Am I out of step with other pensioners?

maddyone

It’s been discussed on Jeremy Vine now. There’s one ridiculous person suggesting that schools should remain closed. Thankfully Andrew (can’t remember his surname) is saying ‘absolutely not.’ He says children are the most important. He’s right.

There was also a phone call from a lady, aged 84 who has been self isolating, whose grandson, aged 32 has just died from covid. Apparently he became ill, started to recover and then went downhill and died. She said he had no underlying health problems.

How can it be possible that there are still people equating covid to flu? .....after all this time and the endless explanations that have been broadcast and written!

Obviously a large number of people (mainly elderly) die every year. My goodness, just imagine if that did not happen!! obviously the larger majority of these deaths take place during the winter months. And, equally, obviously, most, if not all of these deaths are a very personal loss to family members.

What we do not usually have is regular - weekly or even daily information on those deaths, nothing is usually said publically, even on the extremely bad flu death years.

Thanks Casdon Yes, this is the table I was referring to

Franbern I decided to look for myself at the ONS website. The latest figures are for 2019 and it states that the date of the next release is to be announced. It's far too early for them to have gathered together all the necessary information. In fact the report for 2019 was released on 1 July 2020 so I suspect that the one for 2020 is not due to come out yet.

We won't know the full outcome of the pandemic for some years and many of the economic problems we may face are actually down to Brexit!

One of the good outcomes of the lockdown has been changes in working practices so that people have found they can work from home, they save money on commuting or are able to move to where housing is cheaper. Companies have seen that home working builds trust with workers and saves on expensive office space.

Many parents have decided to home school permanently, some students have improved by leaps and bounds outside of the restrictions of the national curriculum, children who suffer bullying can learn in peace and safety. Children in the UK start school at an earlier age so years of schooling vary anyway. The growing number of alternative schools show how dissatisfied many parents are with the current education system.

There are always winners and losers and it is the same people who have suffered from austerity policies, benefits cuts, public service cuts, local authority funding cuts, public spending cuts and Brexit who will also suffer most from the pandemic fallout.

Not all pensioners are well off, many provide free childcare and do many hours of voluntary work. Inter generational warfare does no one any favours, it does obscure the inequality and harsh political and moral framework within which we now live.

Doodledog

*I do think that the older generations have been totally selfish*
And what would you have had the older generations do? All any of us - young, old or in-between - is follow the rules set out by the government. Stay home, wear a mask if you have to go out, socially distance, get tested, get vaccinated when your turn comes round.

If that is totally selfish, what does unselfish behaviour look like?

Stay at home yourself but don't expect everyone and every thing to shut down to save you,

Well, if the NHS had not been continuously robbed over past decade of money with so many of their formally 'in-house; services being sent out to privatised companies

The whole point of this strategy was to SAVE money by putting services out to competitive tender. "In house" services had become too expensive.

GrannyRose15

Doodledog

I do think that the older generations have been totally selfish
And what would you have had the older generations do? All any of us - young, old or in-between - is follow the rules set out by the government. Stay home, wear a mask if you have to go out, socially distance, get tested, get vaccinated when your turn comes round.

If that is totally selfish, what does unselfish behaviour look like?

Stay at home yourself but don't expect everyone and every thing to shut down to save you,

I'm not sure I follow the argument that seems to suggest that it is unselfish to think that young people should have to go out to work, use public transport and generally take all the risks, whilst older people stay in their homes and get young people to deliver their shopping; but in any case, my point was that short of oldies throwing themselves off cliffs there is nothing they or anyone else can do to be 'unselfish', as all of us are just following government guidance.

Oh gosh! - can't let that pass! There is no way that "out-sourcing" has been a good thing for the NHS. I worked for the NHS and watched the decline that this strategy brought: lack of cohesion in the service, lack of commitment, lack of communication, an influx of window-dressing rather than substance, increased infection risk, low staff morale.

This strategy was led by political dogma rather than a desire to improve services. It has been a disaster. And I am willing to bet that in the long run it has not saved money.

* but in any case, my point was that short of oldies throwing themselves off cliffs there is nothing they or anyone else can do to be 'unselfish', as all of us are just following government guidance.*......well quite.

