For the people who think they've been duped...

[mac12]

I'm not trying to start a bunfight but I'm just curious about this thought process. People who think they've been duped by coronavirus & think lockdowns were a hysterical over-reaction...

• what do you think is going on when countries like China haven't rolled back from their strong stance on this? Do you think it's just to save face? I mean would a country really take a wrecking ball to their economy to save face?
• why have countries like Israel or some US states, which did reopen, decide to start closing down again? Why wouldn't they just crack on and carry on with full reopening if it was so clear that they had been duped & it had all been an overreaction?
• why wouldn't all governments be taking the Sweden line? Our govt isn't averse to the odd U-turn, why wouldn't they do this if they genuinely thought it was safe and they had overreacted?

I'm just wondering why people think governments would persist with this if it was so obviously an overreaction?

Just to add, the SARS outbreak of 2002-3 (c8000 cases & 800 deaths worldwide) left many health care professionals deeply traumatised by their experiences. Long term studies showed lasting PTSD, OCD, depression, anxiety etc as a result.
Are you seriously saying you want that to be the norm for the HCPs that only a few months ago you were clapping for? Because that would be the reality of letting this disease run free.

@Sunrise234

Less than 10% have caught CV, hardly likely we are anywhere near herd immunity.
As i said, what happens if there isn't a vaccine? We need a way to live alongside CV.

@mac12

Yes i know that but the 1957 pandemic killed 3 million, so far CV has killed around 1/2 million worldwide.

[quote Sunrise234]@TrustTheGeneGenie where have I said you’ve said that?

I’m saying that pitting the young against the old is not a good idea. It is not the ‘oldies’ fault they can’t do these things.[/quote]
Ya. Nobody is doing that.

@jasjas1973 I think that is why they’re reopening things slowly. And then there was talks of closing down pubs and things when’s schools reopen so people are still catching it but at a slower rate. And there is some sort of normality and recovering of the economy. The whole world is trying to find a vaccine which gives me some hope that there will be one before too long.

How do we know 60k people are going to die from cancer due to the measures put in place for COVID. Is that one of those worst case figures like 500,000 would have died without lockdown, which many people think was an inaccurate and overdramatic figure to justify lockdown. How do you know 60k from cancer is any more accurate? Many people died from COVID by contracting it in hospital. If many people with cancer had gone into hospital for treatment and had contracted COVID I assume there would have been a chance they might have died, so doctors were in a rock and hard place with that one, to decide what to do.

DH has a client that runs care homes. Luckily they haven't had any virus deaths. Interestingly their death rate is much lower than in previous years as down to PPE and reduced visitors other illnesses like norovirus haven't been brought into the homes and killed residents.

And why is Sweden shown as the way forward? Looking at the other Scandinavian countries they had it much worse. If you lived in Norway would you be saying I wish I lived in Sweden? Also my understanding is that they failed their care home residents too. They have also suffered economically, even without an official lockdown. Also their demographic is so different to ours we can't compare ourselves to them.

Yes many people's mental health as suffered in the last few months, but many people's has not and spending more time at home has helped them relax and the change in lifestyle has suited them. Many children struggle in school, remote learning has benefited a number of these children. I bet there will be an increase in children being home educated after this.

@ineedaholidaynow

How do we know 60k people are going to die from cancer due to the measures put in place for COVID. Is that one of those worst case figures like 500,000 would have died without lockdown, which many people think was an inaccurate and overdramatic figure to justify lockdown. How do you know 60k from cancer is any more accurate? Many people died from COVID by contracting it in hospital. If many people with cancer had gone into hospital for treatment and had contracted COVID I assume there would have been a chance they might have died, so doctors were in a rock and hard place with that one, to decide what to do.

DH has a client that runs care homes. Luckily they haven't had any virus deaths. Interestingly their death rate is much lower than in previous years as down to PPE and reduced visitors other illnesses like norovirus haven't been brought into the homes and killed residents.

And why is Sweden shown as the way forward? Looking at the other Scandinavian countries they had it much worse. If you lived in Norway would you be saying I wish I lived in Sweden? Also my understanding is that they failed their care home residents too. They have also suffered economically, even without an official lockdown. Also their demographic is so different to ours we can't compare ourselves to them.

Yes many people's mental health as suffered in the last few months, but many people's has not and spending more time at home has helped them relax and the change in lifestyle has suited them. Many children struggle in school, remote learning has benefited a number of these children. I bet there will be an increase in children being home educated after this.

There are around 165000 deaths from cancer every year. As at 1/6 www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/01/millions-in-uk-miss-cancer-screenings-tests-and-treatments-due-to-covid-19 there are millions of missed tests. How do you know 60k are not going to die from cancer that could have been treated this year? Or as has been asked - is that acceptable because its not covid?

