To ask where the "it's just flu" people have gone?

[ofwarren]

When people started discussing the virus on here a few weeks back, they would get ridiculed or told they were scaremongering as it was "just flu".
Those people seem very quiet lately.
Are there many still around with that opinion?

I see you've not been on MN for very long Shat.
Maybe if you had been around for longer you'd have seen more of the abuse meted out.

I don't think it is 'just like flu' because it is a different type of virus, is killing more people than a flu epidemic (but not the 1918+ pandemic), the symptoms are different and flu hits the typical surviving sufferer much more heavily.

Saying 'its just like flu' now, rather than a few weeks ago, is ignoring the fact that modern interconnected market economies have almost ground to a halt.

My concern is that a continuing denial mindset will put people at risk. I'm not overly fussed by the deniers putting themselves at risk per se, it's the innocents they infect who don't deserve to suffer and perhaps die I care about more.

Milk2sugars and vegas: absolutely.
It is not that it is 'just flu', which is clearly factually incorrect. It is that flu is an illness which every year is the 'final of many' cause of the death of many old and vulnerable people. In any given month there are an average of 45,000 deaths in the UK from all causes. In a particularly bad flu season, the numbers will be higher. Most of those deaths are old people, just as they will be with covid19. For the families and friends of each person who dies that will be their own personal tragedy (or for some a blessed relief from the awfulness of dementia and other degenerative diseases) but at a population level the reaction to Covid19 has been very different from the reaction to flu and even more different from the reaction to things like the obesity crisis and air pollution which are crucial factors in the deaths of millions. It is therefore perfectly valid either to question it, or at the very least, to be sanguine and calmly, without hysteria, follow guidelines.

Bottom line is that apparently 80% of those who get it will have mild symptoms
Meanwhile we all stay home and let people lose their jobs, theirs homes, children not being educated, businesses going bust.

I’d rather take my chances with coronavirus than live like this.

I think part of it is that the media has a habit of crying wolf. Disaster was promised in the form of the millennium bug, swine flu, foot and mouth, to name but a few

The thing about the millennium bug is that millions were spent on it, and many, many people worked hard to successfully fix it, so now it’s perceived as a scare story. I can see how the other situations may be similarly misunderstood.

A PP mentioned people reassuring themselves, I agree. The two notably irritating “it’s just the flu” people of my acquaintance are extremely anxious, panicky people. Concern isn’t panic, however, pretending something scary isn’t happening is a bit panicky, in my book. Tbh, annoying as they were, I felt sorry for them.

I thought the suspected number of cases is about ten times the confirmed number, so if that’s the case then the percentage of people who die from it is potentially much much lower

I thought this was an excellent illustration of the data we have so far and why social distancing for a short time is the best weapon we have at present, because it buys us time:

medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56

Pointing out the relatively good outcomes of covid19 (which I'm sure has been re-branded as 'it's just the flu' by the OP) rests comfortably with the actuality of the chaos that is currently unfolding around us.

Some people have gotten so hysterical that you would think it's more like ebola.

Even for those at risk, the outcomes are far less than dire - we could consider an 85% recovery rate for cancer, for example, quite good, which is about the lowest covid19 recovery rate for any group.

I think the point on that some people are making, is that in the face of mounting evidence from China and Italy, a small proportion of posters were being rude and sneering towards those who were concerned and had started to prep.
If there is a point to this thread, perhaps it's that those people will be less dismissive and confrontational in future. This is supposed to be an online community.

@TheCanterburyWhales did you really advance search me? that’s weird. Well, you must’ve done it wrong.

Well to be fair a,few weeks ago I don't think most people had grasped the severity of the situation ,on one thread I one Op was ridiculed for not wanting her child to go to Manchester because of China town ,I don't think Britain had had a confirmed case then and now look at us ???

If there is a point to this thread, perhaps it's that those people will be less dismissive and confrontational in future. This is supposed to be an online community.

But it is quite right to point out that many novel viruses have been successfully contained, which undermines the OP's argument.

Anyone who's a news junkie and pessimist probably had a strong sense that this was going sideways in January (me!) - BBC worldservice has been covering this intensively since just after the new year. But if it had been successfully contained, like SARS and MERS and swine flu and bird flu, I would have been wrong. See?

I think my MIL is still in denial, but that's because she's terrified. Its easier to believe its exaggerated than admit she might be at genuine risk. She lost her husband to cancer just before Christmas, she's alone for the first time ever, and she can only cope with so much.

