Forum Topic

Was it worth it?

There are currently 11,329 deaths in the UK due to Covid-19. The scientists have predicted there will be 66,314 deaths in the UK. The population in the UK is about 67m. So 99.9% of the population is on hold why we wait for 0.1% of the population to die. I hate to have to tell you all this, but everyone will die (just hopefully not anytime soon), so now everyone is on hold so that 0.1% can live for another few years.While we all sit indoors to protect 60,000 people to give them a few more years of life, what is the cost?Millions unemployed. Domestic violence doubles. Millions more people in the UK now living in poverty. Laws being passed to allow eugenics, politicians giving themselves an extra £10,000 and then saying this is not the time to talk about nurses pay. I cannot find any figures for suicides but I would guess that has increased.Then there are the financial costs, shares down 1/3 so pensions will soon follow. Companies going bankrupt, most people only getting 80% of their income, some getting 0% of their income. The housing market requires confidence, of which there is none, I’ve seen estimates that housing could go down by 5%, unless things change soon I think house prices could go a lot lower putting millions of people in negative equity.So, was it worth it?

Colin Potter ● 2396d48 Comments

Yes. And it still is.

Ken Munn ● 2396d

Yes, worth it.Lives over money, yes. Every single time.

Stewart Jones ● 2396d

It’s the speed and intensity. No government will be re-elected if there have been queues of ambulances outside hospitals, followed by cars when there are no ambulances, all with people dying horribly. What happens with ‘ordinary’ flu? We haven’t been paying attention, but perhaps the patient is more often just in a normal ward with antibiotics against the pneumonia and it is a less intensive treatment before recovery or death.Even if they cancelled the practice for such a scenario, I imagine they know the effects of rampant infection and high death rates: utter uncertainty and panic, perhaps total loss of control.

Vivienne Cox ● 2396d

Yes

Claire Moran ● 2396d

It’s only worth it to the perpetrators of this fraud, provided they get out of it what has been planned. There is not one non-lockdown country that has above average ‘COVID-19’ death rates, and most are well below; so it can even be argued that the lockdown itself is costing lives.What’s really been demonstrated by this event is how selfish people are, in that they put themselves before the vast majority of others who will suffer in the fast developing hell that you describe; but the perps knew they could rely on the fears and selfishness of these people from the start.

Michael Brown ● 2396d

I accept what you say, Colin, about the real dangers to business and society from this. And the government needs to sort out some appalling problems such as a very, very small percent of businesses able to access the bank loans and other government funding, and the invidious position of those in limited companies not being able to claim government reliefs.  And, as you rightly say, domestic violence issues (although steps are being taken regarding that) and suicides.  However, although I know it sounds tough, a lot of businesses and people having a hard time will bounce back to some extent.  Personally, I daren't even look at what will have happenend to my pension for the moment but hopefully it will recover at least some of the losses.  But people who have died through this illness are gone forever.  No second chance for them.  That is why it is worth it.

Claire Moran ● 2396d

Yes, a thousand times yes.  You can't put lives in the balance against financial costs. The idea of a trade-off between lives and a 5% fall in house prices is utterly unconscionable.That's the sort of calculating callousness that doubtless caused the government to flirt with the off-the-wall notion of herd immunity. If they'd gone straightway to lockdown, with testing and tracing, we wouldn't be in such a desperate situation now. 66,000 deaths wouldn't just be of people who were in any case nearing the end of their allotted span. Imagine people's grief if thousands of loved ones were dying alone in isolation, without the presence of their spouse or children.

Robert Fish ● 2396d

If money is more important to you than lives, no.If lives are more important to you than money, yes.Not that it should make any difference, but the actual deaths are probably at least twice the number being reported (in Ireland only 46% of deaths are in hospitals).  We have (once again) been "played" by the government, reporting only hospital deaths.And about a third of those hospitalised who survive are suffering life changing damage to their lungs (except our Prime Minister, who is bright and breezy two days after his near death experience, appropriately enough on Easter Day - there's a coincidence).We are still a rich country.  There is more than enough money to go around.  The problem is that it is not going around.