@BellaintheWychElm of course it isn't acceptable, but PP who don't believe the 500,000 COVID deaths without lockdown don't question the 60k additional cancer death figure.

1957-8 pandemic is 1.1 million deaths worldwide according to CDC, around 33,000 in U.K. over the two waves (so Covid has done double that in five months)
There were school closures for 1957-1958 pandemic because it “caused many infections in children, spread in schools” even though rarely fatal in children. I believe we had vaccine for this strain later that year.
There are many reasons why we’ve reacted differently to Covid, the main one being it isn’t flu - so many unknowns that will only become evident with time.

[quote ineedaholidaynow]@BellaintheWychElm of course it isn't acceptable, but PP who don't believe the 500,000 COVID deaths without lockdown don't question the 60k additional cancer death figure.[/quote]
Well no because cancer is a known quantity. The fact that diagnoses has dropped off a cliff means that treatment isn't happening

@BellaintheWychElm but this article gives different figures, so it isn’t an exact science www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/health-53300784

By the way I am not saying any additional cancer deaths are fine or any other additional death that isn’t COVID is fine. My DF died from cancer and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone and it is awful that screenings/treatment haven’t taken place. Interestingly our local nightingale hospital is now being used to catch up with screenings etc.

However, there are threads on here where PP say that we shouldn’t have locked down or we should have done what Sweden did, and then they refer to the scientists that predicted we would have 500,000 additional deaths if we didn’t lockdown and say that was a completely erroneous and flawed figure and it was meant to scare us into submission for lockdown. Then they find an article that states the highest figure they can find for something like additional cancer deaths and quote that and say that is an accurate figure. But as shown there are other articles showing different figures. It’s just playing with numbers to fit their argument.

I can’t believe that there would not have been many more deaths from COVID if we had not locked down. Also the hospitals would have been inundated with sick people so other treatments probably wouldn’t have been able to take place anyway. But that is probably something we will never be able to calculate.

What was wrong was when there was capacity and treatment could have been done safely it should have been done. It appears it was in some authorities so as with most things health related it was a postcode lottery.

[quote ineedaholidaynow]@BellaintheWychElm but this article gives different figures, so it isn’t an exact science www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/health-53300784

By the way I am not saying any additional cancer deaths are fine or any other additional death that isn’t COVID is fine. My DF died from cancer and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone and it is awful that screenings/treatment haven’t taken place. Interestingly our local nightingale hospital is now being used to catch up with screenings etc.

However, there are threads on here where PP say that we shouldn’t have locked down or we should have done what Sweden did, and then they refer to the scientists that predicted we would have 500,000 additional deaths if we didn’t lockdown and say that was a completely erroneous and flawed figure and it was meant to scare us into submission for lockdown. Then they find an article that states the highest figure they can find for something like additional cancer deaths and quote that and say that is an accurate figure. But as shown there are other articles showing different figures. It’s just playing with numbers to fit their argument.

I can’t believe that there would not have been many more deaths from COVID if we had not locked down. Also the hospitals would have been inundated with sick people so other treatments probably wouldn’t have been able to take place anyway. But that is probably something we will never be able to calculate.

What was wrong was when there was capacity and treatment could have been done safely it should have been done. It appears it was in some authorities so as with most things health related it was a postcode lottery.[/quote]
well you think one thing and I think another. That's the beauty of a free thinking society.

Covid isn't going away. Every time we reopen something cases will spike again. A potential vaccine is years away.

Globally we will all eventually move to what Sweden has been doing from the start. All we can do is flatten the curve to stop health services being overwhelmed.

I have maintained throughout that Lockdown was a huge mistake.

@Jussayingisall

unherd.com/thepost/nobel-prize-winning-scientist-the-covid-19-epidemic-was-never-exponential/

This is one Nobel winning scientist opinion.

Your 'expert' also claimed the pandemic was over in March.

[quote Sunrise234]@jasjas1973 I would prefer to defer for 12 months than pay £9000 a year to learn online as I don’t think I would learn very well that way.

And with most viruses once you have it you build an immunity so you don’t get it again (hopefully) so we want healthy people to catch it slowly so they shouldn’t need a vaccination. I don’t know what people who are shielding will do though if they can’t have a vaccination for a year or more, will they have to give up their jobs? I know a few people who’ve said they wouldn’t want a vaccination anyway as it’s been rushed.[/quote]
Many universities are refusing to allow deferring. So students might find they have to reapply next year, along with the 2021 cohort. I would guess that unis will lower offers this year too because of the uncertainty with A level grades.

There are also questions about how long natural immunity to Covid lasts. It's by no means certain right now that it gives long term immunity.

And yes. I'd like to know what will happen to the shielded. I've already lost holiday leave and all my sick pay allocation for the whole of this year plus it will have a knock on effect for sick pay for 21/22 as well. Let's see how many other penalties can be chucked our way.

