I genuinely don’t get it?!

[Rapphue]

Hopeful for balanced and sincere posts here rather than the assumption that I’m ‘playing ignorance’ or some other accusation because my question undermines the government narrative.

FWIW I’m educated and well read, albeit I don’t have huge in depth knowledge politics, nor do I claim to!

But I don’t understand why we are having restrictions imposed for a virus that is no worse than other illnesses. Even if I accept that it is harmless to the NHS should it escalate fast and make many ill at the same time (so far no hospitals have been maxed out with corona - my SIL works as a hospital doctor in intense care and has said there hasn’t been even 50% corona patients in any ward at one time. She works in a busy London hospital)...even if I accept it could escalate and we don’t want that, then:

1. Why is there suddenly a lack of concern about public health in general? People are dying because they are having treatment postponed due to Coronavirus. Hospitals are not busy and certainly not full of corona patients. It seems crazy to me that anyone who may fall ill non corona related is now at the back of the queue. Tough shit if that ends in your death.

1. Pubs open until 10pm. I use this as one example of many arbitrary rules. Why does the virus suddenly operate after 10pm? Is it a vampire? Surely you can infect just as many people at 9:59pm as you can at 10pm. Is it just to reduce risk overall? If so then I think someone needs to read a gcse science textbook... the risk has already been taken if the pub is open full stop.

1. Cashless society...erm. Why?

I’m not trying to incite some sort of dramatic post. I hope there are honest reasons for operating as we have the last few months. I hope I am wrong to feel cynical. I hope - and suspect - I’m not knowledgeable enough to understand why this is happening how it is.

As far as I can tell this is very much about controlling people’s lives to their detriment. If it was about health why on Earth are we letting people get sick and delaying treatment because of a virus?

Is there something in the London protests yesterday? Am I missing something medical, political or scientific here?

@tempnamechange98765

Flu can be asymptotic too... This 2014 NHS study indicates up to 3/4 are.

www.nhs.uk/news/medical-practice/three-quarters-of-people-with-flu-have-no-symptoms/

Millions of us probably get mild cases of flu each winter without realising it’s the flu. It’s only the worst cases we recognise as “flu”.

the basic question for all the lockdown measures is:

Do the lives saved (however you want to define this, ie raw number, QALY etc) exceed the lives lost / quality of life reduction caused by lockdown measures in the long run

The problem is that we basically don't accurately know the numbers in this equation. One day we will know the numbers and only then will we know with reasonable certainty if how we've reacted to covid was appropriate and effective

I also have my own question. Everyday for months we have heard how many infections have been identified that day. But surely this totally depends on how many tests are done and we can offer. So if the number of infections per day now is higher than it was in April, surely that's just because symptoms are better published, more people try and get tested and we have more tests (although not enough it seems). I am really puzzled why "number of infections per day" is something that is reported

You’re correct that comparisons of case numbers with April are pointless because the criteria has changed a lot since then. This is well understood; however we can see a clear rise over the last four to six weeks. We don’t actually know for certain at which point number of cases = health service can no longer cope. During March/April cases were essentially hospital admissions since those were the only people getting tested.

The Zoe app had been running a symptom tracker since March and their projections have been shown to be credible and as accurate as any source could be that relies on people accurately recording their symptoms. They estimated that during the spring there were highs of 100,000 new infections per day which fall in line with numbers we have seen in other countries.

We can look at deaths to try and compare but even then the goal posts have moved with better understanding, treatment and availability.

Probably the best, consistent indicator of spread is hospital admissions (the criteria for this was stricter in some areas at the height of lockdown though) and 111/GP consultations. There are some good links on the stats thread (first post usually collates most of them) if you’re interested and show some clearer data on the progress of the disease.

[quote Derbygerbil]@tempnamechange98765

Flu can be asymptotic too... This 2014 NHS study indicates up to 3/4 are.

www.nhs.uk/news/medical-practice/three-quarters-of-people-with-flu-have-no-symptoms/

Millions of us probably get mild cases of flu each winter without realising it’s the flu. It’s only the worst cases we recognise as “flu”.[/quote]
surely an illness with no symptoms is not an illness?
an asymptomatic person is playing host to the virus but not suffering from it presumably because they have some innate resistance to the virus which prevents it having pathological effects?
Let's not forget we are all host to countless millions of microbes which mostly cause no issues

So then respond to any of the many detailed points people have been kind enough to explain to you @Ophelia2020. Rather than accusing us of thinking that Boris Johnson is in any way competent

@AlecTrevelyan006

the basic question for all the lockdown measures is:

Do the lives saved (however you want to define this, ie raw number, QALY etc) exceed the lives lost / quality of life reduction caused by lockdown measures in the long run

The problem is that we basically don't accurately know the numbers in this equation. One day we will know the numbers and only then will we know with reasonable certainty if how we've reacted to covid was appropriate and effective

Well it's a lot better than the number of lives lost and quality of life reduction caused by absolutely fuck all measures whatsoever.

The economic destruction from completely unchecked Covid would be terrible.

As would the impact of no hospital treatment for anyone for anything - because all the beds were full and so many staff were off sick.

