Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Covid

Mumsnet doesn't verify the qualifications of users. If you have medical concerns, please consult a healthcare professional.

Original poster

Playing down the virus

135 replies

YellowWave · 26/08/2020 16:27

I notice a lot of comments online either on Facebook on the news and the comment sections or on forums. Not so much on this forum but on some other ones. Not so much American based forums either.

Anyways comments from people playing down the virus as if it's just a little cold or a mild cough. I don't have any first hand experience of the virus but I do know it's something that you don't mess with. I recognised early on that this virus is going to be more than the flu symptoms that we were told it was going to be like. Straight away I put it into the category of measles, munps, rubella viruses but all them viruses we have vaccines for and many of us don't have first hand experiences of them viruses. Basically, I was watching experts on the TV speak out about this back in February. I saw an element of fear in their faces. I sat up and took this virus very seriously.

I know how important it is to follow the guidelines on social distancing and hygiene measures. I keep my close contacts low.

On online discussion forums, there's comments from people saying
this virus is nothing;
biggest storm in a teacup;
its just a little cold;

There's actually a type of bullying going on from that side of the fence painting pictures of anyone with concern about the virus or taking the virus and measures seriously, as scaredy cats cowering in corners.

I'm taking the virus seriously and avoiding crowds etc but I don't feel like I am deprived of a social life or a poor summer. I looked for unique experiences to do with my partner and many of them magical. Like we took a cooler box of alcohol to an overnight stay in an air B&B at a castle. No one else around once we were given our keys and shown to our room. Just me and him.

There's an attitude online that this virus is nothing and that attitude is growing and growing and it's beginning to drown out the people who are doing their best to be sensible around this virus.

OP posts:
Thisismytimetoshine · 26/08/2020 19:03

I didn't know 2018's flu vaccine didn't work Shock

ScarMatty · 26/08/2020 19:08

I am taking it very seriously and looking at it sensibly

Hence why I think this is all a massive fuss now and totally unnecessary because the risk of death or anything serious is so very minute

Stop scaremonger.

ScarMatty · 26/08/2020 19:08

@Thisismytimetoshine

I didn't know 2018's flu vaccine didn't work Shock
Lots of the vaccines don't work.

They're all the guessing game.

itsgettingweird · 26/08/2020 19:09

@Thisismytimetoshine

I didn't know 2018's flu vaccine didn't work Shock
The have to to some extent guess the winter strain. They cannot always be accurate.

Agree pixel but flunks also very different to coronavirus so once they'd figured out the issue it had almost past. It was horrific but it lasted just a few weeks. Flus work differently and are seasonal.

The problem with this coronavirus is it spread very easily in confined spaces.

It also gets out of control very quickly. Just look again at France and Spain this last 2 weeks.

The reason we look overkill is because so far local health authorities have managed to contain epidemics. That relies on the measures and them being adhered to.

It's one of those frustrating situations where you are restricted and all ok or not and it chaos again.

And I also would love to go back to normal as much as the next person!

ChimmyMyChangas · 26/08/2020 19:20

I have seen no evidence that more people in the UK have died of flu in one month than the 4 months of this virus. I would be very interested in seeing the evidence for that.

I see someone's posted it already.

It's actually the second time that flu deaths have reached over 60 000 - the other was in 2015.

Those stats were from Jan 2018. In Dec 2017 there were another 45000 deaths from flu.

So 109 000 deaths from flu in two months. Two. Months. 109 000.
Were you calling for lockdowns and masks then? If not - why not?

Well we haven't had a winter with uncontrolled covid yet. So it isnt comparable. Excess deaths in march to June?

The COVID deaths peaked in April (too early for it to have been the lockdown that slowed them) and we've totalled 41469 deaths over March to today.
If we have another 67500 deaths from COVID over the winter, we'll have matched the total deaths from flu for the two months of Dec 17 and Jan18.

Those two months made the papers - it was a bad year for the flu after all - but I bet you weren't aware of them.
You weren't calling for everyone to be trapped inside their houses to protect the vulnerable then.

Why not?

itsgettingweird · 26/08/2020 19:20

It's worth remembering too they didn't realise how many cases were asymptomatic.

So local areas of restrictions have mass testing to weed out those cases.

