I'm done

[nomore33]

I cannot do this anymore. I work in an industry that has been completely destroyed by Covid and me, DH and our young DC are now facing an extremely difficult future financially. I have no option really but to retrain, which could take years - and I don't know where to start or whether there will even be any jobs at the end of it.

We've lost almost everything we've worked so hard for (including our home, which is now on the market) for a virus with a death rate of 1%. It's beyond soul destroying and I'm so tired and sad. I feel completely beaten down by life and like me and my family don't matter - it's all about Covid now. Honestly, what is the point?

@OakSnows was everyone at your wedding over 80? If not, then your 1% analogy still isn't correct. Plus you don't seem to remember that people die anyway. I had 60 people at my wedding 6 years ago. 3 of them have since passed away. That's approximately 1% per year. And guess what, all three of those were over 80 (one was over 100).

I can’t wait to see what tricks Sunak is going to pull out of the bag to start paying for it all.

Must be nice if your retired sitting in your house fully paid for (and with its currently ridiculously inflated value as a result of you being kept alive forever hogging the resource through lack of supply & demand) Yep, in that situation, I’m sure it’d be just dandy-o to remain locked down for as long as it takes.

I’d start by raising the rate & lowering the Inheritance Tax threshold to counter some of those ridiculous property equity gains. You want to live an extra 5-10 years or so & be ‘saved’ from Covid? Then start contributing to the cost of lockdown.

Sunak won’t do this though, because he hasn’t got the cojones & these types are the Tories natural voter base.

I think if you come from a family that has good genetics and grandparents live into their late 80s or early 90s toy have a very different view about death to families where grandfathers die at 68 and oldest relative only got to 70. Some of us are more use to death than we should be. My teens have lost all three of their grandparents all in the 70s. So they don’t expect people to live to 90.

I see the 1% still hasn’t been explained ie the 1 in a 100 people dying with Covid. How does that equate to the 100,000 and a population of 67m. Who is excluded to get to the 1%. Perhaps @OakSnows could explain please.

@Coffeeandcocopops I was going to reply saying that’s not how you work out death rate, your understanding of maths is wrong. But there is no point. I’m off to change my user name and shocked that possibly I have family members who think the same way as you despite having healthcare professionals working in ITU.

OP, it sucks, apologises for the derailing, there is nothing that can make any of this better for those who have lost jobs/houses/livelihood/lies.

@nomore33 so horrid for you and your family, my heart goes out to you.

I don't know what your work background is but the NHS have bank admin staff and are always crying out for workers. Feel free to private message me if you'd like details.

The lockdown is to prevent services being overwhelmed, not just to stop the "elderly" dying and HOW do we propose 100,000s die in a short space of time if sevices are overwhelmed anyway, eg no ambulance, no hospital, no oxygen, no pain relief, no GP, no nurse? Is this what people want when they say "let the elderly die" ?

Also the elderly are often too frail to be ventilated anyway, and so the ones being ventilated, or receiving intensive care, are relatively young. If we had not locked down last March , 500,000 people would have died of covid by the end of April, and many more would have been sick and in need of medical assistance. Many medical staff, also police, social services etc, would have been sick as well and so unable to work. So then there would also be the avoidable deaths in all age groups due to that not of covid

To say "end lockdowns and let the virus free so the elderly can die off", is abhorrent anyway, but it also misses the point that
1 Those elderly would have to die with no medical or palliative care at all, many of them alone and in pain
2 intensive care for those in their 50s, 60s and even younger would be largely unavailable
3 the NHS would be overwhelmed and so anyone, of any age, would also be at risk of dying of treatable illness, accidents etc

The vaccine will help to ease restrictions but its early days to see yet how effective it will be, but it's going well so far.

I'm not saying all this as someone who hasn't been affected by lockdown economically. I'm on UC now, I used to work in retail, and my home has been like an ice box all winter because I've really struggled to afford heating.

OP I'm sorry for what you're going through, but with the vaccine programme hopefully things will improve in the summer and the economy start to recover. Hope things improve for you, and everyone suffering financial hardship, soon

I agree that’s not how death rates are calculated. But if we are going to go around saying that out of 100 people , one is going to die with Covid then the general population needs to know how it is calculated. As currently just over 100,000 have died with Covid - huge huge figure but with a population of 67m.

Many elderly are dying in homes with minimal medical intervention. Same as they have always done. Many elderly explicitly tell the staff not to let them go into hospital. That’s nothing new.

@Coffeeandcocopops

I think if you come from a family that has good genetics and grandparents live into their late 80s or early 90s toy have a very different view about death to families where grandfathers die at 68 and oldest relative only got to 70. Some of us are more use to death than we should be. My teens have lost all three of their grandparents all in the 70s. So they don’t expect people to live to 90.

