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 think lock-down had to happen but in hindsight we left it too late and didn’t learn from Asian countries quickly enough. Getting out is going to be so hard as the fear factor has gone through the roof. People seem to be assuming that the risk feom going to school in January was 0. It never was. There have always been children that picked up illnesses at school that either caused them or their relatives harm.

Everyone also seems go have hope for a vaccine without ever thinking that they and their children are likely to be bottom of the queue. Healthy adults in their 30s might not even ever be eligible for the vaccine.

I don't think wearing masks in the supermarket it crazy. I maybe wouldn't go as far as a visor. And gloves seem to be counter productive.

But we do need to learn how to live with the virus without letting it run uncontrolled throughout the population.

Lockdown was needed. And now we need to start working again (although I never stopped!)

So maybe I only agreenwith some of your views. It is idiotic to underestimate the threat of this virus. But we need to take control of it too.

"@Meruem have you heard of the Great Depression? I guess you have because it was so devastating it's still spoken about over 90 years later. What we're facing will make the Great Depression look like a nice picnic."

Have you heard of Spanish Flu? Same period.

I don't know any young healthy people who have died, and if I had it wouldn't affect my perception of risk as that's based on the stats for my age group.

I also think that any fellow NHS worker who didn't realise their pay would be affected was incredibly naive. How on earth are we going to pay for lockdown without cutting public services funding?? So thanks colleagues for your scaremongering

agree OP. actually find it terrifying how easy it is to control the masses

I’ve found that those who take an approach that prioritises the economy and life getting back to normal are those lucky enough to be fit and healthy, and/or have a cavalier attitude towards at-risk relative’s lives

They also happen to be the majority of the working population, you know the ones who pay taxes, so the NHS can function and keep the welfare system going- especially now with so many people facing redundancy. It's important that the ones that are not in the vulnerable group go back to some sort of normality.

"1.25 million people die each and every year in car crashes, we don't ban cars

I hadn’t realised so many people were killed in car crashes every year. Is that just Britain, or Europe or the world?

Some people seem to have forgotten that this is a global pandemic and not some inconvenience that has solely befallen our little nation. It should have been obvious from January that China wouldn’t have shut down it’s entire economy for no reason. With no measures - yes, including social distancing and mask wearing - the virus will inevitably threaten to overwhelm the health system and lead to its collapse. Not to mention that its side effects are unknown even for those who recover (kidney damage being a prominent one). People should still assess and be conscious of their personal risk, however. For young children especially, I do think that the educational and social inequalities that result from missed schooling will have a devastating impact.

Nevertheless, people scoffing at mask wearing on this thread is rather embarrassing tbh. Far from being an overreaction, it’s one way of containing the virus/preventing a vicious cycle of lockdowns and easings to which we in the UK will inevitably be doomed.

this is why we are second on the entire planet for deaths!

great work!!

YANBU OP. I was very poorly with measles in the late 70s...no lockdown then!

I'm terrified not by the virus but by the British population is so easily manipulated via paralyzing them into a state of fear and therefore blind obedience.

School staff ranty posts on social media about how we're sending our children to the death by reopening schools?! The risk to children is negligible. We're in danger of producing a fearful, cowering, hyper vigilant generation who hunker down in their houses at any risk, real or imagined.

It's very easy to control a population through fear and scaremongering, look at 1930s Germany, in The U.K., the brexit campaign based on xenophobia.

I'm in the majority amongst most of my friends who I previously viewed as free thinking, critically minded individuals...not blind followers of what is increasingly beginning to seem like propaganda.

One things for sure...We're going on holiday in term time next year....don't think that can be argued with!!

Any evidence please?

Is Google broken? There's literally loads on both of those statements, and you can check how credible you believe it to be for yourself.

I know I am more worried about the affect this lockdown will have on my kids education and the financial implications to my family that will follow in the years to come. I am not concerned about the virus as I assume if we catch it we will recover. That being said I can understand people feeling totally different to me if they are in any of the vulnerable categories and I would feel different if any of my family were.

Also the idea that the government wouldn't tank the economy is laughable. They are the ones who proposed Brexit - the worst possible outcome for the British economy (before lockdown of course). They are also the ones who oversaw the 2008 economic crisis. The idea that they have any skill in protecting the economy has no evidence at all to back it up.

This government didn’t oversee the 2008 economic crash - Labour were in power then.

raw "There are lots of people on this thread who agree with you, but not based on anything other than a general feeling of unease, being bored of lockdown, an inaccurate understanding of virology and maths, a fear of losing their job."
I agree with OP. I'm not actually especially bored of lockdown. In truth my day to day life is essentially hardly any different now than before lockdown. I am a do or, with a fairly good all be it basic understanding of virology and maths, and as a doctor I certainly (thankfully) have no fear of losing my job. So maybe you need to consider if it is you who is spreading misinformation.

@MyPantsAreGreen agree with every word.

I went to the supermarket yesterday eve. The queue snaked all the way round the building. We all stood in line in silence. Tiptoeing around each other wearing masks and gloves (although I wear neither) waiting for nearly an hour to run in and pick up essentials. Then out of the blue everyone spontaneously burst into applause like robots preprogrammed to know it’s 8pm on a Thursday, and of course because everyone else claps you clap too for fear of being singled out. Still no one spoke.

I mean, what the actual fuck?

As a PP has pointed out with the Handmaid’s Tale reference, if this was a passage in a dystopian novel it would probably still be hard to believe.

Should say minority...they're all cowering in fear too...apart from surprisingly the drs I know. They're trying to instil a bit of sense.

doctor Apologies for typo...

It is not a ‘flu like disease’. If it was, we would be reacting as we do to flu.
Read the latest clinical reports. Talk to ‘recovered’ patients, parents of those who have had kids in hospital with PIM-TS, frontline clinicians stunned by the complexity & novelty of this thing. It is not a flu-like disease and that is why the world’s response is so very very different. Or apparently ‘bizarre’

Yabu. So so many more would have died without lockdown. Would you have preferred that? Guess your answer would be yes, that is until it would have been you or someone you love.

1700 a year die in road traffic collision.

The point of lockdown is to prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed with cases.

I had measles in the 1980s as small child

How measles spreads and who it effects was well-understood in 1980. This novel coronavirus is not well-understood, clue's in the word "novel".

I had CV-like symptoms very mildly. One of my colleagues spent a week on CPAP and is still recovering three weeks later. Without a hospital bed and CPAP he would have died, despite being in his 40s with no underlying health conditions. Lockdown ensured there was a bed for him.

"School staff ranty posts on social media about how we're sending our children to the death by reopening schools?!"

No, ranty posts wanting to know the impact of schools opening on the rate of infection.

No one wants a prolonged, or second, lockdown surely?

You can't compare this to measles just on one aspect of the statistics. In 1980, measles killed 26 people in the UK so of course we didn't have lockdown. Even pre vaccination, the worst year was 1941 where just over 1100 people in the UK died.

Yes 2.6 million people died of measles in 1980 but primarily in developing countries due to lack of vaccination, extreme poverty, and lack of healthcare. The type of areas that wouldn't be able to lockdown even if it had been suggested.

Lockdown is aimed to spread the number of cases to avoid overwhelming the NHS and causing deaths that are avoidable. It also gives time to analyse the virus, begin vaccine development and look for any medications that ameliorate the severity thus reducing death rates.

"So maybe you need to consider if it is you who is spreading misinformation."

What misinformation is that then?