I'm 32 and not ready to die - anyone else care to demonstrate it's not just older people this will hit hardest?

[Helenshielding]

I keep seeing posts by people saying they dont think we should be on lockdown to protect older people who will "die next year anyway" or similar.

Here's the thing, over 70s are not "old" these days. People can live well into their 80s, 90s and 100s now.

I'm 32, I've survived cancer (which is now clear- it is not a case of it being controlled, it's been gone for 10 years), I happen to have some lung damage. I dont know what my life expectancy is, but I know it's not 33.

So if you're moaning about socially distancing etc for older adults, stop. You're doing it to prevent deaths of all ages. Younger people with no underlying conditions are dying of this virus.

Stay home. Shut up. Stop moaning. We will all get through this a hell of a lot quicker.

[Zilla1]

I expect there will be a lot of economic analysis of the differences within devolved nations like the US and between nations (Sweden) to illustrate what approach was best, much like there were case studies post-2008 about how best to handle the bank/credit crisis. I've seen a lot of assertion that the lockdown shouldn't have happened. My initial feeling was that the economic effects of no lockdown would be significant and may be worse, though I'd no evidence. This was the first piece I've found looking at the economic effects of handling any pandemic. As you say, the world has changed and COVID is different to 'flu.

[larrygrylls]

Zilla,

In some ways the ideal would be a hard lockdown like China’s. The problem is we would have to do it globally and synchronise it.

Otherwise we would have to seal borders long term.

The World was very different in 1918. Planes just were not an issue and travel, in general, was so much less.

So, if we could roll the clock back 100 years or so, that makes a lot of sense. I really hope that we can all get this under control simultaneously but, if not, as soon as a lockdown ends, case numbers will start increasing again.

[Zilla1]

To me, the alternatives have costs and benefits. Circumstances are different between 1918 pandemic 'flu and now and this looked at USA. I'm sure lots of holes can be picked in the following. But for those who are convinced that lockdown shouldn't have happened, children's futures 'are being stolen', only the economics are important and the economics of lockdown are worse than not locking down, I found the following extract was an interesting read to me. It's in a popular magazine discussing a research paper. The magazine link is - www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/new-laws-pandemic-economics/609265/

Rule 1: “Save the economy or save lives” is a false choice.
Last week, a group of economists from the Federal Reserve and MIT published a paper on the 20th century’s most murderous flu, the 1918 outbreak. Because the federal government in 1918 offered little if any economic assistance to suffering Americans, the local response from city leaders varied widely. Some places, such as New York and St. Louis, quickly ordered social distancing and other interventions, while others, such as New Haven and Buffalo, allowed public gatherings even weeks after the flu reached crisis levels. This variance gave researchers the ability to see which cities recovered the fastest after the outbreak.

“We were expecting that the areas with more [social distancing] would have a worse economy but less mortality,” said Emil Verner, a co-author of the paper and a finance professor at MIT. But early and aggressive interventions both saved lives and triggered a faster rebound in several measures, such as job growth and banking assets.

Annie Lowrey: We need to start tossing money out of helicopters

The infamous trade-off between people and GDP? It doesn’t exist—or, at least, it didn’t in 1918. The reason, Verner told me, is that pandemics are “so, so disruptive that anything that you can do to mitigate that destructive impact of the pandemic itself is going to be useful.” Without a healthy population, there can be no healthy economy.

This simple idea has some weird implications. “In a normal recession, you want to boost demand,” said the Northwestern economist Martin Eichenbaum. “But we don’t really want to boost demand in the very short run at all, right now. We don’t want United to be flying full planes. We don’t want restaurants serving food to dine-in customers. We want everybody to stay in and hold on.”

It follows that we should—as incomprehensible as this may sound—hope for a deep, short recession, caused by a cliff dive in many forms of economic activity. That would be a clear signal that people have gone home and that the face-to-face economy has been shut down to limit the spread of disease.

“The question I would ask of our leaders is: What will you regret?” Eichenbaum said. “Will the government regret that it didn’t save money in early 2020? Or will it regret that we let a viral infection kill millions of people, which also, by the way, led to the death of a lot of great companies? It’s pretty obvious what the worst-case scenario is. You want to err on the side of saving lives.”

[Fairybatman]

The data that I quoted is from a CDC press release on 16th March covering the demographic of confirmed cases in the US. I cited it a couple of pages back.

[Bizawit]

@Fairybatman, yes I do. I understand everything you are saying and we all know very well the theory behind why we are doing this. You don’t need to patronise others.