I DO expect people to live til 90, but have also experienced enough in life (am mid 30s) to know that quality of life is more important than quantity.

Baffling that some people don't get it.

@Rupertpenrysmistress how easy is it to get into something like nursing for a washed up, middle aged mum like me?

Not sure nursing is realistic if you’re in, say, your fifties (I’m 56, by the time I qualified I’m not sure anyone would employ me?).
The care sector though is desperate for compassionate, caring people with life experience who would enjoy working with older people or people of all ages with additional needs. Most good companies will provide structured training and qualifications too.
Atm, I think it’s chronically underpaid but I’m optimistic that when this is all over, terms and conditions will begin to improve. One of the few positives to have come out of this nightmare is how important the sector is. That will only become more apparent as our population continues to age.

If we had not locked down last March , 500,000 people would have died of covid by the end of April

This is conjecture

To say "end lockdowns and let the virus free so the elderly can die off", is abhorrent anyway, but it also misses the point that
1 Those elderly would have to die with no medical or palliative care at all, many of them alone and in pain
2 intensive care for those in their 50s, 60s and even younger would be largely unavailable
3 the NHS would be overwhelmed and so anyone, of any age, would also be at risk of dying of treatable illness, accidents etc

Not necessarily if we unlocked now they wouldn’t.
How many millions of people do you think have had Covid now and there have some degree of immunity to it? Add that to the vaccine program and that adds up to millions of people in this country with some immunity. And that number keeps going up and up, even as we speak.

Flaxmeadow
Many medical staff, also police, social services etc, would have been sick as well and so unable to work. So then there would also be the avoidable deaths in all age groups due to that not of covid

The NHS was practically shut down to all but covid anyway! And the government suspended the duty of councils to provide adequate social care. And what about all the disruption and staff shortage caused by self-isolating?
Loads of people are asymptomatic, so they'd still be in work if we'd just let it rip. Others would rapidly gain immunity maybe after a couple of weeks off. Or a couple of days.
Some would die, and we'd all have a new appreciation of life and perhaps (looking at who died) try to look after our health a bit more. It's actually easier for people to cope with trauma caused by natural events (virus) than human made ones (lockdown).

To say "end lockdowns and let the virus free so the elderly can die off", is abhorrent anyway

It's less abhorrent than saying "let millions of people suffer and have their lives ruined so some people, mainly those who've already had a full life, can live a bit longer".

6.9m people are estimated to have had Covid so far
Add that to the 16m already vaccinated and you have a rough total of 45 - 50% with some immunity/previous exposure.

There’s no need to carry this on now. Especially if they stick to handwashing and mask wearing, SD where it is possible etc and closed borders.... People who test positive isolating now the numbers are lower.... there is a lot sitting between ‘full lock down’ and ‘let the virus rip through’

@AnniversaryScaresMe

Flaxmeadow Many medical staff, also police, social services etc, would have been sick as well and so unable to work. So then there would also be the avoidable deaths in all age groups due to that not of covid

The NHS was practically shut down to all but covid anyway! And the government suspended the duty of councils to provide adequate social care. And what about all the disruption and staff shortage caused by self-isolating?
Loads of people are asymptomatic, so they'd still be in work if we'd just let it rip. Others would rapidly gain immunity maybe after a couple of weeks off. Or a couple of days.
Some would die, and we'd all have a new appreciation of life and perhaps (looking at who died) try to look after our health a bit more. It's actually easier for people to cope with trauma caused by natural events (virus) than human made ones (lockdown).

To say "end lockdowns and let the virus free so the elderly can die off", is abhorrent anyway

It's less abhorrent than saying "let millions of people suffer and have their lives ruined so some people, mainly those who've already had a full life, can live a bit longer".

I completely agree

‘6.9m people are estimated to have had Covid so far’

I think it’s more than that personally tbh

eg 100,000 cases a day is 36.5 million in a year. Sure, there have been peaks & troughs, lower & higher but there have been a lot of untested/asymptomatic cases also.

@MummyPop00

‘6.9m people are estimated to have had Covid so far’

I think it’s more than that personally tbh

eg 100,000 cases a day is 36.5 million in a year. Sure, there have been peaks & troughs, lower & higher but there have been a lot of untested/asymptomatic cases also.

It must be more than that if the death rate is 1%. 100 times the numbers of dead people is nearer 12 million.

@Wherediditgo

If we had not locked down last March , 500,000 people would have died of covid by the end of April

This is conjecture

To say "end lockdowns and let the virus free so the elderly can die off", is abhorrent anyway, but it also misses the point that
1 Those elderly would have to die with no medical or palliative care at all, many of them alone and in pain
2 intensive care for those in their 50s, 60s and even younger would be largely unavailable
3 the NHS would be overwhelmed and so anyone, of any age, would also be at risk of dying of treatable illness, accidents etc

Not necessarily if we unlocked now they wouldn’t.
How many millions of people do you think have had Covid now and there have some degree of immunity to it? Add that to the vaccine program and that adds up to millions of people in this country with some immunity. And that number keeps going up and up, even as we speak.

