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.

@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.

Well aren't you completely selfish.

1. People aren't happy to go anywhere with flu, if it's flu you can just about crawl out of bed otherwise it's a cold. Colds don't tend to kill people. There is also a vaccine for the vulnerable for flu to help protect them.
2. Don't pretend you care about other people lives this is all about you.
3. Deaths are recorded as with Covid because you might die of pneumonia but you got it as a result of Covid.
4. Nobody trusts politicians, listen to the WHO or read the BMJ instead. None of it is perfect but they know more than you do.
5. I didn't vote Tory, I often don't vote because I can't find anyone worth voting for, I don't own a phone and I donate to lend with care and sponsored a child abroad until he reached 18.

Ahh there it is, the last two lines that prove what I said in number 2. The only person you think or care about is yourself. Well done you.

yes op - shutting non-essential shops seems madness to me. Have the government ever come up with figures relating to the chances of infection during a quick 5 minute visit to a well ventilated, crowd controlled shop?

Lots more chances of these businesses going bankrupt and people sliding into poverty/house repossessions which will impact their health.

I'm probably too over invested in this thread - but I'm in a tier 4 area and its raining, there is nothing else to do!

Lots of frothing happening on my local paper website with regards to the increase in positive cases and people are complaining about how crowded places are and eventually unvaccinated people should be kept away from society. However if you point out the fact that the hospital currently has less than half the number of covid patients now than it had in April, only 8% of beds, it makes you a covid denier and antivaxxer. The media has a lot to answer for.

@Beautifulbonnie I'm so sorry that happened to your friend. Deaths of the young are always horrific. No matter what the circumstances.

But Covid has not killed many healthy children or even healthy adults. There is also the possibility that adults or children who die from Covid had an undiagnosed health condition.

If there was an indication that Covid increased death rates in the young and the healthy I would be willing to stay at home for months and months in order to save them.
That would be a pandemic and I could then understand why we needed to shut down the world in order to protect them. But that is not where we are.

@Vintagevixen and we didn't even try reintroducing the 2 meter distancing and telling shops they had to reduce numbers inside. We just shut them all.

Nobody trusts politicians, listen to the WHO or read the BMJ instead

I agree on the politicians and much of the BMJ, but not about the WHO

Not when it's bought and paid for largely by China, who've got a very obvious motive to see other world economies ruined

@Melange99

This is a global problem. Even if one country does eradicate it, they can't lock themselves away forever, they will have contact with people that do at some point. It will be global whack-a-mole. Boris and his team have been woeful, wishy washy, misleading and dithery, but the reality is nobody knows how to handle this. There have been strange things like the Eat Out scheme, dodgy timing, suspect stats, cock ups - does not fill you with confidence. But at some point we need to say enough.

The vulnerable will have to do a personal risk assessment on how they want to live, either as normal and take their chances or shielded. The rest of us will have to crack on and take our chances too. All sorts of illnesses are not being treated or caught, people's mental health is taking a dive as fast as the economy. Prospects are bleak, particularly with BREXIT on the horizon.

I think the wish for a police state are worrying. I think they are two words bandied around without any thought for their meaning.

But are you suggesting then that we don't treat anyone with COVID? Because currently we have rolling lockdowns and the NHS is close to being overwhelmed with capacity almost reached, what happens if we don't do anything? More people sick, more staff sick - who treats all the other illnesses you talk about when we already. Can't treat them with current restrictions reducing cases? Genuine question - how do you balance it? It takes many years to train as a medical profession al so with the best will in the world it wouldnt be possible to have trained extra staff (at least not ones we would trust to do the job well....)

I think we have to accept that letting the virus run wild is economic suicide, and managing the numbers down is going to be key to our economic recovery. They aren't separate.

Also, I think that teachers/ pupils / pupils' families who get seriously ill from covid will have an excellent case to sue the government, given its behaviour around making schools safe, lies and bad guidance.

And actually making education safe is vital for our young people and our country's future.

So we need to put funds into education, maybe by starting to redirect the money back that the Conservatives have effectively taken away from it in recent years?

[quote hollyangel]@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.[/quote]
How can an overwhelmed health service aid this? I really don't understand how it can. Can you explain?

Europe and the Americas need to have a big collective reckoning when this is all done.

China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand. These countries all had between 3-23 deaths per million population. Of course Australia and NZ also fared well enough, though that is significantly down to their geographical isolation IMO.

Europe and the Americas nations by contrast typically between 500-1000+ Questions need to be asked.

Cornettoninja - I don't think the country would "run" without those people but I think it would at least partially operate compared to the full lock downs that we keep having and that will cripple our economy for years to come. The issue comes down to balancing short and long term risks, the media whip up a frenzy so the government has to react or look heartless. Look at the stats, no massive spike in deaths yet 2 weeks ago the number of infections was already very high, this is because "healthy" people are catching it and recovering because most vulnerable people are already isolating of their own free will.

If there was an indication that Covid increased death rates in the young and the healthy I would be willing to stay at home for months and months in order to save them

TBF some of the young and healthy have been affected, but luckily it seems to be very few. However if enough folk believe this is what it'll take to go along with the mania I guarantee figures will be produced to show exactly that

It doesn't necessarily mean it'll be happening of course, but they'll be produced all the same

@cornettoninja

But as Covid and flu spread the same way, surely a Pandemic report written in the last decade should advocate for lockdowns or mandated masks, unless the science has drastically changed?

