Politics of fear and its side effects

Well, there we are. If you or people you love haven’t suffered (and I do mean suffered) from Covid obviously it was always a load of fuss about nothing and just an unnecessary reaction on the part of Government.

*Peasblossom, no one is saying that, and my family has been beset by COVID, with one person with a compromised immune system catching it and 2 others. I have also had to deal with my DH having a heart attack, bypass surgery, which went well, but being given a non-COVID infection that came close to killing him and required 3 operations and 6 weeks in hospital. A year later he is still struggling,. Oh, and DD nearly died the first summer of COVID. She too came very close to death. So you have no monopoly on suffering.

But we cannot live the way we are now forever. we do have to learn to cope with the virus and between vaccination and improved treatments this will become possible and all of us have to decide how far we are prepared to go to return to normality.

Thirty years ago my sister died when she was knocked off her bike as she cycled to work. A few months later I was offered a job where the best and easiest wy to get to work was to cycle. So I got a bike and started cycling. Yes, I was terrified, I knew how easily a genuine accident could happen. The driver of the vehicle that hit her was not drunk or on drugs and he was travelling at walking speed, but I refused to driven by my fears and I mastered them.

But I did everything to reduce the risk. I was very visible with lights and reflective clothing and I planned as quiet a route as I could.

This is how we have to deal with COVID. Take all sensible precautions and then grit our teeth and enter life again.

I understand and agree with your points Peasblossom, but my point is that if numbers of possible victims are so ridiculously high, that whilst older people may listen and act accordingly, younger people, fed up of hearing about over inflated numbers, will dismiss them as scaremongering, which is of course true. And if they dismiss the figures, they will be unlikely to take proper precautions.

Incidentally I didn’t fail to keep myself safe. I caught Covid from my elderly mother, 94 years old, who had been hospitalised after a fall. She caught Covid in the hospital, but the staff had assured us that she had tested negative twice and it was safe to visit her. We were in a care bubble with her, because at the time she lived alone, and my husband called in to move some furniture for her that was in the way of her newly acquired walker. Unfortunately, despite the negative tests she was actually positive, as we found out the next day when she became unwell, and then tested positive. This was before any of us could be vaccinated. My husband became infected and infected me. Nobody’s fault, no rash behaviour, just giving care to an elderly lady who had had a fall and sustained two bleeds on her brain from that fall.

I think maddyone that you know only too well how serious Covid was for you. And I’m sorry that you had to suffer it. It’s not something to be wished on anyone.

What I would question is your understanding of how serious it would have been for very many more people if it had been allowed to proliferate unchecked. People needed and still need to be afraid of that. Yes they do.

You received the treatment that enabled you to recover because most people kept themselves infection free. The doctors in my family didn’t have to chose between you and someone else because there were enough of them to tend to you.

Were they afraid that would happen? Yes they were and now, because of the sheer numbers involved, they are anxious again. Not least because so many of them are unable to work in hospital after being in contact with a patient who wasn’t fearful enough to take precautions and test.

A pandemic unchecked is a fearful thing.

And only last week we were told that there could be 6000 deaths a day! There weren’t six thousand deaths a day at the height of the pandemic, and whilst I totally agree that people should take all measures to protect themselves and others, when such ridiculous figures are spouted, people simply don’t believe them, and therefore it’s not helpful.

Peasblossom I had Covid last January, I was hospitalised with it for twelve days, I was on oxygen for all that time, and I was given eight different medications. I was discharged very far from well, but well enough to recuperate at home. I have scars on my lungs from the Covid pneumonia, my last X-ray was a week ago and they are still there. I apologise if others have seen this before but I think Peasblossom should know as she seems to think I don’t know how serious Covid can be. In my post I was pointing out that government policy, and SAGE policy appears to have been to scare people into compliance, it’s a different point altogether to knowing how serious Covid can be. I think I know that!

We have never suffered a global pandemic in our lifetimes so some people simply do not get it, and talk about the politics of fear, as if there is some deliberate attempt to make people unhappy and scared for no reason.

The facts of covid are scary in themselves and that is where the problem lies. Peasblossom has illustrated this very clearly.

The desire to find someone to blame seems to be rife. It is the virus that is to blame.

Peasblossom, spot on, thank you

Well, there we are. If you or people you love haven’t suffered (and I do mean suffered) from Covid obviously it was always a load of fuss about nothing and just an unnecessary reaction on the part of Government.

If your family had been badly affected you might think differently. You might wish people had been a bit more afraid and taken more care.

Especially when your family members were so ill because they had to provide the medical care for people who just thought it was fearmongering,

Well the politics of fear doesn't work on public transport here. Quite a lot of people aren't wearing masks and you'd need to be made of strong stuff to point it out. No one checks.

