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

I don't believe that there is a conspiracy, but stats can't present the whole picture. On a personal level, they don't show that people who might have died peacefully at home in their sleep are instead dying gasping for air in a quarantined hospital away from their loved ones. Nor do they show the longterm impact on the health of survivors who are left with permanent lung damage.

On a national level, stats don't show the way this virus overwhelms health services because of the high number of people requiring intensive care staffed by vast number of health professionals and using far more equipment than we could ever have imagined needing.

Try watching the Sky News broadcast Into the Red Zone. There are some interesting stats coming out of Italy that show the mortality rate is far higher than that officially designated as Covid-related because it simply isn't possible to designate a death as Covid-related unless you know it is. This article is behind a pay wall but you can sign up for 5 free article a week: www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/03/30/italys-true-death-rate-warning-britons-want-call-covid-19-lockdown/

Well, most people had their heads in the sand, distracted by whatever means they choose to divert their attention from what’s going on in the real world, be that social media or Brexit headlines or their immediate cosy bubbles.

Other people saw this coming in January, were extremely alarmed and concerned, prepared for inevitable lockdown and economic downturn as best they could and tried to sound the alarm despite what the UK government were saying because they knew it was being downplayed and mishandled. The former group of people kept their heads in the sand, screamed “doomer” and “scaremonger” to anyone who dared infringe on their distraction but had taken the time to do their own research and attempted to warn others. The latter, like the frog in the fable finally started to become aware they were in hot water when the pot started boiling.

That is the true story.

Sounds pretty bad already.

Where I am (East) I don't know of anyone who has been tested and I don't know of any deaths. I work for nhs (not frontline) I have friends who work in local hospital and apparently it's eerily quiet. I think that peaks are going to be more regional than what we think.

When viruses mutate they usually become less aggressive not more.

Youaretheegg Lots of surprised people, blindsided by this, totally shocked, and yet it was there all along.

Quite the genius move by the government and media in how they downplayed it for so long, the herd bolted only when they instructed them to.

Read between the lines and you pick up the real story.

Watch what they do, not what they say.

@Wehttam - what is your version of the narrative? Interested in other people's analysis.

Ihatemyself do you want the truth or something beautiful?

I live in north wales, I’ve been ill for 2 weeks at home, I know of one parent at my school who was on a ventilator for 6 days. Fortunately he has improved but is still in hospital, no underlying medical conditions and really fit man. I fortunately don’t personally know of any deaths.

I think the deaths are being under reported as the community deaths are not being recorded accurately. My auntie works in a large district general in Shropshire and she says they have a lot of Cv patients in the hospital. They’ve converted areas to get more bed spaces. I think some areas seem to be far worse hit than others but it will still spread, there are too many people still out and about.

Haven't we been told that more old people voted leave? They'd hardly want to kill their core supporters, would they?

You seem to be under the delusion that Dominic Cummings cares about their core voters. The voters were simply a means to an end.

I have been stunned by people’s lack of awareness. It seems like no one watched the news over Christmas. Even now it seems some people do not even read across threads to understand how bad it is.

Truth please!

Nurse in our local hospital has just died. 2 friends have been very very ill. Not hospitalised but in bed for 3 weeks.

Getting tired of other friends going "oh I'm sure I've had it I was really poorly in October/November". I think they are deluding themselves - ok if it gives you comfort but nonsense surely if this emerged through zootic (right work) interspecies circs in remote China.....?

I'm in Cumbria and we've had a few deaths here, though I don't know anyone personally who has been unwell. Deaths do seem to have slowed down here recently, though.

But everyone does seem to be following the restrictions pretty well. I had to drive DH to work this morning (he can't drive due to injury) and the roads were deserted. A few dog walkers about but everyone observing social distancing. In town we saw more police cars than anything else, although we weren't stopped.

I do think too many people ignored how serious it was in other countries, though. It was obvious this was going to hit us eventually yet it seems as though absolutely nothing was done until the death rate began to rise.

Listen carefully and most reports mention number of deaths from hospitals, the figures do not include those who die in the community nor care homes.

