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

Since Early February, l have been very surprised people have not been preparing.
We were seeing China and Italy on every news channel with people dying horrible deaths and contagion moving fairly fast and out of control....
..why did anyone doubt it would be in the UK soon with exactly the same results?
All those wo were saying its not too bad, just like a bout of the flu.......did they not see the facts from other countries or did they think we were somehow miraculously protected?
Its no good waiting to be told by the government as often there are other factors that influence what people are told, like avoiding panic or protecting the economy.
We were fortunate to be able to have 6 weeks of seeing this unfold to prepare......yet we did nothing.

Millions of masks and protective kit should have been stockpiled and distributed to hospitals then, the army should have been drafted in to assist, companies should have been finacially incentivised to use their facilities to produce scrubs, masks, ventilators on a huge scale.

Hospitals should have been rearranged, staff informed and tained to do jobs they may not usually do.

We should have been telling all front line staff to stock up , fill freezers, look at childcare options as they would be very stretched, better still the government should have been giving financial help to achieve this so at least they could eat when they got home exhausted.

Hotels should have been taken over by the government close to each hospital for NHS staff to use to rest and go back without risking infecting their families should they need this.

We should have done so much more so much earlier, WE SAW IT COMING....

The day I got really worried was the day I read that many cases (most?) are actually asymptomatic.

Why would that worry you?
That reassured me, massively.

South Korea 2% of those tested were positive

And, @Namechangervaver I think you are correct. “We” cannot be given the absolute full picture. There’d be panic and looting and no one (or at least, the majority) would be calmly doing as they’re told.

It is not counterintuitive at all to think that your immune system ought to have a better chance to get the virus under control without being overwhelmed if it is attacked by a smaller number of virus particles in the first place. Improperly protected healthcare workers dealing with covid 19 patients would be getting constant, colossal doses of the virus. How can even a normally robust immune system cope with such a massive assault?

The burial/funeral/crematorium anecdotes aren't good evidence of a 'much bigger' problem than what we're told, anyway. I don't think that anyone disputes that covid19 will distort weekly/monthly death statistics - they'll be compressed and localised so it's no surprised that local funeral provisions may be stretched.

We were fortunate to be able to have 6 weeks of seeing this unfold to prepare......yet we did nothing

This. And for all the people who are saying “I think Boris Johnson (and team) have risen to the crisis/have done well/are doing their best” I still can’t believe that we didn’t do a thing to prepare for the onslaught and our PM was still banging on about herd immunity and “taking it on the chin” days before our lockdown. Stanley Johnson, PM’s dad, was interviewed on TV saying “if I want to go to the pub I’ll go to the pub” FFS. Tragic if his son succumbs to Covid.

The mass grave theory also doesn’t sit with me as medical professionals have been told that confirmed COVID deaths have to be cremated meaning no need for grave sites

Since Early February, l have been very surprised people have not been preparing.

Exactly. This is playing out exactly as expected. The problem is the people trying to warn this could be catastrophically bad were labelled as scaremongerers by the every year people die of flu / it’s only going to kill the elderly and people with underlying issues people.

If all the people who have been quietly ill at home or who have had it but we’re largely asymptomatic we’re tested and confirmed the death rate would be tiny

This is what I've been thinking - both the death rate and infection rate would be tiny in comparison with the population, surely. Which makes me wonder what the point of the daily figures are at all if they don't include all deaths or even infection rates.

My thought is this

They knew it was coming, they need people to catch it, so lockdown was to slow it down once it was here. If they prevented from coming here, and shut all boarders and did a mass lockdown, then it would’ve come here anyway at a later date and be unknown for several weeks.

They know people would breach the guidelines and still do, they want these people to catch it to gain heard community, but not ill enough to need hospital treatment.

There were enough warnings that we too would have a lockdown. Many people prepared.

Only those not listening are now struggling.

The herd immunity thing was a cock up more than anything else. They moved away from the idea of everyone caching it once Imperial gave them the numbers on exactly how that would play out.

They don’t want us all to get it any more.

Well it is bad, but “casual” pneumonia is also very dangerous. Untreated flu is also mortal. I really believe my fiance and his family already had coronavirus. Everyone had pneumonia. Little girl and 32yo were hospitalised- she was 25 weeks pregnant and miscarried. I believe it might have been covid.

I know someone who has sadly died, a guy in his sixties. I know someone hospitalised, in his 40s, he was in a coma but is now recovering. I know of another man in his 30s on a ventilator. All confirmed cases. I also know quite a lot of people with symptoms/suspected cases, many of whom have been extremely ill.
But I don't think there's a conspiracy, just a lag in the death rate numbers and obviously the testing numbers show nothing like the true number of cases.

@Moomin8 re the 3 year old that died in Watford.... and the last we heard his mother was on a respirator! This was a couple of weeks ago. My husband knows a family friend of the family.

I don't know of anyone personally who has died. I think my cousin in Norfolk had it as did her family. Classic symptoms, so pretty likely. All relatively mild.

Mass graves are being dug and noone is worried, from well documented precedent, it it could be plans for something OTHER than the deaths from the virus?

God, is this the One World Order conspiracy theory raising its head?

Anybody who owns a TV and has watched the reports from Italy and Spain would be in no doubt about the seriousness of this virus. Why would there be any doubt?

I dont think there is a cover up. If you live in a hotspot you are more likely to have known someone who died than if you dont. Also there is no cure. You either recover or you don't. The reported death rate is frightening yet people still go out sunbathing. The death rate in Europe is frightening but people still go out. The true figures will probably only be known once people have the time and space to do proper analysis and thats not now.

@Justaboy

I think its very simple. Sod all is known as yet on how this virus can and does behave and how and why people are affected by it.

This is it, absolutely. They just don’t have a clue and are probably trying to research to find the answers as we go along. It’s called the ‘novel’ Corinavirus for a reason.

@NemophilistRebel huge mortuaries, surely, to house the bodies of the dead? They can’t just be cremated immediately. Not mass graves.

It is refreshing to see this being openly discussed without the mocking and sneering we endured in February whenever we tried to discuss this here.

I expect the truth of the matter is, that governments around the world know just how wide spread this virus is but it depends on which strain is most prevalent as to how it affects a local population.

Remember this novel virus is extremely contagious, More deadly because of its asymptomatic nature and has been spreading freely since December, possibly late November.

It snook into the system through the disguise of flu season, mixed a lot with different flu strains and other viruses and was able to mutate into various strains which have differing levels of severity, continuing to mutate further according to some medical research.

It is a remarkable feat, bringing the world to its knees, economies crashing and that’s only the beginning, the first wave.

We need a vaccine as soon as possible and a true efficacy analysis of herd immunity.

Interesting times ahead.

I don't know anyone hospitalised or dead. I still maintain the lockdown, but not everyone is closely affected.

A few colleagues of mine came back to work after Christmas / new year saying how poorly they were over the holidays and were bed bound for a week. One lady said ' I was so ill I can't explain how I felt'. We all just thought it was bad case of flu , but I'm convinced now they had coronavirus. The symptoms were the same. This has been around a while ( just my theory )

I know two people who died of Coronavirus on Saturday. I think that soon enough most people will know of someone who has been seriously ill or died with it.