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'm confused by people saying that they've had a bad time with the illness. I'm aware that some people are very ill with it. How is that relevant? There is no plan to stop people from getting the virus - it's in the population and it'll continue to spread, regardless of lockdown. So even if someone stays away from everyone at the moment and doesn't get it at some point they will have to engage with life again, at which point they may get it. They may suffer badly or not, but lockdown will make no difference whatsoever to that.

@Eyewhisker

Derbygerbil has got you there. Fact check perhaps.

I live in Ireland and have obeyed all the rules etc but I also feel this whole thing is insanity. The economic impact will cause so many issues and I really feel will be a bigger issue than the virus itself.

Here the schools aren’t back until September and shut down earlier in the UK and now there is talk of them NOT returning in September either or if they do that some students will have to go in the morning and some in the afternoon. With three kids this would basically be impossible for us and our jobs, we have absolutely no family support either. And before anyone says school isn’t childcare the fact is that a lot of people use the hours their kids are in school to work. I wfh anyway but it’s virtually impossible with the almost 3 year old to do anything tbh and if my other dcs are at home and I have to meet deadlines etc I can’t expect small kids to be quiet and still for hours on end and the amount of screen time now is a huge problem, can you imagine the issues parents will have with this. One child in for a few hours one morning, back I. To collect maybe drop off another child, back to collect and then all the time having the others at home while trying to work and answer calls and the physical logistics of driving to drop off, Park , pick-up etc.
I know people that will lose their jobs and maybe their houses if this is the case in September. It’s insane...

Lockdown followed by social distancing, -and test, track and isolate would and will hopefully mean that we don’t all need to get it.

Other countries have managed this so why shouldn’t we (apart from the fact that our government is not a competent one)?

'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.'

Because there was a vaccination. Far fewer children die of measles now (still too many) because of the extension of the vaccination programme, especially to many developing countries.

And because measles had been around for generations, there was a degree of herd immunity even before the vaccination. When measles was introduced into Native American populations who had never been exposed to the disease before, results were highly disastrous and fatal. Covid is a new virus. Not as disastrous to most people as measles was to Native Americans; but not something commonplace or predictable.

I'm confused by people saying that they've had a bad time with the illness. I'm aware that some people are very ill with it. How is that relevant? There is no plan to stop people from getting the virus - it's in the population and it'll continue to spread, regardless of lockdown.*
It’s absolutely relevant. The government have, at least officially, said that herd immunity is not the policy. The policy is lock down, track and trace, so as few people get it as possible.

'There is no plan to stop people from getting the virus - it's in the population and it'll continue to spread, regardless of lockdown. So even if someone stays away from everyone at the moment and doesn't get it at some point they will have to engage with life again, at which point they may get it. They may suffer badly or not, but lockdown will make no difference whatsoever to that.'

There are plans to stop people getting the virus, or at least to reduce the effects. Medical researchers are working hard on this. The ideal is to get a vaccine, but even before that happens, it is hoped that there will be drugs that will reduce the death rate, and better techniques of testing and tracing. No one wants lockdown or even social distancing forever, but if we can limit the spread until there are better methods of treating or preventing it, then its effects will be less disastrous.

Also, an aim is to reduce the number of people who are sick at any one time. If lots of people are sick at the same time, it becomes much more difficult to provide adequate healthcare for all of them, not to mention for people with other health problems. Mass illness is at least as dangerous to the economy as lockdown, and much more so than social distancing.

The only aim is to reduce the number sick at the one time. The possibility of vaccine or treatment is so remote at the moment that they are not stated as aims at all.

Reducing contact and good hygiene slows the spread. It achieves the aim. Lockdown causes misery and suffering. It also makes people so paranoid that they resist their children engaging with education. It is not a proportionate or sensible response

They may suffer badly or not, but lockdown will make no difference whatsoever to that.

Not really. Someone diagnosed with Covid19 now stands a reasonable chance of getting good care because the NHS is not overwhelmed. Someone diagnosed in a few months, after several months of maintaining R below 1 stands a better chance of good Carr and effective treatment because many clinical trials will have reported by then.

Without any lockdown, with R as it was before lockdown, anyone diagnosed stands a much poorer chance of good care and treatment. The NHS would be overwhelmed with sick people, with many staff sick, and with medicines and PPE shortages.

The whole thing is a balancing act and to suggest it’s a simple choice between the economy and saving lives is facile.

No this is not a logical post. Its crackers. An opinion without any clout knowledge or pandemic experience. You seem to thing this was dreamed up on the back of an envelope, worldwide?

but we are all in this together

We really aren't.

Reducing contact and good hygiene slows the spread. It achieves the aim. Lockdown causes misery and suffering. It also makes people so paranoid that they resist their children engaging with education. It is not a proportionate or sensible response

Again, well said @TheDailyCarbuncle

I too find the reaction to corona odd.

