BBC1 news tonight

[Pomegranatespompom]

Did anyone watch the poverty and covid report? It was incredibly sad, people living in absolutely awful circumstances. There was no SD/mask wearing,. An utterly depressing watch.

Covid was spreading completely unchecked for months and while there was discussions of a 'strange virus' and lots of people off school and work, there were no overrun hospitals and no breakdowns in power or any such disaster scenario. The modelling that predicted those things is pure statistics, based on data that, by necessity, was incomplete and unreliable. There is no evidence whatsoever that the whole world would have fallen apart without lockdown so I don't know why people continue to believe it. It hasn't happened anywhere in the world, not once. Hospitals have struggled, but there has never been the apocalyptic scenes that pro-lockdowners like to believe in.

When people say lockdown saves lives I really wonder wtf is going on. Does that belief exist because people are only concerned about covid deaths and nothing else? Is that what's going on? Because the people with dementia in care homes who died because they were so confused by a lack of contact with families that they stopped eating and drinking certainly weren't 'saved.' The people who will die over the next few years due to high unemployment and poverty certainly aren't in the 'saved' category. Is it the case that deaths from covid count and deaths from everything else don't?

The mother of my closest friend was struggling long before lockdown due to long-standing health issues. When lockdown hit, she just shut herself in the house - it was too much for her to deal with and my friend couldn't get her to talk, to let her into the house, to do anything. She died a few weeks ago, weighing six stone. She tested negative for covid, but they put her down as a covid death - I honestly don't know why.

She was not 'saved' by lockdown. She was killed by it.

My FIL has dementia, in its early stages and he was doing really well at the start of this year. He and MIL coped pretty well with the first lockdown and we saw them a few times over the summer. But the second lockdown broke them and now they won't leave the house or see anyone. All lockdown has 'saved' them from is FIL being able to spend what little good time he has left with his children and grandchildren.

Lockdown only 'saves' people if you have one single definition of 'saved' - ie you were prevented from getting one single virus. If you include other things, like mental health, other illnesses, the ability to work and socialise and maintain a healthy, active life, lockdown doesn't 'save' anyone, it just creates a miserable, unwell population, with high unemployment and greatly increased health issues. Yes, one virus might be kept somewhat at bay for some people (remember that many of the people who followed the rules to the absolute letter still got covid - many thousands still get it every week), but that's not much use to them if they end up in a world with a health system that has no funding due to unemployment, an education system on its knees due to lack of funds, a destroyed economy, businesses closed left right and centre and a population struggling with all of the fallout of poverty. I don't think people relying on foodbanks to ensure their children don't starve feel very 'saved.'

The sad thing is that many people who feel 'saved' now won't feel that way next year when the full force of the effect of lockdowns hits them. Many people naively think they're safe - their job is secure, they won't end up on the breadline. A lot of people will be woken up from that quite sharply in the new year.

One thing that baffles me is this: the disaster scenarios that will apparently happen if covid 'rips' through the population unchecked (the pro-lockdown phrase of choice) are taken as absolute truth, even though they're completely hypothetical and based on extremely poor modelling that is now totally out of date.

The effects of lockdown, however, are not hypothetical. They're not based on a model or on incomplete data - they're actually happening and they're totally predictable. Thousands and thousands of job losses already, many more to come. Food banks struggling to keep up with demand. People in care homes dying due to lack of contact with family. Demand for mental health services at an all-time high. Incidents of domestic abuse at all-time high. Evidence of children falling behind in their education. Devastation, happening, right in front of us.

But we must focus entirely on the hypothetical scenario, no matter how much actual damage is being done in front of our faces. Because all that matters is covid. Everything else, just unfortunate collateral damage. I find it very hard to wrap my head around.

It’s bizarre isn’t it?

The hospitals were getting overrun in March/April though weren't they? Speaking as someone who was one of those who got left struggling to breathe at home because they'd upped the criteria for admission, I can assure you it's not a good situation to be in.

They got overrun in Italy. In Spain. In India. Are getting overrun in parts of the US now.

It takes quite an exceptional mind (and I dont say that as a compliment) to imagine it couldn't happen again, and properly, in the UK.

