To be worried about the Coronavirus Part 6

[Jenasaurus]

Old thread here

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3833553-to-be-worried-about-coronavirus-part-5

I don’t know where she was skiing. I heard it’s a woman; I was told the mother of two boys.

Place marking also.

I'm in gov comms and have been for many years. Mike Granitt, they guy on R 4 this morning, knows his stuff.

There really needs to be a concerted effort to inform now, regular briefings, ministers on all main media, public health campaign regarding hygiene.

We used to run regular exercises to test out emergency planning comms strategies. No longer work at the centre, so to speak, but very much doubt this has happened for a long time.

Whitehall comms teams have also lost many of their most experienced people too, during the cuts.

It's all a bit of a perfect storm

People die of diseases every day. Millions of them. This time next year, there will be no Mumsnet posts on coronavirus. Remember swine flu? vCJD? Terrible diseases that kill people and have changed their families life forever.

But by this time next year, over 600,000 people in the UK will have died.

“There were 616,014 deaths registered in the UK in 2018.” www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/vitalstatisticspopulationandhealthreferencetables

You could die any day suddenly - RTA, heart attack, stroke, murder. I don’t go around constantly worrying about death.

We'll have to wait for the kids to get home with the letter, Temporary!

The bbc news referred to the Swansea patient as male.

School closures across the board will mean staff shortages in places across the board. Factor in the proximity to Exam season......

I think it's pretty telling that this virus makes us think twice about international travel but climate change, which is a much bigger threat and something which will almost certainly wipe out our children and grandchildren, isn't worth cancelling your holiday to Tenerife.

Quite a few schools here have had pupils return after skiing trips in italy, all told to carry on as normal and attend school as normal. If this person has caught this in a ski resort other people may well have caught it too and have now circulated it around schools. I am furious with the guidelines from PHE, no err on the side of caution just let them all mix and pass it around.

The news referred to the wales infected person as a male, who flew back from Italy at the weekend and then became unwell.

No need for school closures but children and staff returning from Italy should have been told to stay at home. It’s no good waiting till they have symptoms, it’s too late then.

@PlomBear Yes people die. My 87 year old father last year. It happens. That does not reassure anyone intelligent.

I wouldn't worry about exams. There are several ways this could be dealt with:

Marking leniency - if a school hasn't covered a topic it reports this when the papers are sent off and marks adjusted accordingly
Papers to be sat digitally (don't think we've got enough time to sort this and not every family has access to a laptop)
Grades given are based on predicted grades
Kids have sit the exams in late summer if things have calmed down

@PlomBear nobody is 'going around worrying about death' either? we WORRY about our elderly loved ones though.....if thats alright with you and your pompous attitude!!

@penguinsonaslide
Absolutely. My dh sees the decline in air travel as a result of Coronavirus a good thing.

Good programme on Sky News with doctors about the virus. Risk is still low, closing school is panicking and wearing a mask can give a false sense of security. More data is needed about the virus and people should follow NHS advice regarding notifying 111 and self isolation.

That is like saying - houses flood all the time. Why are you worried because there has been a flood warning in your area.

Just read the WHO report and guidance. Why are we not following all of this properly? Does the UK not trust the WHO?/the report. Other countries are following it as best they can.

If they close schools, what about parents who work. Everything will come to a halt if everyone has to stay at home. Who will look after those ill in hospital if doctors and nurses are at home looking after their school age children.

If they close schools it will be because they have come to the conclusion that big outbreaks of illness will bring things to a worse halt even than school closures. Someone somewhere is weighing up all these costs and benefits. There might not be a 'carry on as normal' option - they'll end up going for the lesser of two evils.

I am hoping that the halfway house of parents who can keep their kids at home being allowed to do so with the government's blessing will be considered. Then schools would still be open but they would be relatively emptier and safer places (less transmission) where it's easier to enforce kids' hand hygiene.

Plombear the difference is we can cope to some degree with all those ways of death and illness.

This is a different beast altogether. It will swamp our medical services, ICU beds will have queues for weeks if not months. The economic effect will shatter our way of life for months if not years. The truth is we don’t actually know the full effects and long term damage it does to those it infects mildly. What if a few months down the line they develop further complications not yet seen in said ‘survivors’.

Yes you can die from many other things and thousands and millions do die around the world every year but life is still able to go on. If the common cold was as deadly as this is then we would no doubt still be in the dark ages.

Agree ciwie that may have been better advise. Just 2 weeks...

Keep Italy trip people at home.
Not doing anything of course, means tons of people will be off work and school anyway, because they are ill.

We've had pupil from Italy, and our school is closed.

janemaster - with a First in nursing and currently studying a Master’s degree, my intelligence isn’t in question.

Working yourself up into a frenzy is pointless. Wash your hands. Avoid people with the infection. There is nothing else you can do.

What good is sitting at home sobbing going to do? Get a grip. I say that as somebody with asthma. I’m more worried about being run over by a car crossing the busy road near my house.

Key message seems to be to protect and educate front line medical stuff. The disease sounds a lot more like SARS than flu to me.

@YoursTunbridgeWells
DS has to attend an event this weekend. I would happily pull out for two reasons 1) He has just returned from a ski trip in Northern Italy, although not in the lockdown area I would hate if he was carrying it and have it to others. 2) I do not want to attend as a spectator with large crowds of other kids and families that have been all over at half term.

However I am told that it's business as usual and he must attend and not let the team down

I’m more worried about world war 3. There is NOTHING we can do if it gets to the extreme of people dropping dead in the street and hospitals closing.

I’m hiding this thread now due to the hysteria. 🙄