@WiseUpJanetWeiss while there's such a strong focus on providing care for people with covid, other people are not getting the diagnoses and treatment they need.

You say it's a balancing act and I agree - I don't think putting people's lives in jeopardy is a balanced response to an illness that kills a very small proportion of people. Sacrificing lives to save other lives makes no sense at all.

Reducing contact and good hygiene slows the spread yes, which is why schools are particularly difficult places in which to achieve this- contact is extremely frequent (not just between students who are lower risk but adults and students) and good hygiene almost impossible. In currently overcrowded Uk schools anyway.

There was a very good paper out which showed the policies with the biggest effect worldwide were a) closing the schools and b) banning large scale events. You are correct lockdown was not as effective as these two. However, lockdown and keeping schools closed are not the same thing.

@Tobeeornottobee3

Yeah! No schools but you'll still be paying your taxes...

@Nearlyalmost50 there is a lot of evidence now that closing schools makes little or no difference because children don't tend to spread the virus.

Yeah! No schools but you'll still be paying your taxes...

Erm you pay this even if have no children and are healthy your whole life. What a weird thing to say.

Lockdown is intended to reduce the R. That results in a decreasing number of people within a population being infected at any one time. I'm not panicking but I am cautious. Just look at New York if you want to see what happens when you prioritise profit over this disease. We are not such wallflower to start suffering mental illness due to not being able to go to the office or pub! The claims that mental health issues from COVID will kill more than the disease is simply hysteria. Just get on with it and accept you can't go licking strangers in the pub anymore (ok maybe that is going too far but you see what I'm driving at!).

other people are not getting the diagnoses and treatment they need.
They definitely wouldn’t get any treatment if Covid was running rampant - because hospitals would be overwhelmed, doctors and nurses would die in droves, and everyone would be too scared to go to hospital anyway. Also, a lot of those who are having cancer treatment for example are very vulnerable to Covid.
The aim is absolutely to stop us getting the virus for as long as possible, until there are better treatments of a vaccine.
We don’t understand the first thing about this disease at the moment.
From the Guardian: “ Lynne Turner-Stokes, professor of rehabilitation medicine at King’s College, says Covid is a “multi-system disease” which can potentially affect any organ. It causes microvascular problems and clots. Lungs, brain, skin, kidneys and the nervous system may be affected. Neurological symptoms can be mild (headache) or severe (confusion, delirium, coma)”.
And “ I’m a public health person,” he says. “The virus is certainly causing lots of immunological changes in the body, lots of strange pathology that we don’t yet understand. This is a novel disease. And an outrageous one. The textbooks haven’t been written.”
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/15/weird-hell-professor-advent-calendar-covid-19-symptoms-paul-garner

No, this is not something you want to mess around with.

Official figures at the beginning of lockdown vs today.
We were not past the peak at all, and if some were writing that it was wishful thinking.

Since the beginning of all this, when news started to come out of China by whistleblowers in December, anyone mentioning this virus was slammed down for scaremongering.
Come February, any mention of “we’ll end up in lockdown” - scaremongering.
Cheltenham festival shouldn’t go ahead? Scaremongering.

So now here we are, and people having an attitude that doesn’t match “lockdown is pointless” are being made out to be over anxious, scaremongering (still!), ridiculous.
Give it a rest. We’re not idiots.

there is a lot of evidence now that closing schools makes little or no difference because children don't tend to spread the virus.
There isn’t. There is contradictory evidence. A German study says they spread it just as well as adults
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/30/coronavirus-scientists-caution-against-reopening-schools

The media have a lot to do with it, in particular THE DAILY FAIL which churns out multiple terrifying articles every day.

I literally feel like if I went to a pub or shop, even once they're ok to reopen, I'd be signing my dms death warrant. People have been scared senseless!

Probably didn't help that Boris was on deaths door either

@PinkyAndTheBrian Quite.

@NameChangedToProtect1

We are not such wallflower to start suffering mental illness due to not being able to go to the office or pub! The claims that mental health issues from COVID will kill more than the disease is simply hysteria. Just get on with it and accept you can't go licking strangers in the pub anymore (ok maybe that is going too far but you see what I'm driving at!).

Do you seriously think people's mental health is just a case of them missing the pub? Do you really think that little of people? Surely you have enough imagination to be able to think of situations in which being at home, possibly entirely alone, with no support from other people, no opportunity to go out to work, no socialising, no support from healthcare services, could do serious damage to a person? Or are you so sheltered and naive that you seriously have no understanding of that?

The jury is still out as to whether children will spread the infection widely.
They do spread it, but possibly not as much as adults.
BMA supports schools remaining closed at this time though, because, you know, new virus, unknown longterm effects, unknown immunity effectiveness.