[quote Zilla1]@Susan333, you might want to read your posts about me in order and try and see the massive leaps you are making. I have posted about CVST and COVID risks then asked you a question what you meant.
Regarding information sources, try the BMJ and more rigorous publications when you want be informed about health risks though it sounds like you know what you believe then find things in the popular press that agree with you. You might want to think whether the press you read decide what their editorial policy is then cherry pick to get people to agree. BTW, the Guardian isn't my preferred newspaper, except for sports. It's usually the FT but I still read what it says with a pinch of salt and every news story I've read in which I've had personal involvement has been misreported in the popular press.
PMSL laughing at the notion of a health system having capacity to cope with this pandemic and no lockdown, do you have any concept how much ITU capacity would have had to be kept spare? Based on how much ITU was stretched and how much lockdown would have suppressed demand, it's a guess but it might have been 10+ times capacity sat idle. The main limiting factor would have been staffing rather than hardware. As a PP has said, look at how better funded health systems also were affected but don't let facts get in the way of your prejudices.
FWIW, NHS wasn't 'locked away for a year' but it adapted. My practice never stopped offering face to face consultations where appropriate and many though not all patients prefer online. Some don't and some presentations required and got face to face consultations throughout lockdown. I know not every practice did this. Regarding the effects on patients with cancer, the comparison isn't necessarily with how patients with cancer and similar conditions would have fared normally, it's how they would have fared with no lockdown, no ITU capacity and brought into clinical settings with infections rife in your 'no lockdown' scenario. Good luck with that but based on my patients who received treatment and who had delays to treatment, their mortality would have been higher IME in your 'no lockdown' scenario. Taking into account the clinical history of my patients receiving active care, I can't see a single clinical decision regarding the treatment of any where I thought the clinician in acute would have got it demonstrably wrong which given the circumstances is saying something. I know this won't be the case and have seen the cases in the popular press.
I think I'm posting more for for others as I still suspect I'd be more worried if you agreed with me.[/quote]
I have quoted the BMJ in other threads, just because you dislike certain newspapers and ignore statistics in them doesn't give you much credibility when you behave like a toddler covering your eyes unless it is from a source you deem to be worthy not even bothering to read confirmed medical statistics.
Simply because " your practice " hasnt stopped offering face to face appointments doesn't mean other people haven't had issues including postponed medical treatments, operations with many subsequently suffering ill health/dying from how the NHS has behaved over the last year. If we are to believe the covid death figures, the NHS has hardly been a beacon of competence has it sending thousands to die in old folks homes with covid to cope... how are the florence Nightingale hospitals doing btw- the ones that never opened bar one and have now been demolished at tax payers expense?
I would post links showing the number of people that have died as a consequence of "lockdown to protect the NHS " which as we can see from the links I provided yesterday moans it is overrun every year long before covid. Perhaps have a search on the boards for the thread about GPS not offering face to face appointments from hundreds of women here and remove your blinkers enabling you to see there is an issue outside your " practice " of an NHS service that is unfit for purpose for many people.
If you educated yourself beyond your own little bubble of utopia where everything is running swimmingly,it may benefit you in discussing this topic rationally instead of blindly defending your employers (NHS) in denial at others peoples experiences.