Lockdowns

[Joe Reacher]

544,000 Covid 19 recorded cases in the UK.
42515 Covid 19 recorded deaths in the UK
309 Covid 19 recorded deaths in the UK of Under 60 with no prior exisiting health condition.
So if you are under 60 and healthy the recorded death rate is 0.007%

66,000,000 population the UK.
54,000,000 Under 60 population in the UK.

Current UK unemployment rate is 4.7%.. This is expected to rise sharply following the end of the furlough scheme and the closing of all the pubs, bars, restaurants and hospitality outlets that predominantly emply younger people. The rate could go as high as 12.5% unemployed for the younger generation.

If you are healthy and under 60 you have a 1 in 180,000 chance of dying from Covid 19. Yet you have a 1 in 8 chance of losing your job, your income, your house.

Are the lockdown restrictions fair and justified?

 

[Ben]

Another critical front page of the lockdown measures in the Daily Mail tomorrow. They’ve reported on a study which has found that Covid rules may actually increase deaths and that tighter measures have not helped in 19 of 20 northern towns.
It then runs with a screaming front page headline ‘So when will they listen?’, calling for a change of approach with a photo of Boris, Whitty and Vallance underneath. And before someone says it’s just the Daily Mail, the Mirror and Metro have also run critical front pages questioning local lockdowns and asking why they’re failing.
The pressure needs to be kept up so the government change course on this.

 

[Knutsfordian]

544,000 Covid 19 recorded cases in the UK.
42515 Covid 19 recorded deaths in the UK
309 Covid 19 recorded deaths in the UK of Under 60 with no prior exisiting health condition.
So if you are under 60 and healthy the recorded death rate is 0.007%

66,000,000 population the UK.
54,000,000 Under 60 population in the UK.

Current UK unemployment rate is 4.7%.. This is expected to rise sharply following the end of the furlough scheme and the closing of all the pubs, bars, restaurants and hospitality outlets that predominantly emply younger people. The rate could go as high as 12.5% unemployed for the younger generation.

If you are healthy and under 60 you have a 1 in 180,000 chance of dying from Covid 19. Yet you have a 1 in 8 chance of losing your job, your income, your house.

Are the lockdown restrictions fair and justified?

The ONS have estimated that somewhere between 0.8 - 1,0 % of people are showing signs of Covid antibodies - which suggest that between 5 and 6 Million people in this country have already had Covid. Some 10 times greater than the official stats.

What I am sick to death of is the Piers Morgan and Kevin Mcguires of this world who relentlessly hammered the government for not going into lockdown soon enough but are now whinging endlessly about the new lock down measures.

Are they fair ? I don't think there is ever fairness in these instances. The media made it all about death rates in the spring and now this is the consequence. I really worry for young families with big mortgages and the impact of redundancy. Like many others I have been there too and it's not pleasant to say the least. But when you have had people like GMB screaming abuse at government ministers to the point where they won't appear on the programme, they are not going to put their heads above the parapet and take risks. Trump is getting the same level of abuse in America for not doing enough. We can't have it both ways

There needs to be a proper grown up discussion across parties so that everyone signs up to the solution and the outcomes

 

[Andy]

We do need a grown up discussion, the country isn’t capable of it.

If you’re sceptical of whether lockdowns work, or concerned about the long term impact being worse than the virus, you’re labelled as “self centred people who don’t give a s**t” or “grade A prize t**t” to take a quote from social media.

I think that’s a product of the Hysterical Media. Fear sells, they don’t care how disconnected from reality it is.

 

[Andy]

Interesting Story in the Telegraph today, saying that:

- Keeping children out of classrooms is predicted to increase deaths by between 80,000 and 95,000.

- Social distancing of everyone, not just the over 70s, could cost between 149,000 and 178,000 lives.

 

[James Wood]

Another critical front page of the lockdown measures in the Daily Mail tomorrow. They’ve reported on a study which has found that Covid rules may actually increase deaths and that tighter measures have not helped in 19 of 20 northern towns.
It then runs with a screaming front page headline ‘So when will they listen?’, calling for a change of approach with a photo of Boris, Whitty and Vallance underneath. And before someone says it’s just the Daily Mail, the Mirror and Metro have also run critical front pages questioning local lockdowns and asking why they’re failing.
The pressure needs to be kept up so the government change course on this.

