Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[Teaboy]

Let’s meet back here in a month or so and see where we are. If deaths are above what would normally by associated with the approaching winter season I’ll admit I was wrong. When I’m right I’ll still be nice to youse

I hope with all my heart I’m right

You have come to some very solid conclusions and listed a load of reasons why. It has been explained to you that most (if not all) of your evidence and reasoning is demonstrably false. Its quite clear you have large gaps in your knowledge of what is going on. When this has been explained to you you've flat out ignored it. It would seem there is very little chance of you admitting you are / were wrong in the future.

 

[LDC]

I’m not playing a persecuted victim, don’t make things up. I’ve given my opinion and I hope it’s right.

Well, funnily enough there's these things called facts. Plenty of them from reputable sources can be found on here and elsewhere. And they make what you keep saying look like the nonsense it is. And yes, I am angry at you and people like you spouting your ill informed bollocks and beliefs as if they somehow rival what's actually happening and can be proved, and also causing confusion, sowing doubt, and ultimately actually causing more people to die than might otherwise.

 

[SlideshowBob]

Its the self-defeating prophecy shit loop all over again.

Eg as described by this article that I have posted before.

A strange paradox: the better we manage to contain the coronavirus pandemic, the less we will learn from it

The pitfalls of self-defeating prophecies.

theconversation.com

Remember thinking this back at the start. If we'd gone into full lockdown early and managed it remarkably well then you'd likely have had lots of people saying we'd gone too far, and there'd have been no alternative evidence to prove how bad things could have gotten.

 

[xenon]

Remember thinking this back at the start. If we'd gone into full lockdown early and managed it remarkably well then you'd likely have had lots of people saying we'd gone too far, and there'd have been no alternative evidence to prove how bad things could have gotten.

Y2K.

 

[elbows]

I know what I think. You seem to think that lockdown is more deadly than covid. I'm questioning you. So explain your reasoning.

There are expected to be a large number of indirect deaths in the pandemic, including a lot related to lockdown itself.

The problem with the logic of those who think thats a reason not to lockdown is that a large number of indirect deaths would also happen without a lockdown.

All the indirect deaths caused by an inability to access healthcare for other conditions are not avoided simply by avoiding lockdown. They will happen just the same when hospitals are overwhelmed by Covid, by staff absences, by people being too afraid to go to the medical settings where transmission risks are usually expected to be high during wave peaks.

Likewise long-term deaths due to economic problems. A lot of the economic devestation was going to happen in this pandemic with or without lockdown. For much the same reasons of customer fear, staffing issues, things grinding to a halt.

Even no lockdown at all still ends up with a kind of informal halting of normal human activities if the pandemic is bad enough. And this pandemic is bad enough, and there is no dodging it, no matter what tricks people try.

 

[mauvais]

What is it people will be dying of because of lockdown?

By default, lockdown and its consequences probably will kill people, just as a decade of austerity has killed people. But it's mostly a free political choice as to how many.

 

[LDC]

There are expected to be a large number of indirect deaths in the pandemic, including a lot related to lockdown itself.

The problem with the logic of those who think thats a reason not to lockdown is that a large number of indirect deaths would also happen without a lockdown.

All the indirect deaths caused by an inability to access healthcare for other conditions are not avoided simply by avoiding lockdown. They will happen just the same when hospitals are overwhelmed by Covid, by staff absences, by people being too afraid to go to the medical settings where transmission risks are usually expected to be high during wave peaks.

Likewise long-term deaths due to economic problems. A lot of the economic devestation was going to happen in this pandemic with or without lockdown. For much the same reasons of customer fear, staffing issues, things grinding to a halt.

Even no lockdown at all still ends up with a kind of informal halting of normal human activities if the pandemic is bad enough. And this pandemic is bad enough, and there is no dodging it, no matter what tricks people try.

Ace post, cheers. People totally forget that without a lockdown they'd be excess non-covid deaths as well. Quite possibly more.

 

[elbows]

Im running out of steam for today (good thing too) but I saw that people were interested in the indirect death numbers earlier.

There have been some estimates and I started my nerdy thread with a post about some estimates of those, though I have nothing global, its all focussed on this country:

#1

There is all sorts of interesting detail in there Including that under one of their estimated scenarios the initial and short-term impacts of lockdown are actually thought to lead to less non-covid deaths than normal. A picture which eventually goes in the other direction, but in the meantime is still worth thinking very carefully about.

For example, they talk about past evidence of how the short-term effects of recession is an initial decrease in the number of deaths. Its the long-term stuff where the deaths go up instead of down.

Also includes an estimate of nearly 3000 less people than normal dying from causes relating to air pollution during a 2 month lockdown! We really must take something from this picture when we get beyond this pandemic.

 

[frogwoman]

Cancelled operations, not being able to see a doctor/being scared to seek medical care because the hospitals are so full of covid etc

 

[Mr Retro]

Sweden has more single occupancy houses and less population. As a proportion of the population the death rate is only a fraction less than ours

COVID-19 Data Explorer

Explore global data on COVID-19.

ourworldindata.org

Uk has 620 deaths per million. Sweden has 580

View attachment 231245

Sweden was modelled taking its demographic into account. Without lockdown and with its demographic Sweden was predicted to have 100,000 deaths or even more. It had less than 7,000.

Comparing it to its neighbours Is irrelevant. The models were crazily wrong and by a massive factor.

My

 

[teuchter]

Sweden was modelled taking its demographic into account. Without lockdown and with its demographic Sweden was predicted to have 100,000 deaths or even more. It had less than 7,000.

Comparing it to its neighbours Is irrelevant. The models were crazily wrong and by a massive factor.

My

Was that model assuming the measures that Sweden did impose (which were rather closer to our "lockdown" than many people seem to think), or was it assuming no measures at all?

