Covid measures 'a monument of collective hysteria and folly'

[RonaLisa]

The Guardian is not my natural habitat, but this is spot on.

It needs to be shouted from the rooftops.

How it genuinely comes across to me is that there exists and attitude that if people commit suicide, that's sad, but what can we do about it - covid has to be prioritised and so their deaths are just a sad inevitability. It's the tunnel vision that bothers me, the endless focus on one single thing, with everything else just fading into the background.

A virus is what it is - it spreads, it causes illness, it kills some people. Going beyond the virus to kill other people on top of that is just pure madness. What's the fucking point???

Many, many people will not make sacrifices for the greater good

This is always presented as an active choice. For many there is no viable choice.

There are also many who have already made large sacrifices but this isnt recognised.

Its just not that simple.

At the moment, the only thing stopping most of us getting Covid is some measure of restriction, whether by stopping access to gathering or by individuals taking themselves out of circulation. It isn’t hysterical to say that if we all carried on as normal, most of the population would get it (and be fine, or be disabled, or die). I ran this is the whole reason for the restrictions we have, epidemiologists know what is likely to happen if you do absolutely nothing to try to lessen transmission of a virus we don’t have immunity to. You can quibble over how fast it’ll happen, but it’ll happen. The numbers and projections are being used to attempt to tell us that things need to be done.

So something is, eventually, done and the numbers of course go down, and people say ‘see, they got it wrong’ 🤦🏻‍♀️ It is the most head-desky feature of humans that we are really bad with logic.

Deaths from a virus are part of being human - people die of viruses and other infections in their many many millions every year. Mostly we don't even think about it - we take minor precautions to guard against infection and get on with our lives.

Deaths from lockdown are the result of an active choice - it is a choice to sacrifice those people 'for the greater good.' The really fucked up thing is that their deaths may literally be for absolutely nothing, given that a person 'saved' from covid now could easily get it at any point in their lifetime - they simply can't be 'saved' forever because that's not possible. So instead of one death, from a virus, you get two or more deaths, from a virus and from the supposed 'control' of the virus. How is that a solution? How is that a positive thing? The logic is so entirely absent I really can't get my head around it.

Yeah, well, I can see this is just a round and round the houses with JHB so for the good of my blood pressure, I’ll go and do something more useful instead.

@Chessie678

I absolutely agree with Sumption on this. I find it chilling that we now live in a society where it is a criminal offence for many people to meet their family. I'm a lawyer and most of my colleagues have also been horrified that such fundamental freedoms have been removed from the population on an indefinite basis with so little scrutiny. But many of them are unwilling to say this in public because they don't want to be accused of being selfish granny murderers.

And we have removed these fundamental freedoms despite there being very little evidence that this will save lives. As I see it, we know, almost for certain, that lockdown and associated measures do and will continue to do very significant harm. Most of this harm will be in the future (e.g. long term unemployment and lack of resources to fund public services which in turn lead to poor health outcomes and decreased quality of life).

Lockdowns only might save lives from covid. They might just spread out the same number of covid deaths over a slightly longer time period.

So people are being required to give up fundamental rights in order to possibly (but not definitely) save others in a way which will very likely damage their own futures and the futures of their children and others, including in many cases their own life expectancy. No one should be forced by government to do something of such significant detriment to their own future, particularly when there is so little certainty that it will do any good to anyone else.

I thought this needed repeating. Excellent post, exactly how I feel about it.

The civil liberties and life chances of the disadvantaged were a huge issue before the pandemic and were lifelong. Unfortunately they had no ideological political power so no one really cared.

To be frank, even during the pandemic no one really cares about those in the already disadvantaged category - they are just used to put a moral gloss on the temporary issues of the relatively advantaged.

Speaking from personal experience, which was shared by thousands in the same position, it is 'interesting' to contrast loss of access to face to face education for months/years and severe deterioration in mental health in the SN community to the non-SN community who have experienced temporary loss during a pandemic.

SN remains ignored but mental health impacts of not being in school are now all over the place as justification of why schools 'must' ...

So now the importance is finally understood does this mean that the experience of SN and SEN DC in relation to education will change - no part time attendance, no need for masses of assessment, funding to meet need, expedition of tribunal hearings for DC with no placement.

I doubt it - return to normal means the continued abuse of rights for the already disadvantaged.

Is there any new/found champion of liberty that has any track record of giving a toss about the liberties and rights of the disadvantaged and vulnerable?

it seems that the right to life is now construed by many as an entitlement to be kept alive, indefinitely, and at whatever cost. I'm not sure that can be justified ...

A very insightful post

As said before, unfortunately for many the ship of "protecting the NHS" has sailed as regards making sacrifices. It worked back in March/April, but after a summer of very few cases and still no access to crucial healthcare I believe many won't be fooled again

Nor, IMO, is it purely a matter of money. As we've seen with Track and Trace, throwing around almost unlimited funds is no guarantee of a successful outcome when effective management and accountability just aren't there

Yes, yes and yes. And yes again. I could not agree more.

I think at present Covid is the 17th or 18th in the list of things people are dying from...

