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.

just a tiny point, but whatever us geniuses in the UK have been doing so far, were second on the entire planet for deaths.

Damn iPad the media not Edina , whoever she maybe!

I don't think there is anything bizarre in people trying to avoid a deadly disease. What I find bizarre is people pretending to care about historic measles outbreaks or more recent outbreaks overseas. Having worked in the field, all of this 'concern' would have been much appreciated when trying to fund vaccination and education programmes. But strangely enough, no-one cared then. They only started to 'care' when they thought they could use it to try to 'nudge' people into risky behaviour.

I agree with you op.

And I don't think we were late to lock down.

London's cases were growing exponentially, the rest of the country was quite low.

Now, 8 weeks on, London, is one of the safest places - looks to me like they've achieved a level of herd immunity whereas the rest of us, haven't been exposed enough and have just about levelled off and have higher R rate than London.

I 100% agree OP but am feeling massive societal pressure to conform. The long term impacts really worries me.

I agree - the media have made everyone afraid of their own shadows . Our country will be broken if we don’t get the economy moving . More people will die in the coming years from untreated health conditions or delaying treatment. Time to get on with things, following the advice , making sensible decisions, weighing up risks . That starts with some kids going back to school and teachers toughening up.

@rawlikesushi

It's not baffling if you understand how the rate of infection works

It is when you compare it to the catastrophic implications it creates.... folk not getting diagnosed with caber quick enough and the like....

"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."

There's nothing wrong with obedience if what you're being asked to do makes sense and saves lives.

Like telling someone to get on a raft when they're drowning, then telling them they're stupid for their blind obedience.

Obviously some of you are too clever (taps nose) and have figured out the governments ulterior motive...which is what, again?

Cancer

Are people just dying of COv19?

45,000 people died in Feb 2019 last year 43,000 in March.

To those posters that say the UK is over reacting, if this was a disease that you knew would kill @ 34 000 children in 75 days, would you still be so insistent that we’re being silly or dramatic? Would you still be pushing for things to return to normal, knowing that more children would die as a result?

@Sandybval 10 in that one area tested, be great if you could understand basic stuff :)

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52648557

100 in the UK already FFS.

nice work

I agree with some previous posters that the answer lies in the profoundly unsexy center ground.
Not to just dismiss the seriousness of the impact of the virus ( you end with the Philadelphia in the Spanish Flu)
But not to become so overwhelmed with terror that you can't step foot out of doors.
Being aware of the risks, mitigating them while undertaking normal life as much as possible and accepting that there will be some changes.

Can nobody cope with anything any more without falling apart?

You fail to understand how the brain works, particularly for people who experienced childhood trauma (which is sadly lots of us).

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.

I think this is interesting. This isn't something you hear about here in Ireland. (And look, Ireland is NOT perfect - the situation that arose with our elderly and most vulnerable in nursing homes was really shocking).

But I think our Government handled the situation very well - the emphasis on day one was a rallying cry to civic duty - even in terms of policing, it was very much set up as 'policing by consent'. The catch phrase is 'we're in it together'; the Government have worked very well with public health authorities, and been led by them (in shocking contrast with the UK government shambolic approach in this regard) and the information has been communicated really clearly.

Listening to BJ last Sunday was beyond belief - rambling and unclear. Here there's a clear, dated 5 step phased plan for 're-opening the country' as it's called. It's not without confusion to an extent, but I think again, it's very much communicated in a 'let's do this together way' and people broadly support it.

TheDailyCarbuncle I see you understood the part about slowing it down, but you didn't take in WHY we wanted to slow it down. It doesn't come to the same number either way. The expectation was that if we didn't then those who were treated and survived would also have died because everyone was sick at once.

If we hadn't had the lockdowns in every country then you might have been talking about this as a horror akin to a world war.

Or maybe not, but we had every reason to think so and we'll never know what pretending it wasn't happening would have cost us.

Also you should consider that it is not over yet. Those people unimpressed so far may have a different opinion before the end.

"It is when you compare it to the catastrophic implications it creates.... folk not getting diagnosed with caber quick enough and the like...."

No it's still not. Because people with cancer don't give it to hundreds of other people.

I am very curious why we are having so many threads like this NOW, whilst people seem to find anything so "bizarre" at the very beginning of the lockdown. The situation is exactly the same isn't it? (Technically it is much worst, the numbers were nowhere near as bad but that is a technicality..)

It sounds like people don't have concerns at such, they are just bored and have started to throw their toys out of the pram . We did have a few hysterical threads BEFORE schools closed to advise us that schools would never close in a million years, then people accepted the change.

A few weeks later, they have decided to move on because they are bored of it all. Interesting the way some people function.

Why did that change your mind disorganisedsecretsquirrel?

100% agree. This will be a case study for students of the future. The government response to this serious but manageable situation has been largely driven by social media hysteria and a handful of fame-hungry doomsdayer scientists looking to make a name for themselves. The suspension of logic and critical thinking is beyond belief.

As a mental health volunteer at work its horrific hearing the sheer desperation of people worried they are about to lose their jobs, homes etc. These arent even people on huge salaries but those who did everything they could to earn save money buy a house and have some decent quality of life.

Heartbreaking to hear some who have even openly admitted if they lost it all there be no reason to live.

Yes yes yes OP. I totally agree.

I'll get shot down in flames for this but, I work in a primary school, but not a teacher, but I have the same amount of contact with kids.

I do not get the hysteria about school opening. We have been working with KW kids for 8 weeks now, the kids who are the ones living with parents who are exposed to the virus every day on the front line. Who are most likely to be asymptomatic and spreading it.

It's been absolutely fine. I don't know of a single case in my group of schools.

Yet people who have stayed at home for the last 8 weeks are panicking about children who have been isolated for weeks returning to school!

I think the government needs to be clear and open on what the purpose of the lockdown is.

If the purpose is to eradicate the virus then an even more severe full lockdown needs to be implemente until there are no active case left. For this international borders would need to be closed to any country that has not achieved likewise.

If the sciences suggests that virus is endemic and cannot be eradicated, then the purpose of the lockdown is to help the NHS cope, not to stop us all getting it. In such a scenario, the level of lockdown should only be that sufficient to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. Any greater level of lockdown is causing economic damage without benefiting the NHS.

As the NHS is well within capacity, the latter approach suggests the lockdown should be reduced significantly and the focus should be on shielding vulnerable people and supporting them in remaining shielded until there is herd immunity.

Anything in the middle causes more economic damage than the health benefit achieved.

anyway, just ask your MP to personally vouch for the policy if they support it, just ask them to explain why its safe.

its a really simple question and one that should help parents massively with this difficult question!

it's trolling. don't engage