Economics vs public health. **MNHQ has altered title**

[Mohster]

As you will see for a long time I have been advocating that the govt was putting economics before lives and their plan was to create a herd immunity by sacrificing lives on an acceptable casualties basis. This was totally apparent if you listen to the interview given to Channel 4 where it was suggested as an answer to a question put by the presenter that many would die whilst the govt tried to create herd immunity as being inevitable.

Now Dominic Cummings chief adviser has been caught out for following this strategy and quoted by papers and the Sunday Times in particular as wanting to let the elderly die to save the economy.

You don't need to take them word for it - just look a the govt plan - contain essentially consisted of the suggestion that we should wash our hands. The delay was effectively none existant and the schools were only closed as a result of parents taking their children out of shcool and the forcase that 250000 could die. In fact the govt was rushing thorugh legistlation in the following week to force parents to take their kids to school and it was only scrapped a thte last minute by the estimates publication.

That left mitigation, mitigation of damage to the economy. The PM and govt are as a result backtracking.

The suggestion is that Dominic Cummings had said let the old die whilst we get herd immunity but now seeing what is happening in Italy and likely the fact that the virus is now killing younger people, they are quickly backtracking having failed to contain or delay because they did nothing.

As a result of their false assurances and that we just have to wash our hands the public flocked to public areas and their plans have put us in a position that will result in many more dying. The govt of other countries are now publicly criticising the govt. All of this now means at last these people who are ignorant of the risk will likely make a lock-down more likely.

I personally think that they should face criminal charges if a corporate body was to make such decisions the CEO and directors would be imprisoned.

I note MNHQ has altered the title and yet it was factually correct according to the nice guidlines

Imagine there is no money as the economy has tanked.

So no money to pay care workers/ nurses etc. No money for benefits payments /pensions/ - so no one can afford heating /food except for waht will be giveaways but the rich - oh but how many rich will there be with no work/factories/ fashion industry etc etc Your multimillion pound house in London is worth nothing - Because no one can afford to buy it.

I wish you lot would grow up - the government has money now because it is BORROWING it - God knows how we will pay it back. The Gov only finished paying the US back for loans in WW2 a decade or so ago.
We had austerity not because Tories are nasty little people but to reduce our deficit. Now we will have a huge huge debt - best of luck to the young generation who will spend their working lives paying it back, the more you demand we borrow the longer they will take.

And where were we to get all these ventiliators and PPE - was there a little secret bunker of thousands of v expensive ventilators which require regular maintenance just sitting somewhere. And PPE - remember China, Japan, Korea, Italy got to the world's supply of these things before us - A bit like hand sanitiser - someone has helped themselves first.
If one of you can come on here and explain why the government had a secret supply of these which they hid from us and NHS staff then you are justified in complaining. Or if one of you can tell me where in the world we were to get 100,000s of these items in the space of a couple of weeks then you can complain but otherwise stop pointless bleating.

I think it will come in waves, like the Spanish flu, the second wave being more deadly.

I don't think there is any evidence to suggest the second wave will be more deadly. I think it was in Spanish flu, because it mutated, but it could just as easily happen in the other direction.

HelgaHere1

Id rather the next generation were paying off debt than dead. Or lacking a health service because a whole swathe of medics are dead accross the world and and it will take years to rebuild.

Building new ventilators is good but slow. We need to stop feeding the virus people

Anyone else cross about the erasure of disabled people from the thread title?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/3860579-Why-was-the-title-of-this-thread-altered?msgid=95007094#95007094

Or if one of you can tell me where in the world we were to get 100,000s of these items in the space of a couple of weeks then you can complain but otherwise stop pointless bleating.

The point is that the government should have started on this at the end of last year when the virus broke out in China.

@HelgaHere1

Johnson/Hancock told the country we were well prepared, with enough equipment, PPE, the NHS is the best in world and the UK is admired throughout the world as being the best prepared for a pandemic..... this was back in january/february.

So either they lied or didn't know the situation, also told everyone last week that it was a logistic issue and that we actually have warehouses full of PPE and that now all hospitals have what they need.... yet a today nurse (apparently risking her job for stating this) says she has been told to share a mask.

Germany ordered 1000s of ventilators 7 weeks ago, we ordered some last week.

What makes me lol is the mental gymnastics ive seen on this board to try and shift the blame onto poorer communities. Which i predicted would happen on my key meters thread.

Some examples. "it wasnt working families doing this" in reference to the supermarket scrums and panic buying.

"£30 is a lot to chavs"

Coming from people who then say we shouldnt politisize this.

Well it wasnt poorer communities jetting off on skiing trips AFTER the fact.

Its not poorer communities fleeing to their second homes.

And its also a pertinent point how Universal Credit has been considered good enough for disabled people for the past several years.

If it slows down and people get complacent and go back to normal like with the Spanish flu, thinking it's over, I fear that's the danger point.

This thing is mutating, new wierd symptoms, 40 strains identified. I hope we do get lucky and it mutates into a fuzzy bunny. Betting on that is another matter.

", if you are over 70 and feeling hard done by, just shut up moaning and stay indoors. If you had listened the first time it might not have needed to come to this."

