How many lives are we actually saving

[Baaaahhhhh]

An interesting read from the BBC, and a question that I have been wondering about since the ONS released figures last week.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654

Article talks about the effect of different scenarios on the number of excess deaths ie: over and above what would be expected, and versus other seasonal illnesses like normal flu.

It’s not lack of routine, it’s locked in with no hope, it’s domestic violence, it’s civil unrest, starvation. In India 800 million poor live on less than £2 a day, how many will die of starvation in 21 day lockdown? Even if it was a million that would be far mor than coronvirus has killed worldwide so far, is their lives worth any less?

Summertime2
The European statistics may interest you. The source is reliable, but generally runs a couple of weeks behind.
www.euromomo.eu/

I expect peaks will not exceed previous records.

The death rate from the subsequent crash will far exceed that of the so called 'Coronavirus'.
Unemployment figures for Spain have increased by almost 1 million since the lockdown on 16th March, that is 18 days!

@Gin96. Lockdown may sadly not be the right choice for India, but it is for the UK for many incredibly obvious reasons

We’re not saying lockdown is not needed now but at some point it does more harm than good.

If the NHS is overwhelmed, our public services take a devastating hit. You can forget surgery, social support for vulnerable individuals etc.. For anyone thinking it's a choice between those with the virus and those who are vulnerable, it's not. If the virus is not checked by whatever means necessary, public sector funding and public workers will be hugely affected. It's a bleak picture both ways. There is no option to live your life regardless.

Life is for living, but it was always difficult. It is always hard. There are always times when every choice available involves cost. We may have lost sight of that but previous generations haven't. We were never guaranteed a life where we wouldn't have to do something like this. Scientists have been warning us what a global pandemic would look like for years. We didn't listen, didn't insist our government prioritised it. Now we take the medicine and there is no way to pretend it isn't happening. If lockdown ended tomorrow, you'd find life collapsing in a different way.

Does the fact that even with lockdown the NHS is struggling to cope not get through to you? We've had to build new hospitals and repupose areas of current hospitals and ask staff to come back who have retired. We still don't have testing and ppe widely available. This is WITH lockdown. Like can you not take a rational moment to imagine what the surge without lockdown would do and realise you're all parroting nonsense?!

It’s not just elderly that may die within a year that people are concerned about. People like my four year old will land in hospital if she catches it. If it’s on a priority basis of who has the best chance of survival I imagine she may not get picked. That’s the reality for some people. But it’s cool, I guess some people just have to die because staying at home if you can is just too hard. I have mental health issues, I have had suicidal thoughts, I get it but if people are going to take their own life, they are going to do it, why take the choice from someone vulnerable because some people want to carry on as things were.

I dont think anyone is proposing we are locked down indefinitely Gin. I think it'll be 3-6 weeks initially, then some relaxation and all the time more and more of us are joining "the herd" and (when antibody testing becomes available to confirm immunity) will be free of restrictions.

The people who are looking at the longest restrictions are people like my parents and inlaws to whom the virus could easily be fatal. They will need to stay restricted til a vaccine is found or it dies out naturally because so many people have had it.

Once we got a pandemic the economy was stuffed either way. Ignoring deaths, would people have really carried on going to the pub once infections reached the millions? Because that is what the growth rate meant, millions with the infection at once. Would businesses have kept producing if 20% of their workforce was off at once? How do you maintain law an order if everyone is terrified watching a disease rip through the population? How do you rebuild an nhs that had to turn everyone away because it couldn't cope with a quarter of the demand? When doctors and nurses and hcas go on strike because why the hell should they risk death when everyone is carrying on as normal? What about international relations if everyone else locks down and we just let the disease run it's course. What if it mututated, like many other viruses do, if exposed to enough people?

There were no good choices here.

Yes this is interesting work that will likely never be done.

Number of lives saved now v lives cost by the lockdown itself and by the deep recession and austerity that will follow.

However, if it was just left, we'd have been close to the "bring out your dead" situation of the Black Death with everyone dying at once, rather than over a period of years and no one could have allowed that.

It will be different lives that are saved/lost.

Whilst most have been too busy wrapped up in fear, paying no attention to the agenda and legislation, the new coronavirus bill will prove a death sentence for many disabled and vulnerable people:

Tracey Lazard, chief executive of Inclusion London, said the bill “runs a coach and horses through social care” and “strips disabled people of our rights to this support and removes from local authorities the duties to provide it”.

