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

I agree 100% with Whitewave and lemongrove.
I’m not sure who Prof Dingwall is, or qualifications he has that enable him to spout his opinions like this. He seems to be described as an advisor, but I’d like to know an advisor about what exactly.
It’s my opinion that the government haven’t done enough. They haven’t tested enough, they haven’t procured sufficient PPE, they left lockdown too late, they didn’t sufficiently lock us down, they didn’t close our borders, although obviously repatriations and freight would have had to come in, and they ignored the care homes for too long.
Having said that, I’m not remotely convinced that any other government would have been one iota different.

Okay, a quick google search has shown that Prof Dingwall is a part time Professor in the School of Social Sciences at Nottingham Trent University, for the rest of his time he is a consulting sociologist through his own company. He has worked extensively in other universities, mainly in research centres.
Well I’m afraid I still don’t understand why he thinks he is qualified to tell us all that we’re being frightened by our government and that basically it appears he thinks we should just get on with being infected because it’s really not that serious!
Perhaps he’d like to have that discussion with a few of the families who have been bereaved through this pandemic. I’d especially like him to have the conversation with the families of the three hundred or so people were younger than 45 when they died of Covid19.
Perhaps his views influenced the government in its initial assessment that herd immunity was the way to go, and despite the fact that I watched the government tell us that we were going for herd immunity, they now deny it ever was the case.

Maybe he's another of the scientists who were miffed at not being on the SAGE committee? He could join the new second eleven lot which has set itself up.

An official report on covid has been redacted by government advisors before being released to the public. Apparently the redact parts are those where the scientists have criticised government policies that they had been asked to consider in March and April.

So much for open government.

I’ve stopped listening to the so called experts , I have enough problems breathing at the best of times so I’m staying away from people for as long as I can, it’s very restrictive, but I’m alive to tell the tale!
When we are allowed out of lockdown I will be masked and gloved up, no matter what the experts say, once the vaccine is sorted, then I’ll consider going back to ‘normal’.

vampirequeen, thanks for you posting. Could have been made by me. I do feel that Project Fear has been this governments belated response to this virus. It should have been testing , more tests and even more tests and lots of PPE. A three phrase slogan was so much easier.
In the meantime, the NHS is continuing being privatised - Nightingale Hospital contracts nearly all to private companies.

I stayed in for six weeks but started to feel weak and depressed. We live in a quiet area and people are considerate so we now go for walks being extremely careful to keep our distance from anyone we see. We have just had a short walk to a football field and had a good walk round that. We take our shoes off before we come in and wash our hands even though we do not touch anything.

I don’t see too many people around here apparently ‘terrorised’. A lot evidently think social distancing doesn’t apply to them, and next door neighbours have friends/family round again (in a very small garden) - a fairly regular thing since lockdown.

Has Prof Dingwall got a paper coming out he wants to publicise perhaps?

Agree with others who say he’s not qualified to comment, but academics do like to opine. Perhaps he should consider a change of career and become an epidemiologist or virologist or A and E consultant, something like that.

Oh - and for the avoidance of doubt, having the virus once does make you immune to COVID-19 and potentially may actually leave you more vulnerable to future attacks if your lungs or other organs have been affected by the first dose.

It has and will kill many people. It's a particularly horrible way to die, struggling for oxygen (it causes panic, then the body needs more oxygen) or unconscious on a ventilator. Of course, statistically, most of us will survive - but that doesn't reduce the horror of it.

Glorybee, did you have a positive test result, or are you just assuming that you've 'had it'? Immunity isn't guaranteed, so it's possible to catch it again!

I thought testing was not done earlier because the available tests were not good enough—too many false positives and false negatives.

The Telegraph's current stance is to push as hard as it can for the rapid end to lockdown. They pick their 'experts' accordingly. I note that Prof. Dingwall is quoted as making his remarks in his personal capacity. Professionally he would have absolutely no evidence to justify them unless he had carried out, or had the results of, a peer reviewed study of a statistically significant number of people which came to the conclusion he has.

He seems to be ignoring the fact that, left to itself, the virus has an extremely high infection rate, higher than that of the Spanish flu, which killed millions. With such a high rate left unchecked hospitals would be utterly overwhelmed and your chances of dying would be vastly increased. So he's working from a false premise to start with.

If you are in the 60+ age group which is at most risk of dying from C19 and perfectly happy for Nature to do a little weeding job on you, so be it.

Personally, as a reasonably healthy and active member of that age group, it's not terror that keeps me in lockdown, it's a perfectly, IMO, reasonable desire to enjoy life for a few more years yet.

