If we hadn't locked down at all...

[bathsh3ba]

Would this all be over by now? Obviously with a much higher death toll and I am absolutely not suggesting we should have done that. But theoretically... what would have happened? Are we prolonging the pandemic by 'squashing the curve' and are we going to be be able to come out of this without either opening up and accepting more deaths or accepting rolling lockdowns for some time to come?

This man his speech of taking it on the chin because BREXIT - never forgive never forget. 10s of thousands dead because of his decisions.

Vaccines were the only way out of it.

I don't think it would have burnt itself out in 12 months unrestricted, but we'd have millions more dead worldwide and the health systems everywhere would have collapsed, causing anarchy.

[quote JesusInTheCabbageVan]@Suranjeep god, three hours, that must have been terrifying. I hope she's OK.[/quote]
Yes it was horrible, I do hope she got the help she needed.

There was no excuse for this as it was at the point they'd stopped admitting anyone for Covid apart from the if you are blue stage.
this wasnt an overrun NHS, it was one that had told to stop treating people regardless

@confuseddotcom090

Look to Sweden. No lockdown there. I think we would have done similar: some people would have been frightened and stayed home anyway, economy would have taken some hit as a result, but not as much as U.K. or other lockdown countries.

A sparsely populated country, with generally very obedient and laid back people (relatively speaking) and they've done a lot worse death and case wise than their neighbours.

Britain is an international hub, so at the least would have had to keep the borders controlled. Had we kept control of our borders then we could have kept things open more domestically as a trade off, but that's another argument. People wanted their summer holidays and winter was sacrificed for a week in Spain.

The NHS is over whelmed yearly with flu and norovirus. We Will prob lock down every year for flu

Swedish scientists now criticising their govt for free for all.

@Christmasfairy2020

The NHS is over whelmed yearly with flu and norovirus. We Will prob lock down every year for flu

We havent been locking down to prevent the NHS becoming overwelmed.

We have been locking down to prevent it being noticed that the NHS has been run into the ground, mismanaged and isnt fit for purpose in its current form. We need to go back to treating people, not constant reorginsations and paper shufflers/consultants (not the medical kind)

Sweden's population density in towns and cities, where most people live, is very much like ours.

Not that it is relevant as there is no correlation between population density and infection or death rates on a worldwide basis. Probably because it's mostly caught in hospitals and care homes which are always densely populated by their very nature.

If we hadn't locked down at all...
...funerals would have been attended by all family and friends meaning that they would have been able to support each other through the grieving process.
... women would not be labouring in hospital rooms alone with the odd midwife popping their PPE head through the door.
... communities would come together to support the latest need/activity such as coffee mornings, fates etc.
... death would still continue to be part of life.
... oh and dental surgeries would be blimmin' open!

I remember reading in early March 2020 that to do nothing and let the virus take it's course would cost around 1 million lives (UK).

That was just deaths from Covid, I imagine deaths from other things would be higher too as I suppose hospitals would have run out of beds etc.

Ferguson’s estimate was 500k deaths without locking down and doing nothing and 250k with protecting the vulnerable but I believe he later admitted that that his estimates were too high. He also estimated there would only be 20k deaths with lockdown and was completely wrong about that. For 1m people to die you would need the whole population to get covid and it to have a much higher IFR than it does so seems unlikely.

I think it would have been grimmer in the shorter term but at least over more quickly. Lockdowns have strung it out, caused hardship and misery, and still ended up with loads of deaths.

@B1rthis

If we hadn't locked down at all... ...funerals would have been attended by all family and friends meaning that they would have been able to support each other through the grieving process. ... women would not be labouring in hospital rooms alone with the odd midwife popping their PPE head through the door. ... communities would come together to support the latest need/activity such as coffee mornings, fates etc. ... death would still continue to be part of life. ... oh and dental surgeries would be blimmin' open!

lol at that last one.

I wish I could get a dentist appointment as easy as it is to get a vaccine appointment..

Mine is still dire emergency dental stuff only

@Chessie678

Ferguson’s estimate was 500k deaths without locking down and doing nothing and 250k with protecting the vulnerable but I believe he later admitted that that his estimates were too high. He also estimated there would only be 20k deaths with lockdown and was completely wrong about that. For 1m people to die you would need the whole population to get covid and it to have a much higher IFR than it does so seems unlikely.

Yeah he’s since said the 500k was not likely to happen and let’s cuts to the chase the 250k is going to be about where it ends up anyway.

Does anyone know why flu deaths arent presented as a running total from the start like Covid is?

Why hasnt Covid become annual figures yet?

But surely if the nhs had been overwhelmed with covid it would not have been able to deliver such an effective vaccination programme ?
I was reading about Spanish flu and that had four waves although there weren't the issues of travel in the same way there are today. In areas where the flu was rife they did close schools, wear masks etc though - I think people use the Spanish flu as an example of a pandemic ' burning out' but there was action taken to stop the spread

No one can really Say for sure but It suspect it wouldn't be over with a higher death toll and even longer waiting list .

