Lockdown will claim 560,000 lives. Are lockdown fanatics are killing people.

[Billie18]

Worrying reports coming out indicating that Lockdowns will end up claiming the equivalent of more than 500,000 lives because of the health impact of the 'deep and prolonged recession that they will cause. It has been obvious that restrictive lock down measures will impact on the health of the whole population but concern has been shouted down by those in favor of lockdowns. But will those ignoring the dangers of lockdowns on the entire population be responsible for killing huge numbers of people. Killing far more people than any virus.

I hope it never comes to that, but there are a lot of people supporting lockdowns saying “well what’s your alternative” who don’t seem to be able to tell us what their alternative is if the vaccines don’t get us out of this (unless they think ongoing lockdowns are possible or sustainable in which case words fail me)

Exactly, Fridget - and noticeably there were no responses either about what happens when the NHS is still backed up for years with the millions now on waiting lists, and whether it's felt further lockdowns will be needed to cover that too

what happens when the immediate crisis is over and that 4.5 million on the NHS waiting list has increased yet more? Despite appearances Covid isn't the only thing which involves hospital care, and when something like normality returns the usual accidents, etc, will likely go up

What do you suggest then? What should happen to the thousands who currently need hospital care with covid? Bearing in mind that half of them are under the age of 70? Do we only give hospital care to the, say, under 40s? Or under 30s? Leave the rest at home with family to provide palliative care? In my house, that would mean my teens would have to watch me live or die. Is that acceptable to you? Where is the line going to be drawn?

Well how about we vote in a government that invests in the NHS properly, without an eye on how their mates can profit from it?

This is how we triage.

The average (median and mode) age of patients on ICU is around 60. Look at the latest NHS stats.

Others hospitalised will receive palliative care on normal wards, or not be hospitalised and will die in care homes or die in private homes (often a choice given visiting restrictions).

Unfortunately a sure fire way of hospitals not being overwhelmed is changing admission criteria - ie only via 999 but being told to call back only if lips turn blue.

@BaronessEllaSaturday

Leaving it to kill hundreds of thousands wouldn't have done the economy any good either.

Can you imagine the fear that would generate. Even before lockdown last March schools were closing, people were withdrawing children, people were isolating themselves to protect themselves, people were panic buying and stockpiling. With or without a lockdown our economy would have been affected, who knows by how much if we didn't lock down. We need to keep hospital numbers low enough to manage and we don't do that by locking up the "vulnerable" and letting everyone else carry on, for starters there are vulnerable and the extremely vulnerable. People are only considering the extremely vulnerable when they say lock them down but probably a quarter of the population comes under vulnerable and they include key workers, parents, carers how the hell do you cope with locking down so many people. ( 54 year old friend of mine, non smoking, not overweight, no underlying health conditions spent a week in hospital, he is classed as vulnerable solely on his age)

They want it both ways.

"Only x people under 60 have died with no underlying conditions". Yes, but underlying conditions that millions and millions have gone one of, including healthy people and a high percentage of key workers.

"lock up the vulnerable and let the rest get on with it". Okay so that means anyone with, or who lives with, anyone with an underlying condition isolates and the 500 people that leaves can keep the country going.

There was no easy answers or easy way out of it. We've come out of it worse due to befuddled and dithering leadership. We could have tried other strategies but none of them would have been easy.

We could have either shut the borders for a year, had a strict lockdown and then opened up. Otherwise it was act similar to how we have (only far more decisively) and wait for the vaccines to get us out of it.

@BillMasen

It’s simple

Yes lockdowns cause problems, and deaths

Not having lockdowns when there’s a pandemic also cause problems, and deaths

Much cleverer people than me all over the world have worked out that the 2nd option is the least worst. Neither are an active choice, it’s found the least worst thing here

Why the duck do people still think they know better?

This exactly

I don't understand why people don't think that all the governments around the bloody world haven't compared the options. They are all crap

What do you suggest then?

