Time to get real people

[cookingmywaythroughlockdown]

Ok I think it's time to get a grip on reality!

Coronavirus is pretty nasty but it isn't apocalypse now time. Most of us are going to get it at some point and we will be just fine. So will our families and friends.
The UK cannot stay locked down for much longer without producing a national disaster that will reverberate for decades. So - you will be going back to work, your kids will be going back to school. Wash your hands well and enjoy your lives.
I'm just so sick of the posts prophesying carnage and really enjoying competitive isolation. For most people living like this is borderline harmful. For some it is already actively harmful.

We have to come out from under the bed. Wear a mask, wear gloves if you like but be prepared to live a normal if socially distanced life.

All epidemics burn themselves out eventually. We are much better placed to treat and protect the vulnerable then ever before. At some point soon we have to just get on with it.

Of course there will be further waves of infections once lockdown measures are lifted.

Infections will go on occurring, but they don't have to come in waves big enough to cause further lockdowns - unless people relax so much that they stop taking precautions. That's why over-reassurance that the catching the virus is no big deal (and yes that is what the OP is saying) is so unhelpful. And it isn't true - it can be a very big deal. We just don't know enough about it yet - these are very early days, even the stats about recovery vs death are only a crude picture of what's going on; we don't know nearly enough about how it works yet. See for instance:-

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/03/happy-hypoxia-unusual-coronavirus-effect-baffles-doctors

Now the message is unless you have underlying conditions or are very elderly, you are unlikely to die if you catch covid 19

That is certainly not the message.

Yes viral pneumonia that can be managed at home is counted as mild with covid 19

Counted as 'mild' by who?

There actually doesn’t seem a lot to be gained by hospitalisation though. There’s no cure and its mainly pumping through oxygen as treatment.
There might not be a cure, but there is generally a method of keeping you alive whilst your body fights it. That method of keeping you alive is pumping through oxygen as a treatment because if you don't get enough oxygen cos your lungs are dull of cack, you'll end up with multiple organ failure. Not fun. Whether it's nasal peons, CPAP, PPAP. ventilator, ECMO or trach, you definately want them pumping o2 into you if you can't get it around yourself

Infections will go on occurring, but they don't have to come in waves big enough to cause further lockdowns - unless people relax so much that they stop taking precautions

Given the weeks of lockdown, the total disruption caused to our society and the huge compliance with lockdown measures i've no idea why you think people will stop taking precautions?

And there is no point in repeating the 'no big deal' thing when literally no-one else has said that, including the OP.

A lot of people hospitalised with covid 19 are as a result experiencing kidney failure. That needs hospital treatment.

@flies I have lost count of the number of times when a government spokesperson talks about the numbers who have died and says that nearly all of them had underlying conditions. That is the message constantly hammered home.
Although we are now supposed to pretend that is not the case when it comes to sending vulnerable children back to school, or if school staff or parents are vulnerable..

How do you workout "We will be just fine", OP? In case you had not noticed, hundreds of people are dying of this scourge every day - to date 28,500 country alone, in just a few weeks. Your post smacks of wishful thinking rather than fact, and it is irresponsible to tell people that there is no real problem.

More in this country are the vulnerable than aren't. 60% of the UK are obese. Obesity makes you vulnerable. Hopefully the drugs trials will continue to be successful. It looks like these drugs are reasonably effective when given early. We need to order more of them but that could well be quicker than a vaccine (which will be the preference once available).

Lockdown doesn't need to last forever but certainly a little bit of extra time bought will make a huge difference. Time not only to reduce the spread and wait for progress on drugs, but time also for more research including on possible longer-term effects of the virus. Time means more lives saved and less longer-term economic damage.

Yes that is true, although officially vulnerable means a BMI of over 40, and that is far less people.
More common vulnerabilities include pregnancy, diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma and cardiac problems.

Thanks for the sensible posts eeeyoresmiles. Makes a change from posters like @cantory who profess to have known for “ages” that Covid causes long term kidney damage when presumably the first batch of cases (in China) wouldn’t have even been recovering until the middle of January!

cantory probably saw the information available in late January/February indicating Covid affects the kidneys and recognised the potential for longer-term problems.

@cantory I feel for those with diabetes, cardiac issues or hypertension. Vulnerable but not officially vulnerable (shielding list). No official protection and possibly falsely reassured because of that.

@MrsFezziwig I did not say that. I said specifically that I saw on the TV news about long term kidney damage this week. I said this was the first time I had heard about this.
What I did say was that this must have been known for sometime but not been reported on the news. TV news specifically said thousands of patients leaving hospital have kidney damage and that internationally there is now a shortage of the equipment needed to treat these patients.

@ToffeeYoghurt Yes those in the vulnerable list are I think most at risk. They have illnesses that put them at real risk of being very ill or possibly dying with covid 19, but they have no protection not to go into work to avoid catching the virus. And if they die and their death is reported, everyone will be assured they had an underlying illness.

