If you are against the lockdown policy, what is your alternative?

[cheeseismydownfall]

I'm sure we all agree that lockdown is truly shit for so many reasons - the long term economic impact on the country and individuals, the knock on impact on other critical aspects of health care, the damage to children's education, the mental health crisis. I know many people feel very uncomfortable about the civil liberty aspect of lockdown. And I completely understand that many people are deeply angry with how the situation was handled, and feel that we would be in a better place now if the government had taken different decisions.

But for those of you who are 'anti lockdown' - what is the alternative, now we are in the position we are in? We saw after Christmas what will happen to the NHS if there is no effort made to check transmission. It will be overwhelmed. And the impact to society if the NHS fails seems pretty scary to me.

Shielding the elderly and vulnerable isn't practical in reality because of intergenerational dependence, so I think that is off the cards.

The only other option would seem to be utterly ruthless about triage, which would see covid patients left to die in their homes - forcibly restrained there if need be. That to me is the stuff of nightmares.

So what are the other options? This is not a goady post - I am genuinely interested in how other people would approach this.

I dont know what the alternative is except the shielding elderly / vulnerable already mentioned.

I have to admit I am not keen about this mention of newer strains being more dangerous for younger people. If it continues to evolve in that direction perhaps it will be that it is a strategy we should have taken. That might never happen though and obviously hindsight solves most things.

I dont know. It hasn't really been tried to see if it would work. I just know that the lockdown strategy is not something that can be used indefinitely.

@TheChip

I would honestly like to know how and why people get so angry towards any suggestion that does not include lockdown

Yes to this. I think it’s because lockdown makes them feel safe

• made schools safer
• closed borders earlier and actually policed the quarantine
• have a decent track and track system
• increase the list of symptoms for testing
• pay people properly when they have to self isolate
• fine businesses who force people into the office who could work from home

Thereby avoid the need for lockdowns in the first place.

@WouldBeGood I think they feel morally superior for it as well tbh.

@McCheney73 Tier 4 actually started working before lockdown.

‘Tier 4 is lockdown though. We went from 2 to 4 in few days. Any Xmas mixing was a complete no no. Could only meet one person outdoors, everything closed. Seems to be no different to now

"1 in 70 Swedes has long covid now apparently. Yay for the Swedish approach..."

Isn't UK 10% so not sure we are better off in that regards.

10% of people who have had covid (tested presumably, so wouldnt include a lot of asymptomatic people) so around 384,000 people or 0.58% of the population or 1 in 1721 if my calcs are correct

Sorry that 1 in 172, not sure where the extra 1 came from!

I hate to be that guy but I don't think risk ruining 3 whole generations future to save a people towards the latter end of their lives

So my 57 year old mum who is currently fighting for her life on a ventilator dispensable?!
That's the "latter end of her life" seriously?!
Critical care units are full of people age 40-60.
If there are no beds because we let this run rampant then they will die
All those 40-60 year olds.

But hell. They're in the "latter stages of life"

What utter bollox

I think the government need to provide numbers for the collateral damage of lockdowns, not because we necessarily need to change strategy but so we can understand the full picture.
For example a
Daily forecast of the number of deaths caused by lockdown over the next 5-10 years and the expected age of those deaths.
Causes would be cancer, poverty, mental health, alcohol and drugs, etc etc etc.
The government should be forecasting and sharing this information

I don't understand why people don't understand that when we have high levels of Covid in the community, cancer, mental health, poverty etc doesn't improve it gets worse. Without proper suppression (we are unlikely to eradicate this) how can we look after patients with cancer? If you are having chemotherapy and are neutropenic while loads of people around you have Covid, you will catch it and die. If the overall levels of Covid are low, you are likely to have successful treatment. What about a young person with appendicitis? Right now operating theatres have been turned into makeshift ICUs, how can we do emergency life-saving operations if there are no theatres?

Proper suppression with vaccination protecting the majority of the vulnerable is the route we have right now. If we had acted sooner we might have avoided some of this fall out but we are way past a point now with one of the worst death rates in the world.

@shitfuckcommaetc sorry to hear about your mum, she certainly isn't dispensable. Praying for her recovery x

@DameFanny

"We'll also be asking ourselves why a 40yo with cancer can't be treated because a 25yo with covid is taking up a hospital bed for weeks. And that the last place a cancer patient - or anyone with a weakened immune system - would want to be is around unrestrained covid transmission."

So let's get this right, your suggestion to ensure that a cancer patient with a weakened immune system does not contract Covid is to keep said cancer patient away from hospitals ( where there is a 1 in 4 chance of contracting covid). But by keeping them away from hospitals then are then denied treatment for their cancer. This logic is insane and right up there with some of the proposed treatments for the Black Death.

If I was unfortunate enough to be suffering with cancer I would definitely take my chances with covid and go to hospital to get treatment for my cancer if they allowed me.

