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.

@Hrpuffnstuff1 excellent points about the physical health of this nation. What has our wise government done? Close the gyms in tier 4. You can still get a takeaway though. So people like my dh and I, who try really hard to look after ourselves, make the sacrifice. My children will miss out too. My dd does gymnastics and cheer. In the first lockdown she happily trained every day, thinking she'd be back soon. She's completely lost motivation after nine months and was telling me yesterday she's definitely lost some of her strength and flexibility. My ds plays in a football academy, not quite considered elite. He's over 18 so no competitive football for him. Apparently the government would prefer our younger generation to sit in their bedrooms on phones and Xboxes. We should be encouraging people to get fitter. Has there been any word of that? No.

@Cornettoninja
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51506729

Effectively once face masks were introduced most shops and supermarkets stopped restricting numbers and they are quite entitled to do this under the current guidelines of 1m plus.

The shops were quite over crowded I have to say when I went shopping. I would rather see a return to the stricter guidelines than see them closed.

Thanks for your account @Diana22. I think it would have been healthier and more realistic to look at what happened in during the Australian winter for an idea what a full winter was likely to look like here. We do it for flu (that terrible comparison again!) so I think it’s a failure that our attention wasn’t directed at your countries experience.

So much of the unrest is due to false expectations and a feeling of being lied to.

@Cornettoninja

I would be in favour of a return to 2m social distancing in indoor spaces. We didn't even try this before closing non essential shops

This just isn’t true. The 2m/6ft distancing has been in place since summer and has never been rescinded.

I can’t comment on what people are actually doing irl nationwide but this has been in place for a long time. If people aren’t adhering to it then what’s left to do?

They went down to 1 metre plus over the summer so increasing the number of people in one space. Supermarkets seem to have stopped restricting/counting entries for example so that could be restored.

Plus I have read that shop and hospitality traced infections account for a very small percentage of infections. The response is disproportionate but the effect is massive - small shop owners are facing bankruptcy when the effect on the infection rate is negligible.

Interestingly Peru had one of the longest and hardest lockdowns and mask mandates in the world - their excess death rate this year is incredibly high and higher even than Brazil (where we all know the response was patchy!)

Surely there is room for different viewpoints in a debate?

@Vintagevixen on MN? You must be joking!

More people are worried about losing the roof over their heads rather than some illness that for the most part they will recover from in a week

Precisely.

Yes its just so sad - there's a thread going at the moment asking about if people can survive financially a new lockdown.

The poor lady who started it is literally so desperate, facing repossession and bankruptcy - it really makes me so sad to read her posts.

Babies born this year literally see nobody.

@MummaBear4321 I had a baby this year. He has been out to cafes, pubs and restaurants and has seen my parents on numerous occasions as they are our support bubble. We’ve done regular walks in the park with other mums and he’s been to some baby classes between lockdowns too. So it’s not all bad!

@Vintagevixen that completely passed me by. I’ve been sticking as much as I can to the 2m rule because I don’t want to get caught out by the app! Not much use on the bus granted...

That does nicely illustrate the confusion in differences in the information available though.

I think people are going to die whatever response different governments make. It will just be spread over a longer time period

Spreading the sick and dying out over a longer period of time is the whole point of lockdowns.

@TheKeatingFive

The point about suicide figures is that they’ll take some time to materialise. People whose lives have been torpedoed now due to restrictions and economic devastations will be a higher suicide risk for a long time to come.

That’s the problem with how this has been presented from the start. Covid deaths are immediate and tangible. The immense cost of lockdowns (economic, social, health wise, opportunities) will be felt much longer term and are much, much more difficult to quantify.

Thus it’s so easy for people to gloss over them now. We will deeply regret not taking these costs more seriously in the years to come.

Absolutely.