Long Covid is estimated to affect around 10% of patients (so far). That's a significant proportion of the working age population - many have been unable to work for months and months. Imagine how much higher that number would be with no measures taken at all.

The countries doing best economically and with better access to hospital treatment for cancer, mental illness, etc are those that have taken effective action to deal with and contain Covid.

I have a very close friend working in intensive care in a northern hospital and he has said it has been the easiest 6 months of work in his life!! I accept this may be coincidence and also may be his particular hospital but it seems very strange to me

That was really not the experience in my London hospital - we had to quadruple our ICU capacity by double-spacing patients (two patients in each bed space), plus opening up theatres as overflow ICUs and converting our neuro ICU, liver ICU etc into general ICU beds. We ran out of CVVH fluid nationally (necessary for renal replacement therapy). We had to share ventilators between patients, re-purpose anaesthetic machines, etc. Our wards were absolutely “more than half full” of Covid patients. Speaking to friends in other London teaching hospital (north, south and east London) their experience was identical. Taking part in calls, Critical Care Network calls, units across the country seemed to be having identical issues.

I have no idea which hospital your sister and your friend work in, but their experience is not something I recognise. No, things are not that bad now, but things were not bad at the beginning of March either, and then we were in an absolute war zone three weeks later.

But I agree that we shouldn't need a lockdown now - around nine months since cases started to creep over here in noticeable numbers.

We should've used our island advantage like Australia and New Zealand.
By now, we'd be largely back to normal with a functioning economy - with hospitals, schools, offices, shops, bars, restaurants, pubs, gyms, sporting events, and entertainment venues open pretty much as normal.

My SIL thinks standard appointments should never have been cancelled or postponed. She agrees with current restrictions

So I have s couple of questions for your SIL.

Who does she think should have been doing these routine appointments, when people as random as community dentists and transplant surgeons were redeployed to man the ICU junior doctor rota? Not to mention the fact that 50% of my department caught it in March/April (inadequate PPE, just paper masks)

Our dialysis appointments continued (obviously, because dialysis is lifesaving). As a result, Covid tore through our dialysis units and 10% of our dialysis population died. Plenty who did not die spent weeks in hospital. Does she really think that non-urgent face to face appointments should have continued, given a 10% risk of death? Would you go for your annual checkup if you thought there was a 10% chance of dying if you did? Or would you rather have a telephone appointment?

At the moment, we have had to cut down our face to face appointments to allow social distancing (the other appointments are being done over the phone). Does your sister think we should a) see 20 patients F2F and phone 30 others, as we are doing, or b) cram 50 patients into a cramped waiting room, together with any of their families who’ve accompanied them, for three hours, and hope none of them are carriers? (And no I have no idea why they all arrive at the same time and not at the time their appointment is booked, but they do).

Your SIL is either pretty blinkered about how non-ICU hospital medicine works, or more likely doesn’t actually exist.

@Ophelia2020

i see the YouTube insults have started.

Again, anybody who questions the way this has been handled is a fucking loon. I'll brainlessly chant that it was right to put covid patients in old people's homes and eat out was a good idea.

Who's said that? I don't think I've seen anyone from the government posting on this thread?

I'd say the one thing we're all in agreement on (those on this thread at least) is that the UK has rather fucked up it's handling of the pandemic!

Your SIL clearly was not in ICU, London hospital here was at 3 x the capacity. We had to shut children’s theatres neonates.

@BlueJava

Re comparisons with Sweden - there are far fewer of them, they are more spread out, they have a different culture and often advice is strongly adhered to (according to my colleagues in Stockholm).

The UK has fewer deaths per head of population than Sweden.

So then respond to any of the many detailed points people have been kind enough to explain to you @Ophelia2020. Rather than accusing us of thinking that Boris Johnson is in any way competent hmm

Dame I really don't think I can be arsed with anymore pro lockdown loons. People like you are actually part of something you don't comprehend.As I said earlier it's quite clear that anyone who questions the restrictions that are parroted all day on the tv is a conspiracy theorist, a fucking nut , Butswedener and other offensive names.

What more is there to say. I am clearly wrong. It's right my 90 year old grandmother is kept isolated in her care home with no visitors. It's right my sister will end up disabled. There was clearly no other choice in the world and no more questions must be asked.

@Someonetakemebackto91
It all sounds horribly stressful and distressing. I'm sorry.

I read last week London has again had to make plans to close the children's departments at some of the hospitals, to increase capacity for expected Covid cases. I think UCLH is one? Can't remember the others.

Zaffa:

Yea and if that happens, then I think we will find further restrictions come into play. The idea is that we will all take personal responsibility to reduce spreading the virus with current restrictions and they won't get stronger.

Ah yes - that old Hobson's Choice: "choose" to comply, or be forced to comply! The man in the locked room sits comfortably in the knowledge that he has no wish to leave...

I am willing to bet that the Covid "crisis" will not be over in a couple of years. Will it ever (be allowed to) really end...? And if so, with this model established and compliance tried-and-tested, it'll be the next illness to come along. It is the gift that will only keep giving for governments around the world - the new 9/11. Anything and everything will be justified in its name, and most will accept it's for their own "good". The social contract: liberty for "security".

