Is this the end? :(

[tollyfeeder]

I genuinely can’t help but worry that this is going to be the end of life as we know it.

I’m petrified that we’re heading into the next apocalypse.

I’m picturing food shortages, water shortages, no gas or electricity, crime, pretty much scenes from the walking dead.

I have a 4 week old baby I’m just so heartbroken that this is what her future could be.

I’m on maternity so I have the option to stay at home, but my husband has to go to work.

I’m asthmatic and I’m so worried I’m going to catch this and leave my baby without her mum :( :( :(

No, we are just fortunate enough to have not experienced something like this on this scale for a generation really. Try to frame it that way, that it's only so scary because normally we are extremely fortunate really, it will pass. Some things might change for good, but that doesn't mean that they'll be negative. Take it a day at a time, I wouldn't read a lot about it, just enough to keep on top of advice etc. 4 week old baby is the perfect excuse to stay in and watch Netflix! Supermarkets, utility companies etc spend a lot of time planning for just in case, they want to keep making money and will do whatever they can to do so.

You’ve had such great responses. I’m taking comfort from them myself. I’m very worried too. But yes, a new baby makes you question everything.

But the Cheif Medical Officer said yesterday, if you watched the conference that he was confident that it was a 1 percent death rate overall. Less in younger people, higher in older people. They have enough evidence to say that.

OP, I thought it might help to add to the messages that you may be catastrophising because of your new baby. Congratulations on her! Do you know what my overwhelming anxiety about DD1 was when she was that age? That when out walking round the fields we would get attacked by wolves or other wild animals that aren't known for hanging round Cheshire, and she would be eaten. It haunted me. I partly knew it wouldn't happen, but still, it must be that urge to protect. Hope you van feel better soon.

I feel a bit like this and I don't have a tiny dependent new born. I was a nervous wreck when mine were tiny. I stopped listening to and watching all news. I think it's a natural response.

Just do everything you can to stay safe. I'm sure this will pass, it's just going to take time. Is your mum around or another experienced mother? Talking to them might help.

I think that it is important to remember that the mortality rate being quoted is not a true reflection because many people have had it and have had such mild symptoms or have been asymptomatic that they have not been tested.

The mortality rates are only based on those who have been tested which actually is a very small proportion of those who have had it. Most have not experienced anything more than a mild flu. Important to remember in all the hysteria I think x

My lovely late Mum used to say that you never knew true worry until you had a child OP.

It was only after she died and I had my DS, I understood what she meant.

Feeling like you do is totally normal, if you can keep telling yourself that and acknowledging the anxiety, you can start to work on ways of managing it.

It’s a crisis for sure, but have some perspective. I’ve just looked up the figures (BBC website for reference) and where I live, we have had 4 cases in a population of around 800,000 people. Yes, we need to be vigilant, follow advice about prevention and not take risks. No, we are not heading for a zombie apocalypse.

OP, I can understand your concern but no, it is not the end. There have been far more virulent? (don't know if that is the right word) things and we have survived. SARS was much more of a killer virus and we are still here (apologies to anyone who lost someone due to SARS)

As much as I detest Boris Johnson as a man and a Prime Minister, reading about the model they are using it might just work! Hopefully after this has run it's course the populace will then be voting for a much better funded and ran NHS.

A death rate of 3.5% is most certainly not the end.

Also once all the recovery numbers are in when this is over, the death rate will likely be a lot lower

OP, it’s very scary I totally understand, my children are older and I have an overwhelming worry that I’ll leave them motherless.

I’m still waiting for an explanation of why we have seen fewer than 4,000 deaths in China, the centre of the pandemic, but we are told to prepare for a best case scenario of tens of thousands of deaths. And that’s having had three months to get our shit together, which has basically amounted to “let’s wash hands”.
All I’ve heard is:
“well, it might come back there”
Yes, and it might not, or it might be held back to manageable numbers until such time as there is a cure/vaccine). Plenty of countries are enjoying some success with containment. Many more are now attempting it.

“we do things differently here”.
Well, yes, clearly. And obviously a lot worse and with a callous disregard for human life.

@MrsExpo
You had government officials and medical officers yesterday literally telling you to disregard the official figures. They are useless. Or times them by ten if you feel the need for a number.

