Interesting perspective re lockdowns

[StormyTeacups]

Interesting article here arguing that falling into the trap of annual lockdowns could be foolish

www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-omicron-christmas-lockdown-uk-booster-shot-infections/

"Lockdown must be avoided, an Oxford professor has warned, as he said “it’s becoming clearer all that ministers see is the worst-case scenario”.

Prof Carl Heneghan, the director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, warned that the country was in “deep, deep trouble” if it entered into “annual winter lockdowns”, adding that “this is as good as it gets when you consider the predictable rise in winter pathogens at this time of the year”.

Prof Heneghan said that “you have to have a balanced proportion when you get the models”.

“But actually those models start to break down very rapidly and they’re already breaking down,” he told the BBC’s Today programme.

He said that the data remained unclear, adding that restrictions should be dependent on “risk and the people around you”.

“But if you take the cases aside and focus on the data that matters, the number of patients that's admitted has hardly changed in a week,” he said, adding that “if you focus on the information that matters, you come up with a very different scenario”.

Oh look another lockdowns are foolish thread, without offering any clue as to what we do instead that doesn’t risk killing thousands upon thousands of vulnerable people. 🙄

Just clocking on OP?

From the article linked to in the OP:

He told Sky News: "The sheer numbers that are going to be affected because of the increased transmissibility of this virus (and this) is going to potentially overwhelm our health service. So that's a really critical situation that we're facing

I'm a regular on this board and have been since it's conception, under different names. We welcome the opinion of scientists don't we? Even if we don't agree?

@StormyTeacups

I'm a regular on this board and have been since it's conception, under different names. We welcome the opinion of scientists don't we? Even if we don't agree?

Of course we do. But he is saying the hospital admissions hasn’t changed when he knows those figures lag cases and are proportional to the numbers infected.

It’s a bit like being one of the first to walk into a theatre for a sold out performance and saying oh gosh look at all these empty seats no ones coming.

I knew this would be him.

This is not a new viewpoint from him.

That article is behind a pay wall so I can’t give any proper judgement on it.

@Thewiseoneincognito

Oh look another lockdowns are foolish thread, without offering any clue as to what we do instead that doesn’t risk killing thousands upon thousands of vulnerable people. 🙄

Just clocking on OP?

What do you suggest, then? Annual lockdowns?

And I've said it before and I'll say it again - stop using vulnerable people as a stick to beat people who are (rightly) concerned about lockdowns with. Those whose MH is in the toilet are also vulnerable, for example. As are those whose livelihoods stand to be lost.

Yeah I get it, genuinely, but I don't know how we manage annual lockdowns. I work in a school and was fine with the first one even though I felt at risk at work. The anxiety genuinely almost killed my mother (I have threads on the mental health board under different names) so this hasn't skipped past me.

I can’t see annual lockdowns as a good approach, no

On his other points it’s interesting to me the mood in my home country is quite different to here over the new variant

What do you suggest, then? Annual lockdowns?

But literally nobody knows what the situation will be next year, or the year after or the year after. Why would you be talking about annual lockdowns at all at this stage? A month ago people were talking about the pandemic being over in the UK and clapping themselves on the back for a job well done compared to 'Europe'. And now the UK is talking lockdowns. Nobody knows what is going to happen month to month yet people have this bloody fascination with 'forever'. We can't do lockdowns 'forever', we can't live like this 'forever'. What is it about an evolving situation that people don't understand?

Do they have the same numbers as us? Or the same imminent pressures on their services?

I'm with luinegreine. We haven't a clue where we'll be in a year. There's no point talking about annual anything in relation to covid. It's a rapidly changing situation and all we can do is react to how the virus behaves.

The solution to this problem is not just stopping restrictions. If we do that, the NHS and other vital services (bins, food deliveries, dentists, schools, care homes etc etc) are at risk of collapsing.

Covid is not going away, so we need to build the capacity in hospitals to deal with increased numbers of sick people. This means funding more doctors and nurses, as well as more hospital beds. The Tories do not want to do this (and in fact the number of beds available has significantly reduced over the last 10 years), and so we face lockdowns.

Glad to see most commenters talking sense on here - there is a lag on deaths and hospitalisations and we could see thousands more admitted.

I too feel as though ministers are using the shock factor to try and scare the public - no, we won't have 2m cases a day by Christmas. But we will have more in hospital and more strain on an underfunded NHS.

It's literally a matter of staying at home for 2 weeks. It's not a big deal.

@luinagreine

What do you suggest, then? Annual lockdowns?

But literally nobody knows what the situation will be next year, or the year after or the year after. Why would you be talking about annual lockdowns at all at this stage? A month ago people were talking about the pandemic being over in the UK and clapping themselves on the back for a job well done compared to 'Europe'. And now the UK is talking lockdowns. Nobody knows what is going to happen month to month yet people have this bloody fascination with 'forever'. We can't do lockdowns 'forever', we can't live like this 'forever'. What is it about an evolving situation that people don't understand?

Okay, let me rephrase that - lockdowns whenever infection numbers are high.