Otherwise - for example in recent factory outbreak in Northamptonshire - you have 120 odd people isolated with symptoms and the other 78 (ish) still transmitting it.

With this coronavirus the measures are related to number of cases but rather the transmission pattern.

MadameBlobby · 26/08/2020 19:21

Do you want a medal?

If it wasn’t for the exponential growth the government wouldn’t give 2 shiny shits about the virus.

I am following all the rules because we can’t risk it roaring out of control but I think as many people are over playing it as underplaying it. Look at all the perfectly healthy people on here isolating themselves and their kids for months and washing down shopping in Milton

EmilyDickinson · 26/08/2020 19:22

“Lots of the vaccines don't work.

They're all the guessing game.”

That’s not really true. Vaccines do work on the vast majority of people, the small number who they don’t work on are protected from encountering the disease because it can’t get a foothold in a population where the vast majority eg 95% are vaccinated.

The ‘flu vaccine has to work differently to most other vaccines. ‘Flu is a virus that exists in multiple strains and mutates quickly. Scientists have to develop a vaccine for each strain and then make a calculated guess which one will be most prevalent each year. The ‘flu strain most prevalent in the Antipodes in their Winter this year will form part of this calculation in order to decide what strain vulnerable people should be protected from in the U.K. this Winter. This is why people need a new ‘flu jab each year and not just in babyhood plus perhaps a booster as for most other vaccines. Sometimes the expected strain isn’t the one that turns up in the U.K.

Luckily for us Covid-19 mutates more slowly than ‘flu so that whilst we might need annual vaccines it doesn’t present as much of a moving target as ‘flu does.

Unluckily we don’t have the head start on Corona virus vaccines that we do on ‘flu vaccines so have had to start work at a much more basic level.

itsgettingweird · 26/08/2020 19:23

@MadameBlobby

Do you want a medal?

If it wasn’t for the exponential growth the government wouldn’t give 2 shiny shits about the virus.

I am following all the rules because we can’t risk it roaring out of control but I think as many people are over playing it as underplaying it. Look at all the perfectly healthy people on here isolating themselves and their kids for months and washing down shopping in Milton

Yeah I was never that bad!

I think people have missed the equilibrium required.

It could get out of control due to its nature. Neither under or overplaying it help.

But following the guidelines and measures calmly whilst having a life means we can have the best we can get right now.

ChimmyMyChangas · 26/08/2020 19:23

It also gets out of control very quickly. Just look again at France and Spain this last 2 weeks.

Their death rates haven't risen. They're barely noticeable.

The problem with this coronavirus is it spread very easily in confined spaces.
You got evidence for this?

The reason we look overkill is because so far local health authorities have managed to contain epidemics. That relies on the measures and them being adhered to.

Utter, utter bollocks.

ChimmyMyChangas · 26/08/2020 19:24

If it wasn’t for the exponential growth the government wouldn’t give 2 shiny shits about the virus.

Viruses don't spread exponentially.

You're talking bollocks

ScarMatty · 26/08/2020 19:26

@EmilyDickinson

“Lots of the vaccines don't work.

They're all the guessing game.”

That’s not really true. Vaccines do work on the vast majority of people, the small number who they don’t work on are protected from encountering the disease because it can’t get a foothold in a population where the vast majority eg 95% are vaccinated.

The ‘flu vaccine has to work differently to most other vaccines. ‘Flu is a virus that exists in multiple strains and mutates quickly. Scientists have to develop a vaccine for each strain and then make a calculated guess which one will be most prevalent each year. The ‘flu strain most prevalent in the Antipodes in their Winter this year will form part of this calculation in order to decide what strain vulnerable people should be protected from in the U.K. this Winter. This is why people need a new ‘flu jab each year and not just in babyhood plus perhaps a booster as for most other vaccines. Sometimes the expected strain isn’t the one that turns up in the U.K.

Luckily for us Covid-19 mutates more slowly than ‘flu so that whilst we might need annual vaccines it doesn’t present as much of a moving target as ‘flu does.

Unluckily we don’t have the head start on Corona virus vaccines that we do on ‘flu vaccines so have had to start work at a much more basic level.

