For the people who think they've been duped...

[mac12]

I'm not trying to start a bunfight but I'm just curious about this thought process. People who think they've been duped by coronavirus & think lockdowns were a hysterical over-reaction...

• what do you think is going on when countries like China haven't rolled back from their strong stance on this? Do you think it's just to save face? I mean would a country really take a wrecking ball to their economy to save face?
• why have countries like Israel or some US states, which did reopen, decide to start closing down again? Why wouldn't they just crack on and carry on with full reopening if it was so clear that they had been duped & it had all been an overreaction?
• why wouldn't all governments be taking the Sweden line? Our govt isn't averse to the odd U-turn, why wouldn't they do this if they genuinely thought it was safe and they had overreacted?

I'm just wondering why people think governments would persist with this if it was so obviously an overreaction?

Do not poke the conspiracy bears for the love of god....

Op - they're not rational, you will not convince them with rational arguments. It doesn't work. Sorry. I know, it's uber-frustrating.

There’s no arguing with stupid op
Even if the individual isn’t their arguments are
It must be exhausting to be so suspicious all the time

@mac12, I’m following just to read their (ridiculous) responses

I'm curious because someone told me they thought it was an overreaction but the govt won't back down now because it's too embarrassing to admit they got it wrong. And I just struggle to get my head around that.

If it were a conspiracy Trump would reopen everything and gloat about all of the school children, prisons, care homes being absolutely fine. He'd then spend October telling everyone that Obama and Hillary's email server were to blame somehow and win the election in November. Or have I watched too much tv and film?

#tumbleweed

I don't think that the initial lockdown was wrong or we've been duped. This was a new virus and it was prudent to buy ourselves time to prepare, bring numbers down and improve our understanding and knowledge.
However, I am now unconvinced whether subsequent lockdowns are the right approach and I think there is something to be said for the Swedish approach going forward - social distancing, working from home, protecting the vulnerable, staying at home with symptoms etc but not locking down again. There is a very good reason why governments would go for the lockdown approach as opposed to the former though - politically it would be suicide to be responsible for more Covid deaths and people can measure that and blame them. Ultimately the damage to the economy from lockdown and subsequent deaths due to poverty/poor healthcare will be much less instantly dramatic and measurable, even if ultimately worse.
So if I was the PM and I have
Plan A - comtinual lockdowns- results in 500,000 deaths over the next 5 years due to economic collapse but only 5000 more Covid deaths over the rest of this year
OR
Plan B - results in 300,000 deaths over the next 5 years but 150,000 of them are this year and branded "Covid"
I would clearly go for plan A from a political point of view, even though in the long run it is responsible for the most deaths. So I think there is a reason why governments may not necessarily take the best long term course of actions for their countries.

Why the hell would you base anything on what China are doing?

Like if anything id be more comfortable if we were doing the opposite of China. They don't exactly have the best reputation do they?

Ignore the actual figures - just using them for illustrative purposes!

I was struck by an interview with a guy who signed up to the conspiracy theories. Until real life interfered. I quite like how he talks at end what different actions (by public leaders) would have kept him from going down that rabbit hole.

I don't feel I have been duped but still as a 40 year old healthy person I have zero to worry about. Infection rates rise cause people are stupid but the fact that this is not deadly to an overwhelming majority remains the case. People need to get back to work and off sky news and you'll see life feels much better and normal

I don't feel I have been duped but still as a 40 year old healthy person I have zero to worry about

you really, really don't know this for certain, or how your interactions with other will pan out.

im somewhere in the middle, I don't think it is a conspiracy, but I also think the gov have handled it appallingly, largely. However, I don't have a better answer, and im not sure how any gov could handle it, its a huge new mess.

there are people, I think call themselves Q-anon, who believe trump is our saviour and is going to expose a planet of left wing peso's when he wins in November.

there's no fucking logical middle ground left.

pedo's not pesos.

what a lovely spelling error

@TrustTheGeneGenie I’m not saying China is right, I’m asking why a totalitarian regime would stick with a policy that’s wrecking its economy for an illness that lots of people now seem to think is fairly trivial for the bulk of the population?

