has everyone become too hysterical about Covid?

[tellytubby20]

Looking at all the threads on MN my impression is that everyone has become completely hysterical about Covid and completely misunderstands the difference between personal health risk and public health.

Am not oblivious to the health risks - I have followed all the rules, live next to a major London hospital (so very aware of how busy the ambulance service is) and had covid last year.
BUT
I am also under 40 with small DCs - so am aware that my personal risk of death or severe illness is small - my goal is therefore to ensure that I do not spread it others who are vulnerable.

However, so many people seem to have decided that the threat/risk is massive to their kids and themselves especially with this new variant.....WHY?

AIBU - to think that people are massively over-estimating personal risk if they are healthy and under 50 and have become hysterical about it.

AINBU to think that

the media feeding the hysteria for advertising revenue

Yes. I'm in London but have all over UK. Calling me brave for going to Tesco, asking me how many people I know who have died from it, Telling me I need to desperately get out of there.

It is insane and I feel like it's me not being dramatic enough? Is my area really going to shit, will it just be a wasteland in years to come, while I sit here at home eating my cheese sandwich and drinking my tea and only leaving the house for essentials.

(Im not downplaying Covid by the way, I just was not prepared for the level of madness lately)

Thankfully everyone else is more calm and rational.

My friend was 42 when she died of covid. She left young children behind. I knew her through exercise. She was way fitter than me.

So for some of us it's not "hysteria", it's grief.

But what I mainly came to post is that when the hospitals are full of covid patients there won't be anyone to look after your ill child, your dad having a heart attack or your partner after a car accident.

I imagine most people would feel a bit "hysterical" then.

And that has always been the danger with covid.

Not to be "hysterical" but it looks like London is getting to that point now from what I just read in the HSJ.

[[BBC News - ICU hospital staff: 'Scared, sad, petrified, worried'
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55564425]]

This is London right now. Note just how much staffing and equipment each patient needs - and then you start to really understand the severity of what we are dealing with here.

BBC News - ICU hospital staff: 'Scared, sad, petrified, worried'
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55564425

Is my area really going to shit, will it just be a wasteland in years to come, while I sit here at home eating my cheese sandwich and drinking my tea and only leaving the house for essentials.

Someone upthread declared we should be calmly watching Netflix instead of worrying about existential things like that.

Look it's very rotten but I think you're imagining a situation where there is no vaccine and pandemics don't end. We'll be paying for it undoubtedly and perhaps it will be endemic to a degree but I really don't think it will be you and your cheese sandwich.

There is hysteria on both sides imo.

Yes, the majority of people will have mild illness but certainly worse than a hangover in my experience and there seems to be more people below 40 being admitted with really crap oxygen levels. So whilst screaming "we're a going to die" is ridiculous so is claiming that the government is controlling us/the scientists are lying etc.

The healthy middle ground seem to be lost in the midst of the two opposing sides.

Yes it has all gotten ridiculous now. The rules are not logical and its pretty obvious that bumbling Boris and his cohorts do not have a clue.
They are interpretating the data to suit their own ends . The media is fuelling the frenzy.
Lockdowns do not work they know that but yet keep doing it.
In my opinion we need to go back to normal , schools back , work back and economy starting to move.
We need to live with the virus like we do with flu ( which incidentally killed more people last year than covid) . By all means shield the elderly and those who have underlying conditions. Look at how many have survived covid but yet we only focus on the deaths.
I however believe life is for living not living in fear, seeing or touching noone, not travelling. I also believe that when your time is up its up. How my entire family feel even my 90 year old nan who would go nuts if we tried to shield her.
There are going to be more deaths from cancer, untreated diseases and suicide. More damage done to peoples lives when they lose their job and home, more forced to live on benefits, the people who do have a job taxed more etc etc.
Everyone thinks the vaccine will save the day...but what if it mutates again or becomes resistant. What then lockdown for another few years.
Boris needs to look at countries that have actually handled the situation and are living life normally. Hold his hands up admit he doesnt know and take advice..from anyone other than matt hancock chris whitty and the rest of the fear mongering morons.

Yes, totally hysterical.
People now only measure risk and safety in terms of Covid. The world has gone collectively mad

So if we don’t have the lockdowns and restrictions to try and prevent transmission, where are all the people going to go who need hospital admission?

Within a week some London hospitals will have no beds left let alone any in ICU.

I am intrigued now people think removing lockdown and letting the virus run wild and as such the NHS become completely overwhelmed will help people access treatment for other conditions.

