) which would lead to societal collapse. You'd have millions of children not accessing proper education. And covid would still be ripping through, claiming some unlikely victims and leaving others with long term heart, lung and kidney damage and post viral issues.

The problem is with the GBD, is that it does not make a realistic proposal. It lumps the vulnerable as a homogenous mass and doesn't account for the fact that they make up society too, and for their carers and families. Should they all shield too? Or should the vulnerable be locked away on their own in some prison camp somewhere with meals posted through their doors? What would happen to the elderly with dementia in care homes? Should they just be culled to get rid of the problem?

The other issue is that the vast majority of epidemiologists and others in the field do not agree, and in fact are opposed for a variety of reasons. See, for example, this article, showing that there really isn't as much a divide as the proponents of this are claiming.

www.wired.co.uk/article/great-barrington-declaration-herd-immunity-scientific-divide

I'm sorry I dropped an article and ran last night. I was exhausted and ill and tired of seeing this everywhere, but you're right, it's no way to engage with discussion.

You're struggling with your mental health because you're isolating for 14 days? But you're quite happy to support a group of people ( not all old or about to die at any minute, as is popular opinion) to isolate for months and months on end ( and who have already been sidelined for 7 months) so the rest of society can carry on going to the pub?
Really?

AIBU to share The Great Barrington Declaration with you?

Yep.

It's a crock of shit.

HTH.

Cheers Dancer I have heard about it but not read anything much. Fancied a look, thanks for posting.

@Madhairday thank you for taking the time to come back and write that. I really appreciate it and it helps me to understand different perspectives from dealing with covid in a different way to how I am.

I am not for one moment saying we should round up all the people classes as vulnerable and ship them off somewhere. I suppose I’m asking how do we make sure that everyone’s needs are taken into account instead of the onus being on one particular section of society and the nhs.

@FuzzyPuffling
Yes my mental health has been suffering but it goes back much further than the start of covid. I have found this year very hard as a whole, and the 14 day quarantine has only intensified the long term issues that I have had.
I also feel that it is entirely wrong to label all people who don’t want to continue with isolation or lockdown as some feckless idiots who just want to go to the pub. You should try having a conversation with people who work in the arts whose lives have been completely decimated. Or maybe you could sit down and talk to the people currently waiting for cancer treatment who have had their treatment stopped. Maybe take in to account the small business owners who are desperately trying to salvage their businesses.

Whilst I agree there is a small portion of society who are going to the pub there are nearly 68million people in England alone, and I don’t think they are all think. Bloody virus I’m just going to fight for my basic gunman right to go down the pub.

I understand that people are angry and anxious and frustrated and terrified but the question is what is the way forward for everyone not just some.

@echt thank you for your very succinct way of responding. Much appreciated.

The media is in fact if anything not being scary enough.

If they wanted scary they would be sitting down and working us through the consequences of a large proportion of the nation's population being ill at once with a flu-like virus. If 1/20 of electricity engineers are ill at once who do you think fixes your supply in winter after a bad storm? If 1/20 firemen/women are poorly at once who puts out the fires? If 1/20 on a farm who is planting or harvesting? If 1/20 teachers who teaches their class? Who collects the rubbish? Who buries the bodies? Who sorts the sewers?

The way this thing works it would speed through one workplace after another if we weren't taking measures, so it wouldn't be a case of "oh well, someone else will stand in for Elsie who is ill". It would be everyone in one location and then everyone in another location and no, you can't just sub in a random unemployed person to do a specialist job, that's not how it works and no, no-one runs the kind of surplus manpower to stand this. Two weeks as an average for being ill is not a "oh but at least they don't die" it's a massive amount of people who we depend on. Invisible people, people who daily make your life that bit more comfortable.

But that's far more complicated to explain than "this many people will die" or even "taxes pay government workers". You can't get a fancy slogan behind it and people freak out when asked to consider such complex things as a just-in-time production system so there's no point trying to explain this.

OP, please do not presume anything about me. I am really offended by your "how about you talk to..." comments. You have absolutely no idea about my circumstances.

Thanks for posting this Dancer. Even though I'm not sure whether I agree with it (pros and cons with both approaches), I'm glad I read the actual declaration rather than just mentions of it in the news. There's nothing wrong with intelligent debate, especially concerning the great ethical question of the time.

@swg1 you raise some very valid points and different perspective on the virus which hasn’t really been addressed. It’s definitely something that I will try and find out more information on.

@FuzzyPuffling I apologise if I offended you but you presumed to know what a large proportion of the country want is to just go to the pub. You also made assumptions about my own mental health. You can’t question other people’s motivations or statements and not expect for people to respond which the same questioning

YABU - though I suppose it's easy to miss existing threads

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4042913-The-Great-Barrington-Declaration

Well said @swg1. The government has failed to hand this over to Public Health England - the experts we already have. Nb the Novichok poisonings, contained and handled with that expertise - and monetized every aspect of its Covid response, stuffing public money into the pockets of its mates at Serco, Deloittes and whoever else at every turn. They have skimped and scraped with poorly trained staff and inadequate software - Excel, for crying out loud. Shameful.