Anyone else think this seems far far worse than the first wave?

[XiCi]

I'm in the NW. When we locked down in March I didnt know a single person that had had the virus. I knew of one anecdotally, someone my mum knew of, that had it after a skiing trip in Italy. That's it. Now, virtually the whole of my extended family have had positive tests, friends, friends of friends, their families. It goes on and on. Its absolutely rife and just blazing through everyone. Just seems like noone will escape it. Although luckily, this hasnt translated into a high number of deaths so far, the virus just seems far more prevalent.

Have any of your friends and family died or been hospitalised?

How many of your family and friends have ended up in hospital? It’s a statistics thing.
Back in March only people who were really really ill, or in hospital or had come back from a hot sport (China/Italy) were being tested. Now anyone with a sniffle is getting a test. So it purely maths that says the more people you test the more positives you will get and the more asymptomatic/mild people you will be testing.
If we had done the same level of tests back in March with the same criteria we would have found a lot more positives.

The north is a hot spot at the moment. London was like this last time.

I think it is worse this time though because far more people are out and about than during the first lockdown.

I’m in nw too and i agree, i know loads more cases although back in march people couldn’t get tested. Maybe everyone was ill with what they thought was a normal virus back in march but was actually covid. the rates of positive tests are so high in my area and have been for weeks despite restrictions. I get confused when the news reports a levelling off . I dont see that at all in our figures. I doubt i can get through winter without catching it. That’s worries me, and for my elderly parents who would not survive it. I feel like nw been left to fend for itself. Although tight restrictions would cause a back lash from the HUGE conspiracy theorists in my area.

I agree.

I've never been a big fan of the Tories, but this government seems unusually incompetent and has completely lost control of the situation.

I'm sensing you will be really really disappointed if they havent Janevaljane. My cousins husband and my nephews grandfather have been hospitalised yes. No deaths yet thank god.

I'm sensing you will be really really disappointed if they havent Janevaljane

Why on earth would you think that 😅😅

Shan't bother to reassure you or engage further. Enjoy panicking!

I completely agree. Back in March/April I knew a few with possible symptoms and only 2 of these had a positive test. I know of many many more now with symptoms and positive tests. Also a lot with symptoms and negative tests who feel it must be Covid.

I think most of the first wave was down London and we’re getting the brunt of the second wave. I get annoyed by those saying the south will be unhappy by a second lockdown because it’s not bad down there because we had the same situation back in March. Even the hospitals up here weren’t actually overwhelmed. The numbers in my local hospital has gone from 6 to 35 in 3 weeks with 8 currently in ICU.

I'm not panicking Janevaljane just making an observation about the prevalence. I know the relatives of those seriously ill are panicking though.

No. Deaths were a lot higher back then. I'm not concerned if they stay low. We know more than we did then.

I know people who got the virus back in April including my mum. I don't know anyone who has had it recently. You couldn't get tested back then so it's likely that thousands more people had it than were reported.

Are you in the NW Waxonwaxoff?

But are the people you know who've had positive tests ill in bed, seriously sick? Or do they have the low level 'it's March' snuffles quite a lot of people had at the start (or even before) which went untested and therefore undiagnosed?

I certainly know do more that have tested positive this time around although all are young and have mild symptoms asymptomatic. Testing access wasn't available in March/ April and if it had been the cases would be far higher. Hospitalisations and deaths are the truest picture of where we are with this.

Not at all, how many infections were there for 1,000 people to die a day? It must have been horrifically high. If there is such a thing as herd immunity then these rising infections aren't actually a bad thing and providing hospitals actually treat people at the early stages rather than people waiting until they are at deaths door then, it might be ok.

I'm in a hot spot area and have been thinking the same. Way more people we actually know have it this time round. And we know somebody who died (45, father to two small children) of it. I've gone from feeling mildly concerned to quite worried about how this is going to go tbh.

I'm hoping that we know more this time round, that the treatments have improved. That fewer people will die.

@xici unfortunately we're at the stage of disengagement amongst a lot of people where if it's not happening to them then it's not important and if it's not resulting in deaths it's not important.

People have lost sight of the things we saw in Feb- April where so many people were off work sick or isolating that schools, hospitals, delivery firms and many other workplaces struggled to have enough staff in to operate.

We are very fortunate that over the last 6 months doctors and scientists have discovered treatments that reduce the likelihood of death. Hopefully as a result the death rate will not get to the 1000 a day mark like it did previously.

I'm in the NW and still no virtually noone who has had it. Just a Dr working on covid wards.

I think it is probably a north south thing. I didn’t know anyone who tested positive in March because of no testing but when they said self isolate if you are a member of your family has symptoms we lost 13 kids from my sons class over night, last week there was one kid off (not Covid) so no doesn’t feel as bad as March but I am in London so that is the difference.

Yes definitely, I’m in the NW and the only people I knew who had it in March lived in London.

Now I know quite a few people with it locally, ranging from asymptomatic to actually feeling terrible.

No I'm not.
Deaths were an awful lot higher back then and, there is a huge increase in testing compared to what we were seeing back in March/April

I've been grateful not to of known anyone close hosipiised, or died due to Covid. I have lost two old school friends however.
One to suicide and one to cancer sadly.
It's the treatable illnesses that may have been missed during this pandemic that worries me the most right now

Not really. Just more testing. It was always going to make its way through the population, and was a question of when. Resuming any sort of activity results in more cases. Nobody's fault, although the government has utterly cocked it up and then decided to blame the public.

And what NotAKaren said re hospiistaion/deaths.

Agree with the above, that when 1000 were dying a day the infection rate must have been in the hundreds of thousands, but widespread testing just wasn’t available.

I know two people who have had it, and they only found out because (due to our line of work) we were eligible for the antibody blood test in June. Neither of them had had any symptoms at all. I do live in a very low risk area though.

I think we are just picking up a bigger percentage of the actual number of cases this time around due to more community testing. As long as the hospitalisation/death rates remain lowish I won’t be too concerned. It’s not the time to panic yet.

I think the fact that they can get tested means you now know who has it. Back in March/ April a lot of people probably had it but didn't know.

I'm based on the London/Surrey borders and it's no exaggeration when I say that around 90% of the people i know had some kind of viral illness at that time. This includes myself. None of us could get tested of course.

I hope your friends and family all recover ok. Where do you think they caught it? Have they been mixing?

It’s completely incomparable. No testing except hospitals in March. Hundreds of thousands of people being tested now.
You can’t compare the two.
The death figures have always been wildly inaccurate IMO anyway. So many deaths being claimed as Covid when they wernt