Anyone 'clapping themselves on the back' at the thought the pandemic was over a month ago was clearly delusional, of course.

And I've said it before and I'll say it again - stop using vulnerable people as a stick to beat people who are (rightly) concerned about lockdowns with

We will all be vulnerable when the health service is overwhelmed. And when the fire service can’t be staffed. And when the police on duty are seriously reduced. And when we smell gas and no one answers the phone. Or we are swept out to sea. Or no one is doing regular water quality testing.

Lockdowns are not the answer, and never have been. All they do is kick the can down the road whilst destroying the economy and peoples ability to put food on the table.

We need proper investment in the NHS, we need to allow medics from all over the world come and work here rather than having a Brexit plan that sent them off back to Europe. We need proper sick pay that means those that do get covid can actually afford to stay off work sick. We need legislation over companies sick policies that place staff at risk of dismissal if they go off sick "too often" and to change the attitudes to stop workers feeling like they have to drag themselves into work unless on their death bed. We need more hospitals and more ITUs.

None of this will happen in the short term, but restrictions in the short term are damaging.

@Sowhatifiam

And I've said it before and I'll say it again - stop using vulnerable people as a stick to beat people who are (rightly) concerned about lockdowns with

We will all be vulnerable when the health service is overwhelmed. And when the fire service can’t be staffed. And when the police on duty are seriously reduced. And when we smell gas and no one answers the phone. Or we are swept out to sea. Or no one is doing regular water quality testing.

And as I said, those whose MH is backsliding again, or may have hit crisis point in previous lockdowns, are also vulnerable. And they won't be able to access the help they need either in the situation you describe, if it were to come to that.

@Nidan2Sandan, You make good points about expanding services.
Any ideas how much it would cost?
First glance the answer seems likely to be 'lots'.

Which worries me about how we pay for it all both in money terms and other ways.

That's entirely right, if we have a situation in which services stop working almost completely because of high viral rates, then vulnerable people won't be able to access the help they need.

That is an argument for taking some further measures now.

@Nidan2Sandan

Lockdowns are not the answer, and never have been. All they do is kick the can down the road whilst destroying the economy and peoples ability to put food on the table.

We need proper investment in the NHS, we need to allow medics from all over the world come and work here rather than having a Brexit plan that sent them off back to Europe. We need proper sick pay that means those that do get covid can actually afford to stay off work sick. We need legislation over companies sick policies that place staff at risk of dismissal if they go off sick "too often" and to change the attitudes to stop workers feeling like they have to drag themselves into work unless on their death bed. We need more hospitals and more ITUs.

None of this will happen in the short term, but restrictions in the short term are damaging.

All of this.

Also, the support for those who are vulnerable to not be forced to work in high risk situations, if they do not wish to. Also their household members. Financial and practical support for CEV people to not put themselves in harm's way would be far cheaper than national lockdowns, and given vulnerable people are by far more likely to end up in hospital, would reduce pressure on the NHS.

All of which should be optional, of course - but far better than giving teachers, retail staff, frontline NHS staff and so on (and their families) no option but to gamble with their health every time they go to work.

And before someone says you can't segregate people like that: We're already segregated. Our medical teams strongly advise us not to do the things others have been doing for months now. But we still have to stand in front of a classroom or serve hundreds of customers a day. At least give us the option to protect ourselves without the risk of losing our careers and livelihoods.

@TheVampiresWife

That would be great if it were practical to do.

There has been a general medical consensus that trying to segregate vulnerable people wouldn't work.

For example, there are CEV parents whose children are at school.

So should those children be stopped from going to school? Or should the parents stop seeing their children? What do you think?

Likewise CEV doctors, nurses, grandparents, teachers, and so on.

@thewiseoneincognito I'm afraid you have succumbed to the group think that lockdowns must not be questioned. Lockdowns ruin lives - not just now but in the future. Mental health, missed education, weaker immunity to other illnesses due to distancing, ruined businesses, a HUGE public debt that our children will be paying all their lives etc etc etc...We have never, ever tried to save lives by stopping society. Death is part of life and we can't stop everyone's lives to protect from death - otherwise there would be no cars on the road/ planes in the sky. Can you please tell me how lockdown will solve this? 4 weeks ago there was no Omicron. No we are at the stage of a terrified group of people demanding lockdowns...what happens 4 weeks after lockdown ends? We are back to square one.

If only people would use some critical thinking skills and independence of mind.

This situation is absolutely bonkers. We have had millions of prior infections and millions of vaccinations in this country. Yet it was all for nothing and we need to go back to March 2020 type rules?

The author of that article is the Professor of Evidence Based Medicine at Oxford University and a practising doctor. There are many more educated people like him pointing out another narrative but the group think is silencing them. I'm sure you are enjoying your feelings of indignation at anyone questioning lockdown. However, it's an absolutely valid point of view. Shutting down conversation and questioning of lockdowns is dangerous - and not very bright.

Not Carl Heneghan, oh man.

Listen to Chris Whitty instead.