cdd wrote: Wed 17 Feb, 2021 16.58
I think it’s obvious that we had to be in lockdown while there were 1000+ deaths per day. Even if lockdowns didn’t reduce it by much it would be unthinkable to add to that figure.
I wouldn't say that is obvious actually. Some restrictions yes (Hands, Face, Space, rule of 6, limits on household mixing etc) but they should always have stopped short of lockdowns and closing the economy. Until lockdowns are ruled out, irrespective of what happens, we will never get out of them. Even if they succeed in getting cases down to tiny numbers (maybe even achieving days with no new cases) all that will then follow is the ceiling for what constitutes a spike or a major outbreak is lowered and suddenly lockdowns are called over tiny numbers of new cases because the expectation will be for there to be none (see Australia and New Zealand). They must be made unacceptable in Western countries in order to end them. Otherwise next thing you know lockdowns will spread beyond Covid and be imposed in cases where a year ago it wouldn't even have entered anyone's minds to suggest it.
I am fully reconciled to the fact that if we didn't do 2nd and 3rd lockdowns we would have a significantly more horrific death toll by now and the NHS would have been pushed past breaking point, but the question is not whether that is acceptable (of course it's not) it is whether the awful reality might be that allowing that to happen could have been the least worst option which we didn't take vs the death toll which will now follow from the damage these restrictions have and are doing which I believe will be measured in millions over the next 20 years (you've already got Prof Philip Thomas' study predicting the eventual premature death of 560,000 people purely from the economic damage, and that was written before Lockdown II or III - that's more than the worst case scenario for the total number of Covid deaths if nothing at all was done to control it). As far as I'm aware, the concern with new variants is increased transmissibility and resistance to vaccination causing them to potentially infect people who might not otherwise have been infected. However actual severity of the disease is unchanged and it remains the case that for almost all of the population the disease is not serious. Even numbers measured in hundreds of thousands have to be kept in context that there are 68 million people in the country.
cdd wrote:
If the facts (genuinely) change — meaning a variant ineffective against hospitalisations and deaths — then so be it.
For me that change would have to be the virus mutating in such a way that it became likely to kill millions of people (in the UK) with no particular demographic trend making it impossible to try and identify those at risk i.e. it had become an indiscriminate existential threat and as such there is no possibility that any restrictions could do more harm than good given the overwhelming risk from the virus. As terrible as Covid is, it does not pose such a risk, nor do I believe there is any belief that it will.
cdd wrote:
But taking the accepted justification of lockdown, namely to protect the NHS and stop deaths that could have been prevented if they had access to treatment (which is different from aiming to reduce all deaths from Covid), nothing I have seen so far indicates we shouldn’t release restrictions once the over 50s have received at least one dose.
That’s why I don’t understand why Boris is obsessed about a low number of cases. Especially as we plan to massively further expand flow testing. I’m concerned we have subtly moved onto a target of elimination.
You've answered your own question, because he's obsessed. When there was a pedal back on reopening in September followed by widespread support for further lockdowns despite the issues they cause Covid ceased to be an emergency and became an obsession - one of your own earlier posts put the question as to whether it should be not just important, but of absolutely infinite importance regardless of how bad a long list of issues you identified ever gets and the response you got was 'Yes'. Obsession.
What's interesting is that today Boris has said the focus will be on 'data not dates'. For me that is a terrifying prospect - if the data leads you to determine that this will go on for 5 years is that what we'll do? Yet within minutes Prof Mark Woolhouse (epidemiologist, member of SAGE, definitely qualified to have an opinion) pointed out that if we genuinely had that focus then we would now be pulling forward the relaxation of restrictions, not pushing them back as the vaccination programme has been more successful and the data is looking better than was expected. So therefore we go with the data and pull things forward. Yet how much do you want to bet that 'data not dates' will only apply if that will delay things, and in the event the data is taking you to a place that things should be speeded up, TPTB will be uncomfortable doing that and will stick to their dates for 'safety'? Meanwhile any alternative scientific opinion will be considered by definition the correct ones because it keeps progress slow and anything else suggesting a swifter reopening must be presumed to be wrong because it is uncomfortable, despite supposedly being led by the data. Obsession.
I do have some sympathy for Boris' views - I personally believe when he caught it he was much more ill than was generally known and it was believed he might die. As such of course it is understandable that after such an experience his desire to want to stop the disease may have moved from priority to obsession, but that doesn't make him right. And in fact calls into question whether he is too close to it to have any objectivity.