The majority of people seem genuinely terrified

[thewheelsonthebus23]

I keep reading threads on Facebook and elsewhere, I will also include my own mother in this. There are so many people genuinely petrified of life returning to normal right now.
I can’t get my head around this. Yes, it poses a threat to some, but the survival rate is incredibly high for most of the population. It seems a lot of people think lockdown will eradicate it completely and it also seems that they believe if they get it, they’ll almost certainly die. I know that’s what my mum thinks. She’s adamant if she gets it, she’ll end up on a ventilator.
Someone posted about sending their child back to school and said something along the lines of: “I’d rather pay the fine, than pay for her funeral”.
Has the media been really irresponsible here? I feel the mass media has a lot to answer for.

The media is certainly stoking the hysteria. The statistics we don't hear are how many of those who have died would have died anyway. An acquaintance of mine sadly passed away two weeks ago. He is a Covid-19 statistic. However, the poor chap had cancer, liver failure and kidney failure and had only weeks to live anyway. For the majority who are not overweight, lead a reasonable healthy lifestyle, have no underlying health conditions and exercise common sense, the likelihood of contracting, let alone dying of Covid-19 is extremely low, whatever your age.

They didn’t look terrified yesterday as up and down the country there were mass street parties. I sent a message on twitter to my police dept and they passed it on the local officers and said they wouldnt be able to come out as they had had 100’s of complaints and couldn’t resource the emergencies even. On sky news right now they are saying we need to open businesses and save the economy and if people get the virus then tough, the shops need to open. I despair

Where I live there hasn’t been any new cases recorded in the last 3 days and no deaths for 5 days. I live in a town of 260000, in the SE.

What I hate most about lockdown is people telling you what to do with your life. We all have our own risks to juggle, some don’t have a choice but to go out every day and if I want 2 walks a day for my mental health, I go out at a time when it’s quiet and don’t meet anyone, who’s business is it to anyone else.

People who are desperate for an end to lockdown and who want everything to open up again obviously don’t work in the NHS. I work for one of the largest acute Trusts in the country. We cleared hundreds of beds expecting a huge surge that didn’t come.

However, what the press don’t tell you is that we have 500 staff off sick now, many with covid. So even though we don’t have full wards we are struggling to staff what we do have and are relying on agency nurses again at great cost. Our A&E is now filling with the patients that were sick but kept away, their conditions have now got so bad that they are seriously ill and filling our ITU beds.

We are bringing back surgery and trying to get back to some kind of normal so those empty beds are now filling. A second surge would be absolutely disastrous- no beds and no staff to look after a second surge so we will be like Italy.

People think we have the nightingales so there is beds. What they dont realise is we have to provide staff to the nightingales which leaves our own workforce decimated even more

People seem to think the virus is out there floating around, attacking people as soon as they set foot outside the door. As long as you keep away from gatherings, tubes, buses, trains etc and maintain the 6ft distance, surely you're safe? Take the test which is on offer now? I've had two which came back negative so I'm not worrying unduly.

I think stopping other routine check up’s, cancer treatment, operations was a huge mistake, there is now going to be a massive backlog which is going to overwhelm the NHS far more, that mixed with a second wave is going to be a disaster.

@singlenotsingle

You are right but lots of people don’t have that common sense as we saw yesterday and have got complacent now we are over the peak. The peak will be back and worse than ever if people are stupid. Like I said above, a second surge will be awful as we won’t have the staff and beds that we had for the first wave

If they felt they needed to stop routines to cope, then the problem was the lockdown was too late

"Our A&E is now filling with the patients that were sick but kept away, their conditions have now got so bad that they are seriously ill and filling our ITU beds."

Well in a bizarre twist those of us saying that there needs to be a movement towards re-opening are also the ones who weeks ago predicted this would happen.

It is almost as if it was unexpected.

My husbands ITU caseload has reduced from 55 to 11.

I am listening to a BBC new report about two people Felicity from London who is going on and on about how ill she has been, sad face etc. The man is shielding from his young baby.

