I know no one who’s had coronavirus and neither do my friends or family

[mywayhighway]

Or any of their friends or families.
But I have 3 friends who’s businesses probably won’t survive, another who’s husband has just been made redundant, possibly more to follow, a friend who’s teen has sunk into depression. All the dc have missed out educationally and no prospect of getting back to school anytime soon. That’s just my selfish perspective. There’s loads worse off as a consequence of the impact of lockdown and the slow easing out.
Feeling so frustrated with this now. We’re all suffering and I’m not quite sure if the benefits are going to outweigh the losses long term.

I controversially think that the majority of people who have died we’re already past their life expectancy and had lived a full life. The younger people who have died were tragic but so are deaths from cancer etc.
I think we have had a major overreaction to coronavirus the impact of which scares me much more than the virus.

Having said that we should be angry about this. If we had better leaders we would have handled this much, much better. Covid is a failure of politicians around the world with just a few notable exceptions. We get what we vote for though.

I know of 9 who have died through friends but several degrees of separation. Closest is Friend’s Dad and Friend’s friend. One local shop worker passed it to his Mum who sadly died.

We have possibly all had it after DC’s teacher returned from Venice and a number in the school went on ski trip to Norther Italy.

Friend’s family have probably had it after her DD’s friend was admitted to hospital (she tested negative but Doctor is pretty certain it was Covid). One has Covid toe so looking likely. Not many people know that both families suspect we have had it. We are in an area with a low rate of the disease.

I saw something (no I'm not going to be able to find the source) that said the average of death from CV is 82. Average life expectancy in UK is 81.4. Of course there will have been tragedies where people have died to young, but that happens in the normal course of events too.

It's not just you OP. I don't know anyone who knows anyone who has had it either.

You'd be thinking differently if you did know people

I lost my mum to covid....I want to see lock down over, it's gone on long enough. So no, not everybody who knows somebody thinks differently.

I think we have had a major overreaction to coronavirus
Actually I think we had a major UNDERREACTION to it (globally, not just here) and that's why we are where we are.

Lucky you OP be grateful this illness hasn’t touched you or your family.
My dad passed away in hospital from covid i hadnt seen him for over a month beforehand. Saying goodbye to him by video and trying to console my mum abiding by social distancing with both of us in tears were both among the hardest things I have ever had to do.
A neighbours husband also died of it.
DD’s best friends family all had it.
Another friend of DD’s mum has been poorly with it for a couple of months now her friend is now living with her grandmother.
A mum of a girl she used to play football with has had it.
My boss and her husband have had it.
One of DH’s aunties has it and is really poorly with it at the moment.
I am on the shielding list and my teens education has been severely disrupted and DD’s mental health is suffering.
I am just glad we are all safe and well and I am trying to find joy in the simple things such as a sunny day, watching the birds, playing badminton in the garden, baking, playing a board game.

I've had two very close family members infected with it, two people I know through work who have definitely had it and at least two others who were pretty sure they had it.

And one of my family members ended up in hospital and had to be put on oxygen.

I know of 20 people who have died from covid. I don't know them all personally, but 4 are friends of my dad and the other 16 are relatives of the pupils I teach.

I also know many people who have had the virus to varying degrees. Some have been very ill and are still feeling unwell weeks after they first caught it, others had a bit of a cold for a few days.

It has affected different parts of the country in very different ways. If you are lucky enough to live in an area that hasn't been hit particularly badly then no you won't know people who've had it. If, like me, you live in a hotspot (and know a lot of people, like the 200+ pupils I teach every week) then you'll know more. This does affect your perception rather a lot about whether it's more of a health crisis or an economic crisis (it's definitely both!).

Well you are lucky as I know people who have caught it, and are still not fully recovered weeks later and one person who has died

This is a pandemic, just because you dint have it now doesn’t mean you or yours won’t get it if we stop lockdown

It’s certainly split the country, onto those who are prepared to put others first and protect as much as we can so hundreds of thousands don’t get it and far more die, and those who think lim you

Not in London: I know lots of people that have had it. I know of several deaths including deaths that have left young children without one or even both parents. Not just elderly (not that this makes a difference in terms of value of a life - just for info). Those I know that have had it and ‘recovered’ have said varying things from ‘it was like a really bad flu’ to ‘I started to think seriously about making a quick will’. Many have ongoing symptoms two months on that leave them bed bound for days. The way the body responds to this novel virus is novel, and the way some people’s immune system is reacting is part of why it’s such a horrible illness.

