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?

As far as I can tell this is very much about controlling people's lives to their detriment.

OK - if that's the case, why? Why would they doing it - for what purpose?

I don't understand why the op is getting a hard time for questioning the extreme restrictions.

Approximately 2 million operations have been cancelled. Some of those people have or will die. My sisters essential treatment has been stopped meaning she will likely end up severely disabled.

Approximately 50,000 people have died of covid (for any reason 28 days after a positive test). The majority of these were people in their 80s and 90s. The average life expectancy in the uk is around 80.

The figures don't justify mass lockdowns and Fergusons predictions were wildly inaccurate like his previous predictions about SARS and mad cow disease.

Covid is a transmittable disease for which infection numbers grow exponentially so once is it let loose in society, even with a low hospitalisation rate the number of fatalities is enormous simply due to sheer volume of transmissions. Can you think of any other disease which has killed 40,000+ is less than 6 months ?

So, once numbers are large enough there is no room in health system to treat anyone, no matter what their illness. PLUS those cancer patients, for example, who are treated are hugely vulnerable to contracting Covid and dying anyway. I speak as someone who's relative (in late 50s) contracted Covid in hospital whilst recovering from an operation and died.

I don't understand why others don't understand that it is in everyone's interest to keep numbers as low as possible.

Ophelia 50,000 people have died even with lockdown.

Trying to argue that lockdown wasn't necessary because not many people died is common on here, but utterly mad.

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/uk-news/healthy-mum-32-describes-first-17990349.amp?intsource=taboola&intmedium=display&int_campaign=organic

I think you should read stories like this and remind yourself of what was happening in March.
We are beginning to hear stories like this again now - I know of two people aged around 50, in hospital with Covid at the moment and a few others currently ill with it.

I get that there needs to be some sort of balance if the economy is to keep going and be saved from utter devastation.

Once again for the people at the back who clearly keep missing the message “THERE IS NO CHOICE BETWEEN COVID 19 AND THE ECONOMY”

Even if you are willing to accept an exponential rise in deaths to protect the economy, opening up everything fully will not have the desired effect. One example - the visitor numbers to places like bars and restaurants in Sweden which had no official lockdown were not substantially different from similar countries which did lock down.

School attendance numbers here were substantially lower in the two weeks before schools closed, because people were making their own decisions on how to protect themselves. There is a virus out there with a higher potential to kill you than any other we’ve known. People are not going to just carry on with their daily lives regardless.

The economy will suffer because of the virus, not because of government choices on what is open and what is not.

@Hopeisnotastrategy

To add to my comment above, I also think the way many parts of the NHS have closed down is a national scandal and unnecessary, but that's a separate topic.

You're right.

We should've done what Australia and New Zealand did and used our island advantage.

Contained virus, no spread = fully operational hospitals.

Crunchy 50,000 people have died within 28 days of a positive covid test for any reason.

Why are people who've died for any reason included? Are people who got hit by a bus included? If so why?

It's perfectly reasonable to expect accurate figures.

Trying to argue that lockdown wasn't necessary because not many people died is common on here, but utterly mad.

These are the same people who think Y2K was a big hoax/fuss over nothing because planes didn’t all out of the sky. They have no idea of the amount of work that went in to ensuring that didn’t happen.

I think it has now been accepted that it was a mistake to shut down cancer treatment as they did as well, and that evidence suggests that most cancer patients are not as vulnerable to Covid as was previously thought and are far more likely to die of their cancer than from Covid

I keep seeing this sentiment and need to point out that this is the definition of the benefit of hindsight.

I’m well aware that there were calls at the start of lockdown to not halt cancer services but given how very little we knew (and still don’t really know) I’m happy to say that anyone who found themselves in the position of deciding whether to keep going or pause would choose the cautious approach based on what is widely know about other viruses and the vulnerabilities of cancer patients. It could have so easily been another care home disaster had the consensus been to keep going.

Since cancer services have resumed its been patchy across the country but these are local problems that very likely existed before covid and have been exposed in their ability to recover a semblance of a normal service. Things weren’t ok before and they’re not ok now but looking at local problems and then applying them to a national level is just wrong.

Why are people who've died for any reason included? Are people who got hit by a bus included? If so why?

They adjusted the “hit by a bus” anomaly which is why the overall numbers were reduced a couple of months back.

But there is a flip side. Many people have died more than 28 days after being tested and they are not included in those figures either.

Have people forgotten the horrifyingly long list of doctors, nurses & midwives and other NHS staff who died early on in the crisis...are people really suggesting the NHS could carry on treating patients as usual whilst simultaneously letting covid rip through society ?

Covid isn't to blame for the NHS foul ups of delayed treatment, cancelled ops, etc. It's NHS management who have failed miserably to deal with covid. There's no reason at all why so much was cancelled in those first few weeks and why it's taking the NHS so long to get back to even a much reduced service.

Red zones etc were intended to segregate covid patients whilst the rest of the NHS continued. That didn't happen. Red zones have been largely unused whilst GP surgeries, wards, clinics effectively closed down for lots of things. That was never the plan. NHS managers did a knee-jerk reaction and closed down/scaled down far too much.

@Rapphue you've said that non-covid NHS treatments have been impacted, which I'm sure is true as services have had to be prioritised. However I can share my experience with you as a person who was diagnosed with breast cancer over the summer. Very fortunately all diagnostic and treatment options were available in the usual timescales and I am now having chemo. What i imagine will cause a massive issue for me is if there are out of control numbers of cases again so that the hospital is overwhelmed or too many hospital staff are ill or can't get into work. In my view keeping covid numbers lower helps everyone. Obviously I think life saving treatments for other illnesses need to be protected too, I imagine keeping covid cases at manageable levels is an essential part of this.

