Someone explain this to me

[simon field]

No, many of them are still alive. Me, for example.

You know it’s basically a cold now right?

 

[IanSuth]

And yet... what were the alternatives?

Either no lockdown and allow massive numbers of casualties.

Or allow massive job losses with ensuing huge numbers of businesses going bust, defaults on loans and mortgages, with ensuing runs on banks.

As i have said before my son was at Warwick Uni where 3 of the 5 scientists in charge of the govt SPI-M modelling were based and he was let loose on the model (to run comparative scenario runs with different r numbers and mortality rates etc).

The initial idea was to suppress transmission to keep R below 1 such that it burned itself out, when that proved futile the idea was to at least manage the outbreak so that the peak hospitalisations didnt overwhelm the NHS, this is actually what happened as with vaccination for a given number on infections the number going into hospital was lessened (especially as they started with the most likely to be badly affected).
**

Yes lockdown meant people did (and will) die of other causes that they wouldn't of without lockdown (cancer, alcoholism suicide etc) others survived who wouldn't (industrial and driving accidents were way down) but the main thing it did was stop the health services being overwhelmed - do people not remember the stories and pictures coming out of Italy in the early days (and India later on) when the hospitals ran out of everything. We were perilously close.

The UK treasury and HSE use £1.8m as the "value of a prevented fatality" so if you want to work out whether it was "worth it" empirically start with what you believe Covid cost the economy divide it by £1.8m and you have the number of lives it needed to save to make sense. I have seen an estimate of £310 to £410 billion listed so that would mean 228k lives based on the treasury figure.
That is where it gets very subjective as depending on which research you believe starting lockdown a week earlier would have saved £20k and the entire lockdown saved millions according to Imperial (470k in the UK they estimated) whilst the Lund institute in Sweden say the entire of lockdown only saved 0.2% of fatalities in total.

**There was a sort of interim phase where they thought vaccination would make people not transmit the virus so they hoped that we would reach a point where R was under 1 as the virus couldnt find enough people quickly enough who hadnt been vaccinated or caught it recently so have natural immunity but that was given up on as soon as it was clear vaccination didnt stop you being a carrier.

 

[The Byre]

The UK treasury and HSE use £1.8m as the "value of a prevented fatality" so if you want to work out whether it was "worth it" empirically start with what you believe Covid cost the economy divide it by £1.8m and you have the number of lives it needed to save to make sense. I have seen an estimate of £310 to £410 billion listed so that would mean 228k lives based on the treasury figure.

Except that the value of a prevented death from C19 was NOT £1.7m or anything like that figure. That is their figure for a person who is economically active!

Only 5% of C19 deaths in the UK were of those of working age, so even if we add another 5% for those over 65 who died of C19 and say that they may have been working, that still means that 90% of those who died were probably economically inactive and receiving a transfer income such as a pension (or they were within working age but receiving disability payments).

In purely economic terms, that means that 90% of those who died of C19 benefitted the economy by their deaths - however sad and tragic those deaths may have been.

184,000 died, - 10% of that @ £1.8m per life = £33bn. (Warwick Uni - back to the drawing board!)

I am too busy to work out what the (probably small) economic benefit (less the cost of immediate care) would have been of a death by the average economically inactive person in receipt of a transfer income might be, but if we assume a paltry £100k that would almost halve the £33bn figure to £17bn.

That is the cost of bogus and unrecoverable BBLs alone!

Now, let's factor in the enormous costs of all those excess deaths caused BY the lockdown . . .

 

[Newchodge]

Except that the value of a prevented death from C19 was NOT £1.7m or anything like that figure. That is their figure for a person who is economically active!

Only 5% of C19 deaths in the UK were of those of working age, so even if we add another 5% for those over 65 who died of C19 and say that they may have been working, that still means that 90% of those who died were probably economically inactive and receiving a transfer income such as a pension (or they were within working age but receiving disability payments).

In purely economic terms, that means that 90% of those who died of C19 benefitted the economy by their deaths - however sad and tragic those deaths may have been.

184,000 died, - 10% of that @ £1.8m per life = £33bn. (Warwick Uni - back to the drawing board!)

I am too busy to work out what the (probably small) economic benefit (less the cost of immediate care) would have been of a death by the average economically inactive person in receipt of a transfer income might be, but if we assume a paltry £100k that would almost halve the £33bn figure to £17bn.

That is the cost of bogus and unrecoverable BBLs alone!

Now, let's factor in the enormous costs of all those excess deaths caused BY the lockdown . . .

Reminds me of an old saying. The most cost effective medical system is either abortion or euthanasia at birth. Think of all that money saved in nurseries, education and medical bills.

 

[IanSuth]

Except that the value of a prevented death from C19 was NOT £1.7m or anything like that figure. That is their figure for a person who is economically active!

Only 5% of C19 deaths in the UK were of those of working age, so even if we add another 5% for those over 65 who died of C19 and say that they may have been working, that still means that 90% of those who died were probably economically inactive and receiving a transfer income such as a pension (or they were within working age but receiving disability payments).

In purely economic terms, that means that 90% of those who died of C19 benefitted the economy by their deaths - however sad and tragic those deaths may have been.

184,000 died, - 10% of that @ £1.8m per life = £33bn. (Warwick Uni - back to the drawing board!)

I am too busy to work out what the (probably small) economic benefit (less the cost of immediate care) would have been of a death by the average economically inactive person in receipt of a transfer income might be, but if we assume a paltry £100k that would almost halve the £33bn figure to £17bn.

That is the cost of bogus and unrecoverable BBLs alone!