Not much of an answer really is it?
I've already acknowledged quite openly that the alternatives to lockdown may not look pretty, but then I'm not among those who seem to believe they can be repeated indefinitely ... so I was asking a question about future circumstances for those who do

This is a really excellent and perceptive essay about the rise of lockdown and covid scepticism and where it falls down. It is worth a read - long, but spot on, and addresses a lot of the misinformation in threads like these.

quillette.com/2021/01/16/rise-of-the-coronavirus-cranks/

@TheDailyCarbunkle (I'm assuming formerly TheDailyCarbuncle)

But now you do know, because I told you. That's all I can do for now. It is so fucking infuriating

You're always telling people what is what, and what will be, with utter conviction. And how they will be forced to see you were right. Back in April you declared there would be no second wave and how a few months from then people should remember your post. Two months ago, I asked how that prediction had worked out for you and you bizarrely gave some vague suggestion there wasn't a second wave, or there could be some other definition of a 'wave'. Although really you just didn't answer the question.

So, now two months later, how do you feel about your assertion that there would be no second wave? Do you somehow still believe there is not really a second wave? Or do you think it might be better to concede that you aren't this all-knowing person that you pretend to be?

If vaccines dont work, there isn't an answer really, because lockdown or no lockdown, we all need to realise, it will be fucking shit. There isn't a perfect answer because we haven't been here before. What we do know however, is that people will tear people to shreads on top of a disaster.

[quote Madhairday]This is a really excellent and perceptive essay about the rise of lockdown and covid scepticism and where it falls down. It is worth a read - long, but spot on, and addresses a lot of the misinformation in threads like these.

quillette.com/2021/01/16/rise-of-the-coronavirus-cranks/[/quote]
Oh "quillette" the "unofficial digest" of the intellectual dark web. Hmmm.

@BillMasen

It’s simple

Yes lockdowns cause problems, and deaths

Not having lockdowns when there’s a pandemic also cause problems, and deaths

Much cleverer people than me all over the world have worked out that the 2nd option is the least worst. Neither are an active choice, it’s found the least worst thing here

Why the duck do people still think they know better?

Why do people even question those imposing lockdowns? After all people in positions of power always have our best interests in mind and are so much cleverer than everybody else

@Billie18 questioning a gov policy or decision is one thing. Questioning a pretty much worldwide solution, ignoring evidence and proposing no sensible alternative because “they’re all stupid” or “they’re all in on it” is ridiculous

As I’ve said. Locking down is tough and has its issues, but is the least worst thing we, and many many other countries, can do

Criticise our handling of it all you like, but to say there’s another viable option is naive

Thank you, icenii; I found that very honest, and believe you're the only poster so far who's even tried to address the issue

FWIW I agree with what you said, but given the pig's ear that's been made of the planning so far, I just thought it might be useful to consider a few "what it's" ... even while hoping the vaccines actually make enough difference

There is another option. Eradication. In the same way we don't have endemic rabies in this country through vaccinations and quarantine, we need proper tracing after this lock down including back tracing - to identify transmissions, do targeted vaccinations where there is spread, and avoid importing more cases with vaccinations and quarantine.

[quote BillMasen]@Billie18 questioning a gov policy or decision is one thing. Questioning a pretty much worldwide solution, ignoring evidence and proposing no sensible alternative because “they’re all stupid” or “they’re all in on it” is ridiculous

As I’ve said. Locking down is tough and has its issues, but is the least worst thing we, and many many other countries, can do

Criticise our handling of it all you like, but to say there’s another viable option is naive[/quote]
Of course there are viable options when dealing with a virus that is only a serious threat to a small and easily identified demographic. Not all of these options involving putting the rest of the population at serious risk.

@TheDailyCarbunkle

There are masses of better alternatives. One very obvious one is to use the millions poured into furlough and the pointless test and trace and use it to set up an initiative where you break the country down into very small sectors - as small as neighbourhoods if necessary. Then monitor those small sectors very carefully, tracking infection person by person.

The suggestion that there's no alternative baffles me. Do people really think there's literally no other way at all to deal with the situation?

