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.

The first picture's a test site in Turin anyway, not a traffic jam for medical assistance in Naples

Oh dear - a classic example then of the utterly irresponsible media whipping up a frenzy yet again?

@Delatron
Have we done enough protect care homes and hospitals? Do they have shit hot infection controls?

Given that recent data shows that up to a third of people in hospital with covid caught it in hospital then I'd say it's less than shit hot.

Completely agree though OP

@Iknewyouwerewaitingforme

Icebear99 totally agree lockdown should be based on people’s risk/ levels of vulnerability.

You think the country would be running as normal with those groups isolated?

I can assure you it wouldn’t.

@MarshaBradyo yes that is a good point, but there are still a % of people who will get it more seriously and if more people get it, then that number will be larger and a lot more visible.

Yanbu it is crazy! I will never forget the day I was made to follow a convoluted one way system through an empty library.

OP this post is ... tbh just silly. The whole point of an elimination approach is that you protect lives, environment, life expectancies, health of a nation etc. Unfortunately we are now facing the worst death rates, a brutalised economy and long term health impacts (long covid is expected to reduced life expectancy) unlike most other nations on Earth. Anyone who suggests our response is over the top is unfortunately scientifically, economically, politically and practically illiterate

[quote Flaxmeadow]InterfectoremVulpes

news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-people-with-suspected-covid-19-receive-oxygen-in-cars-after-italian-hospital-overwhelmed-12128992[/quote]
So why post a picture of a test site in Turin? 🤷‍♀️

Chicken yes there would be and I’m not sure where the break point would be.

I do feel largely we consented to first lock downs but as damage grows this changes. We may be more fearful if someone gets sick and we see it. Or we may find what us being asked right now so damaging and in some cases as huge personal cost we’d still choose no to lock down.

@orishan

OP this post is ... tbh just silly. The whole point of an elimination approach is that you protect lives, environment, life expectancies, health of a nation etc. Unfortunately we are now facing the worst death rates, a brutalised economy and long term health impacts (long covid is expected to reduced life expectancy) unlike most other nations on Earth. Anyone who suggests our response is over the top is unfortunately scientifically, economically, politically and practically illiterate

Have you read the thread? Lots of very sane and rational points on both sides, no illiteracy I can see.

@orishan We don't have an elimination approach. I am not sure we would ever have been able to do that and certainly not now.

[quote LivinLaVidaLoki]@Delatron
Have we done enough protect care homes and hospitals? Do they have shit hot infection controls?

Given that recent data shows that up to a third of people in hospital with covid caught it in hospital then I'd say it's less than shit hot.

Completely agree though OP[/quote]
My OHs aunt passed away yesterday. Went into hospital with pneumonia, tested negative for covid. Caught covid in hospital and died.

OP, this post isn’t well thought out at all.

The counterfactual situation to what we are in now isn’t normal life without lockdown restrictions, it’s life with an uncontrolled pandemic without lockdown restrictions.

Mental health services, schools, routine operations won’t be running as normal because we will be totally overwhelmed by coronavirus :/

An important point you’ve missed when you compare mortality to flu season is that these are the numbers without large gatherings, reduced travel etc etc. The absolute carnage we would have seen without any early policies would have been much higher death rates.

I’m saying this as an epidemiologist.

So why post a picture of a test site in Turin?

Because that's how the photo was reported, maybe wrongly IDK. But its besides the point because as other pictures show, patients were given oxygen in a traffic jam outside a hospital in Italy. Inside the hospital patients were dying on the floor, unattended and a man was found dead in a toilet. This happened in November.

What would happen without lockdown?

orishan you’re “silly” to dismiss a 17 page post with the majority in agreement of the OP and making well thought out, backed up agreements. Those in disagreement post scaremongering pictures claiming to be one thing, then proven to be lies!
I think the “silly” people are the nodding dogs, the teachers pets, doing everything you’re told without questioning it and it’s validity because you’re too scared to ever break the rules- even if the rules are a sweeping generalisation bunching us all together without adequately taking the time to apply them in appropriate ways, to those who really do need them while allowing businesses to keep functioning and people to get some joy out of life.

I completely agree, it's mad and I haven't been following any rules since about May. The whole "you're a selfish granny killer" just doesn't stack up.

1. Everybody was previously VERY happy to go to school/work with flus and colds, and probably inadvertently caused someone's death.

2. Lockdown, economic depression and unemployment will absolutely ruin loads of younger people's lives and cause lower life expectancy for many years to come, which to me is a lot more of a travesty than 82 year olds dying.

3. PCR tests are really flawed, and inaccurate tests + low prevalence of disease = loads of false positives. Deaths are recorded as deaths WITH covid, not of. The entire way the numbers are recorded is dodgy AF and completely overblowing it. Flu has mysteriously entirely disappeared.

4. I don't trust politicians, most of them are in the job for their own self-interest and power. They don't give a shit about you, they care about their own personal wealth and shares going up in value. heir shares in Amazon, Facebook, Google and pharma companies have CERTAINLY gone up in value during all this. Don't think their policies are for the good of the people, they're for the good of their own wallets.

5. No-one has ever given a shit about other people before. You were all happy to vote Tory for tax breaks, despite their policies causing suffering to poor people. You were all happy to buy clothes from sweatshops, new iPhones every 2 years with cobalt mined by child miners, and I bet loads of you don't donate to charities - where £5 could save loads of kids from malaria. Yet now I'm meant to sacrifice EVERYTHING I enjoy about my life, like my freedoms, prospects, mental health, to save some 82 year olds I don't even know? Sorry, nope.

