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normal – for the folk whose livelihoods are physically and mentally ruined, for the teens that watched their vital school point washed down the drain… same as for that tiny minority of old folk that didn't make it.
This.
Plus, for the teens that have had their university time stuffed.
For the early 20's who've had their early careers, their social lives and their chance to meet their partner destroyed.
I’m just going to luxuriate in the feeling of agreeing with Dazh completely about something on this forum. It’s been too long, and I was missing it.
Thanks for confirming doc. Asthma uk officially confirmed yesterday that most of us aren't in scope for group 6 so obviously it's going to be largely pot luck who gets it based on the gp practice.
It's all kicking off on the asthma FB group I'm a member of, as most of the members have been told they don't meet the criteria either.
Appreciate you coming back to me.
One in every five hundred people have died from this. Most of them old folk.
Old people die. All the time. It's never stopped life. Why now? What's changed? You must see that the route to "Zero Covid" is not realistic. Depriving people of their livelihoods and liberty might be justified to stop the collapse of our health systems as a last resort, given their importance in sustaining life, esp. for those who've got yet lived much of it. I don't see that anyone here is disagreeing with this. Are you advocating that we basically suspend 'life' as we knew it for as long as it takes to achieve "Zero Covid". What are you actually advocating?
The regional tiered approach gave is the Kent variant. A lesson needs to be learnt. You can’t carve the UK mainland up successfully. It’s not about punishing areas.
Now extrapolate that to the large landmass to the east of the UK..... 🤔
One in every five hundred people have died from this. Most of them old folk. That is not a tiny minority.
watching with interest as you describe 499/500 not being a majority
or even 1/500 isnt tiny
While everyone would have welcomed a more normal school year, a better life for undergrads, businesses working as usual and taking on more schools leavers as staff… you have or balance that we accepting more than twice the death count, and millions of lives effected by lack of NHS availability. It’s a horrible balancing act. There are no good options. Don’t assume that the bad options we have been through were even close to the worst options.
Dazh. The problem is that without a vaccine that provides sterile immunity and a world beating track and trace i just don't see zero covid being achievable.
Due to the length of time of a person being infectious coupled with the level of infectivity of the virus we will always have outbreaks happening if people are in close contact without protection.
Look at the various superspreader events that have happened.
Best case we can hope for is to prevent severe disease in nearly everyone and take as many precautions (facemasks, handwashing, air handling, and not going into work if you are sick) to keep the low level infections down. We just can't eradicate this virus
it’s going to be largely pot luck who gets it based on the gp practice.
well, hopefully not "Pot Luck" it'll be down to coding (ie has your GP correctly assessed you as either Asthma, or Severe Asthma)
watching with interest as you describe 499/500 not being a majority
or even 1/500 isnt tiny
The claim was a tiny minority of old folk have died from this. It’s bullshit. 1/500 of the entire population has died, and most of those deaths were older people. The ratio in the over 70s must be shocking. Someone will have access to the stats… I’ll guess at 1/50… a significant minority, when we are talking deaths not preference of Pepsi vs Coke.
Aren't 1 in 3 asymptomatic with covid? Test and trace are never going to be able to track all those once we're all back on trains, planes, pubs etc!
The regional tiered approach gave is the Kent variant. A lesson needs to be learnt. You can’t carve the UK mainland up successfully. It’s not about punishing areas.
That was a chance occurrence that could have happened anywhere.
I saw somewhere that Wales as a a whole is back to no excess deaths. So yes you clearly can carve it up.
It’s a lot easier complying with a lockdown when there is a clear reason for it than when there isn’t.
I think a return to a differentiated approach would be a good idea.
i just don’t see zero covid being achievable.
Clearly not.
In terms of Aus/NZ, how sustainable are their measures long-term? Will they have closed borders for the next decade? Countries like Spain, which depend on tourism, simply cannot sustain that. We really are in a mess here.
Old people die. All the time. It’s never stopped life. Why now? What’s changed?
Approx 80,000 or so folk (of all ages) who didn't expect to die. That's what's changed. From a disease that some folks spread without even knowing they have it.
Now extrapolate that to the large landmass to the east of the UK…..
Yea, we have and advantage over them. Have we made the most of that advantage?
From Google.
significant minority. less than half, but still quite a large number. Explanation: A minority means less than 50%. A tiny minority would be a very small proportion - e.g. just 1% or 2% of the total, whereas a "significant" minority is a reasonably large number
I'm not denying it's a lot of people, but there's no way you can say 1/50 is a significant minority, by that definition above it's a tiny minority.
The ratio in the over 70s must be shocking. Someone will have access to the stats… I’ll guess at 1/50… a significant minority, when we are talking deaths not preference of Pepsi vs Coke.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02483-2
UK:
11.6% in the over 75
0.03%for the under 44
Depends what it is. If it was 2% of the land mass of the UK was covered in land mines, you’d call it significant. A truck load of old people have died. Trying to diminish the seriousness of that is just weaselling.
