What Would Happen Without Lockdowns

[Flaxmeadow]

Just that really. What would have happened if we hadn't locked down in March or if we don't have lockdowns now

I thought the estimate without lockdown was 500,000 covid deaths - so far we've had less than 50,009. Hospitals and undertakers etc would have been overwhelmed. There's would have been huge criticism of the government. There have been places which were overwhelmed, New York undertakes for example. Not pretty or something I would like to happen local to me.

I agree though that the young need to get on with their lives and the vulnerable protect themselves.

It’s not fair to present this as lockdown or nothing. There are, and always have been, other options, different combinations of restrictions that might be more or less effective at ensuring that the health services are not overwhelmed with too many serious cases at once. I am concerned that now, apparently, “lockdown“ is just what we do. It lets the government off the hook.

No lockdown = NHS swamped & some ugly scenes over the next 12 months or so.

But, highly likely be in & out if the pandemic more quickly, so NHS could be fully open once again afterwards.

At the moment, in theory, it could remain half opened for years if no vaccine.

Swings & roundabouts imo.

You can always tell on these posts which posters haven't had a friend or family member die from Covid.

How nice for them.

Almost everyone will have lost a loved one through illness at some point so it shouldn‘t be a case of my suffering is greater than yours so my opinion is more valuable than yours. The point is that we have to balance the deaths from covid against the harms caused by lockdown and seriously consider if there might be a better way given that we are in this for the long haul vaccine or not.

I am concerned that now, apparently, “lockdown“ is just what we do.

But that isn't right, is it? It isn't just lockdown or nothing at the moment. We've had the rule of 6, we've had mask wearing, and social distancing. That doesn't appear to have worked, so my area has now moved into Tier 2, and we are no longer allowed to socialise with other households indoors, but we can still meet outside, my dd's school and activities are still open, shops and restaurants are still running etc. No lockdown here. If the current measures still don't work...and looking at other parts of the country, they probably won't be enough...then more restrictions will be imposed, but even Tier 3 isn't equivalent to a lockdown yet.

Personally, I think a stricter national lockdown is the way we'll have to go, and I don't really see the point of delaying the inevitable, but whatever your position on this is, it's absurd to say that the current approach is lockdown or nothing, as we have been living with restrictions that fall between those two extremes for months. The issue is that what we have at the moment isn't working, so we need to do more.

@Carrotcakeforbreakfast

Some of the stupidity on here is staggering.

There would be more cancer deaths than there are now if the virus was left to it's own devices.
Even if the death rate is "small" there are a lot of people requiring intervention.
If it was allowed to just tear through communities on the basis of not everyone would die. Then the hospitals wouldn't cope and even more surgeries/ treatment would be cancelled. Far more than when they were cancelled in a more controlled manner.
Unless some posters think that the covid patients who don't end up dying shouldn't have access to the health service.
No mechanical ventilation, no cpap?

Covid isn't as simple as you have it and you're asymptomatic or you die.
There are a lot of very poorly people somewhere in the middle. They wouldn't disappear if we all just carried on.
I honestly don't understand the thinking of some people.
It is ridiculous.

Absolutely agree with this. I'm baffled how anyone can think that we get the NHS back for all non-Covid appointments/treatments/operations if we stop lockdowns and just "live our lives". If the NHS is suffering under the burden of Covid at the moment, then imagine how much worse it would get if we don't find ways to lower the infection rate.

@Dreading2020sSeasonFinale

You can always tell on these posts which posters haven't had a friend or family member die from Covid.

How nice for them.

I lost a grandparent two weeks ago. Not to covid, just old age. She spent her last months lonely because we were all so terrified of giving her covid and now we are all wracked with guilt. Are the people who have lost someone to covid suffering more than us?

We have no natural immunity and no lasting immunity once we've had it.

Op, that's not quite true.

Many people have no or only mild symptoms and some people don't get infected at all when exposed to the virus.

There probably is some lasting immunity, if not from antibodies but from T cells. We'll find out soon whether lots of people become reinfected again or not. Assuming there is some longer lasting immunity, cases should start to fall naturally.

