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Covid

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When will people be happy to start living with the risk of catching Coronavirus?

402 replies

wakeupitsabeautifulmorning · 04/06/2020 19:49

Considering there possibly won't be a vaccination for quite some time, if at all, but things are going to have to start returning to normal for the sake of everything else - economy, education, other health issues etc. There is currently so much opposition to easing out of lockdown, people will have to get back to work and schools cannot be part time for years (childcare issues plus the massive impact on disadvantaged dc, plus the dc not engaging in home learning). Spoke to a few people today who are horrified at the thought of a return to normal as they are frightened of catching the virus. I was a bit surprised a they were under 35 with dc (no known health problems). It's like they think it's just going to miraculously vanish.

OP posts:
BamboozledandBefuddled · 05/06/2020 14:05

@Derbygerbil

You say we know that this will overwhelm the health system completely. Are you aware that quite a large number of us don't actually believe that's going to happen?

Lots of people believe crazy stuff.

Believe me, I've noticed.
okiedokieme · 05/06/2020 14:07

Always was ... perhaps it's an element of "when my time comes so be it" but right from early on, in January, I was looking at the data and wasn't concerned, I traveled in feb. I'm much more in favour of providing lots of support to the more vulnerable to isolate than forcing businesses to shut and paying young adults to stay at home. Latest research is that 70% have no symptoms, nothing - we are destroying our kids futures, quarantining the vulnerable makes so much more sense

okiedokieme · 05/06/2020 14:10

PS I had symptoms in March, fever lasted all of 6 hours but lost taste and smell for 2 weeks. Dp has a fever for 2 days and muscle aches/exhaustion for a week plus taste and smell.

BikeRunSki · 05/06/2020 14:13

Now. At the moment I can’t see how I will ever see DM again. She lives 260 miles away. She’s healthy, but lives alone, in her seventies and widowed. Despite FaceTiming the dc, she is lonely, and also worried that 2/4 of her children live abroad and she may never see them again.

YounghillKang · 05/06/2020 14:13

quarantining the vulnerable makes so much more sense

This old chestnut again! The exceptionally vulnerable are over two million. The vulnerable millions more, including 1 out of every 5 people at work. There’s also the 30% of the population whose weight makes them vulnerable, many of whom are not included in the existing vulnerable categories. As well as the BAME population. So your quarantine scenario is not even vaguely workable.

YounghillKang · 05/06/2020 14:14

Oh and let's not forget how exposure to Coronavirus essentially makes anyone in health/social care vulnerable. Quarantine them too?!!

UnderTheBus · 05/06/2020 14:14

I have been for at least 3 weeks already.

attackedbycritters · 05/06/2020 14:26

How many people at risk of losing their jobs would find their jobs not at risk if their customer base dropped by say 30% ( the percentage of vulnerable people in society)

SpringerJS · 05/06/2020 14:27

Now

attackedbycritters · 05/06/2020 14:27

Sorry, because those are the people likely to self exclude from society, probably until vaccine is available, should things open up in a risky way

Derbygerbil · 05/06/2020 14:34

@okiedokieme

It’s not news that Covid isn’t a big risk to many people.... It’s a threat to enough people for us not to casually dismiss it.

HelloMissus · 05/06/2020 14:35

Not every business is customer facing.
It seems like people can only imsgine bars and hairdressers.

My business has no direct connection to the public. If shielding folk stay indoors, it won’t matter commercially (it will probably help - we need folk inside and watching telly).

Derbygerbil · 05/06/2020 14:35

Oh and let's not forget how exposure to Coronavirus essentially makes anyone in health/social care vulnerable. Quarantine them too?!!

And anyone who has a vulnerable person in their household!

Elle1234 · 05/06/2020 14:42

I have been from the start! I'm pretty sure we had it well before lockdown even started but unless we can one day get an immunity test I guess we will never know

Derbygerbil · 05/06/2020 14:43

It looks like we’re edging closer to the point we can contain this in clusters and get back much more to normal....

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8391351/Englands-coronavirus-outbreak-shrinks-HALF-week.html

Why on earth would anyone want to throw that all away and get completely back pre-March behaviour... It’s so nuts I wonder if some posters are Russian bots intent on destabilising the UK!

FulfilledRemit · 05/06/2020 15:04

I completely agree with NowImLivinInExeter's suggestions.

FinallyHere · 05/06/2020 15:06

I'm low risk of serious consequences and have been WFH and staying at home with groceries delivered weekly since sent home from work on 12th March long before the lockdown. They are prioritising the health and safety of staff and customers, it would be odd of me to do anything to increase risks.

