Is the fear out of proportion?

[Hotlungs]

I’m asking this genuinely as I struggle with anxiety and have a tendency to catastrophise.
I read yesterday that 99.5% of people will survive if they have the virus. Whilst I understand that people are worried they are in the 0.5% is the fear rationale? The press describing it as a ‘killer virus’ and people saying they don’t want to go to the supermarket incase they die. Obviously I’m not talking about those in the vulnerable group.
Are we doing poor risk management? Again to clarify I don’t mean the current lockdown situation to protect the NHS (which is needed) but I mean the fear of it.
We are more likely to die in our cars but we risk manager that (with precautions) to still use them. What are people’s thoughts?

Right, I guess all the reports of deteriorating mental health are bullshit exaggeration. Lockdown forever.

@woodchuck, fwiw my dad is at that place. Where he is depressed and so fed up with it all that he would be happy to just go out regardless.
He is highly at risk (diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure and over 75yo).

So no not bullshit exaggeration unfortunatly.

fwiw my dad is at that place. Where he is depressed and so fed up with it all that he would be happy to just go out regardless.

He can go out. He isn't in prison. My elderly parents go out.

My dad lives by himself and has zero amusement outside of the grocery store where he's been bollocked for standing too close to other people and he doesn't want to go anymore.

And you think his mental state is bullshit exaggeration.

My dad lives by himself and has zero amusement outside of the grocery store where he's been bollocked for standing too close to other people and he doesn't want to go anymore.

So both your parents are suffering from serious depression and are shadows of their former selves because of lockdown but they both live alone?

He shouldn't be standing too close to other people, and unfortunately if lockdown stopped tomorrow the requirement to physically distance is likely to be around for a long time. I can imagine that is hard for him to put up with, but if he doesn't go along with that rule, he's not just making a free choice to put himself at risk, he's putting other people at risk as well. I know it must be very hard.

The likely side effects of lockdowns, or any kind of reduction in socialising and economic activity even without lockdowns, are not a secret or a mystery to governments (who really don't like being unpopular). They're well known. The fact that lockdowns have happened despite them should tell us all something about how desperate a situation we were at risk of getting into without them. It goes without saying no one wants them to go on for longer than is absolutely essential.

I worry desperately for the UK if one month of very relaxed lockdown is so badly impacting so many people's mental health. We're not like France or some other countries where the lockdown is or was much more restrictive. What on earth would people do it they had an accident or illness that left them permanently and fully housebound. That's reality for many people.

It's especially confusing as some of the same people seem so keen for actions that will likely lead to far worse economic damage and many many more deaths (winning the world death rate competition really isn't something good). But also if they hate lockdown so much (as do most of us) why would they want a second wave? The second lockdown that would see us confined to our homes just as we hit heatwave weather.

Do people really not understand the very simple concept of more haste less speed? It's very basic common sense.

Why not call for the relatively simple measures required for a safer easing of lockdown instead of pushing for a second wave? Mass testing, enough PPE, masks for the public. Why can't people learn from very recent mistakes? We have one of the highest Covid related (directly or indirectly) death rates in the world as a result of not taking Covid seriously several months ago. Let's not repeat those mistakes and two months later look back with regret.

Also Marginal I assume your dad already suffers from fairly severe mental health problems if he's this badly affected. Does he have a social worker or mental health support? He should contact them or his GP. They're still providing essential care to vulnerable adults and GPs are doing telephone consultations. If you think it's an emergency you can visit him, to provide essential care. I'd advise maintaining a safe distance from him when you do. With his physical health conditions I'm sure you won't want to be the one to give him Covid. As an alternative to visiting, if he's lonely, can you set him up with zoom or something similar? It's good to keep him feeling less isolated even when lockdown ends.

In the area that I live in only 0.1% of the population has had Coronavirus!!

My dm was as sharp as a tack before this started. I noticed the other day she's started getting a bit muddled, I'm fairly certain this is due to loneliness 😒

Nana Good to hear lockdown is working. It was put in place too late for some places but at least it's helping other areas. Here's hoping we implement the simple measures required to avoid a second wave before lifting lockdown.

Ding One positive that could come out of this is an increased awareness of how lonely some people are. It's been a big problem for years. Obviously lots of elderly people but also the many permanently housebound. It would be great if we continued to make use of the wonderful technology we have nowadays. Zoom, Skype, facetime, WhatsApp. All so helpful in alleviating loneliness. I hope you've helped set your mum up with video calling?

