I guess it is an evolutionary thing, not wanting to die seems to be an instinctive characteristic amongst all living creatures. As to why now? CV is a very big unknown and it must be the first major pandemic since we invented mass social media and non stop news coverage - we do seem to be winding ourselves up into a crescendo. Even I am feeling very uneasy about it, we're just being fed this fear 24/7.
Is it a lot worse than they are letting on? why are so many countries so freely destroying their own economies? it is just bizarre, the resulting economic mess will kill millions, may even lead to wars. I really am not getting what is happening, the whole thing is becoming a bit scary.
Edit: this rant is not really aimed at you.
One in a hundred dying (in addition to normal in a short time) is quite a lot. But if it were just those 1% dropping dead that'd only be 500,000 or so Brits dead. However it isn't just 1 in 100 getting sick and dying. Around 8% need to be admitted to hospital.
That's 4,000,000 people needing to go to hospital above normal. We have around 140,000 beds. Even if the rest of the country stopped being ill for any reason during the time there wouldn't be anywhere near enough beds. At that point you have much higher death rates from Covid-19 as people who could be saved with minor treatment can't get it, so they die.
Then because there isn't enough beds people with other illnesses die.
Then because NHS staff get infected and have to go off sick, or have died, there isn't enough staff. So more patients die.
Then, when people really get scared because people are literally dying in the streets the really bad **** kicks off.
If you do nothing then the results will be biblical. If you do a little then they'll be terrible. You have to go over the top or it gets out of control insanely fast.
Could it be terrible? Absolutely. Will it be, probably not, because we're finally taking suitable measures. It's going to be fascinating looking back at places like the UK and US where we dithered and South Korea where they went straight to 11.
It's going to get worse before it gets better. Two or three weeks of the death rate climbing and then perhaps it will start to level and drop.