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.

@Annamaria14

Yes that was me!! Because they had confirmed tested cases they are just assuming that everyone that dies there now will be "with covid"

Forgot to add, I think the way we are living utterly insane. We are heading for a global depression, we will lose so many more lives through that than this virus.

I think this virus is being totally underestimated. The Gov have consistently lied to us, there have been numerous u-turns in their advice, eg: facemasks are no use/now they are, no point in quarantining travellers into the country/now they are, children are not affected/spreaders of this virus/now they are, its only a mild illness/now its not, it only kills the elderly/underlying conditions/no it doesn't, need I go on??

So I do not have any faith in this Gov and their advice at all. If I caught this virus, I would prob not survive, I am 50 and in the vulnerable group . I am fed up of posters stating that we all need to get this, NO we do not, I am intending and in the position of being able to isolate as best I can until there is a vaccine. If the ignorant amongst us want to go out there and shop and party, thats on their heads.

@fessmess do you believe that the deep recession caused by lockdown will have no effects on society?

@mrpumblechook how many young people have been seriously ill from Covid in hospital? Do you have any facts and data on this?

@Annamaria14, that is cold consolation to those whose loved ones have died, whom they will never see again, a situation that is far worse than not seeing your healthy family for a few more months but still being able to plan Christmas or other celebrations this year and for many years to come.

I have a friend who was intubated on May 9th in Kilkenny Hospital. Nobody knows if she will recover. So far critical but stable. This is a woman in her mid 40s, no underlying conditions. Friends and family are waiting to hear of a positive change. Family includes two children in their early teens.

You will get through this.

How do they care about people's health, when they are treating everyone else's health dangerously and negligently during this time?

What else would you have liked them to do, FFS

I can't wait until we don't have governments anymore.

I saw predictions, thst said that we will begin to get rid of the old style of government ( a small group of people ruling over eveyone else)

I am going to state very strongly here that the whole 'I care about others' thing is total and utter bullshit.

You must be have such a brilliant mind. Not only do you know more than the vast majority of epidemiologists, scientists, medics in the world but you can also read minds. Well done.

What I don't understand is why people who are very very low risk from covid are willing to accept the effects of lockdown?

People seem to be certain that covid means certain death for them or their loved ones. Even though statistically it doesn't, for the at risk groups the odds of survival are still greatly in their favour.
Yet people seem to have a "it won't effect me and mine" attitude when it comes to the devestating effects of lockdown. Something that will effect everyone of us in someway.

Maybe because austerity is somthing we are used to, but death and disease are an unknown to many. Maybe because the reality of what the lockdown is doing and will do to people is not really being talked about. Just like the reality of austerity wasn't. The media just demonised the poor.

@OneofTheHerd your chances of surviving covid, even if you're vulnerable, are very high.

All the indications are that the death rate is under 1%, and that includes very elderly people and people with serious illnesses. There is no need to assume that if you get it that's game over for you. I'm sorry you've been made to feel that way. It's just wrong.

@icansmellburningleaves

Yes, the assertion that everyone who is content to follow lockdown is somehow doing so out of irrational fear irks me as well.

I can honestly say I personally am not remotely frightened by the prospect of catching Covid at all, but I am happy to continue with lockdown because I'm not convinced leaving it right now is the wisest course of action in the longer term. There will come a time, sooner rather than later, when it is right and proper to do so, I'm just not convinced that on balance that time is right now.

My partner, on the other hand, suffers from Generalised Anxiety Disorder, has Panic Syndrome, Health Anxiety, and in an Emetophobe. For a few weeks from mid-March and into April, they were completely besides themselves with worry, not only because of their own anxieties but with worry for their own parents who are both in the highest 'at risk' category for differing reasons.

It's because of people like my partner and seeing the distress they go through first hand that people decrying all and sundry for being 'hysterical', 'terrified' etc sticks in the craw a bit. It's misguided, untrue, and callous.

@OneOftheHerd A vaccine is far from imminent. Timelines will have to be compressed enormously to bring anything to market in even 12 -18 months as this article illustrates very clearly. www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/30/opinion/coronavirus-covid-vaccine.html

@mathanxiety yes I know of someone at 36 who was seriously ill and it was 50/50 chance he would survive, luckily he did. He did have an underlying lung condition but was fit and healthy otherwise but I can’t lock myself away because this has happened to one person I know of that age. What is the number of young people under 45 going into hospital from coronavirus? I bet it is a very small number.

Sorry to hear you were a victim of a rapist, @Annamaria14. That puts your anxiety at not seeing your family into a different context.

