People are becoming far too relaxed.

[PecorinoPear]

I have been going to the supermarket once a week for food and petrol since this began.

I have noticed that people are becoming too relaxed. Whole families shopping together, no social distancing because they are incorrectly wearing a mask. Children wearing masks, if parents are so worried why don't they leave them at home?

Morrisons aren't bothering with a queue anymore, so there is no limit to how many people are in the store.

Quite right too! The original message was totally disproportionate - we need to try to salvage something of our lives it is a total mess and some people want to wallow in it!

Did the op come back? Second thread I've read in the last few minutes, very similar, and no return from op.

🤔

Yes - isn't the death rate in the over 80s about 15%? That's high but 85% chance of survival is considerably higher!

Even counting the over 80s, if all of them got it, there are 3.2 million of them in the UK.
15% of 3.2 million is 480,000.
(If 80% got it, it'd be 380-390k).
So while the percentage may be small, the numbers are huge because of the population, and that's all people's families.

The NHS pretty much stopped normal service. Non emergency operations cancelled, cancer treatments postponed etc

That’s not coping.

I'm going to do my best to follow the social distancing guidelines/hygiene/whatever restrictions are in place in the hope we can get numbers down quicker, not so many have to suffer with this horrible virus, elderly and those shielding can get out. It'll be easier to monitor and control if numbers are lower.

Just have to hope those that aren't being careful are passing onto other like minded people rather than those who are trying their best, and not expecting the NHS staff to pick up the pieces.

"So while the percentage may be small, the numbers are huge because of the population, and that's all people's families."

The percentage is about risk.

I'm much more relaxed about it and I admit it, I do still follow the rules (all of them) but I do feel they are becoming unnecessary.
My dsis is an ITU nurse, she said it was awful during the peak on her ward but now one hospital in her/our trust is a Covid free Green Zone and the other that was overwhelmed last week had just 6 itu beds occupied by Covid patient.
We have had less that 700 confirmed cases in our council area across the whole pandemic and the majority of those are now recovered and a small percentage have sadly have died. There is very little community transmission.

• That had previously been overwhelmed

I think I'm having a blonde moment.

So Sweden didn't lock down and their death rate is similar to our lockdown rate?

Does this not show that demographics of population play a massive part in the fatality rate?

Now I'm not saying we shouldn't have locked down like we did, it would have been far worse had we not, but surely demographics of population have a lot to do with death rate?

I'm not sure what you're showing there @PowerslidePanda. Those graphs show the difference between zero tests and some tests - ie the difference between no cases of covid being found and some cases being found. They don't show exponential growth.

No, they show the number of positive tests and deaths - which both increased exponentially. Even if you want to try and argue the inaccuracies around testing, the way that deaths increased speaks for itself.

As @Derbygerbil has already said, R greater than 1 means exponential growth. The natural R is estimated as 3. You start with 1 person infected - they infect 3 people, so then you have 4 cases. The 3 newly infected people do the same - now you have 13 cases. Then 40. Exponential growth.

Quite rightly, too.

I wonder if the R is actually that relevant, I mean I don't understand it, I'm not a scientist but surely it is only an average, so you say it is "naturally 3" but in reality one person might pass it on to a bus full of people maybe 20 or 30 and someone else might pass it on to nobody.
And as immunity grows (which is most likely though not definite) it is passed on less. There is no single R value, I read that measles has an R of 15 but due to immunity isn't a huge problem anymore outside localised outbreaks.

People said there would be a massive growth after VE Day and there wasn't.

I personally think we can't live like this forever, we need to get the economy going again and move towards some normality. We can't just lock ourselves away. I think there may well be another spike but if we relax rules gradually along with track and trace and people are sensible then there might not be. We can't stay like this just in case though. I would like to see local lockdowns if numbers begin to spike rather than a UK lockdown. My area has the lowest levels and it does not make sense for us to continue with lockdown.

Personally if we'd lockdown harder and sooner we would be out the other side without this limbo.