I think I’d rather trust the BBC rather than that right wing rag. This article would appear to contradict your view Ben. The lockdowns have also worked in Leicester and Luton

Local lockdown UK: Do city-wide curbs work? It's not clear

One in four people in the UK is currently subject to local interventions to prevent the spread of Covid.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[James Wood]

We do need a grown up discussion, the country isn’t capable of it.

If you’re sceptical of whether lockdowns work, or concerned about the long term impact being worse than the virus, you’re labelled as “self centred people who don’t give a s**t” or “grade A prize t**t” to take a quote from social media.

I think that’s a product of the Hysterical Media. Fear sells, they don’t care how disconnected from reality it is.

The evidence is that lock downs work. End of.

Local lockdown UK: Do city-wide curbs work? It's not clear

One in four people in the UK is currently subject to local interventions to prevent the spread of Covid.

www.bbc.co.uk

I am at heart a libertarian, but In unprecedented times such as these we all have to make sacrifices. Would you rather we go back to the situation we had in March and April when the NHS was over-run and which has now resulted in a huge backlog in the treatment of other medical conditions? The end result would be that this situation would be exacerbated massively.

 

[James Wood]

The worlds come to a standstill based on the predictions of Neil Frguson.

He has a history of being catastrophically wrong.

“So the real scandal is: Why did anyone ever listen to this guy?” « Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu

He should be on trail for what he’s done to this country

I think that there are plenty other people that should be ahead of Prof Ferguson in the queue for being held to account for what they have done to this country

 

[James Wood]

The tide is slowly changing. The Daily Mail have a front page today with a story about 4,000 medical experts and doctors calling for life to return to normal for everyone with the exception of some elderly and vulnerable people. They have called for these groups to be protected while everyone else builds up herd immunity. Good to see some critical media coverage of lockdowns, there has been far too little of that.

Ah, the Daily Mail. That well known bastion of fair, balanced and unbiased reporting!

 

[James Wood]

Knutsfordian raises a good point.

What is the alternative to Excel? The program already exists, so it’s far quicker than developing a new program. But also it’s software package that has a large pool of experienced and qualified users for the government to tap in to to use.

Its not perfect, but perfection takes a lot of time.

This is the product of civil servants working as fast as they could in less than ideal conditions at home.

Anyone with even the most minimal knowledge of IT systems such as me know that MS Access would have been far more suitable for this task than Excel. We are paying Serco £Ms to set up and manage this system so one might have expected that one of the reasons they were given the contract was because of their knowledge and experience in setting up and running such systems. Alas, what we have got is something that is far from ‘World Beating’ and is based on an outmoded version of MS Excel.
Now that you couldn’t make up...

 

[Andy]

The NHS was never over run and Nightingale hospitals stood empty.

Scotland locked down longer, care out of lockdown slower and is the worst off nation in the union.

Greater Manchester has been under tighter restrictions for months, yet cases are climbing.

The inconvenient truth for many is Sweden is looking very good indeed. Stockholm and Manchester are similar sized cities, and both have a population density of about 12,000 per square mile. Stockholm protected the old, rather than a full lockdown, they’ve faired far better than Manchester.

There is no evidence lock downs work. End of.

 

[James Wood]

Totally missed my point Edge.

My point was the track and trace system was the result of civil servants working round the clock. It’s easy to snipe their efforts

So exactly what are we paying Serco to do then?

 

[Andy]

Ah, the Daily Mail. That well known bastion of fair, balanced and unbiased reporting!

Bit rich coming from someone that just posted a BBC article ?

 

[James Wood]

The NHS was never over run and Nightingale hospitals stood empty.

Scotland locked down longer, care out of lockdown slower and is the worst off nation in the union.

Greater Manchester has been under tighter restrictions for months, yet cases are climbing.