I think that post was very harsh, and personally I want to live to be as old as I can, but it's true that lockdown has done nothing for the nations health. My DC sports clubs were shut-no matches, no training sessions. Playgrounds, where kids can run and swing on things, shut for MONTHS- literally padlocked until someone got fed up and came with bolt cutters. Outdoor gym equipment in the park-banned and people giving you dirty looks if you let your kids play on it.
Gyms and pools closed for ages and in most of the country you cant go to a yoga class or pilates, or any class that might help your body and mind. Everywhere there is near me to go for a walk or a run or a cycle is busy all the time so I don't go much anymore.
I never got takeaways or cooked convenience food before lockdown but I got so fed up being in all the time, we eat often chicken nuggets and frozen pizza, and I have gained over a stone in weight. Half my friends are drinking way too much, out of stress, boredom, anxiety..
I will say it again, lockdown is for the retired, the wealthy, the WFH middle aged with their large gardens, home offices, their cars to get out to nice countryside.
YES, they should take the stress of living under the threat of homelessness/poverty/domestic violence/mental health breakdown into consideration when they assess the impact of all this on the nation. And yes, of course scientists can take those factors into consideration. But the government wont, because the people making the policy are not the ones who are going to be on the breadline, or the ones stuck in a tiny council flat with 3 kids and no hope for the future.

@Hrpuffnstuff1

We've had masks, lockdowns, distancing etc, for all of 9 months now, and they've done nothing. The virus transmits like all respiratory illnesses, on surfaces, in the air. You cant stop it. It's inevitable.

This pandemic has been in the making for a long time, modern medicine, extending the life span, poor food choices , lack of exercise. And boom the population is partially disabled, and quite frankly un bloody healthy. We are the sick man of Europe. Most of this is self inflicted, 75% of Britons are either obese of overweight, or way past the 3 score and 10.

So much so, that people are unable to give themselves basic care like going to the toilet or feed themselves. Some people don't even know who they are. This is in fact a recent phenomena, previously people died earlier, and not in the decrepit state we have now.
I think in the future we need to look at palliative care rather pumping people full of drugs to keep them alive, along with extending the care from families via the use of carers. It's been a costly mistake in the end. We wouldn't treat an animal like this so why the obsession from the public and medical science on extending life at any cost. Including complete decimation of the wealth, health, education, and society underneath.
And we have the gall to compare ourselves to other nations, Jesus wept, we have an epidemic of unhealthy people, especially, comparatively to the Far East, our mental and physical health strategy is in dire need of serious introspective public discourse. It's a mess, a costly mess created by a lack of accountability on a personal and governmental level.

Add that to the fact the general person on the street has no resilience whatsoever, just people complaining and crying with hysteria every where. Certainly on social media...............

Economically, the boomer generation, generally those making the most noise are also sitting on 5.5 tn worth of assets thanks in the main to the 10-15% compound interest gained over the lifetime of owning properties. Demanding the sacrifice of those born and those not born is a clear case of selfish interest before everyone else. It's appalling.

This pandemic is an example of the swiss cheese effect, a perfect storm of circumstances all combining to present an ethical dilemma, the Trolley dilemma. Who do we save?
This over reactive scorched earth policy is reeking havoc amongst society, I know we don't wish to see death, however for a 100% of all people it is inevitable. It's an uncomfortable truth.

Facts based on uncomplete data are often thrown around to be used as evidence to support an argument.
What's interesting is, the Inacrc data does not tie in the government message, according to witty and co we were going to be overwhelmed in September. It never happened did it..
The only one true fact is we all die sooner or later, but at what consequence to everyone else.

Agree with a lot of this

I

@Flaxmeadow

I think people are going to die whatever response different governments make. It will just be spread over a longer time period

Spreading the sick and dying out over a longer period of time is the whole point of lockdowns.

I repeat - Peru - the longest harshest most draconian lockdown and mask mandate in the world.

Look at the FT today - they have collated excess death rates around the world. Peru has one of the worst, worse even than Brazil. Lockdown didn't work well there.

Sweden and France - very different approaches, have very similar curves.

Wish I could link to it but I am an old dimmer who has still not worked out how to link on my new laptop - easily googlable though.

One thing we all know with absolutely certainty is that we will die. I have favoured the Swedish approach back from March even before Sweden adopted it but we are where we are.

It is much harder for those of us who feel strongly against all the restrictions than those who lie within them like baby all snuggled up in swaddling clothes, not that anyone who is happy with the protective measures will ever understand that. Also everyone taking the decisions is sitting pretty in a state paid job from the PM to the health advisers from NHS doctors and nurses to teachers and even those who get furlough money. I don't think they can really understand the position of others not in that position.

