(Covid) To think these recommendations are bonkers?

[NoCharnce]

So the government commission into how to memorialise the Covid pandemic has recommended the government implement “A UK-wide day of reflection should be established and held annually.”

Other recommendations include national memorials (10 sites already identified!), oral histories and museums plus additional funding for local authorities to set up their own memorials.

I can’t be the only one who thinks this is nuts and hope the government ignores the recommendations? I genuinely cannot believe people get paid to produce this crap.

Because hell, we were just being paid to sit at home and watch Netflix, right,?

@1dayatatime

For the majority of cases and certainly those below 80 Covid was not a life threatening disease. However for the majority of cases cancer is a life threatening condition. So the hospitals prioritised the treatment of a less life threatening condition over a more life threatening condition.

Yes, sadly that's what happened. My OH was due to start chemotherapy the week before Boris announced the first lockdown. Hospital phoned on the morning of his treatment to say it was cancelled and they'd get back to him with a re-arranged date. Months passed. Radio silence from the hospital. He phoned several times to try to chase them up, but it was mostly answerphones where he left a message but they never got back to him. A few times he managed to speak to someone but they just said they'd pass the message on, but again, no call backs. He got so worried after a few months that we went in person to the chemo dept to ask in person, but it was all closed and shuttered!

Finally, with persistence, he got to speak to someone who couldn't believe he'd not started his treatment as they claimed they'd been doing the chemo sessions throughout and apparently "he'd fallen through the cracks". Then things started to move, he needed to start again with blood tests, skeletal x-ray, MRI scans, etc as the previous ones were now out of date. He also needed an in person consultant appointment. So we went to various hospitals over a few weeks, and ever single one was like a zombie apocalypse - literally empty except for a few staff crowded around reception desks - entire waiting areas taped off and empty, corridors empty. Chemotherapy dept completely empty, even the treatment rooms when he started his infusions were empty. So, no, they really weren't treating "urgent" patients as normal as cancer treatment is just about the most urgent you can get really. The year later (2021), those same places were heaving with people again, treatment rooms were chock full, as was the chemotherapy waiting rooms. People really can't say that cancer patients were being treated as normal - we saw with our own eyes that numbers were tiny. I suspect, like OH, they were deliberately delaying treatment to keep patients out of the hospital. I shudder to think how many cancer patients needlessly died whilst waiting for their treatment to start if what happened to my OH is typical.

@user1497207191

That's horrific and thats with your OH actually having cancer being diagnosed.

My oncologist friend said that for 18 months his first stage referrals dropped by 60%. So there were a lot of cancer patients who didn't even get diagnosed.

I genuinely think that more lives will be lost from the Covid measures than from Covid itself.

I think that's accepted already.

Covid was life threatening for many of those with cancer.

@1dayatatime

But I don’t understand that. Do you think hospitals would have been all ticking along nicely and running as normal if no restrictions were in place? Cancer patients seen promptly? With Covid circulating unchecked, no vaccine?

Or would there have been an absolute tsunami of very ill patients needing urgent ICU care, pulling resources away from all departments. In my local hospital, I’m aware of wards being cleared to make way for Covid patients - they were presenting as the immediate emergency. And if that number was say - tenfold - because no restrictions were in place, a cancer patient would be put EVEN FURTHER down the back of the queue.

But this is obvious isn’t it??

Which sacrifices are you speaking of? Wearing a mask?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/coronavirus/3991985-Rape-survivors-being-castigated-for-not-wearing-masks

People sacrificed seeing their families for months on end. If those sacrifices were so minimal why arent people doing them now

And ive already sounded a warning. Minimizing and denigrating peoples sacrifices is what is more likely to have people ignoring any future restrictions next time not fucking Partygate

I said on here and in RL in April 2020 that whatever we do and whatever we sacrifice it will never be enough. And ive been proved right!

And when the "we are all in this together" spiel started i knew that it would only count when it came to Covid lockdowns vaccines and masks. And that it would be back to the default setting as soon as possible Aptly demonstrated by the comments about social housing tenants on here.

So next time it will be obvious to more people that it was all about protecting our "betters"

Except that when you actually look at the graphs, the peaks didn't actually match with the measures put in place. The first hospital wave peaked in a way that showed the infection rate peaked the week before the first lockdown (at that point we really only had hospital and death numbers) Similar with future peaks, it had naturally peaked before harsher measures had come in to effect.
Or the way that we were somehow being convinced that a certain number of people had died with covid in a 24hr period, when in reality the deaths were reported in that period and at one point they were adding in numbers from a year previous.

Those going about those of us that couldn't (still can't) wear masks.

