In the long run, will more people die as a result of lockdown than of covid?

[JKRowlingIsMyQueen]

Saw this comment in another thread and the last bit especially shocked me:

"Hospitals have been told to ignore anyone who needed them unless its covid related since then. GPs arent seeing anyone unless absolutely necessary. I know people having assessments over the phone that are impossible, Drs should assess the whole patient not just a couple of symptoms they cant even see. Its medicine 101.
People are dying at home from lack of care, Doctors have predicted tens of thousands will die in the next year because their life saving treatment was cancelled, they werent diagnosed in time, they were too scared to go to hosital because eveyone was screaming at them not to 'overwhelm the NHS with their problem' while A & E units stood empty.
I know nurses who have sat on their backsides for months, worrying about thier patients who arent allowed back for treatments and checkups.
I know people who have relatives who have illnesses which are now terminal due to lack of care.
There were 10,000 excess deaths due to neglect in their own homes in people suffering from dementia in April, due to lack of carers going in and making sure they were eating, drinking and taking their meds, not dying from lonliness and confusion. How many do you think there will have been by now?"

Between this, the suicide rates rising due to lockdown, elderly in care homes deteriorating due to isolation/lack of social contact and the missed cancers due to delayed cancer check ups, I cannot help but to come to the conclusion that the cure is showing to be worse than the disease. Am I alone in thinking this?

[Unsure33]

Yep

[RepeatSwan]

No. If the NHS had been completely swamped, covid deaths AND non-covid deaths would have been higher.

Lockdown prevented both covid deaths and non-covid deaths.

[Unsure33]

Why don’t you post this on the thread that is actually being commented on by nhs staff and see how they feel?

I lost 4 members of my family to covid .

I also had two members of my family who were taken in as emergencies during lockdown and they were treated extremely well .

My fathers regular eye injections have resumed . My mother went in for eye checks today before an operation .

It’s so easy to generalise just to make a “point”

[CoffeeRunner]

I agree with you.

[HerRoyalNotness]

I think it’s been handled very badly. People that needed treatment for life threatening diseases should have been able to get it. As well as those who were on diagnostic pathways

[bloodywhitecat]

Yes and my DP is likely to be one of them sadly.

[loulouljh]

I agree with this. We seem to have lost all reason and sense of proportion. Covid is not the only illness or source of death. It is one of many....

[AlecTrevelyan006]

@Unsure33

Why don’t you post this on the thread that is actually being commented on by nhs staff and see how they feel?

I lost 4 members of my family to covid .

I also had two members of my family who were taken in as emergencies during lockdown and they were treated extremely well .

My fathers regular eye injections have resumed . My mother went in for eye checks today before an operation .

It’s so easy to generalise just to make a “point”

I am sorry for your loss.

But I think it is quite likely that in the long term more lives will have been lost because of our reaction to covid, rather than covid itself.

[Ponoka7]

There was a report out saying that for every three people who've died from Covid, two have died from lock down. The people who have died from lock down were younger and stood a chance of having many more active years. That's without taking into account the fatal stabbings by mentally ill people, a lot refuggees, because services had been suspended and they were, in effect under house arrest.

Therapies had stopped and some people will be permanently adversely affected by that, because they've lost the windows for recovery/speech etc. SEN children have regressed, as well as the educational cost for all.

Some people would argue that we will never know how many would have died without lock down.

But if we try to have a conversation about natural ages of death, we are branded heartless.

[milkysmum]

I'm a mental health nurse. The impact of lock downs and restrictions has been horrific already. I don't know how this can carry on.

[Waxonwaxoff0]

Yes. I have absolutely no doubt about it.

Poverty will be the biggest killer. The next few years will demonstrate it.

[loulouljh]

I was referred to a specialist. The clinic still isn't running apparently. I have received an appointment for February. Was referred back in July!

[slipperywhensparticus]

111 didn't run through the (annoying and lifesaving) meningitis questions they just focused on covid questions

[AgentCooper]

@milkysmum

I'm a mental health nurse. The impact of lock downs and restrictions has been horrific already. I don't know how this can carry on.

