Over reaction to current situation

[Dutch01527]

I fully agree with the social distancing regulation, keep 2m away from other people, limit visits to shops, close pubs , work from home if possible ect.

However, it seems to me that we there unnecessary degree of big brother in some elements of the response to the pandemic. A kind of media fuelled mass hysteria that has forced the politicians to panic.

The majority of the uk is still working more or less as usual, many factories are still open, we can buy any goods online and have them delivered, everyone can go to the local food shop, newsagent, hardware store, laundrette or take away food shop.

However, we can not go for a drive, a sail, walk on a deserted mountain or sit alone and fish. I could drive to my boat, fill up with petrol to get there using a card pay pump, go and sail my boat for a weekend and stay at anchor without coming within 10 metres of anybody but that is a crime. Yes there is a tiny chance of me being infected and having to call for assistance and I would be happy to take my chances and not have access to help if I needed it.

The economic, mental health, domestic violence and suicide consequences of the current approach will be massive. In the last week 1% of UK deaths were from the virus, mainly people with a very short life expectancy. There were 80,000 tobacco related deaths last year in the UK but we still allow tobacco sales.

I think that we could take a leaf out of Sweden’s book and treat people more like intelligent adults. Just for the record, I am following the current rules to the letter, this is just an personal opinion which I think we are still allowed to have.

 

[Laser310]

I agree - we are at the point where there is a good chance - 20.., 30%.., maybe greater, that the cure may be catastrophically worse than the disease.

Healthy young to middle aged people - say under 55 have a vanishingly small chance of dying from this disease. It's not zero.., but it's very small.

The chance of young people dying from the cure.., i.e. huge social and economic disruption.., is not zero.., and it is growing daily.

The notion that we can obliterate huge sections of the economy.., with all of it's interdependencies - many of which are unknown - and still count on food being delivered to the cities for weeks or months, is extremely dangerous.

We have transferred risk from old people with underlying health issues on to young healthy people. I hope we don't regret it.

In case you are wondering -I am over 60. If I go.., I go.., everyone dies. I have children in their 20's - I am more fearful for their lives than my own.

 

[dom]

I agree - we are at the point where there is a good chance - 20.., 30%.., maybe greater, that the cure may be catastrophically worse than the disease.

Healthy young to middle aged people - say under 55 have a vanishingly small chance of dying from this disease. It's not zero.., but it's very small.

Their chance of young people dying from the cure.., i.e. huge social and economic disruption.., is not zero.., and it is growing daily.

The notion that we can obliterate huge sections of the economy.., with all of it's interdependencies - many of which are unknown - and still count on food being delivered to the cities for weeks or months, is extremely dangerous.

We have transferred risk from old people with underlying health issues on to young healthy people. I hope we don't regret it.

Nowhere near enough data to support such speculation.

Also, let this out of the bag and there ain’t no going back.

 

[Dutch01527]

I live in a rural area of the country and saw first hand the mental health and suicide consequences of the foot and mouth crisis on the farming community. It was under reported but very significant.

Disagree with, but respect, the “ let it out of the bag” sentiment. Intelligent, considered debate should be possible in a mature society.

 

[rotrax]

Take a look at New York, then rethink your post.

It is not going to get better there soon.

The bit of philosophy I put on a week ago might help, from Peter Ustinov.

" It is only in specific battles for specific lives that our culture is put to the test, and with it our humanity. "

 

[LadyInBed]

" It is only in specific battles for specific lives that our culture is put to the test, and with it our humanity. "

Above my pay grade!

 

[rotrax]

This seems to be one of those specific battles, testing our culture, and certainly our humanity.

We could easily do a Trump and Bolsinaro (Brazilian President) and say sod it, take your chances, but most of the world has taken a different route.

Which will prove to have been the best approach?

 

[Ningaloo]

Agree with laser_310 that we seem to be placing a massive economic legacy on those of working age to preserve those in retirement (or more correctly of retirement age).
I have found full statistics on the age of fatalities hard to come by but I sense that far less than 1% are fit, healthy, non smoking, non obese, under 60.

Why not triage the lockdown to those that are vulnerable and keep those of working age free to keep working and paying taxes?

It is generally accepted that a vaccine is at least 18 months away. Are we seriously expecting that civil order can be maintained if the lockdown continues that long?

The government have chosen a very ill advised mantra since the strategy of flattening the curve has never been about saving lives.. simply delaying death. The flattened curve still covers the same overall area (number of fatalities).

We do need the non vulnerable cohort within society to generate antibodies. WHO suggested 65% of the population need this to control spread given infection transmission of 2.4 per person/day.

This will only happen by relaxing current lockdown for the non vulnerable and ensuring that the vulnerable are effectively quarantined.

 

[Babylon]

"Which will prove to have been the best approach?"

Both. Initially this blunt lock-down, then a slightly more nuanced approach after the medical and essential sectors have caught up and we have the luxury of fettling, finally the longer-term when things can get back to almost-normal. But its all a question of timing, and no sane administration (nor even any despotic one) has any alternative.

