Have I totally misunderstood Coronavirus?!!

[Soph7777]

I'm really confused on so many levels. I don't understand why such panic about contracting it IF you have no underlying health conditions or are over 70.

The chance of dying is still much lower than many, many other illnesses.

I obviously get why people shouldn't be going out of their way to get it - to protect the NHS in the main.

But my understanding of this disease after watching hours and hours of documentaries and reading up is that 80 percent of us WILL get it.

Lockdown is to stop it spreading so quickly that NHS can't cope to treat everyone leading to many more deaths than necessary - it's not to stop us getting it (which inevitably most of us will).

Have I totally missed the mark here?

I don't get why so many people I speak to are acting like getting it means you'll die instantly once you contract it. It doesn't.

Does anyone else feel the same?

OK then helgahelga… I'll try again.

'Yes OP, you have misunderstood. Sweetie.'

Better?

I'm just royally sick of the "it's no big deal" brigade.

Panic is also the only thing getting morons to stay the fuck home.

One of worst things I read about it was that if you get it your family cannot come to the hospital with you. If your child gets it you cannot be with them. You must send them off alone with medical staff. In the ambulance, at the hospital, ill and frightened they will be alone without a loved one. HCP are being given devices and trained on how to allow patients to face time their loved ones to say good bye, or even just to be able to see them if they can't speak, as they will not be able to be with them them. I'm crying just writing that.

It’s true is not about getting it, but when. If you get it at the peak, that could be a big problem.

@Bugaboob yes that's the point. People should be worried if anything about WHEN they get it not IF.

OP healthy, young people are now dying from it. There’s every reason to be worried.

Responsible is not going to work and doing a job where when you get injured you require operations which right now the NHS is struggling to provide.

Builders, white van man go home stop hitting your hands, falling off ladders and slicing yourself up. Right now we do not have the resources to deal with your self inflicted injuries and building yet another glass office block is not a key worker job. Go home and stay home,

V tired NHS worker

But everyone is going to get it.
There’s post after post in threads saying - I don’t want to catch it... or - if I catch it.
EVERYONE is getting it. It just might be more staggered this way. I’m following the guidelines but I’m not scared of catching it and I’m in a vulnerable high risk group (death rate 8%). We’ve all got to die of something. And we are all going to catch this. Unless we live the rest of our lives inside our houses.
Everyone seems terrified of catching it but to my mind now, it’s not stoppable. Over the next couple of years we will all get it unless there’s a vaccine.

Say 80% of the UK population get it. And say the %age of those die. That is over 500,000 deaths. Double the UK average number of deaths over a year. And say 4% get seriously ill, that 2m sick people. That's an awful lot of sick and dead. I don't fancy being amongst them. Nor a number of my friends and family who are high risk. And the figures I have given are very conservative.

@blubellsarebells

Im not that worried about getting it, would rather not but as a young person statistically i would probably be ok.
Im worried about crashing my car and not being able to be treated.
Most of the reasons anyone would need critical care will still be around, but if there are no beds, those people might die.
On top of all the people more likely to die from corona than me.

That’s a really really good point!! An alternative perspective and bang on.

I had a hospital appointment today and was told all cancer treatment for patients with less than year to live has been suspended due to the current situation (not what I was being seen for)

So out of respect for those people, we should all be going out of our way NOT to get it.

*Say 1% die

But we’re all getting it. This lockdown won’t stop it, it might slow it, it might help the nhs cope, but we will all get it.
Personally my belief is that without social media we’d all just be getting on with it. I do believe there is a degree it hysteria around it.

that handful of "healthy" people are smokers, or heavy drinkers, or overweight, or only eat McDonald's or had an unknown/undiagnosed health condition

Well that pretty much covers a huge percentage of the population and we wouldn’t normally expect them to die that early.

@stuffedpeppers

Thank you for what you are doing for the country right now.

You are doing an amazing job

Have I totally missed the mark here?

The vast majority of the people who get it won't go to hospital, but a lot of them will feel crap and will struggle to breathe.

Then they will realise that they may have passed it on to people directly and indirectly. One or more of the people they passed it on to directly or indirectly may be permanently injured or die regardless of the state of their health.

More than a third of the population are overweight. I am sure most don't expect to die very son.

You're right to an extent - the majority who get it will suffer no long term ill effects. The problem is there is a subset of the population who get very ill indeed; their immune system goes into overdrive and does so much damage that it overwhelms the body.

We have no way of telling at the moment who is in this subset - we do know that it happens to younger people, and that healthy people can get very ill; they just have a better chance of ultimately surviving than those who are older or who have pre-existing conditions that mean their lungs or other organs can't take the strain. As it stands we don't know who is in this subset until they get ill - some older people will shake it off easily, some 20 year olds will end up in intensive care.

@Stupidanduseless If we all get it the government says a quarter of a million people will die.

@Stupidanduseless you are your namesake. If the NHS is overrun, more people will die than they normally would have.

We may all get it (that’s not definite btw, just opinions/predictions) but we have a better chance of saving lives if we help prevent the fast spread. Now stop being pedantic and offensive to those at risk.

But yes all I'm saying is people should worry less, and understand what the point of lockdown is.

To protect NHS and make sure we catch it slowly, not make sure you don't catch it at all!

But people are trying to not catch it at all AT THE MOMENT! Anyone who catches it while it's at its peak is contributing to the problems the NHS is facing and at much higher risk because of them, so responsible individuals are doing their absolute best to not catch it AT THE MOMENT to protect the NHS.

Although the numbers are low, there are more cases of fit healthy younger people getting it.

I agree with the OP. People will look back on this in years to come and realise that the response to it killed many more people and wrecked many more lives than the disease itself.