Coronaphobia - people just have to get a grip

[wakeupitsabeautifulmorning]

I'm really worried that irrational fears are going to absolutely ruin the country as well as putting people at massive risk of dying from other things or developing mental health. And God knows what parents with it will do to their dc's mental health and development (keeping dc off school until there's a vaccination etc.)

missfliss

The issue now though is that the virus is here. If we open back up the virus will just spread again and soon we will back to where we were in March - too many cases and the risk of the NHS being over whelmed plus so many people ill that other essential services collapse - power, food production etc.

It's not that the politicians have chosen people over the economy, it's that there really is no good choice, just a least bad one.

What will lifting lockdown even look like? Is there a "safe" way for businesses like hospitality, theatres, cinemas to open? Will people want to be buying cars, houses, furniture etc? How about hairdresser's ? There are going to be a huge number of people unemployed anyway and life will look different for a long time. Does anyone really think lockdown will lift and we'll all be able to go to the pub?

I agree. It’s amazing how exactly the same experience can evoke completely different reactions by people. I always thought I was neurotic but me and my child seem pretty much Unaffected by this ? Yet I have got super stressed by things that don’t bother other people before in life.
I really do think that saying is true that “it’s not what happens to you it’s how you react to it that matters.”
Now if only I could have applied that to some of the previous times of trauma in my life 🤷🏻‍♀️

Anyhow, I’m really glad I’m so laid back about this. It must be horrible to be consumed with fear over this.

I understand all of that - I totally do. But people will get desperate with no money and they will start to take matters into their own hands - and that to me sounds far riskier than a managed lifting of restrictions

Please don't think I am suggesting it should be lifted now, but I truly believe that it will have to happen before any kind of vaccine.

I do not believe that it will go back to anything like fully "normal" though for a few years to be honest

But people will get desperate with no money and they will start to take matters into their own hands - and that to me sounds far riskier than a managed lifting of restrictions

There will be an awful lot of people without jobs so no money after this.

And this isn't over. There will be a second wave and a third wave, maybe more after that.

You saying on one hand that restrictions need to be lifted or people will protest but then on the other saying things won't get back to "normal" for years is arguing against yourself really. Why won't the people without jobs rise up? How does relaxing restrictions really help if the government are having to pay out a fortune in unemployment benefit?

You've made that into a totally binary argument whereas I haven't. I have said that restrictions need to be lifted eventually in a managed way.

The key is managed.

I.e not all at once and some maybe not at all.

We run a large services sector in this country and so some conditions for employers there will be far easier to risk manage then say people who work in crowded entertainment venues.

I’m not a fan of telling people to get a grip because it’s not helpful. I am also not a fan of ending the lockdown too early although I think we do have to accept that it cannot realistically go on for longer than another month or so I would have thought.

I am also concerned that the level of fear that now exists in many people is detrimental and disproportionate. I’m struggling to see that people who are terrified now are going to be significantly less terrified in 3 weeks or a month.

Certain elements of the media are now becoming increasingly ridiculous with their reporting. The Daily Mail has an article yesterday following the Kawasaki alert in children reporting on various children who had suffered rashes along with a headline suggesting children were being badly affected and “we weren’t being told!”. Several of the children’s rashes had resolved after taking an antihistamine and none of them had been tested for coronavirus. There appeared to be very little evidenced to suggest anything like what they were asserting. That sort of reporting is irresponsible and is intensifying panic unnecessarily.

The lecture that Chris Whitty gave on COVID for Gresham College is available on YouTube and very interesting and balanced. I’ve not seen it signposted time in any mainstream media (I might have missed it of course!) but in my view we need more of that sort of information circulating widely.

The lockdown will end and it will end fairly soon. We will need to get comfortable with moving around in society again. Perhaps in a slightly different way, but it does have to happen. I think at the moment there is likely to be an iceberg of anxiety and mental health issues that will become apparent when the lockdown ends and people struggle to adjust.

