Playing down the virus

[YellowWave]

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.

The deniers and catastrophisers are both causing a lot of harm to those around them. It really annoys me when people think it's their human right to do what the hell they want, only focus on the risk to young healthy people and treat vulnerable and older people as expendable. Conversely, it angers me when clearly very anxious people post on here looking for reassurance and are told "yes, you're right, it's terrifying, stay at home!" Hopefully, both views are very over-represented on mumsnet!

As harsh as it sounds that excess death chart looks bad now, however by next year that line will flatten out a bit more. The average length of time someone spends in a care home befor passing away is 14 months. A good portion of those excess deaths would have died at some time over the next year anyway so our excess deaths is likely going to be much below the average for another 6-9 months.

Compared to this one for children it seems much better..

bjgp.org/content/59/565/622

@IncidentsandAccidents

The deniers and catastrophisers are both causing a lot of harm to those around them. It really annoys me when people think it's their human right to do what the hell they want, only focus on the risk to young healthy people and treat vulnerable and older people as expendable. Conversely, it angers me when clearly very anxious people post on here looking for reassurance and are told "yes, you're right, it's terrifying, stay at home!" Hopefully, both views are very over-represented on mumsnet!

Excellent post.

I've always said I'll follow guidance because I know it's there for a reason. And that limits my contact and risks.

But I'm also not sitting at home hiding from it and assuming my postman has just shoved me a dose through the letter box on my gas bill!

The interesting thing about threads like this is they never mention that, in the west at least, this is a virus that disproportionately affects not just the elderly, but people of colour. Weird huh? Almost as though their lives matter less.

The interesting thing about threads like this is they never mention that, in the west at least, this is a virus that disproportionately affects not just the elderly, but people of colour. Weird huh? Almost as though their lives matter less.

Whilst that is true they also don't mention men are at much higher risk than women does that mean it is misandrist as well?

Por good point. The most vulnerable are elderly, medically vulnerable with certain conditions, BAME and male as well as low social economic lifestyle (and by that I mean low income and the difficulties this brings in life - poor housing/ diet/ exercise etc)

It's not just a case of shutting away the elderly or them being expendable as some think is ok.

Obesity has also been shown to be a significant risk factor

[quote Pixel7777]Compared to this one for children it seems much better..

bjgp.org/content/59/565/622[/quote]
My dad lived through this and 3 children died in his class but there was not the reaction as there is now

I'm sorry to hear that Ellsbells, must have been awful. Yes, as with Spanish flu it seems younger people were worse hit by that flu strain

I do wonder considering the reaction to covid how on earth we would have coped with something like that, or something worse...

bjgp.org/content/59/565/622

It peaked the week ending 17 October with 600 deaths reported in major towns in England and Wales as opposed to over 1000 a day for covid and presumably no lockdown.

How long do you think it was before someone came along and said they were Sickly kids and died with it not of it?

@walksen

The interesting thing about threads like this is they never mention that, in the west at least, this is a virus that disproportionately affects not just the elderly, but people of colour. Weird huh? Almost as though their lives matter less.

Whilst that is true they also don't mention men are at much higher risk than women does that mean it is misandrist as well?

I thought that had been well publicised?

It has but as the pp pointed out not all risk factors are in discussed in depth on covid threads on Mumsnet.

Oh, on here. Yes, that's true enough.

As already mentioned, in the article the very elderly would not have been counted / tested for Asian flu though..

The median age for those covid deaths was 80, and 85% of cases where over 75...if you take away those you are left with 15% of the total.

I have seen conversations about the virus disproportionately affecting bame communities on here. Maybe not as recently though. The other day on a thread we were discussing how PIMS seems to effect bame children more. There are obviously a variety of risk factors but age is the main risk so there is more attention on that.

@Pixel7777

As already mentioned, in the article the very elderly would not have been counted / tested for Asian flu though.

That’s true, but testing was generally much more
sparse then. I’ve extracted the following sentence from this IFS paper for context:

“....the epidemic was responsible for 30,000 excess deaths in England and Wales, of which 6,716 were directly from influenza”

Arguably the fact Asian flu was more dangerous to children gives it an edge over Covid in terms of threat, but in terms of overall mortality - and the overall impact on health provision if allowed to run unchecked as we would in a flu outbreak - Covid appears to be a far greater threat. We have double the excess deaths but with a massive suppression exercise.

Comparing flu deaths (without suppression measures) with Covid deaths (with suppression measures) is a bit like claiming: “You‘ll get as fat eating by eating one small digestive biscuit (the flu) as you will if you eat a massive slice of gateau with 10 times the calories (Covid)” whilst neglecting to mention that will only be the case of you go on a 10 miles run every day if you eat the gateau (social distancing, closing services, shielding etc.)

www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp0917.pdf

@EmilyDickinson Wed 26-Aug-20 17:56:50

The link below, in case you don’t want to read the whole thing, includes a calculation of the case fatality ratio for New York and works it out as being 1.4%.

