@ElizabethG81
Was it on this thread or another one today where I read the phrase "we're not saving lives, we're trading lives"? I think it's so true, you can't save lives in a pandemic, you can only trade them. The government's fixated on the number of Covid deaths as it's the most measurable outcome, and they'll just try to fudge everything else.
It was on another.
I remember making a similar point probably last summer when I had more fight in me for debate, and described it as trading off young lives for older lives. There were fewer ranges of opinion avaliable at that point...
It's like anything involving time travel, tweak one thing, and events will unfold differently. In the spring a teenager was killed riding his bike on a main road (while they were still very quiet). He was probably there at that moment because of lockdown.
Some accidental deaths won't have occured.
Less random people wounded or killed in street fights.
But that's countered by aggravated domestic abuse, declines in mental health (and associated physical health)
It's all just moving pieces around on the game of life.
What I would love to know is what percentage of "Covid deaths" were highly likely in the short term. How many were highly suceptible to the next unpleasant infection? We don't balk at flu deaths, and the usual winter peak about now. ONS data shows massive plummets in the usual categories of death.
We're also currently struggling with a backlog of hospital care that built up in the spring and summer and has now reached the point that people are being admitted to hospital with conditions that could have been treated or at least monitored at an earlier stage. (My dad went into denial about the state of his heart, despite his history, finally gave in to DM about going to the doctors,, saw the GP, downplayed and died in the street 8 hours later of heart faliure- many years ago, but some people really don't need much excuse!)