I have usually found mumsnet quite sensitive to the position of the poor and vulnerable in the past but since covid a lot of people seem to have lost sight of the fact that not everyone has a comfortable or even safe home; not everyone can afford enough food for a week at a time or even for a day; not everyone has the education level required or language skills to understand complex and ever changing rules about how many people you're allowed to meet in a park etc; that for some a shop or pub closing is an inconvenience but for others it is their livelihood gone.

It's easy to care about others when it's not really costing you anything. Very few people actively want to see lots of suffering, and if you could help others in some small way without compromising your own safety and security then why wouldn't you? But as soon as you introduce some existential threat, whether that's a potentially deadly or disabling disease or the prospect of poverty/isolation/non-covid related health problems, that changes the balance significantly. It takes a very very selfless person to advocate for their CEV partner or child locking themselves indoors for months on end or facing an increased risk of death, in order to avoid plunging tens of thousands of strangers into homelessness and starvation. Equally it takes a very very selfless person to advocate for their own destitution and isolation, in order to indirectly reduce a risk to tens of thousands of strangers that on an individual level is already very small. I just don't think there are many people who have that degree of objectivity and altruism, though I very much admire anyone who does.

The thing that makes me angry is that this narrative has somehow emerged among a small but vocal contingent, that condemning people to poverty (other people, naturally) is the virtuous option, in order to protect those who are vulnerable to covid. It's not - it's the selfish option, from the point of view of those who are more worried about covid than they are about the side-effects of lockdown. Of course, if you or someone you love are clinically vulnerable then it's entirely understandable that that's your biggest priority, but it doesn't make you any less selfish than those whose biggest priority is being able to feed themselves and not be made homeless. (And before anyone argues that death is objectively worse than poverty, ask yourself why you haven't sold everything you own and used the proceeds to pay for cheap anti-malaria measures in developing countries. You could save a lot of strangers' lives that way.) I don't know whether lockdown was the right or wrong response, but people being all holier-than-thou about wanting lockdown because they "care about their community" is getting so, so old.

So yes, it is quite galling when those who've spent months advocating for ever-stricter measures and the selfless destruction of other people's livelihoods - and I don't mean you OP, I have no reason to think you were one of them and I'm glad you've highlighted this issue - act like it's a terrible shock when they're confronted with the reality of what they were asking for all along. Especially when the people who are actually in that position have been trying to make themselves heard for months and getting talked over or ignored. It's akin to people pushing for no restrictions at all, then being shown the resulting footage of patients dying in hospital corridors and going "oh no, I didn't mean I wanted that".

Incidentally, anyone who thinks "we're all in the same boat" should watch the program and then have a read through the "terrible pandemic secrets" thread. The contrast is stark.

@psychomath - since there is a vast overlap between the most vulnerable and the most poor, I don’t think being anti-lockdown is any more virtuous, it’s just choosing a different way of killing the same people.

No I don't think so either Walkaround, in fact I think several people (in society, not on this thread) are probably using other people's poverty as a justification to push anti-lockdown views that they hold for their own reasons. My point is that no-one is really being virtuous, but I feel like the overwhelming narrative - on MN at least - has been that anyone who wants a stricter lockdown is good and anyone who doesn't is a selfish idiot who'd rather kill a bunch of people than go without Primark for a few months, when the reality is much more complicated.

Cards on the table, during the first lockdown I was much more worried about being made redundant than dying of covid (fortunately neither has yet come to pass!), and none of my close friends or family are particularly vulnerable. So I have equally selfish reasons for sympathising more with the anti-restrictions people.

I’d be interested to know how other countries with similar population numbers and social behaviours are coping with this. Are France,Germany, Italy, Spain experiencing the same levels of poverty as people are discussing here?could we really have let it run unchecked through the population of what is a tiny landmass with a huge population? Sweden tried it with a far less crowded country and it’s not going well, even with their advantages of smaller numbers, more space, far wealthier population and a compliant attitude to,authority. What could have been done instead?

All in all, I think lockdown is better than no lockdown and the arguments about the ineffectiveness of lockdowns and the lack of evidence that uncontrolled spread of covid 19 would be pretty disastrous, are disingenuous. It’s all opinion at the end of the day, and the anti-lockdown opinion comes across as more disingenuous than that in favour of lockdown. I find it exceptionally difficult to take anyone seriously who argues we don’t need lockdown because the worst predictions never played out. I mean, ffs, that was the whole point of having the lockdowns in the first place. Now, if we had had lockdowns and the worst predictions had still come to fruition, then you can argue they didn’t work. Otherwise, you’re just clutching at straws, because tou don’t like the status quo.

