WHO expect pandemic to be over in 2 years

[mummabear1967]

www.itv.com/news/2020-08-21/world-health-organization-chief-hopes-coronavirus-pandemic-will-be-over-in-two-years

Even if this pandemic does run into 2022, we won’t be stuck with restrictions until then, right? We will be back to normality to some extent? Not sure I could deal with another two years of this crap.

[quote latticechaos]@Nellodee I appreciate that post, so many throwaway remarks are being made[/quote]
Indeed, so many sweeping statements being made which are driven by the posters' emotional reaction to the restrictions. Not a logical interpretation of the factual information available.

[quote Hyperfish101]@TrustTheGeneGenie and your point is what?

I was trying to say that while lots of people won’t die, there are lots of people having nasty long term effects. Because this is a new virus no one knows what these will be. No need to be sarcastic.

All I’m saying is that there is a middle ground between throwing caution to the wind and utter catastrophising.[/quote]
You're making it out to be something new and terrifying when the reality is lots of people, myself included, have lasting effects from common or garden viruses that people don't even bat an eye at. Corona will be no different.

You don't seem to be in the middle ground at all.

I really never said it was terrifying. I think it is right that there is some caution.

And I really don’t care if you think I’m middle ground or not. You are very rude and there is no need for it.

Corona will be no different.

There is a stackload of evidence out there illustrating why covid is much more dangerous than the flu, but hey we should all bow to your opinion rather than the reasoned conclusions of the scientific and medical experts.

@Sakura7

Corona will be no different.

There is a stackload of evidence out there illustrating why covid is much more dangerous than the flu, but hey we should all bow to your opinion rather than the reasoned conclusions of the scientific and medical experts.

Right sorry where did I say it wasn't more dangerous than flu? I said lots of other viruses leave lasting effects, which is true, they do.

@Hyperfish101

I really never said it was terrifying. I think it is right that there is some caution.

And I really don’t care if you think I’m middle ground or not. You are very rude and there is no need for it.

I haven't been rude at all.

@Flaxmeadow

How do you know only a small percentage of the population has had it? To know that, everyone would have to be tested.

They can estimate from antibody studies how many people are likely to have had it. But even so, there is no guarantee of lasting immunity if you have had it. It is too early to tell

I suspect you will eventually be surprised how many people have had it. And you're sure the restrictions helped. They didn't help the 10,000+ elderly dead in care homes, the 10,000+ dead from lack of medical care or the 6,000+ dead who were suddenly ill and died, too afraid to go to A&E in case they caught the virus.

But without lockdown those numbers would have been far higher

That's without counting the ongoing extra suicides the restrictions caused. Or the extra domestic abuse of women and violence against children.Then there's the murders. On and on it goes

But again, without lockdown those numbers would have been higher

Imagine if the virus had been left uncontrolled back in March. We would have had over half a million dead within a matter of weeks. Imagine the suffering then. Hospitals and mortuaries would have been overwhelmed. Thousands, ten of thousands even, would have died alone at home or even in the streets, without medical care at all. The police and social services would have been overwhelmed too. Any of them in contact with the virus would have had to self isolate. Compared to now the scale of suffering would have been unimaginable. What then for people with mental health problems or victims of domestic abuse?

A close relative of mine is a social worker and precisely because of lockdown she has still been able to do her job. These services, including mental health, have been operational throughout lockdown. Without lockdown they would have collapsed

Remember the graphs in March and April. Without lockdown, they would have climbed and climbed ...imagine that

There would have been half a million dead within weeks? The illness that 99.95 people don't die from. Are you serious? But of course, the lockdown saved 450,000 lives. We'll ignore that every man, woman and child in the country would have had to have caught the virus "within weeks" for over half a million dead.That graph would certainly have climbed and climbed. There would have been people keeling over in the street in Apocalypse Britain. Hey Sarge, there's reports of another dog walker found slumped in the park. Not another one. That's the third one this week and its only Monday morning. Theres no more room at the morgue what with all the joggers that dropped down dead over the weekend. Holy Smoke. I've seen it all now.

