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?

@Walkaround

Yes that is one purpose of ventilation. Another is in a patient who is working hard to breath, if the ventilator does that work for them it gives the body time to fight the virus as more of its energy can be redirected there. Or in the case of surgery to start to recover.
It also gives people a chance to rest which they need to be well enough to keep fighting.

So it's three fold.

Patients who need ventilation because of irreversible lung damage not the virus itself will not be prioritised because they can't be vented indefinitely and ultimately if their lungs are too damaged they will never be able to come OFF the ventilator and a decision would have to be made in due course to turn the machine off. With a virus the ventilator is used to give the patient time to fight it. It also helps them in the mean time, but that is not the primary purpose in covid 19

Thank you, AnotherMurkyDay.

The death rate in healthy young people is a very small percentage but when dealing with a virus that so many will get it's still a huge number. I work in healthcare, dealing with complaints and complications and i can't tell you how many times someone has said 'the risk of this was one in a thousand, so it shouldn't have happened to me." We see 30,000 people a month so from my perspective it happens a lot and there is nothing out of the ordinary about the people it happens to. None of them would have expected it. If you're fit and healthy it's unlikely to be you, but it could be and it will be someone.

There are no clearly effective antiviral drugs yet for this virus. There are repurposed drugs for other conditions (like chloroquine, which has already poisoned someone in the US) which may be of some benefit, but we are still waiting on the results of trials.

Hopsalong

Well the chloroquine issue was where someone jumped the gun and got the doseage wrong it is a potent drug that has to be given correcty!.

There is a small study been done in France thats very intresting this is the dual drug trial now been done in other countries and by the WHO IIRC.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32074550

Its using Hydroxychloroquine AND azithromycin

Because no-one knows how it will affect them, or their loved ones. Statistically some may be less likely to get very ill than others, but that doesn't negate the fact that some people not identified as particularly vulnerable have died. That's why people are scared of catching it, the uncertainty of how it might affect them or their loved ones. Honestly, if you can't understand that, you need to work on your empathy.

This. Some people are more scared of dying than others OP. Not everyone has a "well if I die I die, no point worrying about it" attitude. I am absolutely terrified of dying and though I am young and have no underlying health conditions (just lifestyle factors that make me not as fit and healthy as I could/should be), these are not odds I have ever faced before. It surely does not take that much empathy to understand that some people are scared of dying, and scared of their loved ones dying?

I understand where op is coming from. This could be alot, lot more horrific but it isn't. It could have a 50 percent death rate and kill lots of children, but it doesn't.
I am not minimising this at all just making the point it could be alot worse but its not.
Hope that makes sense.

I just want someone to watch this and tell me what they think. It is called 'UK Column News -25th March'.

OP is clearly not denying the need to lockdown to protect the NHS and the strain on nhs.

Totally agree with Op that some people are being needlessly alarmist and anxious

It surely does not take that much empathy to understand that some people are scared of dying, and scared of their loved ones dying?

Yes I totally understand why dying is worrying. But the stats say you probably won't die! That's my point. And that's including elderly, where the stats say you have a 15 percent chance of dying. Still pretty good odds of not dying.

(And more to the point we are ALL going to die at some point but that's another topic)

Unless the NHS get too crowded.

So why the panic to this extent? I saw a woman going round the supermarket in a zorb ball on the internet I mean, WTAF

The effort should be, once again put on protecting the NHS and in turn you will get a ventilator if you need one and therefore have a higher chance of survival.

Instead of people purely thinking about themselves and their odds of dying from Corona (which overall are 5percent)

5% is 1 in 20, which does not feel like reassuringly small odds. Obviously the most productive thing would be to stay totally calm and practical, but if you were in a room with 19 other people and knew one of you would die, you would be scared. It's doesn't seem unnatural to me at all.

It's not 5% so relax, unless you are 80+ when it is 15%, but you've only got a few years left on average anyway (unless you live in parts of the north when you'd have been dead for ages already)
It's about 0.5% for people in their 40s, (unless you are a medic )

If you are female then relax even more. 70% of deaths are men.

