To think this coronavirus hysteria is completely OTT

[tacosplease]

I’ve just read that the NHS has declared the coronavirus “situation” a level 4 incident - the highest level of emergency.

There are only 51 known cases in Britain out of a population of 66 MILLION. None of these people have died. In the extremely unlikely event that you do catch it, the chance of death is just 2%.

So, I simply don’t understand why people are getting so hysterical about this. Far more people catch the common flu every year and no one starts panicking over that. Every time you use your car you have a 1/20,000 chance of dying yet people still drive and don’t think twice.

AIBU?

I think the advice not to wear a mask is all very well but in Singapore as in China.,it.was and probably still is practically compulsory . They seem to be doing better than us in containing things , maybe this is one of the reasons

I know it doesn't help much in preventing you catching it but it might help to stop people spread the virus before they become they realise they have it . Surely it is easier to contain a cough when wearing a mask, than constantly having to dig out a fresh tissues every time you cough. .People could have advice about how to change them regularly etc and to obviously stilll wash hands often and well

The reluctance to wear them is all about Western culture and not wanting to look like an idiot .

bumbling There was a man in my queue today coughing and sneezing, who did not cover his mouth. Wish he'd had a mask!

I saw pictures of people on the Tube with masks, but they were glove free hands, holding rails, touching seats etc.

they just want to spoil our fun, so stop us going on holiday, to football, to the pub and the new James Bond film,

So clearly you're too selfish to realise that you'll be helping spread the virus and could well be responsible for someone's death - all because you don't want your fun to be spoilt. You sound such a nice person.

I have been on the tube every day for the past week. I haven't seen a single person wearing a mask.

Masks aren’t great in non stringent places

I haven’t seen any either in London

To those fatalists who think “if I’m gonna die I’m gonna die”, I think you would feel differently if you got it bad, were very seriously ill and needed oxygen or life support to breathe(around 5% of cases get like this), and there were no HDU beds for you because hundreds of thousands of others also needed to share the 17000 NHS HDU beds. And don’t forget that 20% of an already stretched NHS staff are off sick. That’s why if it’s not contained it could be very serious indeed.

No one knows how this will pan out.

If everyone does their best to follow scientific advice to help slow or reduce spread everyone will benefit.

Fewer people will die. Of covid19 or the flu.

Does anyone seriously disagree with those statements?

So wash your bloody hands and stop wingeing about it.

Fatalists tends to be more blasé about other people - see pp with revoltingly absurd wastage comment. Hope it doesn’t come back and bite them on the arse (maybe).

That was a public health broadcast on behalf of the common sense party.

@FaisPasCiFaisPasCa (BTW good MNs name)

The CV is also spread through air, so how effective will handwashing prove to be? i thought Johnsons comments on handshaking was utterly irresponsible.

Asian countries seem to have focused on quarantine and facemasks.

I agree, soap and cold water will do a surprising amount.

I'm also getting the flu vaccine next winter if I can. Every case needing hospitalization which can be prevented over the next 12 months will help.

I do agree that there is no need for everyone to rush out and buy masses of toilet roll at once.

I’ve seen plenty with masks on

In fact the bloke who was in the paper earlier this week for wearing full breathing apparatus at the train station in Berkhamsted was there the same day as me. I missed it but plenty saw him.

(Publicity stunt apparently though)

Hand washing does have a big effect. In other epidemics hand washing was shown to lower prevalence of other diseases, not just the target disease.

Telling people to cough, sneeze and breathe differently is a harder intervention. They are largely involuntary actions. Coughing and sneezing into elbows is more realistic than tissues.

Oh no, I'm getting all frenzied and HYSTERICAL again.

The bloody toilet roll saga in the local supermarkets

It’s rediculous.

