"
In the real world"
This is denial masquerading as cynical realism. Covid-19 cases in the UK continue to increase at 1% or 2% a day. This is much better than the double digit growth of March and early April, but it is still bad.
At 2% a day cases double every 5 weeks. Would anyone apply this reasoning to any other disease? Can you imagine anyone saying "We have AIDS under control, cases are only doubling once every 5 weeks."
You might say that on the best days, the increase has only been 1%. That's fantastic. As soon as people start going back to the pubs, the rate of spread will again accelerate to something more than 1% a day.
Classic psychological denial is clearly operating in force. A textbook case might be the man with pain in his chest and numbness in his left arm but instead of thinking it's a heart attack he keeps thinking "It's nothing, just stress." Denial is in force when things are so grim that people do not feel comfortable facing how grim they are. Some people don't see reality until they are forced to. Some people only have a lucid moment when they are in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Some people never have a lucid moment, they simply die.
In reality, the struggle against Covid-19 will take at least another year and might take two or more years. Things are going to be very bad for a long time. But no doubt, some people won't see that clearly till they've personally known some people who've died.
The biggest worldwide increase for this illness was 2 days ago:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52748894
This is denial masquerading as cynical realism. Covid-19 cases in the UK continue to increase at 1% or 2% a day. This is much better than the double digit growth of March and early April, but it is still bad.
At 2% a day cases double every 5 weeks. Would anyone apply this reasoning to any other disease? Can you imagine anyone saying "We have AIDS under control, cases are only doubling once every 5 weeks."
You might say that on the best days, the increase has only been 1%. That's fantastic. As soon as people start going back to the pubs, the rate of spread will again accelerate to something more than 1% a day.
Classic psychological denial is clearly operating in force. A textbook case might be the man with pain in his chest and numbness in his left arm but instead of thinking it's a heart attack he keeps thinking "It's nothing, just stress." Denial is in force when things are so grim that people do not feel comfortable facing how grim they are. Some people don't see reality until they are forced to. Some people only have a lucid moment when they are in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Some people never have a lucid moment, they simply die.
In reality, the struggle against Covid-19 will take at least another year and might take two or more years. Things are going to be very bad for a long time. But no doubt, some people won't see that clearly till they've personally known some people who've died.
The biggest worldwide increase for this illness was 2 days ago:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52748894