Is this THE pandemic?

[vixb1]

Towards the beginning of the pandemic, I remember reading something about us being "due" a pandemic, but this wasn't it - ie this was all a bit tame.

I keep thinking about it. Now that it's got way more serious - is this now it?!

I think I'm just having a day where I'm struggling to come to terms with the direction this is all going in and the thought of having to face something worse in the future is just unthinkable :-(

I'm sure it'll be a deeply unhelpful post for some people. But for me, I think I need it laying out for me!

What do we think?

The Global Risk Register sounds like something we should all avoid reading 😬

We are literally living on a rock that is spinning in space

Our control is 0

Enjoy life, it’s miraculous and that’s the whole point. We are entirely inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

@Chosennonesneakymincepie

The Global Risk Register sounds like something we should all avoid reading 😬

I think we should take huge comfort that others are looking at and in some way dealing with - studying planning for - the possible problems.

@SkiWays your great granny sounds wonderful ♥️
My father had a similar attitude and I try hard to emulate him.

SARS-CoV-2 is in something of a "sweet spot" when it comes to causing a huge amount of illness and death. It is highly transmissible - and the mortality rate among young adults is low enough that daft people can bury their heads in the sand and not understand that it is a threat that will kill hundreds of thousands of people in the UK, and millions across the world if not taken seriously.

If it had a higher mortality rate (e.g. like Ebola or Avian Flu) then more people would take it seriously - and you could paradoxically end up with fewer deaths in total.

A nasty new pandemic influenza could have a very high mortality rate BUT influenza vaccine technology is well-established and we could roll out new influenza vaccines quickly.

Also - presymptomatic or asymptomatic transmission seems to be less of a factor with influenza than COVID-19. So it's more obvious who is infectious.

Lady
100% agree. Thank God it is in place and hopefully the experts involved have some amazing strategic plans.
For me, and my overactive imagination, sounds like a dystopian nightmare.

And the award for most frightening post ever goes to..

For as long as we keep messing with the environment and animals / nature, there will be pandemics I'm afraid. Fur farms with stressed animals spreading horrible viruses to humans, wet markets, climate change, I could go on. Saw a very sad documentary on the subject.

@OliverBabish

We are literally living on a rock that is spinning in space

Our control is 0

Enjoy life, it’s miraculous and that’s the whole point. We are entirely inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

Agreed

In my opinion, no. If we are talking about "the big one" and something that wipes out millions and millions of people then corona isn't it by far, it is just way too mild. I know I will get jumped on with the usual "tell that to my neighbours cockatoo who has just died at THIRTY" but for the vast majority it is mild. It isn't the one that will properly change things for humans as a species.

I think if there was another pandemic and it was more serious in terms of death / mortality rates (obviously everyone who’s lost their life with Covid is devastating however I mean if it was like a 90% death rate or if children regularly died from it) then we would have very little problems in compliance with lockdowns and could get it under control more easily ?

You have to be scared to lockdown properly, and our problem is most people aren’t scared of this but if they felt there was a real risk of danger they would actually do it

Not your post, op, some of the replies!

I’m also sat looking at my 2, 6 year old Dd and am so worried for the future

It’s probably gonna keep happening every few years I’d imagine - we have had heaps of virus’ that could have ended up like this but manages to curb them before they got this outa control!
Something else will come along soon probably

I don’t see the point in worrying about it though - just live your life as best you can - when this calms down make the most of it - do everything you want to do

All our kids futures look bleak unfortunately for loads of reasons, climate change probably the main one / maybe more viruses/ another pandemic - who knows

It is easy to think the whole world is suffering as bad as the UK. It isnt. UK ranks 6th I think it is out of about 206 countries.

Don't forget Peak Oil.
People in California have been living with the assumption that The Big One (earthquake) will come any time soon. You basically forget about it until you can't.

I'm sat looking at my one year old, wondering what horrors she's going to have to face in her lifetime :-(

That's what my mum was thinking during the Cuban missile crisis. But she went on to have me and the rest of my siblings.

At secondary school, one day nearly 20 years later, a group of us were helping a teacher sort out a store cupboard so that we could have use of it for our club. We came across boxes of government information leaflets on how to prepare for and what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. The teacher had been our age when they were being distributed. She remembered it as a time of anxiety and uncertainty running side-by-side with school and normality. Atom drill (under the table) as well as fire drill (to the playground).

When I was a teen, fear of nuclear annihilation was still real, but the threat of a nuclear war was not nearly as immediate, did not have nearly as much influence on our lives as it had had on our teacher's.

Until my late 20s, I did not want to have children. Why would I want to bring children into a world of Assured Mutual Destruction?

My dc are now the age I was when I found those leaflets. They don't fear nuclear destruction - it's just there in the background. Just like measles and meningitis were there in the background DM had us.

Probably isn’t THE pandemic but there’s no point in worrying about what may or may not happen in the future. Such a lot of time and energy is spent worrying about something before it happens (or not) and then if “it” DOES happen you do all the worrying again.

I get the anxiety and the worry, i’ve have treatment for it hence why I look at it differently now

Why did I read this thread? Just no need to do it to myself.

[quote Northernbeachbum]@barbaraofseville I mean this in a non nasty way, how do you actually cope with that knowledge and thinking about it. Reading your post makes a non anxious person like me feel utterly terrified!![/quote]
Ha ha. I'm just probably a 'glass half full' person.

But seriously, my work is in emergency planning and I spend a lot of time thinking about what could happen and how prevent it happening and mitigate the consequences if it does.

I'm also well versed in risk assessment so know that most of us are likely to succumb to far more common threats and even staying in bed is not completely risk free, so its all a balancing act.

Well given the last one was in 1918 I am not going to worry too much about the next one

That wasn't the last one, and the world has changed a lot since 1918. We've caused the conditions on the planet that make pandemics much more likely.
There will be another one, undoubtedly, we just don't know when.

No.

And they think they are likely to become more common in the future because of how humans are impinging so much on animals (particularly bats) as the population grows.

You cannot live life worrying about possible catastrophic events. The best I ever realised in my 20’s was that there is no point worrying about things completing outside my control. Life happens. All kinds of awful things could happen. Or they might not. Fate/chance whatever you call it. The healthiest person can get cancer. Or you could be like my Grandpa & be diagnosed with two primary cancers at 90 and live a further 5 years with zero treatment before passing away from something unrelated!

Make your life as full & happy as possible. Fall in love, have children, watch them grow, enjoy the highs, battle through the lows. You only get to do this once. So don’t waste time worrying about things.

It's a worrying time that's for sure. There have been over 2 million deaths world wide but keep in mind that nearly 67 million have recovered. It doesn't in any way mean it isn't important that so many people have died, it does. So many families are grieving and that matters. But it is also good that so many recover. It could have been so much more deadly.

Over 1200 people died in the UK alone yesterday, over 1500 the day before (according to Worldometers) and it is SO important that we don't become desensitised to it and see numbers not people but it's also important that we don't panic and think that it's certain death for all.

All you can do is take the necessary precautions, that's all any of us can do.

There's a middle ground between "arrgghh we're all going to die" and "saying one word of concern about it is scaremongering"
It is shit but it is not end of the world shit.