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.)

@PineappleDanish

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-04-30/a-third-of-u-k-covid-19-hospital-patients-die-study-suggests

Rather more pessimistic and from a more reputable source.

The problem with the DM analysis, which consistently demonstrates an utter lack of scientific rigour and understanding, whether reporting positive or negative stories, is that it simply divides the number of deaths in the number of those hospitalised.

This assumes:

a) that there are no deaths that have yet to be reported (and we know they take days, even weeks in some cases) and

b) that there will be a 100% survival rate of all those who were in hospital at the date the data was collected, which is obviously ridiculous.

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

The only person in my family who I am concerned about is FIL, who is 75 and has COPD and cardiac issues. He is clearly at risk. But my parents who are the same age, fit healthy and non-smokers are keeping themselves away from others but aren't particularly at risk. No concerns about myself, my siblings, my kids or nieces and nephews.

Yes getting it would be shit - a friend in her early 50s had it and was wiped out for a fortnight with the extreme tiredness and cough. But she's fine now, never saw a GP. There must be thousands of people in the UK going unrecorded because they never see anyone about their symptoms.

I wouldn't prefer it no.

I just have no faith in our government actually being able to formulate a plan to get us out of this. So far their performance has been terrible and it's only because they aren't being honest that the full scale of their mismanagement hasn't come to light yet.

Telling the public that any patient who needed a ventilator or an ITU bed got one, or that the NHS wasn't overwhelmed is just a lie. People, young healthy people, died at home because they weren't allowed to be admitted to hospital. Clearly they needed an ITU bed and it might have helped them.

I've read reports in our local paper of patients dying on general wards in our local hospital without being moved into ITU. Again, maybe their outcome would have been different if they got a bed.

Thousands of elderly people never even being allowed into hospital but left in a care home to die.

So,in truth, it's easy to say the NHS wasn't overwhelmed if you severely restrict access to the NHS. It's easy to say no patient was denied an ITU bed if you simply don't identify a patient as needing one in the first place.

Testing capacity was meant to be 100,000 by end of April. Funny how on the last day they "achieved" this - but only by counting the number of tests posted out to people. So, not tests actually performed or processed then. Wonder if they can meet that 100,000 every day going forward? I doubt it. They'll simply make it very difficult to get one but claim that capacity is there, just people not attending. As is happening now when they expect people in the north to travel 80miles to get a test.

Same as PPE - claiming so many millions of items of PPE being supplied every day sounds fantastic until you know the truth - 1 glove is 1 item and soap, hand gel etc is also classed as PPE. Maybe they should publish the numbers of each individual item - so how many visors, eye shields, n95 masks, pairs of gloves, gowns are they providing?

So, would I support lifting the lockdown as they have in South Korea? Absolutely.

Do I support our government and its plans? No.

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.

I agree... In the same way I’m not worried about my 9 and 11 year old children. I’m more worried about me at 44... no health conditions but slightly overweight (26 BMI), but even then I accept my risk is very low.

God forbid anyone posts optimistic stats on a MN Covid thread. Should have known better.

We're all going to die and might as well get used to living in lockdown.

Is that better?

Hearhoovesthe data was based on people admitted before the 6th April so given we went into lockdown on March 23rd and the time it takes from infection to ending up in hospital most of those in this study probably got infected before lockdown. So actually I think it is data generated by a population not on lockdown.

I really recommend actually reading the full study

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.23.20076042v1.full.pdf

It has a lot of graphs and figures at the end which set out risks etc and also the age of those were admitted etc

@cantory a lot of furloughed employees are worried ( and possibly correctly) that they will not have jobs to go back to despite the intention of it keeping jobs open.

It is hard - I just feel that there are so many folks who will be ok as long as lockdown continues but who will not be able to participate in whatever comes next. And it will be eased in the coming weeks and months whether those people are on board or not.

The govt will be looking at how competitive we are on the world stage - and will not be prepared to emerge too much later than their peer economies.

I'm still working FWIW and am seeing the effects of the crippled economy in my business - which should, on paper at least , be better placed than many to weather the storm.

I am actually very fortunate and expect to be able to WAH for many months if needed - there are going to be big changes in how people access workplaces like offices after this - Barclays have already mooted that they probably won't bother maintaining big central city offices afterward

There must be thousands of people in the UK going unrecorded because they never see anyone about their symptoms.

Definitely... we have 177,000 recorded cases. It’s estimated that 4% have had it (though that may be out) which would give 2.5 million cases.

God forbid anyone posts optimistic stats on a MN Covid thread. Should have known better.

I don’t care if articles are optimistic or pessimistic - I don’t have an agenda as hopefully was apparent from my other posts - if they’re not accurate they need calling out, unless we want to live in a world where the truth is whatever we want it to be (which I don’t).

Quartz2208

I have read it. The range of time between symptoms and hospital admission was actually very short wasn't it? Surprisingly so, in fact.

Those figures are still generated by a population with low levels of circulating infection - estimated that less than 10% of the population has so far been infected. Chris Whitty has said that the second wave will be worse than the first if (when??) It comes.

And we don't yet know the outcome for all of those patients in the study. Many are still in hospital. As the study ended we know the percentage that had died. That may not be the final figure.

What we also don't know is the level of on going morbidities in those that survive - surviving hospital doesn't necessarily mean back to normal.

Would be interesting to know if the 4% conceals very wide variations - my guess would be that more in london And some other big cities have Had it (Higher proportion travelling by very crowded public transport, generally larger crowds) which would mean that the proportions in some other parts Of the country would be much lower.

