What is the true story?

[Namechangervaver]

Hancock has said he has lost two people close to him.

Somebody I know has died.

Boris has been hospitalised.

The country has been shut down despite us knowing that to do this will cripple us for years to come, so it's a very serious situation.

A small fraction of our population is supposedly affected but I'm guessing we all know people hospitalised or dead.

This is obviously so much worse than we have been told

What are your thoughts, OP?

It is clearly very serious. Building huge new hospitals, also.

It doesn't leave a great feeling, does it?

I think it’s far worse than they’re letting on but I expect to be castigated for “fearmongering”.

Yes, it is. It's bad.

It was surely obvious back in January. Did people think China was confining people to their homes, spraying disinfectant in the streets, and tanking their economy for a bit of fun or a joke? If only people had taken heed things might never have got so bad here. It's not too late to mitigate things. Adhere to the lockdown guidelines. You'll be protecting yourself, your loved ones, the wider community, and helping ease the burden on the NHS.

I know a nurse who has been told the hospital want to keep everything quiet. I can understand the government wanting to ensure we protected somewhat. But it's scary. I don't know anyone hospitalised or who have passed. I know I am lucky.

It's very concerning. It's very scary how quick this is spreading and how ill so many people seem to be. The number of health care professionals dying is shocking and must be putting the rest of the NHS under unbearable stress and worry. I'm not sure how much we are not being told but I imagine those in charge are wanting to avoid panic.

Littleshortcake quiet about what?

I didn’t start to panic until I heard about the emergency mortuaries popping up, such as the one on Wanstead Flats.

I'm in the North West and dont know anyone who has had it nevermind been hospitalized. Maybe it seems worse in certain cluster areas??

I know someone who's 43 year old sister died on Thursday. Leaving 3 children and a DH.

@namechangervaver
My sincerest apologies I misread your post

Other than that I know someone who has had it fairly badly but not hospitalised (in Manchester) and a family who all had it (tested and confirmed) but only had mild symptoms (Surrey/Berkshire).

I sort of wonder at times if years down the road we will learn the severity of what we're living in right now.

The best way to avoid panic is spelling things out clearly. Honest but calm. If people hadn't been fed the unpleasant it's only the elderly and frail narrative, they would've taken it more seriously. Precautions would've been taken so that it never got this bad in the first place. Lack of transparency encourages suspicion and panic.

I was quite perturbed by two threads I've read on here recently...

• One where someone was really pretty ill with it and felt they were drowning in fluids on their lungs but the paramedics said they would literally only allow people into hospital who were so bad they were turning blue or couldn't speak (which seemed pretty late stage to me)

• A thread tonight where someone's Grandad passed away in a care home and she said he was one of only four residents left on the floor that hadn't died (normally 15-20 on a floor) and his key worker had died too

Well, of course it’s serious. But you can’t measure how serious it is in anecdotes. I don’t know a single person who’s experienced any symptoms and I know an awful lot of people - several hundred - socially and professionally. There’s no conspiracy theory, it’s no more or less worse than we’re being told.

I’m in Greater London. I have a work colleague who is in hospital on oxygen (50s) , a close friend/neighbour whose father is hospitalised on oxygen (70s) and a work colleague whose mum has passed away from the virus. So it feels very close to home!

I know two people who died suddenly of pneumonia in February. One was elderly and the other was a late stage alcoholic, neither was tested for CV19.

I remember watching the news from China in January and thinking it looked really bad. I agree with others who say the virus is much worse than we've been told. It must be bad for the response to be so strong. We have currently have a right wing tory government who have crashed the economy and are paying out billions to companies and individuals to keep us all at home.

Either this virus is very dangerous or there is something else happening and I don't believe the latter.

My cousin is a hospital doctor in Watford.

He says that every year the hospitals have to cancel operations and make extra provision for people with severe pneumonia.

He doesn't think it's as bad as is being made out

Or

Every year this happens ie people succumbing to respiratory infection and it's kept out of the media.

He also told me that a 3 year old child died recently because paramedics didn't want to admit him because of Covid-19 but he needed hospital treatment and died because he was denied admission.

There are various sides to every story.

The whole thing feels very surreal. I have an old family friend (37-fine health) who has been in hospital for two weeks, she's on a ventilator. My dad has 2 friends (late 60s) who died this week, and I've heard of two others in my wider circle of family/friends who have died. I don't know how it will end, without a vaccine.

That all being said I think with social media there isn't much chance of covering something up on this kind of scale.

I do think (know?) the death numbers aren't correct as I believe they don't count anyone who died in a care home.

I've heard (but not confirmed) that they may not count anyone who died at home. I don't know if that's true though so take with a pinch of salt.

@Cabinfever10 accepted x

I vaguely know one person who has died but he was eighty, he contracted it in Feb and didn’t die until last week. He was at home and got pneumonia.

Other than that I don’t know anyone else who has been hospitalised or confirmed as having it.

I’m not sure I understand your point though, about this being ‘much worse’ than we’ve been told. We’ve been told it will be very very bad and it is. The whole country has shut down. That doesn’t happen lightly. It’s not as if there’s been a cover up, is it?