Are we delaying the inevitable?

[Slytherin]

I am wondering if we are delaying the inevitable here with continued lockdowns/social distancing etc.
These events surely happen in the world and over history to ensure population reduction and control.
Surely the virus will continue to circulate whatever happens, until it has burnt itself out/finished its natural run?
Unless a vaccine/decent treatment is found sooner.

@Jussayingisall

5000 deaths being knocked off the covid total and possibly more to come off.

Yet still the worst death total in Europe even if they chop another few thousand off the total.

Limiting mass gatherings, improving hygiene measures including having proper PPE for care staff, and maintaining a sensible distance from other people - close friends and family aside -: these would have been sensible things to do.

If they'd been quicker off the block we might have been able to.

By the time we locked down it was already spreading like a wildfire. We had a few weeks after the likes of Italy and Spain where battered by Covid in some regions, to put measures in place but were complacent. Then we got the testing wrong, we got the care homes wrong.

Are you sure that's right about 90% of furloughed men actually doing work at home keeponkeepingon? I was aware of employers cheating the scheme of course, but that figure seems enormous when you consider there were whole sectors that were mostly furloughed and where there wouldn't really be any work for them to do at home. Like aviation, restaurants, pubs, cinema etc.

Yes there is that.

However the 'ripping through population' also assumes 100% susceptibility. This has been proven to be wrong. And the most common Covid symptom is no symptoms.

So again, on balance, is a worldwide Depression which will cause much more death and misery worth it?

And by the time we locked down it HAD spread like wildfire. It had spread like wildfire before anyone realised what a problem it was yet infection rates were decreasing from March and April.

@Chessie678

Totally agree.

despite there being evidence that lockdowns make little difference to the curve of a virus

Rubbish. You and Boris must have a lot in common. He thinks it was a wonderful coincidence that our first wave peaked a couple of weaks after lockdown.

You talk about taking sensible measures. You mean measures that feel reasonable to you. That don't upset your life too much. Measures are useless unless they are suffciently effective to do what they need to do. Sorry to break it to you but the virus has no interest in what you feel is reasonable. Do you think the medics who have died of Covid didn't take sensible, reasonable measures? Of course they did. Problem is, the virus didn't care because it hasn't read your book on boundaries.

I believe/know there is a hidden agenda to Covid, because Boris and other leaders have made no sense, even when following 'scientific advise;' that is completely different to scientists in each country. I'm probably going to get slated for this but for the devastation that has been caused by the lockdown in comparison to the 0.09% fatality rate. I think the measures taken were not necessary or warranted.

I doubt very much that the death rate would have been 0.9% had we not locked down to prevent overwhelming NHS - everyone who needed treatment got it, and heaven only knows how bad it would have been if that had not been the case. And if all (rather than a planned share of) all other treatment just stopped.

Are we delaying 'the inevitable'? Part of me thinks that the actual final numbers of people who will have had the virus cannot really be changed (within about 18 months or more anyway) - only the period in which this happens could be more controlled. And I think it is absolutely worth giving the best chance to that period.

On the one hand, either vaccine or more effective treatments can be worked on and produced. After about 2 months in the danger zone, the initial more effective treatments for survival meant something as non-drug-related as using a CPAP mask, not a ventilator, and proning patients instead of having them on their backs (ingenious, but not requiring great giant medical leaps or even masses of cash).

You'll probably bay at me for alluding to the last pandemic (again) but although technology and sanitation is much more developed, human factors and behaviour are not quite as advanced alongside it since that time. In 1918 they did have mask usage, soap and water, lockdowns, isolation, and, in some parts, school closure. They did have to go through it without a clue as to how long until hindsight could be called. They did in fact get lies and contradictory guidance from leaders. Were many wearing masks out and about by the '20s though ? Photos suggest not.

47Comicstar Who on earth could be benefiting from this (in government in Britain)?

who needed treatment got it

You do realise how high our death toll is relative to others, that people were told to get in touch only if they turned blue, that many died waiting on a phone queue, that a future inquiry will almost certainly find that deaths could have been avoided if treatment was given in a timely manner, rather than ignoring everyone except the obviously dying and then often deciding they weren't a good candidate for ventilation unless you're Boris who got extra oxygen early instead of turning blue?

