Coronavirus Thread

[Trav Le Bleu]

House arrest 

[leicsmac]

10 minutes ago, Paninistickers said:

I don't think the discussion is just a financial cost)benefit analysis...though that's part of it (just as the NHS won't fund, say, certain cancer treatments on the basis of cost) 

 

The equation that needs reviewing was the decision to place 60 million under house arrest for months saved how many patients? How many of those 60 million died of something else because of house arrest? How many elderly would've died anyway?

And again while that's "practical" it's still not a discussion any person with a proper moral compass should be looking to have (rather, improving the system so that such decisions are reduced to a minimum)

 

and

 

as long as it saved more lives and preserved than it took, it should again be a short discussion. Of course, it's difficult to ascertain that to any level of accuracy because there's no control group that will control for the amount of variables that existed, so speaking personally I'm OK with the more cautious route chosen when what you're dealing with is a force of nature that cannot be bribed, intimidated or negotiated with.

 

Edit: I see similar arguments made regarding short-term self-interest and "personal freedom" in the climate change discussions, too. They're equally flawed there as they are here when it's obvious that "natural" consequences such as viruses or increased incidences of flooding, drought and famine, even when contributed to by human events, don't care about such discussions and will happily kill, maim and render homeless as they see fit. I honestly do not get why some folks will not choose to fight such things using whatever means we have at our disposal, in the name of some incredibly nebulous concepts that are meaningless in the face of those consequences.

Edited 21 November 2023 by leicsmac

[Paninistickers]

19 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

House arrest 

What would you call it then mate? 

 

If it quacks, walks, looks like a duck etc

[HighPeakFox]

Words are failing me very badly over this. 

[The Year Of The Fox]

1 hour ago, HighPeakFox said:

Words are failing me very badly over this. 

Edited 21 November 2023 by The Year Of The Fox

[Paninistickers]

20 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

personal freedom" in the climate change discussions, too. They're equally flawed

Quite a tangent you've gone off on there. Fwiw, I ain't a 'personal freedom' looney. Climate change for me is a real world threat. Far far more than what was imo, the sniffles for 99.5% of people. 

 

COVID measures will I'm sure go down in history as an extraordinary overreaction. 

[Dunge]

Like it or not, you have to make these decisions when in power.

 

Example: If you could save the life of one unknown 70-year-old but doing so would wipe £1bn off the economy, would you do it?

And once you’ve decided No and accepted the concept, what number is reasonable?

 

It’s also worth noting that asking/telling people to give up their freedoms was a massive thing, particularly at the time. We’d never done anything like that before in peacetime. I remember when I first saw the Chinese lockdowns, I thought: What on Earth is going to happen if they try to implement that here? As it happened, the vast majority abided and stuck to it. But this wasn’t a small ask and neither should it be considered as such.

 

It’s pretty much a given now that the prospect of letting people die and letting Covid run through was discussed at the top level. Honestly, that’s what government should be. It’s their job to consider all the options. Whatever was actually said, the fact remains that we ended up with lockdowns. That was what was decided in the end. Should they have done things differently from the beginning? Certainly. Was lockdown the right thing? On balance it looks like it was, although it’s not without its negatives. But these accusations of “how could they even suggest letting people die” miss the point to me.

[leicsmac]

14 minutes ago, Paninistickers said:

Quite a tangent you've gone off on there. Fwiw, I ain't a 'personal freedom' looney. Climate change for me is a real world threat. Far far more than what was imo, the sniffles for 99.5% of people. 

 

COVID measures will I'm sure go down in history as an extraordinary overreaction. 

Both situations involve a total lack of consideration of a proven natural threat that can, did and does take lives and livelihoods, which it why I made the equivalence.

 

Kudos for acknowledging the threat that climate change represents, but quite frankly in my own experience there is a large overlap between those who treat one and the other with nowhere near the seriousness they require. And that line of thinking becoming popular enough to set policy leads nowhere good.

