How much are you willing to accept?

[TheFatBottomLine]

There are a lot of threads asking those who do not believe in further lockdown etc, how many people catching covid etc they are prepared to accept in this scenario.. So I'm asking those who want us to be stricter, to lockdown again etc.. How many businesses collapsing, how many unemployed, how many losing their homes, how many with declining mental and physical health, how many years of trying to repair all the damage this has caused, etc etc are you prepared to accept as the price of further restricrions and lockdown?

Bump.

I think we need to balance deaths against the need to keep the economy going.

I also think that businesses are going to need to adapt to changing need. If people are going to be living and working at home more, then we need to be in business to support that.

I don't think we should be pretending that the pandemic isn't happening and going back to business as normal, we need to change our game a bit.

I agree that we have had some clear indications that going back to the way things were in the past isn't for the best.

While a lot of industries suffered, there were some others who found new ways forward and who will benefit from lower overheads and office costs. I don't think they are all going to go back now.

For the industries that are going to suffer most, we need to start thinking of ways to adapt.

I'm with OP.

How many deaths is a business the size of Primark worth, or Wetherspoons?

There is no actual calculus going on, no "10 deaths is too few to close Primark down for but 1000 deaths is definitely worth closing Primark down."

Can say that equation is too transactional and who cares about Wetherspoons.. so what if by 2025, 50,000 people have had an extra 2 years of pain and morbidity due to the months/years of strict infection controls and huge backlogs that delayed their joint replacement operations? Is that just the price that had to be paid as well? Every decision we take has a cost. The official strategy is to reduce one kind of risk only for now, shrug & hope the future harms are someone else's problem.

Mass illness and death = fucked economy.

Extended lockdown = fucked economy.

If it's fucked either way, we should take the "save the most lives" route through this. The best option seems to be what we are doing. Lockdown, drop the case numbers, open a bit, and then relock down until it drops again.

If they closed the pubs and bars we may not need a national lockdown - that would be my preference.

@aLilNonnyMouse

Mass illness and death = fucked economy.

Extended lockdown = fucked economy.

If it's fucked either way, we should take the "save the most lives" route through this. The best option seems to be what we are doing. Lockdown, drop the case numbers, open a bit, and then relock down until it drops again.

You'd think that was bloody obvious, but people seem to think it's lockdown v back to pre Covid times It's NOT.

"If they closed the pubs and bars we may not need a national lockdown - that would be my preference."

If they close the schools we may not need a national lock down

The numbers only started rising once schools re-opened. Pubs opened July 4th.

Its the elephant in the room no one wants to mention.

I think any big businesses that pay zero corporation tax (of which there are many) should receive zero help from the government for coronavirus.

LilNonnyMouse

Mass illness and death = fucked economy.

Extended lockdown = fucked economy.

Yes, this.

I am interested in how the state gets to decide which lives matter. Who are dieing? Capitalism isn't just the economy.....its a whole social system that dictates which lives are valued. On what moral or ethical basis is the state making decisions about how many lives are expendable, and which lives are expendable.

An economic system and saving it from collapse is of no importance compared to human life. A system that collapses at the point at which we come to put life before exchange, is a system that doesn't serve human life.

But realistically leaving aside philosophy and ethics, I don't know. But I can tell you what is more important to Bojo and pals, and it ain't your life or anyone else's.

I think the current strategy of lockdown and opening things alternately is alright. It keeps things ticking over and seems as best balanced as possible.

But I am biased - it's not my job on the line (yet!!). I don't go out socialising much either. Someone who is more affected financially or socially will have a different view.

I would like a lot more testing done though

@ACautionaryTale except that isn’t true. Numbers started to rapidly rise before schools went back and during the first week when infections would have been caught before they went back.
And even if that was true, anyone with half a brain can see that schools being open is more important than all other business remaining open in fact the second can’t work without the first anyway.

I'd rather have the pubs open then schools - as I think would most people who don't have primary aged kids

@ACautionaryTale I’m sure you would but unfortunately that is an incredibly narrow minded, selfish and short sighted preference

'I'd rather have the pubs open then schools - as I think would most people who don't have primary aged kids'

Really? Even if you don't have kids surely you can see the future of this generation is much more important than you getting passed down your local?

Honestly it amazes me how many people can't function in these relatively easy lockdowns. It's of course a shame for business owners and I'm sorry for anyone struggling financially but going to the pub isn't the be all and end all.

@Hersetta427

If they closed the pubs and bars we may not need a national lockdown - that would be my preference.

