This is what has always troubled me about total lockdown

[Makeitgoaway]

I don't understand how we get out of it.

Of course, it should reduce transmission while we're all locked down but unless the whole world has it under control, as soon as we start getting back to normal, it will all start again. As they're beginning to see in China.

Is this going to become a regular way of life, with lockdown annually or every few years?

Is anyone here wanting to put a £ value on years of active life? Because that's what some people are coming very close to doing

This is precisely what Health Economists do for a living.

It is what guides all NICE decisions.

It happens all the time, its just ugly, so we try our best hide it behind the scenes of our society.

It's unfortunately been thrust to the foreground in light of the current situation. It's probably a bit unsettling, I agree, but its a fundamental part of our social infrastructure.

500,000 people die in the UK every year before the Coronavirus, how many extra deaths will be because of the Coronavirus? who knows, we will have to wait and see.

most people want the opportunity to live a long life

I agree @Nameofchanges, I do too, but sometimes the cost is too high - it reaches a point where you are stealing your DC's future to pay for your own.

There is a big difference between working out the actual cost now of a particular medical treatment and imagining what you think the economy will look like twenty years into the future.

No one is stealing anyone's future

Why should you be allowed to live to 100 on the back of killing of a large percentage of the over 69s now, and taking their retirement money which I guess you see as your rightful inheritance at the same time?

There will be a short term hit, it's up to us to turn that round

Like every other generation managed after a huge set back

At a conservative 1% fatality rate, with 50% of the UK population infected, it gives 340000 deaths, most of which over a few months if it's not stopped, and about 3 million requiring hospitalization for 2 weeks, at least.

These are mostly people who aren't exactly dying, and on top of the flu and other infectious diseases.

Why on earth would I want to take my chances and get it if it meant I could die.Arent people dying even with the ventilators.
Also how scary to go to hospital no thanks.

Also the fact that it came directly after a 4 year physical war that said younger generation fought in and the resulting exhaustion, weakness, other disease and malnutrition..

How many people in India will starve to death because of the lockdown, probably more than the UK population dying from Coronavirus

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-india-52065968/locked-down-india-struggles-to-feed-its-homeless

Of course, with proper measures it will be slowed down significantly, and the number of dead and in hospital will be much smaller. Which is not to mean that this was nothing. Just that we were able to stop the tsunami.

Ps- 1% with hospital care. Remove hospital care and it could go closer to 10% fatality rate.

I don't think it will be stealing anyone's future, DCOk and I hope you don't get to make clinical decisions. Should no one get medical treatment as 'they are going to die anyway' or would you expect the children 'you'd die for, DCOk' to be treated, just some older people take one for the team. At what age do people become expendable?

As I said, there isn't a single mass of elderly, all of whom just consume state pensions and all of whom need social care.

Even if you want to just look at 'economics', there's more to economics than what's called the Exchequer cost of pensions and social care. Some of the elderly work, provide childcare, consume... Not every pension is an unfunded state pension in the UK. Some people have private, funded pensions. I really don;t think you've thought things through 'economically' let alone all the layers that go beyond economics.,

People of all ages are dying, btw.
And without proper hospital care many more of younger ages will die too.

@Gin96 Agreed

How many in the UK will die as a result of the drop in life expectancy as a direct result of the recession brought about by the lockdown?

How many suicides will there be? (with family men in their 40s and 50s over represented as their businesses go bust in the recession)

But hey, the over 70s must be 'Saved' because #SaveLives!

No one's thinking I dont want it now but I'll have it later!

I am! I'm pregnant and know far too much about the relationship between fever in pregnancy and neurodevelopmental disorders. I really don't mind getting it once my baby has arrived safely though!

I honestly don’t know what happens with the vulnerable, there is no safe time to catch it. Access to a ventilator does not mean that you will survive, the current U.K. deaths are not because we are overwhelmed. Yes it is awful to think of someone who may survive being denied access to a life saving intervention but many many of the ventilated patients are dying.

It would be useful to know if I have had it (never had symptoms) so I could go see my mum and also so I didn’t have to worry about every viral illness being corona.

