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.

Until this last couple of days I would have agreed with you.

However, 5 people I know who are healthy in weight and diet and exercise are in hospital with Covid. And it’s bad.

If no this is now going to rip through the healthy, it’s going to make socio-economics much worse!

@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?

And this perfectly illustrates why some people are suspicious of the reporting of the situation - when a photo is claimed to be one thing but is clearly of another that just feeds further scepticism.

@Plsv87 spot on. I also hate the unfairness of it all. Under 1 and you can form a support bubble. 4 and older and there is school / college - well even that is questionable now but that a whole other thread! What about the children over 1 but under 4? I have a 2 year old and he's completely slipped through the net in terms of the government's plans. Apparently we are just meant to muddle along doing nothing infinitely unless of course we have £50 a day nursery fees to hand. It's not fair and in the future there are going to be a lot of pretty delayed reception children as a result of this mess. I don't envy the teachers who will be picking up the pieces.

Most of the media have been shameful in their reporting, and I include the broad sheets as well as tabloids

Maybe so maybe not but in Italy a hospital was overwhelmed, patients died unattended on the floor. Outside in traffic jams, sick people recieved oxygen through their car windows. It happened and was widely reported on

What would happen without lockdown?

Agree OP. I think people will look back on this part of history and go WTF were they thinking.

@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.

Yes!! We've all become mindless sheep.

@mrsfogi

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).

Great idea. Throw as much money at the elderly and vulnerable to protect them.

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

That is the question that never appears to be be given a reasonable answer on these boards

I've asked 3 times now what would happen without lockdown. The only answer I've had so far is that there would be "less deaths".

It's a waste of time asking.

I think we need to accept that none of the available options are good. All we have are varying degrees of total shit. The skill out politicians need is to carefully tread the tightrope between social and economic devastation, protecting the health service and trying, to the extent possible, to stop people dying / getting seriously ill.

@Wishing14

Also I am sure there will be another and much more lethal pandemic which will put this one into perspective. What will we do then?

This is actually a frightening prospect because the government's mishandling of this pandemic has lead to a drop in compliance. I think a future, more deadly pandemic would be even more devastating than it might naturally be because people are getting jaded, and initial compliance would be lower than if people trusted the government based on their handling of previous pandemics.

Flaxmeadow I have been on board up until now.

What would you do if there was no vaccine?

@flaxmeadow

Read this to see why Italy is suffering:

www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/12/italy-death-toll-pandemic-covid-coronavirus-health-population-europe/

•	On a per capita basis, Italy lies 37th in the world for number of coronavirus cases, but 4th when it comes to deaths.
•	In 2019, Italy had the oldest population in Europe, with 22.8% of its people aged over 65.
•	It has one of highest life expectancies worldwide at 83 years.
•	But a 2017 report showed 71% of over-65s had at least two underlying health conditions.

@vickyp0llard absolutely 👏👏

Regarding point 5...I have a brother in a care home. He was completely paralysed in an accident a few years ago. He is susceptible to respiratory infections because he cannot cough productively or clear his throat etc due to his condition.

My cousin posted Facebook a while ago that it's because of "roolz breakers" that his cousin (my brother) is stuck in a care home. He is keeping to the rules to protect vulnerable people that he loves, like my brother.

Loads of likes and love.

Now, the issue I take with this is that cousin has not once visited DB since his accident, barely had anything to do with him before. Hasn't called or texted to see how he is. But is exploiting him and his terrible situation for his own selfish virtue signalling. Exploiting my brothers pain for social media "likes".

Oddly when I pointed this out I was sent a barrage of abusive messages.

@flaxmeadow

Read @MrsFogi last post.

Why not protect the vulnerable thus allowing the healthy continue working and funding the taxes necessary to keep the NHS going.

@Flaxmeadow

Most of the media have been shameful in their reporting, and I include the broad sheets as well as tabloids

Maybe so maybe not but in Italy a hospital was overwhelmed, patients died unattended on the floor. Outside in traffic jams, sick people recieved oxygen through their car windows. It happened and was widely reported on

What would happen without lockdown?

Without lockdown but with a sensible set of guidelines in place, which may have happened if the government hadn't ignored the results of operation Cygnus, I believe we could have minimised deaths and infections. If the government had responded with seriousness and early on there would have been no need for lockdown. The government has now had 9 months to prepare and yet keeps reverting to the same policy.

