Wow,look at the actual numbers on worldometer at the moment ..

[Layladylay234]

Current levels of infection: 7,007,039
Number of mild infections: 6,946,649 (99%)
Number of serious/critical cases: 60,390 (1%)

Do these numbers make anyone else think,what the fuck are we doing damaging the economy,our children's future and mental health for figures like this?

I agree OP

But people will not accept it. No matter how many figures/reports or stats you give them.

People like living in fear

@Genevieva Er, what ARE you talking about? Sweden closed universities and secondary schools; they only left their primary schools open so that workers would have somewhere to send their children. They canceled their huge scholastic aptitude test that 70,000 students take, the Högskoleprovet, for the first time since it started in the 1970s. People were told to follow “non-voluntary regulations” (would you call that “draconian” since you’re worried about that) and they were to social distance, work from home if possible, avoid traveling in the country, and not leave the home if you were over 70. Care home visits were banned and so were gatherings over 50 people. Why do you seem to have this idea that Sweden just had social distancing and that was it and the rest was just magical with no school closures or shielding or test cancellations or anything? I’m really surprised by these ideas. I have no idea how you would have “moved” to the Swedish approach in June. I guess we could have left primary schools open? But we did for the children of key workers. Sweden social distanced. We social distanced. They closed secondary schools and universities. We closed secondary schools and universities. They banned care home visits; we banned care home visits. They banned gatherings over 50 people; we banned gatherings over 50 people. They cancelled their huge aptitude test. We cancelled ours (and it was a shite show).

And I think this is REALLY important thing to know about Sweden’s approach. They killed a hell of a lot more people than they needed to:
“However, on a per-capita basis, Sweden far outpaces its Scandinavian neighbors in COVID deaths, with 567 deaths per million people compared with Denmark's 106 deaths per million, Finland's 59 deaths per million, and Norway's 47 deaths per million. The Swedish figure is closer to Italy's 581 deaths per million.”
www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/87812
Two dozen Swedish academics are so made they wrote an editorial about the unacceptably high toll from the “Swedish approach.”

So what do people want? To go back to normal, no social distancing, wearing masks etc ?

It annoys me when they keep saying hardly anyone is dying from it we should get back to normal. But it’s only because of these measures that less are dying. If we went back to normal it will get worse again and I dread to think about winter. I don’t get the logic that it’s ok for people to meet up, go on holiday abroad etc When you can easily pass the virus on without knowing you’re asymptomatic. I am still going to work, supermarket very occasionally but I try my best to avoid others if possible. As others have said we still don’t know a lot about the virus. My friend knows someone who was 29 and died from it with no known health problems. It is definitely not like the flu. And those saying that the flu kills more than Covid, don’t release that these measures have allowed that.

I do however think that they should resume hospital/doctor appts. We just need to be mindful of others. Just cos you don’t have a vulnerable family member doesn’t mean you can’t pass it to someone that is.

And you believe these figures are the whole story?

I know more people who have had COVID but been unable to get tested, than those who've had it confirmed. Many countries don't test many people e.g. Mexico. I doubt testing is universal in India or Africa either.

I think we'll look back and wonder why we allowed so many to die. The economy will recover, but death is permanent.

Extrapolate the rate of infections, hospitalisations (vs available bed spaces) and deaths BEFORE any of the lockdown and travel restrictions came into effect and then see if you're happy with those figures and what it would be doing to the economy.

Looking at figure when an outbreak is under some sort of control and saying 'look, it's not a serious issue' is idiotic.

And if you think I'm calling you an idiot for thinking like be in no doubt, I am.

@EDSGFC

NikeDeLaSwoosh

That is disgusting.

Amongst those people would be children receiving treatment for cancer - that would be successful, would achieve a cure and they'll live normal lives. Or transplant recipients.

Amongst the vulnerable group are children with diabetes. Tell Steve Redgrave that he should think himself lucky that he survived a year or two after diagnosis. Has he lived a life of illness and disability?

Your attitude is still disgusting towards the more severely affected or disabled people. It is not for you to decide whose life has worth or who is able to be sacrificed so that some of you can go to the pub.

So what do you think we should do when the next novel virus hits us?

and the one after that?

and the next one?

The destruction of animal habitats is increasing the rate of zoonosis by an alarming rate (and as an ironic aside, the economic crisis caused by lockdown measures is in itself increasing the incentive to further encroach on animal habitat, thus further increasing zoonosis)

We are on a fool's errand here - the sooner we realise that, the better.

