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?

@Theluggage15 No I’m slim , why would they say healthy if they’re obese then? I have very mild asthma I think , I don’t use an inhaler but breathing issues that maybe my anxiety although wheeze on occasion. I still feel petrified as no one knows how it will effect them. Would not want to find out.

I meant most people wouldn’t give sepsis a second thought from day to day, not coronavirus!

@Xtinalee you clearly have some sort of health anxiety. Ive seen you on quite a few threads talking about young people dying and “cytokine storms” etc. You really need to get some perspective or talk to someone about your concerns as the things you are saying simply aren’t true and you are spreading fear.

Yes I do, don’t mean to scare monger at all, was looking for a bit of reassurance. I’ve read a lot of various articles and it’s scared me beyond words so I was looking for answers that’s all.

Still it’s unexplained about the ‘healthy’ people. No one is invincible. I’m very anxious

There’s still too many.

Any illness or condition will have outliers though. It seems extremely rare for healthy young people to suffer badly from this, let alone die. I mean, even the likes of dementia, which is clearly an age related thing on the whole, can affect 30 year olds..but it would be false to state that its anything other than very rare in that group.

So while even one person is 'too many', on the whole its not really something for young healthy people to be worrying that much over. Especially not to the point of someone on my FB, who (mentioned on another thread, not sure if on here) has no conditions, is 24, slim, goes to gym etc, and is currently sat in her house, refusing to answer the door whilst admitting to not having eaten for a couple of days, will not even open her dor to pick up some food her mother left on the doorstep for her as she has convinced herself...from reading rags and social media, that this is basically the apocalypse, here to wipe out humanity and its everywhere She clearly has anxiety issues that were not apparent before this..but still. Odd behaviour, yet some seem to want to contribute to this mass fear by going on as if this is 1000x wrse than it is.

I do think the 'treatment' is going to prove worse than the consequences of doing nothing on the whole. But I do not envy those maming the decisions, at all.

@Xtinalee Does anyone know if I’m right to assume the people who usually end up in bed with flu and colds are the ones who would be harder hit with it ? Like if someone is asymptomatic it’d usually be someone who doesn’t usually get ill with flu ? Hope that makes sense

I'm not sure if I'm understanding your question completely correctly but I'll try to answer to the best of my knowledge.

People can catch flu at any age. Like the common cold, there are different strains in circulation in any given year (which is why we need a new flu vaccine each year).

I have had many colds in my life, ranging from the sniffles and a headache to being in my bed for a week.

I've only ever had the flu once and ime there are no people who "don't usually end up in bed when they have the flu". The flu is pretty horrendous. If there was £1000 lying outside my window on the street, I couldn't have got myself out of bed to get it.

When people say they had the flu but weren't completely wiped out and in bed with fever, I think they most likely had a cold.

We give vaccines because, like Covid, in some serious cases complications like pneumonia can occur. It can also trigger inflammations which in some cases can lead to sepsis or respiratory failure.

Generally we don't give vaccines to people who are in low risk groups on the NHS but you can pay like £20 to get one. Despite that many people choose not to, because unless you're elderly, pregnant, or have underlying health conditions then flu will usually clear up by itself.

So... while Covid and Flu are not the same, some of the risk factors are the same. The risk of developing a serious case of either flu or covid is higher if you are elderly or if you have underlying health conditions. Similarly, if you are young and healthy, the risk of developing a serious case of flu or covid is very low.

Someone upthread said 92% of hospital Covid deaths are over 60. And their point is? I hope they're not suggesting people are expendable once they turn 60? They can't be "elderly" because they're still of working age. Unless the pension age change was the wrong way round. We raised it to nearly 70. Looks like it should've instead been lowered.

For those who do think the over 60s don't matter, 8% of 66 million is rather a lot of people.

The young people who died aren't outliers. It's very common for someone of any age to have some kind of underlying condition. Many will be unaware, sometimes going years before they have any noticeable symptoms or a diagnosis.

