Number of lives saved v those cost by the restrictions

[Makeitgoaway]

As I understand it, the current restrictions aren't intended to prevent people getting ill, most of us will likely get it, the social distancing aims to reduce the number of people seriously ill and in need of hospital treatment at any one time. So it should save lives because it should mean more people can get treatment when they need it, it doesn't however, aim to stop people getting the virus, just to delay some of the cases until later.

The restrictions in themselves will cost Iives. Short term through increased DV, no proper safeguarding in place for children, declining mental health. Longer term we are facing a deep recession and likely period of austerity. We know both of those things lead to an increased death rate.

So, how do you think the numbers compare?. Current measures will save some people's lives but they will undoubtedly cost (different) lives too.

Is that worthwhile to avoid what would undoubtedly be (even more) harrowing scenes now?

Who decides which lives are most important? The ones to be lost through the restrictions are probably younger, healthier people. Does that matter?

You really cannot compare numbers now, it won't be possible to do that anytime soon.

We'll be counting the cost, in lives and money, for year to come, from both, the lockdown and the virus.

Also, don't forget that routine operations, and even cancer treatment have been postponed.

I really hope we can move away from lockdown to a more tailored approach in a few weeks, with a lot more testing.

If the health service becomes overwhelmed, we will lose a lot of younger and healthier lives. That’s the key issue for me. I think there is no choice except to protect the NHS and keep hospitals able to function. There isn’t a scenario where a lot of people don’t die before their time and it’s unprecedented so there has to be reliance on models and estimates. But if we destroy the hospitals and overwhelm our HCPs, losing a lot of them in the process, that seems like it must be the highest body count of people from all demographics, quite frankly.

I think all these things are being considered by 'boffins' and that is why the decisions made on lockdown and other measures don't always make sense to us. There are far more factors involved that most of us can grasp.

I haven't looked at the numbers myself but some people have mentioned the increased suicide rates due to unemployment, homelessness etc, which thus lockdown may or may not cause. So will we be in a situation where we have saved thousands of lives from the virus but caused more suicides? I don't know.

You won't ever be able to make any worthwhile comparison, because the only info we will ever have is for the deaths that actually occur.

So we might find 10,000 CV deaths and 10,000 excess deaths in other categories.

But we could never know if, handled differently, we had 20,000 CV deaths and 5,000 excess from other causes. Because if sick rates peak, and remembering that people are ill for several weeks, then the dislocation of society caused by higher peak will still produce the hazardous conditions you describe in the opening post.

We are trying to protect the NHS now, but we are risking it long term, when recession hits, and the longer the lockdowns the more severe it will be.

It's damned if do, damn if we don't. We need a exit strategy. Testing and continued isolation for the more vulnerable? I don't know, but lockdown is a very blunt tool. It might be doing good now, but it might turn into the cure that's worse than the illness later.

It's so fucked up.