I wear a face mask if I do have to go into an enclosed space, such as the local chemist or post office.

Walk most days on footpaths across fields.

I avoid contact with others not because I have any fear of contracting the virus, but because, if I caught it, as an asymptomatic spreader, I could be spreading it and actually become the cause of many people suffering, even possibly dying.

Yesterday, when I was out for a walk I stepped off the path a good way to allow someone coming in the opposite direction go by. I was wearing a mask , the elderly lady was not. She stopped to reassure me that she had been shielding for twelve weeks, this was her first time out so I should not be afraid of catching anything from her.

She appeared genuinely shocked when I said that my precautions were to avoid infecting her rather than fear of catching it.

The solution for me, as PPs have suggested, is to get test, track and trace going. I have no idea why it has taken so long for us and is still not fully in place. I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist but I do wonder why our government was so keen to fund the development of a new system rather than adopt the existing one already in place on the continent.

Once we know by extensive testing where the virus is, avoiding it will become so.much.less arduous.

nellodee · 05/06/2020 15:10

@Derbygerbil I think Russian bots do exist, but I think a lot of people think like this any way. I think it's a mixture of a failure to understand exponential growth, fatalism and normalcy bias.

Exponential growth - people can't see that although our health service wasn't overwhelmed, a single week more without lockdown could have doubled cases, filling both the hospitals and the Nightingales to bursting.

Fatalism - "if it's my time, it's my time" This way of thinking removes all agency and responsibility, but a lot of people believe it.

Normalcy Bias - if it hasn't happened before, it's unimaginable and could not possibly happen in the future and certainly isn't happening now.

tobee · 05/06/2020 15:27

People managed to exist through the Hong Kong flu of the 1960s. It's estimated 1 - 4 million people died globally. There was no lockdown.

In the 21st century people think that they should be able to avoid death through lockdown. It's a fantasy. Loads and loads of the population of this country alone are not able to access proper health care at the moment for life threatening conditions. Are not getting smear tests, routine mammograms, kids not getting scheduled vaccinations, people not calling for ambulances until they they are in a really bad way with heart attacks and strokes. All because people are obsessed with the headline news of Covid 19. As pp said upthread why is Covid so special? It's not just about the affects of the economy and education that people are suffering from. It's an immediate, tangible risk to the population, the neglecting of other parts of healthcare which posters seem to be happy brush under the carpet because Covid!!!

Cornettoninja · 05/06/2020 15:32

@nellodee, good post but then I agree with it! Grin

I wonder how many people have actually been peripherally exposed to there realities of being overwhelmed by sickness and death.

I’ve been working in an NHS back office role throughout and live near a temporary mortuary that was set up (and used). The NHS wasn’t overwhelmed with covid but it was overwhelmed from a public health point of view. There’s no way that our hospitals could have coped without basically shutting down every service that wasn’t an emergency.

I’m ready to get back to some semblance of normality but with that I accept the changes that need to happen for it to be workable. Theres room for managing covid, the economy and the everyday things people are missing - in fact the only solutions that will work have to work for all three. We can’t pick one and focus on that alone because it will just fail. Blinkered and defensive thinking are their own worst enemy imho.

Derbygerbil · 05/06/2020 15:34

People managed to exist through the Hong Kong flu of the 1960s. It's estimated 1 - 4 million people died globally. There was no lockdown.

Perhaps, but with a 0.5-1% fatality rate, Covid-19 would kill 35-70 million unchecked.

Derbygerbil · 05/06/2020 15:36

I’m ready to get back to some semblance of normality but with that I accept the changes that need to happen for it to be workable. Theres room for managing covid, the economy and the everyday things people are missing - in fact the only solutions that will work have to work for all three. We can’t pick one and focus on that alone because it will just fail. Blinkered and defensive thinking are their own worst enemy imho.

Agreed, it’s not all or nothing!

HelloMissus · 05/06/2020 15:39

Derby exactly.
My entire industry has been closed down.
Yet we’re not public facing, and we are coming up with workable solutions all the time. Solutions that reduce risk, that everyone involved feels comfortable with.

tobee · 05/06/2020 15:42

What I'm trying to illustrate that just saying "ooh ooh exponential growth, lockdown" as if it solves all the problems in healthcare is just as ill informed as those saying "it's just bad flu".

I mentioned the numbers of deaths for Hong Kong flu as it's wasn't insignificant.

tobee · 05/06/2020 15:44

"Theres room for managing covid, the economy and the everyday things people are missing "

And does other healthcare fit into that?