Don’t worry DC, as you’ve have pointed out, all those people would have eventually died anyway.

Lucked, they have got a variety of other treatments being developed though. It isn’t just ventilators.

@Zilla1 if you don’t think this lockdown is not stealing people’s futures you must be blind, my 14 year olds daughters life has been put on hold, GCSE and A Levels cancelled, businesses and jobs lost, incomes have been put on hold, I know people who can’t afford to go food shopping already, the government haven’t put a safety net out for everyone and the money theyy saying is a available hasn’t come through yet. This is just the start this will get a lot worse.

Must I be blind because I don't agree with you? I generally see things have costs and benefits though I'd probably say stealing someones future compared with what? I can see someone dying uneccessarily will have their future stoled - the life expectancy of a seventy year old is c15 years and many younger than that will die. I can see the costs of the lockdown though I'm not sure GCSEs and A-levels being cancelled will have their future's stolen. There will be equivalents awarded. I'm not saying it's ideal but Y11 will progress to A-Levels and other destinations and Y13 will progress to university and other destinations. I'm not saying there isn;t an economic cost to the lockdown. What I have been saying is that there would be an economic cost to not locking down and all the early/excess deaths that would result as well as the non-economic impacts as I think people are more than the economic dimensions DCOk seemed focused on. I certainly don't think the elderly or the under-70s with pre-existing health conditions should be cannon fodder and take one for the team just because of some fuckwitted misunderstanding about the economy and statements that people are going to die anyway seem to have crystallised that for at least some of the PPs. I can see things will get worse under the lockdown in the UK. Unlike DCOk and presumably you, I'm not certain that even if things get worse under the Lockdown that they will be worse than not locking down. What I am reasonably certain is that fewer people will be dead earlier than they otherwise would be. What I hope is that my DC gets through this without losing one or both parents but then if there is going to be cannon fodder, it's going to be HCPs. I just don't see why the over-70s, the under-70 with pre-existing health conditions and also the 'tiny, tiny' percentage which might still be significant numbers of children and young adults should die before their time because of a misunderstanding of how the economy works.

Don’t worry DC, as you’ve have pointed out, all those people would have eventually died anyway.

Hah! Brilliant riposte!

I said exactly the same thing op when Ireland first went into lockdown and posters on here were demanding we do the same.

I was watching a Dr on YouTube and his view is that we could adopt a system like Singapore and South Korea but we have to get this initial waive under control.

His view is that we would have to have widespread testing and then full contact tracing and quarantine (apparently they've used technology to track people and then work out who they were in contact with).

We could in addition release people in sections, so once antibody testing is available then anyone with immunity can get back to normal, low risk people could carry on but be subject to quarantine if exposed. No idea about high risk. Maybe we have to stay locked up until a vaccine is found.

I don't know how effective this would be but it sounds plausible.

I know this is an awful thing to say, but our uniquely human way of beating viruses, overcoming nature, and natural selection etc. is what has caused all the other problems that are destroying our planet; climate change, pollution, over-population, environmental destruction of habitats and species.
We really want it both ways right now don't we? To save the planet, and to continue to dominate the planet. It's admirable that we want to save every human life, but part of me feels that this virus is nature's way of putting humans in our place, levelling the playing field as they say, culling the world population. If we had a more accepting attitude to death, as we used to, instead of fighting it at all cost, we might not have all the problems that we have right now.
I'll get my coat.

It would take a lot more than the Coronavirus to reduce the population to the extent that we no longer dominated the planet.

A knock-on effect of it has been massively reduced air (and road?) travel, hence pollution levels dropping. And consumption has dropped, as shops close all over,

Just being devils advocate really, but isn't reduced pollution and consumption what we have been crying out for in the last few years?

Its a good point @NeedToKnow101, and an interesting perspective.

This virus has indeed reduced us to what we actually are: a herd of animals.

Despite the efforts of the strongest, the weakest will die.

I agree that we will need to rethink our perception of death. We have been 'spoilt' for a long time with our unquestioning belief that we will all make it to healthy old age.

Awful as it is, we do perhaps need to rethink this.