What will cause greater harm to human life?

[Billie18]

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

Lockdown. But we all ran into it like sheep and I don’t know what reason the government would have now to give up all that lovely power they keep salivating over...

Oh yes the power to cripple the economy and make themselves disliked by most of the country for various reasons - just what every government wants

@applesandoranges221

Lockdown. But we all ran into it like sheep and I don’t know what reason the government would have now to give up all that lovely power they keep salivating over...

Jeez some people are stupid.

I’m pretty sure they’re enjoying the chance to give massive contracts to their friends without any scrutiny and their level of respect for and consultation of parliament during this has been.... iffy shall we say. Those are just two really damaging examples - there are more.

These threads are so tedious. This is happening across the world. As if any government, particularly a conservative one, deliberately wrecks its economy if there is any other remotely viable solution.

You can also bet if we hadn't done lockdowns and there had been utter chaos and rampant deaths people would be complaining bitterly about why there was no lockdown. We're just not seeing the worst case scenario because measures were put in place to stop it happening.

Lockdown.

And not because lockdowns are bad per se. But because they need to be effective. And ours have not been.

We had a significant first go, with a lot of sacrifices made (I can’t take anyone seriously who tries to minimise restrictions as mere inconveniences).
During that period the government should have licensed track and trace from someone eho knew what they were doing rather than the ego-driven-world-beating shit show we ended up with.
We should have taken a forensic look at the NHS to see where we could have got some non-Covid services back at a reasonable level and planned for rising rates in the winter rather than assuming we’d got it sorted.
We should have had a proper look at schools and universities to see how to keep education running whist minimising transmission.

But now what we have is an ongoing ineffective raft of lockdowns and restrictions which are not solving anything but are simply reactions to terrified government ministers.

@applesandoranges221

Lockdown. But we all ran into it like sheep and I don’t know what reason the government would have now to give up all that lovely power they keep salivating over...

You do realise they were far happier when we were mostly wage slaves happy with our smart phones making them lots of money than they are with a bunch of unhappy people with too much time on their hands?

I don’t think you have a much of a grasp of human nature if you think this is in anyway desirable for a group driven by wealth and power.

I can’t disagree with your analysis there @HelloMissus. There have been some comedic (if it wasn’t so serious) errors with the UK’s handling of this pandemic.

Tbh though I can see this reflected throughout so many levels of society I’m not really surprised that we’ve ended up with such a narcissistic ineffective government. Of course people voted them in - they see themselves in them. True leadership is a dying art.

And we’ve ended up with ourselves staring straight back at us from Westminster.

OP's question was asked badly. CV19 kills more people but Lockdown seems likely to cause more net harm over a 5+ year period.

I guess I'm a rule breaker. When a cold went thru my household & 3rd person who got the cold actually did some coughing, I went out for exercise & a work errand while we waited for the test result (negative). In Lckdn-1, I met up with a single friend for walks a handful of times & went out more than once a day for exercise most days. That's me, the wild murderer...

I think people usually compare lockdown with covid to no-lockdown-no-covid, rather than no-lockdown with covid.

I think situations like Wuhan show that both the economy and non covid health conditions would be negatively impacted if the health system collapses.

So I guess the people who say lockdown is worse, maybe they think that Wuhan would not happen here? Or maybe they think the situation there is better than current lockdown situation?

I think the damage to society will be worse because of the lockdown and people willing to turn on one another.

I often see a man on the morning commute. He gets on the bus with 2 lovely dogs and school children are often interested in the dogs. He speaks to the children and says that the dogs are friendly and they are most welcome to pet the dogs if they want.

He is a nice, friendly softly spoken man.

I haven't seen him for months. I saw him this morning. Got on the bus with his dogs and moved towards the back of the bus.

The next thing I hear is him saying "why the fuck aren't you wearing a mask, you selfish bitch"

I wouldn't have believed he was capable of such vile behaviour to say that to some poor woman who was likely exempt without even considering that.

It has turned people into irrational monsters