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.

@Hamiltoes I went to a developing nation to volunteer at the expense of buying a house, furthering my career and spending time with my children. So yes. I’ll be told that’s brag or virtue signalling but it’s the truth.

I’ve answered the question so why is so hard for those saying the vulnerable are expendable for the economy to answer this specific question without a bounce back:

“Are your home and pension worth more than me? Worth more than my life in this world?”

Total bastard of a drug - im not sure it it's my asthma or the bleo that has triggered the letter for me. But given I've had surgery done as quickly as possible, 3 times, to reduce the amount of oxygen I'm given so I dont get pulmonary fibrosis, I'd rather not get it from CV19.

I don’t think people realise those who are shielding are giving up things too?

• I am having to do a different job.
• Like everyone else my kids home school now
• I can’t go to the shops at all
• I can’t take daily outside time that so many seem to relish
• I also can’t see friends and family
• I’m struggling to get essentials
• My investments have fallen through the floor

I can’t go outside for 12 weeks, that’s the starting point for shielded and high risk people. The starting point is 3 weeks for everyone else so far. We stay in for 12 weeks and we do our bit at keeping the beds free too. Do you not see that??

I’m glad many people are making the effort to do it all together. But I hate this notion that we people who are shielded should bow and scrape to those deemed “less vulnerable”. We are making sacrifices too.

@haveyoutriedgoogle have you tried reading to the end of my post?

I said that too. People of all risk factors are making huge sacrifices.

A pp summed it up above:

Expected behaviour now is the opposite to how we usually behave in that we consistently vote for the Conservatives and against tax rises; and our consumerist lifestyles lead to the poverty and early deaths of millions in the global south.
It therefore seems that we do not generally care about the misery and death of others if they are not our family or friends.
It is interesting therefore, and positive I would think, that most people are complying.

Most people are complying (myself included). I went to the shops this morning for the first time in 3 weeks and saw one person on the streets the whole way there (over a mile).

I don't want anyone to die needlessly, vulnerable or not.

But I do think the whole "you're living in a bubble" and "you're selfish" accusations are wearing. As pp said above, most of the country lived in the bubble up until the Coronavirus. I never saw anyone making themselves homeless in order to give to charity and help others at risk of losing their lives.

Yes young healthy people will die. As a young, healthy person with a 0.2% chance, I know I can only take this weeks - not months. I don't want to lose my home. If that means signing something to say I'll not receive hospital treatment then fair enough. I'd rather take the tiny chance of losing my life than the very real chance of months of barely existing followed by being made homeless and living in a hostel with my two children on the pathetic excuse for a benefits system we have 🤷🏻‍♀️.

So said to hear about the death of the 13yo. RIP little one.

I think if someone said my 69yo mum is expendable to my face I would tell them to fuck off. She is the heart of the family.

@Hamiltoes oh yes, I read the whole thing. I hope you do sign something saying you won’t seek treatment. And if you or your children pass it to someone vulnerable who dies? Well. It will have been worth it because you can’t stay inside more than a couple of weeks.
If we were to apply your logic to this situation, an argument could be made that you should be homeless because you weren’t smart enough to choose a job that would have kept you employed during a pandemic. But of course, that would be a cruel and unempathetic viewpoint to hold, wouldn’t it?

I think that those who are vulnerable and old should be very grateful to those giving up their lives short term and, for many, putting their ambitions on indefinite hold.

You know what?

I'm on the edge of a risk category - just over 60, asthma that is usually well-controlled, but I am very susceptible to lung infections. I'm just getting over bronchitis that lasted in a grumpy sort of a way for about 6 weeks. I'm very fit - fitter than most 40 years - indeed fitter than my 20 year old undergrad students.

I'm still working, and working really long hours - even more so in trying to convert a whole degree to online delivery in the space of 4 days ...

If I were to need ventilation in Italy wouldn't be treated apparently ... yet I am an extremely productive contributing member of society. ore so than some younger people, I dare say ...

A dear colleague of mine is highly at risk (living with a terminal incurable cancer). They are still working, educating your children.

So, you know, the "old and the vulnerable" do not have to be grateful - we are still working and helping your children to secure a future.

I shan't say any more, I'd only swear.

It’s not just young people bitching either.

Some Older people are calling it like being in prison.

Others however, Are going on and on about how wonderful it is that working parents will now get to have time to spend with their children. their poor deprived children. Because working from home, homeschooling, and parenting, leave so much time for families to have real quality not at all stressed out time.

I despair of everyone

Just stay home for the love of god.

Ban,

Gratitude is not ‘bowing and scraping’, it is merely realising that some are sacrificing a lot with little to gain personally.

This fantasy life cannot continue forever. The reason we have old and vulnerable is because we are a first world society able to support their complex needs. With no income, that won’t last much longer.

There is a massive assumption that a miracle will happen and we can just go back to where we were.

We have been sold this massive lie that hard decisions no longer exist and that there is always a win/win solution. Corona has shown that lie for what it is.

Lets take all the older people out of the picture for a moment, pretend they are all safely sheltered and the rest of us could "get on with our lives"?

This picture is 500 people.

Young people have a 0.2% death rate (1 in 500).

That means every single young, healthy person out and about has now been entered into a raffle against our will.

Each one of us stands in a group like this picture. One of us will have the "raffle" ticket that means we will die.

Several more will have the "runner up" tickets that mean they need to go to hospital.

If there is a functioning hospital - the "runner ups" will live and go home. If there is no functioning hospital (no beds, no ventilators), they will all die.

