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.

@Cornettoninja

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

What? So you wanted to train up doctors and nurses in a few months? Because that’s what we need. Equipment and space is the easy bit but no good without the expertise to use them.

I don’t think any of your points are entirely without merit but that statement alone tells me that you don’t know what you’re actually talking about and have no idea about the actual real life application and logistics of the things you’re demanding.

I don't think she said she's expecting them to be ready in a few months. She's talking about a long term plan.

I thought so in March.

YANBU.

Completely agree OP.

Also why is Neil Ferguson still advising the government, he is on the NERVTAG committee that prompted Bojo to do this U turn and claim this mutation is 70% more infectious - lets see the evidence set out for scientific scrutiny then!

That mans record of predictions is appalling - He predicted 65,000 deaths from swine flu and the reality was just under 500 (no lockdown there!) He predicted 50 000 deaths from BSE, reality 177. He overestimated deaths on bird flu, foot and mouth. Why just why are they listening to him still?

I have nursed people who have died from flu in summer so it does happen BTW.

I really feel the country is in the grip of a collective hysteria TBH.

@ForestNymph

Oh my god if I see one more "Long Covid is real!" post I'm going to scream.

Its post viral fatigue! That has existed FOREVER. A portion of people with PVS will go on to get CFS/ME. This can happen after ANY virus. A cold could do it

Calling it Long Covid is to spread fear and make people think its a new thing. It isn't. At all.

THIS!!!

Long covid is just plain old post viral fatigue, which is really shit for the minority that get it BUT IT'S NOT A NEW THING!

I really feel the country is in the grip of a collective hysteria TBH.

A collective hysteria is exactly what it is. Are we really so weak as a species that we barricade ourselves indoors and hide in terror from a virus that kills less than 1% of its victims?

@PlumsAreNotTheOnlyFruit
You are totally right.

No one is suggesting let the virus run wild so that hospitals are overwhelmed. The government’s initial policy was to flatten the curve to protect the NHS, this was their well discussed agreed plan but they got the jitters after seeing reports from Italy of hospitals running out of capacity and since then seem to have lost their mind.

As hollyangel has posted we have winter pressures every year with reports of hospitals at full capacity. The Times published a survey on Saturday that reported 18 out of 20 London hospitals had a lower bed occupancy than in the 2 previous years.

We also have the nightingale hospitals that have nit yet been used.

Not closing everything down and wrecking the economy is not mutually exclusive to not overwhelming the NHS.

@alreadytaken yes long Covid does exist, I heard a really sad account from one elderly lady on the radio who was really suffering since September with it yet hadn’t been able to see her GP, had been forced to see a GP privately and pay for a private prescription, had spent £300 she couldn’t afford because in her words she had been thrown under the nys and all the governments words about their e toons being to protect the vulnerable were completely hollow as she was vulnerable and due to Covid hysteria and the ridiculous way GP surgeries have refused to see people had meant she couldn’t get any NHS treatment.

@NinetyNineRedBalloonsGoBy I've even had it. Currently have a diagnosis of PVS after covid. But its no different to what happened to an acquaintance after getting mono or someone else I know after having the flu. Sometimes it takes months to shake the fatigue and a very small number of those will develop permanent fatigue. Its unfortunate but its a possible complication of any viral infection.

@Boxachocs

Ambulances have always struggled to get into hospitals during the Winter flu season. Here's an article from 2013:

Ambulances were left queuing outside several hospitals in Greater Manchester – including Wythenhsawe Hospital, Pennine Acute Trust’s North Manchester General, Royal Oldham, Rochdale Infirmary and Fairfield Hospital in Bury – as the norovirus crisis hit the region.

www.google.ie/amp/s/www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/dozens-of-patients-treated-in-hospital-car-1209710.amp

*Thrown under the bus not nys

@ForestNymph - she said ‘since March’. Besides how much time is there to deal with the current situation? We’ve got what we’ve got and have to deal with it within those resources.

I’ll happily agree that the NHS has been criminally decimated over the last couple of decades and that much more should have been wisely invested but that makes very little difference to the here and now. It’s a pointless discussion in the context of managing the current crisis.

And agree on the long covid thing - when I was at Uni my roommate got glandular fever and had to defer for a year so she could go home and get nursed by her mum, she couldn't get out of bed for months.

Why is it suddenly rebranded as long Covid? and why was no-one bothered about it until this year?

Its is conveniently used as another argument when you point out the IFR of Covid is only 0.4 - 0.6%, and you feel a virus with a mortality below 99% isn't worth getting hysterical about - someone then shouts but but but....LONG COVID!

Thank you for this thread and for making me feel like I am not going crazy! I do think the initial lockdown made some sense when the virus was new and unknown. But now we need to protect the vulnerable whilst also allowing others to continue with their lives and futures. There are so many deaths and effects of what we are doing that are not easily or immediately quantifiable and will go on for years to come, but I am sure it is far worse than what this virus could do to us.

[quote Cornettoninja]@ForestNymph - she said ‘since March’. Besides how much time is there to deal with the current situation? We’ve got what we’ve got and have to deal with it within those resources.

I’ll happily agree that the NHS has been criminally decimated over the last couple of decades and that much more should have been wisely invested but that makes very little difference to the here and now. It’s a pointless discussion in the context of managing the current crisis.[/quote]
Yeah but we should absolutely be investing, this won't be the last pandemic and the virus isn't going anywhere. It will be a bonus to have extra staff so she is right.

