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?

@MorrisZapp

I can't speak for all care home residents but my gran would have been horrified at her kids and grandkids having to hugely compromise their lives to preserve hers. It's harder for my parents, in their 70s they're actively retired and not keen on chucking themselves on the pyre quite yet.

But most care home residents have a short life expectancy and its just ridiculous to think their lives must be preserved at all costs. Both my grans had do not resuscitate agreements in place because they had absolutely no desire to be kept alive artificially at this point in their lives.

Do you realise that lots of extremely vulnerable people are not over 70.

BAME people are also more vulnerable. Shall we expect them to isolate too? Or all BAME people except those who work in the NHS?

In this phase of the pandemic, I think all people who are extremely vulnerable should be shielded, if they want to be.

We would all I'm sure sacrifice ourselves if the alternative were that our children died.
I don't think we'd find many posters, or members of the public of any age, who would say "well I'm 63 but my life is still worth more than my 28 year old daughter's"
So the argument readily put forward that Gran would hate people to do something to protect her isn't really relevant. I'm 54 and would go under a bus tomorrow if the alternative was that DD went under the bus.
That's not the proposal though, is it? The proposal is that the strong do what they can to protect the weak. Which seems to be (to me) the sign of a just society.
That there are posters on MN who don't give a fuck for those more vulnerable is hopefully a glitch in the matrix because I cannot and will not believe that people like that really believe what they are saying.
Because if they do, then we are back in the swamp.

@Rubberblubberwhale

I'm not against social distancing - but everyone saying how callous it is to say there is an overreaction and we can't just let the vulnerable die... No we can't just forget the vulnerable but there obviously has to be a balance between civilisation and protecting people. Thousands of people die of flu in the UK every year. Lockdowns every winter would definitely prevent loads of these deaths. So should we lockdown from Oct to March? Most people would accept that is absurd. What's the difference? Yeah lockdowns reduce Covid and prevent down deaths but we don't stop everything to prevent other deaths... We need to get realistic

I agree it isn’t all about the numbers of deaths but there are lots of other factors (infrastructure, treatment of mild covid, long term health consequences) beyond that which is where I and a lot of other people struggle with the calls to lift further restrictions.

We are functioning with SD, masks and restricted gatherings alongside local lockdowns. It’s frustrating that people use the current numbers which are a result of those factors to call for further restrictions to be lifted.

I’ll ask again, let’s say we go ahead and get back to normal and the doom mongers are right. What’s the back up plan then?

Current restrictions don’t rule out the possibility of further lockdowns but gung-ho lifting seems to raise that possibility a lot higher. What’s to get out strategy then?

It’s a reasonable question that is ignored time and time again because the inescapable truth is that puts us back in the same situation as March and needs drastic action that we really can’t afford now.

Protecting whats left of the economy requires being cautious. And that’s before we can even start to unpick what’s the impact of covid and what’s brexit.

@TheSeedsOfADream - I think there’s a massive variation on who people think are vulnerable and why. I don’t think it’s because people are uncaring, I think it’s because they’re blindly focussed on their cause.

That there are posters on MN who don't give a fuck for those more vulnerable is hopefully a glitch in the matrix because I cannot and will not believe that people like that really believe what they are saying.

Yes, but apparently you're only allowed to care about those vulnerable to covid, not those vulnerable to other things.

Should we introduce euthanasia then?

Good god yes. Fucking inhumane the way some human beings die. You wouldn't let a dog go through it.

If we could let everyone who doesn't care for lockdown run free fro 2 months whilst everyone else locks down safely with a complete closure of nhs for any Covid infection , then I would let you get on with it

But the lockdiwners need food , cancer patients need treatment, the run free people need petrol and cafes , we can't do it

So we need a balance

Sorry, I've skipped to the end, without reading all the comments because I opened up worldometer and got completely different statistics from the ones cited by the OP.

Nearly a million deaths out of approx. 28 million infected. So 1 in 28 has not just got seriously ill, but has died.

www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

I don't want to run riot. I'm happy to wear a mask, to wear hand sanitizer, to socially distance from strangers and to not attend large gatherings.

I do want to be able to meet up in a group of 7 or 8 indoors.

Many countries don’t provide the info of critical or non critical cases.

The U.K. don’t.

60,000 in the U.K. alone have been suffering long Covid for months.

So the figures on Worldometer are clearly incomplete.