The key word there is "think"

I don't think they are thinking . Grieving , emoting , raging but not thinking

I’'m in healthcare and it is astounding how people don't grasp that the staff are not usually at risk of the same illness as the people they're treating. There are only so many people to put you back together.
This. Also, re the economy, as a doctor just said on R5 Live, you can’t work if you’re dead, you can’t work if you’re suffering from long COVID- which can last for 3-5 years. We need to make sure that we ALL follow the rules of lockdown to the letter, no visiting, no non-essential trips, nothing. It’s temporary. We all need to grow up and calmly accept that we are a nation in crisis and do everything we can to support our health workers. This mainly entails acting like a responsible adult and following the rules, whilst ensuring that our children also follow the rules. There’s no reason for hysteria and things will get better surprisingly quickly, if we just listen and do the right thing. Being worried isn’t hysteria, being careful isn’t hysteria. Most people I know realise this.

*Lockdowns do not work they know that but yet keep doing it.
In my opinion we need to go back to normal , schools back , work back and economy starting to move.

Boris needs to look at countries that have actually handled the situation and are living life normally. Hold his hands up admit he doesnt know and take advice..*

@DreamingofDalyan this makes no sense. The countries who have this under control have done it with lockdowns, effective track and trace and very strict border controls and quarantine.

Look it's very rotten but I think you're imagining a situation where there is no vaccine and pandemics don't end. We'll be paying for it undoubtedly and perhaps it will be endemic to a degree but I really don't think it will be you and your cheese sandwich.

I'm not imagining that situation. The rest of my post that you didnt quote was agreeing with the OP.

@DreamingofDalyan I would love to see data for that!
do with flu ( which incidentally killed more people last year than covid) .

"*Lockdowns do not work they know that but yet keep doing it."

It depends what you mean by working.

If you mean eliminating covid then of course they don't. ( Unless you mean China which have combined ultra strict lockdowns with mass testing of entire cities)

If you mean preventing the collapse of the healthcare system then they have.

Inadequate Track and trace, covid secure guidelines, public health policies guided by politics not science, poor border control means more lockdowns have been needed.

Lots of people say shield the vulnerable but even the barrington decoration was strangely silent about how that would work in practice.

[quote Northernsoulgirl45]@DreamingofDalyan I would love to see data for that!
do with flu ( which incidentally killed more people last year than covid) .[/quote]
So would I given the official statistics show 8,000 deaths from flu last year. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/895233/Surveillance_Influenza_and_other_respiratory_viruses_in_the_UK_2019_to_2020_FINAL.pdf

As awful as any death is in terms of mortality rate they aren’t comparable

@DreamingofDalyan Official flu reports or are you discounting every single COVID death where a pre existing condition was present however minor? Hernia anyone?

Sorry @Sirzy I wasn't quick enough.

DS2 is a nurse. Through the first peak he was quite upbeat and was able to keep me going a bit by reassuring me and he kept his girlfriend, also a nurse, in good spirits for most of it. He can’t do that anymore.

DS2 text me yesterday morning when he came off his nightshift. He’s got 2 colleagues receiving treatment in ITU. He’d only seen people with Covid that night, he said people are going from coping at home to all of a sudden being severely unwell. This isn’t limited to the elderly and vulnerable, it’s right across the board. My lovely DIL is coming home, very often in tears, because she feels that she can’t do her best for patients because her best isn’t making a lot of difference. It’s just awful for them all. Their hospital has extended their ITU a twice and it’s almost full.

I had to go into hospital for a daycase surgery yesterday. I happened to comment to the recovery nurse that it was quiet in there and she said it’s because most operations, unless urgent or daycase, have been cancelled and theatres are being converted to ITU beds.

I’m not going to go out unless it’s absolutely imperative. That’s not me being hysterical, that’s me being sensible. I can get everything I need delivered.

Lockdowns work if they are adhered to. They will help to stop our doctors and nurses having breakdowns, getting physically ill and they will help to free up hospital beds. If we all do this properly, the lockdown will work and the NHS will function. THAT is the purpose of the lockdown. Why do some people still not get it?

but where in my original post did I say that I do not support lockdowns. My entire point is that people should follow the rules but not become emotional wrecks regarding their own safety. but this thread has descended into the usual thing - anti-lockdown folks and those desperately trying to tell everyone how the NHS is going to collapse.

My whole point was we need to regain the middle ground -follow govt advice (or sometimes even preempt it) but without everyone becoming terrified.

You do realise that people will respond to posts by other people throughout the thread not just by you? And that by starting a thread like this it was bound to encourage people who agree it’s all over the top and as such we should go back to normal.

I spoke to a friend yesterday who is a senior nurse, now non clinical. She was in charge of six patients on HDU yesterday, not one of whom was over 50. Some with underlying conditions (overweight, mild asthma) some fully fit and healthy in normal times. You cannot guarantee that you won't catch this and get seriously ill. It is unlikely, but catching it at the moment is a really bad idea since they are running out of ability to care for everybody as they would wish.