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.

I hate the comparisons to cancer and car crash statistics.

You can't catch cancer. Having coffee with a car crash victim doesn't increase your chances of being killed in a crash in the next few weeks.

I'm not terrified of COVID by any means but the comparisons between it and other forms of non-contagious illness don't really mean anything.

..... not to me mention when kids to go back to school , us back to work we will all get sick with other things as we havent been around germs for weeks, scrubbing hands, face masks etc .. going to be a lot of cases of flu, norovirus etc

@wtfdidwedo

I know that, but my point is statistics mean nothing when it's your family member who is in the 2% or whatever of under forties to die from it.

There was a little boy on Sky news the other day who was seven and lost his mother and grandmother within days of each other - both died of COVID. I'm sure him and his father don't really give a shiny shite about what the statistics say.

Saying "well the statistics say this" is fine but it means nothing when it's your family member whose dead.

Saying "well the statistics say this" is fine but it means nothing when it's your family member whose dead.

Of course it’s not going to change how you feel about losing someone. But that’s the same for everything. My aunt died of a very rare form of cancer; it’s horribly sad for all her family, but I don’t live in terror that the same thing will happen to me because I know the odds are so massively against that.

Statistics are always at population level. Agreed, they don't mean much when it's you in the position they say is unlikely. But what they can do is provide a realistic assessment as an additional piece of information for making decisions in the broad group of people not currently in that position.

I had a friend who died of breast cancer aged 45. The generally very good survival statistics don't mean much for her. But I would be intensely unreasonable not to mention those statistics to someone potentially facing diagnosis and to instead focus on my friend's case.

In times like this especially, we like certainties and guarantees, and sadly they are in short supply. Statistics certainly can't give us them, and no statistician seriously claims they can. But they can give us the perspective we need if we are to keep life going, I think.

I'll tell my mildly asthmatic husband who has never let his asthma be part of his life and who has just been out for his morning run that he has ABSOLUTELY nothing to worry about, shall I?
There's over egging it and there's minimising it.
Op, you are minimising it presumably because you are bored.
Boredom is the best outcome of all this.

On the cancer comparison. Both the population prevalence and the mortality rates (for most cancers) put Covid-19 in the shade. The difference is in the immediacy. Most of us believe that the risk of cancer is something we can put off into the future (until it happens).

I do agree OP. I think the media doesn’t help.

@vanillandhoney I do think you are slightly missing the point of comparing statistics. they are important for people to manage their anxiety to point out most of us do risky things every day.
I know someone who lost their whole family in a car crash. what's your point? awful things happen - its shit.
no, you cant "catch a car crash" but the odds are still higher of you being involved in one and having adverse consequences then of you catching and dying from COVID.
not sure where you're getting that 2 percent of under 40s die from it either, that's ridiculously high

How is OP minimising it?

*the current population prevalence)

I think the press has been deeply irresponsible, as it was over Brexit.

Yes people are too scared but I kind of don't blame them. It is quite hard to keep good perspective about what is an acceptable level of risk.

I was watching VE related films on YouTube last night as it’s a topic in my sons school work this week. I fell down a rabbit hole and watched a film about the first day of the Blitz in 1940. We were a year into the war and st that point it hasn’t redkkg affected the civilians, people were going about their business in London on a beautiful warm day. Little did they know a formation of German bombers were flying across the channel towards london to start their bombing campaign.

This program concentrated on various people who were caught up in it. Absolutely harrowing. Fathers who lost seven children and their wife in one evening. Dealing with dead children. Honestly the tears were just dropping down my face. And then I thought of fucking Coronavirus and our massive ridiculous overreaction to it. It’s embarrassing. Given the choice of bombs raining down and this virus I know what I’d choose. We have no idea of the level of suffering of previous generations. We are so bloody privileged.

If people were good at acting logically after risk assessing they wouldn't be overweight or smoke. I'm overweight. If I was terrified of dying of covid, or cancer, best thing I could do would be get fit and lose weight! Instead I am stuck in, eating biscuits. No point claiming I am terrified then, is there?

