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.

@TheDailyCarbunkle

'There may be a low risk of a child dying from poverty'

You really have no clue @StacySoloman do you?

Poverty is the number one killer of people, of all ages, across the entire world. And that's from the WHO, the same crowd who have advocated plunging people across the world into poverty: www.who.int/whr/1995/media_centre/executive_summary1/en/

If you believe poverty 'may kill' you really don't understand what poverty is or how it works. You also seem to believe that poverty won't come and get you at any point. I hope for your sake that you're right.

Poverty does kill a lot of people that's true, but not in this country, we have a system that means no one starves to death - benefits. So although you'd be skint no one needs be hungry/cold/uneducated, this is not the case in a large part of the world, but the UK is one of the richest countries in the world and even our poor are wealthier than most. There's no way half a million people will die from hunger/cold, in this country. No way.

I don't advocate 'Chinese-style' surveillance.

There have been a few studies done over the last few months on more effective ways to contain outbreaks - one notable one was in a village called Vo in Italy. That involved looking at small numbers of people (because when the numbers get large, things get confusing). It's not necessary to monitor and surveil people - people do actually co operate - compliance with lockdown for example has always been 80% or above, despite all the negative reporting about isolated breaches. If you treat a group of people as actual people, understand what they need, offer actual help if they get ill (in the form of food deliveries, money to stay off work etc) and then allow rapid, easily available testing, then you can contain the virus within small, manageable areas. It's not actually a complicated solution at all - it's totally sensible - but it does require very high levels of organisation and a government that doesn't see its citizens as naughty children that need to be controlled but as humans who have needs that must be met.

If you’re talking about suicides, you are vastly over-estimating. During the last recession there were about 1000 extra suicides over the period 2008-2010 (source) - fewer than the amount of people dying every day from coronavirus currently

I could come up with a solution, with the right team behind me. It would definitely be better than lockdown, because lockdown is the most destructive and least effective solution possible.

I would truly love to see that because I hate lockdown and hate its societal affects. But I hate the affects of a virus spreading far and wide causing devastation in its wake as well. I would be honestly interested to hear your considered alternative and why most of the governments of the world have not considered it.

What Pattypan said is very true.

There's a very simple solution to all this. To decide Covid is incurable and unavoidable (which it largely is) and to let hospitals carry on as they always have, dealing with the things they can deal with. Worldwide as a planet, we don't have the resources to deal with it. So we shouldn't. Countries are making promises (about protecting people) that they can't deliver on then blaming the public when those promises are shown to be insubstantial.
On top of the lockdown effects on humans, literally no one has asked the question, what is the environmental impact of isolating all the oxygen for oxygen tanks? And all the disposable PPE? What is the damage being done to children when they or their loved ones die in hospital fires from all this oxygen being exhaled everywhere? There have been so many hospital fires because of the lunatic way of going "we must save everyone by not saving anyone at all".
The average age of death due to Covid is 84.
Average life expectancy all told in the UK for children born in 2018 (it's gone down last year) is only 81.26.
The people dying of Covid are already on borrowed time.
What are we saving?

It really worries me that people don't understand the fallout that's coming.

@amusedtodeath1 even as a 'rich country' poor people in the UK there are well-documented cases of people, pre-covid, starving to death due to poverty. People on the streets die all the time. Do you believe that the UK is set to remain a 'rich country' - with a huge recession and isolated from the EU? Really?

The UK can just about cope with 'normal' levels of poverty but it does it very badly, with a terrible, punitive benefits system. The UK in a massive recession will not cope nearly so well.

@LegoPirateMonkey

I don’t think there is a solution to a global pandemic that doesn’t cost lives. You have to find the solution that costs the least.

Exactly

Can't see alternatives mentioned on this thread

No lockdown will cause poverty and deaths + more covid deaths. Lockdown will be/has been a cause of deaths + current amount of covid deaths.

I think we will all have to work hard to do what we can to mitigate the effect of lockdown when enough of population vaccinated.

My child needed emergency surgery during lockdown. I am forever grateful to live in a society that has protected the healthcare provision she could access. I am so sorry that so many people (even with lockdown) have not had this.

