Govt has ‘terrorised Britons into believing coronavirus will kill them, says advisor.’

Ah but it might kill you that’s the point. That is why we check before we cross the road, why we ensure meat is correctly cooked, why we get the correct vaccines before we travel to various parts of the world.

It will almost certainly kill the very elderly before their time.

I haven’t got patience with this sort of argument from Dingwall. Let him take what risks he wishes as long as he doesn’t infect anyone else in his death wish.

It won’t kill me as I’ve already had it! I posted this to try and allay some people’s fears, there’s enough to worry about without thinking it’s if you catch it then it’s an automatic death sentence. Of course it’s killed 1,000’s which is so desperately sad but it’s not going to kill us all. I’m not advocating stupidity in ignoring guidance.

I agree WWM2 it’s a specious argument by Dingwall.Since
30,000 have died many of those ( of course) may have died from other causes really or great age, but many were also just like us! People are not simply statistics.

I know what you mean Glory and glad to hear that you came out the other side safely.
It isn’t an automatic death sentence, just as cancer isn’t, but we are still right to fear it.

In spite of his statistics, it's still a fact that over 500 people died of this virus in the UK yesterday.

I would like to see the government publish the number and location of infections rather than just the number of deaths.

As someone who is over 70 and with underlying health problems I will not be leaving home, however, if you live in an area which has had no infections for two weeks and you have no health problems, you should be able to decide for yourself whether you leave home.

Yes, thank you lemon, it’s because I had it and survived, although I didn’t need treatment and am carrying more weight than I should, I posted this as I do feel sorry for those who are very frightened. Obviously people are still dying in awful numbers but for some (not the very vulnerable) it may be adding to already stressful lives.

I have been gardening, weeding and thinning out and pruning. This has made me think.

If we had just continued to do what we did, then more people would have caught the virus; and more people would have died. Most of those who died would have been approaching the end of their lives. (Humans have a 100 per cent death rate.) But those left behind would have been the less vulnerable, the hardier, the younger. Nature's way of weeding a world containing more people than it can sustain under current systems.

I would argue that a sign of civilisation is caring for the weakest. But we don't do it, as the care home death rate shows.

This is going into the 'too hard' pile.

There is a government website that shows the location of deaths. It only covers England though.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

We know that our elderly friends and relatives, many of whom do have other illnesses, are going to die at some point. But if they get covid, they will become ill very quickly and often die in isolation. Those close to them cannot be with them and often we cannot prepare for their deaths.

40 years ago my father died of cancer and round about the same time it was confirmed that my mother had Alzheimers. In both instances I and my siblings had time to prepare ourselves for their deaths. I happened to be with both of them when they died and the image of them in their last few days is something that I have to work hard to forget. A small consolation of those close to people who have died from covid is that they won't have that image of their loved ones.

'Flu kills hundreds every winter too ! We've never been warned about this have we ?
In Wirral as a whole there are over 1,000 deaths " due to the virus " but a bad winter can treble that amount.

I have been saying what Prof Dingwall has said from the beginning!

Coronavirus tracker Scotland will tell you where the deaths are occuring ,how many are in intensive care and the numbers of those who have recovered .My health board area is the one most badly affected so I like to keep a close eye on it .Jane10 Greater Glasgow and Clyde

So - according to this guy, all of Europe and vast swathes of the rest of the world got it wrong with their lockdowns and social distancing. All those scientists and this one guy assumes that he knows better; that all these risks with economies have been taken for no reason. Hmmmm........

There is no doubt that pandemics are nature's way of weeding - but we have been defying nature since man began and I see no reason to stop now. Medical science, vaccinations, drainage systems - all things that have extended our lives. Why would we walk away now and say "OK Covid - do your worst?"

I was sent this link recently. Some might find it of interest.
We have had 4 deaths so far confirmed as corona virus related in our area. This is out of a total population of around 60,000.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsinvolvingcovid19bylocalareasanddeprivation/deathsoccurringbetween1marchand17april#middle-layer-super-output-areas

I never understood it was about stopping people dying or stopping the virus, simply about limiting the numbers of people with the virus so that the NHS could cope with those needing hospital care. Of course some people will have mild symptoms and won't need that but if we hadn't limited contact there would have been more deaths because ICU wouldn't have been able to cope. I don't know if the virus would kill me (it might I am 70+ but in good health). I do know that by social distancing I can keep the infection rate down and possibly stop doctors having to make choice about who gets hospital resources. Does the man really think we are all unable to understand the situation and terrified of dying. We are not stupid.

I thought it was crystal clear - stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives.
Not panicky. Just trying to smooth out a potential spike that would swamp the NHS. Looks like it's worked.

The restrictions were put in place to prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed by the huge numbers that would have required treatment in short space of time had the epidemic been allowed to spread uncontrolled.

What we now are witnessing is the extreme right in league with big business pedalling anti-lockdown propaganda simply in the interests of money and personal wealth.

Donald Trump is the senior in the above propaganda campaign, but anyone only has to look at the health crisis situation in the United States to see how disastrous such a message can be.

The English coronavirus site has a map showing deaths in each postcode area. The Covid 19 symptom tracker is good although, obviously, it depends on people entering how they feel each day. However, more than 3,000,000 are signed up for it so its pretty good. Edinburgh currently has 0.5% prevalence which is an improvement on when I first signed up to it. It was then 2.6%.
You can click on the map anywhere to check how things are there. It's interesting to see little hotpots appear then fade as the incidence reduces.

We will all come into contact with and probably be infected by Covid19 at some point no matter how long we self isolate. It's not something that will go away as long as we stay indoors long enough. As others have said the point of lockdown was to slow the spread. There is no way it can be stopped. In order to make people follow the lockdown advice they terrified us by stressing the deaths. Now people are too scared to go out. The government needs to start watering down the warnings. Yes people died yesterday but how many were discharged from hospital? People need to be convinced that the virus probably won't kill them if they catch it. Like all viruses and illnesses some people will die and I'm not trying to underplay that but the government has put so much emphasis on the deaths that people can't see beyond that.

EllanVannin The number of deaths that have occurred from covid have taken place in 2 months. I think that "winter" lasts for longer than that. Also, we do know that flu kills many people each year but we are not prevented from being with them.

"vampirequeen* None of us knew what the effects of covid would be until the virus actually hit us. It spread rapidly throughout the world and we should all be cautious until we know more about it. If we had not been curtailed in our varous activities, the number of deaths would likely be much greater.

What a load of crap, it is all about money over people lives. It surely doesn't matter how many were discharged, what matters is that 30,000 people have died and a great many of them were from care homes and this should matter. This government should hang its head in shame over the handling of this crises and in my view it is to early to ease restriction. And congratulations to any GN who had it and recovered, but just remember over 30,000 have died so far.