I was just reading about Ebola and how they had some short 3 day lockdowns to try and stop its spread and even those were criticised as ineffective.

www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29096405

*1. People aren't happy to go anywhere with flu, if it's flu you can just about crawl out of bed otherwise it's a cold. Colds don't tend to kill people. There is also a vaccine for the vulnerable for flu to help protect them.

1. Don't pretend you care about other people lives this is all about you.
2. Deaths are recorded as with Covid because you might die of pneumonia but you got it as a result of Covid.
3. Nobody trusts politicians, listen to the WHO or read the BMJ instead. None of it is perfect but they know more than you do.
4. I didn't vote Tory, I often don't vote because I can't find anyone worth voting for, I don't own a phone and I donate to lend with care and sponsored a child abroad until he reached 18.

Ahh there it is, the last two lines that prove what I said in number 2. The only person you think or care about is yourself. Well done you*

Yep, I do care about myself and my family more than people I don't know. I will always put myself and my family first. So what? Most other people are the same, they just won't say it to your face.

I do however care a lot more about young people losing their businesses, homes and savings, and teenagers committing suicide, than very elderly people dying of a disease. The first group have their whole lives ahead of them and we're throwing them under a bus.

3. Deaths are recorded as Covid if you died of anything, within 28 days of a positive test. That's extremely flawed. A lot of the people didn't even have a positive test, just "suspected covid".

4. The WHO are hardly trustworthy, they're extremely politicised and change their recommendations because of lobbying. Lots of scientists, doctors and industry heads have spoken out against lockdown and against what our government is doing, yet the government only choose to listen to their tiny group of advisers - including Neil Ferguson who has got literally every prediction in the past 20 years horrendously wrong.

5. You may not have done, but plenty of others did. Most people I know buy clothes from Primark, buy new cars and new tech, which directly causes suffering of people in third world countries, yet are now virtue signalling to everyone else.

@Cam77

Europe and the Americas need to have a big collective reckoning when this is all done.

China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand. These countries all had between 3-23 deaths per million population. Of course Australia and NZ also fared well enough, though that is significantly down to their geographical isolation IMO.

Europe and the Americas nations by contrast typically between 500-1000+ Questions need to be asked.

The answers could lie in possible differences in immunities/exposure and genetics.

For example one lab study showed immunity to Covid if people had been exposed to SARS 17 years ago - theories there could be other coronaviruses regionally that make a difference.

Lots of differences in population make up, age health profiles etc. Certainly geographical isolation must be a factor no?

Time will tell I guess.

@alreadytaken

if you really believe this bullshit and are not russian bots spreading disinformation then you must have had your heads buried in the sand all year.

1. Countries that control the virus have less economic damage.

1. Long covid is real and allowing the virus to run riot means a lot of people with life altering disability as well as more deaths.

1. Unless you inject them with something to put them out of their misery your plan would result in tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people dying with no medical care. This will include many of the cancer sufferers you claim to be concerned about.

1. Many nurses are already talking of leaving, in parts of the world health care staff have gone on strike. Apart from those who died there will be staff who no longer want to work in a health system that requires them to watch tens or hundreds of thousands die in misery.

1. No country has been able to protect the vulnerable, we are trying to do that with vaccinations.

1. The government has made a total shambles of dealing with this. As you are so concerned about businesses you probably voted for them. Pity more people didnt vote to fund the NHS properly or for a government that would have bought PPE.

Said perfectly

[quote PlumsAreNotTheOnlyFruit]@Vintagevixen and we didn't even try reintroducing the 2 meter distancing and telling shops they had to reduce numbers inside. We just shut them all.[/quote]
Reintroducing? 2 meters has never been stopped as far as I’m aware.

What you’re saying is you’ve observed this not being adhered to not that it was stopped.

You can’t choose to live in a police state for 6 months.

Once your civil liberties are gone they are gone.

There are better ways of managing this that do not involve turning into a police state.

For those why say that Long Covid is a serious threat that we need to address then what will happen when the vaccine is rolled out?

I don’t think it stops people getting Covid. Just reduces their symptoms.
So that’s no protection from Long Covid then?
So we still have to lockdown?

Cornettoninja - they went down to 1M plus earlier in the year.

Plus supermarkets round my way used to be counting people in and out very strictly - seems to have stopped.

@RigaBalsam

The hospitals weren't overwhelmed when these deaths occurred. This is since March and over the summer.

@RigaBalsam Why do the deaths of these people who were too terrified to go to hospitals due to the media hysteria not matter?

I've been 100% until now, but now am wondering why shut the economy, cripple millions of businesses - to JUST save an NHS which can be propped up anyhow by government and public taxes if it needs cash or funding for a recruitment drive. Other businesses DO NOT have this backup. Doesn't really make sense anymore.

*100% compliant I mean

Do people really think we could do rolling lock downs forever? (if no vaccine)

How would we pay?
What devastation would it bring each time? High high unemployment

There’d be nothing left.

Given that it’s not possible to do above. At some point the alternative would have been considered. Even if you think lockdown makes sense because we have a vaccine can you imagine the solution if not?