Not "they", US.

That is why even the most selfish amongst us should be cooperating. Some of us are going to die (young, healthy included). Many, many more would die if not for the measures currently being taken.

I hate to put it in these terms, because really, of course we should care about the older and disabled too! I've found it grimly enlightening to find just how many people don't.

Mid thirties and shielding
I was a normal average human, working for the NHS. Kept picking up infections and over a period of time had a lot of bloods done. A locum GP spotted something very wrong on my bloods and next thing I'm sat in haematology bewildered and alone looking at the blood cancer signs and worrying. Turns out it wasn't cancer but it was a life altering diagnosis which means injecting myself weekly
It literally could be anyone that suddenly becomes vulnerable, my body just started killing off my white blood cells for no valid reason thanks body

And if you or your children pass it to someone vulnerable who dies? Well. It will have been worth it because you can’t stay inside more than a couple of weeks.

There you go again with black and white statements.

If it was as simple as everyone staying at home for a few weeks on full pay I doubt anyone would be complaining.

I certainly wouldn't be.

But for the vast majority of people it's not that black and white.

What do you actually think will happen? Honestly?

What is going to happen in a few weeks that will magically make this virus disappear?

Where I am it's not even had the chance to begin spreading yet! Population of 5.4million people over 34,000 square miles and we have 108 serious cases.

But yeah lets not apply any logic AT ALL because to do so would mean I want vulnerable people to die

Perhaps some posters have failed to appreciate that some of these people daring to get old may well have been the women who made sacrifices in their younger days to push for Equal Pay, Maternity legislation, and Sex Discrimination Acts.

What do you actually think will happen? Honestly?
What is going to happen in a few weeks that will magically make this virus disappear?

I don't think the black/white view is particularly helpful. I think, if anything, we need far less of the 'us and them' thinking.

But to answer your question, what I think/hope will happen is that there will be hospital beds and ventilators for those of us who need them when we become ill (and could recover).

The virus will eventually sweep through all of us, like a wildfire that burns itself out. But for those who require hospital - having a bed is the difference between life and death.

Lockdown attempts to sway that path toward life.

*There you go again with black and white statements.

If it was as simple as everyone staying at home for a few weeks on full pay I doubt anyone would be complaining.

I certainly wouldn't be.

But for the vast majority of people it's not that black and white. *
There YOU go again, trying to justify your actions by repeating ‘it’s not black and white’ and rolling your eyes suggesting you in your infinite wisdom (clearly smarter than the medical officers running the show) are the only one applying logic to the situation.
What do u expect to happen? Well, given the SCIENTIFIC experts running this have stated that we should see, a flattening if the curve, time for further tests to be developed, time for a vaccine to be developed....that’s what I’d expect to see.
And while you might not want the vulnerable to die, what you are saying is that your value system prioritises your personal freedoms not being curtailed, no discomfort whatsoever for you in your life, for a period of time, over the lives of the vulnerable.

@xenia
The Government and doctors on a daily basis decide the greater good. It is never an easy thing. I don't have the answer but it will always be a balance. A lot more people are currently losing everything they ever worked for to save presumably fewer than the 500,000 who currently die in the UK each year.

So we should let people die to protect people's savings?

@xenia

Presumably, you have a lot of savings being a fancy high earning tax paying lawer. How many people would you let die to prtect your own personal wealth? Five? Ten? A hundred?

Oh, and the piece of paper yo be signing to acknowledge you won’t be treated? I presume that you’ll be signing the same piece of paper saying you won’t seek treatment for your children if they catch it because you’ve decided it’s not worth the impact on your life to follow the lockdown?

I don’t think those people who are against the concept of lockdown are actually getting it.

It’s not the healthy being restricted to protect the old and vulnerable, it’s everyone e being locked down to protect everyone.

Although the risk of dying is significantly higher with age the risk of being seriously ill is not so clearly age-weighted.

According to the US centres for disease control data published 16th March

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 the number of people getting ill at any time is not controlled, the people needing medical treatment will exceed demand and some of the 47% of ICU admissions won’t get treated, and they will die instead of recovering.

The elderly and vulnerable have been asked to take extra measures to protect ourselves, because if we get it we will be at the bottom of the queue for a ventilator, but if the queue is too long the healthy 30 year old will also miss out.

Jesus this thread has made me really unwell this evening. Awful, awful, selfish people.

Jesus this thread has made me really unwell this evening. Awful, awful, selfish people.

It’s just like the bloody Brexit debate all over again. It’s black or white in some peoples minds isn’t it.

Holding a different view doesn’t make you a selfish person or an awful person. If people are doing something that makes them selfish or awful, by all means call them out.

Having a different view is fine leflic, but theres no need for some of the ageist and ablest ones we have seen.

I’m 39, and I feel like shit when I read threads about how unimportant my life is.

You find lockdown inconvenient? I’ve had all my hospital treatment cancelled, that’s pretty goddamn inconvenient too.

As a young, healthy person with a 0.2% chance, I know I can only take this weeks - not months.

As a vulnerable person I feel the same but I don’t have a choice.

I can’t understand why some people still don’t realise that this is not ALL about protecting the most vulnerable (although as a society this is absolutely what we should be doing). @raspberryk you may well be fine if you caught CV. Most of us would, but a significant number of the general ‘healthy’ population would still be unwell enough to need hospitalisation. What nobody wants is for them all to end up needing hospitalisation AT THE SAME TIME. Can’t you see the problems this would cause? The ripple effect? That is why the government want us to avoid getting it if at all possible.