I was ill in Feb with all the symptoms but assumed could not be CV as was not known to be here then. Now we know it arrived in Jan so quite likely.Fatigue lasted about 3 weeks after other symptoms abated. Worst symptom was breathlessness even getting up from a chair/out of bed and I thought was appalling lack of fitness after a winter deprived of exercise. I know several others who are in a similar position /probably had it based on symptoms but at time didn't consider it.
All have recovered. I know no-one what has died, nor anyone I knows anyone who has died, and I live in London.
So I think the thing is probably massively over-hyped.

Apparently it depends on the amount of virus you’re infected with that decides whether it’ll be mild or severe, which would explain a lot as it seems to vary so much between people.
When my two caught chicken pox at nursery, this was said by many to be the case - that the first child in a family gets a milder version than the siblings because they have been exposed to more virus in the home. I have no idea if it's true, and that idea may be out of date, but it's not the first time I've heard this.

In all seriousness, I know as much as everyone else, which isn’t a great deal. So far, we appear to be coping fairly well as a nation though which is reassuring. My concern is how we come out of this on the other side.

Right now, there is no vaccine, we do not know the long term impacts of those who recover from a severe case of this, we don’t know if you can be reinfected and what that looks like. I expect those in charge have an idea now though.

We also have no clear answer on if you have had this and recovered whether or not you are still contagious. I say that because the group which we have shielding now could technically be in a position where it isn’t safe for them to reintegrate into the general public until a clear cure is found. Which could take over a year.

There are so many facets to this conundrum that I could type 10,000 words and still have questions about how we move on from this individually and as a society.

It would be naive to assume this problem will go away any time soon, it is also naive to expect our lockdown situation to loosen in the coming months.

You don’t run and hide in your house from the big bad wolf only to step outside again as soon as you think he may have turned his back.

You wait until he has gone.

Quite the genius move by the government and media in how they downplayed it for so long, the herd bolted only when they instructed them to.

On 26th February the government said 80% of the country could be infected and half a million could die:
www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-news-latest-deaths-uk-infection-flu-a9360271.html
BBC and others reported it too. No need to "read between the lines".
Where does this narrative that it has been downplayed come from?

People are still not taking it seriously, sunbathing or even popping to the shops because they forgot something.

it's pretty obvious why earlier measures wouldn't have worked.

I live in the SE and don’t personally know of anyone hospitalised with CV.

Getting tired of other friends going "oh I'm sure I've had it I was really poorly in October/November". I think they are deluding themselves - ok if it gives you comfort but nonsense surely if this emerged through zootic (right work) interspecies circs in remote China.....?

There’s absolutely no way this has been circulating in the UK since before Christmas and nobody noticed. it’s been a pretty mild flu season this year with fewer deaths than usual.

It was surely obvious back in January.

Yes it was, but people stuck their fingers in their ears and continued to live life as normal, even continuing to go abroad on holiday as late as mid March! I think far too many people were living in their "it won't happen to me" bubble and just carried on regardless. Perhaps we're used to being dug out of the holes were get into via the health service, emergency services, etc - i.e. the "always someone else's fault" mentality.

On 26th February the government said 80% of the country could be infected and half a million could die

Yet idiots still went on holiday as late as mid March and are now belly aching that they are trapped abroad. Pillocks!

@deydododatdodontdeydo They said 1% would die. I think most people thought 1% that is very few, and did not do the maths. They never mentioned that equated to half a million people. A thread was deleted on MN at the same time for scaremongering when it said half a million people were going to die.
I was repeatedly accused of scaremongering on MN for saying if the government did nothing, half a million people were going to die, and had to put (governments own figures) repeatedly in brackets to stop my comments being deleted by MNHQ.

a family member late 40s has had it, lives and works in London. They have cancer and are in the middle of chemo. Was in hospital for a week then sent home. They had some very frightening days in hospital thought they were about to die and is still very weak but slowly recovering.

A local friend has lost someone to it, they were in their 70s. Someone in our neighbouring village has it, no further info on age/other health issues/recovery.

Its very bad, but not conspiracy theory inducing 28 days later bad.

I say that because the group which we have shielding now could technically be in a position where it isn’t safe for them to reintegrate into the general public until a clear cure is found.

They may not live long enough because the NHS has basically shut down and isn't providing treatment etc regardless of Covid - i.e. my OH has had his essential cancer treatment cancelled with no information/explanations as to if/when it will start again. Just thrown to the wolves and abandoned. He had a very high chance of the treatment being a success and carrying on life as normal for several more years, but he won't survive not getting his essential treatment.