It’s a fine balance, though, that’s for sure, and I think the vast majority of us are going to suffer severe consequences from this pandemic.

Mind you, I think humanity has been running along shouting “nah, nah, nah, we’re not listening!” with our fingers in our ears for years when it comes to dealing with the massive, massive mess we are making of life on this planet.

@psychomath thank you for your thoughtful and considered post. In my view a lockdown of some sort was required purely because we saw what happened in hospitals in Italy and what is happened in America now. Lockdown made life harder for my family in many ways tbh but we’re fortunate both to be working etc I do feel dreadfully sorry for many people whom Covid has made their lives much worse. My original post was not intended to inflame, more to highlight we need to help.

@Walkaround

All in all, I think lockdown is better than no lockdown and the arguments about the ineffectiveness of lockdowns and the lack of evidence that uncontrolled spread of covid 19 would be pretty disastrous, are disingenuous. It’s all opinion at the end of the day, and the anti-lockdown opinion comes across as more disingenuous than that in favour of lockdown. I find it exceptionally difficult to take anyone seriously who argues we don’t need lockdown because the worst predictions never played out. I mean, ffs, that was the whole point of having the lockdowns in the first place. Now, if we had had lockdowns and the worst predictions had still come to fruition, then you can argue they didn’t work. Otherwise, you’re just clutching at straws, because tou don’t like the status quo.

This genuinely, truly baffles me. The detrimental effects of lockdown are not a matter of opinion, they are fact.

The hypothetical scenarios around not having lockdown are definitely 100% incorrect. It's not a matter of opinion, not in the slightest. Are people not aware of this? Is that why no one's getting it?

In some areas of the world hospitals struggled. But nowhere, not even in the poorest countries with the worst healthcare systems had anywhere even vaguely close to the modelled scenarios. Because the modelled scenarios are incorrect.

I can dig out articles etc if needed (maybe another thread is in order) but the people who modelled spread in care homes admitted that their modelling was incorrect and failed to prevent spread because they didn't understand how the care home system works. One of the authors of the model said (this isn't direct quote, but it's the essence of it) that they could have understood the system better by asking knowledgeable people about it, but they didn't. He didn't explain why they didn't ask any questions. But essentially they built a completely fictitious, incorrect model that got the whole thing completely wrong and lives that could have been saved weren't. The main thing they got wrong was that they didn't know (because they didn't bother asking) that care home staff regularly move between homes. They didn't know, at all, about one major source of spread. It's beyond ridiculous. And yet, it's these models that people are using a justification for destroying people's lives.

@TheDailyCarbuncle - so, are you arguing more lives could have been saved in care homes or that nobody should have bothered one way or the other? Your argument sounds confused.

I'm saying the modelling is flaky as hell - the models that were supposed to save lives in care homes were completely wrong and actually caused more deaths because the people creating the models didn't understand at all how the care home system worked.

Equally the Imperial model that predicted huge numbers of deaths and chaos and all sorts was based on zero understanding of how covid spread or affected people of different ages (as such understanding wasn't available at the time it was created). And yet, people still act as if that model was a certainty - as in, it would definitely happen - when absolutely nowhere in the entire world has anything anywhere near it happen. Sweden, which did institute infection control measures but didn't have anything like the lockdowns in the rest of Europe - didn't experience anything like what was predicted in the model. NOTE: I AM aware that Sweden had more deaths than its neighbours. Please don't tell me this. I am aware of it. My point is not about this. It is about the fact that in spite of not having European-style lockdowns, Sweden didn't experience anything that the Imperial model predicted.

The modelling that was done at the start of the pandemic was necessary in order to gain some understanding of how things might develop. But it was based on almost zero data, as such data wasn't available. It wasn't a definite prediction, it was a guess. A guess that wasn't anywhere near accurate. And yet, it is still trotted out again and again as the reason for repeated lockdowns, each of which kill more and more people and plunge more and more people into poverty. An inaccurate prediction that is totally out of date is not a good reason to shut down economies and ruin lives. Yet here we are, stuck in this repeating cycle, creating more and more damage.