Anyone who has symptoms of Covid should not be going for a booster vaccination anyway.

They should go for a PCR test and there needs to be 4 weeks between recovery and having the vaccination or booster.

Woodmouse

Whitty et al have been excellent with their doomsday predictions but at no time told the nation what is safe to do. i.e. you don't need to wear a mask whilst walking down the street!

It’s ok to wear a mask down the street if it makes that person feel safe, especially if it’s crowded, as I found in the summer months. What isn’t ok is for people to not continue giving space and continuously shuffling right up to me as if they are going to lose their place in the queue. One lady was politely told , as she nudged my back, to please go back as keeping distance is still important, we need more Gov information on TV, re precautions that we still need to take.

Let me be clear I am not criticising the lady concerned, and I appreciate that she too may have health problems, but what concerns me is that the politics of fear, which has been used in such a heavy-handed way over the last few years, is affecting some people's mental health so severely, that even the sight of someone not in a mask - there was about 15 feet and two people between him and her and they were outside, is capable of generating such an extreme panic reaction in someone.

When the pandemic goes, it is highly unlikely that this lady will start going about her normal life as if nothing had happened, she is probably going to continue to be anxious going anywhere and restricting her life because she is over sensitised to every danger, no matter how small, that might affect her.

20 years from now we will be hearing of people who will not have left their houses for 20 years since the first lockdown started because of the fear of what could happen to them if they did.

Riverside visors are worse than useless, they give no protection against COVID because the virus floats in the air and will just float behind the visor and offer no protection to others as the virus will just float out round the open sides. This is why it is made clear that a mask must be a close fit to the face, so that any breath, in or out, is filtered through the material it is made of.

Riverwalk

Yes very distressing for your husband if he thought he'd triggered her actions.

For future, to reduce potential stress for him could he wear a visor if it's medically possible.

I didn't go to the hairdressers for over a year because they were wearing visors but tipping them back to be able to see according to a friend!
They weren't wearing masks last time either so I cancelled my appointment this week.

I'm not terrified, just exercising caution.

M0nica my DH was waiting for me to pick him up from hospital and went to the ground floor café while he waited.
He slipped his mask down to drink his coffee and a woman on the next table started glaring at him and pointing to her mask, shaking her head quite aggressively.
He wasn't sure how to drink his coffee through a mask so he ignored her.

Don’t you think that if people you loved had died of Covid or suffered severe long term effects, you might be justified in being scared and anxious.

We have had both in our family. Am I anxious about my son and his wife who have now tested positive? Yes, I am. Terrified that it will be serious. Because I know how serious it can be.

I don’t need a Government to frighten me.

I just think 'There's always one!' in whatever situation, regardless of Covid, or (alleged) fear mongering, there's somebody who gets hysterical or overreacts. So just ignore them - and never let them upset you.

I agree Luckygirl that the lady in question has got a big problem. Whether or not she has mental health problems or has just been scared witless by government and SAGE predictions it’s hard to know. I just know that the government set out to scare us in the beginning in order to achieve compliance with lockdown.

Poor lady clearly has a mental health problem - this pandemic must be torture for her. And it must have been very distressing for your OH.

I do not think this is "politics of fear" - it is just 0one poor woman who is unwell. There are many others with mental health problems who have been unable to cope during this pandemic. Would that there were the proper mental health services to help these people, pandemic or not. Our mental health services are pitiful.

Why was he distressed?

He did what he wanted to do, not wear a mask and got his jab. She didn’t speak to him unkindly or attack him. She didn’t feel safe and left.

She was the one who was distressed by his action. and ended up not getting her jab.

Why so judgemental of her? She was the one who suffered.

Whitty et al have been excellent with their doomsday predictions but at no time told the nation what is safe to do. i.e. you don't need to wear a mask whilst walking down the street!

Over the course of the pandemic I’ve seen it suggested several times that the government have deliberately tried to scare the population in order to achieve compliance with their instructions. It was recently suggested that SAGE have been told to prepare only the worst case scenario, hence last week we were told there could be 6000 deaths a day this winter. The problem is that people no longer believe these forecasts.

Fact, a country wide mental health charity has a big rise in number of people seeking help and support.

Sorry your husband was distressed M0nica , we do not know what was going on with the lady in question.

I do think that Omicron has pulled the rug from under folks feet especially those already feeling worried with health anxiety.

There's a lot of it about !

I think the woman from the queue had mental health problems long before covid. In a different, non covid, universe she would probably have still have been triggered; just not by fear of covid.

I think there is a debate to be had about 'fear tactics meant to scare us'. It's a meaningless assertion as it stands.