T P Howell ● 2396d

Not just lungs, apparently in quite a lot of cases cognitive issues as well.  Presumably lack of oxygen. However I take issue with your pretty nasty slur that it was all made up about Johnson.  You really thing the NHS is in a conspiracy to say his hospitalisation was all made up?  If so you are an even stranger person than I already thought you - and I did think you pretty strange already. Now I put you as a bosom buddy of one Michael Brown.

Claire Moran ● 2396d

That is bad, Tepee, being compared to me..

Michael Brown ● 2396d

If reason fail, you can always resort to a personal attack.Bit of a badge of honour really.I make the point: Johnson didn't look like someone who had been at death's door.Nothing to do with the NHS. Everything to do with government spin.

T P Howell ● 2396d

Maybe you two could get a room and sort out the world? :)

Claire Moran ● 2396d

The Editor of the Economist today apologised for suggesting something similar. Probably because he would have lost his job and been sued otherwise. Meanwhile, thousands are cancelling their subscriptions. Government won't bother to sue minnows like you. But rational people take note of the nutters.

Claire Moran ● 2396d

Incidentally, ‘COVID-19’ deaths reported this year are approx. 120,000 compared to 185,000 from Flu - further evidence that ‘COVID-19’ is a scam to destroy our society, especially when we consider that most of the lives lost from ‘COVID-19’ would likely have soon been claimed by Flu or pneumonia (and many were anyway as the figures are being cooked).Yet here we are locked up, indefinitely, while the public of non-lockdown countries are free to roam and party, and are seeing less people dying of ‘COVID-19'; so, Colin, the answer to your question is a no-brainer. It's an open & shut case. 

Michael Brown ● 2396d

You're a shocker for jumping the gun.  Sweden, which you hold up as your perfect example, is beginning to suffer very badly.  Why not keep quiet for a week and see what happens instead of shooting your mouth off numerous times a day?

Viv Griffiths ● 2396d

Although I hesitate to engage, why is flu not a scam to destroy our society while Covid according to you is?

Claire Moran ● 2396d

Flu is not being used as reason for shutdown or lockdown.

Michael Brown ● 2396d

“Sweden, which you hold up as your perfect example, is beginning to suffer very badly“.Another 20 Swedish deaths allocated to ‘COVID-19’ today I notice, compared to 700+ for locked-down Britain; and I do not hold up Sweden as my ‘perfect example’. You just can’t cope with the facts.

Michael Brown ● 2396d

So, aka Michael Brown, it should be?

Claire Moran ● 2396d

Some Doctors have explained via alternative media that we need to get outside and fill our lungs with air to defeat and guard against viruses, but such Doctors are not allowed airtime on mainstream media. However, the non-lockdown countries continue to prove their claims to be true; however, we have chosen the ‘more deaths’ option and a path to social and economic destruction as described by Colin. Will they, ultimately, try and force vaccines upon us? If featured in the plans before the scam started, yes they will..

Michael Brown ● 2396d

The forecast of 60,000 deaths is by The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle reported in The Guardian. It is based on the current "shut down" policies.
The Director of the Institute has said:“Each nation’s trajectory will change – and dramatically for the worse – if people ease up on social distancing or relax other precautions.”
So we are sitting indoors, not to protect 60,000 but to protect the uncountable greater number than 60,000 that would happen if we don't sit indoors.
The 60,000 are already as good as lost is what this report is saying. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/07/uk-will-be-europes-worst-hit-by-coronavirus-study-predicts

Les Fletcher ● 2396d

"I make the point: Johnson didn't look like someone who had been at death's door". So far as I'm aware he was never intubated, which presumably he would have been if he were critically ill. 