I'm autistic, I like my personal space more than the average person, the 2m rule (when it comes to strangers/people I don't know well) could have stayed forever and I'd have been happy. I tried to wear a mask, my stims became so violent I was hitting myself in the head and scratching my arms so bad that I bled. I was told by a pharmacist to take the mask off.

So I wore my lanyard (that I already had for situations I find stressful), and didn't wear a mask. Luckily I live in a village and most people know me and we're understanding, but when I left my village, omg.

There were the people that tutted and stared, notably one older couple who were at the turning the disposable mask inside out stage (I'm sure it was blue originally but it was a kind of murky grey by that point). For me worse were the people that insisted on sitting right next to me and the tutting. As I said I don't like my personal space invaded at the best of times, but why did they need to near enough sit on my knee instead of going to an empty seat???

But these sacrifices were being made globally. Pretty much the same restrictions/recommendations were being implemented in practically every European country. It’s one thing to say “our government were wrong” - but where would you go to have the freedom of choice that you want in a pandemic? How would you change global recommendations on mask wearing? Do you think global consensus is wrong? Why? Are you better informed?

And @firef1y

I’m not sure which graphs you are referring to, but I would say - given that globally - over half of humanity was in lockdown, and scientists are not now saying “lockdown was a big mistake” - having studied/analysed/peer reviewed global data - that it’s more likely that your interpretation of these ‘graphs’ is incorrect?

@JenniferBooth

People sacrificed seeing their families for months on end. If those sacrifices were so minimal why arent people doing them now
I'm not sure what your second sentence means in this context. I also don't think 'sacrifice' is quite right word. I recall threads on here where angry people where suggesting the elderly/vulnerable should apologise to the healthy and children 'for their sacrifices'. It isn't a beneficial debate.

And ive already sounded a warning. Minimizing and denigrating peoples sacrifices is what is more likely to have people ignoring any future restrictions next time not fucking Partygate
See above. I don't care about Partygate.

I said on here and in RL in April 2020 that whatever we do and whatever we sacrifice it will never be enough. And ive been proved right!
It isn't like you're getting points on a table. You haven't been proved right at all.

And when the "we are all in this together" spiel started i knew that it would only count when it came to Covid lockdowns vaccines and masks. And that it would be back to the default setting as soon as possible Aptly demonstrated by the comments about social housing tenants on here.
Relevance?

So next time it will be obvious to more people that it was all about protecting our "betters"
? If you look carefully at the British response, and responses around the world, you'll see the opposite to be true. I recognise it can be difficult to see past personal bias, though.

@firef1y

Those going about those of us that couldn't (still can't) wear masks.

I'm autistic, I like my personal space more than the average person, the 2m rule (when it comes to strangers/people I don't know well) could have stayed forever and I'd have been happy. I tried to wear a mask, my stims became so violent I was hitting myself in the head and scratching my arms so bad that I bled. I was told by a pharmacist to take the mask off.

I did say I recognise some people without a mask have a quite valid reason, like you.

I’m agreeing with @SaltyOne in terms of ‘sacrifice’.

In one scenario (no lockdown) your expecting the vulnerable to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the quality of lives for the healthy and not vulnerable to Covid

In the other scenario (lockdown) you're expecting the healthy and not vulnerable to Covid to sacrifice their quality of life for the lives of the vulnerable.

I think the latter is ‘better’ because - to have no life (to die) is the ultimate loss.

Is it? You're dead then. Do you care when you're dead? Yes there will be bereaved families,but bereaved families happen daily.

You're saying that, for example, shutting down and constraining the lives and education of small children - months seem like years to little kids on account of them not having been alive very long - is preferable to extending the lives for a short while of people who have already lived a very long time? Globally, 75-80 years is a very long time, and the elderly were by far the largest group of "the vulnerable". This shutting down of education and services for children and young people is having ongoing repercussions which are not going away.

Just one example.

The shutting down of business too, way past the time when the first wave had subsided - all that printed artificial money being thrown at them. Was that a good thing?

@WhalePolo

"I’m agreeing with @SaltyOne in terms of ‘sacrifice’.

In one scenario (no lockdown) your expecting the vulnerable to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the quality of lives for the healthy and not vulnerable to Covid

In the other scenario (lockdown) you're expecting the healthy and not vulnerable to Covid to sacrifice their quality of life for the lives of the vulnerable.

I think the latter is ‘better’ because - to have no life (to die) is the ultimate loss."