Yes, there are tons of leisure activities (including sailing or boat maintenance in remote locations, fishing, hill-walking, pony-riding, driving around the whole of the M25 on a full tank of fuel) which will later be proved to have had (had they happened) virtually no impact on the spread of the virus nor any remotely significant draw on the emergency services, but right now there's no room for subtlety. Nor, while people are dying prematurely (including the younger too), medics seriously risking their own lives and people being hit hard, can there be any moral justification for exceptionalism.

Of the businesses that fail, others will succeed. Some people will lose opportunities while others will gain them. Every country's GDP will drop relative to their own previous figures, but all will remain almost exactly the same relative to one another.

The best way to assure one own's mental health is to severely ration one's exposure to news and gossip media, and busy oneself instead with tasks and projects that feed the mind and the body.

 

[Dutch01527]

No one was suggesting saying sod it. What was been questioned was the nature of the actions taken balancing short term and long term harm. Perhaps the true humanity is in achieving that balance.

Rather than focusing on individuals perhaps we would of been better off focusing on large scale testing from day one, contact tracing and mobilising a national effort to give the NHS the tools it needs.

A blanket rule on social distancing such as ” never be closer than 2m to individuals you do not live with except in the following circumstances .......”. would have been equally effective but less restrictive.

 

[Babylon]

Dutch, that subtlety will come. As it takes time for an individual mind to adjust to a sudden new reality, so it does for that of a whole political and economic culture, . What's available from day one for for compliant Far Eastern cultures, doesn't easily translate for consensual ones like our own.

We simply weren't equipped for any large scale testing or reliable contact tracing, and we're currently still in the phase of getting the NHS battle-ready. Stopping almost everything else is ridiculously blunt and damaging in itself, but - like sending small children by train out of London to live with complete strangers in 1940 - its the only available initial option.

 

[Ningaloo]

Sweden seems to have found a happy middle way. Yes, they have deaths but are managing those.

I am the only one that thinks a flattened curve delays (expected) death rather than saving lives?

We all (a least the healthy) need to get exposed to this at some time if we do not want accept permanent lockdown.

 

[Resolution]

The young vs old debate is a very valid one and one which should be re-started once the medical aspects of this pandemic have either blown over or been tamed. The sick cynic in me suggests that the young are more likely to win post-pandemic as a broad swathe of old people will have been removed from the vote.
Comments against distancing and other reduction measures are simply flying in the face of hard facts. In country after country the pandemic has spread exponentially until lockdown measures were put in place. The numbers are simple. For example, in the UK deaths have been rising at an exponential rate which, if unchanged, will lead to 2 million deaths a day by the end of April. In this nightmare we will be running out of old people and pre-morbidity people to kill and your fraction of a percent of younger, fitter people dying will be rather a lot. Hospitals will of course have run out of doctors and nurses and the surge of new ventilators will be too late. With our present soft lockdown measures I guess the hope is to flatten the curve and keep the numbers down in the thousands, have enough surviving medical staff and ventilators to cope better.
The arguments about testing and PPE should wait till later. Sure it looks like the UK was slow to react and some other countries got in first to buy up much of the worldwide supply of key parts, but let's focus on doing the right things based on current knowledge and with kit actually available.
Personal disclaimer: I'm in my 70s, but with much loved children and grandchildren, for whom my heart bleeds.

 

[Ningaloo]

in this nightmare we will be running out of old people and pre-morbidity people to kill and your fraction of a percent of younger, fitter people dying will be rather a lot.

Why would the virus become more virulent once the frail have been despatched?

 

[Poignard]

[...] right now there's no room for subtlety. Nor, while people are dying prematurely (including the younger too), medics seriously risking their own lives and people being hit hard, can there be any moral justification for exceptionalism.
[...]

That is the nub of it .

 

[Boater Sam]

Over reacting and imposing heavy control on the population could well create a chronovirus, a time bomb in the very people we are trying to protect.

 

[Tomahawk]

I suspect the problem is perception and public reaction
As saidd above, there is no vacine, This will get everyone it can get over the course of time. The only thing the present approach does is to reduce the spike load on health services so that they can just about cope. That will save many thousands of lives who would otherwise die for want of access to ICU when they are .... note when not iff..... ill.

Without this heavy handed lock down there would be some 500,000 dead people all in a rush over about a month with bodies literally piling up in the streets. The. news reaction would cause a panic because the media simply love to call everything a crisis.

 

[Ningaloo]

My understanding is that by the time a ventilator is needed there is only 50% chance of survival.
This is why we are hearing to that ventilators will not be used unless there is a reasonable chance of recovery, of that ventilators will be removed if there is another casualty more likely to survive.

No time to be emotional here. The reality is that the frail are unlikely to survive contracting this. Provide palliative care by all means, but this does not need hospital or even advanced medical facilities.

 

[newtothis]

Just going to post this on every thread where armchair epidemiologists need to consider whether their advice is relevant.

 

[Ningaloo]

Just going to post this on every thread where armchair epidemiologists need to consider whether their advice is relevant.

Don't think anyone is offering advice. Just their opinions which are shaped by (in no particular order) government statements, media and obsevation of other countries response to the issue.