@milkysmum I see a clinical psychologist every few weeks over the NHS Attend Anywhere system. She says the same, so much deterioration (me included). She says she doesn’t think it’s been worth it.

[dementedma]

Poverty and suicide will kill many, there is no doubt.

[slipperywhensparticus]

posted too soon

I've also been on multiple antibiotics for an abcess which I'm now losing teeth over however as we haven't been able to treat the abscess with anything other than antibiotics in 7 months im risking a hospital admission we managed to get a tooth out but the numbing injection didn't work enough to get the other two teeth out because we cannot clear the infection im on yet another course of antibiotics and another try of removing a tooth next week they can't clean it out or anything its literally in inject pull nothing else

Im also not being monitored for my long term health condition

[wifflewafflebiscuit]

Unfortunately I think you are right

[Hazelnutlatteplease]

Only if lockdown is successful. And sadly many people won't recognise that success.

Nice guidelines state that anyone with preexisting conditions or realiant on someone else for care can be depriotised for care if hospitals become overwhelmed.

Those dementia patients, people with conditions who have previously had no impact on their life, disabled people wont even be admitted to hospitals if coronavirus gets too much hold.

So no I dont believe lockdown is more deadly than the alternative.

[WhyAreThereNoNamesLeft]

You are wrong in your thinking.

You need to compare:

• COVID deaths and lockdown-deaths with lockdown
  

• COVID deaths and lockdown deaths with no lockdown/ lockdown light
  

Obviously can’t know but we can extrapolate. You can’t say it wasn’t worth locking down for a disease that only killed 60,000 without knowing what it would have been if we hadn’t locked down.

[milkysmum]

I actually don't know a single person who thinks this is proportionate, and I don't see an end in sight either which is what's so depressing. I manage a therapy unit and our whole focus has shifted to covid and PPE, despite our unit catering for fit healthy women in their 20's. Healthy women who now have therapists in ppe, who cannot see their family or go home. We have women in hospital who cannot get funding to come into our unit because their case managers are all working from home and everything has pretty much ground to a halt with regards to getting funding. The whole system is falling apart.

[DominaShantotto]

Without a doubt. It's quite possibly irreparably damaged my little one's eyesight with the NHS being so shut down still and my mental health is utterly utterly destroyed - I've gone from absolutely acing a degree and being in such a good shape mentally I was coming off the anti depressants I'd been on a low dose of for a long while... to having panic attacks whenever I'm anywhere in public (not fear of the virus but fear of how vile it's sent people), being unable to physically attend uni and being so crippled with anxiety and depression I've been begging the GP for better medication on the phone (to no avail - they're just a "want to kill yourself? thinking about doing it? OK here's the prescription - any problems google the crisis team")

[RepeatSwan]

There were 10,000 excess deaths due to neglect in their own homes in people suffering from dementia in April, due to lack of carers going in and making sure they were eating, drinking and taking their meds, not dying from lonliness and confusion. Where is this 'data' from?

[HesterShaw1]

I think it's fairly well accepted OP

[HesterShaw1]

@RepeatSwan

There were 10,000 excess deaths due to neglect in their own homes in people suffering from dementia in April, due to lack of carers going in and making sure they were eating, drinking and taking their meds, not dying from lonliness and confusion. Where is this 'data' from?

It was reported last week in the mainstream media outlets

[MushMonster]

I think the number of other deaths (non covid) will be comparable to the covid deaths indeed. Due to the services not catching up after the lockdown ended, and the GPs seem to have vanished where I live. 172 calls (I kid you not!) to get a phone appointment next day, finally!
But if we had no lockdown, the system would have further collapsed I think. Already doctors and nurses have died on the first wave. If it roams free, do we have PPE enough? Good appropriate PPE? Will they get a rest? Will all capacity been taken by covid patients? Will we have enough ambulances? I think the lockdown was neccessary and fingers crossed this time we are prepared.