No
Stupidity has no age limits

Too many young, middle-aged and elderly have decided they are too special to follow the previous advice
So we have a lockdown

If too many people keep exploiting loopholes in this lockdown, we'll have an even more severe one

So frustrating, when fuckwits of all ages keel making it worse for everyone

There has to be a balance between saving lives and saving the economy,

but Imperial college (advising the government) warned that

• doing nothing and waiting for herd immunity would cost an extra ½ million lives
• and taking less economically disruptive measures would still cost ¼ million lives

Much though I normally despise Boris, Cummings & co,
it is to their credit that they decided this was an unacceptable price in lives

So the government have decided to sacrifice the economy to save lives

• and they have now adopted socialist policies that are expensive enough to make even Corbyn wince !

But yes, 10 years of austerity have hollowed out the capacity of the NHS - and the police - to deal with this disaster
and this government wasted a priceless month before really getting serious.

There is no comparison to what the psycho Trump is doing

All along, he & his supporters have fiercely resisted taking measures that would harm the economy, because they think it would harm his re-election chances
and they are Social Darwinists who believe in survival of the fittest - which includes the rich.

So Trump doesn't even out the economy before lives:
he puts his re-election before US lives

So Trump doesn't even out the economy before lives:
he puts his re-election before US lives

Surely it'll cost him the election in the end? If it's going to be the disaster I think it is, angry grieving voters will vote for anyone but him later this year.

Nobody here is getting out alive. That's the only statement that is true for everyone from birth.

And while COVID-19 will select the weakest, the mortality rate is trivial compared to the 11,000 people who die week-in and week-out in normal times.

I am not minimising the fear people are feeling, or suggesting that there's any shame in being afraid for loved ones. Commonsense precautions will always be a good idea. But I believe it will take a lot to get the economy re-started to restore everyone's standard of living, and that ultimately is going to cause us far more grief and impoverish society long term. Especially if, as happened with Spanish flu, it returns in an even more virulent form next winter.

Sadly, I think governments the world over are going to be left with little choice.

No economy can support the population being locked down for a year or more while we wait for a vaccine. While hospitals are all hands to the pump treating patients with COVID19 all other patients are being neglected.

My local hospital has cancelled all outpatients appointments including telephone consultations, all chemotherapy, all investigations including for serious diseases such as cancer Crohn's, ulcerative colitis etc, all blood tests including those needed to monitor for life threatening drug side effects and all surgery. How many lives do you think will be list due to these plans?

I honestly cannot see any plan that won't result in lives being lost, either from Covid, other potentially treatable conditions not being treated or a tanked economy.

Hazelnutlatteplease

I read the NICE guidelines when they were published. No one believes me when I tell them what's in them.

I wonder, if Joe Public knew what they say, whether they would be quite so happy to be crowding into parks, onto beaches etc?

They've got no clue what is about to happen.

If we overrun the health service, the death rate may rise as high (or even higher) than 5%, at which point we would not be looking at six figure total deaths, but seven figure.

If this happened, we would be seeing many tens of thousands of people die every single day at the peak. People wouldn't know how bad it was going to be until it happened. And at that point, it would be too late to reverse course.

We are getting millions of testing kits delivered. Let's see what happens with them, what they tell us, what they allow us to do.

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras

"Its only people with preexisting conditions that need to worry", for "most people its a mild illness" lock up those with vulnerable few and the rest of us can carry on.

If they cared they'd know it was a crock of shit.

Those complaining about "putting the economy first " clearly don't know what the economy is. It's your wages, your mortgage and your food, water and electricity. It's your GP and Hospital being open. It's the police and other emergencies services.

Perhaps we could shutdown the whole country just for 24 hours just to let everyone see what that means.

LastTrainEast

This is what many people don't understand. It's a terrible, terrible thing to think about - that economics comes into it when we are talking about lives but it's reality. We have only locked down as much as we have now because the government is paying most people's wages. What do people think will happen when the government can't do that anymore?

Much though I normally despise Boris, Cummings & co,
it is to their credit that they decided this was an unacceptable price in lives

Wasn't this only after they realised the electorate might not like it?

There are interesting comparisons to be drawn with Germany, Spain and Italy in the approaches taken to COVID, but the testing regimes are very different. Germany has tested about 200,000 people randomly; Italy is testing posthumously in many areas, and the UK is only testing people once they are showing clear symptoms and has tested some 65,000.

The mortality rate in Germany is 0.3%, and about 9% in Spain and Italy, which has the oldest population in Europe. While all deaths are private tragedies for the bereaved families,the econmic v public health argument has to rise above individual experiences to consider how the best outcome for the greatest number is achieved.

I am sorry for your personal loss if your elderly parent or grandparent passes away and you mourn. But if they were frail and elderly, what were you hoping would revive them to their youthful prime? I do understand that this might sound callous, but reality must stick it's head in somewhere.

DH, age 49, had a cardiac arrest in an ambulance and is still with us, a small time entrepreneur with a handful of employees, after a series of medical interventions. So he and we are still working and paying our taxes. My DM and DMIL, at 91 and 85, are very dear but I would not prioritize their care over that of anyone younger, and nor would they.

UPDATE 26. 3.20
Tot cases 11,658new cases 2,129
death 578 new deaths 113
CASE FATAILITY RATE -4.96%

Cases in UK are moving up quickly cases listed as critical are 20 which seems low and recovered is 135 these figures are important as case resolution (cr) i.e no of people who have died or recovered is 735 which means 10923 people or 93% are still in hospital double the no of intensive care beds. Obviously there will be recoveries and they may never need ICU care but I think you can see the problem even though we are still in the beginning of this problem. Therefore it is important to stay inside, your life may depend upon it.

I'm sure on the other thread it said the critical cases had a huge jump two days ago?