How long can we carry on like this for?

[Pseudosudocrem]

Anyone else starting to wonder just how long we can carry on like this before everything irrevocably falls apart?

How will we ever recover as a country?

Well I’m still waiting for those figures for the cost of over 70s. Good job I’m not holding my breath.

It's better than thinking it's all caused by old ladies with black cats, or albino children, or that the gods are pissed off so we should cut the throats of a few first borns. Humans are pretty twatty in disasters.

Re malaria, actually most people who aren't directly affected don't give much of a shit do they about children dying of malaria. Sure, if you asked your neighbour they're not going to say it's a good thing or anything, but they don't see it as anything to do with them either, do they? That's human nature in action right there.

I appreciate people are scared, I’m scared of dying, from Covid and asthma and being run over by a bus. But I’ve also read the very long document that the government have based the whole lockdown plan on, and it does state in there exactly how everything will pan out.

Is that the SAGE stuff from imperial Nene?

An elderly relative of mine is suffering from an eye condition. She went to hospital appointments to help treat the condition. However due to her underlying health conditions she has been advised to stay in. Although she can attend her eye appointments, she risks dying of Covid-19 from visiting the hospital. Not much of a choice.
Millions of people are suffering from health conditions, even including dental, whilst lockdown happens.
It’s awful isn’t.

We need to end lockdown now for all but the vulnerable. Social distancing is counter productive to achieving herd immunity, the only thing we know that will stop the virus.

More people will die indirectly as a result of a prolonged lockdown (and the consequences) than of covid itself.

We urgently need leadership not popularist media driven reactionary policies

@Lweji Exactly. Government is following a written plan from John Hopkins uni to manage the health hubs by enforcing lockdown.

The ‘plan’ for herd immunity is a useful side effect of that.

Its worked before with previous pandemics. No reason why this should be any different. It just seems ‘apocalyptic’ because of multi platform access to publishing individual views - social media, news channels, blogs, YouTube, etc.

Last time round, pandemics weren’t being discussed all over the place. Life got difficult, people lived through it, or died through it, and then recovery period started.

Nowadays everyone has opportunity online to grumble, snowflake, express their opinion, report their neighbours if they’re feeling resentful/depressed enough to do so, and so on. Thus encouraging the ‘end of the world’ idea.
I hate conspiracy theory nonsense, and nowadays it feels like even the general public are turning to it.

It’s just a pandemic, some of you will die, and some won’t, and then life goes on.

With regards to the economic situation, we have had a decade of austerity. I can’t see how our public services can be cut further. This was mentioned on the radio recently by an economist.
Our justice system was already at breaking point as it was and that’s just one department. And we’re supposed to be recruiting the 20k policemen that were eroded since 2010.

@RigaBalsam Yes. A poster published it on MN a few weeks ago citing as the document the government was working from to base the whole lockdown process , and a few other posters claiming to work in epidemiology concurred. Whether those posters actually did work I epidemiology nobody can be sure, but I’d like to think they were being honest.

Link below.

www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

Quote-Let’s remember. You are highly unlikely to catch it. If you do, you are highly unlikely to become seriously ill. If you do, you’ll most probably survive it.

The World Health Organization estimated at the start of March that the coronavirus’ R0 stands somewhere between 2 and 2.5. By comparison seasonal flu is estimated to be roughly 1.3 while measles has a reproductive value of between 12 and 18.

Oh well - there's an asteroid due to pass VERY close to Earth on 29th April - maybe that will solve all the current problems!

@HermioneWeasley

Outside care homes and hospitals the infection rate is less than 1

What's your source for this?

In Italy, half of all Covid deaths were for people over 90. In the U.K. over half of Covid deaths are in the over 80s and 87% are in the over 65s.

Yes, it is sad but it is wrong to say that everyone is at risk. The risk for those under 50 - even with underlying health conditions is vanishingly small. The risk only becomes really high in the over 70s which is the age at which the death rate rises from all causes.

Can someone link to the paper that the podcast nike is talking about is based on please?

Also interested re the thinking behind the statement a poster made re if you're not worried about dying in the next year social distancing and washing your hands is enough (not a direct quote but that seemed to be the jist of it).

I'm all for going back to normal if there is a way to do it that doesnt sacrifice the shielding and high risk group (not just because I'm in them).