11.6% in the over 75
So 1/10 ? That is depressing. Others can decide on whether, when talking about the deaths of humans, that is significant or not.
I have no idea what nz and aus can do.
I would assume vaccinate as many as possible and test like hell when people enter the country. Accepting that some cases will always happen.
Wasn't it only 388 people under 60 with no underlying health probs for the whole of last year?
Old people die. All the time. It’s never stopped life. Why now? What’s changed?
Can I just throw long covid into the mix as well. It's not as if people either die or just get a mild, flu-like illness, huge numbers are rendered chronically ill for months, as in economically and socially unproductive with all the misery and life-wrecking consequences that entails. But I guess your answer would be along the lines of 'Some people get chronic post-viral infections. All the time. It's never stopped life. Why now? What's changed?'
The claim was a tiny minority of old folk have died from this. It’s bullshit. 1/500 of the entire population has died, and most of those deaths were older people. The ratio in the over 70s must be shocking. Someone will have access to the stats… I’ll guess at 1/50… a significant minority, when we are talking deaths not preference of Pepsi vs Coke.
What's shocking about an 80 year old dying? Sorry, I'm not being obtuse on purpose. I really can't see anything 'wrong' with it. I cannot fathom stopping life indefinitely to prevent this. Preventing collapse of the healthcare system, I absolutely agree - but what's the way out of that? Are we going to see massive redistribution of resources to our health systems? NHS staff shortages were chronic before the pandemic.
So 1/10 ? That is depressing. Others can decide on whether, when talking about the deaths of humans, that is significant or not
At some point we have to mate. In ideal world, we'd all live happily ever after but that's not how it works, is it?
Wasn’t it only 388 people under 60 with no underlying health probs for the whole of last year?
No. It was much earlier in the year. And means nothing ‘till you use it with the knowledge of what proportion of the population fall under the “underlying health problems” categorisation used.
Wasn’t it only 388 people under 60 with no underlying health probs for the whole of last year?
So what? Folk who are dying with underlying health issues have often got chronic issues that can be managed well to give them loads of years, things like Diabetes, and COPD and Asthma most of the people who've died from COVID died before their time.
I really can’t see anything ‘wrong’ with it.
Trolling, or just a [ mods insert acceptable word here please ] ?
We’re in lockdown to ‘ease the strain on the NHS’ ie to prevent a massively incompetent government being chucked out of power when the news shows how the NHS can’t cope.
Some truth in that..
Decades of underfunding & mismanagement have led us to where the NHS is now. It is, fundamentally, not fit for purpose & needs restructuring. It was designed to look after a smaller, healthier population. Not to say it hasn’t grown with its role - but it hasn’t kept up with a growing population that are living longer & are more unhealthy. No amount of money is going to fix the NHS if we don’t restructure how it’s accessed & secondly the general state of the health in the population it will continue to struggle.
I'm sorry you can't discuss this without resorting to name calling. I'm really trying to understand your perspective here. If I live till I'm eighty, I'd see no tragedy in that whatsoever.
What’s shocking about an 80 year old dying? Sorry, I’m not being obtuse on purpose. I really can’t see anything ‘wrong’ with it
but what about the 80yr old Capt. Tom? (That was in 2001, obviously) The stats suggest that if you reach 80, you'll probably get to 85 at least...
And what about the people in their 70s? Can you not see “anything wrong” in thousands of them dying now of a novel disease that we are getting to understand well enough to avoid most deaths in the very near future?
With your approach, why have any healthcare or public health measures that benefit older people?
It was designed to look after a smaller, healthier population
population of the UK was 49 million in 1948, so it's gone up by a massive ooohhh, 17 million or so, and "most" of those are healthy young folk and no, it wasn't healthier either, as a nation we live longer and suffer less malnutrition and disease. We've swapped things like measles and cholera for type 2 diabetes, and asthma, so things that killed you, for things that, managed, will limit your life, but you'll still have years (that you wouldn't have had pre war).
What about him?
And what about the people on their 70s? Can you not see “anything wrong” in thousands of them dying now of a novel disease that we are getting to understand well enough to avoid most deaths in the very near future?
If it means suspending life for indefinite amounts of time, then no. I neither think obessesion for immorality or a total lack of adversion to death and disease are acceptable, and so you need balance, but I'm not seeing any balance in a "Covid Zero" statedgy long-term. You seem optimistic this will "go away" in a year or two, but I don't share that view.
The ratio in the over 70s must be shocking
If it's any use, during my week in hospital on a Covid "red" ward (i.e. positive only) I was the only person I could see to be in their 40's. In fact, I doubt anyone else there was under 60 and the 4-8 blokes I shared a room with were 75-94. The only guy of similar age I met (he had a gravel bike!) was mid 40s and pretty hefty (my BMI is 30; he was about 32). And he was only there as he'd had Covid a few weeks prior and coughed up blood so was in for a CT scan.
