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 know of a man on my street (I would guess in his 50s, slightly overweight but generally healthy according to his wife) who was in hospital on a ventilator, but is back home recovering now.

alloutoffucks
Did you click on that link?
The headline is "Coronavirus could kill half a million Britons and infect 80% of UK population, government documents indicate".
Why would anyone need to do the maths, it's there in black and white. They explicitly said half a million.
People just chose not to believe it.

@Piglet89 we all
Know about the mortuaries but people posting here about mass graves being dug which so far I can’t see any truth or reason behind

If you know the truth that is the first sign that you have been infected with the panic a virus.

Ah fair enough not RTFT. That is a bit of a mystery!

I'm in London and know 3 elderly people have died in my surrounding streets, 2 other elderly people have tested positive and recovered, have numerous friends who think they've had it. The north of England has it to come.

And now there is verifiable news about human to animal transmission in Bronx Zoo with animals falling sick. It's like a bloody horror movie. I fear our 'old world' is dead and truly buried.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52177586

I’m in Herts.
There’s a huge amount of it here it seems

I’m just down the road from Watford

29 confirmed deaths last week and I haven’t checked the stats since

23 year old nurse was the last reported fatality on Friday just gone

The small villages and towns surrounding Watford have been hit hard

Otherwise healthy 40&50 year olds I know of have died in Kings Langley and Berkhamsted but those are just the ones I know of.

A pregnant friend lost their baby in the third trimester.

deydodo nice try.

www.express.co.uk/news/science/1233679/coronavirus-update-symptoms-flu-2020-china-flu-deaths

www.spectator.co.uk/article/Coronavirus-and-the-cycle-of-panic

www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/flu-still-poses-far-greater-threat-to-life-than-coronavirus-39012335.html

That’s so worrying Vera.
I can’t imagine what’s going to end up happening now with worried people giving up their pets for the fear they might catch it from them

@YouAreTheEggManIAmTheWalrus It really made no difference that some people prepped by buying pasta and medicines.
These items will mean little to them if they end up hospitalised.
The real issue around preparation is the governments lack of PPE, ventilator preparation and the fact that they blindly took China at face value when the death rate was clearly higher

Deydodo read that first link and then see if you have the audacity to say it wasn’t played down.

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.

This. I was active on the coronavirus boards end Feb / beginning of March and IRL trying to persuade people the government were not doing enough - IRL trying to persuade friends not to travel and start social distancing and the vast majority were 'scaremonger' / it's all 'media hype'! The data was there. It was obvious what was going to happen. Why anyone thought the UK was magically resistant to a new virus when we were taking literally no measures to isolate people coming in from hotspots is beyond me.

Though I do think this anti-science, anti-fact, magical thinking narrative is more and more common these days across a range of issues. I'm hoping the one good thing about this pandemic will be a return to evidence and fact based policy making and reporting.

That said, someone who is a politician like Matt Hancock probably knows more people than the average person and interacts with a larger number of people on a daily basis - so it would be much more likely for him to know someone who has died from this just on that basis alone.

But of course people will die. Anyone who is not social distancing and going out for reasons other than those permitted should be fined. Heavily. And the money raised given to support key workers. DH is a key worker and I'm not thrilled that he's having to go out to work and be exposed every day, but his work is critical to fighting this.

We also need a lot more testing.

Deydodo read that first link and then see if you have the audacity to say it wasn’t played down.

Audacity?
I posted one link where the headline was "500,000 could die", there were dozens when I did the google search.
Sounds like you ignored the headlines you didn't like the sound of and clung on to the ones that offered you comfort, like so many others.

Am I wrong in believing deaths due to "suspected"..(as we're not testing)
CV19 in care homes are not included in the daily mortality figures?
And also home deaths not included? Which means our stats are well out.

The government and its scientific advisers warned of ½ million if we did nothing and around 20,000 if we took the lockdown road

They were clear enough

Some people chose to ignore this and scream "scaremongering" whenever the subject was raised
So they may indeed be suffering a severe reality shock

Even for the rest of us, the reality is very tough and takes time to accept emotionally

Obviously nearly all the countries in the world didn't choose to shut down and start a global recession / depression just for shits and giggles

All types of governments - left, right, centre, dictatorships, democracies, theocracies -
so it should be obvious they could hardly agree on what's for lunch, never mind a global conspiracy

deydodo of course ☺️ That’s how it is right? 🙄

Easter Monday is expected to be a peak in dead reported.

My SiL works as a Consultant in respiratory ward. She doesn't say much but says that she is already mentally exhausted (and was worried she had it over weekend but it turned to be just an ordinary cold). She says worst is yet to come and they are near the capacity, and this isn't London but the SE.

Have you seen that hospitals were running out of oxygen?
Or that figures are grossly under reported
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/02/coronavirus-took-hold-in-uk-earlier-than-thought-data-reveals

My other SiL who is a GP says :"And now my patients can’t get hold of hydroxychloroquine for their other illnesses"

The government has been talking of 20,000 deaths, with worst case revised up to 500,000

Obviously any responsible government has to ensure that in the worst case, this number of bodies could be dealt with

It's not some sinister plot, just required contingency planning for public health

Hence some huge new mortaries being built around the country, each to handle thousands of bodies
e.g.

Birmingham:
[[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-mortuary-birmingham-airport-west-midlands-death-a9430786.html
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-mortuary-birmingham-airport-west-midlands-death-a9430786.html]]

East London and Milton Keynes:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8176839/Morgue-size-two-football-pitches-built-London-hold-coronavirus-victims.html

I dont understand your uncertainty about how bad this is, isnt it obvious? This is the worst in 100 years

There is a rewriting of history. There was a lot of newspaper articles and commentary saying that the like of the daily mail were scaremongering when talking about half a million deaths. And since tabloids like that do routinely scaremonger, I think it was dismissed.

Oops, BAD TYPO
"with worst case revised up to 500,000 50,000 !!"

Some people chose to ignore this and scream "scaremongering" whenever the subject was raised
So they may indeed be suffering a severe reality shock

Exactly this. People like Wehttam

20,000 is with current measures, half a million was if the government did nothing. The half a million was routinely dismissed as scaremongering when the government was doing nothing and people like me were being accused of scaremongering.

There were definitely people downplaying it and dismissing it as scaremongering.
But the figure were there for everyone to see if they chose to believe them.