Are we sacrificing the young to save the elderly?

[RubyandBen]

Reading another thread where someone was accusing the OP of wanting to sacrifice the elderly re CV. But the longer this goes on the more education and the economy are screwed is it actually the other way round?

I'm staggered. But do many posters saying that the young aren't being sacrificed. Of course they are!

And all those posters saying :

"this has affected everyone- all generations. It is not worse for any one age group",

that's utter rubbish. Mostly it's the elderly that die. How anyone can argue otherwise is beyond me.

@HesterShaw1 our incompetent Govt should have sorted it back in March.

@Oblomov20

I'm staggered. But do many posters saying that the young aren't being sacrificed. Of course they are!

And all those posters saying :

"this has affected everyone- all generations. It is not worse for any one age group",

that's utter rubbish. Mostly it's the elderly that die. How anyone can argue otherwise is beyond me.

It's astonishing I agree. All these solemn intonations about every death from Covid (screw all other causes) being "a tragedy" etc. No, no and no. Every death is not an equal tragedy. Old animals, including human beings, eventually wear out and die, and this is usually because some kind of illness gets them. Very few people indeed die completely unexpectedly and painlessly in their sleep. I just can't understand this narrative that every single death is a preventable tragedy. Death is sad and we grieve, but it's part of life.

A person in their 80s dying with Covid after a long and productive life is completely different to a man in his 50s dying of a heart attack which he could not seek help for due to limited medical help being available, or a woman in her 30s dying of cervical cancer because her smear test was delayed again, or the teenager who killed himself because the thought of a locked down winter was too much for his mental state to cope with.

@HesterShaw1

The fact that flu can be very serious does not mean it hospitalises the same number of people as Covid. The NHS copes with the flu every year but that doesn't mean it could cope with a virus which hospitalises a much higher proportion of people, especially when it will also have to deal with hospitalisations due to flu.

Again, this shows exactly why the running down of the NHS in the last decade leaving it operate on a shoestring was such fucking stupid shortsighted thing to do. Why do we not have more capacity to deal with acutely ill people?

And if this virus is to be around for a while, how about some actual planning for it, instead of telling people they should lockdown and screw their livelihoods and education and social lives and mental wellbeing for it?

It's too late to start planning for it now. It needed to be done years ago. That's one of the many differences between Sweden and the UK. They had confidence that their health system could cope.

[quote Northernsoulgirl45]@HesterShaw1 our incompetent Govt should have sorted it back in March.[/quote]
Quite.

A person in their 80s dying with Covid after a long and productive life is completely different to a man in his 50s dying of a heart attack which he could not seek help for due to limited medical help being available, or a woman in her 30s dying of cervical cancer because her smear test was delayed again, or the teenager who killed himself because the thought of a locked down winter was too much for his mental state to cope with.

They will all die if the health system is overwhelmed.

It's too late to start planning for it now. It needed to be done years ago. That's one of the many differences between Sweden and the UK. They had confidence that their health system could cope.

Well if this virus is going to be with us long term, we need to start planning for it now. At the same time as mitigating against the terrible financial hardship we are faced with as a result of not planning for it earlier. We can't do one without the other.

Cutting the NHS to the bone was such a false economy as we are now finding out. Hopefully the people who voted for this have seen what an idiotic policy it was, if they continue to insist on a health system which is free at the point of use.

@Belladonna12

A person in their 80s dying with Covid after a long and productive life is completely different to a man in his 50s dying of a heart attack which he could not seek help for due to limited medical help being available, or a woman in her 30s dying of cervical cancer because her smear test was delayed again, or the teenager who killed himself because the thought of a locked down winter was too much for his mental state to cope with.

They will all die if the health system is overwhelmed.

People keep coming back to this don't they?

And why will our health system be overwhelmed, if for example, Germany's and Sweden's have not been?

Because they realise their health system and public health spending is an investment and not a drain.

Where are those adverts which briefly appeared during lockdown when Johnson realise he might have got the illness worse because he was fat? How has that public health campaign developed? Where is the public information about the benefits of Vitamin D3? (small example)

We can't just lockdown simply every time the NHS might be overwhelmed. Where is the long term plan for investing in better health for the population?

Again, if people insist that the NHS is sacrosanct and its frontline staff are saints and heroes, then we need a better long term plan than shutting down society the moment it looks like it will get busy and weekly claps. This will mean considerable tax rises and lots more of us taking more responsibility for our own health.

@HesterShaw1

It's too late to start planning for it now. It needed to be done years ago. That's one of the many differences between Sweden and the UK. They had confidence that their health system could cope.

Well if this virus is going to be with us long term, we need to start planning for it now. At the same time as mitigating against the terrible financial hardship we are faced with as a result of not planning for it earlier. We can't do one without the other.

Cutting the NHS to the bone was such a false economy as we are now finding out. Hopefully the people who voted for this have seen what an idiotic policy it was, if they continue to insist on a health system which is free at the point of use.

