No one can fix this apart from us

[notevenat20]

It's clear that numbers of cases are now going up rapidly. It seems likely we will copy either Spain or France but a few weeks behind. The only way to stop this is for us to change our behaviour. There is no other way.

We need to stop socialising, wear masks, wash our hands, keep our distance and not decide to break the law/do the opposite just because the govt annoys us. We don't need to wait for the govt to pass laws or tell us what to do. We already know.

No one can fix this apart from us.

@OldQueen1969 Agreed. Any fool could see that with nice weather forecast this weekend and a few days notice people would see this as the opportunity for a last hoorah. Why not have enforced this before the weekend? I think perhaps they are playing a weird game of herd immunity. I cannot fathom if they are seriously grossly incompetent, thick as mince or pure evil.

@Kaktus

What an inflated sense of your own importance you have OP. Do you think those who are having house parties etc are going to read this and say ‘oh thank you *@KitKatastrophe* for helping me see the error of my ways’?. People who are obeying the ‘rules’ will continue to do so. Those choosing not to aren’t going to change their minds because of a post on Mumsnet. Of course cases were going to rise when things reopened and people started mixing again (and by mixing I mean going back to work as well as socialising). Anyone who is surprised by this must not really understand how virus transmission works.

I'm not sure if this is aimed at me. I just said most people are already following guidance on social distancing, masks and hand washing.

@Moondust001

If everyone confined themselves to their houses regardless of work, school, illness, accidents etc for 2-4 weeks, the virus would die off.

If that were true it would be worth doing. It isn't true!

I know I am wasting my breath, but just for the record, again:
(a) for the vast majority of people, Covid-19, like a lot of viruses that we are exposed to, is a mild infection if even that. And even a "bad" case is, for most, nothing worse than flu (real flu, not the sniffles that half the population describe as flu).
(b) according to the statistics a tiny percentage of the population are positive at any time, and it is arguable that if suppression hasn't worked (which it hasn't) then it is time to think outside that box.
(c) there is a huge difference between those who die "with Covid present and those who die of Covid. All the evidence suggests that the vast majority of deaths are the former and not the latter - in other words, people who have died from other causes. We do not record the deaths of people who die from other causes and have flu/ a cold / some other thing present, so why are we doing so for Covid? Yes, if you are old or have serious underlying conditions, Covid may exacerbate existing risk of death - but that is the minority of people, and it is equally true for absolutely every* virus and bacteria those people come into contact with!

It is true. It just isn’t possible!

We so did not! When SARS-CoV-1 developed there were no massive lockdowns and nobody paid very much attention to it at all. In all cases of outbreaks, SARS-CoV-1 has been largely self-limiting and nobody knows why. In the end, it appears it largely died out - quite possibly because it isn't a very efficient virus due to the fact it's kill rate is relatively

This is plain wrong as far as I can tell.

"Why did the original SARS epidemic come to end? Well, SARS-CoV-1 did not burn itself out. Rather, the outbreak was largely brought under control by simple public health measures. Testing people with symptoms (fever and respiratory problems), isolating and quarantining suspected cases, and restricting travel all had an effect."

The reason why covid 19 is harder is that you are infectious for a period when you are not ill.

But the Chinese have managed to get rid of it nonetheless at least for the time being.

@notevenat20

What a ridiculous statement.

Who else can?

The depths of misunderstanding!

If it was that easy, dont you think we'd have eradicated most viruses by now? Are we just not trying hard enough?

Stop being ridiculous

[quote MJMG2015]@Eyewhisker

Given the news on the Oxford vaccine, it could well be years away. How long do you want to spend like this?

What are you referring to exactly?

If you're referring to the temporary halt to testing because if the bloke that's unwell - it's normal & insignificant (not to him obviously!! - but to the whole program, to have a temporary halt to testing.[/quote]
Trials have now resumed. Hopefully all will go well now.

