Are things worse now?

[runrunrunrunt]

I feel like the general tone surrounding the coronavirus pandemic has become more bleak and negative. Previously there seemed to be a bit of hope and things were reported with a bit of a positive spin (high percentage of asymptomatic patients, generally mild etc). I feel that now the media is awash with worries about long terms effects, the seeming randomness of the way the virus works and so on.

Do you think that this virus is worse than we first thought or are the media are trying to create fear with click bait type articles? A third option I suppose it could be my increasingly low mental health about it all seeking out bad news rather than good? Anybody else feel like this?

I’ve seen two positive articles over the past few days about immunity being a very strong possibility. And that people don’t appear to get it twice.

I think part of the problem is that there’s not much non-covid related news or anything else particularly going on in people’s lives because we’re all so limited. The media hasn’t ever really been a medium for spreading optimisim, we’d probably find it really odd if they started feeding us a load of feel good fluff pieces!

I think it’s a good idea to enforce a break from it if you can. Nothing is changing so quickly you can’t catch up and at the moment it’s mostly speculative fuelled by increasingly polarised opinions wanting to back up their view re: lockdown vs opening society back up. It’s tiring picking out the facts from the bluster and propaganda.

Thanks for your replies. It's good to hope there might still be some good news. I like Chris Witty but find him depressing. I think I just want this over with now

I've recently moved to the Netherlands and and I feel so lucky for it. We have a very mild lockdown, but more importantly the Dutch govt has given people a roadmap. For example they said lockdown will be eased when amount of ic patients falls below 1000. Also everyday announcement of how many hospital admissions/deaths there were compared to previous day really helps to understand how we're doing.

On the other hand, I need to mentally prepare myself before reading any UK news. It seems that UK govt is just muddling through and needs to exaggerate the lack of knowledge about the virus/it's chaotic nature to avoid accountability for the mess

JuliaPendleton

We have a list of 5 ... 'things which have to happen before lockdown can be lifted' (can't think of the right word!). If i understand it correctly we've achieved the first 4 - and they're changing the goalposts for the 5th one?

It needs to be negative. Remember when Italy was kicking off and our media were doom mongering about the awfulness of it all? We're worse than them now and the gov are still spinning bullshit all over everything . The truth is pretty flipping negative, but I'd rather hear that than anything about Johnson's baby.

But is the truth negative. Yes the deaths are horrific but our government never acknowledge anything they have learned about the virus it is, as a pp suggested very much about how unknown and potentially horrifying the virus is. I know I'm BU, it is horrifying and the death toll is staggering but I see nothing reassuring about the response to this situation at all.

Surely we must have learned something about the virus and understand it better than we did two months ago is what I meant to add.

I would think that UK is over the peak by now but Johnson&co just can't decide on what to do next. Hopefully they can make up their mind soon looking at how neighbouring countries are handling it.