It won’t help should there be massive lock down as the people who didn’t rush out to buy it will then not have any

Either way it’s far too early for that as we are being told from the powers at be to expect a peak in May

I wasn’t worried much but seeing the actions from governments across the world doing far more than for previous outbreaks makes me feel that there is something to be concerned about now.
Probably not if your healthy young adult, but pregnant, copd and elderly aren’t going to feel much comfort from the fact that you aren’t worried for yourselves

To those fatalists who think “if I’m gonna die I’m gonna die”, I think you would feel differently if you got it bad, were very seriously ill and needed oxygen or life support to breathe
Very fair point. I was in hospital in 2018 struggling to breathe and put on oxygen (they thought initially COPD but then put it to allergy trigger - I now have an inhaler). As ways to die go, it's fucking terrifying.

Agree PP
Watching my 1 year old son and then again at 2 be put on a ventilator struggling to breath really brings this home

I wish I was as blasé about it as some people though

When people are told 'the shit is going to hit the fan' they take it literally and buy tons of loo roll.

It's just a metaphor folks!

It's not loo roll we need, it's ITU beds.

@daisychain01 you don't need anti-bac soap, or to add Zoflora to normal soap. Normal bog standard soap in absolutely fine! And your post reads like hand sanitiser is more important than soap and water when it's the other way round!

I suppose those of us with first hand experience of seeing people die of respiratory disease tend to sit up and listen when we hear serious warnings from serious epidemiologists about serious spread of a serious disease.

Sorry I mean we get all hysterical and frenzied and start doing irrational things like

Washing our hands and following the news.

@Splodgetastic I'm going to assume you're being sarcastic...

Was chatting to a very experienced clinician about this today and they were expressing great concern about how this is likely to go. While mass panic is obviously not good, it’s frustrating that there seems to be a rather flippant view being widely aired on social media and elsewhere that the experts know nothing and that it’s not a big deal. It really is, for many reasons, not least that the NHS doesn’t have the capacity to cope day to day, let alone in an epidemic.

There is clearly an age issue. If you are under 30, the risk is small (don't visit your grandparents. even when you feel fine) -- because the delay before you get ill is the most contagious point.

From 30-60, when you, and everyone you know, has young children and/or ageing parents is likely to be the critical point because your parents may need your help managaing everyday life, serious personal hygiene practices are critical to disease transmission.

DO as much personal contact as possible in the open air. Buy food in outdoor markets. Go to a park instead of a coffee shop for a chat.

Quarantine contacts with frail old people sensibily. My DMIL would die if she caught it, but she is 91 and in poor health anyway.

Normal common sense please.

@bobstersmum there are some situations where I'd want to use some form of hand wash with additional anti-bac properties such as after being in a shopping centre, travelling on public transport, airports etc. If you're just at home, soap and water is OK, but even then I'd want to antibac before food handling. It's about upping the anti at the moment (and it makes me feel better!)

But all this talk of 80% of the population catching it, how it’s going to peak in May is all guesswork

The hysteria over this is literally because they don’t actually know anything about the virus, the spread, etc etc so they cannot possibly predict that we’re going to have 80% infection rate or that it’s going to peak in May.

Time and time and time again they’re saying that the reason for panic is because it’s completely unknown. So there’s just as much chance that infections could start to tail off over the next couple of weeks as that they spread. There’s a chance a lot of people have caught it and gone through it without actually even knowing.

They just don’t know.

If 80% of the population catches it we can panic, but based on the fact that at the moment about a hundred have tested positive for it and there have as yet been no deaths the hysteria is OTT.

I have an underlying heart condition. I’m likely going to die of heart failure one day anyway assuming I can’t get a transplant when the time comes, while I obviously don’t want to catch the virus, I am equally not going to put my life on hold for something that hasn’t actually happened yet.

Oh, and the 2% rate doesn’t mean 2% of the population, it’s a global estimate which also takes into account the fact that many countries don’t have the same level of healthcare.

Does anyone actually know anyone who has tested positive? Did anyone know anyone who had swine flu? Because that was considered an unknown as well and yet we didn’t have mass hysteria over it and yet quite a few people I knew caught it, including me.

Interesting how there have only been two cases on the whole African continent.