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.

But very few people have posted that lockdowns and poverty don’t cause death. Far more people have pointed out that any course of action now will entail death and terrible economic damage because this is a pandemic. And if we didn’t have lockdowns, the economy and health service would crash leading to huge numbers of deaths from many causes.

@Billie18

Sorry posted the thread presuming the source was well known. The figure is an estimate by Professor Philip Thomas of Bristol University and was published in the Daily Mail.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8925425/Lockdown-claim-equivalent-560-000-lives-health-impact-recession-cause.html

Of course any figure is an estimate and there are many similar reports with different estimates.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/19/lockdown-may-cost-200k-lives-government-report-shows/

It's bemusing to read comment here from people who believe that lockdowns don't cause any deaths or that people don't die from poverty. It's likely that tens of thousands will die from cancer in whats been referred to as a ticking timebomb. Just google life expectancy and poverty to get an idea of it's deathly associations with poverty.

Lockdown isn’t stopping cancer diagnoses. Covid flooding hospitals with seriously ill people is stopping cancer diagnoses. If we ended lockdown, that problem would be even more extreme.

The problem is the virus, not the emergency measures required to reduce it.

FFS OP. People get it. We don't need to be educated on the links between poverty and premature deaths. You, however, need to start looking at the bigger picture.

Perhaps answer this: What do you think would have happened if the Government hadn't locked down at the beginning of the month? You should take into account the current state of the health service even with a lockdown when you respond. You should also look at how the R has increased in the South East with the new UK-based variant and consider the potential impact of the importation of new, more transmissible strains, from countries like South African and Brazil (and there will be others, I am sure).

@GetOffYourHighHorse

'people do know there will be repercussions due to lockdown, but there would be repercussions if we didn't lockdown'

Yes and the repercussions if we didn't would be far, far greater.

It's not rocket science is it.

Lockdowns will cause deaths. That is known. What we don't know is if lockdowns of a whole population or social distancing have much effect on the reduction of cororonavirus deaths.

Considering that most deaths are in the over 80 group and that most infections are picked up in care homes, hospitals and peoples homes, shutting down businesses and forcing people to stay at home will have a limited effect on reducing virus spread. We can see from a year of these measures that they haven't worked.

It is terrible to think of the number of people who will be killed by the lockdown and horrific to consider that the lockdown may not have saved many lifes.

Why are you only looking at deaths from covid, OP? If the health service is overwhelmed - and it’s very close to it at the moment and absolutely would be without lockdown - do you understand that people would die of so many other treatable causes?

@Watchingbehindmyhands

FFS OP. People get it. We don't need to be educated on the links between poverty and premature deaths. You, however, need to start looking at the bigger picture.

Perhaps answer this: What do you think would have happened if the Government hadn't locked down at the beginning of the month? You should take into account the current state of the health service even with a lockdown when you respond. You should also look at how the R has increased in the South East with the new UK-based variant and consider the potential impact of the importation of new, more transmissible strains, from countries like South African and Brazil (and there will be others, I am sure).

No need to be rude. There were many comments here from people who thought lockdown laws did not cause deaths. I agree the link should be obvious but it's obvious for some it isn't. There is a belief being forced to stay at home has no detrimental impact.

We can see from a year of these measures that they haven't worked

If by “worked” you mean eliminated the virus then no they haven’t worked. But I don’t think there’s any doubt these restrictions have slowed the spread is there?

I am interested to know what the government’s plan was if there had been no vaccine, so that it can be compared against the lockdown strategy. However given that we are so close to the vaccine hopefully getting us out of this, staying locked down while we roll it out would seem to be clearly the lesser of two evils.

'if we allowed uninterrupted spread of the virus and the health system collapsed (which it would), with that would come other problems. Millions of people infected would mean essential services compromised - weeks to get your heating fixed, weeks to get your broadband service fixed, problems with your water taking weeks to get fixed, food not moving around the country at it's usual speed, supermarkets with empty shelves, then panic buying, then nothing on the shelves....this would all lead to civil unrest, rising crime rates, people feeling unsafe to go out because of the virus but also because there's a gang of youths on every corner and well publicised 'no police 'cos they're all off sick' to help with that. In a short time we would end up with the army on the streets, curfews and who knows what else.'

Exactly why on earth can't the op and others see hospitals not being able to take any more patients, public services not being available as everyone is sick will be catastrophic. Then people really would have something to worry about. I think the long-term effects of no action just might be worse than current restrictions.

@LegoPirateMonkey

Why are you only looking at deaths from covid, OP? If the health service is overwhelmed - and it’s very close to it at the moment and absolutely would be without lockdown - do you understand that people would die of so many other treatable causes?

The health service should be better equipped but that should be achieved by equipping it better. In the UK we have less hospital beds than most countries in Europe. Every year during the winter months we have reports that the NHS is overwhelmed and people are lined up in hospital trolleys. It was known that this winter would be a difficult one. Inadequacies within the NHS should be addressed by fixing these inadequacies rather than killing off more people wth a lockdown.

No health service in the world could cope with the unchecked spread of this virus.