Its not an instant fix, but it certainly helps long term

@PlumsAreNotTheOnlyFruit

Couldn't agree more.

@Vintagevixen

And agree on the long covid thing - when I was at Uni my roommate got glandular fever and had to defer for a year so she could go home and get nursed by her mum, she couldn't get out of bed for months.

Why is it suddenly rebranded as long Covid? and why was no-one bothered about it until this year?

Its is conveniently used as another argument when you point out the IFR of Covid is only 0.4 - 0.6%, and you feel a virus with a mortality below 99% isn't worth getting hysterical about - someone then shouts but but but....LONG COVID!

Exactly its just plain old PVF dressed up as something else. Most people who get PVF recover anyway. Its shit, obviously, but its just a viral complication.

I'm sick to death of people shouting LONG COVID at every opportunity.

Op you make some good points which I agree with. Since the first lockdown everyone I knew did take it seriously . We all
Used our masks, washed and were extremely careful. I listened to the advice that this was to protect the nhs from
Being overwhelmed. We had to protect our fellow citizens as well. Since then I’ve been following what the rules are as have other people. But it seems This virus has managed to mutate . We can limit the virus spread but it’s still there and so we go in more lockdowns and after lockdown it rears its head again. I’m thinking how long is this going to keep going on for. In the meanwhile I’ve seen family business shut down for good, education, mental health problems, anxiety etc all increase ten fold. I’m not saying let everyone go out and take their chances wily nily. There’s got to be a way of protecting the most vulnerable without the rest of the country being brought to its knees.

@Cornettoninja

But the pressure will only be on the health system for a number of months. Like every winter.

I presume it's why the NHS don't increase their staff by the 30 percent or more they probably need over November to March, because they would then have far too many staff for the rest of year, at normal
levels.

Why were the hospitals not packed to capacity all summer when everyone packed out beaches in the UK and Europe? I can't understand how a pandemic goes away for a break in the middle? Makes no sense.

How many lives have been saved by our policies? Has anyone even done an analysis

During the Prime Minister's statement on the 30th of April he said

"And it is thanks to that massive collective effort to shield the NHS that we avoided an uncontrollable and catastrophic epidemic where the reasonable worst case scenario was 500,000 deaths"

@Collaborate

What you are advocating is the Swedish model (going for herd immunity). They are now, basically, fucked. I'll forgive you your ignorance if you read this www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/20/as-covid-death-toll-soars-ever-higher-sweden-wonders-who-to-blame then return to the thread and apologise for spreading a false narrative.

Finally some sense.

God I’m so bored of endless armchair experts pontificating on this.

Can we just round them all up and make them sit through the same briefings that the PM gets so they can understand what this could look like for the country if it were left to run unchecked (and the death rate is only one part of that).

Then perhaps they’d understand why politicians are suddenly shitting themselves and taking decisions that they know are hugely economically damaging and, in the case of Boris Johnson at least, run entirely opposite to what he and the majority of his own party would want to do if they felt they had a real choice.

A populist Prime Minister who revels in being loved just had to massively curtail most of the country’s ability to celebrate Christmas with their families at the last minute. The same thing is being repeated in countries across the planet. All them will have had the same thought at one time or another - perhaps if we don’t fuck our economy then we’ll come out of this with a massive advantage against every other country, that’d be great!

Then they get the reality check and realise that’s just a dream. But still, yet another mumsnetter comes on and spouts the same I’ll informed opinion, imagining somehow that they are he only one who can see clearly the way to save our economy.

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?

Just a couple of things from all the different and interesting points people are making.

No I didn't think we would have been able to make big capacity increases in the NHS in nine months but I would love to see us focus on heading in that direction as quickly as we can. I still think we could have made some progress.

Long covid is real. Covid causes heart and lung damage and other issues in addition to fatigue. It isn't only post viral fatigue. Long covid should be researched and treated.

I understand that Covid is real and serious especially in the elderly and vulnerable whom I care about and want to protect.

I don't understand why this has been moved from aibu to the coronavirus topic. It was supposed deliberately to be an aibu and also about the wider impact of our policies on our society and our economy and not the disease itself.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

All those saying they want to live in a police state - I can guarantee one thing: they have never actually lived in a police state (although there are several that you'd probably be welcome to move to).

The thing with police states is that you don't get to choose which of their policies they clamp down hard on. They might happen to align with your own chosen strictness on responses to COVID, but when they start to tell you that you aren't allowed to have any more children, or that the population is dipping, so you are required to have a child and stay at home to look after them; or that there is a need for more refuse collectors, so you are required to move from your job as a solicitor and take a big pay cut to become a bin (wo)man; or that your political views are the wrong ones so you need to denounce them or otherwise be sent to prison for re-education.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety"

The PP upthread who cited this quote was bang on - it's terrifying how many people there are out there queuing up to tell Big Brother just how much they love him.

People who say they actually want to live in a police state are fucking terrifying. You want the UK to be more like North Korea? China? Stalinist Russia? East Germany before the wall fell? How can you WANT a world like that? You want your kids brought up without freedom? You want to give up freedom? For what?

Insane - that's the only word to describe such impulses. If that's how you are thinking, please get help.