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MartinII · 70-79, M
There hasn’t been a second wave of of covid-19 anywhere. There have been some isolated outbreaks, some in places which would have been operating during a lockdown anyway. So far as the UK is concerned there is no evidence that the lockdown has avoided a single death - it might have done, we just don’t and can’t know. What we do know is that the near-closure of the healthcare system has CAUSED at least 10,000 unnecessary or premature deaths. In addition, the government has contributed substantially to the total of covid-19 deaths by forcibly removing ill and infected patients from hospitals to unprotected care homes.
I agree that Johnson has handled the matter badly, but not for the reasons you and many other commenters suggest.
I agree that Johnson has handled the matter badly, but not for the reasons you and many other commenters suggest.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@MartinII I agree the "second wave" idea is probably wrong - I think we are still in a single pandemic still going around the world but waxing and waning as it does so.
I agree we cannot really prove the effect of the lock-down, because we cannot prove a negative. We have nothing to which it can be compared or contrasted.
Yet can you explain and prove those other bold and rather aggressive statements you give not hypothetically but as if incontrovertible facts? After all, they are logically as open to examination of proof as the "second wave" and the lock-down.
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What was the "near closure of the health system"?
I grant you that over the last few decades too many hospitals have been reduced, closed or centralised for economic rather than medical reasons; but not the entire system. Some have seen considerable investment, such as Dorset County Hospital having just opened a brand-new, state-of-the-art scanner.
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How has this "near closure" "CAUSED" (your shouting, and not "may have contributed to") those deaths?
What did you mean by "forcibly" - as if under arrest?
I grant you that moving infected people to care homes was a serious mistake. A friend of mine in a home recently died from Covid being too much for his already weak heart and Alzheimer's, However, we do not know the source of the infection there, from which two other, older, residents recovered. It may have come in by a different route, maybe an unknowingly-infected visitor before the lock-down stopped visits.
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By the way I have no links to the NHS or any other medical organisation, except as a satisfied patient including for operations at that same hospital.
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Whilst not directly linked to your accusations, I also live in a county that has suffered from extremely anti-social behaviour by people determined to put their enjoyment of the sunshine above everything and everyone else - crowding, leaving masses of litter, swearing and spitting at anyone trying to control their traffic, breaking into fields to camp illegally, causing forest-fires by disposable barbeques, defaecating on public beaches.
I agree we cannot really prove the effect of the lock-down, because we cannot prove a negative. We have nothing to which it can be compared or contrasted.
Yet can you explain and prove those other bold and rather aggressive statements you give not hypothetically but as if incontrovertible facts? After all, they are logically as open to examination of proof as the "second wave" and the lock-down.
'
What was the "near closure of the health system"?
I grant you that over the last few decades too many hospitals have been reduced, closed or centralised for economic rather than medical reasons; but not the entire system. Some have seen considerable investment, such as Dorset County Hospital having just opened a brand-new, state-of-the-art scanner.
'
How has this "near closure" "CAUSED" (your shouting, and not "may have contributed to") those deaths?
What did you mean by "forcibly" - as if under arrest?
I grant you that moving infected people to care homes was a serious mistake. A friend of mine in a home recently died from Covid being too much for his already weak heart and Alzheimer's, However, we do not know the source of the infection there, from which two other, older, residents recovered. It may have come in by a different route, maybe an unknowingly-infected visitor before the lock-down stopped visits.
'
By the way I have no links to the NHS or any other medical organisation, except as a satisfied patient including for operations at that same hospital.
+++
Whilst not directly linked to your accusations, I also live in a county that has suffered from extremely anti-social behaviour by people determined to put their enjoyment of the sunshine above everything and everyone else - crowding, leaving masses of litter, swearing and spitting at anyone trying to control their traffic, breaking into fields to camp illegally, causing forest-fires by disposable barbeques, defaecating on public beaches.
MartinII · 70-79, M
@ArishMell By near-closure of the health system (hyperbole, but pardonable I hope) I am referring solely to the decisions of the authorities drastically to curtail treatment of non-covid conditions, both in the nhs and in the (rarely-mentioned) private sector. Nothing to do with long-term investment in health provision. The total of excess deaths in the peak covid period is well over 20,000 more than the number attributed to covid in death certificates. The ONS says that about half this margin is in fact attributable to deaths caused by covid. I don’t understand how this can be the case, but even accepting that it is, we are still left with over 10,000 extra deaths which can only be explained by failure to treat other illnesses.
