Difficult to get a balanced view isn’t it.  Its all very well being cautious as we want to be responsible but the world doesn’t stop in the face of other risks which may (or may not) be higher.

For instance normal flu killed several thousand people in England alone in 2017/18 and a few thousand die on the roads every year.  We take care about such thing but don’t go into a blind funk about them.  In fact most of us don’t really think about the risks of them at all unless we have professional reason to.

Covid-19 seems likely to be no worse than a short period of discomfort and inconvenience for the majority of us, at least those of us who are healthy.

It makes sense to minimize the risk from a public health perspective but from an individual perspective panic buying bog roll and fearing the zombie apocalypse is just ludicrous.

Without accurate information though, people are scared of the unknown.  And the news obsession with scare stories and worst xase scenarios doesn’t help.

The need for extra caution isn’t because this is a strain of virus that is deadly to everyone – it’s the fact it’s a new strain that nobody really knows much about, but is known to cause pneumonia which is potentially lethal for the elderly and other vulnerable people.

We’re not being asked to be careful for our own sakes; it’s for the sake of *everyone else*.

This approach is more easily understood across Europe – the idea of society and solidarity runs through countries like France, Germany and Italy in a way that has become alien to us in the UK. While those countries are prioritising the well-being of the weakest in society, our government is prioritising reducing the impact on economic activity.

Without getting all heavy and political, it’s as if we’ve lost sight of *why* we should be concerned about the virus; it’s not because *we* won’t be adversely affected too badly by it – it’s because *some* might otherwise be killed by it.

Businesses *could* be helped through a difficult period (through loans/grants) – and Richard “sue the NHS” Branson was first in line asking for part of a £7bn handout. Businesses can be helped recover by simply throwing money at them – not so the health of an elderly relative.

If everyone who says “actually it’s not much worse than a bit of a sniffle” was asked to nominate a family to perish as part of the cost of the ignorant “let’s all get it for herd immunity” strategy, I suspect they might see things differently. Not everyone has a sick/elderly/vulnerable family member, so not everyone will lose loved ones – that doesn’t mean it’s ok for others to, though.

@torros but that would lessen their profits… no, I don’t think the banks will do very much in general…

Good news on the number of new cases in China. Hopefully this is an indicator that taking serious action to lock down at an early stage can work. Stay well folks. It might be worthwhile thinking about some ‘social distancing’ and cancelling game club meets etc. for a little while.

This is a new virus that has not been found in human before, so the description that ‘normal flu is worse’ does not seem to be a firm conclusion to come to from the available data. In order the manage the severe cases, and try and ensure out health systems are not overwhelmed, action needs to be taken to try and slow down the infection rate.It is also unclear as yet as to how much immunity those who have had the disease will acquire (hence the WHO statement that a policy based on ‘herd immunity’ may not be a good policy) or any long term health impacts.

Certainly there will be a short term economic shock to the global system. The medium and long term is less clear.

Keep in mind that restrictions on travel and global trade are the type of things we will need to do in order to try and impact global warming. This may be the ‘new normal’.

Stay safe, and lets all look out for the most vulnerable in our societies.

@blinky465: “While those countries are prioritising the well-being of the weakest in society, our government is prioritising reducing the impact on economic activity.”

This was exactly my thought process on their first speech on the matter – economy over people. My g.f’s family are from italy, with many having moved to the Milan area for jobs, seeing and hearing what the italians are having to put up with and what their government is doing to alleviate the problems (both medically and economically), then comparing that to how the UK stated it only further indicated to be that the economy is the thing they worry failing above all.