[quote mac12]@TrustTheGeneGenie I’m not saying China is right, I’m asking why a totalitarian regime would stick with a policy that’s wrecking its economy for an illness that lots of people now seem to think is fairly trivial for the bulk of the population?[/quote]
I don't think they've been entirely honest about what they did to be honest. They seemed to get a handle on it very quickly, had minimal cases and deaths in one of the most overpopulated places in the world. Pull the other one.

Even if they did stick to it and wrecked their economy do I think we should use them as an example? Hell no.

I don't think it's all a conspiracy no, obviously it's real. Do I think there has been lack of real consideration, rash decisions and as of late, total over reaction? Absolutely.

I believed in lockdown at the start. Never wanted it but accepted it was needed. Well now I look at Sweden and realise we have hugely fucked up.

I don't believe there's any conspiracy, I absolutely accept that covid is a virus that causes severe illness in some of the people it infects. I also think lockdown is an unbelievably crazy overreaction, beyond all lunacy I could ever have envisaged and I really struggle to believe how many people think it's necessary and right.

11 million people a year across the world die of sepsis, caused by either a bacterial or viral infection. Eleven million people of all ages. Most people don't even know what sepsis is and wouldn't have any clue of how many deaths it causes. It's just something people live with, day in and day out. Add to that all the other potential causes of death - thousands of other diseases, death from injury, every person lives with the threat of death hanging over them every day, all the time. Most people just ignore it because what's the point in worrying about it?

And yet, with this virus, people have not only advocated and enforced worrying about it, they have also tanked whole economies, closed businesses, created mass unemployment, denied children education and restricted access to other medical treatments (either deliberately or through the fear created preventing people from seeking help). People have been so entirely brainwashed into seeing covid as the one and only risk they need to pay attention to that they seem utterly blind to the way in which they have willingly set fire to their own lives.

Once the flames have gone out, then we'll have the weeping and wailing about the children who've died due to being denied contact outside of their abusive families for months, the elderly people who have died due to lack of support and contact, the people whose cancers went undiagnosed who could have been saved but who are now terminal. And that's before we get to the effects of massive job losses, no money for healthcare or public services, the closure of services needed to prevent child abuse and poverty and so on and so on. What really fucks me off is that it'll be the same people who were batshit enough to complain about their neighbours going for two walks a day who will be the ones mostly loudly shouting about the effects of lockdown. Because they're the ones who are so unable to think for themselves that they just wait to be told what to do and then whine and wail when the predictable consequences come about.

Coronavirus will become one of many viruses that we all deal with in our lives. You might follow all the rules to the letter this year and avoid it but you won't be able to avoid it forever - you'll get it next year or in 2025 or in 2050. Meantime all the effort you made to avoid it will mean that your children (if you have them) will have the shittest time possible dealing with a completely broken economy and all the fallout of that.

And to all the people who say 'why would countries opt to destroy their own economy?' I just give you one word - Brexit.

And to all the people who say 'why would countries opt to destroy their own economy?' I just give you one word - Brexit.

Touché

11 million people a year across the world die of sepsis

Perhaps they do, but they don't overwhelm the hospital system in so doing. Part of our issue is that we don't want to throw the vulnerable under the bus. But part is that the number of people requiring treatment could rapidly exceed hospital capacity, and then even those who might be expected to recover with support (like Boris Johnson) wouldn't be treated and would die.

We have many types of treatment on hold, which is shitty, but if the hospital was literally full because of covid and the ambulance service overwhelmed and you had a stroke, heart attack, car accident - then what?

A healthy 40 year old may be a low risk for covid, but if we allow it to run unchecked then, in the absence of the option of hospital/oxygen treatment your risk might be a bit more, in the absence of being able to be hospitalised when you have a car accident or develop appendicitis your risk from covid increases a bit more again.

Also, viral load is significant in determining outcomes, regardless of age. In a country where covid is endemic and unchecked there's greater potential to be exposed to more of the virus, and thus increasing risk of a more serious case.

"now I look at Sweden and realise we have hugely fucked up."