Yet neither of them have had a test!!!!! Just why is this sort of reporting allowed? This is why people are terrified.

God, if I mentioned the people who think they have had it, about to have it It would be pages and pages.

Personally there are 5 of us in the house. One knows a friends Dad who had a test and didn’t have it. That is it. Yet the news puts the fear of God into some.

maintain the 6ft distance, surely you're safe?
true, as long as you don't believe that 6ft is enough when it has repeatedly proven to be untrue. It's more than than, and distance varies on your activity.

As long as you don’t breathe, it’s fine. And assume everyone has the virus. And assume you’ll definitely die.

And assume you’ll definitely die.

for some people, dying is not the worst option. Being amputated with long term bad lung damage is much worst. Quality of life matters, and the future you give your own kids matters even more.

Jersey just ran random antibody tests on their population

jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2020/05/08/antibody-testing-indicates-3300-islanders-may-have-had-coronavirus/

25 dead, just under 300 previously diagnosed with it but 3300 have antibodies.

Interpret that how you will, but I take it to mean when 10x the number of people have antibodies as have been tested officially it is quite likely that a lot of people in the uk who say they have had it - really have had it
Also, that death rate doesn't look too terrifying really.
We just don't want everyone who's going to die from it dying all at the same time. If they could catch it over a period of time, it would be tidier.

That is intesting illets, thanks for posting. So about 3% of the population of jersey have antibodies, assuming the tests are accurate. So that would mean about 1.8 million in the UK.

I’m on the Shielded list as I have lung problems, and CV19 would probably see me off. Hearing from the experts that we will all probably get it over next year or so , it almost feels like I’m living on borrowed time.
So , yes, I’m not quite terrified, but I am scared x

I have a relative who is a palliative care nurse in the community. She is terrified of what Boris will say on Sunday.

She said people are being fooled by numbers, the daily figures being released do not include those being sent home to die with Covid. Her youngest patient is in their 40's.

There will definitely be a 2nd wave.

It's all very worrying.

Lockdown was too late lets not compound it by having the loosening up too much and too early

You don't know how your body will react to the virus so on that fact alone, it is a very scary & daunting prospect for most. Esp if you have others who depend on you & even worse, if you contract it, you may pass it on to loved ones & you don't know how their bodies will react.

Nope, not particularly scared of catching it, or DCs catching it More scared of the effects on the economy tbh.

You don't know how your body will react to the virus so on that fact alone, it is a very scary & daunting prospect for most

^ no you don't "know" but looking at the evidence you can make a reasonably informed assessment of your risk ... as a young, healthy, slim woman my risk is low - I could be massively unlucky & die but is is extremely unlikely & I'm not losing sleep over it!

For the majority who are not overweight, lead a reasonable healthy lifestyle, have no underlying health conditions and exercise common sense, the likelihood of contracting, let alone dying of Covid-19 is extremely low, whatever your age

Ermmm...the likelihood of contracting COVID is high whatever your health status. It is not discriminating over who it infects and it is very infectious. That’s the point. Just some people are having a harder time if they are infected.

I feel those that play this down are very naïve. I worked in a hospital at the beginning of all this (laid off temp due to social distancing) I can assure you it is very scary.
Over 51% of those that go into intensive care die! We dont know the long term affects of those that do survive yet.
Pictures coming out in the newspapers tom of crowds of selfish people meeting friends in parks taking police away from more serious crime where they may be req, personally id get the fire department to set the fire hoses off on them. Disgraceful putting others lives and their children and grandparents at risk, all because they cant stay home. its not too much of a hardship to what other country,s have had, we can shop and exercise. Were the lucky ones, it takes just a few to ruin it for everyone. unless there is a vaccine for covid a second possibly third wave is highly possible, this can be worse than the first one as in the Spanish pandemic second wave (1818-19) so just stay at home, if you dont care about others then do it for yourself, you may just carry it and pass it on to others, think it might be your mum/dad./children!