To think there should be some kind of national reflection on the pandemic?

[23rdmarch2020]

It’s coming up to three years since the first lockdown. In many ways, it feels an absolute age ago. From personal experience, my life completely changed in the space of a week and so many things happened in my life that never would have because of the pandemic (some good, some bad). For some, it has been an absolute tragedy. In the space of a few weeks we went from being in our normal lives to it being a criminal offence to step outside our homes without a valid excuse. Obviously people are keen to move on but AIBU to think there should be more reflection on the pandemic than there has been?

@BashirWithTheGoodBeard

You could've just written waaaaaaaah and saved yourself some time there.

I wasn't talking to you, but

You seem a little confused about how message boards work.

@BashirWithTheGoodBeard

You seem a little confused about how message boards work.

You seem a little aggressive.

Only a little?

I'm not unable to counter your points. I just don't see why I should bother engaging with you given the word salad, insults and the refusal to answer my very relevant question.

Based on everything i have seen, excess deaths now are nowhere near as high as excess deaths during the peak of the covid pandemic in 2020. Where are you getting your information from?

Article from Nov 22

The chart in that article doesn't demonstrate that excess deaths are higher now (or on the nov 2022) than the peak of the pandemic at all.

And a big part of that is that things like road traffic deaths, violent deaths, other infectious diseases etc all reduced significantly in lockdown. And things that rarely kill young people but contribute to older deaths like flu and norovirus.

Im Nov 2022 there were 1.482 more deaths than normal. That is what is known as excess deaths. Compared with 315 2 years ago. You can attempt to brush that under the carpet as much as you like but it’s a concerning figure. Why did Covid deaths matter but the fact that we have a 1,,000 extra deaths than normal in one month doesn’t matter? Maybe it’s because we don’t have a daily slide show with the excess deaths..

This has been all over the media. Even Chris Whitty has said he’s concerned about it.

I don’t know how you could have missed all the coverage on this.

November 2020 wasn't the peak of the pandemic in terms of deaths . Look at the chart rather than reading the words of a journalist in a right wing paper. Mortality was actually lower than average at some points in 2020. This is arguably partly because there was hardly any flu or other infectious disease due to lockdown.

ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid

At least England and Scotland are having public enquiries.

In Wales, Drakeford has decided that he doesn't want his own actions placed under scrutiny and there won't be one. He knows just how badly he will come out of it.

The restrictions were far harsher than England and quite nonsensical - want shoes for your child? Sorry no

We don't actually know if there would have been fewer, or more, or similar amounts of covid deaths without lockdowns, or with different lockdown policies.

There is some reason to think that while lockdowns might have temporarily brought down case numbers, they just went up again when they were eased, and in the end the numbers were pretty similar.

The other huge question is whether they increased other deaths, and whether they will continue to increase other deaths, and who it is that will be affected. If in the end we see that we have large numbers of excess deaths over 10 or 20 years, to prevent a smaller number of covid deaths, that's pretty significant. And whatever some idiots claim, there is a difference between a very elderly person in a care home, whose statistical length of stay in said home is about 18 months even without covid, dying of a respiratory disease, and an infant being born with syphilis and living with the consequences of that permanently. That is not an apples to apples trade-off.

What people are upset about is that the media and certain authorities, and certain sectors of the population, would not allow these kinds of questions to be hashed out in the public space as they ought to have been. There was so much authoritarian control of opinion, with people who brought these questions up being accused of being granny killers and, perversely, anti-science.

There is a lot of reason to think that they got the balance very wrong and that lockdowns will have caused more harm, just in terms of health, without including economic or educational harm or any of that. We don't know yet for sure, but the evidence is not looking good.

Stop mixing your arguments up! You keep switching from talking about Covid deaths to all cause mortality. Of course deaths from other causes were low in lockdown. People were not having car accidents, there was no flu. I don’t think you know what you are arguing about any more? You just seize a point and run with it. We’re all looking at the bigger picture and the long term effects of lockdown here.

I am clearly focusing on exploring why excess deaths are higher now than they were previous to the pandemic it doesn’t matter if you want to hone down on one certain month and split hairs. The general trend is there and it’s being reported everywhere because the stats are there. Chris Whitty is not part of the right wing media. We are suffering from higher excess deaths and I hope we can get to the bottom of why. Because the numbers are alarming.

Recent data from the Office for Health Improvements and disparities found that since Sept of this year there have been 900 more deaths from cancer than would have been expected at this of year.

The authors of the report concluded that whilst lockdowns had the effect or reducing transmission of Covid they caused a wide range of concerns across society such as mental health, domestic abuse and safeguarding concerns.

There will be further impacts that were not measured and will not yet have been fully realised they claim.

With regards to school closures the authors have said the closures have the potential to have long lasting effects on children’s education, development and life chances.

They site an 81% increase in referrals to child and adolescent mental health services in the period of April - Sept 2021 versus the same period in 2019.

This is the kind of ‘reflection’ we need.

You are the one being inconsistent. As you say all cause death is important which is true so why are you comparing all cause excess deaths now with only COVID deaths during the pandemic?

@Elphame Im in North Essex and i have a video on my old mobile that i took in our local Tesco in November 2020 (i kept the staffs faces out of it. Not their fault) they blocked off the home wares department upstairs by blocking the escalator with displays of Christmas chocolate

Because it highlights how horrified we were about the Covid deaths yet there is less knowledge/concern about excess deaths. It highlights what many of us are trying to say. That during the pandemic it seemed like Covid deaths were the only ones that mattered - that these must be prevented at all costs. That we were given daily updates on Covid deaths but with zero context of what a normal daily death rate would be. How many people die of cancer/heart disease every day normally? It added to the sense of fear to provide no context.

I have never been inconsistent with anything I have said. You however… I may be alone here but I have no idea what you’re even arguing about anymore..

And yet a diptheria outbreak caused nary a whisper

I've answered both of your questions, the impressively stupid one once you tried to disassociate yourself with it and then the reasonable and valid one that you tried to goalpost move to. So that can't be your excuse. Try harder!

And considering that you obviously want to wade in on this, and have certainly tried to come out swinging even, if you had the ability to counter any of my points, you'd have done so.