At least now with the vaccine a new narrative might be able to start and the stupid fucking models might finally be jettisoned.

@TheDailyCarbuncle - your argument is premised in the lie that they ceased to update the data and redo the models.

[quote Walkaround]@TheDailyCarbuncle - your argument is premised in the lie that they ceased to update the data and redo the models.[/quote]
No it's not, but if you'd like to believe it is, go ahead.

What really frustrates me is that people will suddenly 'realise' all this next year and talk about how awful it is and wring their hands about it - much like this thread is all about how awful it is that poor people are starving, I mean what did anyone fucking expect??? By then it'll be too fucking late.

@TheDailyCarbuncle - yes it is... what makes you believe that nobody in the entire world has remodelled anything whatsoever? Are you a conspiracy theorist or something?

@TheDailyCarbuncle

If you're in favour of lockdown then you're in favour of making poor people suffer. There's no point in being shocked about it.

Yes. This report shows that.

The loneliness. The suicides. Not getting health checkups. Just awful.

Lots of people are being and will die because of lockdowns.

[quote Walkaround]@TheDailyCarbuncle - yes it is... what makes you believe that nobody in the entire world has remodelled anything whatsoever? Are you a conspiracy theorist or something?[/quote]
No, I'm someone who works with models like the ones used in the pandemic. I am in no way a conspiracy theorist - I find it very telling that people who believe in lockdowns jump straight to that accusation before thinking 'hang on a minute, perhaps destroying the entire economy wasn't the most sensible move.' What I'm saying isn't even that complicated - if you want proof of any of it you only have to look at any figures from the Office of National Statistics. It's all there to be seen, plain as day. Hell, you don't even need to go to ONS, just ask anyone you know about the state of the industry they work in. Ask how many are struggling financially, how many have bee made redundant. 'Saving lives' by reducing everyone's chances of having a healthy life is so arse about face in terms of a solution I really can't believe any sane person considers it to be a sensible option.

Anyway, I've made my point and I've had enough. At some point I will start a thread about models, feel free to join that one and I'll explain in excruciating detail why everything I'm saying is based on cold hard facts. Maybe you'll remember me saying these things when there's are big, sad discussions about how 'we couldn't have known this would be the outcome.' They could have known and they do know. It's all there in the data. Just remember that much.

Just one last thing - I can't help myself - the argument that countries wouldn't opt to destroy their economies unless they had to is, strangely enough, not an argument that is in any way backed up by facts. Throughout the centuries, countries have for various reasons, sunk their own economies. Colonialism is the biggest example - the British Empire couldn't help itself, despite huge evidence that invading countries a was a costly, pointless nightmare. It took centuries for them to stop being so stupid. You need look no further than Brexit for a more recent example - a country choosing to make itself less well off, to create problems for itself, following through on a moronic decision in spite of acres and acres of evidence that it's the wrong choice. Governments do it all the fucking time and then say 'oh sorry' after the fact. And yet, people really believe that this time, this measure, is somehow warranted. Despite masses and masses of evidence to the contrary. It amazes me.

Anyway who ignores the mass graves in Brazil, the beds in care parks in Belgium, the crisis that is currently developing in America with hospitals being over-run has their fingers in their ears and their eyes shut, as well as their brain.

Lockdown didnt have to have the effect on the economy that it has had - that is down to an incompetent government locking down too late and reopening too slowly and not following science. People with dementia deteriorate anyway - have experience of that pre-covid but suddenly everyone with dementia was going to stay exactly the same. Often they have no idea who you are and visits can be distressing for them, not helpful to them.

Places that control the virus have less economic damage than those that dont - including Sweden suffering more economic damage than its neighbours. We have greater economic damage than needed thanks to an incompetent government but the faster we control this the faster we will get the rebound that will come with it.

Lockdowns reduce the spread of the virus and therefore cause less economic damage.

@TheDailyCarbuncle

I 'm missing what the alternative is?

People, left to their own devices won't SD very well, as shown in the USA.

For me, its not the LD per se, its the inequality of the help given to businesses and individuals affected, who the fuck in govt thought it was a good idea to give rate relief to companies that have done very well out of CV ?
Yet expect the low paid to self isolate on a pittance?