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. I think masks and keeping distances really are small things given the bigger picture. I haven’t hugged anyone apart from DH and the dc since February, and it has been hard seeing a friend and keeping six feet apart, but i don’t want anyone to get very unwell, or Heaven forbid die, because I wasn’t careful. I want my children to continue to have an education, and I want the economy to tick over rather than crash again.
If we don’t work together on this, then things will get a lot worse, which in turn will have an impact on everyone, even the ones who couldn’t be bothered to pull together.

Arrowball. This is hysteria. Do you know how many under 75s have died in the UK?

Do you know how many of those did not have any other serious underlying conditions?

The numbers of people dying absolutely do not add up to this lockdown / measures in place. It's madness. Look how many people under 75 have died. Look how many under 45 have died. Look how many children have died.

Do you know how many of those did not have any other serious underlying conditions

Do our lives not matter then?

You have no idea what conditions I have or people in my family.

But the country shutting down can not be justified by the number of people dying, the huge majority of which are over 85 years old with other comorbidities.

@Egghead68

No one is saying that vulnerable people’s lives don’t matter. Personally I would reintroduce shielding on a voluntary basis, with practical and financial support being provided. The government should offer to pay the salaries of those shielding (and potentially their family members) and make sure things like food deliveries work effectively.

That would be far better than shutting down the whole economy again and imposing massive restrictions on everyone, when the vast majority will suffer no serious ill effects from the virus.

@1940s

Arrowball. This is hysteria. Do you know how many under 75s have died in the UK?

Do you know how many of those did not have any other serious underlying conditions?

The numbers of people dying absolutely do not add up to this lockdown / measures in place. It's madness. Look how many people under 75 have died. Look how many under 45 have died. Look how many children have died.

I have a rough idea yes thanks. I also have a rough idea of approximately how many excess deaths there were between March and May and that there were approximately up to 30,000 new symptomatic cases per day during the same period.

Your right and death isn’t the only thing that matters, it’s the resources it uses up in a short space of time. Those are finite and the repercussions reach farther than just covid patients.

If all the icu beds are full they’re not going to kick a covid patient off life support because someone’s crashed their car or had a massive cardiac event never mind schedule elective surgery that needs an icu bed available before it’ll even be attempted. Infrastructure is severely reduced when a large chunk of the workforce is unable to work because they’re ill. The ripples from that severely affect the public confidence and in turn the economy.

A lot of people are in the comfortable position of not witnessing the realities of either the illness or the plans that have had to be made to cover worse case scenarios in many industries.

Other people’s hard work has protected them from how bad this could have been so far and the conclusion from people isn’t relief or to appreciate their luck, it’s to use their lucky experience as a reason for them not to have any responsibility and actively to call to be absolved of it because it’s hard and boring or their particular circumstances mean they shouldn’t have to suffer even if we all are.

I’ve seen a lot of talk about how as a society we need to accept death, I agree. There’s a lot to be said about advocating for a good death and peaceful exit, but fuck me if we don’t need to accept that we can’t always have what we want and sometimes life is just hard for no good reason. You just have to do what’s needed and power through following the advice of others because you haven’t got a clue no matter how much internet you devour.

@Cornettoninja

ICU beds have never been full or anywhere near it at any point in the U.K. In fact there are lots of nightingale hospitals that cost hundreds of millions to construct that are now lying empty having never treated a single COVID patient.

This kind of scaremongering about people being denied hospital beds is totally unnecessary and dangerous.

Ffs - and why is that exactly? Maybe, just maybe, it’s because of drastic intervention. Can you really tell yourself that if we hadn’t locked down when we did those numbers wouldn’t have been much, much higher? Are you suggesting we wait until that happens before doing anything?

@Hyperfish101

You can live a reasonably normal life with a mask and social distance. We got a relaxation of the rules and things started to feel normal again but then people couldn’t be bothered to do the minimum.

I don’t think anyone now is suggesting we need a full lockdown. Some of us think masks and SD are a small price to pay to allow some normalisation to return. Unfortunately that’s not working now because many people aren’t doing it.

Yes, it seems that if we stuck to the rules we could have a semblance of normal life

:(

Yes agree

[quote Ecosse]@Cornettoninja

ICU beds have never been full or anywhere near it at any point in the U.K. In fact there are lots of nightingale hospitals that cost hundreds of millions to construct that are now lying empty having never treated a single COVID patient.

This kind of scaremongering about people being denied hospital beds is totally unnecessary and dangerous.[/quote]
The nightingale beds were needed, but unusable due to lack of nurses.

The nightingale beds should have been used by the people the government left to die in care homes and at home.

so many people trying to defend the indefensible. What happened in care homes was terrible, people left to die without any medical support. For many not even any decent drugs due to prescribing rules - because they should have been in hospital.

All those people accusing the rest of us and f hysteria...what hysteria? I was suggesting a bit of mask compliance and SD would go a long way and avoid a situation where we are back in lockdown. No one wants that again as far as I can see.

