Valentin wrote:
For example, the shock for the economy (mostly resulted from the restrictions and not from the virus itself) greatly affects the income of many people both short-term and long-term.
Absolutely – the direction of impact, however, is very different for different population groups, countries, etc. For the average middle class employed worker in manufacturing industry the savings ratio has actually gone up, because they could not spend their income on vacation, entertainment, etc. For the average self employed the effect is on average negative, but with huge spread: Some of them are completely out of business while others are doing the business of their life. For long term unemployed basically nothing has changed …
This affects their quality of life and psychological well-being.
Absolutely – this is an effect that is not researched very well but we can expect lots of (negative) long term impact. We do, however, know for long that psychological well being has little to do with actual circumstances (people in Africa or Asia living in economic environments that would be called devastating in Europe do not suffer more from mental conditions or are even not less happy) but more on how society perceives them. From that POV one could argue that it is not the fault of the Covid protection measures but the fault of the people talking bad about them that people get depressed.
Very graphically: There is a major debate in Germany if children are mentally affected if parents force them to wear masks. People who promote that view, however, do not admit that objectively forcing them to wear underwear would have the same impact…
No doubt that it will reduce their average life expectancy. The effect must be stronger for poorer people and for poorer countries. That is, effectively these actions kill people.
“No doubt” is a very personal statement – state of research is that it has little impact on life expectancy and if it has, more likely a slightly positive impact. Road traffic accidents have gone down in most countries and as such accidents on average kill younger people the positive effect on life expectancy is comparatively good.
Malibuflyer wrote:
“No doubt” is a very personal statement – state of research is that it has little impact on life expectancy and if it has, more likely a slightly positive impact. Road traffic accidents have gone down in most countries and as such accidents on average kill younger people the positive effect on life expectancy is comparatively good.
Surely you cannot be serious? Life expectancy? This is life? there is a big difference between survival and life…
Peter wrote:
As time moves on, there is a political and economic realisation that life will have to carry on regardless. Fortunately, we have the vaccine now, which will deliver a good (if perhaps not total; we don’t know yet, especially with perhaps 30% being anti) solution, but if that had not arrived, if CV19 turned out to be as hard as say HIV or any of the countless other viruses which have no “cure”, then life would have to adapt to a death rate managed at a level where the hospitals just cope, which in the 1st World is roughly 1000 deaths per day. And a great deal of CV19-related long term problems, which may turn out to be a bigger problem in the long run. The need to keep deaths at say 1k/day would have still finished off much of the economy e.g. airlines, hotels, travel generally, gyms, pubs…
I struggle with the argumentation that we should just accept status quo in how poorly things like the NHS are run. Politically, I get all the UK backslapping about how great the UK is doing with the vaccine roll-out. (and frankly the EU should be ashamed for how they messed up). But let’s not forget, dear Boris was going to spend 375Mio a month additionally on the wonderful NHS that now cannot cope. I haven’t heard a SINGLE politician anywhere in the world suggest we invest more in proper universal health care to deal with these types of crises. This virus, (I know I’m going to annoy people) is a little girls virus compared to what could happen with something far more deadly. These lockdowns are going to be the norm when the next one hits?
If this were a private company in any sector being so unprepared for what is essentially a super charged flu, there would be resignations, cries for regulation and the public would not be accepting any impact on their liberties. With the 50 odd percent taxes I pay every year, I expect our over lords to be taking care of at least the basics like infrastructure and I’m not served by the infantile slogans like save lives protect the NHS, that’s what I pay taxes for.
LFHNflightstudent wrote:
Surely you cannot be serious? Life expectancy? This is life? there is a big difference between survival and life…
Yes, I love going out to concerts and especially for dinner as well and I hate it that I can’t do it. But that doesn’t mean we do not have a life!
Let’s face it: Even though we have these slight restrictions in many countries (called “lockdown” by people who never experienced a real lockdown), for all of us in Western Europe this is still by order of magnitudes better than what 90% of world population ever had. If we start to question if it is life worth living just because we can’t eat at our favorite watering hole (with emphasis on “at” because many restaurants these days have takeout concepts so that we can savor their food at home), mankind doesn’t have a life at large…
LFHNflightstudent wrote:
This virus, (I know I’m going to annoy people) is a little girls virus compared to what could happen with something far more deadly.