Robert Fish ● 2396d

It feels strange with this lockdown that WHO called it a pandemic only a month ago. The WHO timeline here https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/08-04-2020-who-timeline---covid-19 You might like this SKY.AU special report

Julian Pavey ● 2396d

Indeed - to take issue with Colin Potter's original point, if we didn't have the shutdown, the health services would be overwhelmed and it's estimated we'd have about 250,000 deaths. That's nearly 200,000 more than predicted with the shutdown. So the shutdown is actually 'buying' about 200,000 lives, which is about a third as many again as normally die in the UK each year, which is a lot.  Some people might say 'they'd all die of something anyway', which is obviously true, but not within a period of a few months.

Peter Evans ● 2396d

A forecast is one thing, reality is another; and countries without lockdown are generally faring better than those with lockdown. If the weather forecast is for a bright sunny day but it pisses down all day, what does this say about the forecast?

Michael Brown ● 2396d

People tend to find what they are looking for. A few of you have commented about money, so I guess that is what you are worried about. I am concerned about the welfare of people, different people will have different concerns.Our actions have not given anyone immortality. They have saved lives, but at what cost, millions starving in the UK and around the world. As a society we have gained very little while losing much more.

Colin Potter ● 2396d

If ‘COVID-19’ really was going to cause the UK a major problem (and I’m not convinced it was) all was needed was a common-sense approach; so assuming the authorities believed that staying at home would be of benefit, then all that was needed was to advise the vulnerable to stay at home, and and warn everyone else of the dangers, so they too could stay home if they wished; and it should have been the choice of businesses to decide whether they remain open. If deaths increased, more people would likely have stayed at home if that’s what they thought would help protect them – a natural balance would have been found; but for the government to shut down businesses and lock everyone one up is incredibly unjustified and an assault on freedom and democracy – all choices taken away, with business owners having no say about the decision to destroy their livelihoods. All this, and then they say you can still go to the supermarket, off licence and DIY store, and catch your corona there. They don’t give a shit who gets corona – no more than they care about the elderly, nurses and the NHS.

Michael Brown ● 2396d

And that is the critical flaw in the OPs “thinking”. Indeed, the other flaw is that without a lockdown there would no or limited economic impact. Whereas it is certain that if we reached the 200,000+ deaths, and the most likely 2m+ infections that we would have a self isolating, ill in bed, terrified to go out informal lock down. Worse than that would be the escalation from panic buying to hoarding and looting. What after that?This lockdown is simply bringing forward the inevitable so it can be achieved in a managed and panic free way. The reason the government delayed a lockdown is that they could not see or where scared of this reality until it was (almost?) too late.

Alan Clark ● 2396d

"If the weather forecast is for a bright sunny day but it pisses down all day, what does this say about the forecast?"That Michael Fish is giving it ?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqs1YXfdtGE

Richard Greenhough ● 2396d

You say that countries that haven’t locked-down are generally faring better than those that have - which nations are you thinking off MB?

Kerry Chandler ● 2396d

Colin, it was worth it how could anyone think otherwise this virusKills people of all ages not just the elderly.

Janice Evans ● 2396d

There seems to be no respect for the elderly anymore, those who want them all to pop off, you do have parents yourselves and think about if it hit closer to home.

Janice Evans ● 2396d

'As a society we have gained very little while losing much more.'Really? What about a lot of humanity and humility?

Vanessa Smith ● 2396d

Janice,  we often have very different points of view on this forum, and you call me a troll simply because I challenge some of your views. However. I'm glad to be able to say I agree wholeheartedly with your last post.