@Devlesko

Yes, this isn't about the virus. I can't believe how easily people conform, it's scary.

Huh? What is it about then?

Why are you using the word ‘conform’ like its something bad? That’s how society as a concept developed. Humans figured out that the bloke chowing down in raw meat probably wasn’t worth imitating since the other bloke seemed to have a pretty good thing going with BBQ’ing.

We don’t survive or thrive in isolation because only a few of us have the skills or knowledge to ensure the rest of us don’t Darwin ourselves out of existence.

Unnecessarily smug people like to refer to the ‘sheeple’ but frankly it’s the sheep that get separated from the herd that find themselves tangled up in the fence belly up staring their own arsehole in the face.

I’m not clever or have any particular talent that will solve this current pandemic and I’m grateful to have the sense to recognise that fact and listen to the people with proven track records who are.

NikeDeLaSwoosh

I know what we shouldn't do and that's behave like Nazis and exterminate all the disabled, vulnerable and sick because we've decided that their lives have less value.

Is it really so much worse to die of Covid than anything else?

If it's 20 or 30 years sooner, then of course it is!!!!!

I’m not clever or have any particular talent that will solve this current pandemic and I’m grateful to have the sense to recognise that fact and listen to the people with proven track records who are

So frightening that people are actually this trusting in the Powers that Be.

@EDSGFC

NikeDeLaSwoosh

I know what we shouldn't do and that's behave like Nazis and exterminate all the disabled, vulnerable and sick because we've decided that their lives have less value.

GODWIN's LAW KLAXON

@justanotherneighinparadise

I’m so over it. I don’t give a shiny shit if I get it and die right now.

Same. Absolutely had enough.

NikeDeLaSwoosh

I don't care. Othering the sick and disabled and giving less value to their lives is exactly what happened in Nazi Germany.

@EDSGFC

NikeDeLaSwoosh

I know what we shouldn't do and that's behave like Nazis and exterminate all the disabled, vulnerable and sick because we've decided that their lives have less value.

Aaaand all reason is lost.

While we're on the subject of the Nazis though, perhaps worth remembering that the main reason for the widespread acceptance of totalitarian fascism was the fact that the State had scared the living daylights out of the masses by massively overstating the threat posed by Communism.

When a society is scared out of its wits, it will all of a sudden accept pretty much anything under the guise of 'being kept safe'

Sound familiar?

You do realise that there will be parents reading this whose children fall into the ECV category and some of you are happily stating that these children can't really expect to live a normal life expectancy and should be grateful for having survived at all. That is a disgusting attitude to hold, let alone state publicly.

@EDSGFC

You do realise that there will be parents reading this whose children fall into the ECV category and some of you are happily stating that these children can't really expect to live a normal life expectancy and should be grateful for having survived at all. That is a disgusting attitude to hold, let alone state publicly.

It's true though.

I agree its very sad, but its true, and forms part of the sensible, adult conversation we need to have around death.

I agree its very sad, but its true, and forms part of the sensible, adult conversation we need to have around death.

No it isn't. Many of the people in the ECV group have treatable illnesses. Who are you to decide that they are expendable? Why stop there? Why bother treating anyone with cancer or heart disease? Must cost the NHS a fortune and they'll only die eventually anyway. If they'd lived three generations ago there wouldn't have been any treatment so they should just accept that they're going to die earlier than they thought. Is that acceptable? No. So what's the difference?

Let's have the conversation about all healthcare and cost/benefit ratio shall we? But be prepared for you or your family to be affected

While we're on the subject of the Nazis though, perhaps worth remembering that the main reason for the widespread acceptance of totalitarian fascism was the fact that the State had scared the living daylights out of the masses by massively overstating the threat posed by Communism. When a society is scared out of its wits, it will all of a sudden accept pretty much anything under the guise of 'being kept safe'
Sound familiar?

Are you on glue?

Many of the people in the ECV group have treatable illnesses.

That often aren't being treated because they aren't Covid.

@NikeDeLaSwoosh I think part of the problem is that people feel applying the strength of the majority to life and death of weaker people is maybe a little stark and brutal, and is also an abdication of many of our social norms. The real problem is that by framing it as zero sum (either you don't care about people dying, or you fully support all countermeasures), it's not possible to integrate the far more complex opportunity cost of the measures we have to take to protect the vulnerable. We just don't have the data for that, and won't have for a long time. Is it then morally right to throw the vulnerable overboard in the interest of retaining living standards for the majority, or is it morally right to save any life at any cost? It's always going to turn into an ugly debate, when really it's Hobsons choice: someone is a bit fucked, whatever we do. Personally I think unless we want to kill off jobs for the next ten years, we'll have to accept that people will die until there's a vaccine, and we should so whatever we can to avoid totally unnecessary risks. Problem is most of what I like about my life (friends, drinks, parties, going to the ballet, work shindig when we deliver a project, coffee with the school gate crowd, trips abroad, business travel) now involves unnecessary risks to vulnerable people...

