Do you think people are just desensitised and feel far removed from NHS situation and that’s why they aren’t worried

[CaughtInTheCovid]

I feel like one of the reasons for lack of compliance/taking the rules and covid seriously is that after almost a year of the news basically being a horror film and having hideous statistics about death thrown at us we are just so desensitised to it that it doesn’t affect us. I was watching the news earlier and it had horrific scenes of hospitals, staff in tears just awful. But I felt a sense of detachment, like it was a film or happening in a different country that didn’t affect me. Like when you watch children in need and cry and think how awful it is and donate money and then the next day you just forget about it when you’re back to business. I don’t think I connect that if I were to have a heart attack or get hit by a car and need medical care with the absolute crisis and as we all do think ‘it’ll never happen to me’.

Do you think that’s why people aren’t complying or are pushing the rules to the limits? They just can’t keep up to the level of fear so are desensitised or think it doesn’t affect them? FWIW I have followed all the rules and am currently struggling home schooling and wfh but understand the need for it all.

@Totallydefeated

Yes, I have fear fatigue. Tbf, if I was still as anxious as I was back in March, I’d have had a nervous breakdown ages ago. There’s only so much fear one can take. I think a kind of self-preservation instinct has kicked in now, and I just let it all wash over me. It’s not great, but the alternative is worse.

I think this is true. I go through spells of sheer terror but they last a day now and then you just try to get through it.

It's the old saying, 1 death is a tragedy, 1000 is a statistic. Save 1 life you're a hero save a 1000 you're a nurse (insert relevant critical worker job here). Until it knocks on your door you never think it will happen to you. A respiratory consultant at my hospital has said that 20-25% of the people he has seen on vents today had been shielding strictly since March, until they had family for Xmas day............The next few weeks are going to be painful for a lot of people, try to stay safe.

I'm drained by it all. I am sticking to the rules and I do see the bigger picture but it's worn me down to the point of lethargy and numbness. I know lots of people who have had covid and some have died.

I'm more worried than I was back in March! I'm worried about the fact the NHS is reaching capacity as well as being worried about COVID!
I feel desperately sad and sorry for those nurses who are dragging themselves into some sort of hell everyday!
I've been following the rules all along as have my friends, we're all in our 50's 60's 70's some with parents still alive! I've shopped in the supermarket all through this but did my first click n collect order this week!

I know 7 people who have died, one, my oldest dearest friend leaving a partner of 23 years and a 20 year old son. He was late 50's, fit with no underlying health conditions! I also have a friend with long Covid who is struggling to get back to work!
I'm feeling the full fucking horror of it at the moment!

@hettyhooverdoover

I think we need some news clips of what it's actually like inside the UK hospitals. Everyone was so horrified at the films coming from Italy right at the beginning. I think we need to shock people to be honest.

There have been a few recently:

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/we-have-patients-in-their-twenties-and-generations-from-the-same-family-ctkp5mb9k

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-i-feel-like-a-bad-doctor-why-cant-i-make-them-better-zkzs2cczc

unherd.com/2021/01/inside-the-covid-ward/

m.youtube.com/watch?v=_BT8x4vu-gg

m.youtube.com/watch?v=OI0g4cz5-oM

m.youtube.com/watch?v=MFNh0g8K9Sg

I think you’re right that people can’t keep up the fear, unless they have an anxiety disorder or are directly affected. And that the effects of lockdown are for many, far more immediate, likely, and frightening.

We all had one common enemy in the beginning, we could unite against something and make a collective effort. Now people see the problems they are having as being the fault of other people, either because they won’t stay in enough or because ‘others’ mean they can’t get out enough.

It's the boy who cried wolf. When you hear the message repeatedly, it loses its impact.

I amended behaviour from February last year before half term travel appeared to trigger a surge in identified cases, but the constant barrage in shock headlines through the summer months when rates were low means that they have no impact now. Yes, the wolf probably is at the door now, but again not helped by the annual NHS in crisis, ambulances banked up at A&E stories most winters over the past 15 years. Is this worse? I don't know. Probably, but it's hard to come across clear information beyond shocking headlines. What percentage of hospital cases originated in hospital? How is capacity affected by Covid management and staffing issues? How has Covid been offset with normal seasonal pressures?