Can’t wait for my assignment to ghetto so I can be protected. What harm could come from that.

See @Billie18 that’s where you miss the point. It’s life threatening to a small % but requires medical treatment to potentially a very large number of people. So lockdown is pretty much the only viable tool to prevent the nhs being overwhelmed

@Icenii

If vaccines dont work, there isn't an answer really, because lockdown or no lockdown, we all need to realise, it will be fucking shit. There isn't a perfect answer because we haven't been here before. What we do know however, is that people will tear people to shreads on top of a disaster.

I agree. We need to hope science can get us out of this. Because endless lockdowns will be disastrous for the economy. But so would just letting the virus do its thing. I don't really understand how anyone can think the economy would somehow function while huge numbers of people are constantly sick with Covid on an ongoing basis and the disruption, debilitation and death this would bring.

And again I come back to the fact that greater minds than me across the world have worked out that’s the best approach

Not just politicians in the uk (who yeah, I wouldn’t trust) it’s global. They can’t all be wrong yet someone on the internet can see the clear solution. Surely you can’t think that

Questioning a pretty much worldwide solution, ignoring evidence and proposing no sensible alternative because “they’re all stupid” or “they’re all in on it” is ridiculous

Couple of links here for you, BillMasen, concerning perceptions and how easy it is for them to be mistaken - they're from Ipsos, who at least seem fairly reputable:

www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/perceptions-are-not-reality-what-world-gets-wrong

www.ipsos.com/en/global-study-explores-how-wrong-people-are-about-causes-death-their-country

Now to be fair the questioning seems to have been done among the general public, and for all I know their governments and scientific bodies may be uniquely wise and the rest of the populations not ... but it's an assumption I really wouldn't want to make

@Billie18
@BillMasen

So I agree there is a choice between :

A) deaths caused by the lockdown or
B) deaths caused because there is no lockdown

Secondly no one actually knows yet how many deaths will be caused because of the lockdown and whether they were indeed caused by the lockdown as these will occur over the years ahead and not just immediately.So I simply don't buy the 560k figure - it's guess work.

Thirdly no one actually knows how many deaths would have been caused by having no lockdown because it was never tried. Again I don't buy the SAGE predictions- it's just guess work.

Equally I don't believe in the conspiracy Great Reset bullshit. What I do believe is that if you are a Government in a democratic country and let's say for arguments sake it truly believes that lockdown will cause more deaths overall than no lockdown then you would still go for the lockdown.

Why?? Because of how democracy works. If say 200k covid deaths occur over say two years on your watch because of no lockdown then the Government is going to become very very unpopular for a very long time.

Whereas if say 500k deaths occur over say 10 years because of the lockdown (suicides, cancers missed, mental health, poverty etc) then some of these deaths will occur on a different Government's term and can be passed off as it was a pandemic and we did what we thought was best at the time or was the previous Government"s fault or "millions" would have died without the measures etc etc. But if say 200k die in two years because of no lockdown then it is politically impossible to pass off or explain away and that political party will become toxic forever.

@Puzzledandpissedoff you honestly think a paper on people overestimating the number of Muslims in their neck of the woods, and another on how people are individually not very good at respective risk of death has ANY bearing on your argument? Please, explain your thinking? You're saying that lockdown should be declared bad and it's not stupid to do so while not having a better idea? And people overestimating the risks of quicksand backs you up because..?

Except @1dayatatime it's NOT a binary choice between deaths caused by lockdown Vs no Lockdown, because we can already see deaths caused by no lockdown from the times people were mingling more freely. And those deaths aren't just in covid, they're also in people unable to get other treatment because resources have had to be diverted, or right now - because hospitals are at capacity.

The 'deaths caused by lockdown' will also for the main part be deaths caused by pandemic, whether people die of covid or not. Lockdown is bad, but the alternative is so much worse right now.

@Puzzledandpissedoff interesting links and I’ve read similar before.

Are you trying to say that governments and advisers the world over are wrong and locking down based on wrong assumptions?

Or is it more likely those saying they know better are basing that on wrong assumptions?