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

Some people are worriers and an invisible virus that spreads like wildfire is terrifying for them, even if rationally they know that their/their family's risk is small.

But I think the main thing that worries otherwise rational people about Covid is that we don't always know who will get really sick. If you are

@Bunbunbunny

Why didn't you just post to the corona board? It's bloody threads like this that drives me nuts, there is loads of variants of this thread on that board.

This. Why complain about too much corona talk then add to it in an inappropriate place?

Yanbu OP. There are people consumed by fear who are no longer able to rationally comprehend that statistics.

Yes totally agree, in my the worlds gone mad and very few of us seem to be wondering what the hell is actually going on here

Many people from their 20s to their 50s have died or are suffering really debilitating effects months later

"Many" is a useless descriptor. How many? What percentage of young healthy people are genuinely debilitated months later?

YABU to assume everyone who is very worried is overreacting/low risk/worrying about themselves.

I'm really extremely worried. My personal risk is fairly low (I'm not 20 any more sadly so not super low). My fears are for:

• My relatives who are high risk
• My friends who are high risk
• People in the wider community who are high risk
• Strangers all over the country who are high risk
• The unlucky ones who will get horrible long covid
• The children I know and the children I don't who will be bereaved or orphaned, and all who will lose lived ones
• The frontline staff trying to deal with this
• The business owners and employees facing ruin due to economic fallout

The situation is the most serious we have seen since ww2. I'm not over reacting. I am very sad and worried.

I’m in my 40s with no health conditions and I wasn’t that worried initially. However, I’ve since seen some of my very fit and healthy colleagues some of whom are in their 20s and 30s end up in hospital. This has undoubtedly led to me becoming more worried.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

Many people from their 20s to their 50s have died or are suffering really debilitating effects months later

"Many" is a useless descriptor. How many? What percentage of young healthy people are genuinely debilitated months later?

Too many.

If you expect a calm and measured response to ANYTHING by the general public then yabu. Running around hand wringing and busom hoiking is a national past time. Luckily they are outnumbered by those who don't care and those of us who sit somewhere in the middle. I am a bit scared to be honest despite being under 50 with no health issues.

Imagine working 15 hours shifts as an ICU nurse or doctor right now, with patients suffering and dying on the ward and in the corridors, and then reading all these dismissive comments that people who are worried about Covid are being 'hysterical'.

BTW I remember back in March the threads on here complaining that everyone is worrying about nothing and now here we are almost a year later with 75,000 unnecessary deaths just because people don't take it seriously.

And in countries where they did take it seriously (or as people on this thread might refer to it, behaved 'hysterically') by implementing strict lockdowns early on and having effective testing and tracing, life is pretty much back to normal.

Intensive care units are FULL, the NHS is overwhelmed, hundreds of people are dying daily and yet you all dismiss concern about this as 'hysterical'? It's a disgusting attitude to take.

Yanbu

I will follow rules so hospitals have a chance but people are going a bit crazy ie their risk

Agree with you OP! But the government and media are also guilty of whipping up hysteria. I’ve had COVID myself and don’t underestimate the risk to a small section of the population who should be as careful as they wish to be. But the rest of us should get on with life just as we did with every epidemic before this one, when for some reason unknown to me, the governments of the world suddenly decide that they get to dictate how we live. I get that the nhs cd get swamped but that is the result of massive failure to teach people about prevention and staying healthy, and also the collective failure to focus on community care, ie helping ppl get well at home, which is the best way for the vast majority of COVID cases. A scientific paper was recently published saying this.

There is definitely a lot of hysteria.

HOWEVER, there have definitely been more young people being hospitalised with the new strain.

I can see why people are now slightly more worried/ cautious, as more younger people are being affected than with the first strain.

However, it is still being blown way out of proportion by some. We just need to be sensible, patient, come together and deal with it. Not something that humans seem to find very easy, unfortunately.

YANBU. It’s totally ridiculous.

I'm very scared for me and my daughter, non of us have perfect health and are young so beating it would be a very hard struggle for us and especially now another mutation is here. My sister has now got covid and I kid you not it's so bad. My partners nan has Covid and she's in a care home. It's spreading a lot more than people think.