Long long ago matt hancock announced that the 4th ‘pillar’ of testing would be sampled surveys at porton down of antibody tests. I think chris whitty said a couple of weeks ago that the results werent yet ready. Are they now? Are these the same as the ons data which people refer to as being about to be available (ie are they no longer being referred to as porton down)? There seems to have been surprisingly little questioning from the media or parliament about the results, given that they’re likely to be quite important.

Long long ago matt hancock announced that the 4th ‘pillar’ of testing would be sampled surveys at porton down of antibody tests. I think chris whitty said a couple of weeks ago that the results werent yet ready. Are they now?

No, because the tests aren't reliable.

Would be interesting to know if the 4% conceals very wide variations - my guess would be that more in london

There will be some very big differences, with London being much higher. Recent studies in NYC, possibly the worst effected place in the world, and worse than London, show 20-25% of people with antibodies. Around 0.2% of NYCs population have died from Covid to date, giving a mortality rate of roughly 0.8-1%.

Very roughly, if you look at London Covid death stats, and factor in that they are only hospital deaths, London is roughly half as badly affected as NYC per head of population. This would mean 10-12% of Londoners have been infected... However, some of the inner boroughs are more notably worse and are probably at NYC levels.

There is a reasonably reliable antibody test that they are using to get an indication of the level of infection across the country. I believe the first set of results from those tests are expected soon.

The tests are not reliable enough to be used on an individual level yet (to tell an individual whether they definitely did or did not have the virus at some point) although I believe they are hopeful that will change soon.

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras sorry I have read it and it sounds like I was saying to you read it and it comes across as rude

When I meant a general everyone should read it because the figures at the back were interesting

You do realise the death toll has been significantly higher than any other year? Sure it takes some resilience to stop your normal life, but it's also smart.

Yes i thought it was the over the counter diy tests that were ruled out as too unreliable. Sounds as though the porton down tests (is that what youre referring to sunshine?) have enough sensitivity and specificity to give a rough guide to past infection levels. Not sure though why it is taking a month for there to be any results announced - did whitty refer to sampling issues a couple of weeks ago?

Still, the chatter seems to be that low levels of previous infections are expected - perhaps on the basis of preliminary results. As pp say, likely to be much higher in some places. Some interesting comment on twitter that the R falls as immune Numbers rise - if true it would mean that lifting restrictions will have different impact in different places (well, i suppose we knew that anyway, but the insight is that one of the variables is numbers already immune!)

Yes i thought it was the over the counter diy tests that were ruled out as too unreliable.

That hasn't been Hancock's explanation. When he was questioned about the results from Porton Down he said the delay was due to the inaccuracies of the tests. If the test works what on earth is the hold up? It must be at least two weeks that they've been undergoing the testing.

@Derbygerbil Yes the government also says between 2-4% of the population have been infected, based on random testing.
I wish we knew what proportion of the population were infected.

Yes, more like a month hearhooves - precisely why ive been puzzled about the delay.

Has there been an announcement that the porton down testing hasnt worked then - i havent watched the press conferences recently but thought a couple of weeks ago vallance said in answer to a question That the porton down tests were continuing but results not yet ready - and then whitty, as i say, referred to sampling issues. Are the ons tests we’re waiting for something different, or are they ‘ porton down renamed’?

'Get a grip'. 'Pull yourself together'. Both phrases that people with mental illnesses have been hearing for years.

The thing is OP, if people who are fearful could 'get a grip' they probably would. I doubt they enjoy being scared all the time.

The way this pandemic is pushing everything else out of the news, the way we're fed the death figures every evening, the way the NHS is being lauded and so on really feeds into the whole 'covid19 is going to kill us all' idea.

We see film of patients being applauded by hospital staff when they leave ICU as if they've achieved some amazing feat. Do we see cancer patients applauded when they get an 'all clear' no of course we don't.

People are frightened of dying, of course they are and the whole circus around this thing isn't helping.

If I had young children I be terrified of dying and leaving them motherless. In fact I was in that situation when my children were small. fortunately I was operated on in time and didn't die but when I thought I might die and leave my small children without their mother, yes I was bloody terrified.

Has there been an announcement that the porton down testing hasnt worked then

The last mention I've heard was when they said that there were some problems with the accuracy of the tests - that was answering a question directly about Porton Down but I haven't heard anything else since. When he's been asked more recently it's not been clear whether the answer refers to widespread testing availability or specifically Porton Down but I've been working on the assumption that no data released means they don't have data available. Knowing prevalence amongst the population would let them be more specific about fatality rates etc wouldn't it, so I presume if they have that information then they would be making it public.

@pigsDOfly

I totally agree with you, I alluded to this on another thread recently about the government/media narrative being about fear, and in that fear controlling the actions of people making it easier to "lockdown" etc.

I was told I was a conspiracy theorist.

There might be a small risk of any of us dying, but I am at a much higher risk of dying of covid 19 than any other cause. I appreciate that is not the same is for everyone. My friend with cancer may be at a higher risk of dying of cancer, but covid 19 increases her risk of dying this year.

I am 50 and fat, so my risk of getting illnesses like diabetes are higher than dying of covid 19. But illnesses like diabetes are very unlikely to kill me this year. Similarly my chances of being in a car crash are higher than dying of covid 19. But most car crashes are minor scrapes. I am at a very low risk of dying in a car crash as most who do are young men or drunk drivers.

My kids are at a very low risk of dying of covid 19, but they are also at a very low risk of dying of anything this year. DP as a man in his fifties is at a higher risk of dying of covid 19. Yes overall will probably be fine.

I do understand risk. and I understand that our risk of dying this year overall is low, but that covid 19 is a greater risk than other things. For my parents covid 19 is a much higher risk.