It's just an overreaction.

[madcow88]

Now don't get me wrong I followed the rules to the letter and still am doing as I don't want to break the law.

However I think it's all a massive overreaction and I don't want to sit by and allow my children's generation to be destroyed.

Their education is totally fucked, they will not get to have the same social experiences as we did as young people.

Why is everyone happily sitting by and allowing our government to restrict our lives over a virus that kills 0.01% of people. Whilst 1000s of people are dying every day due to the lack of treatment and social interactions.

I really just do not feel comfortable with all the laws on our freedom being changed so dramatically over a virus if truth be told is not as deadly as they would like us to be believed.

Don't get me wrong I have sympathy for those people who lost their lives and for the people who will lose their lives in the future but no more than for the people who die of flu and other viruses each year.

Now it's getting farcical.

The oldies have been paying for the younger generations for years, everyone's education, vaccinations, dentistry was funded by the older generations, for example. That's how it works and when we/you get old you will also expect to be looked after.

The older generation are not responsible for lockdown, the virus is, the government is and so is everyone who is eligible to vote, which includes you and me.

Stop looking for someone to blame. Shit happens, we're all going through this, no one likes it, we're all struggling in our own ways, but not everyone needs to complain about it ALL THE FUCKING TIME.

Awww OP. So many new posters joining MN this very day to agree with you. You must be so proud.

I think if you took a poll, it would be more than reasonable to assert that the vast majority of 65+ would be voting for lockdown.

Anyhow, Lockdowns are only half arsed & half adhered to therefore what we have at the moment is drip fed herd immunity like it or lump it.

Sweden in slo mo.

Couldn’t agree more OP.
So sad people are going along with this nonsense.

Why does everyone talk about WW2, there can't be that many people left by now who actually fought in WW2 can there?

Older people can mean 55 and above. A 55 year old alive today was born in 1965.

Average life expectancy is 82. An 82 year old alive today was born in 1938.

The main issue is health care staff imo.

When they start to feel overwhelmed then everyone has to try and stop high transmission. Back to basics don’t overwhelm NHS

What about the younger ones? Don’t they matter? Can’t you see the irony in your posts?

I am not saying that, sorry if it seemed that way. I am saying that we are all in this shitty situation and completely disregarding any generation/group of people is not helpful and quite honestly insulting. It all comes down to everyone making the smaller sacrifices (e.g. rule of 6) to avoid the lockdowns etc.

[quote Ecosse]@Blownaway1

There wouldn’t be hundreds of thousands of people hospitalised if the individuals at risk of needing treatment were shielded.

The vast, vast majority of people are not at risk of requiring hospital treatment.[/quote]
No, it doesn't work like that.

First, the number of people who are at risk of needing some sort of treatment is a much bigger group than the people who are at serious risk of dying. You think we can 'shield' 20% of the population? Where? How? Remember the Prime Minister was in intensive care - you think we should be shielding people like him? (By which I mean overweight men in their 50s, not 'incompetent sociopath politicians', arguably we should be shielding all of those...)

Second, some of the 'normal' population will still need hospital care, and we can't easily identify who they are. So imagine we somehow manage to shield 20% of the population and let the other 80% get the virus, and imagine that say 1% of those people needed hospital treatment. That still means, what, maybe 50,000 people needing hospital treatment for Covid, all over the same short time period. Where do you think we are going to put them?

500,000 people needing treatment at the same time, I mean! (Or I think I mean. It's late and my maths is suffering.)

We definitely cant shield everyone who is overweight!! People have jobs and kids in school for starters

There’s absolutely no evidence that 500,000 people would require hospital treatment of shielding were put in place.

Sweden saw nothing like that.

We are not Sweden

They have had the highest death rates of comparable countries, and performed similarly economically
And
The swedes have managed a better job of lockdown than we have done. Without having a lockdown

Yes they didn't have lockdown, but they banned big gatherings before we did , and people work from home , and socially distance....actual ynprobably also less poverty, overcrowded housing etc

It has been fairly clear from midway through the first wave who is likely to be vulnerable in the under 64 age group. Some are unable to do anything about their vulnerable status but the clinically obese have been gently urged to do something about their weight. I am in the overweight category but have used the lockdown period to lose weight and change my eating habits. Sticking your head in the sand and relying on the good old NHS to sort you out if you are seriously ill but have made no effort to actively reduce your risk is irresponsible. As for the over 64yr olds, the majority of which will be retired and therefore not economically affected, shielding is their best option.
I have been working throughout lockdown, the vast majority of people I’ve seen out and about since April have been the over 64yr olds. The supermarket was full of them, even the staff there couldn’t believe how many were visiting daily.
I’m probably going to get jumped on for these comments but I work in dentistry where a simple reduction in sugar consumption would render most of us unemployed and solve worldwide obesity. We have been preaching about this for years but still get the blame when patients lose teeth or need fillings.
We need a serious healthcare revolution to educate people and make them realise that the NHS is not a fix everything institution. Maybe Covid has made people realise that medicine is not infallible.