OP, I do think most people are doing their best to follow the rules. I think it's like the mask situation, there was a lot of moaning about it on SM but when it came down to it most people just got on with it.

OP, I do think most people are doing their best to follow the rules. I think it's like the mask situation, there was a lot of moaning about it on SM but when it came down to it most people just got on with it

I hope you are right. It's being in someone else's house that I think is the big problem. I think we just need to stop doing that where at all possible.

If it was that easy, dont you think we'd have eradicated most viruses by now? Are we just not trying hard enough?

I am not sure I am misunderstanding. First we don't have a global pandemic that often. Second, no one said it was easy!

@notevenat20

As long as your kids are going into school, your going into hundreds of families houses. Just not literally.

What we need is adequate testing facility.
It might come as news to some MN but IRL lots of people dont have loads of savings and cant WFH.
Forget any notion of moon shots, saliva tests and vaccines, things would be a whole lot easier if we could access the tests that are already in use now.

Our local councillor said for a household to isolate for 14 days if anyone in the household had symptoms. The symptoms are very generic and indicative of all manner of bugs/viruses and colds people generally get in the winter. This was what we were asked to do in March when tests were only available in hospitals. I'm sure plenty of families isolated then when actually no one in their home actually did have covid. Lots of people wont be able to afford to keep doing this over the autumn and winter without knowing for sure that it is or isnt covid. Often children (and adults) might feel crap for a few days and be clear of symptoms in a week, they wouldnt generally need 2 weeks off work or school as well as keeping siblings in as well.
Of course I understand how vital it is to isolate if it is covid but without access to tests people are going to make their own judgements, or ignore guidelines because they cant afford to be off work multiple times.

Personally I would rather

As long as your kids are going into school, your going into hundreds of families houses. Just not literally

That seems not to be the case. Adult to child to adult transmission appears much lower than adult to adult transmission.

@notevenat20

Lol!
It appeared that way when all the children were home. I think you’ll find things change.

Why are private houses so much more dangerous for transmission than a restaurant or pub? How many pubs or restaurants can realistically distance every single person by two metres before they run out of space? Non mask wearers then have to raise their voices to have normal conversation - do we all end up having to sit and chat by messenger, with whiteboards or even sign language?

In your home you can be as strict as you like but if you've been outside even following rules there's a risk of transmission regardless of numbers. You keep to your six people rule at home, and then sit with 30 kids in a classroom on Monday? It is illogical and feels like a sop tbh.

@DBML I can't claim to know more than i can Google on this but schools have been open for a while in some countries and it does seem to be the case.

There are two possible trivial explanations. Children are largely asymptomatic and if you aren't coughing you aren't spreading as much. Also, young children are not typically at head height to adults they are talking to. Remember that the longer you spend being exposed the more likely you are to be infected.

I am sure there will be better scientific explanations too.

@Eyewhisker

This is an airborne virus which is endemic throughout the UK. Yes, if we all lockdown it stops spreading, but once we move it starts again.

We can stop and shut down and it will stop speeding. But once we act like humans again, it will start.

Given the news on the Oxford vaccine, it could well be years away. How long do you want to spend like this?

What news about the vaccine? That trials had resumed as the person taken ill was nothing to do with the vaccine?

Sorry @KitKatastrophe, I somehow tagged you instead of the OP!

But the Chinese have managed to get rid of it nonetheless at least for the time being.

You mean the Chinese government that do nothing but lie and hide facts and statistics? That Chinese?

The problem with that explanation is, already in schools we’ve had to send home symptomatic children, who have gone on to test positive.

I say, give it a few more weeks and we’ll see.

Additionally, schools have indeed been the sources of new outbreaks in other countries.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/21/coronavirus-iurope-dozens-schools-report-infections-berlin-germany-spain

Or I suppose if it suits the agenda, we can just say that it’s the teachers spreading it.

It's not not true. We eradicated SARS by similar methods. It's just that covid is more difficult.