Agree @Sunshinegirl82 - and to reiterate my first post way down thread. I do not agree that anyone should be told to get a grip.
Whether it's a fear of dying from Covid or massively struggling with mental health in this lockdown. Both are valid.

There will be a new reality soon post this first lockdown and my point is that it would be far better to be a well-managed and mitigated one, than one born from hysteria and panic.

I simply cannot see how some parts of society can be released while others remain locked down, particularly in London where I live.

How do you get people back to work without childcare? So, does that mean schools and nurseries opening? They will need transport, so in London, that means crowded buses and trains again. Will they re open all shops? How do you do that whilst maintaining social distancing? Think about even just food shopping now - the queues are long and it takes a lot of time. Shops have reduced opening hours to enable re stocking to take place, maintaining social distancing. How much more difficult will that be if you are working full time? You'll have more people trying to shop at weekends say.

Then if you open only some industries what happens to the employees of those that are made to stay closed? Will they remain furloughed?

Are we really able to separate areas of society so easily? Is that not a huge amount of inter dependency that exists, with lots of businesses working to support each other?

Will they continue with the two week isolation if a household member develops a cough or fever? How disruptive will that be for employers? My son is a teacher and the last week before shutdown was very difficult due to lack of staff. By the Friday they were barely able to keep the school open because so many staff had to self isolate due to symptoms. In all likelihood they didn't have Covid at all. Can you imagine come autumn/winter when colds and flu return how difficult it will be if we have to isolate for two weeks if we get a cough?

Totally agree with you pointing out how interdependent things are.

I supposed to your last point re self isolation - hopefully the new widely available testing will mean that we will be able to confirm cases of Coronavirus versus the normal seasonal colds which will remove a lot of doubt

There will be significant amounts of ongoing disruption yes but it will happen. In the same way it is happening in other countries around the world.

I suspect working from home where possible will continue. Schools and childcare and public transport will reopen (not immediately but in the next few weeks and months) and people will start making use of them again.

I think this is my concern, that people are so terrified now that they will find it very difficult to take those steps as they feel that anything short of lockdown is dangerous. I feel as though a lot of people are able to manage their anxiety about the virus at the moment because they feel protected by lockdown. When that protection is removed (and it will be fairly soon) I think we will start to see more people having difficulties. I hope there is some sort of appreciation of that in government and some sort of vague plan to start addressing it.

I agree about the widespread testing. The testing and tracing programme will, hopefully, mean that repeated 14 day periods of quarantine will be less necessary.

I supposed to your last point re self isolation - hopefully the new widely available testing will mean that we will be able to confirm cases of Coronavirus versus the normal seasonal colds which will remove a lot of doubt

But the results are taking days to come back, if you can even get a test in the first place. Unless they can get a "bedside" test there will still be a considerable lag between symptoms starting, getting a test and then getting results.

I very much agree with you, OP. Some of the hysteria on MN is incredible.

If you have an underlying illness then of course you're going to be careful and worried about restrictions being lifted. But for the vast majority of us, getting back to a "new normal" isn't a risk. Yes we'll carry on with the social distancing and washing our hands but even if most of us DO get Covid19, we won't die. We won't see the inside of a hospital and we won't even see a GP about it.

It's about balance and keeping things in perspective. MN - and this board in particular - has a high percentage of "life is never going to be the same again, everyone's going to be seriously ill, lots of otherwise young and healthy people are going to die, and my kids aren't going back to school ever" posters.

We cannot keep everyone at home, forever. There just isn't the money. It would bankrupt the country.

I think the problem now is that people are taking themselves out of lockdown. If we did it properly for a few more weeks we could get our numbers right down. As it is, the govt are saying we are past the peak but hundreds are still dying every day.

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras that study was very interesting actually but it does say that

The median age of those who died in hospital from COVID-19 in the UK was 80 years, and only 12% of these patients had no documented comorbidity. For patients who received ward care, 55% were discharged alive, 31% have died and 14% remain in hospital

Which is reassuring because it means that even though 47% of those who were hospitalised had comorbidity (and the biggest two here are chronic heart disease and COPD) they make up a large proportion of those discharged.