*SARS was much more of a killer virus"
Simply not true. Yes it had a higher CFR but SARS infected only 8098 people worldwide in total during its 2003-04 outbreak, with 798 deaths. SARS-CoV2 has infected 135,000 with 500 deaths in just a couple of months, is still rising exponentially and has really only just begun.

A death rate of 3.5% is most certainly not the end.
It would literally be the end for 1.8 million people in this country, assuming the CMO's forecast of 80% of the population contracting the infection is true. And would feel like the end for those people's partners, children, parents.

I’m still waiting for an explanation of why we have seen fewer than 4,000 deaths in China, the centre of the pandemic, but we are told to prepare for a best case scenario of tens of thousands of deaths.
Because China actually took early and aggressive action to contain the virus, whereas our government says our population simply can't be trusted to do that as we would get bored 🤔

No, it's not. It's not SARs and even if it were, that went away. Lots of people are going to get it, most of them wouldn't even have noticed if not on alert to look out for it. Unfortunately a small number of people will die, on average 1%. That % varies depending on how good your health service and reaction to the crisis is.

This is a good read for anyone who’s feeling anxious.

www.annamathur.com/dealing-with-coronavirus-anxiety/

@Hyrana
You mean let 50% of the population catch it and then celebrate “only” 100,000 horrible deaths as some kind of success? That is their model and strategy. I somewhat prefer the Chinese/Singaporean/Korean/ Irish/German etc strategy of containment I must say. I look at China’s government and leadership and look at ours and I hang my head in shame.

@Frangipanini
Not only 1% will die but 10% will become horribly sick. This isn’t a couple of days in bed drinking Lemsip we’re talking about. People have likened it to a feeling of drowning. The UK government is a fucking joke.

mintjulia I work in financial services and the money markets having "a fit of the vapours" really made me snort. So accurate!

Hope you feel better soon OP, there's some really good sound advice here.

I look at China’s government and leadership and look at ours and I hang my head in shame.

Are you serious?!

Cam77 do you really think your posts are helping the OP?

Im just struggling so much to see an alternate outcome to the one I’m currently imagining

Why, given that for every similar event over the last couple of centuries there has been an alternate outcome?

@LambriniSocialist
Absolutely. They took firm action to protect the elderly and vulnerable from horrible deaths. Such deaths have thus been been limited to a tiny fraction of their population. Just 3,000 deaths and the infection rate has dropped massively. People there have absolute faith in what the government has done. We had THREE MONTHS to put plans in place and yet here we are shrugging our shoulders and accepting potentially hundreds of thousands of deaths as an acceptable outcome. Fuck them.

It is scary OP but you need to get things in perspective.

-The death rate being reported of a few percent only looks at diagnosed cases: mainly people ill enough to make it to the doctor or hospital. In most people it just manifests as a nasty seasonal bug. The UK experts are saying a death rate of 0.9%, but that is probably conservative and the data coming out of Korea makes it look like 0.5%

-I'm sure you already realise this but is causing the worst problems in people with pre-existing health conditions and the very elderly (over 80). That's not to say that each death is not a tragedy but the reality is that many of those people will have been in the latter years of their life anyway, and already vulnerable to all kinds of infections and illnesses. it's a marked contrast with the Spanish Flu which often killed young and fit people

-Even if a quarter of the world's population (c 2 billion people) are ultimately infected, that will only kill 0.1% of everyone on the planet or a bit more. If you do the sums that sounds a terrifyingly high number. But bear in mind that around 1% of people will die in a given year anyway (given global life expectancy is somewhere in the 70s). The net effect (and it feels callous to say this, but it seem to me to be accurate) is that you'll probably see a couple of minor 'bulge' years amongst the cohort of people who you'd otherwise expect to die within a given year.

It is scary - I'm scared enough to have gone through the above thought process - but we're a million miles from an apocalypse scenario. Another concern will be what it'll do for the economy, jobs, pensions, but that's a different category of harm, and few people die from receiving a smaller lump sum.

@Loppy10
I’m still waiting for an explanation of why we have seen fewer than 4,000 deaths in China, the centre of the pandemic, but we are told to prepare for a best case scenario of tens of thousands of deaths.
Because China actually took early and aggressive action to contain the virus, whereas our government says our population simply can't be trusted to do that as we would get bored 🤔
Pretty much. It’s treasonous is what it is. Well done to Jeremy Hunt yesterday for effectively saying so.