It would be an interesting study I suppose if the UK ever had a proper lockdown.
@PattyPan's link is also interesting. Despite the actual government statistics showing the UK suicide rate is currently sitting at its lowest for years, MNers seem to be convinced that it's rife. Of course even one suicide is one too many. But a stock answer to anything regarding collective personal responsibility in a bit of a shit moment seems to be "whatabout all the people who might kill themselves?"
And despite their haranguing and accusations of lying if ever a medical professional says there are lots of Covid patients in ICUs, they don't seem to be able to stop spreading actual lies about the suicide rates themselves.

@PattyPan

If you’re talking about suicides, you are vastly over-estimating. During the last recession there were about 1000 extra suicides over the period 2008-2010 (source) - fewer than the amount of people dying every day from coronavirus currently

The highest figure on excess deaths since last March is 80,000. There are over 70,000 confirmed coronavirus deaths (and in March last year it wasn't even possible to list covid as a cause of death). So even the most ardent covid denier/anti-lockdowner cannot claim that more people are dying of other causes because of the covid restrictions, even if the other 10,000 deaths are directly due to lockdown (they aren't).

@Madhairday

I could come up with a solution, with the right team behind me. It would definitely be better than lockdown, because lockdown is the most destructive and least effective solution possible.

I would truly love to see that because I hate lockdown and hate its societal affects. But I hate the affects of a virus spreading far and wide causing devastation in its wake as well. I would be honestly interested to hear your considered alternative and why most of the governments of the world have not considered it.

Unfortunately, the most likely reason they haven't considered other solutions is that they have no one even thinking about it. The vast majority of solutions I propose for government projects are very simple - one major issue was solved, for example, by clarifying the language used on a particular website (there were serious mistakes being made because people who relied on that website were misinterpreting the information there). What I come across all the time is an inability to look at the problem in a different way. At the moment, the fallout of lockdown isn't even being considered - it's just accepted as a necessary evil. People's lives are being thrown away unnecessarily for lack of thinking. It's not the first time I've seen it happen, not by a very long shot.

@NoOneOwnsTheRainbow

There's a very simple solution to all this. To decide Covid is incurable and unavoidable (which it largely is) and to let hospitals carry on as they always have, dealing with the things they can deal with. Worldwide as a planet, we don't have the resources to deal with it. So we shouldn't. Countries are making promises (about protecting people) that they can't deliver on then blaming the public when those promises are shown to be insubstantial. On top of the lockdown effects on humans, literally no one has asked the question, what is the environmental impact of isolating all the oxygen for oxygen tanks? And all the disposable PPE? What is the damage being done to children when they or their loved ones die in hospital fires from all this oxygen being exhaled everywhere? There have been so many hospital fires because of the lunatic way of going "we must save everyone by not saving anyone at all". The average age of death due to Covid is 84. Average life expectancy all told in the UK for children born in 2018 (it's gone down last year) is only 81.26. The people dying of Covid are already on borrowed time. What are we saving?

Just to be clear, are you saying anyone with covid should be denied medical care and left to live or die at home?

Or that we should just let hospitals get totally overrun and collapse?

The average age of deaths might be 84 at the moment with lockdowns and treatment, but if we stop controlling & treating then the age will come right down - there are millions of younger adults and children in this country with underlying conditions.

Poverty isthe number one killerof people, of all ages, across the entire world

Poverty is defined differently across the world. While there are people who live in appalling conditions here, most people will have access to running water and sanitation for example, which is not the case worldwide. I dont doubt that poverty does and will cause more deaths after lockdown but I still dont think it will be the number one killer in the uk.(not that that makes it acceptable, but I think its disingenuous to suggest poverty will be the primary cause of death in a developed country)

There are occasionally stories about people starving, most people are eligible and would get UC. I'm not saying it doesn't have problems, I'm not saying people won't die because of the economic affect of lockdown, what I AM saying is that the figure you state as though fact is highly exaggerated and I thing it's extremely irresponsible for anyone to be peddling disinformation at anytime but especially when people lives depend upon everyone complying.

@StepOutOfLine The suicide thing is evidence that if you repeat a lie often enough people will start to believe it. All evidence points to the opposite, but the anti-lockdown, pro-deaths types just keep repeating it.

