DXBtoDOH

Millhouse, you might enjoy this article. It puts things in perspective. I'm not quite sure what to make of this entire virus pandemic. Collapsing the global economy over what will ultimately be a statistically meaningless number of deaths? Cold and callous but perhaps pragmatic understanding of the reality of life. People die. Especially old people with major chronic health issues. Past generations were perhaps more realistic.

https://www.city-journal.org/1957-asian-flu-pandemic

scrubbedexpat141

Literally the only response to this article is "OK boomer"

DXBtoDOH

The man who wrote the article is in his 80s. He's too old to be a boomer. The oldest boomers are in their mid 70s. And yes, there is a difference.

Millhouse

spot on. What we are seeing is a typical snowflake response that no one must die and that we need to be protected. The reality is that we don’t.

Chickenpox is often fatal to the very young. Do we panic when there is a chickenpox outbreak? No. We put all the kids together to make sure they catch it and keep the very young ones away. No drama.

If you want to protect the old from this, do the same. There is no need to screw everything for everyone in the meantime.

DXBtoDOH

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-he...-idUKKBN2142M7

UK aims to keep deaths at 20,000 or under, in a good case scenario.

Out of a population of 67 million.

In a typical year 35,000 people die of lung cancer in the UK.

The small, little, callous part of me that I keep buried down and out of sight and think only to myself and on anonymous internet forums is that there's probably a big overlap between the 35k lung cancer deaths and the deaths from the virus this year.

fth

The problem is with this thing is that it will overwhelm hospitals. If you treat the COVID cases, it will be impossible to treat regular heart attacks, strokes, appendicitis, accidents etc. If you have no hospital, these extremely treatable ailments are also fatal.

Even worse, it incapacitates health care workers, so what little hospital capacity is left is gone. The Iranians have found out this problem now and satellites are picking up the digging of mass graves outside Qom. Not something you need to do with a "few" extra deaths.

A couple of extra items
* Chicken pox is ok for younger patients, its highly dangerous for older people who can develop shingles
* Deaths per annum from things like cancer are a) spread out over a year b) rarely take up ICU beds for weeks on end or c) can be transmitted to the patients' doctor, nurse or other healthcare worker

Lul37

I still don't see how this ends... what we really need is some proper misinformation to make us think everything is ok and we just carry on with life. I'm really starting to think that transparency isn't that helpful. If we don't test, for most people who catch it they will think it's a bad cold/flu... the oldies will die and it'll be chalked up as pneumonia ... just as how everyone basically dies in the end anyway.[/QUOTE]

My unspoken thoughts exactly, at the risk of sounding like a selfish prick...

Seems like everyone is now waiting with bated breath to see if Brexit Britain’s corona strategy lead by Bojo and his Tory bunch is going to turn out to be bloody brilliant or f**** stupid.

ps, still no email from school regarding fees

probably too busy chasing up the airlines for refunds.

DXBtoDOH

My unspoken thoughts exactly, at the risk of sounding like a selfish prick...

Seems like everyone is now waiting with bated breath to see if Brexit Britain’s corona strategy lead by Bojo and his Tory bunch is going to turn out to be bloody brilliant or f**** stupid.

ps, still no email from school regarding fees

probably too busy chasing up the airlines for refunds.[/QUOTE]

Left wing, right wing, doesn't matter what the government is, most countries in the western world are increasingly following a similar path.

BoJo's early response was more similar to letting people carry on as normally as much as possible to build up the herd immunity while isolating the elderly as much as possible with the tactic understanding the very old and very sick may die at a higher rate than usual till a vaccine develops in due time. Crashing the economy to save a few more lives is foolhardy. Maybe extreme measures can save an extra 20,000 predominately elderly lives, but at potentially the cost of hundreds of thousands or millions of unemployed, soaring foreclosures, and all that. But political pressure has a way of changing rapidly. The Government now has to respond to economic panic, which is caused both too much transparency and this new 21st century mantra that every failure to save a 80 year old with severe emphysema is catastrophic. It's amazing how Italy nearly completely collapsed over sub 30k positive infected cases and 2100 deaths out a population of 60 million. I can barely look at the news these days, it's a 24/-7 cycle agonising over every single death and criticism and what ifs and worst case scenarios and that is likely a big part of the panic.