"Why are you idiots all still wearing your parachutes, you're not falling very fast at all!?"

@primabloodydonna

Should we introduce euthanasia then?

Good god yes. Fucking inhumane the way some human beings die. You wouldn't let a dog go through it.

I wasn't talking about voluntary euthanasia, more compulsory euthanasia for all of the people deemed to be a drain on society or a barrier to the healthy getting back to normal.

To see people hold the vulnerable in society in such contempt is disgusting.

Nearly a million deaths out of approx. 28 million infected. So 1 in 28 has not just got seriously ill, but has died.

But here we go again with confusion over statistics. How many millions have been infected, never tested, never appear in the statistics?

@EDSGFC

Is it really so much worse to die of Covid than anything else? Sure, it might bring the time of a person's death forward by a few years,

The extremely vulnerable include children and young people, many of whom will lead normal lives. Are you honestly saying that it's no great shakes if these people die now from Covid?

The absolute inhumanity shown in these discussions disgusts me. How dare you put a value on someone else's life and decide, that in your opinion, it's worth less than a "healthy" person.

Children ARE NOT extremely vulnerable!!!!

I think children dying is very great shakes, which is why the very vulnerable among them should be shielded during this part of the pandemic.

Children ARE NOT extremely vulnerable!!!!

Not all children, no. But the extremely clinically vulnerable group include children undergoing cancer treatment, post transplant or with certain conditions. The ECV are not only the elderly or people with a very short life expectancy as the poster was suggesting.

@Cornettoninja I think the issue is though that there is talk about imposing further restrictions beyond those already in place. That would have a large effect on already difficult cancer screening and treatment, on children's education and on the already decimated employment market. Those things also matter, andit's all very well saying the restrictions are temporary, but I want to know what that means. If we take things to the extreme, which is what some are doing who advocate a second lockdown (ie. we must lock down to protect the vulnerable), then people have to be honest and say that they are choosing to save one group from an adverse outcome at the expense of another group. There is no such thing as a solution here.

@PatriciaPerch

SOME children are extremely vulnerable though if they have cancer or cystic fibrosis or I think that was the point being made. JUst because your child isn't vulnerable to infection, it doesn't mean all children aren't.

Yes but the VAST MAJORITY are not!!!

And for those children that are vulnerable, they should be protected and kept safe as much as possible.

@TableFlowerss

And for those children that are vulnerable, they should be protected and kept safe as much as possible.

How though? That means also isolating their parents and siblings too. What about schooling for them? Access to healthcare, socialising?

Expecting people to shield for long periods of time are a massive ask and if that's the plan then a huge amount needs to be put in place by government to support them, and not just a weekly box of shopping.

I'm kind of in the middle.

At the start of this, as far back as mid-February, when a good pal in Italy told me to get ready for it, everyone I knew, even DH, told me I was ridiculous, I was being totally over the top and catastrophising.
Then it hit.

I don't believe our PM ever took it seriously at the point he should, so February. He pissed off on his holiday instead.

I think the reason he and his government are now being quite over zealous is to try and cancel out the shit show they caused through ignorance previously, and to try and dispel the rumour that suggests they really couldn't care less who catches it now as they've always wanted herd immunity to be an option.
By letting really badly hit towns go into local lockdown now, and the odd thing they know many will willfully ignore such as the 30 people to 6 rule, they can continue to go in half arsed whilst allowing a trickle of cases in "areas of concern" that should really benefit from immediate Lockdown, so they achieve the immunity.
I don't believe they really think a vaccine will happen. I don't personally believe it will either.
The virus has mutated a number of times since at least March, so to try and have a credible vaccine would mean constantly having to find a new one and re-vaccinate every year as with flu jabs. And even flu jabs aren't foolproof and don't stop all forms of flu.

Yes I do think now we should be given the choice as a country to either have these restrictions, whilst told that this option has no end date to go by, we cannot get a projection but it could take until 2023, (as with WHOs advice), or we shield those who need shielding, and the rest of us who want to can go back to how we were, using the Sweden method.
We are only as strong as our weakest link, and despite guidance, and threats of fines, many of us probably are aware of households not taking any notice, who have never felt the rules apply. The Police have said they are powerless to intervene, they don't have the numbers to attend every report.
So I'm on the fence. We know it's flipping contagious. We know it mutates and I think deep down most scientists know we are nowhere near the end of it, in fact I think it will be just as normal as flu or winter bugs in the next 2 years.