@Flaxmeadow

So why post a picture of a test site in Turin?

Because that's how the photo was reported, maybe wrongly IDK. But its besides the point because as other pictures show, patients were given oxygen in a traffic jam outside a hospital in Italy. Inside the hospital patients were dying on the floor, unattended and a man was found dead in a toilet. This happened in November.

What would happen without lockdown?

Check your sources before you post maybe? Most of the media have been shameful in their reporting, and I include the broad sheets as well as tabloids.

@hepatocyte

OP, this post isn’t well thought out at all.

The counterfactual situation to what we are in now isn’t normal life without lockdown restrictions, it’s life with an uncontrolled pandemic without lockdown restrictions.

Mental health services, schools, routine operations won’t be running as normal because we will be totally overwhelmed by coronavirus :/

An important point you’ve missed when you compare mortality to flu season is that these are the numbers without large gatherings, reduced travel etc etc. The absolute carnage we would have seen without any early policies would have been much higher death rates.

I’m saying this as an epidemiologist.

What would you have done if the vaccine didn’t appear?

As an epidemiologist how long would you commit to lock downs?

As a pp suggested, what I can't get my head round is "letting it run rampant would see hospitals overwhelmed within weeks" surely that makes the assumption that everyone will get it at the same time and that its a fixed percentage who need hospitalisation rather than a sliding scale depending on age and comorbidity?

YANBU OP. It is clear we can't eradicate it so we now need to offer the possibility to anyone over a certain age and/or in a vulnerable group (and their immediate family that lives with them) to stay in and be paid a living wage to do so (any that don't wish to accept the offer are free not to do so). We also need to set up an excellent online school so any vulnerable children/those with vulnerable families can attend that. Everyone else should then be getting on with it and taking their chances (in the knowledge that only a certain no of beds will be available/reserved for Covid and once they are gone tough luck).

@Iknewyouwerewaitingforme oh okay.

So what’s the alternative plan to deal with the pandemic then?

Agree with you 100% OP. If you had told me a year ago that this time next year the government would have given themselves so much power that they would be able to legally control who I may and may not welcome into my home - including my own flesh and blood - I would be terrified. So would everyone else, but so many are lapping it up now.

@vickyp0llard

I completely agree, it's mad and I haven't been following any rules since about May. The whole "you're a selfish granny killer" just doesn't stack up.

1. Everybody was previously VERY happy to go to school/work with flus and colds, and probably inadvertently caused someone's death.

2. Lockdown, economic depression and unemployment will absolutely ruin loads of younger people's lives and cause lower life expectancy for many years to come, which to me is a lot more of a travesty than 82 year olds dying.

3. PCR tests are really flawed, and inaccurate tests + low prevalence of disease = loads of false positives. Deaths are recorded as deaths WITH covid, not of. The entire way the numbers are recorded is dodgy AF and completely overblowing it. Flu has mysteriously entirely disappeared.

4. I don't trust politicians, most of them are in the job for their own self-interest and power. They don't give a shit about you, they care about their own personal wealth and shares going up in value. heir shares in Amazon, Facebook, Google and pharma companies have CERTAINLY gone up in value during all this. Don't think their policies are for the good of the people, they're for the good of their own wallets.

5. No-one has ever given a shit about other people before. You were all happy to vote Tory for tax breaks, despite their policies causing suffering to poor people. You were all happy to buy clothes from sweatshops, new iPhones every 2 years with cobalt mined by child miners, and I bet loads of you don't donate to charities - where £5 could save loads of kids from malaria. Yet now I'm meant to sacrifice EVERYTHING I enjoy about my life, like my freedoms, prospects, mental health, to save some 82 year olds I don't even know? Sorry, nope.

Point number 5 - totally agree!

@hepatocyte But why hasn't there been total carnage in countries without strict lockdowns? I showed this graph earlier, but surely Sweden, with their v limited restrictions and no masks should be way ahead in deaths? This chart is from the FT.

I would also love to know your thoughts on the WHO pandemic strategies that were put in place after SARS. www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/communicable-diseases/influenza/pandemic-influenza/pandemic-preparedness/national-preparedness-plans/publicly-available-plans-prepared-after-2009-pandemic

Why were lockdowns never mentioned or masks discussed in detail, but not advised?

@vickyp0llard

Absolutely!!!! Well said.

The fucking hypocritical virtue signalling.

How many of these people have been to work with the flu knowing it kills 11k per year?

The reason we are in such a mess is that this government have been too scared of pissing off their core voters to act decisively, over and over again. They end up needing to impose the same measures eventually, but their delaying and u-turning means they need to be imposed for longer. If anything, our country’s response (or lack of it, and the public’s refusal to act responsibly unless absolutely forced to do so, and even them many don’t seem to have the sense they were born with) has been the insanity, not the restrictions which are always too little, too late.

How can you possibly ask how much impact it has had when it’s clear what happens to infection and death rates when restrictions are lifted?

How can we increase NHS capacity - where are we hiding tens of thousands of spare trained medical staff? That’s the issue, not beds or equipment. As they’ve shown you can always make a new makeshift hospital but who will staff it?

The most vulnerable can’t be shielded because they are the people who require care and assistance and contact with medical staff, social care staff etc. So you’d end up with anyone caring for a vulnerable person also having to shield, which is impossible as many work with many vulnerable people. It’s not possible - unless you have a better idea?