Ireland have set out a really good blueprint for how they envisage the next 4 months will be handled

www.gov.ie/en/publication/dd26a8-easing-the-covid-19-restrictions-on-10-august/

This is what our Government needs

even if most of us DO get Covid19, we won't die. We won't see the inside of a hospital and we won't even see a GP about it.

Do you have figures to back this up?

Only, no one knows how many people have been exposed to it, how many are asymptomatic or how many people have been ill with it but managed to stay at home. All they know is how many + cases were admitted to hospital so how can you really know the proportion that get ill but don't need medical care? Without accurate data you are simply guessing.

Obviously, if you have data to support your view then that's different and I would be really interested to read it.

There may well be a lag but it will not be a 14 day lag. I believe it is currently 48 hours (ish?). People may need to isolate at home for that shorter period and will then be able to return to work if their test is negative.

They are looking to ramp testing up further hopefully that will give a much greater opportunity to access testing if needed.

Quartz2208

But all of that data was generated by a population in lockdown. I wonder what the situation would look like in a country not in lockdown? More like the US maybe?

45% of patients in that study had no co morbidities. That's a lot of people sick enough to be admitted to hospital with no underlying condition.

What is the long term prognosis for these patients? Are people recovering back to full health or is there long term morbidity associated with it? People might take a very different view if faced with a healthy 40 year old suffering lifelong incapacity due to lung damage being the likely outcome for example.

Sunshinegirl82

I'm not hearing that it's 48 hours. I'm hearing about people waiting for the test to be posted to them, then having to post it back and then waiting for the results.

Even going to a test centre has required them to book an appointment usually within a day or two and then wait for results. So face to face testing maybe the results are available within 48hours of the test being done but it seems that will still necessitate four or five days off work, assuming of course that the test is accurate. Isn't it only 70% accurate at the moment?

@hearhoovesthinkzebras

I feels to me that you would prefer to maintain the lockdown pretty much indefinitely? Is that right?

The testing process will need to improve. We need to be looking to emulate the South Korean approach which quick access to testing and quick results.

www.imperial.ac.uk/news/196573/covid-19-one-five-over-80s-need-hospitalisation

There you go. 20% of those 80+ admitted to hospital. 1% of those under 30 admitted to hospital.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8207903/One-SEVEN-Britons-hospitalised-coronavirus-die.html

And I know that it's the Daily Mail - but they have been the most pessimistic media outlet. 1 in 7 of those hospitalised die.

So if you're under 30, you have a 1% chance of being admitted, and then 6 out of 7 of those hospitalised in ALL AGE GROUPS are discharged again.

But there's no point with you HearHooves as you're one of the most doom and gloom people out there, judghing by other threads.

@missfliss The lock down rules are that people who can work from home should and those who can't should go into work.
The reason lots of things have stopped is because places like bars and restaurants have had to close. But before lock down there were businesses owners on TV and in the papers begging the government to lock down because their business had plummeted. So either the government continues some kind of help, or these businesses close.
And furloughing. Less workers have been furloughed than the government originally anticipated would be. So either the government continues to support them or a lot of these people are unemployed.

This is an economic question of what is best for the economy. Is it better to have lots and lots of people unemployed, or to give people money in the hope these businesses will be able to reopen at some point. I don't have the answer, but yes the government will need to decide. It isn't even totally connected to lock down because a lot of these businesses will take a while if they are to be up and running again.

Will they continue with the two week isolation if a household member develops a cough or fever?

The increase in testing should make this unnecessary unless the person with cough or fever has got Covid. The problem is, the likelihood that the person is ill with Covid would now be far higher than it was even in February.

@PineappleDanish Those were the kind of figures coming out of China, not a surprise. Which is why I am not worried about my nephews and nieces in their 20s who all have no underlying health conditions. I know their risks are very small.