Robert Fish ● 2396d

“You say that countries that haven’t locked-down are generally faring better than those that have - which nations are you thinking off MB?”Sweden, Iceland, Mexico, Belarus, S.Korea, Japan, Taiwan…

Michael Brown ● 2396d

Well japan and mexico are in lockdown i know that

Julian Pavey ● 2396d

Bernard started a thread about DNR, but linked it to the elderly. That is the reason they changed the law, should the hospitals become overwhelmed, when doctors are having to decide on a case by case basis at very short notice, there is no time for a second opinion or appeal. Of course the same as any law it is being abused. “These stories of disabled and older people being denied care have been emerging for weeks as the virus has struck hospitals around the world, but have generally failed to find attention outside the disability community until now.The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) was forced to make a U-turn last week on their advice for the NHS to deny disabled people treatment, but only after disability groups threatened legal action. Nice had told doctors they should assess patients with conditions such as learning disabilities and autism as scoring high for “frailty” - thereby meeting criteria to be refused treatment - based on the fact they need support with personal care in their day-to-day life.In a health crisis, it is not only the virus that risks infecting society, but our prejudices. It’s a slippery slope of ethical compromises in a culture and medical system that already struggles to support people with disabilities. Research shows that an estimated 1,200 people with a learning disability die avoidably every year due to poor care, while the terms “learning disabilities” or “Down’s syndrome” have been given as the reason for “Do not resuscitate” orders.”https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/09/nice-guidelines-coronavirus-pandemic-disabled

Colin Potter ● 2396d

And New Zealand seems to be doing well with a stricter lockdown than we have here.

Richard Greenhough ● 2396d

Take iceland not forgetting its makeup and population.As of today the number of severe cases and recovered says much more than just the idea of lockdown or not.Confirmed cases 1,711Cases imported  335 (known)Severe cases 28 (total ICU patients from beginning)Recovered 933Deaths          8

Julian Pavey ● 2396d

A lockdown may not adversely increase the spread or severity of ‘COVID-19’, but there is not one non-lockdown country in the world that has above average infection or death rates. That can’t be said of all countries under lockdown. Scaremongering predictions say one thing – facts thus far show otherwise.

Michael Brown ● 2396d

"when doctors are having to decide on a case by case basis at very short notice"It is not the medics who have put themselves in this invidious position, it's the politicians. There should be a member of government, or a Tory MP, or a councillor in every hospital, and they should be asked to make these terrible decisions.

Ken Munn ● 2396d

South Korea locked down very firmly.

Ken Munn ● 2396d

The guide is that Belarus president says Vodka and saunas can fight virus and the latest from the president is no-one will die from coronavirus in his country after finding a 'cure' Belarus and Nicaragua are the only two countries in the world playing football while all top flight football in Sweden is postponed Here is a good article about Belarushttps://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/12/opinions/vitali-shkliarov-belarus-covid-19-chernobyl/index.html

Julian Pavey ● 2396d

The OP asked a stupid question not worthy of debate.

Steve Taylor ● 2395d

Trouble is, the lockdown has created a degree of stir-craziness in the population, which may take some time to wear off. As an example, just look at the posting I am replying to.

Richard Greenhough ● 2395d

It is worthy of debate, Steve, because the UK government is itself debating the economic cost of lockdown vs the risk of increased deaths of lifting it, even gradually.  The usual suspects are pressuring ministers to get things back to normal as soon as possible.  You probably don't need me to tell you who they are.  And governments throughout the world are having exactly the same discussion.  As you will be aware, some European countries who have had terrible death figures are slowly lifting the lockdown.  Whether it is too early remains to be seen.

Claire Moran ● 2395d

But its also worth noting that lockdown means different things in different countries. In Spain, they closed whole factories. They have not done that in UK or France. And France's lockdown is more severe and more enforced than the UK lockdown. So relaxing lockdown in Spain may simply be to relax it to the level of UK or France, as opposed to stopping it completely.

Alan Clark ● 2395d

It wasn't a stupid question ... though I understand the number of people who are projected as dying prematurely as a result of Covid19 (without a lock down in place) is much, much higher than the 66000 that the OP mentioned.Personally, I feel the lock down is worth it, and from what I read the majority of the UK population also feel the same way at the moment.

Andrew Jones ● 2395d