@TrustTheGeneGenie Not if you mean we should have followed Sweden and not locked down etc

Without lockdowns, infection rates are heavily dependent on population density, for countries of similar population age
(the UK has a slightly lower average age than most Western European countries, due to immigration)

Even within the UK, the ONS data shows that densely populated UK conurbations have 5-6 x the deaths of sparsely populated areas

So we have to look at groups of similar countries to compare:

Sweden vs its Scandi / Nordic neigbours who have similar v low population density & culture
The UK and other densely populated countries like Italy, France, Germany

Sweden has 5 -12 x the deaths / million of its neighbours

Before lockdown, the UK was following Italy's curves, not Scandinavia

Deaths / Million population

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

568 Sweden
47 Norway
106 Denmark

680 UK
581 Italy
110 Germany (an anomaly due to Merkel's v early lockdown & v effective public health services)
849 Belgium

Attached graphs are log scale

# People / km2_

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listoffcountriesandddependenciesbyypopulationdensity

23 Sweden
17 Norway
135 Denmark

280 UK
200 Italy
233 Germany
376 Belgium

@GrumpiestOldWoman

11 million people a year across the world die of sepsis

Perhaps they do, but they don't overwhelm the hospital system in so doing. Part of our issue is that we don't want to throw the vulnerable under the bus. But part is that the number of people requiring treatment could rapidly exceed hospital capacity, and then even those who might be expected to recover with support (like Boris Johnson) wouldn't be treated and would die.

We have many types of treatment on hold, which is shitty, but if the hospital was literally full because of covid and the ambulance service overwhelmed and you had a stroke, heart attack, car accident - then what?

A healthy 40 year old may be a low risk for covid, but if we allow it to run unchecked then, in the absence of the option of hospital/oxygen treatment your risk might be a bit more, in the absence of being able to be hospitalised when you have a car accident or develop appendicitis your risk from covid increases a bit more again.

Also, viral load is significant in determining outcomes, regardless of age. In a country where covid is endemic and unchecked there's greater potential to be exposed to more of the virus, and thus increasing risk of a more serious case.

You say 'part of the issue is that we don't want to throw the vulnerable under the bus.'

For some children, school is the only opportunity they have for adult contact outside of an abusive family. Closing schools and denying those children all adult contact, including contact with their own aunts/uncles and grandparents and parents of their friends, is amounts to 'throwing vulnerable people under the bus.'

For many people with dementia, the only thing that keeps them going is seeing family members who understand them and who give them more personal care than care home staff can give. There is evidence that a large number of dementia deaths were not directly due to covid but due to people with dementia giving up due to confusion and depression when their loved ones were prevented from visiting them. That amounts to 'throwing vulnerable people under the bus' in my mind.

The people most likely to suffer from lockdown are the people who were already struggling pre-lockdown - people on benefits and low wages, people in abusive relationships, people with substance abuse problems. There won't be money available to help those people as the economy will be so ruined. That amounts to 'throwing people under the bus' in my mind.

There are many many other examples - people with mental health issues being denied the face to face care they need, elderly people with zero contact with other human beings for months on end.

Covid isn't the only risk out there. And yet so many people seem to be acting as if it is and they are totally ignoring the suffering and death that is occurring as a result of those actions.

Sweden's central bank has predicted about the same hit to 2020 GDP as its neighbours and Germany.

Sweden has had the benefit of kids staying in school and people having had the option to go out to pubs and shops all the time,
civil liberties were hardly touched

all of which is a great deal more than nothing

but they have suffered > 5 x more deaths than these countries, with about the same GDP hit

imo, that is actually "acceptable" for countries with v low population density, so I'd be v surprised if any Scandi / Nordic countries lock down again - or even see cases rise to where this is considered

whereas lockdown was a necessity for densely populated countries like Italy and the UK

However, with all scientists have since learned about how Covid transmits & propogates,
all that doctors have learned about treatment,
and now that public health authorities & governments have learned how vital test, track, trace & isolate are

...... countries now have a good chance of keeping down infections & deaths with targeted measures,
instead of the blunt instrument of full lockdown

You say 'part of the issue is that we don't want to throw the vulnerable under the bus.'

Yes because it's part of the issue, and only part if it.

You make a good point about children, but if covid runs unchecked then how are we meant to keep enough staff in school every day to teach them, even those who don't become life-threateningly ill will need some time off to recover?