I do want to emphasise I am not unsympathetic or concerned for the deaths and the pressures on health systems but something about this whole pandemic is surreal.

Maxima

I said the same exact thing to my regular ENT Doctor and my long time dentist, and they both agreed

here is what's made it different

1) Governments panic - its normal for people to panic, they do so every time something goes wrong. But this time it is governments panicking that reinforced people panicking, fueled partly by media. I don't blame media alone because if media continued the way they did but other govts carried on calmly, people wouldn't act this way.
Now governments panicked for 2 reasons
i) pressure from people and "Experts"
ii) pressure form Chinas initial reaction and peer pressure. If China wasn't the first victim and images of Wuhans sick being welded in their homes, and people being dragged out for quarantine weren't aired everywhere, other countries would be a bit more relaxed.

And other countries getting worse has coincided with China getting its first wave of recovery. Lets say Italy got worse 2 months by now, and by then you would see China getting another round of infections because the Wuhan blockade would have ended, Chinas solution would not have been seen as the golden rule that it is now.

2) Herds of people behaving stupid - Yes, that has always been the case but never more so than CoVid 19; People are happily diving into self quarantine, social distancing and touting that awful "flatten the curve" thing has become the "educated" thing to do. Apparently to keep Grandma safe, she should not see her grandkids, except on Skype. Companies in Dubai have set out HR rules forbidding shaking hands.
Hyperbole wins the day,
Yes, during such times, large gatherings should be stopped, but the other stuff?

3) No accountability for numbers thrown. "Experts" claim millions will die, my friends on FB claims the rate of death will increase exponentially unless we lock down, right now. Experts predicted 1.5 million would die because of Ebola, real deaths were under 10,000

Lul37

Definitely the hype is unbelievable, makes you wonder if there is anything happening backstage which they want to distract us from

There are many conflicted opinions on how the UK is handling this, and what’s also adding to this panic is the lack of consensus on what’s the best thing to do.

On one hand you have the Spanish flu which was a pandemic and was presumably killed by herd immunity. Hence why doctors are saying the only way to kill it is too let it pass through the herd or it’s pointless running away from it, unless you want a repeat next year

But let’s isolate the elderly and keep the schools open.

On the other hand, you have other people blaming the government for pursuing a policy that has no basis in fact. And saying that if herd immunity worked without vaccines we would have herd immunity from polio, smallpox etc.
That they don’t want to be part of a genocide experiment when the WHO is practically begging everyone to self isolate.

That Patrick Vallance is guesstimating. Something the rest of the world hasn't had to do because they are testing.

I didn’t want Brexit and I didn’t want Bojo as PM, and I’m not too impressed with their policies so far, so I’m really hoping they get it right with this one..

Made me lol someone said on another board:
Boris has got it wrong, the whole of the ****ing world is telling him so. Even Trump has backed down. Does he think he's Thatcher, if so, now is not the time.

scrubbedexpat141

The author is a typical patronising old **** (no wonder you read the articles) who thinks things were better back then, when you died at 60 and everything was shit;

Millhouse

maybe true Scamp, although you have to recognise that they didn’t jump from one fear to another and live in a state of constant panic.

So far this year we have had:

1. World War 3
2. Bush fires
3. Justin Bieber's Yummy
4. Covid

As terrible as the first 3 were, they were presented as the end of the world - the world moved on when a new panic could be set off.

Pongo

Latest on the FCO www, all visas on arrival In UAE suspended from the 19th. Residents, citizens and diplomats not affected.

csdf

Look out for that visa amnesty...

scrubbedexpat141

The only one that comes close to No4 is No.3.
Mocking / judging / criticising people for being concerned about something like this virus? Or for being in lockdown at the hands of their government? Comparing it to a different virus 70 years ago? **** off. Not just because you're obviously thick but because it's completely pointless and unhelpful.
I'm sure the average Joe on the street in Italy would warmly welcome some grumpy old **** calling them soft and pathetic for being worried or obeying a lockdown.

Should we apologise to this author that they were born when they were?
Should we apologise that we haven't had to run a gauntlet of diseases?
Should they apologise to me for entering the working world during 2008? Is that how it works?

It's tragic, it's typically judgmental, arrogant and insensitive. Utterly pointless article. No wonder DXBtoDOH loved it though, right up his street.