Sweden is doing much much better than countries that locked down - they are shielding their vulnerable and letting it spread slowly through the rest of the population

Zoom Skype and WhatsApp

We've had telephones for many years now. People still get lonely. Lockdown is making this so much worse

The best way to achieve herd immunity is not to let an unknown virus to through the population unless the following is true:

you're comfortable with a lot of death

The virus is mostly harmless and won't cause a massacre in either the population or your HCPs

You have a thorough knowledge of treatment protocols, understand the virus and are confident you can get through without an obscene death toll

You have sufficient protective measures in place to ensure HCP are not placed at undue risk

You can afford to offer appropriate medical treatment to the numbers requiring it

You are certain that exposure creates long standing immunity.

Otherwise, your herd immunity is actually just eugenics.

Comfortable with a lot of death? Eugenics?

Interesting take on a virus

If annuallly half a million people die in the U.K. apparently a million die of malaria. No one lives forever (imagine!). Then yeah I guess we're all comfortable with a lot of deaths aren't we?

Toffee she struggles to hear, although she's ok on the phone ( holds receiver to her good ear)

Sweden is doing much much better than countries that locked down

By what metric exactly? If it's number of cases, that's because they don't have much of a testing regime.

Sweden is doing much much better than countries that locked down - they are shielding their vulnerable and letting it spread slowly through the rest of the population

There is no treatment or vaccine, so, as we come out of lockdown, we will all (80% ish) get it regardless and as the NHS hasn't been overwhelmed (apparently) the death rate will be similar, just over a longer period.
Sweden was one of the first countries to realise that spending your way out of recession was a good idea (1930s) they were mocked then too.
Maybe they will be proved correct now?

Why do threads have to degenerate into name-calling?
The science on covid19 is very new and there are not - and cannot be, considering the lack of testing - clear answers. Whatever the government says, political decisions are not totally, or even mainly, science-based - so to take a more familiar example, the science on climate change had been very clear for a long time now but no one has actually acted on it - Instead, they are based on a whole raft of things, including social and economic costs to both society and, let's face it, to individual party members and the lobbyists that fund them. The science is not clear cut and therefore people who question the social and economic impacts of lockdown are not stupid. And it's not a personal insult to ask questions. Nor is it particularly selfish to be heartbroken over seeing one's own family struggle. We are all selfish. That doesn't, per se, make anyone stupid.

How exactly is Sweden doing well? I don’t see it.

We can't compare to Sweden. It's a lot easier to social distance and shield the vulnerable when 50% of the population live in single person households. We also perhaps (hopefully) don't see our BAME communities as expendable? Those suffering the most in Sweden, with the most deaths, are their migrant communities.

0v9c99f9g9d939d9f9g9h8h explains it very well. Better than me.

Germany has one of the lowest numbers of deaths (the opposite to us). Despite that, Merkel today warned that some German states are being too quick to ease lockdown.

Those desperate for a premature end to lockdown. Why do you want a stop, start, stop, start return? The papers are today reporting warnings that we face many more waves with consequent sudden (no warning) lockdowns if we come out of this one too soon. If we end the first in May we'll looking at the next one being during heatwave weather. How is that desirable? That's far more disruptive to the economy too.

@ToffeeYoghurt being higher risk isn't equivalent to being expendable. HTH

Paediatricians have stated children will be at higher risk of cancers such as leukaemia as a direct result of lockdown. Are these children expendable?

Fully agree with ToffeeYoghurt and 0v9c99f9g9d939d9f9g9h8h

@ToffeeYoghurt
You keep raising the same point. That you think stopping the lockdown will cause a second wave that will for some reason bring the country to its knees.

Do you understand that there are more options that do nothing and lockdown, like sheliding the vulnerable and/or having partial restrictions in place. If we did lift the lockdown and hospital admissions started rising, we could just implement another lockdown. We've seen than even a lockdown put in place late will slow the spread and stop hospitals getting overwhelmed.

There is no hard evidence that the lockdown is even needed. We may have been fine just locking down the vulnerable. We don't know because we didn't try it.

As a PP said these are unprecedented times, how to handle this is a bit of a guessing game. Personally I think a full lockdown was only implemented because of public pressure; resulting in the gov losing confidence in their former plan, and leading to a worry of a loss of voters if they go against public opinion and are wrong.