We'd be in a humanitarian crisis, a collapsed health and social care service with shortages of staff and unable to deal with other emergencies. A very high death toll, a large number of very ill people plus a large number still recovering. Schools closed due to staff shortages. Behind where we currently are with the vaccine roll out again due to staff problems. We'd probably at this stage be introducing curfews and lockdowns and be in a more of a mess than we currently are. I don't suppose our economy would be too healthy either.

So if we'd done nothing it might be over more quickly? No, that makes no sense.

Worth remembering why we locked down in the first place.
It's because government trolls from China flooded social media telling the world lockdown in Wuhan had been an unmitigated success.
WHO was hugely influenced by this.
Remember those people lying dead in the street in Wuhan which looked slightly staged. Well that's probably because they were.
Before somebody inevitably cries conspiracy theorist, this is all in the public domain (including the precise same phrases about the success of the Wuhan's lockdown being repeated Ad infinitum on social media).

The Brazilian leader took no notice of WHO and declared it all an over reaction and they're in diabolical health crisis right now.

There is not that much use to saying today, we should have done XYZ and the government was dumb to do otherwise.

We each have far more information about this virus today than what the government knew in March 2020. Given the lag between infection and death, and the lack of available COVID19 tests back then, for all we knew at the time of the first lockdown, the Infection Fatality Ratio (IFR) could have been 2%, 3% or even 5%. Now it looks like probably a still-high but much lower 0.5% to 1.0% with the best available treatment, but we just did not know that at the time.

Even with this benefit of hindsight, it seems likely to me that the number of COVID19 deaths would have been at least 2x higher, and quite possibly 4x higher, had we not had any lockdowns. Importantly, the 0.5% to 1.0% IFR is the death rate without the NHS having been completely overwhelmed across the system, even if it came pretty close. The IFR could easily have gone much higher than where it ended up if hospitals had been forced to turn away COVID19 patients who did not need ventilation, but "only" needed oxygen, steroids, anticoagulants, careful monitoring, and treatment of secondary infections, in order to survive the disease.

Finally, this is all ignoring long-term health effects other than death. Had all of us, or even half of us gotten exposed to COVID19 before having any vaccines available, it is quite possible we'd now have several million people in the population suffering from serious long-term ill health including, but not limited to, damage to lungs, hearts and brains.

So my personal view is, yes the lockdowns had a very large cost, but they also brought some very large benefits in the form of deaths and harms avoided. Despite all of the errors, the politicisation, the entitled misbehaviour by certain government officials, etc. it actually possible that at a high level, with quite a large dose of luck, this was handled more or less correctly, with a few critical errors that probably cost tens of thousands of lives, but also with a few good decisions that probably saved hundreds of thousands if not more.

Now that the worst is (I believe) behind us in the UK, however, it is time to continue to accelerate the vaccine rollouts and booster campaigns, and also to provide substantial support to people and communities who were worst affected by the disease and its "remedy" aka lockdowns. This needs to happen both inside the UK and outside of the UK.

Yes probably but you wouldn't have liked what happened

@HelpFlattenTheCurve

There is not that much use to saying today, we should have done XYZ and the government was dumb to do otherwise.

We each have far more information about this virus today than what the government knew in March 2020. Given the lag between infection and death, and the lack of available COVID19 tests back then, for all we knew at the time of the first lockdown, the Infection Fatality Ratio (IFR) could have been 2%, 3% or even 5%. Now it looks like probably a still-high but much lower 0.5% to 1.0% with the best available treatment, but we just did not know that at the time.

Even with this benefit of hindsight, it seems likely to me that the number of COVID19 deaths would have been at least 2x higher, and quite possibly 4x higher, had we not had any lockdowns. Importantly, the 0.5% to 1.0% IFR is the death rate without the NHS having been completely overwhelmed across the system, even if it came pretty close. The IFR could easily have gone much higher than where it ended up if hospitals had been forced to turn away COVID19 patients who did not need ventilation, but "only" needed oxygen, steroids, anticoagulants, careful monitoring, and treatment of secondary infections, in order to survive the disease.

Finally, this is all ignoring long-term health effects other than death. Had all of us, or even half of us gotten exposed to COVID19 before having any vaccines available, it is quite possible we'd now have several million people in the population suffering from serious long-term ill health including, but not limited to, damage to lungs, hearts and brains.

So my personal view is, yes the lockdowns had a very large cost, but they also brought some very large benefits in the form of deaths and harms avoided. Despite all of the errors, the politicisation, the entitled misbehaviour by certain government officials, etc. it actually possible that at a high level, with quite a large dose of luck, this was handled more or less correctly, with a few critical errors that probably cost tens of thousands of lives, but also with a few good decisions that probably saved hundreds of thousands if not more.

Now that the worst is (I believe) behind us in the UK, however, it is time to continue to accelerate the vaccine rollouts and booster campaigns, and also to provide substantial support to people and communities who were worst affected by the disease and its "remedy" aka lockdowns. This needs to happen both inside the UK and outside of the UK.

Thought provoking. Thank you

We have been locking down to prevent it being noticed that the NHS has been run into the ground, mismanaged and isnt fit for purpose in its current form

Which certainly explains the behaviour of some of the celebrity/blue tick medics.