It is true that younger people are more likely to get seriously ill than to die, but older people are more at risk of both. You quote some statistics but don’t say where they come from and they are lacking in some context and detail. The UK’s data is hard to find right now but here is some data from Ireland. The samples are small and there are limitations to the data but I think it is interesting nonetheless.

Anyways, Yes I understand that we are trying to flatten the curve to avoid the nhs becoming overwhelmed, because if the nhs becomes overwhelmed more people will die. Some of those people will be younger adults, the overwhelming majority will be older people.

Meanwhile lockdown has its own devastating consequences and there are serious questions as to whether it is effective, realistic and sustainable.

[larrygrylls]

Fairy,

Where is that data from? I struggle to find any from the U.K. In Italy, however, I found the following concerning deaths:

www.statista.com/statistics/1105061/coronavirus-deaths-by-region-in-italy/

So:

About 50% of deaths are in 80+
About 30% in 70-80
About 12% 60-70
About 4% 50-60
And the remaining 4% or so in people below 50

And those will be skewed as loads of young people will get it and never be tested.

Your numbers only relate to those tested.

[Gin96]

Whatever the numbers are, at some point we will have to get back to normal, I don’t think we can wait 18 months until there is a vaccine.

[Fairybatman]

@Bizawit do you though? It’s undoubtedly true that most people dying are older. That isn’t true of people getting seriously ill though.

Overall, 69% of cases, 55% of hospitalisations, 47% of ICU admissions, and 20% of deaths associated with COVID-19 were among adults aged under 65.

If all those people require hospital admission and ICU support simultaneously then it won’t be available and the proportion of deaths attributable to under 65’s will begin to climb.

Flattening the curve isn’t about protecting the elderly and vulnerable, that’s what shielding is for. Flattening the curve is about making sure that the healthy under 65’s requiring hospital or ICU treatment can get it.

[Bizawit]

@TheHonestTruth100 we all know why we are in lockdown- it has been very widely publicised and discussed. The facts remain, if you look at the statistics, that the overwhelming majority of people dying are older people. In Italy the average age of death is 78. Yes there will be other deaths as a consequence of this crisis and some younger people will die, but most people will be older and with significant health conditions. This is not to say that these people are expendable, or their lives are not important - it’s just a statement of the facts.

[TheHonestTruth100]

Well we're not just on lockdown to protect older people, we're on lockdown to prevent unnecessary deaths of many due to the collapse of the NHS. Main point of the lockdown is to stop the health service being overwhelmed and therefore people dying that shouldn't have due to not being able to receive the hospital care they need.

I think anyone walking round here assuming they're invincible and this can't affect them badly need to give their head the biggest shake they can.

[Bizawit]

@OrganTransplant123 they are not two handpicked quotes from a newspaper. Go listen to the full interview with Lord Sumption on world at 1 from the 30th March. These are two of our country’s most eminent jurists. Are they also being “deliberately obtuse” and just trying to goad mumsnet posters into telling them to fuck off? Or is it ok to have a different view.m? We are facing a global crisis. I’m so grateful that there are some critical and challenging voices out there refusing to accept as gospel that there is only one (devastatingly damaging) way of handling this.

[larrygrylls]

Organ,

Not sure what you want from yours. The norm is, if you feel a poster is not adding to your knowledge or making worthwhile points, to ignore them.

And Lord Mervyn King was a member of the policy setting group of the Bank Of England, as well as having a number or senior academic positions over his career. He is not some randomer.

Clearly, with your membership of a prestigious university holding a PhD, you are a bit too clever to be on this forum. Surely there is a uni group with whom you can exchange your far more erudite and educated opinions.

[OrganTransplant123]

larrygrylls I’m not sure what you want from your posts. Are we all meant to bow down to your superior knowledge and admit that all us immunosuppressed people should happily perish to save the economy? Do you want to upset people? Make them angry? Be told to fuck off?

Thank you but, a member of a prestigious university and holding a PhD, I’ll use peer reviewed academic sources to review evidence and not a couple of hand picked quotes from a newspaper.

[cantata]

Falacy, I have fallen through the cracks, too. I have tended to think I'm the only one, but I've now read several posts on here from people in a similar situation. I'm sorry you are one of them.

Lords K and S speak good sense.

[larrygrylls]

Madhair,

'Flattening the curve' has a great ring to it, doesn't it? A bit like Boris Johnson's election slogan, a few neat words. How long can we 'flatten the curve' for? How many lives will it cost later down the line when there is very little tax to fund the NHS. Have you even thought about this?

As I said (many times) above, we cannot let everyone out right now. We do need to beef up the NHS first and see if there are any treatment protocols that can make a difference.

