Loading ...COVID HARMLESS TO THE VAST MAJORITY : UK CHIEF MEDIC STATES
for those who want the bullet points only
UKs Chief medical officer says
translation from the author
Canadians have been scared into thinking that COVID-19 is so severe that even healthy children must isolate to slow-down its plague-like spread. That the virus is so lethal that it is worth risking thousands of deaths from the side effects of lockdown (poverty, weakened immune systems, domestic violence, suicide, lack of medical care, etc.).
Well, the UK Chief Medical Officer (who is also an epidemiologist) Dr. Chris Wittby had this say in a video press conference:
Most people, a significant proportion of people, will not get this virus at all, at any point of the epidemic which is going to go on for a long period of time. Of those who do, some of them will get the virus without even knowing it, they will have the virus with no symptoms at all, asymptomatic carriage, and we know that happens.
Of those who get symptoms, the great majority, probably 80%, will have a mild or moderate disease. Might be bad enough for them to have to go to bed for a few days, not bad enough for them to have to go to the doctor.
An unfortunate minority will have to go as far as hospital, but the majority of those will just need oxygen and will then leave hospital.
And then a minority of those will end up having to go to severe end critical care and some of those sadly will die.
But that’s a minority, it’s 1% or possibly even less than 1% overall case number…. even the very highest groups, if they catch this virus, will not die.
That’s the message we’re getting over here. Most people fully understand the points you’ve just highlighted. We are back to work, back to restaurants, bars etc. The remaining restrictions are planned to be removed by Oct/Nov, with a complete end to ‘social distancing’. Infections and deaths are now very low. Mask wearing in enclosed, indoor spaces is a sensible precaution (in my view), at least until an effective vaccine is available. If people choose to wear them in open spaces, I guess that’s up to them, but a bit over the top (my own view). Our focus was on trying to stop hospitals exceeding capacity. As we move into the coming Winter, there is a high risk for our emergency care services. They are extremely concerned and a lot of work is going into trying to avoid getting into the situation where people have to be turned away due to lack of bed capacity. The old and weak, always have, and always will succumb to nasty bugs and viruses unfortunately – we can’t close the country in an attempt to prevent that. The only way I see restrictions being brought back in is if there are more people needing hospital treatment than we can deal with.
Well That’s great news Northstar.
That is Great news !
A Sensible approach where they anticipate a complete end to social distancing and complete opening the economy and are not focusing on a “second” wave lockdown unless the worst happens.
Over here everybody is expecting another lockdown …more so in the US but even here in Canada where we have very low cases and almost no deaths.
One would think that your health care system has increased capacity to handle MORE patients. Do you know if that is so ?