The social care measures mean key parts of the Care Act will now be suspended, according to one barrister, with another legal expert saying the government had amended the act by “stripping it bare”

www.disabilitynewsservice.com/coronavirus-disabled-people-say-shocking-new-laws-will-strip-away-rights/

At the risk of being accused of scaremongering it’s not as simple as just this virus.

The point when hospitals/morgues/burial and cremation services are overwhelmed is also the point we see rises in other diseases, preventable illness, untreated injuries and civil unrest. The projected numbers spread over a couple of years may be manageable, a couple of months puts things in a very different light.

It’s not just about managing covid but balancing the capacity of a lot of other areas of society and without doing that you’re making it much harder to rebuild the economy.

@esjee it’s not worth trying to explain that to some people they don’t get it and don’t care.

The economy would surely be worse hit, as would all public services, if 80% of the population were sick. This isn’t just about minimising deaths and it’s naive to think that. It’s about minimising the effect on public services and the economy too. Unchecked it would be devastating.

How are you all still utterly failing to understand why the lockdown is needed

I understand completely. We haven't left the house at all for three weeks now. I am not wandering around for the sake of "exercise" (which can be done perfectly easily at home) and we made sure we had enough food etc months ago when this first became likely as a problem. My BF is a hospital consultant currently off work ill with Covid-19 and DH's BF is very senior management in the NHS and under a massive amount of strain. DH hasn't stopped working practically 24/7 for the past few weeks trying to sort out medical appliance deals. We understand the issues very well.

However, I'm also a business owner, a parent, a lawyer and the reality is that this disaster is going to impact our lives for a very long time after the NHS manages to get on top of the virus. Many thousands of families will suffer financially, businesses will go under, food is likely to become much more expensive and choice will be restricted, NHS services will be more limited, education will be (and has already been) massively impacted, general public spending will be reduced and so all the "nice to haves" like the arts, culture, beautiful public spaces etc will suffer and services in general will be under more strain, mental health will suffer etc

At some point you have to question the cost/benefit. Its a harsh reality but its true unfortunately. To say that does not mean that we don't understand the issues or that we are not complying with the lockdown. If anything I am over complying and will continue to do so.

Like can you not take a rational moment to imagine what the surge without lockdown would do and realise you're all parroting nonsense?!

@esjee what are you talking about? No one has said that lockdown isn’t needed now. They’re questioning how long it can feasibly go on for.

Just in case that wasn't clear I am not saying that we shouldn't be locked down (we should). I am saying:

1. - we are not really that locked down anyway since people insist on going to the shops regularly and wandering around for exercise.
2. I fear we probably won't save enough lives to have made it "worth it" unfortunately.

But Hasa all those things were inevitable anyway. Do you really think people would be going about their business as normal if there was no lockdown?

It will bring other, non COVID19 deaths.

Cancer operations and chemo cancelled, tests suspended, midwife appointments done over the phone, MH appointments rescheduled.

We cannot stay locked in long. There has to be a balance.

Hasa all those things were inevitable anyway. Do you really think people would be going about their business as normal if there was no lockdown?

I think we should be locked down. I do think there comes a point (and we are not even nearly there yet) where we have to question whether it can continue. And I don't think we will save most of the people who would have died from this anyway unfortunately.

We can certainly flatten the curve and help the NHS massively in doing so.

I think the panic of thousands of people dying and the impact on the mental health and the economy of that if we just let the virus spread and did nothing would be huge. It isn't between lockdown or normal life. It's between lockdown and a far more devastating impact than the virus would have without lockdown.

Thanks rrg1, that's really interesting. And another source of data to keep monitoring.

The untold story of this virus and the deaths is that MOST OF THESE PEOPLE WERE DYING OF SOMETHING ELSE ALREADY. I really wish that the media would talk about that - the fact that the overwhelming majority of people are/were really unwell to start with and over the age of 75. It is scary for people when they hear of a 13-year-old with no underlying conditions or a 48-year old mother of three, but they are the really rare exceptions - and perhaps they had unidentified conditions - who knows?

The Italian death statistics have been very clear too on co-morbidities and how people with no underlying conditions make up just 0.8% of the deaths. The overwhelming majority of deaths in Italy have been to people with serious underlying conditions - and the more they have the greater the risk.

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says

@Cornettoninja we know that, our local ice rink has been turned into a morgue. Life does have to carry on, even after 2 world wars and Spanish flu life had to return to normal at some point

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/25/financial-crisis-caused-500000-extra-cancer-death-according-to-l/

The global financial crisis may have caused an additional 500,000 cancer deaths from 2008 to 2010, according to a new study, with patients locked out of treatment because of unemployment and healthcare cuts