Just as amatter of interest for those who keep on about winter flu deaths being normal, , the ONS figures show that the number of 'excess deaths' up to w/e 24th April, for England and Wales alone, stands at some 38,400. With Scotland and NI it was probably more than 40,000. The 'norm' against which excess deaths are calculated is the same week's average over the past 5 years. So the 'norm' will include winter flu deaths.

ONS figures here if anyone wants to check

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending24april2020

Hetty58 - I’m assuming I’ve had it, 7 weeks ago. I had a continuous dry cough, fever, aching limbs for a week followed by fluid on the lungs for a week after that (even though there was no phlegm during the week of coughing), it was the strangest ‘flu’ I’ve had. I’m confident that my immune system has produced antibodies, and am not worried about catching it again. I don’t see why our immune systems should act any differently to this virus than others.

I fully obey the guidance and have 3 people in my immediate family with pre existing conditions who would probably not do too well if they caught it and they are being sensible too. I have heard people express real fear who are not in any vulnerable group.

glorybee so pleased that you are through the virus and recovered.

But please don’t take immunity for granted and put yourself in harms way as a result of you assuming immunity.

There is no evidence yet produced of the level of immunity that contracting the disease will give you - if any. Nor how long this immunity lasts.

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
Dinahmo I think it rather depends how you look at it. If any of my close family died in hospital from COVID, the fact that I couldn’t be with them would add greatly to my distress.

Thanks Whitewave, I’m very conscious and do everything recommended - I have to consider that I could pass it on to others if I didn’t and I would never forgive myself. I do have peace of mind about myself though, and whether or not it’s justified, I’ll enjoy it while it lasts!

An excellent discussion with some thoughtful replies.

MaizieD I do agree with you that if anyone looks around enough it is nearly always possible to find an expert who's opinion suits ones preferred narrative.

What evidence are you basing your claim that having the virus once affords you immunity Glory? Remember that the common cold is a Coronavirus.

This is currently no evidence to support that claim - far more research is needed.

SirChenjin - I agree, far more research is needed. I’m basing my assumption on the fact that humans produce antibodies so for now, I’m not expecting a second dose (and as I’ve already said, I’m taking all precautions we are supposed to). My family don’t all agree with me on this but it’ll do for me, and I’ll be keeping a keen eye on developments in research as they unfold.

If you want to take the risk then fine, but no-one should be under the impression that having the virus affords immunity and I think it’s really important to press that point.

I’ve just been involved in a piece of work around this very issue and I would urge anyone who might be a bit complacent to be very aware that there is currently no irrefutable evidence to support that claim. At the risk of repeating myself - the common cold is a Coronavirus.

My DS was telling me about a big housing estate near him. There are loud parties every night and a drunken rabble in the street shouting and spitting at anyone unfortunate enough to go near them.
DS said that he's putting his faith in Darwinism. That should reduce their inconsiderate numbers ⚰!
Sorry for apparent flippancy but he's pretty annoyed. Police doing nothing - maybe hoping for the same outcome. Just a shame for those who'd have to look after them.

There is some validity in this.

On parents groups I am there are many parents saying they have not taken their children outside even once since lockdown to exercise due to disproportionate fear. And a majority agree with them.

Also so many saying they will not be returning their children to school. Not because they found home learning suited the child but because of the adults fear of ever letting them out of the house.

People are not presenting to hospitals with heart attacks.

Some moderation is needed.

It isn't Middlesborough is it Jane? I hear terrible reports. I'm about 30/40 miles away and bad news travels fast.

I think that strict lockdown rules were necessary once the virus was here in order to avoid the sort of health system overloads suffered by Spain and Italy for instance. We have so far managed to do this.

I do however think that we would not have needed such a tight lockdown if the right actions had been taken as soon the evidence of spread to Europe was there. We should have closed borders to all other than absolutely essential traffic, and that should have been subjected to quarantine. The absence of accurate testing at that point would have meant that quarantine should have been applied to all coming into the country.

Because we were slow on the uptake, we have had to be stricter than might otherwise have been necessary.

Meticulous contact tracing was also absent.

The government got side-tracked with the concept of herd immunity, without thinking through how that might be achieved without jeopardising great swathes of the more vulnerable population. And the economy rather than humanity ruled their thinking. I think there will be a huge economic impact that might have been lessened if more efficient action had been taken at the beginning.

But we are where we are and we have to knuckle down and stick to the rules.