The inconvenient truth for many is Sweden is looking very good indeed. Stockholm and Manchester are similar sized cities, and both have a population density of about 12,000 per square mile. Stockholm protected the old, rather than a full lockdown, they’ve faired far better than Manchester.

There is no evidence lock downs work. End of.

So what happened in the U.K. when we went into lockdown? Cases, hospitalisations and deaths plummeted. Ditto in Leicester and Oldham. Have you read the BBC article I posted? Yes, different results in different areas but overall wherever tighter restrictions are applied cases fall. End of

 

[James Wood]

Bit rich coming from someone that just posted a BBC article ?

The BBC is not the Daily Mail (well not yet thankfully!) Whatever you may think about their stance on some matters this is a purely factual article.

 

[Edge]

The problem that I see is that these aren't true lockdowns.
A full lockdown works - we saw that months ago.

What we have now is just a muddle that isn't really helping the economy or restricting Covid.
Is is possible a 2 week full lockdown is a better solution that what we have now? I have no idea.

 

[Andy]

So what happened in the U.K. when we went into lockdown? Cases, hospitalisations and deaths plummeted. Ditto in Leicester and Oldham. Have you read the BBC article I posted? Yes, different results in different areas but overall wherever tighter restrictions are applied cases fall. End of

James, take a moment to listen and read in to what people are saying.

The argument is against total lockdowns. O course locking people away will delay the spread. But you can’t do it forever. It causes more damage in the long run to the economy, which in turn in the long run will effect people’s physical and mental health.

To under 48 year olds, seasonal flu is more deadly. These people do not need to be under house arrest. These people should be locked in their homes watching their future be destroyed in front of their eyes.

If you protect the vulnerable, allow those not at risk to go about their business. Building up heard immunity in those not at risk will protect and help prevent the spread to vulnerable people.

Look at Universities, here and across the pond. All testing positive, very few actually showing symptoms. This is good, they’re there surrounded by other young people who aren’t at risk, and now when they go home in 2 months at Christmas, they have that immunity and won’t give elderly relatives the virus.


Take a look at London. Cases don’t seem to be rising rapidly there. Maybe they’ve reached a certain level of immunity, that the North didn’t in the spring?

Top professor explains how close London could be to coronavirus herd immunity

An Oxford University study suggested herd immunity could require only 20 per cent of people to be infected, but he doesn't agree

www.mylondon.news

 

[Ben]

I think I’d rather trust the BBC rather than that right wing rag. This article would appear to contradict your view Ben. The lockdowns have also worked in Leicester and Luton

Local lockdown UK: Do city-wide curbs work? It's not clear

One in four people in the UK is currently subject to local interventions to prevent the spread of Covid.

www.bbc.co.uk

Not just the Daily Mail, it’s been widely reported. The front pages of the Metro and Mirror have also run front pages questioning local lockdowns. Keir Starmer quoted this on PMQs that 19 out of 20 local lockdowns in northern towns failed with rising cases... Appreciate I’m having the same discussion with you on Twitter ?!

 

[Ben]

The problem that I see is that these aren't true lockdowns.
A full lockdown works - we saw that months ago.

What we have now is just a muddle that isn't really helping the economy or restricting Covid.
Is is possible a 2 week full lockdown is a better solution that what we have now? I have no idea.

I believe all that and all lockdowns do is delay the spread of the virus and the moment you open up, cases rise again. All lockdowns are achieving is delaying the inevitable and actually prolonging the virus and stopping the process of herd immunity which is the only way out of this.
Lockdowns therefore aren’t worth it and all for the sake of crashing the economy and people’s jobs and the social fabric of this country, not to mention the many health problems and extra deaths which come from them.
As I’ve argued before, sometimes the ‘cure’ is worse than the actual virus itself. I think we’ve come to that crossroads. Semi-lockdowns don’t work as we’ve seen. Our options are lock down fully for months until a vaccine comes along (not practical or proportionate to the threat of the virus) or open up and protect the elderly and vulnerable and let everyone else get on with their lives. Opening up and getting on with things is the only option for me.

 

[Andy]

Further to what Ben said, evidence suggests that not only to lockdowns just delay herd immunity, but actually are leaving vulnerable more open to the virus.