I know local rates are rising, and are about where they peaked at the end of October before tailing off before the impact of the November lockdown, so yes there's a problem as they are still rising and I am aware of the trends in the SE. But thanks to the standard of reporting from MSM, shock value went many, many months ago.

For most of the past 10 months, I've been severed off from my community, family and friends. I'm sure I am more insular; no one else will put me and my family first and there's a limit to how much social isolation we can take. I generally toe the line and my lifestyle has been rendered low-risk anyway. So no I'm not quaking in my boots about being a disease vector, nor the impact on my immediate low-risk household.

I learned the painful way at 11 that life is unpredictable when that nice policeman came arounf with bad news. Life is too short to live cowering in fear. At this point, if I did get long Covid, at least I haven't completely squandered the best part of a year first.

I have a sister working in a CCU in central London. I am complying more than I did last time (not going to any shops, not seeing anyone even for a walk, no support bubble even though I am entitled to one because I dont need it. I just desperately want it). I dont feel removed at all, but also i do because i have my bubble of my two kids and DH. My sisters stories would terrify you to your core.

1. Seeing my immediate family wasn’t on the vaccine list as we are all under 10 or 30s with no underlying health condition didn’t help. So while the best things socially to do is stay at home, we will be likely to Be left to catch it anyway once we are released in 3-9 months from stay at home restrictions.
2. Having two elderly and quite incapacitated family members die of non-covid related deaths early on in the pandemic, and feeling much less grief than when my friend died as a teenage or my two aunts who died in their 50s.
3. Realising two years of lock down wasn’t much in my projected life’s span but if my parents are only going to live another 10 years, then two years is a lot of time to miss out on seeing family.
4. realising my brothers who live in another country missed the chance to see my youngest daughter as a baby because she has already grown from a newborn into a toddler since the first lockdown. And travel restrictions aren’t likely to lift anytime soon.

All this makes me wonder, if I am not isolating for my family’s sake, am I just doing it for society because I’ve been asked to and it is easier to follow rules than break them?

Mostly people are complying though. Studies about where people go and how they behave show this. Plus if we're getting headlines about women drinking coffee and a genuine debate around whether or not they should be, then it's clear that most people are complying.

We don't have a decent testing system though. We aren't testing contacts of positive cases at all. We haven't got a handle on it. That is why our numbers are so high.

Yes I think you are partly right. There are other factors though.
Some people look at the numbers per 100,000 and think it's not that many, they may also not know anyone who has died. They don't really understand the potential of exponential growth and the time delay between people mixing and ending up seriously ill in hospital.

There are also some people who don't want to accept the truth as if they did they would be obligated to do something about it.

I can’t live in a state of terror and anxiety for a year.
Why would I want to
It’s all out of my control

I have to go out the house regularly for my job.
I follow the rules
Wash my hands
Wear PPE
Maintain distance where possible

I think this indulging in the news and the terror of it all is a bit perverse. Either do something to actively help or stay home. Stressing isn’t fixing it for anyone. We have a MH crisis already.

I feel desensitised to it and I work in an emergency department full of Covid every day.

I am tired.

I don't talk about it at home or to my friends because frankly it is too awful and too depressing and I don't want to upset them

CarlottaValdez
Not really a weird take. Driving the point home would necessitate a graphic description of what happens when you need emergency medical care and it's not available to you, I'm not prepared to do that. We are perilously close to that scenario but I don't think many believe it.

I think we need to take the situation seriously, fever pitch panic is not necessary or helpful.

oh FFS.
I endure OP. That's all I can do.

The only "evidence" I know about that "people are not complying" is pure anecdote. I mostly don't because it's not my problem to care if it's true or not. Don't expect me to join with mass hysteria anecdotal-based anxiety.

Also, I think many people feel the government has no respect for them, so why should they return the favour?

