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 am concerned about the many school trips and language students that travel from Europe to the UK usually from Easter onwards many staying with host families in the local area. This seems like a really bad idea right now.

It's infected (rounding up) 0.005% of the population in China. Why are we expecting it to infect 80% in the UK? That's 16000 times more than the infection rate in China.

China went into lockdown and was able to use its strict mode of governing to enforce it. Which ultimately meant containment was very effective. We seem very laissez faire - no we don’t necessarily want to mimic the Chinese rule in many ways but we do elect a government to act in the public interest but I believe they are too scared to do so due to the economic and political fallout.

Political regime does not account for a x16000 infection rate.

You’re right, that is a huge multiple. What I was trying to say is that a very strict lockdown and isolation zone appears to have done a good job of containing the virus. China is a vast country. Our geography also doesn’t help us, I suspect.

@mrfumble it’s already infected 0.005% in Italy in a much shorter time frame in far less populated areas. Comparing with China isn’t
The same .

No other country are putting in place the same or even similar actions that the Chinese government have done

In 5 weeks China has gone from 5k cases to 143k cases. It’s barely got going and figures have potential to get much much higher.

On the other hand, swine flu seemed to fizzle out, and that had infected lots more than current figures. Not sure why it stopped? Hopefully the same will happen with this one.

Talk of winners is unhelpful too. Every country is working round the clock to contain and mitigate so it doesn’t makes sense. Speculation is unnecessary and wrongheaded.

Wrong thread ignore

China went into lockdown and was able to use its strict mode of governing to enforce it. Which ultimately meant containment was very effective. We seem very laissez faire - no we don’t necessarily want to mimic the Chinese rule in many ways but we do elect a government to act in the public interest but I believe they are too scared to do so due to the economic and political fallout.

Actually I think our government doesn't give a fuck if people die. Which is why they've told people to 'expect deaths'

They are not going to close schools because they parents would not be at work. Vulnerable people are collateral damage as far as they're concerned.

Italians greet each other by kisses on both cheeks as standard. This will have helped the disease spread.

Honestly I am constantly reminded of people's lack of ability to understand risks.
80% is worst case scenario. More likely to be 60% of the population. So far of that 60% just over 80% will get it mildly. Mildly ranges from feeling a bit ill to stuck in bed for 2 weeks feeling really ill.
Of those who get it more severely about 15% require hospitalisation. If that is not provided the mortality rate increases - happened in Wuhan. Mortality rate likely to be about 1%. This is 1 out of every 100 people infected. This is far more than the deaths by flu. Those most at risk are people over 60, and with common conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes.
At its peak 1 in 5 people will be off work ill. That is a massive number of people and will itself lead to the collapse of more fragile businesses.
It is not an apocalypse. Some people are over estimating its impact. Life will go on. But the OP is underestimating its impact.

An article on the ITV website said PHE told ITV: “ "The number of flu cases and deaths due to flu-related complications varies each flu season.The average number of deaths in England for the last five seasons, 2014/15 to 2018/19, was 17,000 deaths annually. This ranged from 1,692 deaths last season, 2018/19, to 28,330 deaths in 2014/15."

These numbers show if the authorities put in measures to limit infection of CV, the death rate will probably be a lot less than our annual flu rates. This is gives a good perspective on the situation. However, I trust NHS have procedures that determine CV needs to be placed at incident level 4 and are not being OTT.

I also trust that the death rates for CV will remain v low as long as people trust government advice is not being hysterical and their advice such as hand washing, self isolating if directed should be followed if we want death rates to remain low and the epidemic to end within a few months or fewer.

@apricotnuts That is based on the fact that nearly everyone is exposed to the flu virus. But vaccines are given to vulnerable people. That is why in 2014/5 the death rate was so high from flu, as the vaccine largely did not work. It was a very bad year for flu. But still a lower mortality rate than predicted for this virus.
Also we have no idea if there will be long term effects for those who have more serious cases but recover.