@Snowisfallinghere sums it up perfectly for me.

I’m not worried about my immediate family getting it but I do have the ability to see the bigger picture and why it would be a disaster to just ‘get on with it’.

What do you suggest happens OP?

You see extremities on discussions about coronavirus because the people who want to discuss it at length are naturally people who lean heavily towards a certain black or white opinion.

The majority of the population are getting on with things with a stoic resilience and acceptance that the restrictions we have in place are necessary however fed up they are.

A lot of people who decry others' hysteria over worries about their physical health and medical risk are simultaneously hysterical themselves about mental health, their children's futures and economic fallout.

It really is ironic to read someone saying that they're being forced to comfort eat and get fat because of others' lack of resilience. A lot of people really need to buck up.

HOWEVER, there have definitely been more young people being hospitalised with the new strain.

Wildraisins can you link to source? I thought ICNARC report had shown about the same age.

I'm 40. No previous health problems. I caught Covid in March and have been very unwell ever since with long Covid. I still can't work full time or lead a normal life. There are 10s of 1000s of us like this. This virus really shouldnt be underestimated.

And in countries where they did take it seriously (or as people on this thread might refer to it, behaved 'hysterically') by implementing strict lockdowns early on and having effective testing and tracing, life is pretty much back to normal.

This is the frustrating thing - we have much worse impacts because of all the people saying we shouldn't take it seriously. It is so annoying! I wish we had 'over reacted' between Feb and May because we wouldn't be in this mess now!!

@inquietant

YABU to assume everyone who is very worried is overreacting/low risk/worrying about themselves.

I'm really extremely worried. My personal risk is fairly low (I'm not 20 any more sadly so not super low). My fears are for:

• My relatives who are high risk
• My friends who are high risk
• People in the wider community who are high risk
• Strangers all over the country who are high risk
• The unlucky ones who will get horrible long covid
• The children I know and the children I don't who will be bereaved or orphaned, and all who will lose lived ones
• The frontline staff trying to deal with this
• The business owners and employees facing ruin due to economic fallout

The situation is the most serious we have seen since ww2. I'm not over reacting. I am very sad and worried.

The chances of any children you know being orphaned is small. Any why are you afraid for people you don’t even know? I don’t want anyone to get ill or die but I don’t give any more of a shit whether people I don’t know die of Covid than I do if they die of anything else. I just think “oh that’s sad” and get on with my day.

This is what I don’t get. Yes it’s clearly a concern but things like the worried well bleaching shopping, people crying and shaking with fear at people going to shops, shouting and bawling about disabled mask exempt people putting them at risk etc just seems so OTT.

@Scolha

What if you have an accident/heart attack/stroke/etc and can’t receive the treatment you need because the hospital is full of people dying from covid?

If a child/young person had an accident and needed life saving treatment- they would make space for them despite the covid cases.

No way would they leave a young person dying. They may not be able to get to people who have slipped on ice, broken bones etc but if a 30 year old was involved in a crash for example and they were unconscious etc...there’s not a can in hells chance they would say ‘ohh we can’t take them because we have too many covid patients’.........

They’d re-arrange stuff and make life/death decisions as they have do in general.

To the op who says We should get on with this epidemic exactly as we did with previous ones

I rather think that is exactly what we are doing.

History the Spanish flu shows that those areas that lockdown most in face of pandemic do better both economically and health wise than those who don't

I agree, I think Mumsnet makes me feel worse at the moment. I'm not encountering such hysteria in real life thank god.

Have not RTFT but I completely agree.
Many seem to be conflating person risk (low for the majority) with societal risk (very high at the moment)
I also note how bad some people are at interpreting statistics and figuring out what their personal risk is likely to be.

It does make me wonder when I hear perfectly healthy 30somethings talk as though they will end up in hospital the minute they step out their own front door.

I also think that someone people thinks it’s impossible to ‘do your bit and follow the rules’ but in a calm and measured way. They expect you need to be hysterical about the whole thing in order to ‘take Covid seriously’