"Conspiracy theorist" does not insult me. At least myself and some others bother to theorise, or think at all, about the current situation...!

@MintyMabel

But I am allowed to chase a fox with a group of friends.

Point me to the part of the law that gives an exemption solely for fox hunting.

There is an exemption for many outdoor sports. In the body of that article it says "The list includes mainstream sports like football, rugby, cricket, and hockey as well as less popular sports such as curling, polo and shooting." but The Guardian chooses to write the headline to give the impression that the toffs just allow their own sports and many people choose to believe it and don't read beyond the headline

My Mum is seriously ill because her operation was cancelled. And is still cancelled.

I'm SO pissed off that we have shut down because of something that has a 0.003% fatality rate.

So sorry about your mum @StarUtopia but I'm afraid the fatality rate is far higher than that.

Mcsilkson I agree and I worry that covid restrictions will be used to introduce policy's that we ordinarily would object to. Like digital currency.

www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/now-is-the-time-for-a-great-reset/

The pause during lockdown created by the pandemic will result in a 7% decrease in global emissions in 2020. The UN states that we need a decrease of 7.6% every year until 2030 to avoid climate and ecological disaster. This means we need to maintain the same decrease every year as if we were living in lockdown*

When you read Paris green deal, Un stuff, green deals you hear a lot about sustainability, resetting the economy and new social contracts on the back of covid.Some of it sounds great, until you realise a lot of it is about rationing our dwindling oil supplies.

Are people willing to carry on living as though they are in lockdown? How will we know covid restrictions have ended and emission restrictions have begun?

‘The economic destruction from completely unchecked Covid would be terrible’

No doubt it would be - over a shorter period though. That’s why people are possibly wrong to judge any country with a looser Covid policy on their economic performance at this moment in time.

As things stand, why would it be necessarily better for the economy to be in the UK’s current situation where you have lots of people self isolating for - not just one but potentially multiple - 14 day periods per person as a result of confirmed/suspected/close proximity to Covid-19 cases over a potentially much longer period than a ‘let it run’ policy, which would result in the majority of people catching it over a much shorter period? Society then adjusts, because then society knows what aftermath it has to adjust to & then moves on more quickly? As in 1918 really, so we have a precedent of sorts here.

@Ophelia2020

Mcsilkson I agree and I worry that covid restrictions will be used to introduce policy's that we ordinarily would object to. Like digital currency.

www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/now-is-the-time-for-a-great-reset/

The pause during lockdown created by the pandemic will result in a 7% decrease in global emissions in 2020. The UN states that we need a decrease of 7.6% every year until 2030 to avoid climate and ecological disaster. This means we need to maintain the same decrease every year as if we were living in lockdown*

When you read Paris green deal, Un stuff, green deals you hear a lot about sustainability, resetting the economy and new social contracts on the back of covid.Some of it sounds great, until you realise a lot of it is about rationing our dwindling oil supplies.

Are people willing to carry on living as though they are in lockdown? How will we know covid restrictions have ended and emission restrictions have begun?

It's the choice between two evils. I'd choose a different lifestyle - I'm really adaptable - than: irreversible damage to the planet leading to massive global instability, death and poor health.

I don't think I'm the only one who could adapt to a new lifestyle, humans have been doing it since our dawn.

surely an illness with no symptoms is not an illness? an asymptomatic person is playing host to the virus but not suffering from it presumably because they have some innate resistance to the virus which prevents it having pathological effects? Let's not forget we are all host to countless millions of microbes which mostly cause no issues

True, but I don’t think I said asymptomatic infection was illness. I was just responding to a poster who wrote that you know when you’ve had flu because of how ill you feel.... It’s very possible to be infected with the flu virus and not be ill with flu, as it seems to be with Covid.

I think most people will agree with you Allofthesettings

The concern I have is that some of the restrictions we have due to covid have previously been suggested to get emissions down. To meet targets we will have to carry on with the current restrictions. Are people willing to opt for online education or work from home permanently? I'm not sure.

Whatever happens we need to know that restrictions are for the right reasons. I found it odd that the gov announced billions to be spent on cycle lanes just days after imposing lockdown. I also found the restrictions on travel odd and I'm not convinced that some of these rules are being sneaked in under the guise of covid restrictions to keep emissions down.

Im certainly not happy with this.

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-8706033/Smart-meters-used-switch-electricity-without-warning-compensation.html

No @MummyPop00
It's the opposite. The economic devastation from unchecked Covid would be long-term.

It's short-termism that's causing so much of the damage. To the economy and to health.

Countries that have effectively dealt with it will continue to see better and quicker economic recovery.

This isn't going to go away by Christmas (it could have if we'd done what Australia and New Zealand did).

We face at least a year of this dragged out, ongoing shit situation. All the while getting worse and worse and worse. More avoidable job losses, more untimely deaths, more long-term disabled working age previously young and healthy people unable to work for months.

Short-term pain months ago would've meant by now it would be over. Now all that we can do is continue down the same shit path, or deal with it and contain it. Unfortunately I expect we'll continue to do the former.