Casdon

www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/deathsintheukfrom1990to2020
This is I think the figure you were referring to franbern. Given that flu did not circulate because of the protection people were taking for COVID, and the lack of road traffic and work related accidents because people weren’t working for significant periods, I can see that superficially the figures don’t look horrific, but of course it wasn’t a typical year. If you factor in the impact of those elements it would be by far the worst year in the last 20 - and only accounts for the first wave of COVID. The first three months of this year will be worse, and the impact of all the under diagnosis and treatment will also start to impact more significantly.

Am I missing something? Looking at that chart, there has been a decline in the mortality rate for the last ten years, but a sharp increase in the last year. The mortality rate is the highest since 2008.

GrannyRose15

^Well, if the NHS had not been continuously robbed over past decade of money with so many of their formally 'in-house; services being sent out to privatised companies^

The whole point of this strategy was to SAVE money by putting services out to competitive tender. "In house" services had become too expensive.

I would challenge anyone to show proof of ANY in-house service that was then privatised out then saved money.

Indeed, most worked out far more expensive as those companies had shareholders who wanted profits.

I can remember very well, when I was working at a local NHS Trust, a man was brought in for nine months to find ways of cutting costs. For that period of time, he was actually the highest paid person in the UK NHS. Cost so much more than any of his cost-saving exercises. Many of these were totally impractical long-term.

He wanted to get rid of, virtually, all administrators, most of those on low level pay grades. I can remember pointing out to CEO at a meeting, that our Trust could end up with the highest paid administrators due to this, with many senior Grade 7 and Grade 8 people spending many of those highly paid hours standing at photo-copiers.

He even wanted to get rid of most Medical Secretaries, saying Consultants could send out their own letters, etc.

None of his strategies stayed in place more than a very few years, all so totally short-termist. But he came from a private organisation and the money he was paid for those nine months would have paid for a goodly number of new nurses, etc.

Our 'wonderful' NHS is in the process of being broken up, and privatised out and all we will be left with soon will be a very third-world class 'charity' service for those of us who cannot afford private medicine and medical insurance.

The NHS will also be left with the expensive chronic conditions and A & E, which nobody wants to take on.

To go back to the original post. Here is a link to an analysis of European wide death rates from COVID done by the ONS. It shows clearly that relatively speaking we had, until recently, one of the highest death rates in Europe for the under 65s:
The UK had one of the highest excess death rates among people under the age of 65 in 2020 at 7.7%.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56456312

The purpose of the lockdowns was to protect everybody, not just one age group.

We won't know the full outcome of the pandemic for some years and many of the economic problems we may face are actually down to Brexit!

How do you explain the economic problems in the rest of the world then?

Franbern

Our NHS is not "wonderful" and the sooner everyone realises that the sooner it can be changed to become the world beating health service some people think it is now.

Summerlove But are other countries problems worse than ours? We have compounded the problems caused by COVID with extra problems caused by Brexit.

DD is currently on a 2 month furlough, not caused by COVID, she was working solidly last year and under a lot of pressure because of the amount of work there was, but she works in a research centre and their research contracts were funded by money from international and EU funds.

Because these had to be reorganised following Brexit and the final decisions for that was rushed so much, the new funding arrangements are only now being finalised. Until they are finalised they could not prepare their research strategy and decide what research projects they want to fund, so that research centres could bid for them.

So throughout the country, as existing contracts are completed, highly trained scientists are sitting on their hands, if lucky on furlough, if unlucky unemployed, waiting for all this to sort itself out, which could be June.

Weren't we meant to be powering ahead into a technology led affluent futurebafter Brexit ? How does starting it with 6 months of lost research and development square with this?

M0nica

Summerlove But are other countries problems worse than ours? We have compounded the problems caused by COVID with extra problems caused by Brexit.

DD is currently on a 2 month furlough, not caused by COVID, she was working solidly last year and under a lot of pressure because of the amount of work there was, but she works in a research centre and their research contracts were funded by money from international and EU funds.

Because these had to be reorganised following Brexit and the final decisions for that was rushed so much, the new funding arrangements are only now being finalised. Until they are finalised they could not prepare their research strategy and decide what research projects they want to fund, so that research centres could bid for them.

So throughout the country, as existing contracts are completed, highly trained scientists are sitting on their hands, if lucky on furlough, if unlucky unemployed, waiting for all this to sort itself out, which could be June.