I wonder if the R is actually that relevant, I mean I don't understand it, I'm not a scientist but surely it is only an average, so you say it is "naturally 3" but in reality one person might pass it on to a bus full of people maybe 20 or 30 and someone else might pass it on to nobody.
And as immunity grows (which is most likely though not definite) it is passed on less. There is no single R value, I read that measles has an R of 15 but due to immunity isn't a huge problem anymore outside localised outbreaks.

Yes - you're right. It is an average - some infect more people, others less. And the purpose of things like social distancing (for COVID) and vaccination (for measles) is to artificially lower it. But the point I was defending is that at the beginning of the outbreak, when R was it's natural value, there was indeed exponential growth.

I appreciate that some people are absolutely loving the lockdown, in particular the opportunity to monitor how many times their neighbours leave the house and the contents of their shopping bags.

However, we cannot continue like this and the massive increase in cases that some people are hoping for is not going to happen.

I'm doing a shop once a week and trying my best to stay away from people in supermarket more for their sakes than mine, i haven't taken my DD shopping as it's easier to go on my own coronavirus or not.
But I went down the isle the wrong way the other day, Jesus Christ it was like the world was going to end, some people have lost their minds I think.
I'm trying to follow the rules, ive been more lax on handwashing as I've forgotten tbh and I have a young family and are pregnant and so far so good 👍
I'm not scared stiff and following it to the letter and I'm not completely blah say about it just somewhere in the middle

Schools are going to have to reopen and people go back to work otherwise there will be nothing left of the economy. It’s forecast that one in four jobs for those currently furloughed won’t be around soon and the employees will be made redundant.

@TheDailyCarbuncle you reminded me of a code review of Ferguson's model that I read, it was shocking (if you're into that kind of thing)

I am extremely skeptical of any website with 'skeptics' in the name, but I work in this industry and some of this was jaw-dropping to me:

lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/

I work in nhs in Scotland, we had a meeting last week and were told surges we had planned for in both may and July won’t happen, they are now preparing for one In September. Getting a bit fed up to be honest, still waiting for the first 2 and they’re preparing for a third! Thankful
It didnt get as bad as feared though

I remember people saying there would definitely be a spike after the VE Day celebrations which would set us back, still waiting and that was 3 weeks ago. As other posters said other European countries have been easing out of lockdown for weeks now with little ill effect.

My personal opinion? If we didn’t have constant social media or 24 hour news there would never have been a lock down and most people wouldn’t be as aware of all of this, just my opinion though

Oh and to add, there was a story in bbc news the other day saying that scientist are now struggling to test the vaccine as not enough active cases in the community

Alaska yes. The constant 24/7 updates are causing hysteria in some.

Can you imagine if war was broadcast in to everyone's living room like Covid!

Imagine daily updates on how many people were killed by Isis in the middle East, how many soldiers die on front lines on a daily basis or casualties!

Or take another disease, HIV? Let's put the day infection rates of that up.

I do hope they scale back on the daily reporting soon, and begin to calm the masses. I think they whipped it up to cause panic so people would adhere to lockdown, problem is they did such a good job of it they can't bait the masses out of their holes now.

Just on wearing masks. The rule of thumb is, MY mask protects YOU from MY germs. And your mask protects me.

So, families wearing masks are doing so being considerate to others. These are not people worried about themselves, they are trying to make other people feel safe. I think that is rather admirable.

I have no problem with people getting more relaxed. Dominic Cummings gets his wish - herd immunity approach will happen if there is another spike.

Our politicians know more about this than you do.
They don't seem to think there's a risk, they just aren't telling you.
At least until they are tracking you all.

Several people I know work in the large trust a couple of miles from me. They still have 17 red wards. However, I'm in a large urban area where there have been lots of cases. I had a relatively mild dose of it and was ill for 6 weeks. If immunity only lasts for a few months I will be bloody grateful for a vaccine as I really don't want to catch this again.

I’m one of those parents that take my youngest with me.

The older two can stay at home but she needs it tbh. The same walk/house/garden is getting too much for her.