UK economy down 9.9%, will this kill more people than Covid?

[tttigress]

www.bbc.com/news/business-56037123

The last Labour opposition kept highlighting "Austerity has killed X thousand people"

So with the economy taking such a hit will this economic contraction cause more people (in particular younger people) to die than actual Covid?

For example:
-someone not able to fulfill their potential due to the economy then committing suicide.
-young person not able to get a job then committing suicide.
-someone becoming homeless due the the effect the Covid response had on their mental health, homelessness shortens you life.
-tax revenues being down, therefore meaning the NHS cannot invest in services like advanced cancer detection. So people die of easy to treat cancers.
-people can't get a job, give up on living and eat/smoke/drink themselves to death.

Poverty is hazardous to health. So yes, there will be major fallout globally.

Not 'only' deaths, but more people struggling with chronic illness and disability.

Horrible for the 115k who have lost their lives and their families but the average age of death is over 80 and 9/10 were over 65. Do wonder how many of those lost would have died within the next 5 years anyway...

I really don’t want to seem heartless and I do appreciate there is more to it than the deaths. Lots of younger people living with long covid, many hospitalised and needing ICU beds. I get it, I do. I just think the vast majority of people who get covid are completely fine (this is a fact rather than opinion) so we’re primarily having nationwide lockdowns to protect the most vulnerable.

No idea what the solution is but we will feel the effects of lockdowns for many years to come. Millions are struggling mentally, cancer treatment has been cut, millions more are out of work. It isn’t good.

@Norwayreally you think people aged 65 would have died in the next 5 years anyway so it’s fine? Yikes. I don’t think you’re heartless, ageist and ignorant yes.

We already have more deaths from alcohol. Add in poverty, lack of exercise and mental health problems and yes that impacts on mortality.

How many people would have died if there had been no lockdown and hospitals had been overwhelmed? There would have been a lot of deaths caused by other health emergencies that couldn’t be treated then too. But it’s an estimate of that number that needs to be compared to the estimate of how many deaths the economic downturn caused by lockdowns will cause in total.

So, no lockdown - how many deaths of covid plus those caused by overwhelmed hospitals? And the economic downturn that would have resulted from the virus running unchecked and the resulting sickness, absence and people choosing not to go out shopping/eating/mass events etc?

Compare that to what we have - the 100k plus deaths so far of covid plus the deaths caused by lockdown and the economic crash.

It’s weird that some people seem to think if we’d had no lockdown, all that would have happened is some more old people would have died and everything else would have carried on as normal. How could that be the case?

Doesn't matter, the government will blame the populace, and the sheeple will buy their spin, like they have for the past 11 years, and still vote them in. Plus ca change . . .

@Newgirls

We already have more deaths from alcohol. Add in poverty, lack of exercise and mental health problems and yes that impacts on mortality.

Add smoking.

Exactly @LegoPirateMonkey people don’t get that aspect @GreenlandTheMovie oh there’s not been that many excess deaths. 20% for the year to 4th Dec 2020, hardly that many and that was with massive infection control measures what would it have been without it.

@Tal45

You're blaming lockdown for things that couldn't be avoided as we couldn't avoid covid. (Well maybe if we'd closed/controlled the borders a lot quicker, locked down earlier, got good track and trace quickly, tested faster and more - but too late for that). If we had let it run rampant and let the 1.5 million estimated people die do you think we would all have been happier? That the NHS would have been able to cope with cancer patients better? That the mental health of everyone would be better knowing there was this disease circulating and that we could be spreading it to vulnerable people but not doing anything to stop it's spread (and we often don't know who it is going to go for). That we should let it circulate knowing that the more it circulates the more opportunity there is for it to mutate leading to potentially more and more variants and deaths?

Even for people living in South Sudan a country with huge problems, civil war, drought, huge displacement of people, dire food shortages, violent crime, the average age of life expectancy is 56 so to suggest thousands of people in the Uk are going to die at 55 because of the impact of covid is completely ridiculous and self indulgent.

Also suicides went down in the first lockdown according to the BMJ, maybe from the 'eveyone pulling together' mentality. You can't say there are going to be loads of suicides because of covid - it's just conjecture.

I'm not saying there will be no impact or negative affects from covid, just that letting it run rampant was not a better option. The average age of death isn't going to be falling to 55, suicides are not through the roof (although the rates have been increasing by 10 or 11% for the last few years prior to 2020), the economy is likely to see a huge boost the minute we can all get back to normal life and jobs will start to open up again and the vaccines are going to mean that can happen in the not too distant future. If it doesn't happen even with vaccines, THEN we have a problem, until then I'm happy to hold out.

This comment is being reasonable!

Lockdown, no lock down, we would still be in a shittier place economically due to covid. We will never know what life would have been like post-pandemic if our government chose a different course of action. However, considering the current death rate, we can easily conclude that deaths would have easily surpassed 100k.

People are going to struggle to find work. I work in a civil service department. I recently recruited for an admin job paying £20k. Nothing exciting at all. At one time I might have received 20 ish applicants. I received over 500! Most were over qualified for the role. It’s going to be a tough few years.

@Norwayreally

Horrible for the 115k who have lost their lives and their families but the average age of death is over 80 and 9/10 were over 65. Do wonder how many of those lost would have died within the next 5 years anyway...

I really don’t want to seem heartless and I do appreciate there is more to it than the deaths. Lots of younger people living with long covid, many hospitalised and needing ICU beds. I get it, I do. I just think the vast majority of people who get covid are completely fine (this is a fact rather than opinion) so we’re primarily having nationwide lockdowns to protect the most vulnerable.

No idea what the solution is but we will feel the effects of lockdowns for many years to come. Millions are struggling mentally, cancer treatment has been cut, millions more are out of work. It isn’t good.