@StepOutOfLine

It would be an interesting study I suppose if the UK ever had a proper lockdown. *@PattyPan's link is also interesting. Despite the actual government statistics showing the UK suicide rate is currently sitting at its lowest for years, MNers seem to be convinced that it's rife. Of course even one suicide is one too many. But a stock answer to anything regarding collective personal responsibility in a bit of a shit moment seems to be "whatabout all the people who might* kill themselves?" And despite their haranguing and accusations of lying if ever a medical professional says there are lots of Covid patients in ICUs, they don't seem to be able to stop spreading actual lies about the suicide rates themselves.

I don't think suicide is the main problem at all - suicide is one of those measures that actually doesn't reflect the wider situation well at all. I'm not sure why it's used as a measure of fallout.

Much more relevant are the deaths that are indirectly caused by lockdown. There are hundreds of thousands of people for whom life is an incredible slog - they may have mild learning disabilities, physical disabilities, mental health issues, substance abuse problems, etc etc. They continue to live because of the ongoing input of other people - friends, family, professionals. Take that input away and isolate those people and it doesn't take long for them to deteriorate and die. In some cases they'll have children/other caring responsibilities that are also massively affected by the withdrawal of informal support. Those are the immediate fallout deaths rather than suicides.

'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.'

It astonishes me that nearly a year later this is the simplistic bollocks some still spout. It isnt 'all I care about' however I am able to understand that with the current massive surges there will not be a space for other emergencies if some kind of restrictions weren't in place. So there needs to be attempts to reduce the spread. It is bad enough now, imagine the catastrophe if there weren't any restrictions.

Well, the vaccine is rolling out so I don’t think right now is the moment to abandon all attempts to treat covid. We can limit the length and damage of lockdown by getting high vaccine coverage and start to rebuild.

@Fizbosshoes

Poverty isthe number one killerof people, of all ages, across the entire world

Poverty is defined differently across the world. While there are people who live in appalling conditions here, most people will have access to running water and sanitation for example, which is not the case worldwide. I dont doubt that poverty does and will cause more deaths after lockdown but I still dont think it will be the number one killer in the uk.(not that that makes it acceptable, but I think its disingenuous to suggest poverty will be the primary cause of death in a developed country)

Poverty is already the number one killer in Scotland: www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/opinion/columnists/alex-bell/2252273/scotlands-biggest-killer-poverty-is-the-real-epidemic-we-dont-want-to-confront/

I am genuinely surprised at how little people seem to understand the impact of poverty. You don't have to lack access to water for it to impact you - just the long term effect of a poor diet wreaks havoc. It's useful to know that people don't understand though, it explains a lot of things.

Such a silly thing to post. No evidence. All happening in your head.

If you have any evidence post a link. But there isn't any - only among the wearers of tin hats.

Grow up, OP, and stop posting goady threads.

I could come up with a solution, with the right team behind me. It would definitely be better than lockdown, because lockdown is the most destructive and least effective solution possible
Please do, I'd love to see it.

The much reported excess deaths in the UK do have some very important questions within that data.

More people than average ( quite a lot more) died in their homes last year. That is, more people than expected died in their homes last year, and hospital deaths were down. In October that estimate was 28,000 people extra.

I am not saying these are all lockdown related, but we certainly have to ask the question - if they are lockdown related, is that acceptable?

www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resource/home-deaths-now-account-for-as-many-excess-deaths-since-the-start-of-the-pandemic-as-deaths-in-care-homes

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54598728

@KarenMarlow3

I could come up with a solution, with the right team behind me. It would definitely be better than lockdown, because lockdown is the most destructive and least effective solution possible Please do, I'd love to see it.

If you fund it, I'll do it.

I've already described an effective solution, which is very simple and has been proven to work, earlier in the thread.

You know what’s nice about lockdowns and slowed growth? Poor people have some chance of accessing services like healthcare, supermarkets and education.

Unlike the what would happen if the NHS was overrun, panic buying happened and society shut down completely.

The Telegraph/Mail disaster capitalists didn’t get their complete shit show Brexit deal so would quite like to fuck us over by killing off some proles this way instead.

I think you're full of it Carbuncle. You can't make it up fast enough. So not suicide's now? Not Poverty anymore? Now it half a million people who will die from lack of care because....wait carers are essential so they're still caring for the vulnerable and these are the same people you would happily throw to the wolves if it meant your life could go back to normal, so don't pretend you care about vulnerable people.