@EDSGFC

I agree its very sad, but its true, and forms part of the sensible, adult conversation we need to have around death.

No it isn't. Many of the people in the ECV group have treatable illnesses. Who are you to decide that they are expendable? Why stop there? Why bother treating anyone with cancer or heart disease? Must cost the NHS a fortune and they'll only die eventually anyway. If they'd lived three generations ago there wouldn't have been any treatment so they should just accept that they're going to die earlier than they thought. Is that acceptable? No. So what's the difference?

Let's have the conversation about all healthcare and cost/benefit ratio shall we? But be prepared for you or your family to be affected

In the time before Covid, perhaps you were right, you never know, even in the future you might be right too.

I am simply putting forward the possibility that this is a whole new world, in which we no longer have the luxury of that way of thinking.

Medicine (and by extension life expectancy) has always been moving in a positive direction, certainly for my lifetime, but there is no guarantee that this will always be the case.

Its a non sequitur to suggest that, just because something has always been so, that it will always continue to be so.

I hope you're right btw, but I fear you're not.

@NikeDeLaSwoosh

While we're on the subject of the Nazis though, perhaps worth remembering that the main reason for the widespread acceptance of totalitarian fascism was the fact that the State had scared the living daylights out of the masses by massively overstating the threat posed by Communism.

When a society is scared out of its wits, it will all of a sudden accept pretty much anything under the guise of 'being kept safe'

Sound familiar?

No it wasn't. It was predominantly a nationalistic resurgence in backlash against the controlling measures imposed on Germany following its defeat in 1918, coupled with the development of modern propaganda and misinformation in a time when free access to global media didn't exist.

We're not accepting rapid militarisation because we're being scared by a false threat of invasion. We're not having sweeping curtailments of our civil liberties imposed because our neighbour/spouse/child could be a secret communist. We're heeding sensible public heath advice because of an outbreak of a highly contagious novel virus.

I'm not being emasculated or controlled by wearing a face covering in Sainsburys, I'm helping prevent the spread of a virus for the sake of my community.

All these 'plandemic' theories are nonsense because they fail to address the key issue. Why. What do the Powers That Be (sic) gain from borrowing 100% of our GDP in two months and destroying huge swathes of the economy? If the shutdown was just some big government con why are they desperate for us to go back to the offices and get the support economies restarted? The only reason I could see for it being all a big lie to control us would be if they wanted to track the population, gather lots of information about us and trace all of the things they were doing, people they were interacting with, places they were going, etc. Which coincidentally is the one this this government has been fantastically appalling at getting off the ground.

@NikeDeLaSwoosh

I’m not clever or have any particular talent that will solve this current pandemic and I’m grateful to have the sense to recognise that fact and listen to the people with proven track records who are

So frightening that people are actually this trusting in the Powers that Be.

What?!?! And people who are on board with containing covid are the drama lamas?

Yes I have trust, that comes with conditions and ebbs and flows, but ultimately to have a cohesive (and therefore effective) response large numbers of people require leadership, preferably by those who have more than a basic understanding of the full picture.

Unless your about to reveal your actually halfway up a mountain in Scotland using an encrypted satellite internet connection and otherwise completely off grid, don’t kid yourself you’re not just as led by others. You haven’t come to your conclusions off your own back, you’ve digested and regurgitated a host of other people’s opinions just as much as I have. What makes the people and sources you trust anymore superior than the ones I do? An enthusiastic YouTube account?

@NikeDeLaSwoosh I think the nazi argument is a little simple but I do get where you're coming from. It's just that the nazi methods of propaganda were pretty sophisticated, tapped into existing resentment and were effective because of the economic catastrophe that the treaty of Versailles was for Germany.
They didn't focus on fear as much as they tried to divide people, and realised they could use resentment of Jews and the many affluent Jewish German success stories to achieve this. That's where I see very minor parallels with some of the crap that comes out of Hancocks mouth ("affluent young people") , but that's also where it ends, because I can't stand comparing the systematic annihilation of 6 million blameless people with a totally different set of political problems and missteps. It's a poor argument and undermines your point.