Thanks alloutofnuts for sharing that. I know some years the vaccine efficacy rate is very low. A table I saw showed that death rate associated with flu in 2014-2015 was high at 28,330, 11,875 in 2015/2016, 18,009 in 2016/17, 26,408 in 2017/2018 and only 1692 in 2017/2018.

You are of course right that flu vaccination means rates would be higher without it. The report I got the above figures from said the average efficacy rate for the flu vaccine is around 45%, with one year recently being only 15%, probably 2014/2015.

The mortality rate of for CV of course is higher than flu but I think China’s experience so far has shown that if measures are implemented death rates will probably not be v high. However, I think it is important for people to know government advice must be followed however extreme it may seem and to prepare there could be a lot of disruption. . Of course i have to have faith that our government is doing mostly what is necessary!

It’s late so brain slow, I realise that the breakdown of the annual figures for the death rates for flu over the last five years was already given in the ITV quote above.

Updated mortality rate of 3.4% from WHO.

alloutoffucks sorry to be thick but the figure about 15% of sufferers needing hospitalisation, where does that come from please?

And is it 15% of all sufferers?
Or 15% of those who get it more severely?

This report from china suggests that 20% of those diagnosed needed hospitalisation for several weeks
www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/comments/fbt49e/the_who_sent_25_international_experts_to_china/

It is rather worrying that the uk only has half the number of hospital beds per 1000 population as china and is near the bottom on the oecd list with 2.5 compared to 12 in south korea
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_hospital_beds

@Snowy111
China does not have 143k cases and the number of new cases is dropping. Measures have now been introduced to relax controls and whilst ensuring that numbers fall.

It's infected (rounding up) 0.005% of the population in China. Why are we expecting it to infect 80% in the UK? That's 16000 times more than the infection rate in China.

How many of China's LOCAL population around the affected areas were infected. By all accounts, they contained it by virtually shutting down, so there'd be plenty of areas of China (with millions of population) that were nowhere near the affected area, nor people from that area. A county the size of China cannot be compared with the UK.

The thing with an unknown contagious disease is that strong countermeasures will look OTT until a significant number of people get seriously ill, by which point it's too late. At the moment we simply don't know what would be the most appropriate response because the situation is changing so fast. In a few years' time we (in the UK) are going to look back on this period and say either "Remember when everyone was so panicked about the coronavirus and in the end it was basically just a few thousand people getting a bad cold?", or "If people had taken this more seriously at the start then maybe those half a million people wouldn't have died." And right now we don't know which of those scenarios is going to happen. To assume it'll all sort itself out just because you've never personally experienced a serious epidemic before is as ridiculous (and yes, arrogant) as assuming the worst case scenario is a certainty. And I would rather everyone err on the side of caution than dismiss it all as fearmongering and do nothing, tbh.

In addition, it would be nice if people could stop with this attitude that 'it only seems to be dangerous for elderly and at-risk people, don't know what everyone's so worried about'. By all means be grateful if you and your loved ones aren't in one of those groups, but have a bit of fucking sensitivity towards all the people who are, and have spent the last few months hearing over and over again that it's totally hysterical of society to care about keeping them alive.

China does not have 143k cases and the number of new cases is dropping. Measures have now been introduced to relax controls and whilst ensuring that numbers fall

Given the chinese health system and living conditions among the poor, its inconceivable the official figures are correct.
Bare in mind, 70 to 80% of cases are very mild and no one would bother a GP for, much less in a healthcare system were primary care is poor.
My SIL (chinese) laughs at the officials figures.

Am sure the actual figures are higher as many people will have had it and not realised or not gone for treatment, although given the penalties if it is discovered you were ill with a fever this is a risky strategy.
The govt also closed all private health clinics to force people to go the hospital. My clinic just opened yesterday for the first time in 35 days.
My point is than 143k is not a figure that is being reported by the WHO or the Chinese.

and yes, arrogant

There’s nothing arrogant about keeping calm about the situation and taking sensible precautions while refusing to give into panic and hysteria. I’m heavily pregnant and need to travel on the tube and bus every day. I’m probably at a higher risk of catching it than most on this thread!