What will cause greater harm to human life?

[Billie18]

What will cause greater harm to human life in the long term. Lockdowns or coronavirus?

I think at first it was Covid. Now I am sure it is Lockdowns.

Covid

Lockdown
This isn’t life, it’s existence.

Let’s ask the people whose loved ones have died from Covid and whose lives will never be the same.

Lockdown

FIL in his 80’s has finally had a prostate appt he was waiting for since it was cancelled in April. He has been having six monthly appts for the last three years. They had to treat him for stage two cancer it was cleared, now because it is a year since the last treatment (should have been done in April), it is back and worse because it’s been left.

Lockdown,causing way,way more problems than Covid.

Covid together with a shit healthcare system and a bloody minded individualistic refusal to do anything that might slightly inconvenience us has been a toxic mix for the UK.

Look at the countries that are forging ahead, pretty much free from infection for the last five months despite there being a global pandemic.

They're the ones that are winning while our economy tanks and we bleat on about putting bits of fabric on our faces.

We wouldn't even need lockdown if we had a half competent government, hospitals that actually treated us while we mindlessly clapped them for no fucking reason, and people who just thought for half a minute about the bigger picture rather than mithering on about fucking masks.

As it is, we're fucked on all sides. So it's a combination of covid and living in a country that is economically, socially and structurally ill equipped to deal with it that has hammered us.

Both equally bad, just a different impact

Lockdown

The only reason people are saying lockdown is because we locked down. If the virus were left to run through society unchecked, hospitals worldwide would be overwhelmed within weeks. Schools would close as all the teachers would be off sick. There would be collective fear and mourning - businesses in every sector would struggle because people would self-regulate and stay home anyway. Lockdowns are not the problem; the virus is the problem.

Lockdown

The only reason people are saying lockdown isbecause we locked down. If the virus were left to run through society unchecked, hospitals worldwide would be overwhelmed within weeks. Schools would close as all the teachers would be off sick. There would be collective fear and mourning - businesses in every sector would struggle because people would self-regulate and stay home anyway. Lockdowns are not the problem; the virus is the problem.

Exactly this. If we hadn't locked down and cases continued to escalate people could potentially be dying in hospital car parks with literally no medical help left to help them. This is what I genuinely feared in March/April.

We feel the impact of lockdown now but only because doing it enabled us to avoid the horror of even more mass death.

If we hadn't locked down and the NHS was overwhelmed then people would be screaming that a lockdown should have happened.

Personally I'd rather recover from lockdown hardship rather than the aftermath of a collapsed NHS and overwhelmed death numbers. It was the only choice really and it protected everyone from an even worse scenario. Lockdown was the least awful option.

It’s not clear. The main health problem is the NHS which is effectively shut for a lot of clinics/procedures in large parts of the country. This is clearly causing untold misery and harm for millions of people.

It is bloody clear looking at the excess deaths and the causes of death that it is coronavirus that causes far more harm - and not just to the elderly either.

Yes, lockdowns can be damaging to mental health but letting the virus run through the population unchecked would also be terrible for mental health.

Ultimately there is no way to get through a pandemic without it impacting people's mental health in some way. So we should focus on providing support and mitigating the physical health impacts as much as possible.

Both but the limit we set is having healthcare available. As do many other countries, hence lockdowns.

Covid. Lockdown is temporary, deaths from a worldwide pandemic are permanent. Massive serious long term health problems also could be permanent.

Covid. We've had 50000 plus excess deaths with lock down. Imagine how many we would have had without it. All the same problems for businesses would have occurred because staff and customers were ill.

Lockdown. It’s the biggest and most damaging overreaction ever known to man.

@Stellaris22

All the people saying lockdown, are you personally taking measures to do your bit to prevent further lockdowns?

Mask wearing, social distancing, sticking to household bubbles.

Yes I do moan about it but I comply

Since lockdown is a response to covid I am not sure how we can treat them separately

Alternative response could be taking no action to protect people

This would destroy our nhs, lead to thousands of extra deaths from everything from cancer to sepsis. Not sure how many decades it could take to get a decent private heath care system running to replace the nhs.

History has also shown that the economic impact of a society ravaged by such a nasty virus is pretty catastrophic. Supply chains disrupted, lack of consumer confidence , resultant mass unemployment , not controlled by furlough that would probably have hit hard already

Lockdown! Being locked down is not ‘normal’ for us!

Lockdown, the descent into police state, rule by fear and civil liberties erosion will cause more harm than covid

Thank God the riots and protests have started

Lockdown and quarantine is the normal human response to such viral,outbreaks

70 years ago we took children off their parents to quarantine against infectious illnesses. Today people winge about being expected to keep them indoors for a couple of weeks

My mother was taken away once and didn't see her family for 6 weeks

Once a week the hospital would post a list about all the quarantined patients ...I am hoping they didn't announce death in those lists but I am unsure about that

And just a small observation that the countries who did very strict lockdowns from the started and most strictly , enforced quarantine are now already pretty much back to normal

Whereas we are stuck in Groundhog Day, each day costing us lives and economy

Lockdown, because of how it was implemented by the incompetent piles of shit in charge. Strict lockdown, clear end, support in place to facilitate it - totally fine. Lockdown a bit but feel free to go out, have your summer hols, don’t worry about school infections, go out for lots of meals in restaurants and of course Christmas will go ahead - I’ll take my chances with covid, thanks.