Dutch study has just been released - it is only one and going for peer review admittedly - that finds that lockdowns increase infection rates by driving people into their homes, then they infect their families. Also people who flout gathering rules do it lockdown or not, there will always be people like this. In lockdown they do it in other peoples houses instead of relatively well ventilated pubs/restaurants or parks and infect each other.

@hepatocyte I think we could have kept and could keep much more of our economy open and the infection rates would be much the same as they are now.

I am not against other mitigation measures. I am against ordering huge swathes of the economy to close at great detriment to people's livelihoods.

One of many examples. I was supposed to visit a zoo. Outdoor only, limited numbers. Now it is closed because of Tier 4. I went to a children's playground instead. It was horribly overcrowded because there is no where else for the children to go.

The zoo is running out of money. Soon it will either go bankrupt or have to be bailed out by the government. Jobs will be lost.

I am sure some people will look at that example and think that the playground should be closed as well then. Or that I ahould just stay at home with my children and not take them out. I would however rather keep as many things open as possible.

Another example is closing all the shops in London just before Christmas with six hours notice. They shut them all down in November. Then opened them all up again. Seems like a great way to spread infections AND send businesses into bankruptcy.

I would have liked to see them open the whole time and open now with restricted numbers inside.

I liked the people who said let the elderly and vulnerable die

The vulnerable included my friends young daughter. Who did die. 2 weeks ago. Not through Covid. But because of Covid. She couldn’t fulfil her bucket list. Which means nothing to you who say that. But for her end of life care. It was everything.

People didn’t realise that the vulnerable includes children. Young children. Who either died earlier. Or couldn’t get the treatment which had limited their lives.

that's how the photo was reported, maybe wrongly

I'm not blaming you personally for this, but the danger here is that people will only be fooled so often; they see one of the many fake reports and quite rightly question the rest

The same applies to "the body in the toilet" - sad as it is people pass away in them all the time, but give the irresponsible media access to a picture and they'll instantly make an alarming story out of it

Totally agree

What would you do if there was no vaccine?

Rolling lockdowns. Which is what is happening now, across Europe and what we were told would happen at the start

Tight restrictions to save the health service for a time and then a lessening of restrictions for a time to save the economy and so on

Or draconian measures strictly enforced, but in the West people would not comply. Many won't even comply with our current lockdown

God help the NHS in January

Now imagine your own family dealing with what the family of my friends daughter dealt with.

Her funeral was in a tier 4. They couldn’t even comfort the parents. Because no one was allowed to be near others

It’s a heartless virus. But people act like the few that have died needed too.

Or it’s only a virus that kills 1%. Because that’s ok. It’s ok that it includes babies. A 13 day baby. Because it wasn’t theirs

It’s ok that it includes children. It’s ok because it wasn’t theirs

People don’t seem to care unless they know someone who has coped.

@flaxmeadow What about deaths caused by lockdowns? One example below, not even considering the additional deaths due to missed cancer screenings , increased suicides etc.

Why do their deaths not matter?

www.theguardian.com/society/2020/oct/19/third-more-deaths-at-home-before-covid-england

About a third more deaths in England are occurring at home than before the Covid-19 pandemic, data has revealed, with the majority down to causes other than the coronavirus.
In April, the UK government launched a campaign to encourage people who were unwell to seek medical attention, amid alarm that A&E attendances had plummeted. But the latest data, which extends into mid-September, suggests those with life-threatening conditions are still shying away from hospitals.

@Flaxmeadow

What would you do if there was no vaccine?

Rolling lockdowns. Which is what is happening now, across Europe and what we were told would happen at the start

Tight restrictions to save the health service for a time and then a lessening of restrictions for a time to save the economy and so on

Or draconian measures strictly enforced, but in the West people would not comply. Many won't even comply with our current lockdown

God help the NHS in January

Like this forever?

How would you ever deal with the mounting debt and damage it brings?

That’s a very interesting link @hollyangel but this talks about flu. This isn’t a flu, we don’t have the same vaccine knowledge and resource available to control it. It also behaves differently in terms of what it does to the body.

If medics had been faced with a known quantity like flu early on we wouldn’t be where we are today.