‘It's very lonely’: older people's fears of extended lockdown

[Stephen Cole]

What a mess.

[Stephen Cole]

Good for you, Jim. A lot of poor bastards are going mental, though. Banged up till vaccine, which is a couple of years away. No way to spend a retirement, really.

[Stephen Cole]

Little old ladies, Jim. Depressed as f*ck. Lonely. It?s very sad, imo.

[Clive Page]

Indeed. The other factor that doesn't seem to have been noticed is this:

My guess is that normal life including being able to attend concerts, theatres, pubs, restaurants, meeting with friends and family, and going on holidays is still many months away, and perhaps a year off. If you are in your 20s then this represents a loss of social life for perhaps 2% of your likely remaining life-span. If you are a pensioner it may well represent the loss of 10% or 20% of remaining life-span. Is that a good argument for letting us oldies out first?

[The Natural Philosopher]

No.

[Joshua Snow]

Nope, because they are the most vulnerable to be killed by it.

[Stephen Cole]

I?d be perfectly happy to prioritise lifting lockdown for people who are most likely to suffer mental health problems from being locked indoors, such as the elderly, but then again I?m ?the Loony Left?. We?ve got a Tory government, their only priority is going to be getting the economy going again. The economically non-productive, such as the elderly, simply won?t factor into their plans, bottom of the queue.

[Stephen Cole]

Everyone?s got to die sometime. Some people might prefer to take the chance rather than be locked indoors with only the cat for company. If all other elements of society are deemed able to expose themselves to the risk (there is a risk for all, albeit lower than in the elderly) then for me it becomes difficult to deny one element of society at least the choice of the risk.

[Brian Reay]

Judging by events in Europe, I'm not so sure your timescales are correct. Certainly not a couple of weeks etc and some things may take many months to return to (near) normal (I'm not referring to the economy, that will take longer). However, gradually over the coming months I expect things will ease for most people, albeit that some will need to take precautions.

Certainly things like large concerts etc will pose problems but they aren't a major issue for most people. Pubs aren't exactly essentials in terms of people need them to live. There is, of course, the economic aspect.

Out of interest, I'm watching the plans for schools etc. The recent reports of this 'new' condition in youngsters may complicate things- I don't recall it being reported elsewhere. Perhaps it simply was so rare it wasn't reported etc. Plus different countries (eg Spain) had different lock down rules.

The latest numbers for deaths weren't as bad as the FT suggested, not good, but not as bad as the FT ones. The senior scientist yesterday (Deputy Chief?) made some very good points re our current numbers including deaths which may not be entirely attributable to the Chinese Virus and we wouldn't have a true picture until they'd been adjusted for the normal seasonal deaths. Some will claim this is fiddling the numbers but he pointed out there are standard methods, applied across Europe, to do this.

All in all, the hospitals are doing remarkably well. The plans to resume some 'normal' treatments which had been suspended it certainly encouraging. The policy of having some 'hot' (Virus treating) hospitals and 'cold' (Virus free) ones should help with this. I was aware it was being used in some areas but it appears to be a general policy, going by the news reports.

The media continue to be more of a hindrance than help. One, supposedly serious, newspaper, carried one report that a drug was working and another it wasn't within 24 hrs!

[charles]

but, if one is going to be killed by the virus anyway, why not live a little beforehand?

[Spike]

I gave up on TV-reported 'news' very early on in the crisis, and while BBC R4 has its PC agenda, the reporting of facts there seems better (but still quite biassed in terms of presentation).

In that context there was an R4 item from about a week ago, where a doctor on the front line was interviewed at the end of a 13-hour shift. One thing of note that he did say was that "If a hospital discovers a new successful technique on a Friday, that is reported over the network that weekend, and on Monday it will be applied in all hospitals". He went on to say that this sort of thing would normally take months to years. so it looks like the idea of a Covid/non-Covid division of hospitals seems to be part of a 'can do' approach to dealing with the crisis.

[Brian Reay]

The 'division' was put in place quite early, at least in one area, so I assume it was a general policy. Ditto they (the hospitals) converted 'ordinary' wards etc into specialist ones ahead of there being a significant influx of patients. PPE training was done etc in advance, or refreshed perhaps. Most NHS staff probably rarely, if ever, need to wear the type of PPE now being required so 'refresher' training etc makes sense.

The medical staff have certainly 'stepped up' etc. Some areas are, of course, worse than others- simply down to numbers of people etc.

The testing business has been interesting. Hancock's promise has been used to beat him but the provision is there, it simply hasn't been used. One, possible, reason is their aren't as many people showing symptoms. That doesn't mean that people don't have it- it seems a significant number of people either show no symptoms or very mild ones so don't think they are infected. I wonder what we will find if we ever do widespread anti-body testing. I suspect many people will have had it and not even known.

Plus, the test isn't pleasant ;-)

[John]

Whatever happened to iron lungs ?

[spuorgelgoog]

I think they went the same way as stiff upper lips.

Owain

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

Well, all eyes on Norway then, as they start to allow gatherings of up to 50 people and the new version of IOS and Android with a contact tracing API on board is rolling out soon as well.

As I have said before here. I don't think anyone would suggest that the current policy is going to stop anyone from getting it, but to preserve the maximum ability of the NHS to get as many through it as they can, they have to reduce the rate of infection to a copable number. With an unknown virus like this one, unfortunately you just have to experiment and monitor and hope you can step back in with rules if needed before it gets out of hand. With enough testing I imagine it can be done and contact tracing should be useful in this regard. Unfortunately, New Zealand and Estonia are self congratulating themselves on keeping cases low, but what happens when they open their borders to the infected world? If there is not a good vaccine then they will have to start again. Brian

[Rambo]

Dont start... I should be abroad today !

[Brian Reay]

Funded by someone else working 14 hrs / day while you sit on your backside?

[Rambo]

s'OK...It's one of them things...

[Rambo]

Whatever you say Tubs....

You as usual know nothing......

#SpongingfrommrsReay #HideingmystalkingfromLinda #Pot&kettle #FakeJew #Mr 0.3%

[Rambo]

Was gonna raise a bit for Cancer Research too......