Still, let's all tell Covid to go away. Of course it will care that we want schools and businesses to reopen. Those health appointments people are waiting for. Good luck getting seen during the second wave.

@BatShite your friend is clearly very mentally unwell. If she's not eaten for several days that's more than average anxiety. Please get her the need she needs. Urgent mental health care and adult social services are still operating, as are GP appointments (via initial telephone triage). She shouldn't be that scared given we're in lockdown.

Clearly some here aren't satisfied with us already having one of the highest Covid death rates in the world. They want more. They also seem to want the constant disruption of stop, start, stop, start, rather than a slightly longer initial lockdown.

your friend is clearly very mentally unwell. If she's not eaten for several days that's more than average anxiety. Please get her the need she needs. Urgent mental health care and adult social services are still operating, as are GP appointments (via initial telephone triage). She shouldn't be that scared given we're in lockdown.

Her mother is desperately trying to get her to speak to someone, believe me. Its such a weird situation as shes never shown any signs of anxiety before and her mam actually is starting to think shes had some kind of mental break it seems, with how sudden and..odd this is. Quite worried for her, but theres a fair few who are not at that stage but are clearly massively overworrying, and generally due to media reports and internet it seems.

Also..healthy young people are outliers looking at stats so far.

Thats not saying those with conditions (or over 60s) don't matter. Just that..its odd for this to affect healthy young people, thats all. A few younger healthy HCPs are getting it is seems which is of course tragic. Among the general public though..HCPs will likely be getting hit with huge huge amounts of this for long periods of time too. Much much more than a 'normal' person would. Which is shocking really as they should be protected, but also not something thats likely to translate to the general population.

Lockdown for as long as you want, it won't eradicate the virus and whenever restrictions are lifted, it will all start again. Unfortunately stop start stop start might be the choice the government go for, and its surely preferable to...stop for a year! I would assume many would prefer intermittent lockdown, than lockdown for 18 months or however long a vaccine is going to be, and thats assuming a vaccine actually appears at all..

I really do hope she gets help. If she doesn't normally have germphobia or severe anxiety could it be something else that's triggered it? If she's scared of catching Covid, she should be reassured by being in lockdown. Even shielded people are taking in food. She can wear a mask to go for a walk, spray or wipe down her shopping if she's very anxious. I'm not suggesting everyone needs to do that before I get accused of scaremongering. Harmless measures if they help give peace of mind to someone who isn't eating through fear. She's young and physically healthy. Might she be worried about passing it on to a more vulnerable family member? Again, if she takes some small precautions she should be fine.

I agree that people shouldn't panic or let anxiety overwhelm them. It doesn't help sometimes seeing the news, I agree. Really we need a balance. Whilst we disagree on lockdown (I think?) I agree we can't completely put our lives on hold. Where we disagree is when to end lockdown. I think you want it asap (apologies if I'm wrong) whereas I want to hold off until we've put in place mass testing, got enough PPE for staff, and masks for the public. Fairly easily achievable goals so that we could start to more safely ease lockdown - start to get routine medical appointments going again, schools, work. Other countries managed it. We should be able to too. We've already run out of tests for frontline staff but at least they've finally started getting us some! Hopefully it's a start.

We were right to fear as all those facts about critical care beds, ppe equipment, etc and the extra deaths from not coping and the extra deaths from disorder as police, prisons, electrical engineers you and it are all off sick at the same time leading to chaos...

Fear constructively is the best defence we have in this pandemic. Or you could be like Trump and wish it away...

I don’t know anyone who has had Covid. I don’t know of anyone anecdotally who has had it. It’s hard to get worked up about it. The news reports don’t make me think it’s the disaster we were led to believe it would be either.

That said, I’m rather enjoying lockdown. Happy to carry on a while longer...