What about people who were denied treatment because if covid, their lives don't matter then. The flu kills the same or more people yearly. All deaths have been registered as Covid so the 0.09% isn't even an accurate figure.

Being horribly blunt, they'd have been denied it just as effectively had Covid peaked, overwhelmed hospitals and made treatment unsafe.

Possibly for longer, as doctors, nurses and other HCPs were disproportionately affected

Even the major repurposing does not seem to have gone far enough - going by comments above.

But the plan was to keep going as many treatments of grave conditions and of emergencies as possible.

So only people who had Covid mattered. Unless of course you were elderly and resided in a care home 🤔 then you could just be left to either die or recover, whilst passing the virus to all the other elderly people, as well as social care workers.

So only people who had Covid mattered.

Why do you think this? This has to be the stupidest thought process of 2020. What do you think would happen if you gave cancer patients chemo in the middle of an epidemic? What do you think it would do to mortality rates for non urgent elective surgery if it was done during an epidemic? What do you think would happen to NHS services if unchecked numbers of people were turning blue and arriving at A and E? Who would be left to treat everyone else? I bet you don't because people like you never do, but explain what you think should be happening. And why you don't think the lockdown was a move to preserve the NHS for non covid patients in the medium sand long term.

and

Ok what I think should have happened is the vunerable of our society should have been isolated and priotity to minimise deaths and to ensure a stable economy and protect the NHS!
Oh and I'm stupid 😂 but you listen to a man who shook hands with Covid positive patients because he is obviously the intellectual one....

Original poster yes ultimately you are correct as I agree with your insertion. However I am not massively optimistic that there will be any eventual medical cure. I also believe technically everything apart from loss lives can eventually be replaced, You can as history has proven recover from the most apocalyptic of social economic catastrophes but simply can not resurrect the deceased. We therefore need to do whatever it takes (and more!) to beat this common enemy. This is the first global emergency medical pandemic war since the last one around a century ago - the Spanish American Flu. We have naturally progressed beyond recognition technologically and have the best world leading virologist and medical scientists fighting this with life or death vigour for better medical interventions and treatments. This pandemic will take a percentage of mankind which I understand is guesstimates to less than 5% total kill rate which as terrifying as it sounds is not as deadly as say Ebola. No consolation but as said above we need to take this as seriously as possible and do whatever it takes as no other option for the survivors!

The whole thing could and should have been handled better. What a terrible fate for this country that when this happened we had to be led by a man who lies every time his lips move supported by a Cabinet of ignorant ‘yes men’.

Put simply we need to learn to live with this virus just as we live with other illnesses and other dangers. Right now we are heading in totally the wrong direction with how we are handling it - due to the way both Government and media are presenting statistics and seeking to frighten everybody into complying like robots.

Our economy is already showing signs of being the worst hit in Europe. In six months time the Government will no longer be able to hide the unemployment statistics and it will become clear to everyone what they have done to this country.

Liar Johnson and his gormless Chancellor will be stood there repeating the sound bite that they were ‘guided by the science’; that they always said not every job could be saved etc etc. I can see it now....,,,

comic

I'm sorry, your sentences don't make sense to me. Genuinely, you don't seem coherent. Except the bit about listening to Boris. I understood that you think I listen to Boris. Not sure why.

My sentences aren't coherent! Is that your debate 🤣

If you don't listen to Boris who do you listen to
..' the scientists,' who have different theories depending on which country the virus is residing in.

What do you think would happen if you gave cancer patients chemo in the middle of an epidemic?

More people would recover and less would die.

Some cancer treatment continued so it's not true it was stopped "for the patients own good"

Yes agree but I think vaccine will be a goer. Can’t be sure of course.

I’m not against first lockdown really, but trying to halt everything for too long is not the right way to go.

Unless you eliminate it, it’s just controlling numbers. And a balance between heath care and economy.

Some states in Aus are at zero cases (well that they know of but seems likely as no one with symptoms).