Birthday parties, picnics, playdates...

[lockedown]

Just had a birthday party of a little kid we know. We were invited but didn't go. There were 4-5 families with kids. The party was outdoors. But couldn't see people maintain even the 1m distance from the pictures. There is another picnic happening on weekend with two year groups - one back in school and one not. Again, the children or even parents won't maintain any social distance.
People aren't as cautious as they used to be when on pavements. It's life back to normal.
Last weekend we went to a park where the playground gates had been broken and kids were playing as usual on slides and swings etc.
How is it in your area?

I think if the second wave doesn't happen in the next few weeks, it won't happen.

@TheDailyCarbuncle most of these infections we know how to treat, we have vaccines for, or both. Neither of those is the case with Covid. We don’t even understand it at the moment, beyond the fact that it’s clearly not just a respiratory infection. We are figuring out some ways to mitigate it, but we’re still mostly in the dark. If you catch it, you just have to hope that your body deals with it. You can get some limited support whilst you try to fight it, but that’s it.
And there’s a story beyond the deaths, and even beyond the hospital patients who are left with long term side effects- the people who were never tested or hospitalised and are still ill 15 weeks later. We have no idea how often that’s happening because no one is keeping track of the numbers. And we have no idea of the long term implications for them.
We don’t know if there is natural long term immunity to COVID, so here’s immunity without a vaccine might not be possible anyway - even if we were willing to let hundreds of thousands die trying to achieve it.
Oh - and that graph is showing Covid deaths in a scenario in which most of the world has locked down. It doesn’t bear thinking about what it would look like without.

*herd immunity not “here’s immunity”!

[quote EarlGreywithLemon]@TheDailyCarbuncle most of these infections we know how to treat, we have vaccines for, or both. Neither of those is the case with Covid. We don’t even understand it at the moment, beyond the fact that it’s clearly not just a respiratory infection. We are figuring out some ways to mitigate it, but we’re still mostly in the dark. If you catch it, you just have to hope that your body deals with it. You can get some limited support whilst you try to fight it, but that’s it.
And there’s a story beyond the deaths, and even beyond the hospital patients who are left with long term side effects- the people who were never tested or hospitalised and are still ill 15 weeks later. We have no idea how often that’s happening because no one is keeping track of the numbers. And we have no idea of the long term implications for them.
We don’t know if there is natural long term immunity to COVID, so here’s immunity without a vaccine might not be possible anyway - even if we were willing to let hundreds of thousands die trying to achieve it.
Oh - and that graph is showing Covid deaths in a scenario in which most of the world has locked down. It doesn’t bear thinking about what it would look like without.[/quote]
There are many other viruses that have no treatment or treatment that isn't very effective. There are also other viruses that cause long term effects - 11 million die of sepsis but plenty of other sepsis sufferers survive and have to deal with organ damage and rehabilitation needs. Again, what I'm saying is while covid is new, dealing with infections and their fallout isn't new at all and at some point there'll have to be an acceptance that covid is just one among many infections we have to deal with.

If there's no immunity then a vaccine isn't going to work. What then? Living in constant fear?

If there's no immunity then a vaccine isn't going to work.
It isn’t a question of there being no immunity, but of how long natural immunity can last. Professor Sarah Gilbert from the Oxford vaccine team has explained that vaccine immunity can be longer lived than natural immunity. If not, there are other options - such as an annual vaccine, like we have for the flu.
The comparison with sepsis is just not helpful, because sepsis is not contagious. It can also result from such a widespread range of factors that of course we can’t suppress them all. Of contagious diseases, Covid is the only one currently in wide spread circulation that is both very serious and that we have no vaccine, prophylaxis or treatment for. Not the case with malaria if you’re going to bring that up, because there is prophylaxis for that, and also it doesn’t spread person to person. And not HIV, because it’s harder to catch - and there are beginning to be successful treatments for that.
And certainly not the flu, because Covid is NOT the same. It’s much much deadlier (at least ten times if not more so) and attacks blood vessels and internal organs in a way that flu never could. Oh, and there’s a vaccine for flu.

I'm bored of going around in circles so this will be my last post on this thread.

Sepsis isn't contagious. Many of the infections that cause sepsis are. That was the point I was making. And yet even with 11 million deaths from those infections, no one would suggest locking down because locking down to prevent the spread of infections is not a proportional response, even when millions and millions die.

I don't know where you got the idea that covid is deadlier than the flu. There is absolutely no evidence for that. What there is evidence for is that it is absolutely and definitely not ten times deadlier than the flu. That claim is beyond ridiculous. I'm not even going to elaborate on that one but if you genuinely believe it, then I'm not going to convince you. A quick google will show you that you have that entirely wrong. One thing to steer you in the right direction with that one is the fact that anywhere between 30 and 70% of infections are asymptomatic,

@EarlGreywithLemon where did you get Covid is more than 10 times deadlier than flu? Do you have a source for that information? Most the people I know that have had it, they had hardly any symptoms.

In the bigger picture the change in life is huge!

Agreed. The more people say 'life is back to normal' the more despondent I feel around the loss of activities / events / plans.

@TheDailyCarbuncle, @Alex50:

• flu mortality - 0.1%
• Covid mortality - at least 1% (crude mortality for Covid is showing at 3-4% but most people agree that’s likely an overestimate, given asymptomatic cases and that 1% is more likely).

Hence, Covid is at least ten times deadlier than the flu. There are many sources, but here from the WHO- second page, penultimate paragraph from the bottom. www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200306-sitrep-46-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=96b04adf_4