I don't understand how anyone can trust our government around covid 19. I know most of us do have limitations about what we can do, but I would urge everyone to prioritise protecting their family as much as they can.

@cantory apologies for misunderstanding your post. However, with regards to your statements that the facts about other conditions caused by Covid have been known “for ages” and that the truth is being kept from us, I draw your attention to part of the article you linked in your other thread on the same subject:

Everyone [the clinicians involved in gathering this data] interviewed for this story stressed that with the pandemic still raging, they are SPECULATING with much less data than is normally needed to reach solid clinical conclusions.

Many other possible causes for organ and tissue damage must be investigated

It may well be that these conditions are linked but clinicians are still at the early stages of gathering data. You seem to be drawing conclusions which have not yet been made by the people who are actually dealing with these cases. So I’m not sure why you think that all the facts have been known from day one and that we have been lied to.

You do realise that we are now the fourth country on the league table?

So people have to go back to work, to a job that no longer exists? Send children back to school, as the biggest carriers of this virus. Yes, they probably won't catch it, yet they are carriers as they don't understand social distancing and constant handwashing.

Get over yourself!

When lockdown eases up lots of people will get the virus and be infectious. It will be a scary time for me, 62 year old lean and fit but mildly asthmatic, looking after very vulnerable partner on chemo and resident 87 yr old mil. I suppose it doesn't matter to you that my whole little wonderful family stands to be wiped out?

Joystir, I don’t understand why you think you are all at risk of certain death? Wear masks (or a thick scarf covering your nose and mouth) and wear gloves, don’t touch your face, and stay six feet away from folks, wash your hands and any ppe after each outing, and the odds are overwhelming you will be absolutely fine. You also don’t need to go out unless necessary Ie work, shopping. etc. Where again you should wear ppe and maintain social distancing.

Joystir, I don’t understand why you think you are all at risk of certain death?

Presumably Joystir's partner is on the list of people who have been told not to leave the house at all for 12 weeks because they are immunocompromised. This makes things a little more complicated than just washing our hands more.

Wear masks (or a thick scarf covering your nose and mouth)

There is disagreement over whether wearing a mask stops the spread of the virus, but the argument for wearing a mask is that it may reduce the chances of spreading the virus to somebody else, not that it offers protection from the virus.

@notmrpootles

Most "normal people" set one scenario against the other and behave decently; narcissists and cretins insist on lockdown as if COVID is the only thing that causes deaths.

Behave decently? Yet you resort to name calling. Says all we need to know about what you are.

I expect you'll be banned soon and good riddance.

28,000 people have died
Tell their loveds ones, who probably couldn't be with them to say goodbye and only have 4 people to attend their funeral.

To get real.

Morning @notmrpootles

Any particular reason you sent me a pm TWICE with a message of not much substance.

Why are we assuming there will be no provision for the vulnerable to continue to shield? I would have thought the government have considered this.

I don't think anyone is calling for the vulnerable to go back to normal.

For me, getting the non vulnerable back to work and school, earns money to keep the NHS afloat and hopefully frees up some cash to support those who need to shield.

I would fully support those shielding getting some kind of payment (equal to furlough say not the shit show that is UC) for as long as they need to shield.

I don't think anyone is calling for the vulnerable to go back to normal.

No the government is not suggesting this and many people will not be able to leave their homes for a lot longer than 12 weeks.

However, many people will still have to leave their homes to get treatment and it's very difficult to cut off contact with the outside world completely.

It isn't helpful to minimise Joystir's concerns. Many people will find a lifting of restrictions scary, for perfectly understandable reasons.

I agree and I think I would be scared in that situation too. As for treatment I think it's been suggested that there will be covid and non covid hospitals so they're definitely trying to put things in place to keep people who need to use hospitals safe.

Testing tracking and tracing will also help with this I imagine.

The issue is that you cannot isolate the whole population to protect the vulnerable because in the end up it protects nobody as we would have no NHS.

There needs to be different measures which I assume we will see announced in the coming weeks.

@notmrpootles

I’d you want to take up any of my points raised, do it here and not via PM like a coward. Especially if you want to use terminology like “comfortable housewife”. Why hide that from MN at large, they love that kind of sentiment?

Why are we assuming there will be no provision for the vulnerable to continue to shield?

Deaths due to austerity, the punishing sanctions regime and the 5 week wait of UC, removing support from disabled people based on a sometimes lying assessor and not on a cohorts GP or specialist, deliberate under funding of the NHS, Grenfell, Windrush

Yeah I wonder why people are worried

Right but furlough didn't exist a few weeks ago and you don't have to wait for sick pay anymore.
Things are changing.

If you want to believe it will be certain death for the vulnerable then you know what good for you but you're only going to damage your own mental health.

How about wait and see what the government actually do before assuming they're going to mass murder the vulnerable??