[quote ineedaholidaynow]@BellaintheWychElm of course it isn't acceptable, but PP who don't believe the 500,000 COVID deaths without lockdown don't question the 60k additional cancer death figure.[/quote]
Oh I question it in terms of, we can't ever be totally certain, but we know much more about cancer than we do about covid. The Covid figure was based on a model that we now know wasn't right. We know lots about cancer and how many it kills on a normal day so it's fairly easy to estimate based on how many tests would normally happen in a period of time and come back positive for cancer, and how many tests have been missed. We also know how important it is to catch cancer early, and clearly we won't have for many people. Doesn't take a genius really.

But isn't this a sad fact of a pandemic that there will be other repercussions too, not just deaths from the virus.

If we hadn't locked down surely there would have been more deaths/sick people (hasn't it been acknowledged that if we had locked down a week earlier there would have been far fewer deaths). So NHS would have been overloaded, so routine appointments couldn't have happened. Included in those people who were ill/died would have been cancer specialists/nurses so unavailable to take appointments, operate etc. Also it appears that there can be long time side effects from catching the virus so some specialists may still have been off work now, or never be able to get back to work, so another impact.

So is it possible that the result in additional cancer deaths would sadly be the same.

I try and see both sides of the argument but I struggle to understand that not locking down would have been a better option than locking down when it comes to cancer patients.
Yes some appointments were cancelled for a few weeks which is obviously not good, but surely the whole point of the lockdown was not only to slow the spread but to protect our most vulnerable including cancer patients and those with compromised immune systems.
So by not protecting these vulnerable people there would have been many more deaths and there would be less NHS staff/resources to help them.

@Sunrise234 How many more deaths could the UK have possibly had? far and away the worst deaths record in Europe and per capita worse than even the USA, we are in effect no1 in the world, only 2nd in the tables behind Belgium because of the way they count CV deaths.

A select committee has just published a report that called the govts handing of CV and care homes willfully negligent.

Everything done was to stop the NHS being seen to be overwhelmed, so let cancer patient die in hospices, the elderly die in care homes.

...and no, its not possible to defer, my DD would need to retake years 1 and 2, with still no guarantee of a vaccine.

@jasjas1973 do you think there wouldn't have been any more deaths if we hadn't locked down?

When I hear people's explanation that things would have been worse without lockdown I think I understand more why people are so in favour of it. The fact is, there is no evidence at all that things would have been worse without lockdown - covid was spreading for at least three months without any lockdown and no one was even aware of it, never mind it decimating hospitals. During lockdown, when healthy, fit people were at home, unable to work despite not being ill, covid was still spreading around hospitals and care homes infecting vulnerable people. The people who needed to be protected weren't, while the people who were least in need of protection avoided infection and instead lost their jobs or their education.

There is no evidence whatsoever that without lockdown covid would definitely have followed the Imperial model and gone out of control - in fact, the evidence indicates that that would never have happened.

To be clear, I don't advocate everyone just carrying on as normal - it makes sense to take some care, wash hands, wear a mask in certain situations, but closing schools and businesses is not the answer and should never have been done IMO.

@TheDailyCarbuncle local schools near me were going to have to close before they were told to close because so many teachers were off sick, do you not think that would have happened in other areas too if schools had been kept open. What about all the teachers who had to shield, what would have happened to them with the rate so high. How would schools have coped if shielded teachers were allowed to stay at home but the schools had to stay fully open?

[quote ineedaholidaynow]@TheDailyCarbuncle local schools near me were going to have to close before they were told to close because so many teachers were off sick, do you not think that would have happened in other areas too if schools had been kept open. What about all the teachers who had to shield, what would have happened to them with the rate so high. How would schools have coped if shielded teachers were allowed to stay at home but the schools had to stay fully open?[/quote]
It makes sense to close a school temporarily if there is an issue with absence - schools sometimes have to do that if there's an outbreak of illness like flu or scarlet fever. Schools manage that individually, closing temporarily if there's a need to. I can't see how closing from March to September, leaving children without an outside source of contact for months is an improvement on that?

Also, once schools open up again (after children being at home for months on end, with all the problems that can create) the problem isn't solved, people can still get covid, schools may still have to close on an individual or regional basis. So all that's happened is the closures have been delayed rather than avoided.

Even The Lancet says there is no evidence for lockdowns being effective:

^
“Government actions such as border closures, full lockdowns, and a high rate of COVID-19 testing were not associated with statistically significant reductions in the number of critical cases or overall mortality.”^

From this link:

www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)30208-X/fulltext

But hey, you lockdown lovers carry on being panicked & hiding away and fucking up the economy. Just don't come bleating on here when there are no schools, or medical treatment because there's no bloody money.