I don’t think we can compare any death rates until a few years time. We’re still in the thick of this with every country pursuing a different strategy.

@Angrymum22 I won’t jump on you. I completely agree!

I agree OP, there’s been less than 30 deaths a day from Covid consistently for over a month now. So I’m confused about the sudden need for another lockdown.

I see a lot of posters saying “what about all the people who will die of covid?” Well what about all the people who will die from missed cancer treatments, undiagnosed conditions because they could see a gp, suicide, the list goes on. No matter which option we choose, people will die. But at least we could have some sort of an economy/education system/social life if we stopped this nonsense now.

Oh good grief. It only we could stop this nonsense.

More people died of covid this week than last week, and that was more than the week before, its back to growing.

if we stopped everything , complete lockdown, for the next 2 weeks , those numbers would continue to rise.

100 to 150 people next week, around 300 the week after . And nothing now we can do about it because they have already been infected

But we would prevent the 600 deaths the week after that and the 1000 the week after that.
And the 1000 a day not long after that

At which point, hospitals would not have the staff to give those people a dignified death and treat the stroke and cancer patients. Sorry, but by doing nothing you automatically ensure that we do not go back to any kind of normality.

More stupidity on this thread. It's not 1% who need hospital treatment if they get Covid, more like 20% of adults. And some of those that die, or are permanently disabled, will be young and utterly unable to run any form of business.

Exhausted NHS staff will, if not in hospital themselves, not be treating other people because all the beds will be full of the Covid patients.

We are not Sweden. Swedish people voluntarily comply with sensible behaviour - and still have death rates many times higher than their immediate neighbours. Brazil went for not shutting down their economy and have the fields full of graves to show for it.

So did you have fun at your little anti-mask protest in London then?

@alreadytaken

Peru, which has an early and strict lockdown, has had far more deaths than Brazil on a per-capita basis.

It’s far more likely to be the poor overcrowded housing and poverty forcing people to work without safety precautions that is responsible for the high number of deaths in both countries than differences in lockdown policy.

"But at least we could have some sort of an economy/education system/social life if we stopped this nonsense now."

No wonder boris' plea to rely on British common sense failed so spectacularly...

We don’t know who has the highest death rate yet. It’s not over. Sweden looking pretty good at the moment versus every other country in Europe coming out of lockdown with rising infections.

there’s been less than 30 deaths a day from Covid consistently for over a month now

Deaths have begun rising from very low single figures to high twenties now. If doubling every week they would be 50/day next week, then 100/day, then 200/day, then 400/day, then 800/day...

When is the right time to respond?

@Angrymum22

It has been fairly clear from midway through the first wave who is likely to be vulnerable in the under 64 age group. Some are unable to do anything about their vulnerable status but the clinically obese have been gently urged to do something about their weight. I am in the overweight category but have used the lockdown period to lose weight and change my eating habits. Sticking your head in the sand and relying on the good old NHS to sort you out if you are seriously ill but have made no effort to actively reduce your risk is irresponsible. As for the over 64yr olds, the majority of which will be retired and therefore not economically affected, shielding is their best option. I have been working throughout lockdown, the vast majority of people I’ve seen out and about since April have been the over 64yr olds. The supermarket was full of them, even the staff there couldn’t believe how many were visiting daily. I’m probably going to get jumped on for these comments but I work in dentistry where a simple reduction in sugar consumption would render most of us unemployed and solve worldwide obesity. We have been preaching about this for years but still get the blame when patients lose teeth or need fillings. We need a serious healthcare revolution to educate people and make them realise that the NHS is not a fix everything institution. Maybe Covid has made people realise that medicine is not infallible.

Also overweight, have also started going the gym now it's open and trying to walk every day when I'm not working.

People blaming you for their own teeth being rotten is ridiculous, how is that possibly your faults?!

@RepeatSwan

Exponential growth is not possible in this context- by this argument, eventually you’d have more deaths than there are people in the U.K.!

Clearly deaths will peak at some point- imo we will not see anything like the number of deaths we say in May given that we have protective measures in place, better treatments and the unfortunate fact that many of the very vulnerable have already succumbed to the virus.