I dont think we can do that in the next 3 weeks - someone talked earlier about the nhs being at capacity already. It isnt hence the thousands of unused beds.

I dont think its as simple as us all going back to work tomorrow.

Yes, it is sad but it is wrong to say that everyone is at risk. The risk for those under 50 - even with underlying health conditions is vanishingly small.

In New York ,4.5% of the deaths have been in people aged between 18 and 44 so not actually "vanishingly small"

The risk only becomes really high in the over 70s which is the age at which the death rate rises from all causes.

About 28% of people were under 65.

I agree with @Deux that people will get restless before long, unless we're given some sort of plan, and something to hope for. At the moment, there is nothing even to hope for. We want some INFORMATION.

If it happens for the next few weeks that it's just "lockdown and nothing else", people will lose respect for it. They will start to take matters into their own hands, as we watch the economy crashing around us. I'm surprised how much compliance there has been so far, given that the public don't respect things like speed limits much. I don't think this compliance will last if the status quo is kept for too long, especially if the government keeps telling us so little.

If we're given nothing to hope for, the effect on mental health is going to be devastating. At the moment, people might think "I'm staying away from my loved ones for the greater good". But soon, I expect the general mood will be "I'd rather take my chances with the virus than live like this", or those who are more desperate might think "if this existence is what they're keeping us alive for, I'd rather die".

Tonemeth - this is not the paper but a BBC article which says the same thing and shows that on average, for an individual the risk of dying of coronavirus once infected is the same as dying in the next year. 10% of over 80 years old infected will die, which is the same percentage as over 80s who die each year. For those under 50, the death rate is very small and children the risk is negligible. Of course a small percentage of a large number still looks big, but it is hard to see any group that ‘know’ they will die if they catch it. Both my next door neighbours have had it, as have around another 10 of my work colleagues/friends. All below 60, all recovered after a couple of weeks at home. I find it hard to get worried about it for myself or kids, but would be concerned if my dad got it.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/health-51979654

If it happens for the next few weeks that it's just "lockdown and nothing else", people will lose respect for it. They will start to take matters into their own hands, as we watch the economy crashing around us.

They may also have lost love ones and will not want to lose anymore though.

Woodchuck - if you look at the ONS chart in the picture earlier you can see that 12.7% of UK covid deaths were under 65. The proportion below 50 will be way below 5%.

The Daily Mail will sensationalise the few deaths of young people but these are and remain very rare.

@Eyewhisker thanks I'll have a look.

Thanks Nene I read that too at the time.

Will have another read.

I am sure its the one that said school closures should last 12-16 weeks for major impact too?

Reading these threads have made me realised that at some point we have forgotten that the one and only certainty is life is death. That they are ying and yang you simply cannot have one without the other.

At some point we have become to frightened of it. For most of human civilisation death was a part of life. They walked hand in hand together entwined. And people had faith that this was simply one stage and we would pass onto the next one.

And then it stopped. After the 2WW death stopped being part of life and we started to assume that we would not feel it and that it wouldnt happen until we were old and it would be peaceful.

This has brought it back to us and we are going to have to live with it. Lockdown simply cannot continue on indefinitely and we cannot be the only country to do so. It shouldnt end now and maybe not even in 3 weeks but by June we are going to have to start (China did).

And we are going to have to learn to live with the risk - and maybe start finding faith and hope in life as well

@Eyewhisker

I linked some stats earlier. Italy is 5% under 60 ENgland is 8.5 under 60 and USA is from memory 9% under 55

Woodchuck - if you look at the ONS chart in the picture earlier you can see that 12.7% of UK covid deaths were under 65. The proportion below 50 will be way below 5%.

I'm not sure what your point is. 12.7% seems like a very high figure, especially considering those people will be of working age. The figure will be much higher if the NHS becomes overstretched. You're assuming that the proportion will be way below 5% but based on the New York figures it may not be.

@Alsohuman

Sure, have a read of this document. It outlines the main issues with funding adult social care.

They have to start lifting lockdown at the end of these three weeks - it will have to be gradual and social distancing will remain the "norm" until a vaccine is ready - but we simply cannot lock ourselves away.

Those people most at risk should continue to shield, but everyone else needs to get back to normality.