That is a broader discussion required after we come out of the immediate crisis. At large, however, I think that this virus is not very far away from the “sweet spot” in the infectiousness/deadlyness curve. Viruses that are “far more deadly” (take Ebola as example) typically kill people before they can pass it on to many others. Therefore it is unlikely for them to develop into a global pandemic.
@LFHNflightstudent, and @Valentin, are you really arguing that If Goverments had done nothing then the economy would be better off and therefore less people overall would die?
Where is the proof of that?
Do you really believe that the general population would go out to bars, restaurants, take holidays, flights etc.? You believe that the fear factor would have no consequence for “normal life”?
One wonders whether this is ever going to be a lesson learnt.
Re the NHS, no health service would have coped with say 5k a day. They are not sized for that, with the residence duration involved. The resulting mayhem would have caused major civil disorder.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
Be in no doubt I think the evidence is irrefutable the NHS would have collapsed without some form of intervention. The consequences would have been devastating.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
I agree lighter intervention may have still avoided the health services collapsing, but involved a much finer judgement call. However, look how close we came in the UK and this was with all the social distancing, masks etc, but it wasnt enough. If you played the game to the wire, and toppled over the brink, there would have been no quick way back.
I’m not sure this part is clear-cut at all. My experience, ever since I’ve been old enough to read the news and take an interest, is that ‘NHS on brink of collapse’ is at least an annual story appearing each winter without fail and often multiple times each year depending on the circumstances and/or how much else there is for the press to write about. It’s generally taken care of by the government of the day agreeing to pour X hundred million (or even X billion) more GBP into the black hole to stave off the apparently-imminent collapse.
As a result of that it’s not so much that no-one believes it but more that no-one knows what to believe. Of course social media (and The Guardian) is full of dramatic anecdotes from the front line, but that would still happen even if you paid every doctor and nurse £1m per annum for a 3-day week and hired 5m extra of them.
LFHNflightstudent wrote:
If this were a private company in any sector being so unprepared for what is essentially a super charged flu, there would be resignations, cries for regulation and the public would not be accepting any impact on their liberties. With the 50 odd percent taxes I pay every year, I expect our over lords to be taking care of at least the basics like infrastructure and I’m not served by the infantile slogans like save lives protect the NHS, that’s what I pay taxes for.
I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiment. However, the NHS is ‘special’ in the UK for a few historical and social reasons. It was set up after WW2 by the first (majority) Labour government elected in Britain and seen as a major step towards socialism, thus a significant (socialist-inclined) proportion of the population has always considered it ‘our NHS’ and that tag has now left its socialist leanings behind and is used by all across the political spectrum. Indeed, use of the possessive form was the traditional way to sell nationalising anything to the public. It’s now become the closest thing we have to a sacred cow – it is impossible for any politician of any creed to criticise the concept, or the idea of spending more money on it, so they content themselves with ‘reorganising’ it periodically.
Matt Hancock is kicking off some reforms right now, even with Covid going on. The (not unreasonable) explanation is that aspects of this pandemic have caused him and his ilk to look more closely at the details of how certain bits of it are working (or not working) than they otherwise might and essentially declare that the way XYZ is done is ridiculous and must change.
If it were the private sector, the major difference is that you wouldn’t hear so much about it. There is a tacit understanding (rooted in what I am not sure, possibly the notion that certain jobs are to some degree political and you’re always entitled to a political view) that certain public sector employees can publicly criticise their employer freely without fear of sanction. This doesn’t apply to e.g. senior civil servants in Whitehall, or say the military, but is seen mostly in healthcare and teaching. To those of us in the private sector it’s unthinkable – if I started slagging off my employer on social media, or feeding The Guardian material for ghostwritten articles on how badly I’m being managed then I’d be fired – it’s gross misconduct. But not so in certain public sector roles. The NHS employs ~1.7m people, and they vote!