@TrustTheGeneGenie You quite clearly claimed that there's nothing new about coronavirus, and compared it to existing viruses (presumably in an effort to minimise it). Have a yourself.

Ok @kittensarecute, fine. But who will you do this extra socialising with while everyone else is just getting through the two shit years as best they can? It's not just up to you; other people will have to take their own judgements and may not want to relax as much as you desire and you'll have to fit around them. Sorry, but that's the reality.

@bingbong1970 what exactly are you struggling with here? Based on the evidence of how this virus behaves, the mortality rate, and the impact of flooding the health service, it is logical to conclude that without lockdown there would have been exponentially more deaths.

[quote Sakura7]**@TrustTheGeneGenie You quite clearly claimed that there's nothing new about coronavirus, and compared it to existing viruses (presumably in an effort to minimise it). Have a yourself.[/quote]
You wrote clearly can't read properly. It will have lasting effects, like most viruses. What can't you understand about that?

*quite

@TrustTheGeneGenie

Of course I understand that covid has lasting impacts, we can already see this in people who had the virus back at the beginning of the pandemic. It's another reason why people should take this virus seriously.

You know full well that my issue with your posts is your minimising of covid in comparison with other viruses.

[quote Sakura7]**@TrustTheGeneGenie

Of course I understand that covid has lasting impacts, we can already see this in people who had the virus back at the beginning of the pandemic. It's another reason why people should take this virus seriously.

You know full well that my issue with your posts is your minimising of covid in comparison with other viruses.[/quote]
I haven't minimised it!! I've simply pointed out that it is common to have lasting effects from other viruses. It's not something covid specific. I haven't said people shouldn't take it seriously FFS

But when rates were already 100000 infections a day and doubling every few days it wouldn’t have taken that long at all for millions of people to be infected.

I’m not sure we’d have ended up with half a million dead but the human toll and the cost to society would have been awful. I don’t like it any more than anyone else but that doesn’t make it any less likely to have happened.

How do you know only a small percentage of the population has had it? To know that, everyone would have to be tested. I suspect you will eventually be surprised how many people have had it. And you're sure the restrictions helped. They didn't help the 10,000+ elderly dead in care homes, the 10,000+ dead from lack of medical care or the 6,000+ dead who were suddenly ill and died, too afraid to go to A&E in case they caught the virus. That's without counting the ongoing extra suicides the restrictions caused. Or the extra domestic abuse of women and violence against children.Then there's the murders. On and on it goes.

@Bingbong1970, it's been reported that only a small amount has had it. How do you know many more have? No, the restrictions did not help the care home people, but that's because they are in and out of hospital a lot, where most of the infections were taking place, and were sent back with no testing, or in the knowledge that they were positive - all reported by the media. What makes you think that with no restrictions it would not have been many, many times worse? Why do you think social distancing is still needed now? I agree that it's has badly affected people who need appointments, including my family, for other serious conditions and this is a huge problem. I honestly don't know what the best solution is, personally I would have shut China's borders back in December/January until it was eradicated there instead of being allowed to be spread all over the world. That would have at least greatly reduced the spread and made it manageable without all these lockdowns. I think the priority should be to get hospitals and GP surgeries back to normal before considering opening pubs, gyms, etc.

@Nellodee

Under 15s are more likely to be struck and killed by lightning.

I can't let a statistic like this pass by unchallenged.

58 people were killed by lightning in the UK over the 30 year period 1987-2016, of these, 7 were under the age of 20.

radar.brookes.ac.uk/radar/file/9ba72fba-4d12-4c6f-94e1-f11dea9b7351/1/fulltext.pdf

There have been 6 deaths of children under the age of 15 in the UK from Covid over what we will round up to a 6 month period. Scaled to the 30 years of lightning statistics, this would mean an equivalent of 360 deaths over the same period. This alone would make their chances of dying from Covid 51 times greater than being struck by lightning.

However, this is across the entire population, rather than just those who have contracted the virus. Latest estimates show that only 6% of people have had Covid. If we factor this in, then the chance of an under 15 year old dying from Covid given that they actually catch it, is 857 times larger than their chance of being struck and killed by lightning.