++++

Firstly thank you for your blunt but clear and honest summary of the choice to be made. I would sympathise with this view if it were a simple question of externality where the benefit to the individual (of not having to wear a mask or lockdowns etc) was outweighed by the externality cost to others (more spreading of Covid resulting in the deaths of more predominantly elderly).

That said there are many examples in society of "acceptable" externalities such as:
Ability to drive a car to work where the benefit to the individual (not having to rely on public transport, easier, more comfortable etc) is outweighed by the externality cost to others (air pollution causing deaths, road accidents, cost to society of traffic jams etc). Or
Alcohol where drinking is associated with crime and violence, road traffic accidents, costs to the healthcare system and lower economic productivity. Or even
Grand National horse race where the benefit to spectators (nice day out) is outweighed by the externality cost of the lives of two or three horses which die every year.

However my premise is that the number of lives saved, of the predominantly elderly, in the short term during the pandemic by having the lockdowns and preventing the wider spread of COVID will be outweighed by the greater number of lives lost in the longer term because of the lockdowns.

This is of course incredibly difficult to prove one way or the other, for example we can never know how many lives were saved by having the lockdowns or whether the lives lost since the pandemic are truly as a result of the lockdowns. But examples include:

amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/18/covid-epidemic-cancer-diagnosis-pandemic-europe

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/22/heart-deaths-rise-by-500-a-week-after-covid-19-pandemic/

In addition the economic damage from both the lockdowns and resultant increase in national debt increases poverty and inequality which in turn creates further excess deaths:

Or on the disruption to education where children whose education was badly disrupted from the lockdowns has seen as rise in no attendance meaning they are likely to be poorer, more likely to be long term ill and more likely to die earlier .

news.sky.com/story/warning-over-grossly-inadequate-mental-health-support-for-schools-that-could-make-high-absence-levels-the-new-norm-12970526

And whilst we are being blunt the COVID death rate was heavily skewed towards the elderly with seven out of ten deaths being over 75 and only 2% being under 44.

amp.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/16/what-do-we-know-about-people-who-died-covid-uk

Plus with an average age of death for COVID at 83 it is worth pointing out that once you get to 85 you have a 1 in 10 chance of dying every year anyway.

Whereas the greater and longer term deaths from Covid are spread across all age groups but with the youngest suffering most as they have more years ahead of them to die relatively earlier (if that makes sense).

The fact that the elderly were more likely to die doesn't mean that younger people didn't die too. There are also many people left with the long term effects of covid infection which has had a severe impact on their quality of life and probably always will.

@WestwardHo1 @1dayatatime

Um. That's ... revolting. Remember this:

Lockdown/mask-wearing etc. was short-term and transient. I'm sorry it bothered you so dearly to forced to do something for other people you clearly abhor.

Except I'm not talking about mask wearing 🙄

And it's a pity that you simply react to a well articulated post like the one @1dayatatime made with accusations of being revolting.

I found that throughout the whole thing. People who in any way tried to discuss rationally and dispassionately were simply accused of being vile people. "Tell that to those who have lost loved ones" etc.

@WestwardHo1

And it's a pity that you simply react to a well articulated post like the one @1dayatatime made with accusations of being revolting.

It can be articulate (that's debatable, though) and revolting at the same time.

Except I'm not talking about mask wearing

And? I was discussing Covid measures in general, and this thread is about masks.

and this thread is about masks

No it isnt Check the thread title.

And you had better flex your fingers for more typing next week. Because a lot of people will be reminded of the sacrifices they made next Tuesday night.
When Partygate goes out on Channel 4

The OP doesn't mention masks

Same old, same old. People trying to defend the indefensible with accusations about people's morals and intelligence.

And when I say the "indefensible" I'm talking about the relentless logic defying batshittery and hypocrisy, before you accuse me of wanting all old people to die or something.

@SaltyOne

Lockdown/mask-wearing etc. was short-term and transient. I'm sorry it bothered you so dearly to forced to do something for other people you clearly abhor.

++++

Whilst mask wearing was indeed transient, the longer term impacts of lockdowns are most certainly not transient- missed cancer, cardio diagnosis, loss of education, mental health issues, rise in Gov debt, increase in poverty etc.

It has absolutely nothing to do with abhorrence of other people but a harsh recognition that there was a horrible choice to be made between saving elderly people's lives in the short run with the cost of a greater loss of life of all age groups in the longer run or not saving elderly people's lives in the short run in order to save a greater of lives in the longer run.

Straight question: do you think that as a result of the lockdowns the rise in undiagnosed cancer deaths, increase in cardiovascular deaths, loss of education, increase in poverty and an all round long term increase in excess deaths of all ages greater than those lost to covid was a price worth paying?