Remember we can't talk about herd immunity

@RedcurrantPuff

Exactly. 120,000 deaths out of 6.9m gives an IFR of 1.7%. In the same ball park as all the oldies on the Diamond Express. So those figures are crap imho. Just look at all those asymptomatic students for starters.

We have no idea how many would have died if we hadn’t locked down. There were some arguments that we were late in locking down in the first week so we actually peaked the week before lockdown in some areas. Cases would have fallen over Spring and Summer and we weren’t testing back then so we have no idea how many have had it.

But yes the risk is that the NHS would have been overwhelmed.
Viruses all seem to have a certain path, lockdowns just prolong the inevitable which again you could argue we needed to do. I personally think we should have got kids back to school last May and taken advantage of outdoors lessons and seasonality.

I feel by keeping everyone locked away until July, you push the second wave back to Autumn. And make it worse by everyone going back to work and school and Uni at the same time...

I find the California versus Florida example interesting. Overall death rates are similar. California has been in and out of lockdowns and always has seen a sharp increase the minute they open up again. Florida last came out of lockdown in July since then many things have been open with not too many restrictions. Yes it looked quite bad over the summer but then that was summer so hospitals could cope.... The local economy is doing better in Florida and you don’t have the same devastating impact that lockdowns have.
Now it needs studying more but it’s interesting....

France hasn’t gone in to another lockdown either and they have a steady case rate all over winter. Cases could rise again but they’ve avoided lockdown.

Does locking people down and opening up repeatedly cause spikes I wonder?
I’m not really arguing either way but we have a year of evidence now with lots of countries doing different things...

I see the 1% still hasn’t been explained ie the 1 in a 100 people dying with Covid. How does that equate to the 100,000 and a population of 67m.

It's not 1% of the population dying of/with Covid, it's 1% of those who have tested positive for Covid. See here

"In high income countries, the estimated overall infection fatality ratio (IFR) is 1.15%
The infection fatality ratio (IFR) is a key statistic for estimating the burden of COVID-19 and has been continuously debated throughout the current pandemic.
This ratio represents the proportion of deaths among all infected individuals."

Note also that they state the rate is lower in low-income countries, due to their being fewer elderly people in such countries.

It must be more than that if the death rate is 1%. 100 times the numbers of dead people is nearer 12 million

I guess we don’t actually accurately know what the death rate is - we would have to have data for every single person who has had Covid - and many won’t have been tested or even shown symptoms. But it is still a very good point!

I read this morning that 60% of deaths are disabled people, including those with learning disabilities. Only 17.2% of the population, but 60% of the deaths.

That isn't OK. That isn't 'Oh well, they're well off homeowners in their 80s, they've had a good innings'. That's people who were already disadvantaged socially, economically and physically/mentally throughout their lives or following an illness or injury. People who could be teaching, driving buses, nursing, caring for others, going about their daily lives before this with disadvantage, but still doing no different to anybody else in paying bills, working, loving their families and living as full a life as society could be arsed to permit; not just helpless residents of care homes.

There doesn't sound like much in the way of privilege in their lives. Which all had equal value.

The NHS was practically shut down to all but covid anyway!

No the NHS had/has not "shut down".

And the government suspended the duty of councils to provide adequate social care.

Social sevices etc are still functioning

And what about all the disruption and staff shortage caused by self-isolating?

Which would be far worse without lockdown restrictions

Loads of people are asymptomatic, so they'd still be in work if we'd just let it rip.

They can still pass the virus on

Others would rapidly gain immunity maybe after a couple of weeks off. Or a couple of days.

Immunity is only thought to last 6 months

Some would die, and we'd all have a new appreciation of life and perhaps (looking at who died) try to look after our health a bit more.

How do you suggest these 100,000s of (surplus to requirements in your opinion) people die within a few weeks? At home in their beds? In the street? Gasping in hospital car parks maybe?

It's actually easier for people to cope with trauma caused by natural events (virus) than human made ones (lockdown)

So if we end lockdown and the services collapse, you won't be bothered if you, or any of your family, need an ambulance, a doctor, A&E and nothing is there?

It's less abhorrent than saying "let millions of people suffer and have their lives ruined so some people, mainly those who've already had a full life, can live a bit longer"

It isn't about that. It's about preventing the services from becoming overwhelmed for ALL of us

Also it's deaths within 28 days of a positive covid test. Huge difference between dying OF covid and dying WITH covid which hugely skews the numbers. The death rate is likely far lower than 1%.....