It may be with us long-term that we will have vaccines in the future and probably better testing .I don't disagree that the NHS needs improvement but it will be too late in the case of this virus.

There will be another virus Belladonna12

And yes to better testing. Testing that doesn't declare that an otherwise healthy person of working, tax paying age with fragments of dead virus in her system needs to hide in the house for a fortnight.

And if the vaccine doesn't come? Or if it turns out to be damaging?

@HesterShaw1

There will be another virus Belladonna12

And yes to better testing. Testing that doesn't declare that an otherwise healthy person of working, tax paying age with fragments of dead virus in her system needs to hide in the house for a fortnight.

And if the vaccine doesn't come? Or if it turns out to be damaging?

I'm not sure why you're arguing with me because I don't disagree that the NHS needs more money. I've worked for it for over 30 years. I really hope that they plan better for the next pandemic too.

There will be a vaccine. It's a question of when not if.

Sorry if it looks like I'm arguing.

Hard to tell on MN these days.

I apologise. Hope this vaccine comes soon.

People never want to repair the house when the sun is shining, except if it with someone else’s money.

Re age. I value 94 year old Sir David Attenborough's life over a 30 year old rapist.

Once you start to weigh the value of people’s lives, which people seem happy to do on an age basis, but maybe less so on other factors (financial contribution, moral contribution etc), you are getting very close to eugenics.

Its odd, the word "sacrifice". I'd agree that the 17 & 18 year olds sent to the western front a little over a hundred years ago were "sacrificed". I don't really view today's teenagers being asked to stay at home, and socialise via the myriad of different ways modern technology allows, as a sacrifice.

@larrygrylls

The NHS has always ‘rationed’ treatment based on years of quality of life. There are cancer drugs that would save the lives of middle aged people that will not be funded as they’re too expensive.

It’s nothing to do with eugenics- there is a finite amount of money and it has to be spent effectively. That seems to have been thrown out the window with COVID in our determination to ‘save’ as many lives as possible. Something we do not do with any other illness.

Seems many people have never heard of the Quality-adjusted life year (QALY) principle

[quote Ecosse]@larrygrylls

The NHS has always ‘rationed’ treatment based on years of quality of life. There are cancer drugs that would save the lives of middle aged people that will not be funded as they’re too expensive.

It’s nothing to do with eugenics- there is a finite amount of money and it has to be spent effectively. That seems to have been thrown out the window with COVID in our determination to ‘save’ as many lives as possible. Something we do not do with any other illness.[/quote]
What do you suggest?
We say right that's it, no-one get any treatment for anything?

How do you propose the NHS treats people for broken legs, cancer, road accidents, or anything else?

You don't want Covid containment measures - so we won't have any free hospital beds or staff.

How to we treat patients safety with wards containing asymptomatic Covid patients and staff. There was disaster a couple of weeks ago when Covid spread through a cancer ward in Scotland.

What do you think happens?

@AlecTrevelyan006

Seems many people have never heard of the Quality-adjusted life year (QALY) principle

I'm confident Long Covid sufferers are more than aware of quality of life. Long-term disability does that.

Yes to the OP. We are sacrificing the younger generation for the older. I believe the physical (lack of exercise) mental and educational repercussions of Covid measures in the long term will cause more premature deaths than the actual virus. My BiL who is an ICU nurse and parent of teens feels this very strongly too.

As I’ve said on numerous occasions @SheepandCow I do support the rule of six, social distancing and mask wearing.

What I do not support is a lockdown that would be catastrophic for the economy, mental health and education.

No. The elderly have given up a lot - an awful lot. They are the generation who meet people in person rather than via social media.

The young havent done too badly - the 2020 graduates from A level and GCSEs have mostly far better grades than expected. And for a generation who is always on their phones their mental health remains good.

I think it is my generation who have really suffered. We have commitments to elderly family and children; have to work from home in isolation or are losing our jobs (which we need to pay bills, mortgages, rent etc); have no social life or the (real) ability to date following breakdown of relationships (which is very common).

@Ecosse

As I’ve said on numerous occasions *@SheepandCow* I do support the rule of six, social distancing and mask wearing.

What I do not support is a lockdown that would be catastrophic for the economy, mental health and education.

Medical and economic experts, including the BMA and the IMF have warned how NOT containing Covid is what's catastrophic for the economy, education, and mental health.

We can't have mental health treatment with full hospitals and ill mental health staff.

Schools can't provide a proper education with the ongoing disruption of sick staff (some ill for months with Long Covid).

We're in this mess - 8-9 months - after it all began because we failed to take proper containment measures. If we had done something about it, everything would be open as normal by now (bar international holidays).

Society, individuals, and the economy are suffering because people refused to accept the need to do something about it. Thanks to that attitude, we don't have a normal life. Some if us would quite like to return to normality. Hence our desire to make that possible.

The countries who've contained Covid all now have healthier economies.

@spongedog
The middle-aged are all too often overlooked.