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.

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.

What viable options? If you and others keep claiming there are, then you need to back those claims up with...er....viable options. The burden of proof is on you if you are claiming lockdown is not the only viable option.

Your claim is erroneous in any case. It's not only about the mortality rates but the hospitalisation rates, which include many, many people outside of the 'easily identified' demographic. So many posters on here keep making that point in very clear ways.

Lot of extrapolation going on there, DameFanny; it was quite simply an illustration of how folk can perceive something to be a fact when it isn't necessarily so

I guess any "relevance" might concern what governments have come to believe are facts about Covid - doubly so as so much is still unknown - but nevertheless I thought it interesting rather than definitive

@Puzzledandpissedoff

Lot of extrapolation going on there, DameFanny; it was quite simply an illustration of how folk can perceive something to be a fact when it isn't necessarily so

I guess any "relevance" might concern what governments have come to believe are facts about Covid - doubly so as so much is still unknown - but nevertheless I thought it interesting rather than definitive

Are you saying the the WHO are folk perceiving things to be facts that aren't then? And what sort of things do you think governments are mistaking for facts that aren't?

Yes, it's still very much a developing situation - which is why it's good to look to scientists who are better placed to analyse events and provide knowledgeable projections of probabilities.

And who are for the most part informing governments' responses.

Sadly not enough in the UK's case.

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?

Potentially I'd suggest it could be either or both - or maybe even neither

The point seems to be that we don't know because most have gone for the same "solution", and TBF I get the reason for that. My whole point, though, is that unless the vaccines make enough difference we'll have no choice but to plan differently, and I hope some thought's being given to that rather than chucking all the eggs in the vaccine basket (egg box??!)

*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*

This is bang on. I actually do agree with the lockdown, but I disagree it’s as simple as “why do people think they know better than the government”/“lockdown must be better because government says so”. It’s very naive to think politics plays no part. Of course the government doesn’t want to deal with army trucks picking up corpses from homes like we saw in Italy when it could just deal with a report into life expectancy 5 years down the line instead.

The 'deaths caused by lockdown' will also for the main part be deaths caused by pandemic, whether people die of covid or not

That’s not how I read the ONS report I linked to above, which is clear it refers to the QALY from lockdown and social distancing. Please stop minimising the very real and direct effects lockdown has independently of the virus.

'Of course lockdown will kill many many more people than covid. But all people care about for now is covid and they are unable to lift their eyes away from it for a second to see that in their panic to avoid one single risk, they've set their whole world on fire.'

How can anyone say that? We were warned that cancer surgeries would have to be cancelled if ICUs became full of people needing oxygen NOW. That was the whole point of locking down and preventing that scenario - to help those who would otherwise be floored by lack of services. We didn't do it early enough to get levels down to a manageable test and trace system to deal with, and then we didn't develop a test and trace system that was fit for purpose. But that was incompetence and bumbling indifference. It does not indicate that the obvious thing to do was let many thousands of people, our HCPs among them, suffocate for lack of oxygen - which is basically what you're suggesting because nothing else, now we've reached this point, except a hard lockdown/overflowing ICU wards even vaguely makes this new variant manageable in communities.

"Please stop minimising the very real and direct effects lockdown has independently of the virus."

How?

There is no lockdown independent of the virus

There is no social distancing independent of the virus

There is no unprecedented impact on health care provision independent of the virus.

What's left?

@DameFanny

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.

Of course you are right that there is a middle option "lockdown light" with we have some deaths from Covid and some deaths as a result of the partial lockdown.

I am struggling with your logic on

"The 'deaths caused by lockdown' will also for the main part be deaths caused by pandemic, whether people die of covid or not. "

Given that Covid IS the pandemic and that the level of the lockdown/ restriction measures are entirely a man made political decision which vary from country - are you then saying that someone I knew who committed suicide because her business that she had built up over many years ( a travel company) went bust because of the travel restrictions and then the final straw being her grown up children were unable to stay over Christmas ( because of the rules) has somehow died of Covid or the pandemic ???

No the clear hard truth is that she died as a result of the man made measures and political decisions brought in to control the virus.

Lockdown is bad, but the alternative is so much worse right now.

I'm very sorry for your loss, truly I am.

However, businesses go bust in pandemics because people don't want to travel or can't because they're too sick.

Someone who dies in a queuing ambulance after a heart attack because they couldn't be got into a cath lab in time I would say is dead as a consequence of pandemic, not dead of covid.

In the 1918 flu pandemic many businesses went bust, not because of any lockdown - because there wasn't one - in some cases because a significant number of people were too sick (or dead) to work; in others because enough people didn't want to expose themselves to infection for the sake of e.g. a theatre ticket.

Pandemics disrupt economies and societies.

I'm so sorry for your loss

@DameFanny

Thank you for your kind words

There is no lockdown independent of the virus

This.

And there's no lockdown unless you let infection get out of control. Lots of countries have kept deaths below 1000 total with a better functioning economy and fewer restrictions - they've controlled the virus.

Our government has fucked up on a colossal scale and a colossal death rate above normal is the result.

There is no lockdown independent of the virus

Possibly my comment wasn’t clear but it’s clearly been misunderstood. We are discussing on this thread the merits of lockdown vs no lockdown in dealing with the virus. It has been suggested that actually the harms caused by lockdown would be caused by the virus even if we didn’t lockdown.

That isn’t true.

And that’s what I meant. Obviously we wouldn’t be locking down for the fuck of it if the virus didn’t exist, and I’m not sure I’ve seen literally anybody suggest otherwise.

