I'm finding the reaction to covid utterly bizarre

[TheDailyCarbuncle]

If anyone had told me that healthy, fit people would willingly put their livelihoods at risk and deny their children an education for months on end, that they would send the country into recession putting healthcare, education and public services at risk for years and years to come to avoid getting a disease that had a very very small chance of killing them I wouldn't have believed it. If you'd said people would be afraid to talk to their healthy siblings I wouldn't have believed it.

I had measles in the 1980s as small child - the vaccination programme where I lived was slow to get off the ground - and it nearly killed me. In 1980 2.6 million people worldwide died of measles, a very large proportion of them children. No one ever considered a lockdown, it was never even suggested.

I think all the analysis of this situation in the coming years won't be about the pandemic, but about the contagion of fear that made people so terrified of something that wasn't a real threat to them that they created huge, long-lasting, in some cases devastating problems for themselves, problems that were nothing to do with their virus and everything to do with their reaction to the virus.

"But it was never about our health. It was always about control."

Was it really? Please do explain more.

I'm intrigued to know what the benefits of this nefarious 'control' are. Worldwide, mind, almost all governments working as one.

Is it only the elderly you don't see as expendable @calledyoulastnightfromglasgow ? What about the rest of us who were living great lives despite cancer etc who are now expected to stay home and shut up while you all get back to a normal that is no longer possible? Are we expendable?

I agree with you

Testing in New York showed that 2.7 million people had been infected with covid, and most of them never realised it. It's such a mild illness for most people that millions can have it and not know it.

It kills some people. So do kidney infections, and meningitis and infections from cuts. There are threats out there. Living in fear is not a sane or proportionate reaction. Having such fear that you won't even see your healthy family members whose risk is absolutely tiny is beyond an overreaction.

@EdwinaMay

^Hindsight's a wonderful thing.
If we hadn't locked down and had half a million dead we would be berating the gov even more.
If people are so sure the gov should have done this , this and this - funny they didn't speak up more at the time.^

I did in fact speak up at the time, not that anyone listened. But an argument could be made that lockdown was necessary when so much was unknown. Much more is known now - for example that 1 in 5 New Yorkers has been infected and not realised it. And yet people are clinging to lockdown as though going outside means certain death.

Depressing to see thoughtful, factual posts explaining the reasons for lockdown, or a heartbreaking post about someone losing a loved one, only for some absolute fool to post immediately after 'I agree with you op.'

I honestly don't know how you can have eyes and a brain, and agree with op.

So many people posting versions of :

• I'm not afraid of catching it, most people won't die, end lockdown.

• other countries didn't have strict lockdowns and they've had fewer deaths, end lockdown.

• there are some bad affects of lockdown, end lockdown.

Please just read something from somewhere reputable instead of reading Facebook.

If you think lockdown is beyond bothersome now and seriously damaging the economy, that we need to get out, then you are absolutely right and it's what every government on earth is trying to achieve.

"Sweden seems to be doing okay. No better, no worse."

Oh this has only been addressed around 20 times on this thread alone, including by someone from Sweden. But never mind. I have a feeling you have an opinion and only like reading things that support it.

@TheDailyCarbuncle, so how is testing going in the UK?

One thing I'm really baffled about is how many people are saying 'the government knows what it's doing' - such incredible blind trust, with very little proof or detail that lockdown will have enough benefit to outweigh the cost. People are willing to jeopardise their jobs and put their entire lives on hold on the word of people who, by their own admission, were working on incomplete evidence. I can understand doing that when the evidence is so sparse, but that's not the case now.

If you read the actual evidence, it's clear that protecting people in care homes and preventing transmission in hospital are two key things that really make a difference, two things that haven't happened.

Tanking economies is not a way to protect people. It's a way to burden them with endless problems for years.

@TheDailyCarbuncle

What did you make of the scenes in Italy, with army trucks taking away the dead? And the mass graves in New York?

How many dead do you think there would be in the same time period if there had been no lockdown?

You seem keen to see similar sights in this country.

I'm very glad we didn't 'listen to you' at the beginning of this crisis. As your way of thinking is at odds with how the epidemiologists and scientists have advised.

You, Donald Trump, and Bolsonaro all think the same way.

Is climate change all a load of hysterical rubbish as well??

"I don't think people have the first clue what the enormous impact of cutting the economy off at the knees will have on everybody."

It's lucky we have you, with all your insight, to tell us that tanking the economy is a very bad thing.

Have any of you lost someone?

"I can't understand the bizarre logic that shutting down the economy protects the economy."