As for your comment on 25 year olds with Covid taking up hospital beds is misleading- the vast majority of hospital admissions were for the 85 plus age range


Well said @1dayatatime

I moan about being stuck in lockdown, but I also don't really see any other way either? It's so hard in lockdown re homeschooling , mental health , no income etc, I hate that every thing is shut id love as much as anyone to go on holiday or a day out , but if we just shielded the elderly like some are saying, they would be fine , but the rest of us would start getting ill and needing hospital treatment and there would be no beds to go to hospital! No one to treat you?How are people so blasé about everyone else just putting up with the fact we might die just so we can go to the pub or cafe to save mental health etc? Surely if your partner or child family members etc actually died that would affect your mental health more !? Or if your child or elderly parents couldn't breathe you wouldn't just say oh it's ok we expected them to die anyway ??? No first place you'd go if you were seriously ill is hospital and if there wasn't a bed you'd just be left at home with no help no reassurance no treatment nothing? Surely no one wants that?

@Shitfuckcommaetc

I'm so sorry about your Mum and hope she pulls through. I'm in the exact same situation with my DH, the same age as your Mum.
It makes me despair when I read some of the absolute rubbish spouted on these threads.
And for what it's worth, my DH was fit, healthy, normal BMI before Covid affected him so severely.

Hate to be the one to break it to you @IM0GEN but people HAVE been left without gas and electric

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/eon-customers-gas-electricity-data-b1791496.html
E.On customers left without gas and electricity after personal data stolen in security breach
Households on pre-payment meters struggle to top up after utility firm takes down app over security threat

Vaccinate the more vulnerable groups to reduce the hospitalisations and open up.

TheChip
I would honestly like to know how and why people get so angry towards any suggestion that does not include lockdown
Yes to this. I think it’s because lockdown makes them feel safe

This is so pathetic. I don’t get angry about suggestions that don’t include lockdown, I get angry that people who “don’t see the need for lockdown” don’t actually have any concrete suggestions and think the answer is to just sneer at people (and, hilariously, accuse them of being morally superior). Why not just add “sheeple” to your post then you’ll have a full house?

Anyway, hopefully vaccination will soon be doing the work of shielding the elderly and vulnerable so everyone else can just “crack on and take their chances”.

Not my suggestion @1dayatatime no.

And the vast majority of people in hospital right now are not 85+. Update your understanding, you're well behind the times.

THIS is a big part of the problem.

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/02/majority-in-england-turned-down-for-self-isolation-support-data-shows

@DameFanny

Not my suggestion *@1dayatatime* no.

And the vast majority of people in hospital right now are not 85+. Update your understanding, you're well behind the times.

In our local hospitals over 80s are the largest group. Over 70s + over 80s make up over 60% of patients.

@MH1111

I think the government need to provide numbers for the collateral damage of lockdowns, not because we necessarily need to change strategy but so we can understand the full picture. For example a Daily forecast of the number of deaths caused by lockdown over the next 5-10 years and the expected age of those deaths. Causes would be cancer, poverty, mental health, alcohol and drugs, etc etc etc. The government should be forecasting and sharing this information

Yes but that wouldn’t be compared to the current death rates.

It would need to be compared to the illness and deaths caused by NOT having a lockdown. So all the deaths from Covid and those not Covid related as hospitals sink, and the impact on economy and mental of illness and death

Oddly enough people very much more educated in these things have done these calculations. Which is again why they are following this approach. Although not very well

And no one is following the just protect the vulnerable approach.... unless ...again... you can prove to me that approach works?

Operations for children are being cancelled. They’re not being cancelled because doctors are worried about the children getting COVID, they’re being cancelled because so many staff have either been redeployed or are off sick. They’re not being cancelled because of lockdown, they’re being cancelled because of COVID. If there was more COVID, there would be more cancellations. When you are counting your costs to life of lockdowns v letting it rip, please make sure you put these cancellations on the letting it rip side.

Stanford University recently published this research that examined the effects of harsher vs lighter restrictive measures on the spread of covid in several countries, including England, France, Iran, Italy, the US, South Korea and Sweden.

Essentially, what they found was that hard lockdowns — closing businesses and stay-at-home orders — make no difference to spread, versus lighter restrictions such as social distancing and limits on large events.

That’s not to say that we should do nothing. But there’s a strong argument here that closing businesses and mandating people to stay in their homes makes little difference to the spread of covid.

There’s an argument that what we’ve tried to do — hide healthy people from a circulating virus — is a flawed strategy in itself. There was always going to be a casualty rate, whatever we did.

But this research suggests that we’d have had similar results in terms of spread had we gone for a lighter touch strategy. Except without all the negative impacts of lockdown.

So why did we need to cut our kids off from their education and social interaction, increase damaging social isolation, flatten the economy, put millions out of work, destroy several sectors almost entirely, and risk worsening the mental health of millions on a Hail Mary strategy? On a tactic that makes little to no difference on how the virus spreads?

And why have we let the government blame the people for a virus doing what it naturally does, when the true failure here is 40 years of NHS underfunding? (Yep, it starts with Thatcher. Shit always starts with Thatcher.)

It’s a complex report with interesting findings. It’s well worth a read, whichever side of the debate you fall on.