However, at some point, we will need to take some pain. That will mean some people (maybe I will be one of them) who will need a ventilator will not get one. C'est la vie. You can call me cold hearted. I could, in return, call many on this thread cowardly.

I would suggest some historical perspective here. We lived for most of human history with epidemics that were potentially fatal, some far more infectious and lethal than Covid. What did we do? We made the most of our lives and some people died early. With the exception of the major epidemics (bubonic plague and smallpox) humanity did not really notice the many illnesses that carried off a small percentage of the population every year. No one was called selfish for wanting to have a romance, get married, make money for their family..

It is very easy to look out of your own microcosm to call others selfish. Historically, for most of humanity, your position would have been considered absurd.

[Helenshielding]

I'm out. I'll just live my last few days in isolated peace then.

[Madhairday]

I don't know how many times this needs to be said, Larry. You're being deliberately obtuse. This is not about prolonging life expectancy for a few old people. It's about flattening the curve so the NHS does not break in two and leave the entire population in jeopardy - all age groups who access any part of it. It's about spreading it out to relieve the burden. Just because some random professor makes a statement which backs up your prejudice in this matter does not mean he is right and has the last word we should all bow too.

FFS this is too much.

[NeedToKnow101]

@Dandarabilla - "Apparently if you just lie down in bed with this virus, it will be the death of you. They say you have to keep moving, even when you are tired, to keep your circulation moving. Keep breathing fresh air outside and keep moving. Don’t lie on your back but on your side and your stomach.."

I heard this as well; it was a Covid survivor (he ended up on a ventilator) saying that he thinks if he had just laid down and rested, he would have died. Just wondering if there is evidence that moving around helps? If there is, I haven't heard the media talking about it.

[Aceventura20000]

I agree Larry that there will only be a limited amount of tolerance to this. They need to be on top of it within 8-12 weeks max for me or people will start breaking rules.

[larrygrylls]

Organ,

Individually, no, statistically, yes.

This is what the two above people with multiple degrees from prestigious universities understand.

I will take them above ‘reading the thread’, thanks.

[OrganTransplant123]

But it isn’t just about protecting older people is it? Or have you not read the thread?

[larrygrylls]

Interesting article in The Times today quoting both Lord King and Lord Sumption arguing against a long lockdown.

To quote Lord Sumption (age 71):

‘....clearly serious for those with other medical conditions, especially if they are old’ but ‘the real question is: is this serious enough to warrant putting our population into house imprisonment, wrecking our economy for an indefinite period, destroying businesses that honest and hardworking people have taken years to build up?’

And Lord King (age 72):

‘If we maintain the lockdown for too long there will be a rebellion against it, because an awful lot of young people will say “well the younger generations have suffered in the last 20 years, why on earth is our future being put at stake on order to help prolong life expectancy of older people whose life expectancy may not be very high in any event?”’.

[Zilla1]

Xenia, even though there is no cure for COVID, there is care for patients with COVID in acute before ITU support/ventilation and care in primary before admittance to acute to help manage symptoms and any secondary infections, much like most patients with respiratory disease when managed well can avoid most admissions to acute/ITU from exacerbations and 'routine' viral infections if provided with the correct support and treatment in 'normal' times. I hope you stay safe.

[Falacy]

@RuffleCrow

don't you listen to the government's daily briefings? 80% of most workers' earnings are now guaranteed by the government. People are being instructed to stay at home unless travel to work is unavoidable, until further notice. Are you genuinely unaware?!

I'm fully aware of the government's daily briefings. It's not "most workers"... it's up to the employers to take advantage of this. Everyone in my family has either been:

A) already paid off.

B) told to take unpaid leave because the premises are open but they don't have childcare

C) self employed directors (before anyone says it - this set up has been ENCOURAGED by the gov for years. It's not always about minimising tax burdens - there are legitimate reasons for doing it which has been plenty discussed on other threads.

D) self employed but without three years of accounts

E) still at work but partner has had to stay at home for childcare so living on one wage.

And in my case -

I work from home (self employed) but with two children and homeschool finding it incredibly difficult to get the hours in (hence why I'm up at 4am!!). My income is already tanking because I've gone from full time to part time. I don't know how much longer I can sustain this.

The poster I was replying to said they'd do it for six months.

I don't see how that is in anyway sustainable considering there are a lot of people who have fallen through the cracks of these packages.

Maybe if there was a UBI or something but that's not going to happen.

[Bizawit]

They have shown their shocking and unbelievable lack of empathy and human nature in the worst way.
Stay the fuck at home. Stop moaning.

I think you just showed yours.