We haven’t had it yet but are effected by a halving of our income and very little access to government financial support.

As another poster on a different thread said, education can be caught up, businesses can be re-built, wealth re-gained and relationships and mental health can be restored - it is awful, it will be hard and I really feel for those struggling to keep businesses going, struggling with their mental health and all the other ways in which this is hard....

But ... each death is final - no going back, no moving forward, no restoration or recovery. Final and a tragedy.

This is shit. Shit in lots of ways for lots of different reasons for most people. We didn’t choose it and we can’t go back in time to prevent it so we have to learn to live with it.

Let’s try and learn to live with it together, peacefully, courageously, respectfully and kindly. We can do this. We got through two world wars by pulling together and making sacrifices.

In some ways I think we've been lucky with covid. In that it's death rate isn't that high, but is high enough to seriously affect us. The global response has been abysmal, we let it escape and it's done enormous damage. As a nation we were unprepared, despite pandemic being a known and war games threat, reports on how we should be ready were ignored.

There will be other new viruses in the future, maybe with a much, much higher death rate. Hopefully we will have learnt the lessons of covid and extinguish it before it can take hold.

Good for you , loads of people have had their loved ones taken from the virus.

My friend and her husband are nurses.
Both have tested positive for antibodies. My friend had the mildest of symptoms, her husband had nothing at all. Both are 30s and nothing underlying.
My mum’s neighbour caught it at the Cheltenham festival and he was unwell for about a fortnight, but at home. He is in his 70s and does have underlying health conditions. He was also confirmed as definitely having it.
My friend’s nan - aged 101 - was tested because it was in the home. She was positive. She had no symptoms and didn’t develop any. My friend and their family couldn’t believe she was positive for it because they wouldn’t have known.
A friend of a friend died of it - mid 30s but extremely unwell and in hospital which is where she caught it. She had liver and kidney failure before she caught covid.

There was a lady on another thread yesterday who thought she just had hay fever but the app told her to get a test and she did and it was positive. So you may well know people who have had it but they weren’t aware.
Lockdown is far from ideal but the alternative could have been much scarier. I know 4 people who have died from it who were all of the older generation but had no other conditions which meant they didn’t potentially have another 10/20 years left in them.

I know of three people who died from Covid.

I know two people who have had positive tests. Both were really unwell- one became unwell in April and still can't do a full day at work because of the exhaustion and chest pains. It's not just the death toll, it's the ongoing physical effects to many who have had it.

The reason you don't know anyone who has had it is because of lockdown.

Isn’t that the point of the lockdown though? That we have been protected from knowing too many people personally who have had it?

Exactly... If you’d known lots of people who had died AND you’d been struggling with redundancy, depression and lack of education, that really would have been pointless.

The problem isn’t that we locked down, it’s that we did so too late. Had we done so earlier, children would have been back in school now like they have been in Denmark for weeks, and things would be getting back more to normal sooner. Of course we could have tried to brazen it out, but that would have brought us to our knees economically and mentally too, only with 100,000s of dead, with 1,000,000+ having survived but been seriously ill - that would have its own dreadful toll on society.

I absolutely do NOT support this continuous never ending lockdown that is having and will have far reaching consequences on finances and health. But it's not continuous and never ending. You can already meet in groups of up to 6 people and that's going up to 10, you can in practice go out whenever you want, shops are opening from Monday.

If we'd let it run riot in the community there would still be far reaching consequences on finances and health, as far more people would have been seriously ill with it, people would have stayed away from crowded venues for fear of catching it (that was already happening before lockdown).

It’s a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy though.
We locked down to reduce the spread.
Had we not done so you might have known someone who got it or died.

It can’t be said that lockdown was pointless because no one you know got it.

I imagine it's to do with area. We have such a low rate where we live. Other areas have a higher population and more dense, some have a higher population of older people.

You should therefore think yourself to be fortunate OP.

Aren’t you lucky.

If the UK had locked down earlier and put in proper measures at airports, you‘d be emerging from lockdown more rapidly. It’s not done yet by a long chalk.