I disagree, not everyone ‘doesn’t care’. Re the scenario you mention, I would give the hand sanitiser to the elderly lady, based on current guidance she is more at risk than me.

No I disagree. Human nature isn’t to be selfish at all. For all the evil gits buying up santitiser to sell for £70 a bottle on ebay, there are countless people making the effort to support their elderly and unwell neighbours to self-isolate by buying groceries / offering to give laptops and ipads etc. I know paramedics and nurses who are basically opening up their homes in case their neighbours have questions or need advice about CV.

There's a difference between making sure you have what you need to survive and buying enough toilet roll to make a fort with.

Being on a low income, I'm pretty much stuck living hand to mouth, so I do hope people are at least asking themselves if they really need a third pack of bog roll.

I would absolutely give the hand sanitiser to an old lady if there was one left and it was clearly a choice between myself and her.

If I walked into a shop needing toilet roll (as in I had absolutely none) I would pick up the last one and buy it no problem if it wasn't obvious that there was another person there who needed it more than me.

There's buying things because you actually need it (scenario 2) and there's being a dick, like the story of the man with loads of packets of pasta who refused to give an old lady one of them.

Be completely honest If there was only one hand sanitiser left and it was you and a little old lady what would you do?

Really?

I'd let the little old lady (how patronising) have it.

Genuinely and honestly I would.

But I just wish everyone would stop this if we all work together bullshit, as literally no one cares and naturally the most important person to most people is themselves.

Speak for yourself. That's how you feel

People are cunts but if you are asking what I’d do in that specific scenario, I’d let Ethel have it because without it she probably won’t survive the coming weeks. Me? I’ll just get the sniffles.

People on MN are so full of shit

I agree with you OP and I'd take the hand sanitiser for myself

The pearl clutchers would obviously also disagree with medical decisions of treating younger fitter adults rather than a frail old lady on ITU because they have a better chance of survival and more life years ahead

Also because people are so stupid they think it makes a difference.

Hand sanitizer has been sold out for weeks and it's still bloody spreading!!!

No no if it was a choice to save my father or a young adult .... I know what he he’d choose and so would i

I'd genuinely let the older lady have the hand sanitiser, if it was the last bag of food however and it was a choice between her or food for my family then I'd take the food.

Be completely honest If there was only one hand sanitiser left and it was you and a little old lady what would you do?

Probably the same thing I did when I reached for the last pack of tinned tomatoes at the same time as a woman with a toddler, which was step back and let her have it.

Just like I’ve given loo rolls to my neighbour who couldn’t get any, made substantial donations to food banks, and bought gift vouchers from three small local businesses to do my part in tiding they over.

In other words, the same actions that thousands of people across the U.K. have been doing (did you read about those corner shop owners who gave away £2,000 worth of cleaning supplies and hand sanitizer to old people who couldn’t afford them, and the Facebook groups and neighbourhood WhatsApps popping up everywhere so neighbours can help each other with shopping and childcare?).

Most people aren’t selfish. Most people want very much to help each other.

I like to think that I would buy the gel and then decant some of it into my almost empty small bottle so we both have about half each.

However, I panic bought several bottles of calpol and baby nurofen which I feel bad about but also can’t help but feel relieved as well now my toddler is teething and has a temperature and needs it.

I do care about other people, just not as much as I care about her.

At the moment it's new, there's little practical guidance on what is coming or what to do, and people are frightened. The poster yesterday who described a woman standing in a supermarket bellowing to get out of her way she didn't care any more was pretty much actually yelling I'm scared and I've lost it.

Brains are designed when frightened to operate from the lower part where me/mine/primal needs come over the wellbeing of others. It's not nice but it's survival instinct. Some will find it easier to stay in the front brain where compassion, social community relationships and social justice matters than others will, depending on individual circumstance. It's going to take better advice, information and leadership, time to get more accustomed to the massive change suddenly dropped on a society used to being very safe, and a lot of modelling from those who can to get things calmed down a bit.

@MozzchopsThirty - when all NHS services are truly rationed due to this outbreak that ‘frail old lady’ could be a 35 year old woman with stage 3 cancer who may due to the risk of her cancer returning (or perhaps she has diabetes which may make the cancer return, or she is obese) be forced to give up her bed for a 40 yo woman with stage 2 cancer or CV.

We are on the cusp of seeing some truly terrible decisions made. In the event of a mass CV outbreak in maternity units would all babies get treated with limited resources do you think or just the ones who weren’t premature? I don’t understand how you can call anyone pearl clutchers - this is not about the old vs young it’s going to pit everyone against each other.

At a macro level then I think you are right - survival of the fittest depends on some form of inherent self interest, we are just animals. However on a micro level i think more people care about others and that's due to socialisation, just as in other parts if the animal kingdom. But add to that territorialism and fear, and you get people reducing their circle of people they care for in order to protect them. For some people their tolerance level is very small and that is why you see the people emptying the shelves of 10 packs of loo roll at a time, but everyone is different.

I think selfishness is a common human failing but there are also many common human strengths and humans are capable of being very selfless. We should focus on those who are acting selflessly (if maybe being quieter about it) and give less head space and media attention to those who are being selfish.

@grumpy those decisions are already made every day in every critical care unit in the UK

I think naturally as a species we are selfish, I know I am and I make no apologies for thar
I'm not saying I would ever deliberately harm anyone but if it's me and my family or someone else then me & my dcs will win every time

You and your dcs won't win if you're the type that think a bottle of hand sanitizer makes a blind bit of difference

But I just wish everyone would stop this if we all work together bullshit, as literally no one cares and naturally the most important person to most people is themselves.

Agreed. The only people I really care about is my family and I make no apology for it either, it's called honesty.

@MyuMe you're missing the point

those decisions are already made every day in every critical care unit in the UK

No they aren’t. We current treat stage 3 cancers and don’t look at co-morbidities such as diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity as blockers to treatment. However if we have a shortage of beds these things will start being used as filters. We currently treat patients with stage 4 cancers or end stage kidney disease and these people can often live for years, we deliver babies at 24 weeks and work our hardest to keep them alive and healthy - in the event of a bed shortage perhaps life prolonging treatments will be the first ones rationed.

What delights op and mozzchops are.
I now think a population cull wouldn't be that deleterious

What an unbelievably shitty thing to write! You don't agree with someone on the fucking internet so you actually think massive deaths from this disease is not too bad a thing?! WTAF. Writing such a thing is far worse than anything the OP and mozz wrote.

Selfishness breeds selfishness. I wasn't going to get extra shopping but now that some people have caused shortages I will make sure we have what we need. In honesty I would prioritise my family if they were at risk but if someone had a greater need of something than me I would let them take it. People can be selfish but people can also be altruistic

Another one who thinks MN is full of shit. We're all selfish