Now, let's factor in the enormous costs of all those excess deaths caused BY the lockdown . . .

The UK treasury use a single figure of £1.8m (as an aside my son's work now is re subharahan Africa and they use c£20k i think he said) - that is how normal UK policies are measured so that is how we need to measure Covid to be fair.

You are also in your analysis ignoring all costs of long covid

 

[IanSuth]

Or also how do you cost the impact of the death of my daughters head of year.

52 year old well qualified senior teacher, head of a science dept, pastoral head of year. Renowned for persuading those disengaged with school to stay on and give it a another go (mainly though also finding something they did engage with), left a wife and 2 children.

he caught it in early Dec 20, was admitted to hospital on dec 23rd and died very early Jan 2021, that was when schools were trying to shut to stop transmission around here as Delta took hold but they were stopped from doing so (it also meant myself and wife caught it, I was totally out for about 2 weeks which contributed to old company going bust mar21, and wife was laid up in bed for a month - we were both 49 at the time)

 

[simon field]

Reminds me of an old saying. The most cost effective medical system is either abortion or euthanasia at birth. Think of all that money saved in nurseries, education and medical bills.

Does that saved money outweigh the massive amount of money a person has to hand over to an inept, squandering government - under threat of imprisonment - in a working lifetime?

 

[Mr D]

It's a simple DIY job. See the pics I posted on page one!

Simple for you. I can lift a small dog if I hold him close to my chest. I can't stand up more than 10 minutes and can't get up off the floor. Hence tending to pay other people to do work on the house these days.

 

[Mr D]

The vulnerable minority had mostly either fallen seriously ill or died already.

Pretty sure I'm alive.

 

[Mr D]

When no-one is likely to die because of their policies.

People die every year. Show that a particular policy caused extra deaths and will be able to say that the policy caused those extra deaths.
We may well have people dying from cold this year when choosing to heat or eat - however with an extra several hundred pounds / possibly over a grand - I'd actually expect the figure to be below a normal year. In which case it could be that government policy saved lives.

The following year - if there is no more help - then I'd expect the figure of those dying due to the cold to go up.

People have had a LOT of money chucked at them in past couple of years.
£20 uplift on universal credit / working tax credit. Extra winter fuel allowance. Extra £150 via councils. Extra £650 via benefits.

People could choose what to spend the money on.

 

[Mr D]

The UK treasury use a single figure of £1.8m (as an aside my son's work now is re subharahan Africa and they use c£20k i think he said) - that is how normal UK policies are measured so that is how we need to measure Covid to be fair.

You are also in your analysis ignoring all costs of long covid

Long covid is a ******.
No timescale for recovering from it. If it can be recovered from.
Its not the first post viral problem, just one of the more recent ones. Maybe with some funding and a few decades it won't be a problem.

 

[Newchodge]

People have had a LOT of money chucked at them in past couple of years.
£20 uplift on universal credit / working tax credit. Extra winter fuel allowance. Extra £150 via councils. Extra £650 via benefits.

People could choose what to spend the money on.

SOME people. Some have had very little.

 

[japancool]

£20 uplift on universal credit

Woo, £80 a month. How far are you going to get on that?

 

[simon field]

Pretty sure I'm alive.

Yes, you are. The key word is that a *minority* of people were at any serious risk from a virus, and a *minority* of those with health conditions were hospitalised or died during the pandemic.

You have to agree though, once you take the emotion out of it and think logically, just like with any other species of animal, every now and then there’s a ‘thinning out’. And the virus did just that, which is what viruses do every day.

 

[alan1302]

Erm. The virus had already done its work. How many jabs???

No, it's not - if it had been left unchecked and if people had not been vaccinated there would have been much more deaths and health problems from it.

 

[IanSuth]

Woo, £80 a month. How far are you going to get on that?

I will tell you where most of that went

If you had no car you couldnt get to a big supermarket as what busses were running were scary places - thus you either had to shop local at the higher convenience store prices or pay for delivery.

Kerching £20 a week gone in a puff of expensive small packs of Happy shopper pasta or a Tesco delivery van's exhaust

 

[Mr D]

SOME people. Some have had very little.

Are the ones who will get very little the people that are likely to die of freezing this winter?

You and I may get only some money - and not the larger sums offered to the lowest income people. We aren't going to be exactly so much at risk though.

 

[Mr D]

Woo, £80 a month. How far are you going to get on that?

Compared to what was paid before?

Heck, I'm employed and I'd be ecstatic with a £20 a week increase. Its almost double my annual pay rise this year.

 

[japancool]

Heck, I'm employed and I'd be ecstatic with a £20 a week increase. Its almost double my annual pay rise this year.

Find a better job.

 

[MarkOnline]

Compared to what was paid before?

Heck, I'm employed and I'd be ecstatic with a £20 a week increase. Its almost double my annual pay rise this year.

I thought you were an online trading guru!! What about your many many many posts of wisdom on every subject imaginable?
Youve been having us all on havent you??

 

[Mr D]

Find a better job.

There isn't one.
I get - if I run my hours right - about 9 weeks holiday a year spaced out over the year. Discounts that are worth a few hundred quid a year. Employer contribution to pension that is around a third of my gross salary, in addition to what I put in myself.
And doing work I love that I find enjoyable and challenging.

There's thousands of higher paid jobs. There isn't any better job.

 

[Mr D]

I thought you were an online trading guru!! What about your many many many posts of wisdom on every subject imaginable?
Youve been having us all on havent you??

I've been running my own businesses for 20 odd years. I'm also been employed for most of that time.
You may have come across people who both have a business and work for an employer before.