To be terrified of coughing? Can someone talk sense into me please

[nonaomi]

I feel like I've lost all sense of logic again recently.

When it all first started, I was terrified I would get it or that my loved ones would get it. Then I read lots of statistics to calm myself down about the actual risk of death - statistically. It's low. It calmed me somewhat. Then summer came and I was still afraid, but I tried to remember the statistics.

Now things are opening up and I've had my first vaccine too, but I'm freaking out again a lot. I feel so anxious out and about. Even outside when people get close to me. I feel anxious about going to the shops etc.

Whenever I head my daughter cough or my husband or whenever I have a slight tickle in my throat, I completely freak out. I'm exhausted. It's been over a year of this fear.

Can someone talk sense into me please ? Isn't it a bit ridiculous to be so afraid of covid ? Most people do just fine even if they catch covid, right ? I

most coughs aren't covid

I've discovered my baseline coughing frequency & it's plenty.

I understand there are formal methods to get better from anxiety.

All my friends who caught covid are absolutely fine, they felt rough for a few days but that it. Much like the winter viruses that we get from time to time. Don't worry!

Does anyone have a good statistic from a reputable source to share on death rates ?

Do you think looking at more statistics is going to help your anxiety OP?

Be careful asking for assurance here OP.
People here will tell you you’re severely mentally ill or here to spread doom!!

Have a a look at the ONS. They have all of the statistics available.

@Dandylioness1 good point. I do have CBT and talk about my anxiety, but it hasn't really helped that much to be honest. I don't want to medicate right now as I'll be TTCing soonish and don't want to come off it etc. So just trying to get by without.

Statistics do help a lot actually ! I remind myself to put it all in perspective.

How old are you OP?

I’ve been the same Op. had a really rough time in October and got some help from my doc who prescribed me with some Sertraline. I still struggle sometimes but manage to keep it in perspective a bit more. It’s been nearly 18months and we are still here. My dh & dd have hay fever so are a bit snotty/coughing at the moment and my other dd has a nasal drip which makes her cough in the morning (although this seems less when she’s on her inhaler) so it’s been stressful. I often default to dh and take his opinion as he’s much less stressed about it all than I am.

@SlidesAndLadders I'm in my early thirties

@Daisy829 aw I feel for you. My daughter was coughing a bit today and it freaked me out so much. I think she just choked a bit on her breakfast.. I take Lateral flow tests a lot, so I know I probably don't have it. That reassured me a bit. ( I only take LFTs when I don't have symptoms )

Here's some stats for England

So the latest figures from the ons are that there are 7100 daily new infections in England. This is between 3-8th April. Figures continue down, so it's going to be less by now.
The chance of having it asymptomatically are about 1 in 20, but we can take the ludicrous figure of 1 in 3 that we were terrified by earlier on.
So we now have 2366 wandering the streets with covid. Hopefully everyone else is quarantining as they should.

Divide that by the population in England - roughly 56 million.
1 in 23,668 chance of coming across anyone with it, so your chances of a cough being covid after extremely low.

The positivity rate of people being tested is 0.9 - less than 1 in 100. This is by PCR, rather than lateral flow, so presumably most people are coming forward for testing thinking they may have symptoms and finding out its something else.

Just to illustrate how numbers are continuing down. The weekly average of the Zoe covid app estimate of daily infections on 20th April
was 668 for the whole of England. Down 35 percent on a week ago (1027) and 79 percent on 4 weeks ago (3137)
The Zoe app tends to pick up trends up or down before any of the other surveys, so it's like an early warning system.
Anyway going by their figures, a 1 in 83,832 chance of coming across someone with covid in the week ending 20th April.

@Buzzinwithbez thank you. I was looking for something like this

I had Covid and didn’t cough once.

You don't just suddenly get a cough... you'd be unwell before. Plus it's a deep dry cough not a tickle in your throat.