Remove all media, do we really have a pandemic?

RrogerD said:

Had each of these that you mention been hyped the way the media has hyped this 'pandemic' then yes, we'd all be running around paranoid about everything.

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It is rather more than the 'media hype' you suggest it is and would have been much worse than it has turned out to be in the UK, had it not been for the measures taken and the vaccinations. Without the 'media hype', fewer would have bothered to have the jab and many more would have died or be suffering the long covid.

And not everyone is running around paranoid about it.
The vast majority of people are being sensible and taking precautions 'just in case they come into contact' with it.
If you are a smoker, (and as I don't know you then I obviously don't know if you are), would you fill your car/lawnmower/boat/plane whilst smoking a cigarette?
No because you know it is dangerous and stupid. Covid is still an unknown quantity and as such should be treated with respect and caution.

Covid is NOT now an unknown quantity, to say it is shows a complete and utter ignorance of exactly what's been happening all these months. We now know more about this virus than we do most others.

We have the statistics to prove that a small percentage are seriously affected & an even smaller precentage of those die OF covid & not WITH covid.

At this stage of the pandemic it would be far more sensible, easier & better for society as a whole to lockdown those who are statistically far more likely to suffer serious effects & let the virus run it's course until herd immunity kicks in worldwide.

Like many others I do not know of anyone who has died of this virus. The only deaths I have heard of from friends of friends have been in the old folks homes, which frankly scares me as I suspect a program of 'euthanasia' is/was in place.

Dork Lard said:

We have the statistics to prove that a small percentage are seriously affected & an even smaller precentage of those die OF covid & not WITH covid.

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Indeed, 2% mortality is quite small. Untill you actually work out how many people live in the UK

IT Minion said:

Indeed, 2% mortality is quite small. Untill you actually work out how many people live in the UK

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Statistics & science tell us who those 2% are. Why not focus all our efforts on protecting those 2%, rather than all the exertion on futile attempts to protect the 100%?

I'm increasingly worried that all of this nonsense is all about changing the 100% & if I'm right then 100% of us should be VERY worried.

Dork Lard said:

Statistics & science tell us who those 2% are. Why not focus all our efforts on protecting those 2%, rather than all the exertion on futile attempts to protect the 100%?

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Because it is impossible?

Even with the limitations on visits to care homes for the second wave, and the start of vaccinations for care home residents, there were more Covid deaths than the first wave. With everything we did, thousands died anyway, because trying to build perfect bubbles around every care home is impossible if Covid-19 is rampant in the population.

Trying to apply those same controls to everyone over the age of 50, forever, is also madness. Pointless madness because as mentioned it doesn't work.

We've given up on controlling Covid-19 now, because we think we might have got enough people vaccinated. To protect the vulnerable everyone needs to be protected.

Also, minor point, we don't know exactly who's going to die if the catch Covid-19. We know it's mostly the over 50s or vulnerable groups, but that isn't 2% of the population.

Dork Lard said:

Statistics & science tell us who those 2% are. Why not focus all our efforts on protecting those 2%, rather than all the exertion on futile attempts to protect the 100%?

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If it were only possible to determine who those 2% were, it really isn't.

If only it were even possible to determine who the younger ones are, who will suffer the long covid - again we cannot, so it mostly remains pot luck. Do you feel lucky?

The question was " Remove all media, do we really have a pandemic? "

If all the media was removed then there would still be a pandemic, we just wouldn't know about it.

RrogerD said:

Not sure I see your point.

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Oh I think you probably do.

You just dont want to admit it.

You can't beat a good Y2K fallacy.
https://time.com/5752129/y2k-bug-history/

When we take precautions owing to a serious issue, and we then can't see the issue's repercussions, some see that those precautions were a waste of time.

Even with lots of people double jabbed, we have over 6000 people in hospital.

wobs said:

You can't beat a good Y2K fallacy.
https://time.com/5752129/y2k-bug-history/

When we take precautions owing to a serious issue, and we then can't see the issue's repercussions, some see that those precautions were a waste of time.

Even with lots of people double jabbed, we have over 6000 people in hospital.

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Compared to which other countries with no such jabs and no comparable health service?

Look at Sydney, with 15% vaccinated and having to lock down with help from the military to enforce it.

Harry Bloomfield said:

Look at Sydney, with 15% vaccinated and having to lock down with help from the military to enforce it.

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Well, that is true; they are 'having to lock down' because they are being told they have to.

Whether the numbers justify it is another matter - and as for the military 'helping'...

The State Health Minister and Chief Medical Officer make Matt Hancock look like a genius.

What the first poster and many others seem to forget is that covid was being spread under very controlled conditions yet deaths and hospitalisation reached significant numbers in terms of coping with them. That's why the controls were put in place in the first place so that it could just be coped with. The just can cause situations where they have to choose who gets what treatment and probably has. Take the controls away and chances are everyone would know someone who caught it and suffered one way or the other and some that didn't.

We are now in the it wont go away stage with mostly artificially generated herd immunity as so few have actually caught the real thing. Looks like the immunity from catching it doesn't last, more jabs being dolled out in September ................. It's very much a see what happens situation and the thing the medical lot will be watching is hospitalisation rates and the outcomes. Not just death, treatment needed and the time that needs.

Few people will be thinking about the complications of having covid around. Cancer treatment, a number of vulnerable people who have been told to isolate throughout. They are just going to get letters with some advice. People turning up at hospitals for treatment and finding they have covid. More people over time, no one knows how long catching it.

Then the bitching from groups with self interests. The current amber rated countries one is a very typical example. They just want people to go. The idea behind adding more to amber was to indicate that the rating was far more likely to change so if you go you may well find the need to isolate when you come back. The gov should just go to red and green and stick potential ambers straight into red. They really would moan about that but it's what they want.

LOL Use of the army elsewhere - simple but by all means make noises about it - they need more people to handle certain aspects.

3 dads of kids at my son's school died, all in 50s.
A friend's mum died.
One of our outsourced marketing team died.
And my plumber friends nan died.
I think that is it. Nobody close to me thankfully.
My SIL died in May last year, not of covid, she was afraid to go to hospital but likely already too late.

It's a bit like anything else though. Not everybody knows somebody who had died in a car crash, or committed suicide, or died of cancer, but many do, and others know people who have died of other causes. All tragic, and we should do our best to avoid all happening.

From reading around AZ-generated antibodies don't drop much at all at 12 months. Pfizer is something faster like 15% - I can't remember exact number - down at 6 months. There's more of an issue with AZ not being very effective in the first place against eg the beta variant. There's only one test been done but it claimed 10.4%.
Naturally acquired antibodies differ from vaccine ones in several ways. In particular they can be far fewer in number, and limited in type if you only got an airway infection. So they say the vaccines are likely to be better against the majority of virus attacks. If you look at the particular mutations which make the delta variant, they're the same in several places as the other variants eg beta, but it seems it's a wait and see.
China's certainly flapping over their new deltas. Their vaccination rates are very high but their products' effectiveness isn't great, so I guess they're going to get a hell of a lot of cases even if they get protection from deaths.

Long Covid is a bit of a búgger but infections in the vaccinated seem to be tolerated now, and deaths are way down. Hospital appointments/ops are still getting cancelled which for me is/was the major impact. I'm expecting a lot of booster vaccines and not much else, for us, but Oz and Japan and others like Indonesia, Brazil, Philippines may have grief to come. Oz seem to be keeping the lid on so far.
Anyone seeing it differently?