Being well read and educated doesn't equate to having common sense or having the ability to see the bigger picture. This would explain why there are many people from different professions and backgrounds still flouting the rules.

@Hopeisnotastrategy

This country's health service has not yet been overwhelmed, thank the lord, in ways that eg Italy, Spain and New York were earlier this year. I spent four and a half months under severe lockdown in Spain, and I have seen footage of things happening in Madrid hospitals that no brain bleach will ever expunge. Have you not seen footage e.g. of the mass graves in New York earlier this year? The BBC have been very poor in their international coverage, but I do know that was shown here.

We have to navigate a very difficult balancing act between carrying on as much as possible and keeping the economy, education etc going, and not allowing things to go into meltdown. That includes things such as trying to minimise the viral load people take in if they do encounter another infected person, to minimise the severity of any infection.

If you are genuinely interested in this topic there is no shortage of information out there, both here and in the international press.

Yes our NHS wasn't overwhelmed...sort of...hence our extremely high (one of the world's highest) death rate.... because people were left at home until too late.

Absolutely people need to look internationally. All the many countries who are doing so much better than us. Less deaths, less risk of young healthy people being disabled with Long Covid, better economic recovery.

NY isn't a bad example actually. Like Italy, they were hit hard at the start. Like Italy (and unlike us) they learnt from their mistakes. Employed strict measures to contain further spread. NY had restricted state borders for a while, for example.

Yes indeed we need to protect the economy. Hence the urgent need to contain the spread. Everywhere that did is in a better economic position.

Worth pointing out that a highly infectious disease to which no one has immunity will cause significant societal problems if it is not reined in. Even if most people aren’t seriously ill, if you have a significant proportion of the population not able to work at any given time because they have caught it, you will have issues with supply chains, utilities, healthcare and security. You cannot just “let people catch it”. Even if everyone who didn’t die was restored to health shortly after, which they aren’t.

@paddlingwhenIshouldbeworking

Have people forgotten the horrifyingly long list of doctors, nurses & midwives and other NHS staff who died early on in the crisis...are people really suggesting the NHS could carry on treating patients as usual whilst simultaneously letting covid rip through society ?

The problem is these were all Other People.

@MintyMabel

Trying to argue that lockdown wasn't necessary because not many people died is common on here, but utterly mad.

These are the same people who think Y2K was a big hoax/fuss over nothing because planes didn’t all out of the sky. They have no idea of the amount of work that went in to ensuring that didn’t happen.

If the measures we take now work, they will look like an overreaction - paraphrasing Dr Fauci there but this sentiment has stuck with me throughout this pandemic and I’m struck by how quickly it proved itself when people started quoting declining numbers (a direct result of lockdown and restrictions) as the reason to not carry on restrictions.

This article is an interesting look into overreactions:

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/608140/

@MintyMabel

Trying to argue that lockdown wasn't necessary because not many people died is common on here, but utterly mad.

These are the same people who think Y2K was a big hoax/fuss over nothing because planes didn’t all out of the sky. They have no idea of the amount of work that went in to ensuring that didn’t happen.

IMO it's even worse mintymabel - with Y2K, whilst people are telling them that lots of effort went into preventing it, the "deniers' have no personal experience of that effort. But lockdown was only 6 months ago and these people have direct experience of it, they were there, doing it.

Sorry, I just find it exasperating!

@Ophelia2020

I don't understand why the op is getting a hard time for questioning the extreme restrictions.

Approximately 2 million operations have been cancelled. Some of those people have or will die. My sisters essential treatment has been stopped meaning she will likely end up severely disabled.

Approximately 50,000 people have died of covid (for any reason 28 days after a positive test). The majority of these were people in their 80s and 90s. The average life expectancy in the uk is around 80.

The figures don't justify mass lockdowns and Fergusons predictions were wildly inaccurate like his previous predictions about SARS and mad cow disease.

If we didn't have lockdowns and other stringent measures then covid would run rampant, the word exponential growth appears to go over lots of peoples heads. If it runs rampant then society can't function because everyone would be off sick, so great who's going to see you in hospital if nurses and doctors are either off sick or there's no room at the inn because the hospital is full of Covid patients? Who's going to run the shops? Drive the buses? Teach our children?

We have an epidemic of stupidity.

@SheepandCow

We have an epidemic of stupidity.

Thats been out of control since the internet became widely accessible

@user1497207191

Covid isn't to blame for the NHS foul ups of delayed treatment, cancelled ops, etc. It's NHS management who have failed miserably to deal with covid. There's no reason at all why so much was cancelled in those first few weeks and why it's taking the NHS so long to get back to even a much reduced service.

Red zones etc were intended to segregate covid patients whilst the rest of the NHS continued. That didn't happen. Red zones have been largely unused whilst GP surgeries, wards, clinics effectively closed down for lots of things. That was never the plan. NHS managers did a knee-jerk reaction and closed down/scaled down far too much.

It is said that healthcare should run using 80% of full capacity beds, to account for variations in demand, in normal times.

(that doesn't really happen, it goes between ridiculously busy and help-we-can't-manage this)

Presumably, in a pandemic, there would need to be more give in the system than normal, and this might influence management decisions about bed occupancy. (Are there any NHS managers on here who can discuss?)

I was well educated but I’m not particularly bright, I do however have plenty of common sense and understand why we had lockdown and continuing restrictions.
Maybe all the ‘fuss over nothing’ members of society would like to volunteer to be infected with covid to help the scientists with their research.