The problem isn't really the death rate - its that so few people have had Covid - only about 300,000 in the UK - that means 66 million people haven't had it. If half of them catch it and only 3% require hospitalisation (currently its 20%) that a million hospital beds needed plus all the staff etc. That's why they are so scared

Thats my point. Give guidance and advice and let people make their own choices. One of my parents is in the shielding group. They have decided how they wish to shield and to what extent based on risk and what they find acceptable. What they are not doing is demanding that everyone else shield and isolate too.

This is the problem with the public perception of Covid-19. People assume that it is far more deadly then it is in actual fact. Yes I will be the first to admit that their are large swaths of society, who as a hole are much more at risk then the average person reading this forum. More so it might not kill you but rather leave you disabled. Having said this the infection fatality rate (IFR), or colloquially, the death rate. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently has a best estimate of the fatality rate from 0.26% to 0.65%.
To put this into context seasonal flue has a IFR of 0.1%
So when asked if I fear covid-19 my answer is yes ofcourse I fear it; I fear it 3 times more then I fear the seasonal flue. However I don't feel that it is a worthy cause to sacrifice my job, and or my income.
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https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01738-2

https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconv...-closer-141426

Sorry that is just plain wrong. There have been 300,000 identified cases but in fact they can measure 17% of people in London have antibodies. Other research shows that 2 to possibly 3 times as many have immunity from hard to detect T cells. See Karolinska Institute T Cell study.

It is not only the deaths it is the long term damage to people who live. That includes those that didn’t need to go to hospital.

The issue originally was we knew so little about it which scared people but the more we see it seems the death rate is extremely low.

Some estimates suggest 80% don’t even have a symptom, I know of 2 who have had it (husband and wife) of all my contacts in life and the biggest gripe was he couldn’t taste his Chinese! Of course a tiny proportion usually with underlying issues have it far worse. We are getting suggestion now the death rate so high in the U.K. isn’t entirely correct as PHE just throw anyone who’s died who had coronavirus at any point in the figures even if killed by a car crash, suicide or any other ailment.

The images in Italy were far worse than we saw here but we look far worse than it probably was.

i just hope if we have to live with it we find a way to get some normality back.

A few points in response to comments.

Whether the PM is still unfit from his bout of Covid is irrelevant, the biggest failures took place throughout February and into March well before he had it. Everything else leads back to that. Also although implications of having the virus aren’t fully understood I don’t believe they include allowing lockdown-breaking drives to County Durham to go unpunished.

Acting decisively in this case is to be applauded and I personally agree with it. But yet again it’s been done in an inconsistent and slapdash way. It should have been immediate or from 3am for example, after all flights are in. As it was, you had flights arriving just before midnight from higher risk areas with no quarantine and some a few minutes later who are locked up for 14 days.

Of the estimated thousands of Brits currently in Spain, how many of those are realistically going to abide by the 14 day quarantine. I’m guessing maybe only a few - I think the Government are well aware of that. They have neither the resources nor the inclination to follow through with any chasing up. This seems more of a nod and a wink kind of ruling to me.

Think you are nit picking. There was no good time to do this but once the 4 nations decided to act they acted quickly. The public were warned this could happen and it did. Taking a foreign holiday during a pandemic was always going to be risky.

The Government has always been accused of acting slowly but now they have acted quickly they still get criticised.

Yes - everybody is quick to criticise the governments decision making....

I do find it entertaining when ‘experts‘ on here are talking about the death rate and how Cov19 is not dangerous and we should just be allowed to get on with our lives. Humanity’s knowledge of this virus is still practically nonexistent. Just because someone does not die within a month or two of contagion does not necessarily mean Cov19 is not something that must be taken incredibly seriously - perhaps it will kill them a year later, or perhaps the next time they catch it, or perhaps it will simply dramatically reduce fertility, or dramatically increase cancer rates, or a whole host of other possibilities. There are already widespread reports of some pretty serious issues even for people who were never hospitalised. I totally agree the economy is really important, and aviation is a part of that, but this being a brand new highly infectious virus really is a very big deal, and I do not blame the government for doing their very best to minimise outside infection. In the grand scheme of things, who gives a monkeys about holidays to Spain, or indeed anywhere else? I think a few people on here need to remember that we still do not actually know that this virus is not the one which will wipe out humanity! I know that is alarmist, but it is the scary truth. Too many people are not treating this virus with the respect it warrants.

Whilst it does warrant respect (and by how much nations worldwide have wrecked their economies because of it you can say it has had that respect) I think to suggest it could be an extinction event is probably miles over the top. Even with fractional medication compared to today, plagues and various other pandemics have come and hit the human race (and all other species) and not had that effect.

Life needs to go on, purely because any vaccine may not work and we live as a species that relies on jobs/money to exist.

Weve travelled to Greece this past fortnight, seen first hand the struggles their resorts are facing for instance, but had a great time and all done with controlling the virus in mind (tested, distancing, tracing) and of 6000 plus tests on U.K. pax only 2 positive and isolated (2 others were transit of Cypriot and French origin).

The Spanish situation shows its volatile and not without some risk but for now this is the new normal. People want to travel and should do so without being slated for it, if people wish to not travel abroad then that is fair enough, but life most go on as best we can.

Conversely, if you decide to travel and that decision comes back and bites you on the bum, don't whinge about it.

I agree it is probably miles over the top, but the point is we do not yet know just what damage this virus is doing to us. Immediate death rate is just one part of the equation. It is already very clear that there is a lot more to this virus than its percentage mortality rate soon after infection. People making comparisons with the flu death rate for instance, and concluding that the economic cost has already been too high, are very much counting their chickens before they have hatched. I am very afraid of the economic fallout, but I am far more afraid of the damage the virus itself is doing.

The economy will recover sooner or later. Dead people won't.

I am not in any position to judge if these measures are knee-jerk or over the top. I do think government to not take such decisions lightly, and trust them when they do so. Why we need to be careful with this nasty virus has been demonstrated in Italy, South Korea and Iran in the earlier stages of the pandemic. It's also still happening in big parts of the US as we speak. It's not pretty and am amazed people still haven't fully appreciated the potential this has to completely overwhelm a functioning health system.

Now knowing all of that, and knowing every government has their finger on the trigger to return to more stringent rules, it's beyond me what those people are doing so far from home in the first place. Little sympathy for those affected by this entirely predictable mess.

What is daft that no checks are made on arriving airline pax, It seems that after 5 days of infection a test would be effective. It seems the argument that the first 5 days of “doubt” makes screening ineffective, surely to catch 2/3rds of infections is useful.
if it was a requirement that a further test was done at 5 days then Q could be reduced to 5 days?

It is like saying "dead people will die anyway one day.

Economy pays for food. Pays doctors and medical personnel that won't work for free. It is interesting to see how everyone underestimates economy power. Economic fallout brings people on a street, revolutions, mental illness and depression, higher crime rate resulting in more killed than died due to virus.

And if this virus lasts for 10 years, we should #stayathome until 2030?

So the UK transport minister goes on holiday during the biggest economic crisis since the war.

Whee are the rest of the Cabinet - Butlins ?

No, more like Maplins ... after all their normal place of work is Butlins.