The problem is the numbers of vulnerable people getting sick and overwhelming the health service.

I am staggered by the idea that locking down the whole population is seen to be the only (or even best) way of dealing with this.

This is what I think they should have done (after the first lockdown, which I think was fair enough given the unknowns).

Much more detailed assessment of risk factors for Covid (there is tonnes of data on this now, not being utilised) to pin point with greater accuracy who needs to be shielding.

Robust measures put in place to shield those most at risk and limit their contact with the outside world. Financial support, online schooling provided, online delivery slots, etc.

NHS shelves non critical care for the time being and pivots all these resources to Covid. Rapid retraining programmes to get people up to speed in Covid care. I am staggered that bits of the nhs are actually under utilised at this time, it makes no sense. Non critical care is being severely curtailed as it is, so they should have made the most of this resource.

The rest of the population abides by sensible guidelines around wfh/SD/mask wearing/santisation. Large scale gatherings banned for the minute. Big emphasis on improved ventilation in buildings. But life, broadly, goes on. There should be options to dial up/dial down restrictions as needed, but nowhere close to full lockdown.

However, unfortunately now we are in the position that we can’t politically row back from draconian lockdown as people think this is the only way to deal with it.

Peru is a valid example but I don’t know enough about their demographics, health care provision or societal culture to be able to speculate as to why they’ve had such a rough ride.

On the other hand China (let’s just take their numbers at face value considering their society has largely returned to normal now) and New Zealand offer different evidence for harsh measures.

I’m not advocating that we mirror their strategies but it’s undeniably worked if the sole focus is covid.

I think it’s fair to say we’re still trying to find a middle ground. I’m not entirely convinced there is one without a vaccination or acceptance that this will close all health provision to most people for the duration.

@Frankly321 are you actually being serious???!!!! As if people are just going to suddenly stop having large weddings or going to concerts or seeing more than 1 family at a time long term 🙄

Hmm I agree that right now it’s the sole focus (quite rightly) but I don’t believe this is it for the next decade. I have a lot of faith in the vaccinations reducing the threat by magnitudes over the next year. It’s not going anywhere (and New Zealand in particular now rely on mass vaccinations to restart their global presence) but it won’t be the threat it currently is.

I’m sure you think I’m unrealistic but concerts and mass gatherings will creep back in over the next twelve/eighteen months all going well with vaccinations.

@Frankly321 it isn't a killer virus. If it was a killer virus, it wouldn't have spread so fast as most people would not be asymptomatic. Many super spreaders are asymptomatic. Its a virus that needs to be managed so infection rate is very low and doesn't overwhelm the nhs.

Frankly I would not care if i got covid tomorrow. But I don't want to get it because I would spread it to other londoners who may have pre-existing conditions when i go grocery shopping. Also if our infection rate is too high, other countries would ban us and that would be dreadful for our economy and we can't travel. I don't think we can reduce the spread without lockdown so lockdown it is. And we would probably need more lockdowns until 80% of the population is vaccinated.

Are you a troll.

I can no longer tell what is parody and what isnt on this site

Best, surely, to just not respond to the more obvious wind-ups?

Don't feed the trolls!!

@Frankly321 I mean this kindly, if this is how you really feel then I think perhaps you need to speak with your GP. This level of anxiety is not good for you long term.

Oh, and for PPs who wondered if there'll be a cost/benefit analysis of the measures taken ... it's not going to happen in any meaningful way, though they may well get a couple of tame statisticians to assure us all how terribly wise it's all been

You don't seriously think the government will allow anything official which suggests they've been incompetent do you ... ?

Iheartmysmart, patronising post.

I’ve had anxiety all my life, speaking to a doctor doesn’t resolve it. It’s so bad I’m now too scared to leave the house. All we ever hear about is ‘not meeting people is affecting my mental health blah blah blah’

No one talks about the long term sufferers who are now so ill they can’t do anything.

Some of the stuff on this thread l find horrific. But I’m already having treatment for long term severe anxiety from a psychiatrist. What would you suggest l do? How would talking to my Gp help? She already knows...