To think we have gone collectively insane in our response to covid

[PlumsAreNotTheOnlyFruit]

This is something I have thought for a while. I feel like we are in the grip of insanity when it comes to our response to covid.

We seem to be prepared to destroy our economy, get into massive debt, surrender our freedom and mess up our children's education over covid.

It's a virus which can and will spread, and now seems more virulent than ever. Unless you have a total eradication policy, which is impossible for the UK to implement now anyway, then only mitigation is possible.

All of Europe whatever their policies have been now have many cases. Why do we have to suffer covid AND watch our businesses go under with a potential decade of economic misery.

How many lives have been saved by our policies? Has anyone even done an analysis? We reject cancer drugs because we say they are too expensive for the number of years of life saved. We allow polluting diesel vehicles to drive in urban areas despite the 40,000 who die each year from the effects of air pollution. Why is covid different?

I am cross that we haven't thrown everything at expanding health care capacity since March and instead have spent our money paying people not to work after closing things down.

Right now I feel that the virus will continue to spread whatever we do and that that our focus should be on shielding the most vulnerable until they can be vaccinated. I realise that isn't likely to be 100% effective but neither are our present policies.

I am cross that we haven't thrown everything at expanding health care capacity since March

You do realise that it takes longer than a few months to train doctors and nurses?

Flu is circulating.
At a reduced rate.

Jan and Feb would be the time to look at the flu data.

[quote PlumsAreNotTheOnlyFruit]@Ocsetldil but we don't have a police state like China do we? Our borders are very porous despite us being an island. We are very close to mainland Europe and have had huge amounts of freight and people going in and out each day which we are dependent on for food supplies. So we would have found it very hard to do what you suggest even if we had wanted to.

I don't want to live in a police state either.[/quote]

Okay...so let's go with this strategy then.

How do we implement that from where we are today?

The NHS is set to be overwhelmed in some areas in the next 2 weeks.

So we all start mixing from today...the cases shoot up. We'll have thousands of additional people needing urgent hospital care.

How do we find the staff needed when there are 40,000 vacancies in the NHS right now?

I agree OP and I think a lot more people are starting to think along the same lines. The fallout from lockdowns will be felt for years in our country and mental health services are going to be crippled and we don't know how many other illnesses have gone undiagnosed because everything is about Covid this year. I hope people are ready for what's to come because it's not looking great at the moment.

If the spread is not controlled, hundreds of thousands more people get sick and take time off work. And many more die (dead people can't work). This would be very bad news for the economy.

The government has to calculate which is more damaging economically: repeated lockdowns, or letting the virus spread exponentially. They have a panel of experts to help them make that decision. And there's no way they're choosing the worse option just for fun.

Also, as someone has pointed out.

We can expect another 600,000 deaths.

How do we deal with that many corpses?

@17days

Another way to look at it though, is that the Tory government only cares about money. Its primary concern is with keeping the rich as rich as possible. So if they are choosing lockdowns, which on the surface appear very damaging to the economy, then you have to assume that their expert economist advisers (who know a lot more about this stuff than me) have told them that lockdowns are actually less damaging to the economy than a total collapse of the healthcare system and all the deaths that would result from it.

You do realise that most other Western countries are doing more or less the same as the UK. Last time I checked, the Tories weren't running all those other countries.

@carrotcakeforbreakfast

www.thejournal.ie/winter-flu-cases-ireland-2020-5296226-Dec2020/

In Ireland there is zero flu, yet hundreds of cases of Covid each day.

How can that be explained away in January/February?

@Nousernamesleftatall

I agree. It is insanity. It is looking like all Western countries will have a normal yearly mortality rate. The Who have admitted the PCR test is over amplified.

Source?

@callmeAngelGabriel I'm mainly going by threads on here; people saying they've not taken their kids out since the first lockdown, seeing kids aged 3-4 out and about in masks, seeing my local playground empty day after day. It does and is happening. My kid is quite often playing by himself in the park as there's no one else around. There was a little respite in the summer but since the last lockdown, I reckon lots of kids are being kept at home much, much more than they are used to being.

@umpteennamechanges

Also, as someone has pointed out.

We can expect another 600,000 deaths.

How do we deal with that many corpses?