I'm scared of getting ill right now because I'm a single parent with two children to look after.

I'm not scared of dying at all. I'm scared of getting it any way worse than very mildly. It it hits me like a 'normal' flu and leaves me bed bound for a few days, who will take care of my children? Everyone is in lockdown. My children will have been exposed, so who is going to risk it? Even their fathers won't come near them at the moment.

That's what I'm afraid of. I think most healthy people with no risk factors I have spoken to aren't scared of dying. I think people understand that it's usually 'mild', but think it's more about worry for other people or their own situations a particularly when others are relying on them.

Mortality rates UK
According to the death statistics, the most common death cause in the UK is various forms of cancer, as over 1 in 4 (28%) dies from this. Second most common reason is heart disease, as 27% dies from different kinds of cancer every year.
1 in 20 (4.95%) die from the coronavirus covid-19, making it the fifth most common cause of death in the UK.

That was copied and pasted btw. So you are more likely to die from four other illnesses than you are from COVID

That makes complete sense. I spoke with a good friend a few weeks ago and we discussed this at length (well, it was if we died actually) so that we know our kids will be well looked after with each other. There is only so much you can do. I updated my will and insurance policies, got finances in order etc. But there's no replacing their mum in that sense.

I don’t think those causes of death are comparable. If we all catch Coronavirus over the next year or so, and one in twenty people die (which seems an extremely high death rate, I thought it was lower) then that would be terrifying.

One in four people are not going to die of cancer in the next year or so.

@Blubelle7

Healthy 21 year old no underlying health issues.

That's why

Yet Prince Charles in his 70s has a "mild case"

There is no telling how severe your symptoms will be so why play Russian roulette and the bravado about it being a mild illness.

Yes until at 30 you die because you do not have access to a ventilator.

That’s not going to happen. The cast majority of 30 year olds won’t need ventilation at all. The ones that do will be given it. Even if that mean taking it away from a 65 year old that’s doing ok..... the 30 would always get priority!!

It takes an awful awful lot to make Drs and nurses worry. They deal with death every single day. Yet all the Drs and nurses I know describe this illness as "fucking terrifying". As an ex nurse myself I dont scare easily. I too think this is fucking terrifying.

If you aren't scared, or you think it should have been left to ride it's course through the population, then I doubt you work in health care. And if you don't then, quite frankly, your opinion on what the country should do in the event of a pandemic is irrelevant.

Reading some of these threads is like listening to people in a pub all saying where their team's manager got things wrong, having never played professional football in their lives. Except, in this case, that football contains death and long lasting lung damage. It's painful to read, quite frankly.

People with underlying health conditions are also often the Drs and nurses keeping people alive. They are single parents. Teachers. They are people who are massively important to the lives of others. The ease with which they are almost written off as collateral damage by those worried about the economy is chilling.

People being scared will prompt the right behaviour. Minimising and "getting things in proportion" won't. As evidenced by all the dumb fucks in the pub last Friday.

Unless of course they had known health problems then it may be a toss up between the 65 year old but other than that, no way would they let a 30 year old die without ventilation- they’d take someone else off

no way would they let a 30 year old die without ventilation- they’d take someone else off

Oh well isn't that a relief! And if the 65 year old was an A&E consultant, that doesn't matter does it?

Did you read the threads on here a few short weeks ago? Full of doctors and nurses minimising it. It really took a long time for that penny to drop. I was really disillusioned by how slow so many were to realise. Yes it is terrifying but it's here now. Shame we didn't use our two month advance notice to better effect and there were a lot of medical staff included in that minimising. The number of times I heard in rl as well about x who is a nurse and says its just flu.

@Sirching

You’re point is irrelevant.

A) They won’t have a mark list if ‘worth to society’.

B) It’s a hypothetical situation illustrating what would happen if needs must. Chances of it being a real situation are rather slim 🙄 If it was real then they’d take someone else off that was older? Does that suit your point?

Isn’t it illegal in the U.K. to use age as a criterion for treatment?