@GetOffYourHighHorse

'if we allowed uninterrupted spread of the virus and the health system collapsed (which it would), with that would come other problems. Millions of people infected would mean essential services compromised - weeks to get your heating fixed, weeks to get your broadband service fixed, problems with your water taking weeks to get fixed, food not moving around the country at it's usual speed, supermarkets with empty shelves, then panic buying, then nothing on the shelves....this would all lead to civil unrest, rising crime rates, people feeling unsafe to go out because of the virus but also because there's a gang of youths on every corner and well publicised 'no police 'cos they're all off sick' to help with that. In a short time we would end up with the army on the streets, curfews and who knows what else.'

Exactly why on earth can't the op and others see hospitals not being able to take any more patients, public services not being available as everyone is sick will be catastrophic. Then people really would have something to worry about. I think the long-term effects of no action just might be worse than current restrictions.

I’ve said recently upthread I support the lockdown but is there evidence that is what would happen?

Clearly the health service would be overwhelmed and there would be excess covid deaths, deaths from treatable illnesses due to lack of healthcare etc. But the virus has a natural peak so the army being on the street, no food in supermarkets, no police - has it been evidenced things would get quite that bad?

And if so would it be the case we would still be engaging in these lockdowns in 3 years time if the vaccines had failed, or if they still do because a vaccine resistant strain emerges?

I really don’t think any of this is simple.

@Billie18 as someone who works in ICU in an area that's been in tier 3 for months I can assure you that after the first lockdown numbers of new covid patients plummeted. We aren't that bad now either because of it in comparison with London and s/e....

@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.

Absolute unmitigated bollocks.

Loss of healthcare services because they're over run with covid is killing people already - imagine how much more if the R rate wasn't being kept down?

And businesses can't open if their staff are out sick - even if they only have it mildly.

Use your head, stop spreading bullshit.

Ignore me if this has already been mentioned, but according to the BBC last night there are now 4.5 million on NHS waiting lists - 163,000 of them for more than a year - which is 1000 times the number a year ago

When considering lockdown costs it might be worth bearing these in mind

Another thread in which people are just going to insult each other...

But what do you propose we do OP? Just let the virus spread without restrictions?
Can you imagine the lives lost? The devastation to the economy? The amount of jobs lost? The long term disabilities?

If Boris wanted to invite me to solve this for him, I'd be happy to

Omg, brilliant! There's nothing stopping you you know 😂

Data from NHS England indicates that presently 111,901 beds are occupied in England of these beds 28,246 beds are occupied by patients with confirmed cases of coronavirus (information is not given for the reason they were admitted or what other illnesses or injuries they may be suffering or even if they became infected in hospital or were admitted because of coronavirus symptoms). In ICU 4,751 beds are occupied and 2,654 are occupied by patients with confirmed cases of coronavirus (again no further information is given).

Maybe there would be more without a lockdown but this is speculation. What we do know is that people will die in huge numbers due to the lockdown because the NHS is struggling to treat 2,654 patients in ICU and 28,246 patients with positive coronavirus tests in the whole of England. Flu (fortunately and miraculously) has been completely eradicated this year but in previous years some of the beds occupied by coronavirus patients would have been occupied by flu patients and winter is known to be a a busy time.

It is shocking that there are estimates that 560,000 people may be killed by the lockdown because the NHS can't increase it's bed capacity beyond these numbers during a national crisis when it's been known for nearly a year that it would be needed.

The alternatives to lockdown proposed on this thread have been: 1) deny anyone medical treatment for covid on the basis that this will apparently only kill 80+ yr olds who don’t deserve to be alive any longer anyway - this one, along with being utterly psychopathic as a solution, is also very wrong as is clear from the fact that it isn’t just 80 year olds in hospital with this thing anyway. 2) split society into ‘small sectors’ which sounds like lockdown but with better monitoring and 3) fix the NHS which is a great long term solution but obviously we can’t magic up the staff and resources immediately.

Flu this year hasn’t been eradicated by a miracle, OP! It’s reduced thanks to lockdown. And we can see the R number and the spread of the virus with lockdown restrictions to extrapolate what the covid numbers would be without those restrictions. It’s not speculation! Lockdown brings case numbers down.

And it isn’t just bed numbers - it’s the number of staff needed to treat the patients as well.

Guess what? Public health officials are aware of all that. They take it into account. They don't need some jumped up fucking eejits thinking they are smart pointing it out to them as if they have missed it. They haven't. they know. Lockdown is still the lesser of two evils. Because that's where we are at. There are no good choices to make, only least worst. Honest to fuck, what sort of simpletons haven't worked that out at this late stage of the pandemic.

@LegoPirateMonkey

Flu this year hasn’t been eradicated by a miracle, OP! It’s reduced thanks to lockdown. And we can see the R number and the spread of the virus with lockdown restrictions to extrapolate what the covid numbers would be without those restrictions. It’s not speculation! Lockdown brings case numbers down.

Where is the evdience that lockdown has reduced the flu numbers? Or are you speculating it is because of lockdown?

@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.

Billie, don't you worry. Long before that Bill Gates will have installed his chips in everyone and the lizards will be fully in control.

Seriously I know you want to stop all precautions and just let people die, but I don't think I've seen the reason why yet. Is there one beyond "this is inconvenient for ME"?

@LegoPirateMonkey

And it isn’t just bed numbers - it’s the number of staff needed to treat the patients as well.

That seems to be the issue in the Trusts I work with

So many staff off sick at any one time - not the actual numbers of patients.

Quarantine rules