 

4 minutes ago, Dunge said:

Like it or not, you have to make these decisions when in power.

 

Example: If you could save the life of one unknown 70-year-old but doing so would wipe £1bn off the economy, would you do it?

And once you’ve decided No and accepted the concept, what number is reasonable?

 

It’s also worth noting that asking/telling people to give up their freedoms was a massive thing, particularly at the time. We’d never done anything like that before in peacetime. I remember when I first saw the Chinese lockdowns, I thought: What on Earth is going to happen if they try to implement that here? As it happened, the vast majority abided and stuck to it. But this wasn’t a small ask and neither should it be considered as such.

 

It’s pretty much a given now that the prospect of letting people die and letting Covid run through was discussed at the top level. Honestly, that’s what government should be. It’s their job to consider all the options. Whatever was actually said, the fact remains that we ended up with lockdowns. That was what was decided in the end. Should they have done things differently from the beginning? Certainly. Was lockdown the right thing? On balance it looks like it was, although it’s not without its negatives. But these accusations of “how could they even suggest letting people die” miss the point to me.

Yeah, of course it needed to be discussed. But again, it needn't be a particularly long discussion and one with an obvious conclusion to anyone with any kind of moral compass - which really should be expected of those in leadership positions.

[Paninistickers]

Of course, it's not clear to me how many people actually died of covid in the UK.

 

Dying with it, I accept the 250k number (or whatever it was)....but dying of it? Hmmmm. 

 

Will the inquiry look at the number count method?

 

 

[dsr-burnley]

10 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Both situations involve a total lack of consideration of a proven natural threat that can, did and does take lives and livelihoods, which it why I made the equivalence.

 

Kudos for acknowledging the threat that climate change represents, but quite frankly in my own experience there is a large overlap between those who treat one and the other with nowhere near the seriousness they require. And that line of thinking becoming popular enough to set policy leads nowhere good.

 

Yeah, of course it needed to be discussed. But again, it needn't be a particularly long discussion and one with an obvious conclusion to anyone with any kind of moral compass - which really should be expected of those in leadership positions.

But the moral compass needs to take account of the number of deaths caused by lockdown as well as the number of deaths saved.

 

And even if the lockdown saves more than it costs, you need to take into account the quality of the lives saved.  If you could save the lives of three old people with dementia at the cost of two young people with cancer, would you?  Should you?  One thing that medical care indisputably does, in cases of expensive or scarce resources eg, transplants, is to prioritise the lives of the young ahead of those of the old.  Should it?  Should it have done in this case?

 

Big questions for the enquiry to answer.  I hope they're going to try.

 

As for the report by Cummings about what Sunak may have said, take that with a very large pinch of salt.  Cummings is not a reliable witness, and even if we allow that he is telling the truth, in informal discussion he may have been hyperbolic for effect rather than strictly accurate.  The questions about whether we let covid sufferers die in greater numbers because of the all-round impact on everyone, is one that had to be asked and thoroughly discussed.  The object of "we won't let anyone die" was unattainable; they were (or should have been) pursuing the best possible result, not the impossible perfect result.

[leicsmac]

14 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

But the moral compass needs to take account of the number of deaths caused by lockdown as well as the number of deaths saved.

 

And even if the lockdown saves more than it costs, you need to take into account the quality of the lives saved.  If you could save the lives of three old people with dementia at the cost of two young people with cancer, would you?  Should you?  One thing that medical care indisputably does, in cases of expensive or scarce resources eg, transplants, is to prioritise the lives of the young ahead of those of the old.  Should it?  Should it have done in this case?

 

Big questions for the enquiry to answer.  I hope they're going to try.

 

As for the report by Cummings about what Sunak may have said, take that with a very large pinch of salt.  Cummings is not a reliable witness, and even if we allow that he is telling the truth, in informal discussion he may have been hyperbolic for effect rather than strictly accurate.  The questions about whether we let covid sufferers die in greater numbers because of the all-round impact on everyone, is one that had to be asked and thoroughly discussed.  The object of "we won't let anyone die" was unattainable; they were (or should have been) pursuing the best possible result, not the impossible perfect result.