Weren't we meant to be powering ahead into a technology led affluent futurebafter Brexit ? How does starting it with 6 months of lost research and development square with this?

Oh I think brexit is a mess, don’t get me wrong. I’m just saying that not all economic problems are brexit related.

Covid and lockdown have messed up a lot world wide

Doodledog

But it is selfish to think that young people should lose their jobs, their livelihoods and, in some cases, businesses that have taken years to build up. It is selfish to deny children a year's worth of education. It is selfish to stop routine and emergency operations in hospitals.
Whether you like it or not this has all been done in your name - to keep you safe.

Agree GrannyRose.

GrannyRose15

Doodledog

But it is selfish to think that young people should lose their jobs, their livelihoods and, in some cases, businesses that have taken years to build up. It is selfish to deny children a year's worth of education. It is selfish to stop routine and emergency operations in hospitals.
Whether you like it or not this has all been done in your name - to keep you safe.

It really hasn’t . I am 62, working part-time, and don’t expect anyone to do anything in my name. I have had medical treatment deferred, and an expensive course that I am taking (and paying for) has been massively disrupted. These things don’t just happen to young people.

I keep myself safe by staying indoors. If I could have given my DIL, a key worker, my place in the vaccination queue I would gladly have done so, as I can work from home (as can most people of all ages), but as I say, that was not an option.

However unselfish or martyr-like I would like to be, there is no way of doing so, unless you can suggest something I haven’t thought of?

The idea that everyone has been locked down to spare the oldies is an illusion and patently incorrect. Look at the evidence in the link I gave further up the page. Look at the distribution of cases currently in the UK.

Each day I check the figures for where my family live. LA areas in Yorkshire, Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire and Somerset and at the moment, for each area, the cases of COVID and deaths for over 65s is going through the floor, there are virtually none. However, the figures for under 65s are going up

If we were the only concern, lockdown would have ended. If anything, now, we are being locked down to protect the under 50s, who have not been vaccinated.

How the illusion that the young are being locked down to protect the old arose. I cannot imagine. On the contrary we have had to face up to harsher and more long running lock downs than the young because, while the virus is indiscriminate in who it attacks, we are the ones mostly likely to need medical intervention, so we have had harsher lockdown conditions to protect the NHS as much as possible.

There is absolutely not a drop of martyrdom in my veins. I have feet of clay and I only deal with the facts. And they show quite clearly that the lockdown of younger people has nothing to do with protecting the old.

so do you think it was a good idea for hundreds...thousands of people were made to sign DNR's to protect younger people? Of course the weak and elderly should be protected first. You may feel guilty but not as guilty as the young would have felt if the old and disabled had been sacrificed first.

My children have been incredible. One is a front line professional who keeps their distance and Zoom has been wonderful keeping us connected.
The other lives near enough to do our shopping, leaving food at the garden step. We have now learned to do online shopping and that’s been most useful and our child is not risk taking by frequenting our drive.
My beef is when I hear friends applaud them selves for keeping safe except when they collect their daily shopping - newspaper. Or, only went to see my neighbour, who can’t get to the shops or I only visit my grandchildren and go to Church etc. This is not keeping society or themselves safe. Yet when we chat (on the phone)I hear them say that they are keeping very safe. Oh it makes me cross. No amount of taking or advice helps. I’m not phoning again and will have to rethink my friendship group. Or is it me?

I think you are being a bit judgemental, to be honest. Going to the shop to get a paper may not be strictly essential, but it is only a very small step from the 'daily exercise' that so many people have considered a right since the start of the pandemic. With proper care (sanitising, mask, hand washing etc) there is likely to be very little risk, and if someone isn't able to access news online, reading a paper is a way of being connected to the world (and to pick up on news about the state of the pandemic).

Things like shopping for neighbours who can't go themselves has always been encouraged, too (in the way that your children did for you), and worship is now on the 'allowed' list.

As I've said, I have not gone anywhere other than medical appointments for over a year, but that has been my choice, and I don't expect others (friends or strangers) to do the same. It would be a pity if you lost friendships over something like this, as making new friends who think exactly as you do about life could prove difficult, and loneliness can be a big problem as people get older.