Happily, mild asthma isn't a risk factor so no need to feel either more or less worried on that score, bellinissurges husband.

Mind you stress lowers your immune system so if you are terrified, it's a bit of an own goal.

It is embarrassing, justanotherneighinparadise.

Agree. It's actually making me question my judgement as well. I feel that's we will have to live alongside the virus for at least a time but friends are genuinely shocked when I say I went for an hour's walk or into a shop without a face mask. I have to take my ds to a hospital app in London next week and others have been shocked I'm risking it.

I'm in agreement. I'm more terrified of the economy tanking then getting the virus. Everyone has the right to deal with this as they please. I for one will be happy to go back to normal. If someone chooses to shield, that's up to them, but yes some huge overreactions from friends with no underlying medical conditions. Ive also noticed that in my circle its those who have money that want the lockdown to continue as is. They wont need to decide between rent or food - funny that!! I say this as someone who is neither rich nor poor.

Over 30,000 people have died, you may not know any of them but they were someone's father, mother, sister, brother, son or daughter etc. It is beyond tragic.

The tabloids and right wing press today are all screaming about Monday being freedom day as if everybody was behind bars desperately rattling their cages. In fact, all that's being announced is the ability to do things outdoors which a lot of people are already doing anyway so there may be a backlash. I couldn't give a toss about having a picnic in a field or being able to walk three miles but like many people I'd like to be able to visit friends and relatives and, on a less essential note, go to shops and garden centres which remain shut.

I am frightened. I've been ill since March with covid, so has dsis. I'm frightened if my parents get it they will die, but because they are old nobody will care much.

@justanotherneighinparadise

I completely agree. I think what this situation highlights is how weak we are mentally and how little resilience we have. Previously generations have dealt with terrible things with far more stoicism. We lived with the threat of scarlet fever, cholera and typhoid. TB killed lots of people.
People were living with the threat of death all the time little over a century ago.
The two world wars and Spanish flu. Before that Plagues and pestilence, smallpox and the like.
People suffered hugely and lost many loved ones.
Why does this generation who are so very lucky in terms of general healthcare and lack of real threat have such difficulty coping with this situation? Mass hysteria and total unpreparedness. If something worse hits in the future we just won’t cope.

I know a lot of people who are utterly terrified who are not in at risk groups. I also know people in at risk groups who have little fear of the virus. People are terrible at judging risk.

I see the impact most on social media, those who are scared tend to be the ones who speak out loudest and that effect amplifies their voices. Then others join in. Those who aren't so scared and say so are cast into the role of veteran-killing demons.

It's going to be a very tough road out of this I think.

It's not the government's messaging that scares me but their blundering and endless confused messaging, laid on top of the harms done to the NHS and wider society by austerity. If I lived in other countries where they're on top of testing and tracing, and healthcare hadn't been under such strain before covid, I would feel much happier and more confident about my safety and that of my family. If I lived in the US I'd feel far more scared! So I am not surprised people in the UK are more worried than most about coming out of lockdown.

@Remmy123 I would think that by following all those hygiene precautions then the spread of other illness is also likely to decrease? Good hand washing is the best way of beating Norovirus as it is transmitted faecal- oral route.
Most people’s immune systems aren’t going to have been negatively affected in a couple of months.
I am feeling optimistic about that.

More of a concern is that many children have missed their vaccinations at this period, either due to parents fear of taking them to the GP or the service not being available for a time (it is now). With an R of 12-18 for measles then just a small drop in vaccine rates could cause a huge problem.

Highest death rate in Europe :-( I think an underreaction got us here, not an overreaction. Like Trump, do we want our politicians to change the conversation towards an acceptance of people dying in order to reopen the economy? 'You do you, I'm going out' won't work. Yet. This lockdown is not forever but the numbers are still so high. We cannot just return to normal like flicking a switch. Sorry but we just can't.