Quite, which as per above is going to be difficult to ascertain because we can't run the "experiment" again.

 

I reckon the bolded second paragraph here is something of a false dichotomy because it at least should have been possible to preserve the lives of those older people while maintaining quality of life for the younger.

 

NB. I'm with you in that Cummings is a proper reptile (and perhaps that's an insult to the reptilian population), but what he has said about the discussion, at least, doesn't surprise me.

 

 

[fox_up_north]

I think, regarding the disputed numbers, there's a tendency to see illnesses as islands. Although it may not have been Covid which delivered the final blow, it may have been the major contributing factor to their death. 

 

How often did we see people with AIDs die of pneumonia or similar? Can we really attribute all of it to pneumonia? 

[dsr-burnley]

22 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

I reckon the bolded second paragraph here is something of a false dichotomy because it at least should have been possible to preserve the lives of those older people while maintaining quality of life for the younger.

 

It wasn't possible to do both, or even to do either.  Old people were going to die no matter what we did, but there were things that we could do to reduce deaths.  Younger people were going to suffer no matter what, but there were things we could do to mitigate that as well.  The issue was how best to compromise to give each party (so to speak) the best outcome without unduly damaging the other.

 

Old people, ironically, were the ones who suffered most from lockdown - especially the survivors among care homes.  The effect on a person with dementia who was not allowed to see loved ones (except - perhaps - through a closed window) was bound to be awful.  Even for the non-dementia old, the effect of being banned from seeing friends and relatives had a definite debilitating effect.  All things the enquiry needs to consider, and politicians at the time should have been considering.  The language they used in asking the questions may have been inappropriate (it was supposedly in private discussion, but they probably should have had an eye to future disclosure), but the questions needed to be asked.

[leicsmac]

24 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

It wasn't possible to do both, or even to do either.  Old people were going to die no matter what we did, but there were things that we could do to reduce deaths.  Younger people were going to suffer no matter what, but there were things we could do to mitigate that as well.  The issue was how best to compromise to give each party (so to speak) the best outcome without unduly damaging the other.

 

Old people, ironically, were the ones who suffered most from lockdown - especially the survivors among care homes.  The effect on a person with dementia who was not allowed to see loved ones (except - perhaps - through a closed window) was bound to be awful.  Even for the non-dementia old, the effect of being banned from seeing friends and relatives had a definite debilitating effect.  All things the enquiry needs to consider, and politicians at the time should have been considering.  The language they used in asking the questions may have been inappropriate (it was supposedly in private discussion, but they probably should have had an eye to future disclosure), but the questions needed to be asked.

I guess this all comes down again to something we've talked about before - what the worst case scenario for a human being really is. Now, I would insist on it being death/cessation of existence, but I can see why people might think differently and allow that to drive their view on this particular matter.

[Paninistickers]

39 minutes ago, fox_up_north said:

I think, regarding the disputed numbers, there's a tendency to see illnesses as islands. Although it may not have been Covid which delivered the final blow, it may have been the major contributing factor to their death. 

 

How often did we see people with AIDs die of pneumonia or similar? Can we really attribute all of it to pneumonia? 

I happily stand corrected on this, but don't death certificates refer to that?.

 

The counting procedure for Covid meant that you could die of head injuries in a car accident and it still counted as a COVID death if you'd had it in the last 30 days

[Trav Le Bleu]

2 hours ago, Paninistickers said:

What would you call it then mate? 

 

If it quacks, walks, looks like a duck etc

No idea, I was a frontline worker. You?

[Trav Le Bleu]

2 hours ago, Paninistickers said:

Quite a tangent you've gone off on there. Fwiw, I ain't a 'personal freedom' looney. Climate change for me is a real world threat. Far far more than what was imo, the sniffles for 99.5% of people. 