... and those people who covid will not kill or affect won't need the NHS for other things? I've got a relative who needs cancer screening, I'm pretty sure he'll miss the 2 week target. I don't think the department is just standing around bored shitless.

It’s not a stretch that 100,000 people in the UK will lose decades of life to poverty related causes, it’s fewer than has been estimated to have been caused by austerity.

My son (aged 20) took his own life last September. Jumped off Clifton Suspension bridge.
He left a detailed note and obviously had undiagnosed depression which he kept to himself, but the virus situation/lockdown played a big part too and was the 'icing on the cake'.
He could not imagine a positive future for himself.
He is not listed as a COVID death, but it certainly didn't help!

@Donoteatthekittens

People are going to struggle to find work. I work in a civil service department. I recently recruited for an admin job paying £20k. Nothing exciting at all. At one time I might have received 20 ish applicants. I received over 500! Most were over qualified for the role. It’s going to be a tough few years.

6m on UC now. SIX MILLION. Another 6m on furlough. What's going to happen when we cannot afford to fund furlough anymore?

There's only so much 'Just get a job' 'Supermarkets are hiring' and 'Work in care then' that's going to work.

But as long as you have eejits who still believe everyone on benefits is a scrounger and people who use foodbanks all have Sky/drink/use drugs/ have iPhone 12s/etc then this government will carry on doing whatever the fuck it wants.

I'm so sorry, Sausage.

@SausageCrush

My son (aged 20) took his own life last September. Jumped off Clifton Suspension bridge. He left a detailed note and obviously had undiagnosed depression which he kept to himself, but the virus situation/lockdown played a big part too and was the 'icing on the cake'. He could not imagine a positive future for himself. He is not listed as a COVID death, but it certainly didn't help!

I am so sorry Sausage. This is just so very, very sad. I know two people, both runners, both male, whose main social contact was through their running groups, who committed suicide in the last 6 months, because they could not cope with life under lockdown. But of course the suicidal don't write perfectly drafted notes so they can be recorded as covid deaths, and even if they did, they still wouldn't be recorded as covid related deaths.

@SausageCrush

My son (aged 20) took his own life last September. Jumped off Clifton Suspension bridge. He left a detailed note and obviously had undiagnosed depression which he kept to himself, but the virus situation/lockdown played a big part too and was the 'icing on the cake'. He could not imagine a positive future for himself. He is not listed as a COVID death, but it certainly didn't help!

I’m so sorry. What a terrible loss x

Add smoking
A million people quit smoking at the beginning of the coronavirus epidemic in the UK. That will show massive health benefits over the long term, assuming they manage not to start again.

@feelingverylazytoday

Add smoking A million people quit smoking at the beginning of the coronavirus epidemic in the UK. That will show massive health benefits over the long term, assuming they manage not to start again.

Yeah! More people living longer so they can develop health problems and dementia. That's a massive benefit, said no one ever.

That is so awful Sausage, I am so sorry about your son x

I wish deaths associated with covid measures could be recorded, as well as deaths with covid.

@sst1234

The draconian restrictions, this extended lockdown will for sure kill more people than COVID ever could. Unpopular opinion but many generations will pay the price because the state does not have the backbone to enforce shielding for the clinically vulnerable. And of course because the hysterical shriekers and the economically illiterate would scream blue murder if an attempt was made to keep the economy going for the young, fit and healthy.

What do you mean by "enforce shielding for the clinically vulnerable"?

Nearly half the Covid deaths are for people who've caught it in care homes, hospitals and those being cared for in their own homes, i.e. shielding! They weren't going out for jollies. It was mostly their "carers" etc who brought covid into their "shielded" environment. So, before you start going out about enforcing shielding, give some thought as to how you're going to make such environments safe for them.

@LadyMayoGoodway

But the economy shrinking and austerity aren’t the same thing are they, Labour say austerity killed people....not the actual shrinking of the global economy after the banking crisis. It totally depends how the government choose to deal with the costs of the pandemic....and I just can’t see how they can choose austerity again. George Osbourne has been on the record several times saying they went too far and too deep, so I don’t another Tory Government would want to follow in their footsteps so soon. So no.

In fact austerity and the poverty it created is one of the reasons why we’ve had such a high number of deaths in the UK.

And yet Labour were "promising" similar levels of public sector spending cuts in their manifesto when against the Tories back then too!

Im so sorry @SausageCrush

@rawalpindithelabrador Coffey is riding to the rescue.

From Private Eye.

"Coffey is to tackle the looming unemployment crisis by reviving a privatised welfare to work scheme from 2011 that was marred by poor results corruption , exploitation of the unemployed and the collapse of leading providers. Under Coffeys £2.9 billion Restart scheme contractors will help unemployed people on UC into work using job coaches training and work placements on a paid by results basis"

I would also like to add that the Government are very happy to stress the seriousness of long Covid now to keep us all compliant but are they going to suddenly change their tune about how serious it is when long Covid sufferers start applying for PIP!!!

In my country a guy who recently lost his job due to COVID shot and killed the HR manager at his old workplace and the head of his new job centre about ten days ago.

All the actual evidence suggests that the death rate goes down during recessions. Although the suicide rate goes up slightly deaths due to driving go down more (and at the moment there are far less flu deaths than normal).

The pandemic is shit and the lockdown is shit and it must be horrendous for the 35% of people whose income has dropped but it will not cause more deaths. We've had 116K deaths due to Covid with the lockdown, there would have been many many more without lockdown as the NHS failed to cope and more people died at home without care.

Fuuuucck Whereabouts are you country wise. Is there a link to a news item @KeflavikAirport