I think at present Covid is the 17th or 18th in the list of things people are dying from ...

Very possibly, but given its notifiable status, some will insist that no matter what else was wrong it must have been Covid which killed them

As a local A&E consultant said, it doesn't appear to matter if someone's suffered from COPD, renal problems, cardiac issues of any other life limiting illness for years - once they get Covid that's it and they become one more statistic to shore up the spiralling narrative

@knittingaddict its not mass gatherings and parties. Its people simply wanting to visit a relative.

@Puzzledandpissedoff DM ended up as an emergency admission to hospital last weekend due to treatment being delayed since March.

It isn’t just death that is the point re: overwhelming the health service. If covid caused 1/10 peoples arms to spontaneously break we would need to take preventative measures to prevent its spread because when the hospitals are full of people needing broken bones setting and plastering other preventable deaths happen along with complications from those arms that don’t get seen in time.

Death is the most widely understood outcome of covid precisely because apparently people can’t comprehend nuances. The number of deaths unrestricted covid can cause in a short space of time will cause many more completely preventable deaths because no country has the resources to deal with both covid and the usual patient load.

To paraphrase Dr Fauci, with decades of pandemic experience behind him, anything we do that works will look like an overreaction. I’m inclined to side with the professional with hands on experience of AIDS and Ebola over pretty much anyone else, especially armchair experts.

Re. Overwhelming the health service, some hospitals local to me have reported this week that they are now treating more patients with covid than they were during the peak in April. Their response was that if it gets much worse they 'may' have to cancel routine procedures. Anyone else thinking Wtf? If they have more now than in April but are now also offering routine procedures, doesn't that mean they cancelled everything in April but had absolutely no need to? I'm flabbergasted by the misinformation. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but a lot of people are lying through their teeth.

@loulouljh

I think at present Covid is the 17th or 18th in the list of things people are dying from...

That may be true nationally but there is definitely an issue in certain areas.

Today's data from Liverpool:

liverpool.gov.uk/covidcases

Between 22nd-28th October 2020 there were 201 registered deaths in Liverpool, of which 37% (n=76) were Covid-19 deaths.

This has been rising steadily for the past two weeks and is significant.

Just to stress over a third of all deaths in Liverpool in the last week have been covid deaths.

Nope.

Over a third of the deaths in Liverpool in the last week have been people who have tested positive for COVID-19 at some point in the last 28 days.

Given loads of people have it, and every hospital admission for any reason is tested (on top of the fact its autumn) its not really a big surprise

If thats the case, we would expect the number of deaths in Liverpool to be normal for this time of year.

Its not.

@Tfoot75

Re. Overwhelming the health service, some hospitals local to me have reported this week that they are now treating more patients with covid than they were during the peak in April. Their response was that if it gets much worse they 'may' have to cancel routine procedures. Anyone else thinking Wtf? If they have more now than in April but are now also offering routine procedures, doesn't that mean they cancelled everything in April but had absolutely no need to? I'm flabbergasted by the misinformation. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but a lot of people are lying through their teeth.

The NHS admits they were unprepared. They had PPE shortages, staff were dropping left right and centre. Hospital infections were rife and testing was all over the place. It simply wasn't safe to continue routine clinics. Are our memories really that bad that we have forgotten the state the NHS was in. Granted it may not have been nationwide.

This time at least staff are better protected and hospitals are more organised in separating covid/non covid. Treatments are also improving and less people being incubated.

So 74 Covid deaths this week out off 500,000 people in Liverpool.

I’d really like to know the age and health conditions of these people.

Any death is awful just like the 127 people who didnt die of Covid in that time period but died of something else. We do have to keep a perspective on this.

*intubated

@Tfoot75, circumstances aren’t comparable though are they? This is the expected, and planned for, second wave and there is an idea of what to do for covid patients now not to mention PPE. It’s definitely not perfect but spring was a different animal that completely sideswiped the NHS.

There is not, and never will be, the trained manpower and physical equipment to deal with the numbers projected by the maths based on what we know so far.

@Tiredeyesneedsleep

Nope.

Over a third of the deaths in Liverpool in the last week have been people who have tested positive for COVID-19 at some point in the last 28 days.

Given loads of people have it, and every hospital admission for any reason is tested (on top of the fact its autumn) its not really a big surprise

Tbh, going in to hospital is a sure way of catching it. I’ve read many cases of elderly people who have caught it whilst being in hospital.

My MIL is a career who looks after a elderly blind man. He went in for a operation for something else and caught it and is very poorly. Must be hideous for him.

@RedToothBrush

If thats the case, we would expect the number of deaths in Liverpool to be normal for this time of year.

Its not.

Isn't it? I honestly don't know.

Do you have figures for deaths in this week for the last 10 years? If you do we could quickly work it out.

Are you suggesting none of those people would have died ie died this week if COVID-19 hadn't come along?

DM ended up as an emergency admission to hospital last weekend due to treatment being delayed since March

I'm very sorry to hear that, @MercyBooth, but not at all surprised

Without making any assumptions I somehow doubt she'll have much patience for the current narrative, but here's hoping she can make a full and fast recovery