I was the only patient I saw who was able to walk unaided; and even then that was probably 200m per day.
Apparently the old dudes could get discharged with O2 sats of 88% - I think the inference was that they are going home to die. Certainly I overheard a few conversations with doctors, when my roommates were lucid, about reviving them if their heart stopped etc. But most of the time they just slept. I guess many of them would have plodded on for years in care homes or being cared for at home, but this virus is going to see off quite a few either by the mechanism of the illness itself or the impact of the isolation or the rise of an underlying illness or... etc.
well, hopefully not “Pot Luck” it’ll be down to coding (ie has your GP correctly assessed you as either Asthma, or Severe Asthma)
Sorry, what I meant is some practices such as Robster's are using the flu jab eligibility criteria as eligibility for group 6, others aren't. If I was registered with robster I'd be placed in group 6 by sounds of things. Hence a bit of pot luck involved.
Anyhow it is what it is and no big deal, I don't want to derail the thread again.
Both my folks finally got the jab yesterday however which is great news.
We’ve swapped things like measles and cholera for type 2 diabetes, and asthma, so things that killed you, for things that, managed, will limit your life, but you’ll still have years (that you wouldn’t have had pre war).
Perhaps things that kill you place a lower burben on the health services than chronic non-fatal conditions that need managing?
The mere fact that a 100-year old war veteran raising funds for the NHS is celebrated rather than a national humiliation is sympotomatic of the general national indifference to increasing the capacity of the NHS. We've got the NHS that people voted for, it is overwhelmed every winter but bed numbers are reduced rather than increased. Expensive treatments are rationed in order to concentrate resources on those with prospects of remaining quality years of life remaining. Never pleasant to weigh lives against money, but better than not even trying to weigh-up the downsides of consigning millions to unemployment and isolation for an indefinite period.
The mere fact that a 100-year old war veteran raising funds for the NHS is celebrated rather than a national humiliation is sympotomatic of the general national indifference to increasing the capacity of the NHS.
****ing well said. I found the whole thing utterly ridiculous.
The vast majority of people in their 70s don't ever need to go out and are perfectly placed to look after themselves, unfortunately they are very people who visibly do the opposite and ignore the rules and advice. Regular contact with younger family members, socialising... .
The result is everyone gets locked down to stop the oldies filling hospital beds.
Next time you go out observe the age of peoplr huddled in a group with masks below their noses.
I'm more and more impressed with how the Swedes are doing at maintaining a reasonable level of activity whilst doing no worse than places going through a series of lockdowns.
I agree with a lot Alpin's contributions.
It’s not whether they’ll die or not that matters, we all do that sooner or later.
Its years of life lost.
Next time you go out observe the age of peoplr huddled in a group with masks below their noses.
Youngish to Middle aged dog walkers and families meeting up, round my way. Do I win a prize?
Pretty depressing reading a lot of this as a 73 year old. Just wait until some of you are a bit older.
Just for a bit of balance, I have a low BMI, ride my turbo regularly, knock around 5,000miles a year on my bike on average. Started mtbing a year or so back and don't just ride fire roads. Rode the Tourmalet on my 70th birthday, Luz Ardiden the next day, Hautacam the following year.
My wife does pilates and walks and was an international 400 metre runner.
Please don't class as all as ready to give up and keel over yet.
I know a lot of people who are similair.
But yes, I understand the affect this is having on younger people (and children's lives) and agree that there needs to be a balance. In fact for us at the moment the biggest worry is that our son, who is a sound engineer, has had to scrabble around for work doing anything rather than the tours and festvals he had planned at the end of 2019.
Ah… Sweden. We could go on for pages debunking the idea that life hasn’t been seriously restricted there [edit: to be clear, you haven’t claimed that Ed] and that they should be held up as an example against restrictions elsewhere. But why bother? It’ll just come up again later in much the same way.
In fact for us at the moment the biggest worry is that our son, who is a sound engineer, has had to scrabble around for work doing anything rather than the tours and festvals he had planned at the end of 2019.
It’s the forgotten industry, hit not just by restrictions here, but restrictions on travel as well. The sector most abandoned by our government. I know plenty of people with no work, many with no support from the state at all. It’s a horrible mess. And they will be the last to see their businesses opened up again, if they even make it that far. I know people who work summer here, and then summer down under, and really wish they’d got stuck down there not back in blighty. For those based there, work is starting to build up again.
The 70 plus demographic will certainly have a different view on death to us younger types.
Born pre NHS, they probably had siblings dead in infancy, school friends succumb to diseases we now vaccinate against.
Stories of uncles in their 20s that never came back from Germany.
Most of their lives lived without health and safetly or seatbelts etc probably claimed a few firends and colleagues.
And now in retirement their peers will be succumbing to old age.
I'm pretty sure I have a grand total of 2 friends/former friends who died under 50. (this was a few years back, one late forties, one mid 20s.
In addition to 1 death at my (1600 pupil) school, 2 at my (30000 student) university.