We'll just have to agree to disagree on the stop, start versus longer initial lockdown. Everyone will have a different preference.

I think stop, start is more damaging economically and psychologically. The constant uncertainly - go back to work or school or reopen your business, only to very soon after have to close agsin. And again. And again. Over and over and over. That's my view. I could be right or you could be. We'll find out soon enough. I only hope we can limit the amount of deaths along the way.

I have to agree to disagree with you on the HCP deaths too. I don't see over one hundred dead in just a few weeks as a small number. And if it continues at that rate it's worth thinking about who will be around to provide medical care (Covid or non Covid).

I think you want it asap (apologies if I'm wrong) whereas I want to hold off until we've put in place mass testing, got enough PPE for staff, and masks for the public.

I don't know what I think, in all honesty. I just wish that there was more clarity given by those making decisions, instead we have the papers printing garbage, and contradicting themselves page to page, getting half the country into a panicked state, the other half into 'its nothing' mode...and not helping in the slightest!

I am just kind of at the stage where I don't quite see the point in months of lockdown, when the only 'plan' has been to 'wait for a vaccine' which near all experts agree would be a year off at least realistically. A year of lockdown is just..not doable. And despite being a leftie, I am worrying a lot about the effects of a shitty economy for years too..which I feel will cause more deaths than the virus ever would.

But my thoughts change daily. All I know is that the panic, in so many cases is so disproportionate...media is being irresponsible, social media is making things worse, and I worry a lot that the response we have taken, and coninue to take will cause more deaths and problems long term than anything else..hopefully wrong..often am

You pick a really trusted source. Not the papers. And stick with that. Like the WHO

www.who.int/

So is it really viable schools have closed when the risk to children is so small? Lockdown will do far more damage. Do children actually spread it? I think more data is needed on this. More data on what risk to teachers actually is? Maybe offer early retirement to teachers 60 and over and start getting children back to school.

@ToffeeYoghurt no I wasn’t saying over 60 is expendable just trying to put prospective on all the panic, we are not going to die from this if we step outside our front door, we are not killing our children if we send them back to school, as one mumsnetter is constantly saying on here.

Well yes, I do believe we are overreacting somewhat it is to stop the NHS being overwhelmed by everyone getting sick at once

I believe we are underreacting to the poverty this will create, for decades to come IMHO

(Flu doesn't work as a poster above believes. Plenty of people are asymptomatic or have very few symptoms eg a bit of a cold www.nhs.uk/news/medical-practice/three-quarters-of-people-with-flu-have-no-symptoms/ )

@ToffeeYoghurt it’s not 8% of 65 million either, it’s 8% of 500,000 as the risk of dying is 1% of 65 million.

You pick a really trusted source. Not the papers. And stick with that. Like the WHO

Yes, thank god for the WHO, where would be without them.

So the actual numbers of under 40’s dying from Covid in the UK is about 200 so far, a very small number of a population of 65 million, considering 10,000 people die in the UK each week before Covid, you are more likely to do of cancer.

So I have a question and I am hoping some of the knowledgeable people on here will have a clue

What is the number of people dying in hosp vs number of people dying when they stay home AND those people have similar levels of symptoms?
What I mean is:
Atm people are encouraged to stay at home and manage their symptoms until they are seriously Ill. Many (most) people do recover. If they were able to access hospital care earlier, would the death rate be lower or the same vs care at home?
im thinking here about the care homes affected by CV-19. Not all of the residents are dying despite the fact they are only receive ‘care at home’ type of support. Why is that? (It’s a very good thing btw!!)

To just add to what @DeathByBoredom was saying

• you can have the flu and have only mild symptoms and not even noticed it.

Eg I have a friend of mine who hit swine flu (tested) and had very mild symptoms.

• you can have a very bad cold and be very ill with it. That’s when a simple cold develops into pneumonia for example.

More data is needed.
All the deaths need to be counted and more testing needs to be done.

That's the full picture.