Is anyone else feeling very paranoid?

[Thewheelsonthebus23]

That there’s something more going on?
I’m not normally into conspiracy theories and I’m not about to start now. But I’m feeling on edge like never before.
From what I can see, this virus has a high survival rate, around 99% and the mortality rate is likely much lower than estimates suggest due to the fact that many cases are asymptomatic or mild and haven’t even been picked up on in testing.
The majority of deaths are in the over 65s.
I’m just feeling extremely paranoid at the moment. I’m worried I’m going crazy! As no one else seems to be questioning things. Anyone else?

I think we probably did need to lock down given the knowledge of the virus at the time and the government had to terrify people into complying. Seems they’ve done too good a job though and people who were happily doing their own thing back in mid March without a care in the world and without dropping like flies are now too scared to go anywhere even though the chance of getting it now is much less.

I agree with pp

@TheMurk Well said.

Absolutely fucking ridiculous now and I pray every day that finally someone is going to call this whole farce out and finally we can move on!

^^This a thousand times

In Week 26, the number of deaths registered was 3.4% below the five-year average

Could be because lots of vulnerable people have already died.

That it seems to target a specific group of people ethnically than others may suggest it could have been man made.

Obesity targets certain ethnicities more than others. Doesn’t mean it’s man made. (Well it sort of is but in a different way).

I don't know anything about viruses or responding to them.

But when people like the op say, well the death rate is only 1% I can't help and do the maths...

Estimates suggest that herd immunity would be reached once 70% of the population had the virus and recovered.

That's almost 500,000 who would need to die before we're immune.

Worldwide we'd be talking, what... 50,000,000 or something like that?

Yea... It's only 1%. May as well just let them die.

@TheDailyCarbuncle you don't want to wear a mask, and you're not. So what are you complaining about you misery?

Is anyone else feeling very paranoid?

I'm not paranoid, I know they are out to get me

I get equally exasperated by the Denialists and the Doomsters

We had a crisis which needed lockdown;
It died down weeks ago and lockdown is no longer justifiable

.... but most European countries will keep mandatory masks and restrictions on large events for some months more

Deaths are now slightly below normal,
partly because lockdown reduces the number of people dying from traffic accidents, flu, ordinary pneumoia etc

However, over a period of about 11 weeks,
the UK had about 67,000 extra deaths over the historical average for that period and many other countries had high extra deaths too.

The Finanial Times has used ONS statistics for the UK and similar statistics for other countries to produce these graphs of total deaths

Lockdown is no longer necessary
(except probably for future local lockdowns like Leicester)

but it was necessary at the time:

to stop hospitals being overwhelmed
to build up mass testing, track & trace systems
to bring down infections to a level where these systems would be enough to manage the crisis after lockdown is lifted

The UK's lockdown has lasted much longer than most countries' because it was imposed too late

e.g. in Germany where I live, schools returned pt on 4 May, my gym and all shops reopened 16 May, restaurants from 18 May etc

Politicians around the world are realising that they panicked and set everything on fire when there was no need to. But they'll never admit it, so they have to somehow maintain the illusion the virus is 'deadly' while at the same time getting everyone back out into the world. It's crazy making because it involves such utter nonsense as opening pubs while keeping playgrounds closed.

Eventually the articles about the 'overreaction to covid' will start and we'll have endless analyses for months and months about how we panicked, how lockdowns did more damage than good etc etc. It'll be too late at that point of course. It's so dull and predictable as to be almost boring if it weren't so utterly shit.

DailyCarbuncle, this is such garbage. Do you honestly think playgrounds are the same as pubs? Deniers like you just stretch it out for everyone else as you're the ones who don't wear masks, 'forget' to social distance, break isolation, etc. etc. - then isolation is brought back in for an entire region as infections rise. (PS. There will be no 'over-reaction articles'. There might be articles about covidiots like you.)

As the evidence comes out, we are seeing lockdown advocates make desperate efforts to justify their original decisions. That is why the narrative moved away from 'flattening the curve' to the need to reduce deaths. As deaths have reduced they have started to talk about cases being the problem, despite the reality that the disease is very mild for most people. As that becomes unarguable, they are shifting the narrative to the imagined long term harm caused to COVID-19 survivors, wildly extrapolating from edge cases.

@PyongyangKipperbang

I have wondered if there is more to this than natural causes.

That it seems to target a specific group of people ethnically than others, may suggest it could have been man made. I am not saying it is but that sort of research goes on all the time, and I read an article with a very well respected scientist saying that he was horrified at the lack of security and safety in the Wuhan labs.

So the Chinese would want 'whites' to have a greater chance of survival, while they themselves and others deemed people of colour have a lower one?

I think that my opinion aligns quite closely with BigChocFrenzy, who has put it quite well.

However, I do also have an increasing leaning towards those of Murk and DailyCarbuncle.

The longer lockdown has endured, the more ridiculous it has become and the clearer it has become that the government has no real plan for how to get out of it.

The abandoned track and trace app (or was it test and trace?) which Bozo assured us would be world beating was an utter farce.