My husband is vulnerable. Could you please advise how he protects himself? Please cover how he protects himself at work, when shopping for things to repair the house, when at his medical appointments?

How does he protect himself from mental health problems that total isolation from his family and friends is likely to cause?

Do you advise I stay with him? Or move out to stay with my daughter? I work also.

There are many millions like him. About 1/3 to 1/2 of the population need to be protected if you want cancer services to stay running whilst covid runs wild. ( Chris whity said everyone over 45 would need to be shielded if we are to avoid overwhelming the NHS to keep the basic nhs services running. You can also do your own estimates based on hospitalisation rates by age group which are readily available on line )

Please could you advise how those cancer services keep running given a large proportion of the hospital staff will need to be protected ?

Please could you advise how you will support the businesses that lose out because they lose 1/3 to 1/2 of their customers? Gyms, pubs, hotels, buses,

The only way to have any kind of normal life is to control the virus , but now it is controlling us

But everyone is in such a rush to get back to normal and such denial about how devastating the virus could be to our society , way of life and the NHS , that instead we get the shittiest solution of repeated lockdowns and severe restrictions

The point is that we have to balance the deaths from covid against the harms caused by lockdown and seriously consider if there might be a better way given that we are in this for the long haul vaccine or not.

This.

Lockdowns may well prevent some deaths in the short term, but lockdown causes lots of damage too!

@Flaxmeadow

I think the NHS, and other services, would collapse. I think the armed forces would have to be brought in. Many many people would die alone, gasping for air, even die in the streets because there would be no assistance available

It would be barbaric to let this virus free.

@Flaxmeadow

Do you understand that this virus kills less than 0.2 percent of those it manages to infect?

We could easily end up with a similar result going down the long haul route. It’ll just be more ‘acceptable’ to most because they don’t like seeing hospital scenes on their TV’s a la Lombardy.

On the other side of the coin, story in my local paper today about a 42 year old who couldn’t access a face to face GP appointment in the spring & has now got advanced Cancer. I’m sure they’ll be plenty of other similar cases out there.

The only way to have any kind of normal life is to control the virus

That's assuming

1. that the virus can ever be controlled

and

2. the costs of controlling it don't outweigh the benefits of trying to control it.

Then life will never be normal again ....I am however more positive than that

@Strawberrypancakes

I think all the ‘overwhelmed NHS’ posts stand in stark contrast to the roughly 3 people who were in the much needed nightingale hospitals.

Presumably you mean in the first wave? I think there was more than 3 but take your point, lockdown worked and brought capacity in the NHS under control.

Let's hope we don't need the nightingales this time round (we already do) because there's no staff for them.

My family live in New York City. There were refrigerated lorries parked outside of my mum's nearest urgent care centre acting as makeshift morgue. My sister was terrified to leave her apartment with her 2 young children because the virus was everywhere and hospitals and morgue were overwhelmed.

When that happens - when you are seeing and hearing it for yourself - people lockdown anyway. Who the hell is going to walk past a morgue lorry and carry on with life as normal???

It's shit. It's something none of us ever expected to live through, but here we are. Unfortunately pretending nothing is happening and it's just a bad cold doing the rounds won't actually make life go back to normal. We have to get through a shit time, we can't wish it away

@Grobagsforever assuming everyone has to get it at some point, that would still be almost 150,000 dead

@GalesThisMorning

My family live in New York City. There were refrigerated lorries parked outside of my mum's nearest urgent care centre acting as makeshift morgue. My sister was terrified to leave her apartment with her 2 young children because the virus was everywhere and hospitals and morgue were overwhelmed.

When that happens - when you are seeing and hearing it for yourself - people lockdown anyway. Who the hell is going to walk past a morgue lorry and carry on with life as normal???

It's shit. It's something none of us ever expected to live through, but here we are. Unfortunately pretending nothing is happening and it's just a bad cold doing the rounds won't actually make life go back to normal. We have to get through a shit time, we can't wish it away

This is so true.

You more covid there is in the community and the scarier it becomes like this, the less people will leave their houses and there will be a lockdown by proxy anyway. Economy ruined either way.