Do you mean from Covid.

Even Neil Ferguson with his dodgy data and computer code only predicted 500,000!

we would rather be able to live life in a free and prosperous country than to shut everything down and destroy an entire generation's prospects

This is a huge fallacy. Leaving everything open would not result in a prosperous country. Sick leave and deaths would be off the chart. Lots of long-term sick leave too, not just a few days here and there. Collapse of the healthcare system would also be very expensive. Plus more people taking time off work to care for sick relatives who can't get a hospital bed, etc.

Both options are expensive. Why would the government (a conservative government no less) be choosing the MORE expensive option?

You do realise that most other Western countries are doing more or less the same as the UK. Last time I checked, the Tories weren't running all those other countries

Right. Because they also want to do what's best for their economies. I'm not sure what your point is.

@17days

If the spread is not controlled, hundreds of thousands more people get sick and take time off work. And many more die (dead people can't work). This would be very bad news for the economy.

The government has to calculate which is more damaging economically: repeated lockdowns, or letting the virus spread exponentially. They have a panel of experts to help them make that decision. And there's no way they're choosing the worse option just for fun.

Also because most other similar economies are doing the same, our economy will fall RELATIVELY the same as our main trading partners (goods and services and financial services). There is no such thing as "money" - it's just something to reflect underlying wealth/assets etc and is relative to other countries. If ALL our trading partners are suffering the same, the RELATIVE damage to our economy will actually be pretty low, i.e. exchange rates will remain similar which the "measure" of relative wealth between countries. The real problems only arise when one country is doing a lot better or worse than it's main trading partners - that's what causes the exchange rates to worsen which leads to inflation, higher interest rates etc.

I've only just seen this (very interesting) discussion on Coronavirus.

I think the OP raises some very useful points about decision-making rationales regarding healthcare rationing, public health and economic consequences.

I don't see why it couldn't at least have been in Chat.

fucking hell. Just came back to this and there are tons of you STILL advocating herd immunity. I assume there's a proportion of bots, as there is on any very popular site but that also some of you still genuinely think this is a good idea.

There's no reasoning with this level of idiocy.

The other covid thread on here that allowed people to share their concerns was shut down, OP. MN didn't think it was a useful conversation, apparently. Personally I thought it was very useful to see just how many people have had enough of this insane hysteria.

@vintagevixen

I read that before, about the increases in heart attacks about a month after the flu.

Do you think it's likely that Covid could just be a new strain of our flu?

The death stats are wrong as not every single person would get COVID if we ‘let it rip through’

Some people have been shown to have some natural immunity maybe from previous coronaviruses.

@ForestNymph but do you fundamentally agree that those measures are effective and needed for those mundane conditions? (apart from the nut one which I have to point out you’re also wrong about since anaphylaxis can also be caused by the oil from peanuts transferring onto surfaces which is why we don’t have the same restrictions for other food allergies)

hollyangel

Quite agree regarding Sweden.

I don’t think shielding the vulnerable and elderly should be top priority

The vulnerable and elderly I know have breezed through Covid with just a slight temperature and a little cough that was gone in 48hours.

The people I think we should shield are those who have had blood relatives who have died, been hospitalised or who have had Covid quite badly.

I think there is definitely a genetic link between how seriously you get Covid and how badly you suffer from it.

I have said this all along as I saw multiple people from single families dying but other families getting hardly any symptoms

Dp and his mother would be classed as elderly and vulnerable but breezed through it with very few symptoms

Myself, Ds and Dd were bed bound and really very ill.

@17days

You do realise that most other Western countries are doing more or less the same as the UK. Last time I checked, the Tories weren't running all those other countries

Right. Because they also want to do what's best for their economies. I'm not sure what your point is.

You started your post complaining about the Tory Govt - I pointed out that it's not the Tories in power in all the other countries doing the same.

Re. The PCR test - look up the centre for evidence based medicine Oxford uni. There has been a LOT of debate about the cycle run on these - UK I believe run 45 cycles which is more than the WHO advise. There European governments sent run above 30 cycles.

Theory is that the tests run on above 30 cycles only pick up dead RNA and give false positives.

And if that 3-4% of people who die now becomes kids because of the new strain would you still hold the same views?

I agree with the OP