Nearly 40% don't work. I would say that's pretty much what I said, lots of flu vaccines don't work.
chickenyhead · 26/08/2020 19:27

I'm not calling for everyone to be trapped inside now. Never did. How strange. Who is actually saying this to you? Or are you simply making it up?

Well it would appear that the ONS graph and data are hugely inaccurate, because it is clear from the 5 year average that there were far more excess deaths in the second quarter of 2020 than at any point in the last 5 years.

loulouljh · 26/08/2020 19:28

I think the current measures are a complete over reaction and we are creating far more issues than we are solving. Really it is madness.

QueenBlueberries · 26/08/2020 19:33

OK let's explain the exponentially bit. It's really quite simple and we have seen it in this country.

It all depends on the R number - I guess you all know by now what the R number is. When the R number is sufficiently high that the number of people infected by the virus doubles at a regular interval, that means that the virus is rising exponentially. This has happened with Covid 19 in a number of countries, including in the UK.

lljkk · 26/08/2020 19:34

@Jrobhatch29, what is difference between case FR & infection FR? If a case is not a person with infection, what is a case?

EmilyDickinson · 26/08/2020 19:35

ScarMatty you said vaccines.

ChimmyMyChangas · 26/08/2020 19:35

Unless you think this virus is made up by WHO and the whole world is being duped then obviously there is reasoning in the advice from them!

The WHO never advised lockdown. It had always advised the exact opposite to prior to the coronavirus.

One of the scientists on the SAGE panel advising the Government said that lockdown was a 'panic measure' because they 'simply couldn't think of anything else to do'.
www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1320428/Coronavirus-news-lockdown-mistake-second-wave-Boris-Johnson

'“Lockdown was a panic measure and I believe history will say trying to control Covid-19 through lockdown was a monumental mistake on a global scale, the cure was worse than the disease.'
Those of us who have been screaming this from the beginning (and been called selfish murders by a lot of you) are now saying 'no shit, Sherlock'.

Jrobhatch29 · 26/08/2020 19:38

[quote lljkk]@Jrobhatch29, what is difference between case FR & infection FR? If a case is not a person with infection, what is a case?[/quote]
A case fatality rate is number of deaths divided by number of confirmed cases. Confirmed cases are only a % of actual cases. Infection fatality rate is deaths divided by estimate of actual cases. Antibody screening has been used to do this so far. Case fatality is artificially high. Which is why is it shocking that the WHO went on international TV and said the mortality rate was 3. 4% when they knew that was the CFR and didn't explain that to terrified people

Pixel7777 · 26/08/2020 19:42

So what you mean is that covid is more infectious than flu...that could be true...it seems there are different infectious rates see here..(flu) none above around 2, I read covid can be around 4 but depends of course on the spreader's behaviour

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza

So what you mean is that the measures are important as much for the infectioun rate as for the severity, I suppose.

ChimmyMyChangas · 26/08/2020 19:42

It all depends on the R number - I guess you all know by now what the R number is. When the R number is sufficiently high that the number of people infected by the virus doubles at a regular interval, that means that the virus is rising exponentially. This has happened with Covid 19 in a number of countries, including in the UK.

You can't accurately to calculate an R number, especially with a virus that loads of people don't even know they have
www.spectator.co.uk/article/do-the-experts-believe-in-the-r-number-

chickenyhead · 26/08/2020 19:46

Yep, without full testing, like in South Korea and some other countries, the manner of testing makes it look far more lethal than it truly is.

The truth is that a lot depends upon how your population is made up. So many factors impact fatality rate that it may be some time until we know the accurate fatality rate for the UK. and by the time we know it, it will have changed.

The UNICEF website has some interesting information links on this.

lljkk · 26/08/2020 19:58

Thanks, Jrobhatch29.

Ibake · 26/08/2020 20:05

Saw this earlier, thought it quite useful.

Playing down the virus
bluetongue · 26/08/2020 20:13

I’m much more worried about the social and economic impacts than getting the virus.

Here in Australia we’ve become completely obsessed about Covid and it’s ruining lives. In Victoria they have a curfew and will probably be in some form of lockdown until Christmas at this rate. The state premier does a rambling press conference every day and details every death. Most of them are from nursing homes. While it is sad they have died I imagine people in their 80’s, 90’s and 100’s die every day in nursing homes and I do wonder just how many have died with Covid not from Covid.