SARS (the short form always refers to SARS-COVID-1) was a more peculiar virus than covid-19. It wasn't nearly as infectious and you couldn't transmit it during the incubation period, only while having symptoms. The outbreak lasted for nine months, but fewer than 10,000 cases were reported. It spread to many countries from travellers who had been in Asia, but with other community transmission ever being established. This is possibly because it was a MUCH MUCH nastier illness than covid-19. In the older age groups, more than half of cases died. The overall mortality rate was 50 times higher than with covid-19. Either way, the measures taken were very different. There isn't much point of comparison.

Covid-19 behaves a lot more like the four endemic coronaviruses that are sometimes said to cause the common cold. In fact most colds aren't caused by coronaviruses and the coronavirus colds are probably at the bad cold/ maybe it's flu end of the cold spectrum for most people. Probably it will end up being the fifth of these, and endemic in the human population. In the future, elderly people will already have been exposed to it many times while younger so it won't be as deadly in those older age brackets.

If the exact same virus had started spreading before PCR testing technology or genetic sequencing, we would have done nothing to begin with. By late March there would have been clinical evidence of a nasty respiratory virus circulating.

Because people weren't panicking, elderly patients wouldn't all have been chucked out of hospital taking the virus with them, and so the transmission in care homes would have been much lower. This alone would have saved many lives. And because the virus would have been taken as flu/a nasty bronchitis, the treatments that actually turn out to be somewhat effective (oxygen, steroids) would have been tried earlier. People wouldn't have died unnecessarily because they were put on ventilators.

In the meantime, the virus would have continued circulating at very high levels in the non-vulnerable population and by the early summer most of us would have had it and developed some kind of immune response. This would have protected the vulnerable people who hadn't yet been infected, and the virus would have started being transmitted more and more slowly. Eventually, it would have behaved more or less like the other four coronaviruses which are found all across the globe and which in elderly people can cause serious illness. But none of us (other than virologists and medical professionals) would have heard of it. As it is, a lot of people seem completely to have lost faith in the capacity of human beings, either individually or as a species, to survive infection. In fact, our immune systems are, 99% of the time, awesome things!

You mean the Chinese government that do nothing but lie and hide facts and statistics? That Chinese?

Well that's one way to look at it. Proportionally over a million people would have had to die of coronavirus for them to be as bad as the UK. I suppose they could have covered them up.

South Korea has a population a little less than the UK with about half in one large city. They have had under 400 deaths. This appears to be due to their strong public health measures. Do you think this is a lie too?

@BoggledBudgie

Nope, not stopping socialising. The virus is here to stay, death rates are small and life needs to continue. I’ll happily wear a mask, I’ll happily social distance, I’ll wash my hands til the sodding cows come home but I will not ever again go weeks without seeing another living soul. I’d rather die of Covid.

Agree.

And preachy, blaming posts like this won't make any difference.

The virus is spreading because it is very virulent. Lockdown proved we can't stop it. Therefore we will have to continue life with mitigating measures.

The government did not expect the level of compliance it got. We as a population have done what was asked of is, and we continue to do so.

The problem with that explanation is, already in schools we’ve had to send home symptomatic children, who have gone on to test positive.

The consensus seems to be that they are much less likely to spread it to adults, not that it is impossible. Some of the stories from England are just silly though as they were about the first week back where they can't have caught it in school.

but you do know that Covid-19 is actually SARS-CoV-2. In other words - both are SARS!

So why is it called Covid-19 then?...why not call it SARS-Cov-2?!

One thing I did read or hear about was the difference between SARS and Covid was that with SARS there wasn't a percentage of the population walking around asymptomatic. If you had SARS you knew about it! I can't remember where I read or heard this as there are so many experts out there. And anyway if they are the same thing why don't they behave the same way?

And preachy, blaming posts like this won't make any difference

More pleading than preaching. I don't understand where the idea of blame comes from. It is just a fact that humans spread it to each other and the more social contacts, the more it spreads.