We have to be kind, we don't know what's going through someone's head & it might be that denial is the only way they are getting through this without completely falling apart.

If it was as highly contagious as they are claiming then all supermarket workers would be dropping like flies as they are handling money and have customers breathing over them all day long.

I wonder the same. Considering how ridiculed we were for taking things seriously.

Frustrating as they're probably the ones who spread it enough to kill over 100 people and are probably panic buying all the supplies now. Just got to hold your head high!

Also anyone who reads anything properly would have been aware that this started getting serious months ago.

@ofwarren all the "it's just the flu" people are probably the ones who are queuing up at Tesco etc at 5:30am with their huge trollies and each member of their families are shopping separately to ensure they can still stockpile now that they've changed their tune from "it's just the flu"!!

To be fair, this was quite close to the government's approach, so I am not very surprised if many people thought that way to begin with.

I have not at any point thought 'it's just flu', fwiw.

Bottom line is that apparently 80% of those who get it will have mild symptoms
Meanwhile we all stay home and let people lose their jobs, theirs homes, children not being educated, businesses going bust.
I’d rather take my chances with coronavirus than live like this

I agree and the fact we dont have accurate transmission figures means that the death rate will be very much lower than it is estimated to be now.

To be fair OP, NOONE could have predicted this. We had SARS and swine flu and they didnt result in these consequences did they?

This is shite . I knew all this was a real possibility ( not a certainty) in early Feb because I read the a science and listened to the experts . Swine flu and SARS had the same potential but factors to do with how lethal and how infections they were became clear quite early on which made the risks lower. Covid 19 looked early on to be a perfect storm for a potentially devastating pandemic

Humans prefer to ignore non immediate threats though. They are incredibly bad at judging long term risk and applying the appropriate measures to mitigate those risks early enough. It is because they value their freedom and independence so much and because most of us have trouble deferring gratification and working together

If the world had acted decisively and TOGETHER at a very easy stage, we might have had a chance to eradicate this illness in a very short time but that is not realistic as humans don't work like that ( at the moment anyway)

It is emphatically not true to say this could.not have been predicted though. It was predicted repeatedly and consistently by many knowledgeable people. We were just to busy ' living our lives' to listen or to be wiling to act.

In my house it's "just " a new cold virus.

However that's because I have a ds with asd who is prone to extreme anxiety. We have explained that it is no more dangerous than seasonal flu which kills 8000 people in the UK every year and that is with a vaccine! (Yes I know massive understatement) and the problem with this "cold" is that it's new so no one has any immunity to it and there is no vaccine for it yet, as such everyone will get it, though most will be fine it's just the people who would normally have a flu vaccine who are at risk and that just like we give him and all other children a flu vaccine due to being Super Spreaders we have closed schools ect to help protect these people until a vaccine can be made. Also that all the news is just the media scaring people into panic buying.

If you have made it through that mental gymnastics will understand why ds is absolutely fine about it. I however have been slowly getting more and more terrified since this first started in China and slowly preparing for a complete lock down by adding a little bit extra to each normal shop to increase my normal stash (am a general preper) and for the last 2 weeks I have only been replacing anything we have used.

I can tell you that all the people who were ridiculing me before are now running round panicking and emptying the shops of everything, which believe it or not is actually helping to convince ds that what we've told him is correct, and making me very grateful that my paranoid mantra of prepare for the worst and hope for the best is finally paying off (and whilst this may come across as gloating really I'm not).

@bumblingbovine49- yes, early feb, which is last month. A month.

You cant expect every single lay person to know all the facts about this virus in the space of one month. We do now of course because its affected us. Sorry I was "too busy living my life" working flat out in social care looking after the elderly and the vulnerable to be researching viruses. Clearly you are a better person that me- congrats!

I wonder how high the suicide rates will be now v coronavirus death rates when people can’t cope any more after losing their jobs, their houses, any social interaction etc

What a horrible and goady thread. Why not ask it on the Coronavirus board? Not enough audience for you?

For some people, catching the virus will mean a mild illness, for some it will be more serious and may lead to death. That's from the BBC News site.

I hope you don't get what you came for OP and I'm glad that many posters have seen through your wide-eyed 'question'.

I wonder how high the suicide rates will be now v coronavirus death rates when people can’t cope any more after losing their jobs, their houses, any social interaction etc

I'm wondering this too.