Still very unlikely, but under 15s are more likely to be struck and killed by lightning is absolute and total bollocks.

I should have been more precise in my wording. Under 15s are more likely to be hit by lightning than die of Covid 19. That claim is made by Cambridge University scientists after their analysis of Office of National Statistics data. How much that changes the absolute and total bollocks I don't know.

www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/children-greater-risk-lightning-strike-4210865

Oh lord I just switched to the v festival on BBC. Massive crowds dancing so happily. We have lost so much, we really have.

You don't have to look back to wartime generations to realise how unreasonable statements like this (and the ones about freshers' week are). Most people across the world in the 21st Century don't go to music festivals or university. It feels very self-indulgent to claim your life is being ruined by the lack of things that hardly anyone actually has normally.

@lazylinguist

Oh lord I just switched to the v festival on BBC. Massive crowds dancing so happily. We have lost so much, we really have.

You don't have to look back to wartime generations to realise how unreasonable statements like this (and the ones about freshers' week are). Most people across the world in the 21st Century don't go to music festivals or university. It feels very self-indulgent to claim your life is being ruined by the lack of things that hardly anyone actually has normally.

So it's unreasonable to miss things you usually have?

So if I lost my house would I be unreasonable to complain about that because some people don't have houses?!

I'm sorry, but people are allowed to be upset about what they've lost, no matter what it is. You don't get to decide what's acceptable.

Most (probably all) cultures enjoy getting together and having music and dancing. It seems to be a basic human drive.

We're social animals. The underestimation of the impact of us being able to do the simple things is weird to me. Going out and music and dancing and meeting people was my whole life when I was young. It is for many. It sounds trivial but it's not.

I think that for teenagers and also young people living alone it's a really big ask and the dismissal of mental health issues because war is really lacking in compassion.

Well, maybe that's all you have to do, hence your smug attitude.
So dramatic!

Other generations went to war. Other countries are still at war.

All we have to do is stay at home when needed and social distance and people can’t even do that.*
However, many people are being asked to give up their livelihoods, risk depression though lack of social interaction, be 'educated' via a computer screen, have important medical care postponed and much else besides.

And the 'other generations lived through war FFS' nonsense is getting tiresome. It's not like they chose to live in these conditions. If they could have avoided it the vast majority would have jumped at the chance. Living in times of war doesn't make you noble - it just makes you unlucky.

Besides, just because this isn't the worst situation ever - far from it - doesn't mean we're not allowed to say that it's totally shit.

Looking at Nellodee's explanation, her figures look plausible. I suspect the scientists were keener on providing a soundbite than providing an insight into being-hit-by-lightning data. Unhelpful of them, and it does call into question their level of bias here.

Two years takes us to retirement , on time for DH, early for me, we plan on snow birding between UK and Spain, so that timeline works for me.

@bingbong1970
“ It sadly killed the weakest in society. People who want to live a full and free life should just put up with damaging restrictions? Using the grief of others to shame the healthy is a truly awful thing to do.”
This is chilling. It’s the language of eugenics. What has our so-called society become??

[quote Sakura7]**@InDeoEstMeaFiducia I'm not catastrophising, I lost a parent to this virus and we couldn't even give him a proper funeral. Maybe if you had some clue of the intense suffering this virus has caused to tens of thousands of families, you wouldn't have such a casual attitude.[/quote]
I lost a child to illness and a sibling to an accident caused by someone else's criminality. We couldn't give her a 'proper funeral' for our culture because of the damage inflicted on her remains. The whole world kept on moving without missing a beat both times. I had to realise this was how it goes, nothing unusual really about me and mine. People die. We all die from something and we leave behind those who mourn us and nothing in the world will change the finality that is death. Yesterday I was in the city where she had been born. That was the happiest time of my life. I will never be that happy again because she is dead. I cried on my own hiding in a cubicle in a public toilet because my disabled son won't get it and would be stressed out, his autism means he can't deal with so much. It felt like a dagger to my heart. I'll die mourning and yearning for my child. But until day comes, between now and then, life is for living and not existing in fear.

Any real restriction of human nature won't work very long-term at all. It just won't.