Feeling a bit duped about the seriousness of Covid....

[mostwonderfultime]

Found out my district of 55,000 people there have been 156 confirmed covid cases since March. Now I hear there is an enquiry into the over reporting of Covid deaths in England. Average death rate has now lower than average indicating many people who died from Covid would probably died in the next month or so. No surge in Covid cases or deaths since relaxing lockdown measures (I know about Leicester, but we all know reasons why they have more cases and again they haven't had a spike in deaths).
In the meantime, the economy is screwed, Kids have been off school for months, best friends business has gone bust.

Go back to March / April / May and read the posts on here...calling people murderers, “literally sobbing and shaking” at someone going to the shop to only buy chocolate, we are all going to be in lockdown forever, schools will never go back etc.

I suspect that an awful lot of people have name changed.

I agree. In years to come, they will say we did the wrong thing.

nods

@FluffyKittensinabasket

Go back to March / April / May and read the posts on here...calling people murderers, “literally sobbing and shaking” at someone going to the shop to only buy chocolate, we are all going to be in lockdown forever, schools will never go back etc.

I suspect that an awful lot of people have name changed.

Indeed - and as someone mentioned on another thread "the element of individual blame associated with transmission of Covid-19, which is impossible for individuals to completely control, is really disturbing" really resonates with me

Go and read up on Florida, Texas and Arizona. That's how it would have been here if we hadn't locked down, only with an even higher death rate because doctors didn't have the same knowledge of treatments.
Our cases and death rates are tailing off now because we're coming out of lockdown in a slow controlled manner. They can very easily start rising again.

I’m half with you and half not.

Would it be 155 if we didn’t go into lockdown???

Also it really really upsets me the idea that ‘well they would have died anyway’. We’ve had a family member die of Covid and yes she was elderly and yes would have died at some point but it’s still upsetting that her life was cut short because of Covid.

The first pandemic of the Princess Diana/social media/mumsnet generation.

Yes, they are recording basically any death as covid. I think it must be scaremongering, but it is stupid.

many people who died from Covid would probably died in the next month or so
How do you explain that to families who have lost members in their forties / fifties? That seems like a very callous attitude to me. Even if the figures were 'over reported,' that still leaves a massive number of people who have lost their lives.

I disagree. Depends what country you're in, but testing in England has been so crap that the "confirmed cases" is much lower than actual cases. You can get a better idea of actual cases from antibody studies.

Average deaths might be lower than average because we're still not out and about as much as usual, so lower risk of some things like road traffic accidents.

And we haven't seen a spike, but Cars are no longer falling in England - this is the level of lockdown needed for them to stay steady. If we hadn't locked down we'd still be at the high death figures we saw in April.

I do think the government has handled it badly though, they delayed action until very late which meant lockdown had to last longer. And not just with hindsight - this was obvious at the time to anyone who understood the implications of a doubling-rate of three days.

*cases, not Cars!

Maybe read the numerous 'Lungs' threads on here to see the damage it is causing to younger people who are previously fit and healthy. It's not all about the deaths.

Everybody is going to die anyway so let's all crack on now and as its going to happen anyway
It's a horrible death. Lots of people have conditions that will kill them but can live for many years with those conditions. Without lockdown it may have been one of your family members who died of it despite not being in a risky group. Anyway its not over yet.

Deaths now lower because

there are fewer asthma deaths, fewer viral infections knocking about, fewer accidental deaths and fewer stress related deaths ( there are fewer heart attacks in younger people. I guess you might find a difference if you compared the group who felt their jobs was at risk with everyone else , but I have not seen that reported )

You only have a low rate of deaths in areas that entered lockdown with relatively small number of infections to start with. If you had not locked down there would be many many more.

It strikes me as bizarre that people say " why did we bother, not many died anyway"

It's like. " I cooked chicken and it was nice, so if I hadn't cooked the chicken it would have been nice , I won't bother cooking it next time". Like stupid. Clearly

But " we locked down and it wasn't bad so if I had not locked down it would have been ok so I won't bother locking down if I am in the same situation again"

@Lightsabre many people on the lungs thresh never even had a positive Covid test....

I don't feel duped about the seriousness of Covid - I think that we did the right thing by locking down and hopefully protected lives as a result. The economic cost has been huge, and I am one of many people who have lost their jobs.

However I'm now finding the pressure on those of us who are trying to rebuild normal lives very difficult. I don't do anything I'm not legally allowed to do but people are calling others irresponsible for going to the pub, shopping on holidays etc. It's the inability of people to assess the seriousness of Covid NOW that I find frustrating.

It is actually very hard to know whether lockdown was proportionate or not. Until we are many months further along we won't know the prevalence of long term conditions and we may never really know the prevalence of mild infection. My sister and her family all thought they had it very mildly in mid March but before you could get tested. She has just tested positive for antibodies; her work requested a test before she returned as she works with medical professionals. I suspect the risks of long term problems are actually pretty low in most people under 60, but that's just based on all the people I know in London who are very likely to have had it pre lockdown/in early lockdown, me and DH included.

Nobody particularly wants to get this as there is a risk, as with any virus, that you could have complications. We didn't want to get it as my husband has 2 risk factors and is in his 50s - but though he was quite ill for a few weeks he was back to full health pretty quickly. Nobody wants to pass it on to vulnerable people either.

It's good to be a bit wary. But the level of fear in many low-risk, healthy young people is worrying. Of course we hear much more about the deaths and long tail illnesses, because newspapers aren't writing about people who felt a bit rough for two days and lost their appetite for a week. Most of the mild cases at the peak are not recorded as you couldn't get tested there.

I find reading the data thread very reassuring. Knowing how many cases there are in my area helps me respond appropriately.

@Lightsabre exactly. A lot of people who say they've had it haven't. Only time will tell if there are long term effects. Hearsay, overreacting and hypochondriac tendencies are rife at the moment.

@gutentag1 they are not recording any death as Covid at all. The daily death numbers are of people who have had a positive test only. PHE has confirmed that of all 45,000 + Covid recorded deaths, there are approx 4,000 where death took place more than 28 days after a positive test and of those 45+% had Covid recorded by a medical professional as a contributing factor to their death. So around 2000 could potentially be removed from the death count

[quote mostwonderfultime]@Lightsabre many people on the lungs thresh never even had a positive Covid test....[/quote]
So you think there's another lung illness going around?
They don't all have unrelated pneumonia do they?

I think if they hadn't fucked up and allowed Covid to rip through care homes then our number of deaths would be a lot lower. The fact is that this virus just isn't that dangerous to the vast majority of people in this country.

I find it baffling that some young, healthy people are still shit scared of it.

I am happy that we locked down as we did, as we didn't know what was going to happen and it is possible that the NHS could have become overwhelmed. And I think winter is going to be chaos, largely because all of the other bugs that people have (and die of) will be going around as well and people will be panicking, scrambling for tests etc.

"It is actually very hard to know whether lockdown was proportionate or not."

Yes, we won't know completely until later on.
Sweden gives us a clue though. Hardly any lockdown and worse figures than neighbouring and similar countries. It's now being seen as an example of what not to do.

A lot of people who say they've had it haven't. Only time will tell if there are long term effects. Hearsay, overreacting and hypochondriac tendencies are rife at the moment.

Yes. And health anxiety can have a huge effect on physical symptoms (I know this from personal experience).

Honestly. I really feel that so many have lost the power of critical thought and independent thinking.

I think its one of those situations where you will never really know if lockdown did have an impact or not because the only way we would know for certain would be to travel back in time and relive the whole scenario only that time round lockdown wouldn't happen.

You can drive yourself crazy trying to justify all the what ifs.