Our fatality rate looked high when the only people being tested were those in hospital and hospital health workers. If moderate, mild and asymptomatic cases aren't even being tested then, of course, the rates are going to be higher.

@Derbygerbil
Comparing flu deaths (without suppression measures)

The flu deaths are after millions of people having flu jabs which is the biggest suppression tool we have.

and many many years of immunity.

Covid 19 is new, we are just building a level of immunity.

25 to 30% of common colds are caused by earlier Corona viruses that probably had a high fatality rate when they first crossed into humans.

The Russian 'flu' of 1889/90 is thought to have been caused by one of the circulating coronaviruses that now causes a cold.

We're stuck in a political mess now. The curves suggest the epidemic is over (and there's emerging evidence that herd immunity has been reached due to T-cells from prior similar viruses) and it's pretty clear comparing different countries that lockdowns do nothing. I've seen a couple of epidemiologists say that there was a follow on reaction from Italy copying China with lockdown, then France followed and then everyone else did. And I remember at the time there were calls in the media and from anyone who can't stand Boris calling for us to follow suit. Ferguson's numbers looked scary and they caused the government to change tack from originally saying they weren't going to do it. Ferguson of debunked model fame...(and all other things he's modelled in the past and vastly overestimated 🙄). I think they're finding it hard to turn round and say it's over because what politician wants to admit they got it wrong? And the opposition won't accept it either because that would be admitting that the government can't be blamed for something that they had not much control over & wouldn't have been able to do better themselves 🤷

Added to that, the public at large have been conditioned over the last 6 months with a constant stream of scary headlines from the MSM and on social media and no wonder a lot of folk are still very scared - and some of the reaction to that is causing policy u-turns over masks, etc. The media really have a lot to answer for e.g. there was a headline in my local rag today - Deaths double in the area - then you dig into the (craply written article) and you discover there's 2 reported deaths in local care homes this week compared to just the 1 last week (which I appreciate is sad for the families involved) but the headline was way out of proportion.

The BBC actually bothered to report on their website today about the fact that cases going up now doesn't actually mean it's as bad as it seems because there's more testing. But you had to read the article to find that out - the headline (which most folk will only see) is 'highest cases since June')!!! And that's before we get into the fact that PCR tests have a high false positive rate especially when the actual background incidence is pretty low.

There do seem to be a few more scientists starting to speak out about it all now. I really hope something improves sooner rather than later. So many other health issues (physical and mental) have been put on hold over this.

The curves suggest the epidemic is over (and there's emerging evidence that herd immunity has been reached due to T-cells from prior similar viruses) and it's pretty clear comparing different countries that lockdowns do nothing.

It would be good if you’re right but that’s a very “optimistic” interpretation of the evidence. I recognise antibody levels aren’t the be and end all, but given the latest studies show antibody levels around 6-7% on average across the U.K., and the worst affected hotspots in the world have recorded levels of 50-70%, it seems far fetched to think we’ve reached “herd immunity” levels across the population, especially given that 10s of millions have lived either very or pretty socially distanced lives since mid-March, especially the vulnerable (of the 2.2 millions shielding 95% say they’ve stick closely to the guidelines”).

@RealityExistsInTheHumanMind

The flu deaths are after millions of people having flu jabs which is the biggest suppression tool we have.

The 1957-58 Asian Flu (that I was initially comparing to) clearly didn’t have a vaccine, and the vaccine produced prior to the 2017-18 epidemic failed badly (estimated to be just 15% effective I believe), and as for a normal flu year, flu deaths are far lower than Covid has been.

The one exception is Spanish Flu 1918-19 pandemic... That does seem to have been worse than Covid-19, both in terms of absolute mortality and in terms of the ages it affected.

So whereas I have sympathy for views that our response to Covid has disproportionate in many ways, attempts to justify that by cherry picking the data to demonstrate Covid is no more, or even less, deadly than flu is bogus. It’s perfectly possible to recognise that Covid is the most deadly infectious disease of our generation whilst still holding that our response was excessive and that something more like Sweden’s would, in hindsight at least, have been better.

Ferguson's numbers looked scary and they caused the government to change tack from originally saying they weren't going to do it.

So we’ve had 50-60,000 excess deaths, and have 6-7% antibodies. Even if only needed 30% antibodies in the general population for herd immunity (which is very low compared indeed to the 60-70% recorded in some places) we wouldn’t be far off Ferguson’s figures, especially if we had just let it all rip through in March and April before we had any real idea how to treat it and woefully inadequate PPE. If we achieved the 60-70% antibody levels that some places did, then his high end estimate would have been a reasonable expectation. Some people are quick to debunk Ferguson’s figures without realising that, notwithstanding the flaws with the modelling (and what model was going to be perfect in March when it was so new) our current death levels are pretty consistent with it.