I have a cousin who had a radical mastectomy in mid February and has been having chemo since then. She lives in the midlands and drives herself to Dublin and back. There was no question of delaying her treatment. Not everything is on the back burner because of covid.

I am going to state very strongly here that the whole 'I care about others' thing is total and utter bullshit

I agree, other than a very few people who do feel for others very deeply.

I always think the same when people say vaccination is the socially responsible thing to do. Yeah right. You vaccinate your kids for their benefit (and your benefit, so you don't have to look after and worry about them if they get ill) - not for the benefit of anyone else.

that is cold consolation to those whose loved ones have died, whom they will never see again, a situation that is far worse than not seeing your healthy family for a few more months

Yes but people have loved ones who are elderly. And my uncle for example, is 84. He has Parkinsons. So every week and every month counts for him and it's rubbish that he can't make the most of still being mobile and having a clear brain. My mother is healthy but she's 81 so not getting any younger. People seem to have lost all perspective. Suddenly, if you die of anything else or have a crap quality of life, that's fine because it's not covid.

I've also seen a meme going round on Facebook about "you'd really prefer to save the economy over saving lives" - seemingly forgetting that you need a functioning economy to raise taxes to pay for medical care and other services people need for a healthy life.

@TheDailyCarbuncle

*I am going to state very strongly here that the whole 'I care about others' thing is total and utter bullshit.

The people who are scared to go outside aren't scared because of the risk to others. Their scared of the risk to themselves.*

Of all your posts in this thread, this is by far and away the biggest, most egregious pile of horseshit

@MyHipsDontLieUnfortunately You’re not putting yourself in that ‘very very low risk’ group that she’s talking about though are you?

But OP, when you got measles, although you were not immune you were part of a social group which had a degree of immunity at the population level, so this comparison is completely false. You would do better to compare with the impact of smallpox and measles on the native American communities when they first had European contact. You can obviously still hold your opinion if you like (generous!), but your comparison is entirely spurious.

I think the death rate is far higher than 1%...........

I can't wait until we don't have governments anymore.

Our government is a total con. We have an elected parliament instead of a monarchy ruling so we "have a voice" and the country isn't controlled by the elite.

But we just vote in the elite like the good little sheep we are.

Things would be so much better if we had a truly socialist country. But that will never happen because anyone socialist gets tarred with the Marxist brush - which is appently is the worst thing you can be.

I saw predictions, thst said that we will begin to get rid of the old style of government ( a small group of people ruling over eveyone else)

Didnt Gaddafi come up with a new style of government that didn't involve a small group of rulers. I think that was post him going power mad though.

I can honestly say I personally am not remotely frightened by the prospect of catching Covid at all, but I am happy to continue with lockdown because I'm not convinced leaving it right now is the wisest course of action in the longer term. There will come a time, sooner rather than later, when it is right and proper to do so, I'm just not convinced that on balance that time is right now

I do largely agree with this but I think the risks of getting Y10s and 12s back to school would have been minimal. And I bet the risks are lower now than they were in March, when they were open.

I was reading the Irish approach to easing lockdown yesterday and it looked very sensible. It also had a clear message on WFH - continue remote working wherever possible until 10th August (and not just because an employer is a control freak and wants bottoms on seats in the office). We need that message in the UK too. Even if Boris won't say it, the devolved administrations could.

Spanish data from their huge 70,000 antibody. Chance of dying from Covid:
0-9yr 0.002%
10-19 0.003%
20-29 0.010%
30-39 0.022%
40-49 0.042%
50-59 0.137%
60-69 0.486%
70-79 1.66%
80-89 5.8%
90+ 10.3%

It's pretty bad for older people, but for the young it's tiny and under 20's it's less than the chance of dying in a car crash in 1 normal year.

I agree @cologne4711 there is an attitude that nothing else matters as long as you avoid covid. So the people dying of other illnesses, the people whose mental health is being destroyed, the doubling of deaths due to domestic violence, the people who have lost jobs and may never work again, the children stuck with abusive families with no school to give them respite, they all don't count. All that matters is an illness that for the vast majority of people causes them a temporary illness. Everything else has to stop, things have to be irreparably damaged, not to prevent people from getting it - remember that is not an aim, the virus will still be there - but to make sure people get it at a later stage.

So if a child dies in an abusive family so a person can have a cough in September rather than May, so be it.

It is so incredibly bonkers it almost defies belief.

I think that in order to get the adhere to the lockdown, the fear had to be put out there. All of a sudden it’s ‘ teachers are being silly to worry about the virus’ so I think it’s going to take a while to adjust and there is a lot of work to be done to rebuild confidence.