 

[frogwoman]

Thousands of (non-covid) appointments and operations in Sweden were cancelled. And the same issues with isolation and mental health issues among older and more vulnerable people also happened there

 

[LDC]

Sweden was modelled taking its demographic into account. Without lockdown and with its demographic Sweden was predicted to have 100,000 deaths or even more. It had less than 7,000.

Comparing it to its neighbours Is irrelevant. The models were crazily wrong and by a massive factor.

My

So most figures have the UK at about 42,000 (ish) deaths of Covid so far. (Other data has us at quite a bit more btw).

1) What number of deaths do you think the UK would have had with no lockdown in the last months?
2) What do you think the number of deaths from covid might be if the UK does nothing for the next six months?

Genuinely interested to get straight answers and your fact based proof please.

 

[SlideshowBob]

Sweden was modelled taking its demographic into account. Without lockdown and with its demographic Sweden was predicted to have 100,000 deaths or even more. It had less than 7,000.

Comparing it to its neighbours Is irrelevant. The models were crazily wrong and by a massive factor.

My

It's clearly relevant to compare Sweden to its neighbours when it had a far higher number of deaths than them. That's an indication their policy didn't work from a health POV.

 

[Mr Retro]

What is it people will be dying of because of lockdown?

If you don’t think the secondary effects of wrecking the economy won’t kill more people over the next several years than the virus will I can’t help you.

Apart from the cancer deaths because of all the people who missed scans, suicides die to loneliness, alcoholism. That doesn’t even take into account domestic violence, depression and other mental health issues.

 

[SlideshowBob]

If you don’t think the secondary effects of wrecking the economy won’t kill more people over the next several years than the virus will I can’t help you.

Apart from the cancer deaths because of all the people who missed scans, suicides die to loneliness, alcoholism. That doesn’t even take into account domestic violence, depression and other mental health issues.

The government can choose to manage these things by pursuing economic models that can sustain themselves during a public health crisis, and by putting adequate mental health provisions in place to support people who are going to struggle. If they refuse to do that then it's their fault, not the fault of people arguing in favour of public safety.

 

[Roadkill]

Likewise long-term deaths due to economic problems. A lot of the economic devestation was going to happen in this pandemic with or without lockdown. For much the same reasons of customer fear, staffing issues, things grinding to a halt.

I may be misremembering this, but wasn't there an estimate bandied around early in the year that an uncontrolled pandemic could have put a fifth of the workforce off sick at any one time? That'd have had some effect!

 

[killer b]

yeah, fuck the economy. it was already wrecked.

 

[frogwoman]

The cancelled appointments are still going to be an issue with or without a lockdown tbh. In Israel (which has just gone back to lockdown) hospitals have been turning away patients because they are so full of covid

 

[Mr Retro]

Was that model assuming the measures that Sweden did impose (which were rather closer to our "lockdown" than many people seem to think), or was it assuming no measures at all?

I’ll find the link on my PC tomorrow and post it. I can’t remember the site I read it in right now. I need to look at my history.

 

[SlideshowBob]

I may be misremembering this, but wasn't there an estimate bandied around early in the year that an uncontrolled pandemic could have put a fifth of the workforce off sick at any one time? That'd have had some effect!

Would seem about right - there's no evidence the virus stops spreading as it infects more people, the rates just keep on doubling unless you do something to address the issue for the most part. And it's not generally just a few days you're ill for, can floor people for a good while.

 

[Mr Retro]

It's clearly relevant to compare Sweden to its neighbours when it had a far higher number of deaths than them. That's an indication their policy didn't work from a health POV.

No it isn’t for the point I’m making. They were told if they didn’t lock down hard they would have 100,000+ deaths. They didn’t lockdown and they had about 7,000 What there neighbours did it totally irrelevant to that point.

 

[frogwoman]

Also if the death rate is 0.6 to 1%, then a medium sized business of 200 employees catching it with 1 or 2 people dying, 10 in hospital and another 30 or so laid up in bed for weeks on end, with maybe 15 or so ill for months, is not going to do wonders for productivity

 

[Raheem]

No it isn’t for the point I’m making. They were told if they didn’t lock down hard they would have 100,000+ deaths. They didn’t lockdown and they had about 7,000 What there neighbours did it totally irrelevant to that point.

Who were they told that by and why did they ignore it?

 

[SlideshowBob]

No it isn’t for the point I’m making. They were told if they didn’t lock down hard they would have 100,000+ deaths. They didn’t lockdown and they had about 7,000 What there neighbours did it totally irrelevant to that point.

Okay, but a lot of people still died. The fact there were overestimates is sort of besides the point.

And anyway, I'd imagine the overestimates would've been predicated on nothing shutting down at all in Sweden. But that wasn't what happened. Despite government policy plenty of people still went into voluntary lockdown, businesses were quieter than usual, and international travel etc all stopped. It's not as if Sweden escaped the affects of Covid by not fully locking down.

 

[frogwoman]

It's not great when you've been ignoring my replies to your posts tbh. Like what's wrong with face masks?

 

[killer b]

yeah, we need to know what the issue is with facemasks Mr Retro

 

[SlideshowBob]

Face masks take away our freedom. Next the government will be saying that we can't drive drunk, or that we're not allowed to own pet leopards. Slippery slope.

 

[frogwoman]

In Sweden they estimate only a maximum of 20 or 30 percent of people have had it.

 

[elbows]

Another demonstration regarding pressures that dont go away even if you dodge lockdown.

NHS England number of staff absent due to Covid-19, either because of illness or self-isolation.

Graphed using a very large set of data available at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

I dont know the exact details about the August dropoff, whether its a reporting methodology change or whether a load of hospitals arent included in the later data. Could be another variation of the 28 days change for all I know.