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.

@HelloMissus

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?

If people don't have symptoms of Covid they are unlikely to get long Covid. They are also unlikely to infect other people. There won't be many if any cases of long Covid if there is herd immunity.

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

We have a vaccine though so your question is irrelevant.

@Belladonna12

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

We have a vaccine though so your question is irrelevant.

No it’s not

So many posters saying well what’s the alternative,

I’m asking them to consider what it would be with no vaccine and maybe they can figure out what the alternative is themselves

If this doesn’t apply to you scroll on by

Because your response isn’t that useful

Weren't we told in the first lockdown that there would be NO more lockdowns or business restrictions once a vaccine came along? But yet...but yet...

Completely agree OP

@hollyangel but why would they when it would take a huge effort to encourage a cultural shift in most countries to encourage mask wearing and disease spread/severity could be managed with a vaccine and residual immunity in the population from similar strains of flu. The last two are the biggest weaknesses we have.

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".

It is extremely flawed but why assume it is an over estimate. Considering that not everyone who catches Covid will die within 28 days it could easily be an underestimate. Also. it's not recorded as a Covid death if they don't get a positive result before dying. A relative of mine died before the positive result and the death certificate therefore doesn't mention Covid.

@MarshaBradyo, does it not make a difference to you that there are vaccines imminent? Relaxing now would be causing preventable health issues and needlessly knackering the health provision we have.

Psychologically more people are out and about in shops etc because it's human nature to not want to follow draconian rules telling them not to do something

If NO restrictions had been implemented whatsoever, perhaps people would have worked out that this is virus season and to tread more carefully than normal, go out less etc without it turning into some kind of populace rebellion season

I’m asking them to consider what it would be with no vaccine and maybe they can figure out what the alternative is themselves

The alternative would be that there are a lot of deaths, and the economy would be ruined anyway. Fortunately we are not in that position

Also agree. This is not sustainable. I am not an unbeliever, but I know many people (in London, plagueville!) who are suffering mental health crises because of employment uncertainty and general misery and stress. I only know a handful of people who have knowingly had Covid, let alone been seriously unwell from it.

the privilege of the healthy is as strong as ever.

@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.

Flu doesn't spread as rapidly as covid, and doesn't usually affect kidneys etc. It also is at it's most contagious in the first 3 days of symptoms - when you are feeling so crap you are not going to be in the pub or supermarket. Nowhere near the same.

Crystal ball well at play. Of course it will have a negative effect, but a bit rich to say it will lower life expectancy for years to come with no evidence.

The NHS uses PCR tests for over 50 things including cancer and STI diagnostics as well as many tests for newborns. Strange how they have been using them for years with no issues but suddenly they are wrong.

It is so bloody stupid to think that deaths are recorded 'withcovid'. Have you actually looked at how these deaths are reported and detah certificates are filled in or are you just regurgitating stuff you have heard on the internet? Covid has to be recorded on a death certificate because it is a notifiable disease like mumps, legionnaires and measles etc. The physician decides whether it is responsible for the death or not, and these figures only are recorded in the death figures. If you really think that an intensive care doctor with a minimum of 13 years training can't tell the difference from someone dying of car crash complications or Covid, and just lies on the death certificate you need your head reading.

4. Agree

5. You are a) remarkably selfish and b) ignorant if you think no-one has cared about anyone before and c) bloody hypocritical as you clearly don't give a damn

You are entitled, as are we all, to think what you want about the reaction to Covid, but at least try getting some facts right before you put an argument forward. You could have just said 'Yep, I agree' but you chose to list a zillion points, most with entirely wrong information in them.

Also, interesting that this is your first post.

@Belladonna12

I’m asking them to consider what it would be with no vaccine and maybe they can figure out what the alternative is themselves

The alternative would be that there are a lot of deaths, and the economy would be ruined anyway. Fortunately we are not in that position

So not lock downs forever as others have suggested.

So some can make the leap.

Why would a large number of deaths ruin the economy?

[quote hollyangel]@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.

[/quote]
It hasn't killed many

BUT it has killed healthy children. Not many. You're right. But surely more than 1 is too many? Surely more than 1 healthy adult is too many?

Regardless. You won't ever change my mind.

No children should have died period. And healthy children HAVE died. The first child was a 12 yr old boy if I remember. Who had no underlying health conditions.

2. Actually, there have been many, many studies done linking unemployment and lower GDP to lower life expectancy. Why do third world countries have shit life expectancy? Healthy economy = longer life.

3. PCR tests might be fine but the number of cycles we are running them at is over-amplifying cases. The recommended number of cycles is something like 30, we are running our tests at 45.

Yep, I'm selfish, newsflash - so are most people. There's only so much the average person is willing to sacrifice for people they don't know. 3 month lockdown - fine. Years of rolling lockdowns? Nope.

BUT it has killed healthy children. Not many. You're right. But surely more than 1 is too many? Surely more than 1 healthy adult is too many?

An autistic teenager killed herself on day 1 of lockdown because she was terrified of the change in routine. Surely 1 death from lockdown is too many and we should stop lockdowns?

Wouldn't have agreed with you 6 months ago but wholeheartedly agree now.

It absolutely grips me that 'contacts' of MP's have received millions in commission simply for putting MP's in touch with PPE producers - I know it's a drip in the ocean for what the NHS really needs but that frigging commission could have rigged out a new ward.

twitter.com/jvc97105311/status/1338579569478168577?s=21

Data collected from ons and year comparison doesn’t seem to reinforce the need for this level of restriction! Data comes from the ONS

Bella some on this thread have said that long Covid can be an issue in all people who have contracted Covid.
That mild symptoms or none are no protection from it.
So the vaccine won’t help with that.

It also won’t help with transmission - you can catch it and pass it on after vaccination, you’ll just get a mild version.
Thus if we all get a mild version we’re still at threat of long COVID?

Also, it's hilarious that anyone who disagrees with lockdown or has a different viewpoint to "lockdown forever" obviously is David Icke/Putin himself. Newsflash, most people are sick of this bollocks now but just won't say it out loud. My neighbours in my block have all been in and out of each others houses for drinks and games through lockdown. I know someone who's family member died in a car crash - they've had about dozens of people through their house to pay respects. People are getting on with their lives and it's only people on MN that seem to get so angry about it, that they can't control what other people do or think.

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

This happens a lot here in winter anyway. People point this out to you repeatedly and you ignore it and repeat your own questions back at them.

Last December, Boris Johnson refused to look at a photo of a 4 year old sleeping on the floor of a crowded A & E.

Ambulances often have to wait outside busy and overwhelmed hospitals and sadly people die whilst waiting. It's nothing new.

@vickp0llard we are only reporting up to 40 cycles, any positive over that is being held but not reported. Chlamydia is run at 25-35, cancer 30-40, so that's rubbish.

Why do 3rd world countries have poor life expectancy? Because of poor nutrition, poor sanitation and no health care.