“Forcibly”. Well, I don’t suppose physical force was used, but nor were people given any choice. But I accept that the adverb was unnecessary.
I wholly agree with your last paragraph. Resentment at a lockdown seen by some as unnecessary, or relief at its ending, may be partial explanations, but they are no excuse. As it happens I will be venturing to the lovely county of Dorset in September. Let’s hope that people have learnt to behave, or better still gone home, by then.
“Forcibly”. Well, I don’t suppose physical force was used, but nor were people given any choice. But I accept that the adverb was unnecessary.
I wholly agree with your last paragraph. Resentment at a lockdown seen by some as unnecessary, or relief at its ending, may be partial explanations, but they are no excuse. As it happens I will be venturing to the lovely county of Dorset in September. Let’s hope that people have learnt to behave, or better still gone home, by then.
MartinII · 70-79, M
@LadyJ There is no way we can know whether the lockdown helped or not, because there is no counterfactual. Some “experts” (actually, no-one is expert in covid-19, though knowledge is increasing) agree with you, others are very sceptical. The main governmental failings at the beginning were failure to close our borders, failure to have hospitals properly equipped and the discharge of vulnerable and infected patients into completely unprepared care homes.
I shall be extremely surprised if there is any general spike in the summer, though there will probably be isolated increases with specific causes. If there is to be a second wave, which I personally doubt, it is much more likely to be in autumn or early winter.
I shall be extremely surprised if there is any general spike in the summer, though there will probably be isolated increases with specific causes. If there is to be a second wave, which I personally doubt, it is much more likely to be in autumn or early winter.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@MartinII Thank you for explaining it.
I don't know why the statistics for private hospitals (and home deaths?) were poorly or not represented. I agree they should have been.
What has emerged is that different countries have widely different ways of counting, for better or worse than each other. That must make comparisons really rather meaningless, and straight numbers are anyway unless you know the populations too. All this muddle cannot help the epidemiologists at all.
I don't know if you listen to the Radio Four programme More Or Less, which scrutinises published statistics from all manner of sources, but it has examined those relating to the pandemic.
One instance of misuse of numbers it highlighted, was that of Covid tests. It discovered the announced number of tests was really the number of test-kits sent out. It also found that the published numbers were further distorted by counting repeat tests - the ones scientifically right to make when the first attempt is inconclusive - as separate tests.
I suppose to be fair to the politicians and public-services of all parties and most countries, the world was taken aback by a desperately unfamiliar situation. Having said that though, epidemics and pandemics are historically fairly common so you'd think they'd have some sort of past experience to guide them.
The one thing we have to be grateful for is that Ebola, a haemorrhagic disease also originating in animals, had been contained, so had not escaped around the world as the Covid-19 species of the Corona virus is doing. A medical-lecturer friend told me the consequences of that would have been far, far worse.
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Dorset is not the only county to have suffered from the rampaging fools. I believe the Peak District and Yorkshire Dales have too.
I do hope things are easier in September, and you enjoy your visit here! I saw neighbours measuring their motor-caravan recently, planning to book a pitch on a site in Cornwall.
I don't know why the statistics for private hospitals (and home deaths?) were poorly or not represented. I agree they should have been.
What has emerged is that different countries have widely different ways of counting, for better or worse than each other. That must make comparisons really rather meaningless, and straight numbers are anyway unless you know the populations too. All this muddle cannot help the epidemiologists at all.
I don't know if you listen to the Radio Four programme More Or Less, which scrutinises published statistics from all manner of sources, but it has examined those relating to the pandemic.
One instance of misuse of numbers it highlighted, was that of Covid tests. It discovered the announced number of tests was really the number of test-kits sent out. It also found that the published numbers were further distorted by counting repeat tests - the ones scientifically right to make when the first attempt is inconclusive - as separate tests.
I suppose to be fair to the politicians and public-services of all parties and most countries, the world was taken aback by a desperately unfamiliar situation. Having said that though, epidemics and pandemics are historically fairly common so you'd think they'd have some sort of past experience to guide them.
The one thing we have to be grateful for is that Ebola, a haemorrhagic disease also originating in animals, had been contained, so had not escaped around the world as the Covid-19 species of the Corona virus is doing. A medical-lecturer friend told me the consequences of that would have been far, far worse.
+++
Dorset is not the only county to have suffered from the rampaging fools. I believe the Peak District and Yorkshire Dales have too.
I do hope things are easier in September, and you enjoy your visit here! I saw neighbours measuring their motor-caravan recently, planning to book a pitch on a site in Cornwall.