Just read a book about it or something. It's honestly not hard to understand. It's shocking that people can't understand this actually.

Look I understand the very valid reasons each and everyone of you on this thread has put ( except the dickhead who has a low vocabulary and sewer mouth) it is such a problem and sandy agree and confused
Yes we have to get back on track yes we have to get education going but I fear ' education even when school goes back will be the least thing taught because the poor teachers will be spending most of their time keeping social distancing rules in place!
If schools are to go back let it be all schools and normal procedures except hand washing and having hand sanitisers everywhere so it becomes part of routine weekend whole deep cleaning of schools ( no idea who will pay for that cos state schools won't be able to afford it). I mean if you are going to do something do it wholeheartedly or there is little benefit. It's not for education sake the government want schools back. They want the workers back. That's why trade unions are kicking a stink up. The Government has no plan in place about protection for all in schools. They are relying on schools and teachers to work it out ( passing the buck).
27 bus drivers in London have died of Covid. Go to work if you can't work from home but don't use public transport. Did you see the tube stations yesterday? How can you walk or bike? My DD is having to bike 70 miles a week as well as work 60 hours a week as I can no longer take get to work. She is absolutely done in. She does not have a sit down cushy job. She's a carer! ( More carers have died of Covid than NHS workers you just don't hear about them cos carers aren't deemed as ' professionals'). Social distancing is almost impossible in large cities and towns.
The biggest mistakes made by this government at the begining is causing more pain more economic damage more lives lost then any other country besides USA.

Also

what rawlikesushi said as well

@rawlikesushi I'm not saying I have special insight. I'm saying what I'm pointing out is obvious and yet people seem oblivious to it.

The original aim of lockdown was to ensure the healthcare system wasn't overwhelmed. I could understand that as an aim.

The healthcare system isn't overwhelmed. Not even close to it.

Indeed.

Think about that for a while.

God, listen to some of this, from people who got to live long enough to have grandchildren, but oh, 'this is what is important!', nothing is when your life has been thrown under a bloody bus by a not-very-lethal-in-most-people virus and now you're stuck with shit education, shit prospects and living on the breadline, no chance of affording kids or much of anything else but hey, at least some people know what's important, because it sure isn't poor young people, who are getting utterly screwed here, and they know it! YANBU. I have one child still living in this country, and in July, she's out of here, too, because she's not hanging around for a place that sees her life as some kind of Kumbaya experiment that is destined to fail, so we'll have to go probably soon, too.

It doesn't kill young people any more often then driving a fucking car. But somehow they're supposed to be made to pay for it. Well, it won't happen.

They already know what's important, you can't have community and lovey dovey feelings and family and blah blah blah if you haven't got a pot to piss in.

Again, YANBU.

@rawlikesushi I've read plenty of books thanks.

Killing businesses does not make them survive. If you can explain how I'm wrong, go ahead.

And as for the mortality figures! Dont get started on the lies, coverups of the real death tolls or I will begin to swear!

@mathanxiety my point is that there are many empty NHS wards with whole sectors of the NHS sitting around with no patients while people with illnesses are stuck at home, not being treated. How is that a positive outcome? At what point will those people start getting the treatment they need? Or does 'protect the NHS' mean 'forget about being treated because ARRRGH COVID!' forever more?

Totally agree with you OP. We've lost all perspective. The vulnerable should continue to shield and the government should support them financially and legally. We should be sensible and stop visits to care homes but we should be returning to schools and work. Most of the backlash I've seen about the schools going back amongst parents I know is from stay at home parents or those on furlough who aren't having to work and do childcare

Have any of you lost someone?

My daughter, she was a child.

I would have supported the OP 100% ..... in february.

But now, i think the lockdown was too lax & lifted too early because its a new virus, we don't yet know what it could mutate into, so now it mainly affects the elderly but if we did nothing, it becomes endemic in the population and then changed to kill the u30's and children?

Had we a competent Govt, we would have had testing and tracking, which so far this govt is a million miles from achieving, no testing and no one to track/trace.

Caution is better than being wise after the event.

"Tanking economies is not a way to protect people. It's a way to burden them with endless problems for years."

What would have been the impact on the economy of allowing the virus to run through the population unchecked?

You keep throwing % around, run the numbers.

Not just deaths from covid and over-run health services, but impact on essential services from illness.

Not to mention being the only country in the world to not give a shit about its citizens dying. What a source of pride.

Do you really think no one has modelled what you are suggesting?

The majority are complying with the government, not because they're sheeple blindly following orders but because they can learn from history, read and understand science, and care about unnecessary deaths.