“it's absurd to say that the current approach is lockdown or nothing, as we have been living with restrictions that fall between those two extremes for months. The issue is that what we have at the moment isn't working, so we need to do more.“

I was responding to the OP who is presenting it as lockdown or nothing. HTH

Lockdown should have been done sooner and for a little longer
Then test and trace would have had a chance, although it's hard in western societies that don't accept a high level of social surveillance
And there should have been support for anyone who had to self isolate , we should be worried about the cost of fraudulent self isolation claims not furlough
Yes, it would be difficult and even Germany are struggling

The alternative isn't pretty though, we know we can't protect the vulnerable. We can't even protect those in care homes, never mind the millions that would need protection if we are to avoid the worst NHS problems ( clearly, even at current virus levels , the NHS isn't totally coping )

Doctors, surgeons and other health care professionals don’t grow on trees. If you let the virus run free a lot of these professionals won’t be around to treat Covid patients let alone cancer or mental health patients. Also employers, teachers etc if they started to drop off then education and employment levels would drop too. Hospitality industries wouldn’t have the same uptake and would still suffer.
Getting rid of lockdowns doesn’t make life normal for us even if your risk is tiny you still depend heavily on these professionals in your everyday life, unless you can take on the role of a doctor, surgeon and teacher yourself then you are pretty much going to suffer too. The fact is there is still a virus out there. The lockdowns are slowing it down so we all have some sort of health system, education system and employment system in place to at least try and help us through this. Without the lockdowns these systems would be the first to come tumbling down.
On BBC news today you have ICU consultants talking about how they are trying to figure out how to cope with the current cases in hospitals and they are agreeing that because of the ill Covid patients a lot of treatments are going to have to be suspended as they can’t be at 2 places at once!! They are worried that even by doing this they may not prevent the NHS from collapse. It’s not their fault there are so many severely ill Covid patients taking up their beds. As a society we need to help ease this burden for the NHS or we will all be feeling the effects in more ways than one.
Doctors and health care professionals would be the first to drop as they would be exposed to the virus more if cases numbers were allowed to increase “naturally” same with teachers. These professionals aren’t made with super strength immunity defences. They are human too and would be affected by the virus. Even if they don’t die, there will be a lot of absences. So unless you or I can go and cover for them the best thing to do is listen to the advice from the scientists and help protect them.

I think that the NHS would have collapsed and we would have seen suicides of healthcare and care home workers. They report March and April being awful - we can't imagine how much worse May onwards would have

@GalesThisMorning

My family live in New York City. There were refrigerated lorries parked outside of my mum's nearest urgent care centre acting as makeshift morgue. My sister was terrified to leave her apartment with her 2 young children because the virus was everywhere and hospitals and morgue were overwhelmed.

When that happens - when you are seeing and hearing it for yourself - people lockdown anyway. Who the hell is going to walk past a morgue lorry and carry on with life as normal???

It's shit. It's something none of us ever expected to live through, but here we are. Unfortunately pretending nothing is happening and it's just a bad cold doing the rounds won't actually make life go back to normal. We have to get through a shit time, we can't wish it away

I have family in New York also and they started staying home well before the stay-at-home orders were issued.

I repeat again - if you want to know what the UK would look like if it just pretends the virus isn’t a big deal, look at the States. Not bloody Sweden.

@Nellodee

Cardboard coffins? Bodies stacked in refrigerator vans? Mass graves? All these have happened in countries that became overwhelmed.

We in NW London had a glimpse of what it would be like back in March and April. There were temporary morgues at hospitals. Our crematorium had a huge temporary structure built to cope with the escalating daily deaths. There were many people who died at home. Our hospital coped but at one point did have to redirect patients elsewhere and other neighbouring hospitals were also at capacity. The worse part for ICU staff was seeing some of their colleagues fighting to survive and having to be intubated.

The lockdown slowed the new cases which led to less admissions and thankfully the hospital carried on safely.

I can't imagine how our Country would cope with this situation if there were no restrictions to limit transmission.