There is little written about this in the press (because even mainstream journalists cannot really criticise the NHS) but my own theory is that the NHS is desperate to ‘own’ the successful vaccination programme and be seen to own it. It is evidently doing a competent job of getting jabs into arms, but one has to ask whether it might be better employed catching up with the healthcare it has deferred during the pandemic. Identifying the vulnerable is evidently part of the programme that they need to be involved in, but beyond that the logistics and actual jabbing might sit better with an organisation that isn’t so desperately needed elsewhere, e.g. the military.
I’ve completed all my vaccination training and am fully signed off and ‘deployable’ with the rostering app on my phone etc, but there are zero shifts to volunteer for anywhere in the country and other volunteers report the same. Thus I can only assume these 200k-600k jabs per day are being performed by NHS staff, and I do wonder if that’s the best use of their time right now.
gallois wrote:
@LFHNflightstudent, and @Valentin, are you really arguing that If Goverments had done nothing then the economy would be better off and therefore less people overall would die?
Where is the proof of that?
Do you really believe that the general population would go out to bars, restaurants, take holidays, flights etc.? You believe that the fear factor would have no consequence for “normal life”?
I think you’re making some very interesting points.
1) I am not arguing government should not have done nothing – unfortunately what they have done are the wrong things. There is no evidence lockdowns work as an example. none. Masks, handwashing, social distancing, vaccination, sure no problem.Curfew after 6PM? based on what? I expect government to provide a service for the crazy amount of money I pay them every year. What I do not expect is government to tell me what I cannot do because government failed to use the funds I (and everyone else) provide properly.
2) The excess mortality of COVID (people who would not have died of other causes with the 15 month period these ’’let’s throw shit at the wall and see what sticks’’ measures have been going on) would have been far, far less than what you are being told to keep you quite.
3) your last point is an excellent example of why lockdowns are unnecessary. That being said, people do go out to bars, restaurants and go on holiday when allowed. I see those people when I do it… (spoiler, I’m not dead from doing it…) Wear a mask, wash your hands adapt a reasonable behaviour and you will be fine.
Malibuflyer wrote:
Even though we have these slight restrictions in many countries (called “lockdown” by people who never experienced a real lockdown), for all of us in Western Europe this is still by order of magnitudes better than what 90% of world population ever had. If we start to question if it is life worth living just because we can’t eat at our favorite watering hole (with emphasis on “at” because many restaurants these days have takeout concepts so that we can savor their food at home), mankind doesn’t have a life at large…
In a sense you’re right, but in another sense you’re not. People who take advise (or rules) seriously and limit their contacts with other people do suffer psychologically. Humans beings need to be with other people and if they don’t, they suffer. I and my wife have had very little physical contact with family and almost no physical contact with our friends and workmates for about a year now. Even if we can (and do) have various kinds of online contact, it’s not at all the same thing.
(It’s a good thing that I and my wife really enjoy each other’s company, otherwise the situation would have been unbearable.)
Graham wrote:
There is little written about this in the press (because even mainstream journalists cannot really criticise the NHS) but my own theory is that the NHS is desperate to ‘own’ the successful vaccination programme and be seen to own it.
@graham for the record, I’m not saying when things are privatised they always run better. The above really does crack me up given the whole roll-out of the vaccine in the UK is managed on private technology owned by US PE firms… https://www.ft.com/content/e826d5b5-d176-41b4-b100-3f2ccf2b55ff
sorry, and this… https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/10/exclusive-vaccine-taskforce-chief-may-benefit-from-49m-uk-investment
have it from a very good source she was told she didn’t have to use a single civil servant in order to make it a success…
LFHNflightstudent wrote:
2) The excess mortality of COVID (people who would not have died of other causes with the 15 month period these ’’let’s throw shit at the wall and see what sticks’’ measures have been going on) would have been far, far less than what you are being told to keep you quite.
Recent statistics show that disdained Sweden is well in the bottom half of excess deaths among European countries in 2020 with most of the “proper lockdown” countries much worse off.