ICU beds have never been full or anywhere near it at any point in the U.K.

They did come near it, and had there not been a massive expansion early in the year, there would have been some very hard choices to have been made

In 19/20 (just pre-pandemic) there were 5900 critical care beds, up from 5,400 in 2010. (Source of info: King's Fund)

During the pandemic, the number of critical care beds in London doubled, Scotland quadrupled its capacity, and there were rises everywhere (but I'm having trouble tracking exact numbers - some routing reporting cycles have been suspended for the duration)

Only a handful of hospitals exceeded their augmented capability, and then only briefly. That is a huge success story, and we owe a great deal to every intensivist who contributed to the planning (for this pretty much was a group of doctors persuasively making it happen) and every manager/budget holder who got on with getting it done

@Cornettoninja how many excess deaths occurred between March and May? How do you quantify 'excess'?

I think it was right that we locked down initially. We should have done so sooner but then... hindsight etc.

There is good evidence that the virus was circulating around Europe since the end of last year. Undetected for months and months - with no measures in place, no testing, zero public awareness- we lived a largely normal life for over 4 months before we got to a critical point.
We locked down, the infection rate reduced.

We will never be in that position again because we know about Covid and can test for it. It will never again be able circulate I detect for months which to me means that we will not see anywhere near the numbers we did in April.

All that should be needed now is hand washing, SD, fast testing & a working track and trace system and other than that, life should be as normal.

We will never be in that position again because we know about Covid and can test for it. It will never again be able circulate I detect for months which to me means that we will not see anywhere near the numbers we did in April.

Funny how the chief medical officer doesn't share this confidence

He probably needs to work on his anxiety

[quote 1940s]@Cornettoninja how many excess deaths occurred between March and May? How do you quantify 'excess'?[/quote]
I follow and trust the ONS comparisons on the last five years average. Feel free to look it up yourself.

It actually that much different to 2017/2018 yet though is it? Five year average is one thing, but excess deaths this year (so far) aren’t as high as the bad flu season a couple of years ago that no one passed any comment on

“ Main points

In the 2017 to 2018 winter period, there were an estimated 50,100 excess winter deaths in England and Wales.
The number of excess winter deaths in 2017 to 2018 was the highest recorded since winter 1975 to 1976.
During the winter months of 2017 to 2018, the number of daily deaths exceeded the daily five-year average for all days except 25 March.
Excess winter mortality in 2017 to 2018 significantly increased from 2016 to 2017 in all English regions and Wales, with Wales having the highest regional index.
Excess winter mortality continued to be highest in females and people aged 85 and over.
Excess winter mortality doubled among males aged 0 to 64 years between 2016 to 2017 and 2017 to 2018.
Over one-third (34.7%) of all excess winter deaths were caused by respiratory diseases.”

@Desperado24 I completely agree. We had a worse flu season a few years ago. No lockdown. No devastation of economy / education / mental health services etc

[quote 1940s]@Desperado24 I completely agree. We had a worse flu season a few years ago. No lockdown. No devastation of economy / education / mental health services etc [/quote]
Sshhh!

It’s the worst thing ever. Unprecedented. Never happened before.

We must close everything and all stay at home and do untold damage to the economy and people’s mental health because a similar number of people as two years ago have died from a virus - only a lot of them didn’t actually die from the virus, they just happened to have it (without knowing, other than being tested on hospital admission)

Over 1/3 were due to respiratory diseases - so that’s around 17,000 deaths, but no more than 25,000 or it would say 1/2 of deaths. The rest presumably being caused by other things that raise the death rate during cold snaps/winter.

So that’s maybe 17,000-20,000 ‘flu’ deaths over the space of 5 months with no lockdown vs 42,000 covid deaths in about the same period and that’s with the lockdown causing a peak in the deaths.

Even if you look at just the excess deaths and assume all the 17/18 ones are flu, then you are looking at 50,000 vs 65,000, with the 50,000 being the natural end to the flu season and the 65,000 restricted to that because of the lockdown measures. It didn’t burn itself out.

‘It’s just like a bad winter flu season’ is the latest mantra. Well we haven’t hit winter yet 🤷‍♀️.

I think that this government, who are all about enterprise and wealth, didn’t introduce this level of restriction, intervention and public spending lightly. If we don’t need all of this, why is it all still in place? Why do you think that is? Are they doing it because they believe in limiting personal freedom and stifling the economy?

The task has always been to move at a pace that the NHS can manage.

I believe way more people who are young now will have more years taken off their lives as a result of the control measures, than the people who have had years taken off their lives by Covid. We are creating a time bomb of obesity and mental health problems, all for something that is way less likely to affect over 75s (who've had the benefit of active lifestyles and better mental health) than stroke, heart disease or cancer.

And, as someone who works in theatre and for whom theatre has saved me from taking my own life, there is no way I can continue my way of life in any meaningful way under current rules.

Cancer research have said they estimate 3800 cancer diagnoses have been missed because of lockdown measures