POLL: Which was the best scenario?

[MindfulMouse]

Please help me settle an argument with my husband. Both of these scenarios to be considered on the basis of hindsight of what we now understand about covid...

SCENARIO A:
Essentially the reality of what occurred - initial slow response to implement measures, then eventual full lockdown of majority population resulting in significantly impacted economy, delays in diagnosis and treatment of every other illnesses, impact of the measures on mental health etc.

ALTERNATIVELY,

SCENARIO B:
All the current safety measures now in place from as early as possible (social distance, face coverings, limits on numbers etc), perhaps even a circuit breaker style lockdown to help slow spread and not overwhelm services, but with no blanket extended closure of the economy, recommended isolation only for those at risk categories (with as much additional support provided to those in that bracket) whilst everyone else encouraged to go about their lives as safely and ordinarily as they can.

In which scenario would society have been better off in the long run?

YABU - SCENARIO A
YANBU - SCENARIO B

Would total extended lockdown have been inevitable in scenario B anyway (not just circuit breaker) ((again, with hindsight obviously!))

P.S as in our household, this will obviously not be unanimous but respectful sensible debate please!

Could you not have posted this in the coronavirus topic?

@Lockheart sorry, I'm not very savvy, can you do a poll in that? I wanted the voting thing. I wonder if I can get it moved if so?

No, there's no poll in Coronovirus.

We should have battened down the hatches in January.

I don't think either would have worked. We needed a harder lockdown much sooner with closed boarders. We are an island, and with that could have been living covid free by now like some other countries.

@MereDintofPandiculation thank you for clarifying!

@aLilNonnyMouse thank you, that's a fair argument! I know there are many more factors and different possible scenarios really but just to settle this argument, I just wanted to gauge which of those two scenarios we would have been done better from?

Obviously the best option would be new Zealand or South Korea style. Low death rate, smaller economic impact. Current measures aren't actually effective so wouldn't have worked especially at the beginning when treatment was less effective.

Can you simplify the argument a bit, please?

@HandfulofDust thats a really good point about the treatment! Probably lends more to Scenario A as being more effective as that would have been a constant.

@Susannahmoody sorry I probably have overcomplicated it.

Hopefully this is better...If we'd operated how we presently are in response to the virus, would society generally have been overall less severely impacted by now and in the longer term than we have been?

In scenario B everyone would have found an excuse as to why the rules didn't apply, much as we are seeing now. The big factor is that the govt should have stopped flights and instigated a proper test and trace system much much sooner, with enforced quarantine.

We can't know until a few months time when we see how this type of response works (that is no lockdown per se).

I'm going to go for A but with the lockdown implemented one week earlier which would have saved 10,000 lives according to scientific estimates.

Given the experience in the North West so far where numbers are increasing significantly despite the measures in place I'm not sure it's very effective.

In B I imagine the nhs would have been overwhelmed. Just see how they get with flu season never mind this. The lockdown was never about saving lives. It was always about protecting the nhs.

Tbh all the rules etc now are just political while we wait for the population to demand they be lifted and we go back to normal.

Corona is just now going to be the more deadly seasonal flu. There are enough new humans to keep it alive even if it couldn't reinfect

thanks for all of your replies guys! Totally agree, we're probably still some way from really knowing many of the lessons!