Dave Wayne wrote:Finding this a very interesting thread and there are a lot of varied opinions ranging from people being prepared to take their chances, some being a bit more cautious, to those who won't go out till there is a vaccine or the virus is eliminated. With a few exceptions, these seem to generally be age related with the young having a 'sod it' attitude and the older end of the support being very wary. I fit somewhere in the middle but I won't be rushing back till the number have fallen a lot more than they are now.
My concern is that those with the 'take it on the chin' attitude are going to prolong the recovery from the virus as they will continue to spread it and keep the numbers up.
While we naturally become more risk averse as we get older, I think the young people do need to look at the wider picture and consider the potential impact on others. With the virus being contagious in pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic cases it means it is easily spread by people who don't even now they are carrying the diseases, This means you could be infecting people for between 4 and 14 days without even knowing you are infected yourself. While you may be young, fit and healthy (I will come to that later), how would you feel if you found out you were responsible for passing it on to your grandparents, parents, work colleagues, or even your mate who is diabetic or asthmatic ?
I don't know the current figures, but a couple of weeks ago they were saying that approximately 1 in every 2,000 people was currently infected. This means that if there was a match with a 25-30% crowd capacity allowed, the chances are that at least one person in that crowd would be carrying the virus. How many people would they infect during the 2 hours in the ground ? 10 ? 20 ? 30 ? And how many people would then be infected by those ? A league 2 football match could easily be the cause of a localised outbreak leading to a further lockdown.
Now back to the young, fit and healthy part of it. Yes it is widely accepted that the majority of fatalities and serious cases of infection are older or have pre-existing conditions but there are no guarantees that you won't be one of the unlucky ones. Even if you survive the illness, at what cost ? Somebody flippantly mentioned earlier in this thread that he gets out of breath walking from the pub to the ground. That may be so, but there is a big difference between being a bit wheezy after walking a mile or so, and having to sit down halfway up the stairs. And this is not just when you have the virus, people are still in this condition 3 months after 'recovery', and these are not the old people that have been on ventilators, these are young people in their 20s who had a 'mild' case and stayed at home. Nobody yet knows the long term damage this virus is doing to peoples lungs and internal organs. Do you really want to live the rest of your life like that just to watch a football match ? Add to that the fact the the virus is also affecting some people (including young people) neurologically, leaving them with brain conditions which they may never fully recover from.
If after reading this you still think you are prepared to take that risk, then that would be fine if the only person likely to be affected was yourself. I used to race stockcars in my 20s and early 30s which was dangerous but I accepted that risk and the only person it would impact on was me. But this is not a choice you are making just for yourself, as the impact on others is also your responsibility. We have never been in this position in our lifetimes, and we need to stick together to beat this virus and consider other people as well as ourselves.
Yes we need to get back to normal life as soon as possible, but the best way to do that is to be as cautious as we can be until the numbers have dropped a lot more. Now is not the time to be selfish and just think of yourself.
Some good points Dave and whilst we are the same age, I do slightly differ in that I think we do need to start getting back to the new normal and this does mean, for me anyway, a return to spectator sports, concerts, etc, etc. I do think they have to be better managed and I have seen examples (Norway I think) where social distancing at football grounds has been practical. It's not about being selfish, the younger generation are the ones who are going to be most affected by this crisis for what, effectively, is protecting the older generation. I think it is right that we return to some sort of normal as soon as possible and if the older generation and vulnerable are not comfortable with that, then of course they can take their own precautions. If that means not seeing their kids/grand kids because they are going to concerts and football matches until they feel safe, well so be it. We cannot, as Sandy suggests, wait for a vaccine, no-one knows when, or even if, that might be available. So we need to continue to take reasonable precautions, but we do need to return to some sort of normality.
I still maintain watching football, outdoors, socially distanced seating, is safer than sitting in a pub or shopping at Tesco.