I’m sure the millions of people whose jobs and livelihoods depend on hospitality would disagree with you. It doesn’t matter whether you personally like going to the pub or not, or think schools are more worthy than pubs, the government has taken a decision to open them largely because people’s incomes depend on it (and not just bar and waiting staff but food and drink manufacturing, supply and logistics.)

I'd rather have the pubs open then schools - as I think would most people who don't have primary aged kids

Well at least this is honest. But it also sums up how, as with Brexit, many people are perfectly happy to screw over kids, young people and working parents (usually women).

@Hersetta427

If they closed the pubs and bars we may not need a national lockdown - that would be my preference.

What about the people who work there? Do they and their families just starve?

Was it not something like 5% of cases transmitted in those settings? Hardly any.

Pissed*

@aLilNonnyMouse

Mass illness and death = fucked economy.

Extended lockdown = fucked economy.

If it's fucked either way, we should take the "save the most lives" route through this. The best option seems to be what we are doing. Lockdown, drop the case numbers, open a bit, and then relock down until it drops again.

This, I can't understand why people don't get it.

OP imagine 1000 people a day are dying, and people you know are in hospital. Will most people still feel enthusiastic about going out for a meal, queuing in a coffee shop, browsing shops? If shops lose a substantial proportion of their custom then they can't afford to open, so a few brave souls won't be enough.

One of the reasons for eat out scheme was to get people back out, not just eating out but also feeling more comfortable being out and about generally. People did go out and about this summer, but deaths/hospitalisations were low. If they get higher people will stay at home.

It's a difficult question with no simple answers, and yet most people seem to think they have simple answers based in whatever authoritarian impulse lurks within them. The central issue is our total lack of any headroom in healthcare capacity. If we had that, then yes, we could go down the route Sweden had the luxury of choosing. But we don't. So it becomes a choice between people dying of the lack of healthcare (which would affect all causes of mortality), and people becoming destitute, dying younger eventually or committing suicide. Ugly choices, and hard because one of them is a certainty you can measure, and the other is hard to draw causative conclusions on. That is why people think it's a simple choice, and that anyone who says otherwise is "selfish". Personally I can't help thinking they're a bit simple minded.

If there's another full lockdown out business will fold, it's looking bleak as it is. We will then loose our house as mortgages don't pay themselves. It's not about big businesses, it's about the ones left behind with no help and options

I’m not willing to accept access to healthcare worsening. Longer waits for operations leaving people in pain for longer, longer waits for ambulances leading to more deaths, no access to a doctor when your child is sick, etc.

We need to keep a lid on covid to stop that happening.

It wasn’t schools that kicked this off - covid has a longer lead time than that. It was holidays abroad, return to the office, and EOTHO. Everything the government told us to do.

If we’d locked down two weeks earlier in March we’d have been through it much much quicker with thousands fewer deaths. I can’t believe we’re procrastinating again.

I was willing to accept all of the restrictions - before.

Now I am no longer willing to accept any of this. So much is being thrown at us from all angles. Ever changing. All the time.

It's turned into a dictator kind of state where nothing is discussed by parliament. Local authorities and councils of local lockdown areas are not consulted. We're told at 10pm the night before that curfews and restrictions are coming in.

It's all. Too. Much. And has to stop. Now.

I for one am not willing to follow any of this any more.

It’s a total balancing act

Yes people will die of Covid, just as they do an endless list of other viruses/infectious diseases.
Yes a high proportion of these deaths will be elderly/vulnerable people, this is the same for pretty much every infectious illness ever.

(I have a vulnerable DF and sibling btw so I’m not a ‘it doesn’t effect me’ poster)

However the vast majority of the U.K. (the 95%) need to have an economy left, jobs to work, lives to live and this is equally if not more important than saving the 5%.

It’s ok to say ‘so you’d rather 5% die than you can’t go to primark/have to stay home for 2 weeks’ but that’s NOT what it’s really about.

I’d rather 5% of the country were lost than the 95% left suffer wide spread job losses, poverty, hunger, mental and physical health crisis (my DF can’t get cancer treatment BECAUSE COVID)

I think the people who say horrible guilt tripping things like ‘so you’d rather 5% die than you can’t go to primark/have to stay home for 2 weeks’ need to have the question flipped around.

‘Would you rather thousands of children (the least impacted) and young families be forced into poverty and hunger because the economy has collapsed just so that you can save your 92 year old gran?’
‘Would you rather thousands of people suffering awful illnesses like cancer die due to lack of adequate treatment, so you can save your 1 vulnerable family member?’

Everyone sees Covid from their own perspective but it’s awful to inflict that and guilt others because you think your own personal circumstances are more important.

If you want to protect or shield family members you can do so, that’s your choice. You do not however have the right to force others into lockdown