But fridget what harms do you see caused by lockdown that are independent of the virus? Except maybe fines for breaking lockdown, I can't think of any that wouldn't also be a consequence of pandemic?

www.ons.gov.uk/news/statementsandletters/estimatingtheimpactsofcoronavirusonenglandsmortalityandmorbidity

from March 2020 to more than five years from now, the impacts of lockdown and a resulting recession are estimated to reduce England’s health by over 970,000 QALYs – the health impacts of contracting COVID-19 are still unclear in the long term, but between March 2020 and March 2021, these represent 570,000 lost QALYs

You can say till you’re blue in the face it would all happen if we didn’t lockdown but please evidence it.

I support the lockdown as the ONS study goes on to say if we did nothing the lost years would be 3 million. But it’s facile to say lockdown does nothing that the virus wouldn’t anyway.

At the most basic of levels, people wouldn’t have gone nearly a year without seeing family, but it’s far more wide ranging than that. Schools being open another obvious example. I also simply don’t accept the economic impact would be no different - if restaurants and other attractions were open, they’d be busy. They’re not open because of the virus spread it would cause, not because they would do no business if allowed to open.

I really disagree with your approach because you’re implying a very complex situation is simple. It really isn’t.

Obviously we wouldn’t be locking down for the fuck of it if the virus didn’t exist, and I’m not sure I’ve seen literally anybody suggest otherwise

Absolutely - but that's why I keep asking what thoughts are for the future, when infections are hopefully on the floor but there are still millions on NHS waiting lists

I'm genuinely interested to know if folk would still support lockdowns so that the NHS could catch up, unhindered by the usual accidents and so on which would follow from opening up, or if it's thought they'd just have to "get on with it"

So lockdown loses us 970,000 QALYS but doing nothing would cost us 3,000,000 QALYS. so lockdown is saving us 2,030,000 QALYS according to the report? And you want me to evidence that unmitigated infection wouldn't cause the same harms as lockdown?

Do you really believe restaurants would be full without lockdown? You think the majority of people would be that cavalier about infection with the hospitals so full right now? That the wait-staff wouldn't be infected in much higher numbers (because visors don't make much difference)?

So lockdown loses us 970,000 QALYS but doing nothing would cost us 3,000,000 QALYS. so lockdown is saving us 2,030,000 QALYS according to the report?

Yes hence why I support it.

And you want me to evidence that unmitigated infection wouldn't cause the same harms as lockdown?

Yes. Why is that confusing?

Lockdown causes separate harms which would not be caused if we did not lock down (there are other options in between lockdown and let rip by the way).

The harms of letting rip are worse than the harms of lockdown but that doesn’t mean everything bad that happens because of lockdown would have happened anyway. I don’t know why that concept is difficult or controversial. There are separate harms which only happened because of lockdown. Human suffering which would not have happened if we didn’t lock down.

If we didn’t shut schools, the harm done to children’s education wouldn’t happen would it?

And yes I think restaurants would do business (I didn’t say full necessarily, I’ve no idea, depends on a lot of things). The reason being that loads of people aren’t scared of catching the virus, hence the rule breaking, and people mixing legitimately eg at Christmas when the rules allowed. People still sending their kids to school if they’re allowed to, people mixing in support bubbles... there are SO many people willing to mix and take their chances. That’s why we have rules to limit this, as such people may pass it on to someone vulnerable.

In certain boroughs of London they think 1 in 15 people have covid. Astonishing numbers yet the supermarkets are still functioning and so would restaurants.

I’m not advocating for restaurants to open, I’m just pointing out that the extent of the damage to their business is because of the lockdown forcing them to shut. They would be able to do at least some business if allowed to.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

Obviously we wouldn’t be locking down for the fuck of it if the virus didn’t exist, and I’m not sure I’ve seen literally anybody suggest otherwise

Absolutely - but that's why I keep asking what thoughts are for the future, when infections are hopefully on the floor but there are still millions on NHS waiting lists

I'm genuinely interested to know if folk would still support lockdowns so that the NHS could catch up, unhindered by the usual accidents and so on which would follow from opening up, or if it's thought they'd just have to "get on with it"

I am also interested to know. There has got to be a plan B other than repeated lockdowns but no one will discuss it.

Well, education would also suffer because covid's been going through school staff - DC in year 12 missed a ton of lessons in autumn term due to this - so remote learning is mitigating this for us - although obviously it's a problem for households without laptops etc. That however would be easy for the government to solve if it wanted to.

The things like musculoskeletal problems the ONS talks about resulting from WFH on inappropriate furniture - yes, that's a problem. But the rheumatology physiotherapists in our hospital have all gone over to post-covid physio leaving nothing but the contacted-BUPA-oh-is-it-a-sore-back-I-can't-do-pelvises physios available (yes I'm bitter) which is certainly having an impact on my QALY...

Re lockdowns to protect the NHS while they plough through the backlog - can't see it happening. They'll set thresholds higher for treatment, tell us all to lose more weight (while closing community gyms to save money and leaving Coke machines in public spaces to make money) and tell us the lack of doctors and nurses is nothing to do with them - while failing to bring back training bursaries properly, match inflation with pay or do anything to replace staff lost to the overarching stupidity of brexit.

I wonder how many people are actually enjoying lockdown and am surprised there isn't a thread about that.

And breathe...

People will die and suffer regardless of which path is taken. A sad but simple truth.

@LizFlowers

I wonder how many people are actually enjoying lockdown and am surprised there isn't a thread about that.

I've seen at least one thread on that - presented as a guilty pleasure. There have been benefits - the clean air in lockdown 1 was a thing of beauty and wonder and I want that back (can't remember the estimate of how many lives might have been saved by that pollution intermission). But lots of people have enjoyed the extra time but commuting, the guilty-free break from difficult ILs, the being able to cook proper meals.

But it feels like a guilty pleasure because so many people are suffering because of it.