While we are bored at home, we have oodles of time to brood on the forthcoming financial ruin, mass unemployment, industries destroyed, mental health shot to pieces, obesity from being strongly discouraged to go out, suicides, huge tax rises to come, the list goes on. The government are saying almost nothing about this (save an occasional “I’m trooooooooooooly sorry” from Saint Boris the clown). If they had the decency to acknowledge and admit that their lockdown is causing and exacerbating all of the above, some people might believe the government is on their side. Because the government is remaining quite silent on this, people are seeing government as the enemy.

It's probably an evolutionary trait, desensitization.

If you think about it up until last century mankind lived with death in their everyday world, it wasn't confined behind hospital doors. How would they have lived if fear of death had crippled them?

Desensitised.
Also average intelligence/education isnt that high.
I think many people cant switch from risky/not risky which makes the gov strategy unworkable.
Most people seem not to care about other even their own family.
Our population gets what they want when they want it.
Food
Drink
Stuff
Us and our kids are what other generations would call spoilt.
But our gov and economy encourages this.

It cant hell we imagine the rich doing what they want.
It reflects on why the country is so vulnerable to covid.

I dont think people can imagine getting to hospital and getting no treatment at all. (Or the rationing of o2 at that one hospital).

I’m following all the rules, but I do feel desensitised to it all now. I live in a part of the south west where the rates have been very low throughout the whole pandemic. I only personally know one person who has had COVID, so it all feels very far removed from me and my own experiences (so far)

It seems so there is definitely an air of defiance. One of my friends refuses to wear a mask proudly.
I don't know what the big deal is.
My 47 y.o brother was visiting friends drinking living normally until he was infected. It is "it won't happen to me" mentality.

I was scared for about 3 days in March, since then I haven't been scared at all. I'm late 20's and healthy. The only people that I know that are over 60 are very, very distant relatives. I don't think I actually know anyone who is CEV or even CV. As others have said I rarely use the NHS. Childbirth, contraception and vaccinations for my DC's have been pretty much it since I was a child myself. I've known a few people that have had covid but none of them were seriously ill from it, a couple of weeks feeling rough is the worst I've known of.

I've stuck to the rules mostly, not so much over the summer but then everyone I know was pretty much doing what they wanted over the summer, it seemed to be the norm. I've stuck to rules during the lockdowns though, except I won't stick to nonsensical ones like not sitting on benches or not driving a few miles for exercise. I will stick to rules if I understand why they are rules and why they reduce the spread of the virus.

I think there are a lot of people like me, not scared and covid doesn't really pose any threat to them. But yet having to make so many sacrifices for others, people that they don't even know. It's not in human nature to be completely selfless.

You get to the point where there’s no benefit to watching the media and getting yourself traumatised by it. You can’t do any more than follow the restrictions. I wfh and don’t leave the house daily, actually stay in most of the time. No social or work contacts. No mixing over Christmas. Am very desensitised and tbh a bit irritated by the constant Stay At Hone message on repeat, I can’t bloody stay home any more than I am. Perhaps I should stay at least 2m away from my front door to, you know, just be doubly sure I’m not leaving the fucking house.

I fear in a few months we’ll find out that hospitals were only 75% full after all (“phew”, they’ll say), and yet another government official popped out for an essential reason while waiting for test results but hey, it’s ok we’ll get a vaccine soon. Except we might not, if they have to revaccinate all the high priority groups because immunity has run out or there is a mutation. Never mind, we can rely on our world bearing T&T system can’t we.

I think I'm just numb about it all.
I have followed the rules and I think because DP has worked through out and works in a building with 200 other people, that I'm just of the attitude of what will be will be .

The idea that "people don't care about old people" is a bit harsh. I care very much about older people, but humans are sadly not immortal.

Many people just haven't given a shit. I've definitely noticed a new trend in my area lately (new strain has really taken hold here) - people who haven't given a shit all along suddenly posting on FB devastated that their mums, siblings etc now have it badly. Posting that they "haven't really believed it was a thing" until now and angry that their relatives have been turned away from our local hospital which is full and was struggling for years before this. People don't care until it directly affects them and theirs. There's no accountability, just shock-horror-I'm-fuming-how-did-this-happen?