How much longer are we meant to do this?

[Creamteaincornwall]

I have so many friends who are at the end of their tether. Some suicidal, many almost.
I attend a zoom support group for my mental health and emotional well being as I have BPD and ASD. The last few weeks have been horrendous, every person is at the lowest they’ve been since the beginning of all this.
The amount of posts I’ve read on various Facebook groups of people saying they don’t want to get up in the morning anymore, they just stay in bed. Surely this isn’t doing anyone any good physically or mentally?
Surely this will put most in a weaker position if they were to catch covid?

How much more are we all suppose to take of this? With no end in sight?

@Wherediditgo

Why aren’t we perpetually terrified of ALL viruses circulating and mutating?

Couldn’t the common cold circulate and mutate to make all our arms drop off or something?
Or couldn’t Norovirus mutate to cause our bowels to explode??

Exactly. This is why I’m not sure it’s a good idea to keep the general public informed about every new variants we detect. We only know about them because we’re one of the leading countries for genomic sequencing. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t really be too bothered as long as hospitalisations/deaths weren’t increasing.

I’m not sure it’s a good idea to keep the general public informed about every new variants we detect

If you want to hide facts from the public, it means you're afraid of what those facts mean.

All the countries who don't have our sequencing capabilities are worse off than us in this regard.

People who want to cover things up are never acting in the public interest. They are trying to dupe people.

Science and honesty will guide us out - not censorship and secrecy.

society needs to go back to normal.

Normal was a bit shit. We need something better than the old normal.

@inquietant It’s not about hiding things or trying to cover things up. It’s about the general public not actually understanding or knowing what do with the information and yelling about MUTANT VARIANTS all over the internet.

It makes perfect sense for scientists to keep track of these things and let us know if there’s something of concern but a virus mutating shouldn’t really be headline news if it isn’t causing problems. It’s what viruses do.

Couldn’t the common cold circulate and mutate to make all our arms drop off or something?

No. Colds are viruses that have already mutated to something milder so they can transmit more.

Viruses don’t win by killing us, they just want to replicate.

[quote bumbleymummy]@inquietant It’s not about hiding things or trying to cover things up. It’s about the general public not actually understanding or knowing what do with the information and yelling about MUTANT VARIANTS all over the internet.

It makes perfect sense for scientists to keep track of these things and let us know if there’s something of concern but a virus mutating shouldn’t really be headline news if it isn’t causing problems. It’s what viruses do.[/quote]
That is paternalistic censorship and censorship is bad.

It would just undermine trust in the more educated who do understand sufficiently.

You can't treat adults like children.

And they'll just lie under pressure from the government. You're basically describing the Chinese approach to scientific information.

While I agree with that about censorship @inquietant we currently find ourselves in a situation where the general public is being given information by the government, the MSM, social media etc about a virus in real time.

In other words, unprecedented.

a virus mutating shouldn’t really be headline news if it isn’t causing problems

It's causing problems though...

Yeah but no but....

Definitely problems.

We only know about them because we’re one of the leading countries for genomic sequencing. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t really be too bothered as long as hospitalisations/deaths weren’t increasing.

Oh for goodness sake. You actually want to be on the back foot.

Or you want the men in white coats and the men in Whitehall to spring lockdowns they have seen coming for weeks but thought it was better for us not to bother our little heads with?

That is the most ridiculous thing I've read here.

@tobee

While I agree with that about censorship *@inquietant* we currently find ourselves in a situation where the general public is being given information by the government, the MSM, social media etc about a virus in real time.

Which is positive, overall, imo.

We are much less likely to be lied to with raw data available.

The alternative is China, Russia... Is that your preference?

What people say now is what was said about the printing press.

The only people I know using the term mutant variants are here. Maybe access a better quality source of info?

There are variants caused by mutations. If you have a problem with the public knowing about it, I'm pretty sure you have vested interests you prepared haven't declared, maybe even to yourself.

I assumed mutant variant was a joke like mutant algorithm.

That sounds like an interesting joke. I'm not built to understand the concept of algorithms much less the idea that they could mutate. Could they?!

Oh I've just remembered. Tory ridiculousness.

news.sky.com/story/covid-19-extending-gap-between-coronavirus-jab-doses-creates-small-risk-of-escaped-mutant-variant-whitty-12180180

Looks like Whitty described the variant as "escaped mutant"

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8971426/

Happy to be corrected but mutant variant seems like a legitimate term here?

totally agree with you op

what the fuck

as a PhD in immunological science, not sure what I'm allowed to say

they are playing with us really believe me

mutants number 5000 thus far why make a show, yes why...,

suggest look at the law regarding Nuremberg convention, just saying...

I

Think