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?

@lightand

At the moment, on the active board, there is a thread about a serial killer, one about mother on trial, and a se x robot thread. No one makes us read them.

🤣🤣

It's more full of the opposite. I don't think cautioning about scaremongering (eg 80% wiped out in 50 years) in the current context is anything akin to burying heads in the sand. It's about showing some bloody humanity on a thread where the OP stated that they were struggling to cope with their fear

@Marvelina

It's more full of the opposite. I don't think cautioning about scaremongering (eg 80% wiped out in 50 years) in the current context is anything akin to burying heads in the sand. It's about showing some bloody humanity on a thread where the OP stated that they were struggling to cope with their fear

I don't believe that the vast majority of posts here are remotely "scaremongering". They are talking about very real risks, well documented ones. Humans have always and will always have to live with risk. Of course I am sympathetic to the OP being worried. That's part of the human condition. But that doesn't mean we should pretend that our reality involves these risks. The answer is to learn to live with them and work collectively to mitigate them as much as we can, not to pretend none of it is real.

..pretend that our reality doesn't involve these risks

*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?*

This was the OP's post. She asked to hear people's views.

Read an article last week that said as long as we continue to encroach onto wildlife habitats then we run the risk of more animal-human transmission pandemics. Apparently there are about 7000 “known“ animal viruses out out of an estimated 4 million.. Of the known viruses, some have 70% human death rates.
And that’s without the prehistoric viruses that have lay dormant for millions of years frozen in the permafrost of Siberia.
Global warming will release those in the future. Just enjoy life. Shit happens.

I agree with this, I just think that this more rational kind of approach should be applied more broadly to how these things are discussed and supported with the right evidence. I'm not referring to posts like that. I'm referring to posts that blithely predict apocalyptic doom within a few years without that kind of approach/support and I find these very cold and irresponsible.

What kind of problems were caused by the year 2000? Intrigued. I was only 12 at the time.

If you are going to be worried about anything it should be cows.

Do you follow ‘the age of extinction’ in The Guardian OP?

I truly believe that humans have destroyed this planet past the point of no return. It all comes down to money, someone will always want to make big bucks - how else to explain why fossil fuels are still being used?

@borntohula

What kind of problems were caused by the year 2000? Intrigued. I was only 12 at the time.

Computer systems were programmed with year date formats in only two digits so many would have malfunctioned/ ceased operating when the year clicked from 99 to 00. It was called the millenium bug. It took an awful lot of money and lots if programmers to adjust all of the software to prevent it happening.

To answer your question op no this won't be the one big pandemic. If we dont stop intense factory farming and over populating the plant there will be a bigger more deadly one hitting us in the future. Scientists have been warning us for years now.

Like this? 😨

What the hell 🥲🥲🥲

Just like that.

I take it nobody read the link I posted about the Fermi paradox then? 👽

@MagentaDoesNotExist

I take it nobody read the link I posted about the Fermi paradox then? 👽

Nope, everyone looked at my sad sad picture though 😁

@Swingsandroindabouts

What the hell 🥲🥲🥲

Sorry, I had to see it so thought I’d share the misery

Just tucked my one year old back in after he had a nightmare.
Read this thread.
Think I might have nightmares if my own now.

Yes people are sharing their opinions but there’s always a touch of glee when these things are posted. A touch of “oh wait you think THAT’S bad, wait til THIS (insert even worse horrible thing here) HAPPENS”

I know they’ve been saying we’ve been due a pandemic for ages, I’m curious as to what makes a pandemic the big one. Is there a criteria for it? I’m not being facetious. But this one isn’t over yet so I find it interesting that people are already saying oh it’s definitely not this.

I hope this is our big pandemic. And that our children’s and children’s children’s don’t have to face one. But every generation has their terrifying thing - nuclear war fear etc which is how I comfort myself at night as it makes me realise how out of control everything is.

I look at my son and it pains me to imagine what his life might be like at the moment, especially when I read these threads. I don’t know why I read them, I’ll be doing okay then read something like this and feel like he’s just doomed whatever happens.

I think I need to come off mumsnet and look at pictures of puppies or something actually. My anxiety has just sky rocketed!

That's how I felt too @squishedblueberry 💐

I’m rather partial to theories about what kinds of bacteria and viruses could be released from the polar ice caps and other frozen regions as they melt

Oh shit I never even considered that before!
😱😱😱😱😱

@Marvelina back. Maybe we need to start our own lovely things thread

Op, I think we are going to be far more proactive in finding viruses before they find us... I hope.
We have had the most incredible dress rehearsal, if there is worse to come in the future.
We will globally be far better prepared, in so many ways with mistakes, mitigation measures and so on.
In UK we are having some huge production center built for vaccine production and investment into virus research.
We are in the UK clearly excellent in some scientific areas and weak in others, again this has been brilliant to high light what needs work.

I hope, all UK citizens that can afford it, try and keep a small stock of food in for any eventuality and also be a little more individually responsible and not rely on the government to tell them what to do.

Eg scientist telling us not wear masks and go to foot ball and race meets when a few days later police wouldn't let a sole person in a park sit on a beach.

Or telling us one-day, go to school it's safe, the next day, plunging the entire country into strict lock down!!

I can remember reading something that predicted trends back in the 90’s, where it said that air-born viruses would become more prevalent. It scared me at the time and I’ve never forgotten it.

Regarding ‘The Pandemic’, we aren’t actually through this one and its variants. It might yet have a sting in the tail.

*Airborne