My elderly parents have had several serious health crises involving paramedics and (non-Covid related) hospital admissions. I live three hours drive away and under lockdown rules was not allowed to go and visit them as it would have been mixing households and they were in the shielding category. I’m lucky that they are both still alive now to go and visit so that is what we are doing later this month, staying in their local Premier Inn now that it has reopened. Bollocks to anyone who tries to tell me I shouldn’t go. There won’t be that many more opportunities, so I am going.

I have also been made redundant after working all through lockdown from home so in my fifties I am now back in the job market looking for work while the economy is still pretty much tanked and struggling to find the way forward. I am certainly not alone there either.

The whole farce needs to end. Now! Lockdown has gone on for far too long and all the government seems able to do is fart about.

There’s that @AlecTrevelyan006 and also that this suits the government very well, as if we won’t notice that had it not been for the care home fuck up we’d have had half the deaths.

I have also been made redundant after working all through lockdown from home so in my fifties I am now back in the job market looking for work while the economy is still pretty much tanked and struggling to find the way forward. I am certainly not alone there either.

Same here although I am in my 40s. Just.

the notion that we all have to be terrified of this one illness, while ignoring everything else - the need for jobs, education and treatment for other illnesses being only some of those things - is patently and obviously bonkers.

True. I find myself being a bit at people who think covid 19 should override all other risks, concerns and problems. You can acknowledge the seriousness of this illness without taking it to the extreme that everything else falls by the wayside until it is dealt with.

@fizzfan indeed the whole care home fiasco is an absolute tragedy.

It’s a disgrace @AlecTrevelyan006 but equally i think further down the line when we look at excess deaths there won’t be as many as figures now suggest, as the poor souls in care homes probably largely had their end hastened, ie maybe dying in May when they’d have died within a few months without Covid. Not that that makes their suffering or the care home acceptable.

*care Home situation

I think 85% of deaths in the UK were in the age group over 75, and the median age was 80 so yes it seems likely in many of these cases the elderly died a bit sooner and that is why the rates are now lower than average for the time of year

Also apparently there was a low flu season and mild winter this year (no beast from the east was there) so those who perhaps would have died in that possibly died of covid instead. Makes sense.

Everything always seems to be very negative even when there are positives too. the reporting seems very biased

When you look at this there is not mention of it possibly being a good thing that so many testing positive have no or little symptoms - it is all about them being infectious. There doesn't seem to be any balance to it. Especially the BBC.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53320155

I have been ok and just using common sense and so on , then I read that the Black Death was recorded in China. Yes, it was a daily mail article but if another pandemic hits us then I doubt any economy would survive.
I'm also unsettled and I feel for the young who will have all this money the government are borrowing to pay back and can't even get a foot on the housing ladder where I live ( not on your own , anyway)
I was feeling positive about things , but then it all goes pear shaped again.
The news today about the spending plans seem another cobbled together set of ideas that won't really benefit everyone just a few.
It's just more borrowing which is never good long term.

@Iwalkinmyclothing

the notion that we all have to be terrified of this one illness, while ignoring everything else - the need for jobs, education and treatment for other illnesses being only some of those things - is patently and obviously bonkers.

True. I find myself being a bit at people who think covid 19 should override all other risks, concerns and problems. You can acknowledge the seriousness of this illness without taking it to the extreme that everything else falls by the wayside until it is dealt with.

What other potentially deadly disease is there that spreads with the ease of Covid and without intervention would overwhelm society with the sheer number of cases?

Thewheelsonthebus23 yes that is paranoid and no you're not the only one. Though some of those saying that stuff are just bored or looking for attention.

If you are genuinely feeling like that my advice is to tell your doctor and in the meantime STOP watching the news. You will hear of any new developments from other people anyway so just turn it off.

The TheDailyCarbuncle . Has it spot on.

Governments got very scared because a few people who were younger got very sick (they may have had undiagnosed underlying health conditions, we will never know) and the mortality rate appeared high because only very sick people were tested - they all shut down their economies (follow my leader style except Sweden) and don't want to admit it was an over reaction. Most people who have died would have died this year, a few people have died had serious underlying health problems but weren't terminal (very sad but they were at risk from ordinary winter viruses), even fewer "healthy" people have died, I saw a figure of 380 in the U.K. but as no autopsies were performed there's a possibility of undiagnosed health conditions. Every loss is sad for their family, aged 29 or 99, I personally have lost 2 older friends. BUT the resulting economic crash could kill far more - poverty lowers life expectancy and I don't mean here in the U.K. particularly, the effect is worldwide -India had to cancel their lockdown because people were literally starving. Even in industrialised nations suicide rates are predicted to rise because businesses have failed.

People dying is sad at the individual level but at a society level we need going forward to have an approach which enables people the thrive, especially young people - those who wish to repeat a school or university year should be allowed at no charge for instance. Our care homes do have more space, I'm not denying that we should have protected them better but by providing excellent support to the vulnerable rather than locking down the masses. Yes I have had covid19, I wouldn't have noticed it any other year to be honest, it mingled with my hay fever symptoms anyway and lasted under 24 hours of fever.