 

COVID measures will I'm sure go down in history as an extraordinary overreaction. 

From what has been said by Chris Whitty today, who knows more about this than anyone on here I'm sure, it seems that there was a remarkable underreaction.

 

Edited 21 November 2023 by Trav Le Bleu

[Paninistickers]

4 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

No idea, I was a frontline worker. You?

I was stuck at home under house arrest , illegally seeing family and friends and doing Zoom quizzes

[grobyfox1990]

The covid inquiry is as expected hilarious, everyone running to cover their own hinds and blame it on everyone else, whilst at the time happy to take the credit.

 

Also makes me chuckle when I head people saying 'I got covid for the first time!!!'...in 2023... We know how ferociously the virus spread, we know how high the R rate was, we know we locked down too late. Surely we know we have ALL had covid at some point. A cheap bit of Chinese plastic doesn't need to point out the bleeding obvious to you. People still relying on tests is very scary, if you fell ill, take precautions for goodness sake. Don't let Tangjin Inc's leftover plastic stock sway your decisions, use your brain

[Trav Le Bleu]

1 minute ago, Paninistickers said:

I was stuck at home under house arrest , illegally seeing family and friends and doing Zoom quizzes

You do understand what house arrest is don't you?

[dsr-burnley]

20 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

I guess this all comes down again to something we've talked about before - what the worst case scenario for a human being really is. Now, I would insist on it being death/cessation of existence, but I can see why people might think differently and allow that to drive their view on this particular matter.

I don't disagree.  (Though in many cases death, eventually, comes as a blessing.  But that's a bit of a technicality because part of the process of dying is the often-long slide to get there.  The worst case scenario is when the pathway to death starts, or at least becomes so bad as to make death better than life.)

 

The point about government is that they have to try and decide on the best case scenario for 67 million people, not just one.  They have to decide what is best, taking gains and losses into account, what is the best for people in general.  It is inevitable that as a result of their decisions, some people will die who would not have died if they had made a different decision.  

[Zear0]

9 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

I don't disagree.  (Though in many cases death, eventually, comes as a blessing.  But that's a bit of a technicality because part of the process of dying is the often-long slide to get there.  The worst case scenario is when the pathway to death starts, or at least becomes so bad as to make death better than life.)

 

The point about government is that they have to try and decide on the best case scenario for 67 million people, not just one.  They have to decide what is best, taking gains and losses into account, what is the best for people in general.  It is inevitable that as a result of their decisions, some people will die who would not have died if they had made a different decision.  

This government..?

[Guest Sideshow Faes]

3 hours ago, Paninistickers said:

I don't think the discussion is just a financial cost)benefit analysis...though that's part of it (just as the NHS won't fund, say, certain cancer treatments on the basis of cost) 

 

The equation that needs reviewing was the decision to place 60 million under house arrest for months saved how many patients? How many of those 60 million died of something else because of house arrest? How many elderly would've died anyway?

If lockdown had been earlier it would also have been shorter.

 

The second lockdown clearly should also have happened when calls were made for a circuit breaker which Boris resisted. And instead weeks later we end up in months of lockdown again. 

[Guest Sideshow Faes]

37 minutes ago, Paninistickers said:

I happily stand corrected on this, but don't death certificates refer to that?.

 

The counting procedure for Covid meant that you could die of head injuries in a car accident and it still counted as a COVID death if you'd had it in the last 30 days

This is rubbish.

And the stats changed after the headlines went away so they are based solely on death certs now, so COVID was directly either primary or secondary cause of death in the figures that exist now 

[Paninistickers]

12 minutes ago, Sideshow Faes said:

This is rubbish.

And the stats changed after the headlines went away so they are based solely on death certs now, so COVID was directly either primary or secondary cause of death in the figures that exist now 

Thanks. As is aid, was happy to be corrected on that. 

 

The media however ALWAYS reported the figures as deaths who had had COVID in the last 30 days