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.

I don't even know that lockdown will have cut numbers by much. People were still going to the shops as usual, and most receiving mail and parcels. Realistically, I don't know anyone who has sanitised everything which will have been touched by countless others. And everyone knows of at least someone who has been going against rules, visiting family etc. 'Lockdown' assumes that everyone has been living in a sterile bubble but it's idealistic to think that's been the reality.

I'm worried for all the babies who have been into this and what the ramifications will be from not being socialised at a young age.

Honestly, they are the people I am least worried about. It's good for babies to be spending their time in a safe, small family circle. Babies don't need to be in nurseries for their own benefit.

@mondaynoon those vulnerable children who are known about.

And the children are all returning to the abusive homes after school.

I don’t think anyone said young people don’t get ill but the percentage is very low. Out of those 500, 300 people recovered. Out of the 200 that died 35 were healthy without any under lying health issues. If you are female you can cut your risk by 50%, i’ll take that risk. Thanks for the data.

I don't think that the percentage of people under 45 getting very ill is "very low". Regardless, why are only those under 45 important? Do you actually consider everyone over 45 as "elderly"

@bridgetreilly I didn't mention nurseries. These babies aren't seeing their own family members. Who knows what that affect that will have in the long term.

Answer to the question about long term effects of babies not seeing extended family: None.

These vulnerable children have been allowed to go to school throughout the lockdown

This is simply not true. For huge numbers of children, abuse happens secretly and silently. I include emotional abuse, verbal abuse, any kind of abuse - which can happen in even the 'naicest' families.

I would suggest that huge numbers of children who are abused - particularly middle-class ones, where the opportunities to hide it are arguably greater - are not on the radar of any professional bodies, and would therefore not be going to school.

@mondaynoon children have been allowed to go to school, but the vast majority haven't. Funnily enough abusive parents aren't usually first in line to do the best thing for their children. Also those parents may be equally as worried as others about sending their children in - being an alcoholic doesn't mean you're immune to the fear that's going around. Also, it's worth remembering that a lot of children with abusive parents aren't on any vulnerable list. They have been suffering in silence for years, with school as their one relief. And that's now gone.

I can't see why we don't sheild the vulnerable under 70 group and just let nature take its course on the old. They've had their lives, why fuck everyone else's up for them to live another few years.

Im sorry if that's cold and unpalatable for most people to hear, but that's what I and I'm sure alot of people think.

No it really isn’t what a lot of people think, luckily.

@mathanxiety you seem to be missing the point. When they go to school there is a chance that teachers spot the abuse. When they're at home all the time with no contact with any other adult, not even their grandparents, then they have literally no way to get help. They are entirely abandoned.

It’s interesting that when called on the fact that there is a lack of empathy displayed towards problems caused by lockdown the only answer is - you can have empathy for both.
Except there’s a huge lack of any evidence of it.
I see posters endlessly pushing for lock down adherence, justifying it with this set of figures or that set.
Yet these posters are never present when people say - I’m depressed, I’m worried about my job, I’m worried about my kids schooling, I’m worried about domestic violence, I’m worried about whatever.
They’ll rock up if they think they can minimise a problem, naturally, but when someone is genuinely hurting, they’re tumble weed.

We reacted to late. If they'd done it at the start of March we would have come out of it sooner.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-52628283

*too late obvs

Yet these posters are never present when people say - I’m depressed, I’m worried about my job, I’m worried about my kids schooling, I’m worried about domestic violence, I’m worried about whatever.

Rubbish. I am worried about my job and my kid's schooling and the long-term effects on the economy and vulnerable people. My hospital treatment is also delayed because of it which will very probably have a serious impact on me .The difference is I think trying to ignore Covid and carrying on as if nothing was happening would make all those things even worse.

@mathanxiety that's reassuring, then. Could you link the studies which concluded this from the last time the country were in this situation please?

I can't see why we don't sheild the vulnerable under 70 group and just let nature take its course on the old. They've had their lives, why fuck everyone else's up for them to live another few years. Im sorry if that's cold and unpalatable for most people to hear, but that's what I and I'm sure alot of people think.

Even Hitler didn’t euthanise the old until they were 85

I don't know how many times it has to be explained that the lockdown, in the UK at least, is not aimed at preventing deaths
Yes it is. It's aimed at preventing the deaths caused by saturation of the medical services.

Op you say you find the psychology of human compliance extremely worrying. I'm finding the psychology of people changing the data and scientific information to suit their own denial, also extremely worrying.

The thing about the over-70s is ridiculous. Most of them will survive even if they do get covid.

I can't see why we don't sheild the vulnerable under 70 group and just let nature take its course on the old. They've had their lives, why fuck everyone else's up for them to live another few years.

Wow, are there really people with nasty thoughts like this? Do you want to let nature take its course on small children with asthma, and babies with heart conditions too while you're at it?

Society has never been "comfortable" with death. The human race or your children were at high risk from death from this you wouldn't feel so "comfortable" about it either.

Death was so prevelant in the Victorian times people were pretty comfortable with it. Infant death was a normal part of life. They were mostly killing themselves from a poor understanding of infection, hygiene and poison. But it's wrong to say society has never been comfortable with death. Modern society isn't comfortable with death because we are largely protected from it - leading many people to believe we have power over illness and death. When actually we don't.

And I agree that we should be treating this differently if the young and fit were effected. But they're not, its the old and infirm, which is a completey different situation.

It wasn't there because, for some reason, it was only after the event that people went crazy.

In the 1970s, it took a while for us to figure out that the new mystery illness mostly killing gay men was caused by HIV. Doesn't mean that HIV didn't exist back then and doesn't mean that wasn't a life-shortening condition for those that had it prior to it named and researched.

There's a reason for the saying "ignorance is bliss". All novel infections start with an ignorance phase, followed by a "what's happening here?" phase as the authorities start to notice a change in the numbers of people getting sick and dying, followed by a discovery phase as scientists confirm that the virus is new, then a research phase as they start to research how it behaves. We never hear about a new infectious disease prior to the discovery phase because we don't know that it exists, yet it is still causing damage and spreading.

Anyway @TheDailyCarbuncle, the long and short of this thread is that you're perfectly willing to go back to life as normal. Crack on then.