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We must enable the economy to recover as soon as practicable

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eastdyke

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...... I expect that we will see a few years with a lower average as a result of all this however .......
Exactly.
Excess deaths is probably the very best catch all because it will include all of those who have sadly died because of, amongst other reasons, a total fear of accessing healthcare just now.
To totally misquote Ian Fleming:
'One only dies once'
And wrt 'Care Homes', how much better might it have been be if many more of the elderly and more vulnerable were looked after by their families or otherwise within the community (recognising that some will not have families) rather than being shunted off to such institutions?

The apparently 'better' figures in some of the Eastern European countries might be explained due to just that.

Opening the economy might be very tricky from the hole we have already dug, nonetheless the future of our children totally depends upon it.

I might be vulnerable, but I am happy to take the risk that implies.
 
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Starmill

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There have been plenty of pictures from Swedish towns and cities over the last month. Crowded shopping streets, people sat in groups, bars and restaurants open. It certainly looks very close to normal.
Yes, because a few pictures in the paper are all the context you need to worry about.

Sweden has not escaped economic downturn and is unlikely to escape the depression.

It's clear they were briefing for a relaxation after the bank holiday,
Do you think so? I never got that impression. I think it's a simple case of headlines about headlines. People assume too much.

bombing did little to supress the will of the people and prevent them going to work
This is literally a crazy thing to say.
 

underbank

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Excess deaths is probably the very best catch all because it will include all of those who have sadly died because of, amongst other reasons, a total fear of accessing healthcare just now.

It's not just fear of accessing healthcare. Huge amounts of the NHS is still closed or on very skeleton service. My OH had his cancer treatment stopped and they're not even going to do a blood test until July - despite his chemo being urgent back in February! My MIL has finally got a blood test appointment tomorrow, despite her being clearly anaemic and ill following a number of pointless telephone consultations with her GP surgery where they just said take paracetamol. I had my diabetic blood test and review appointment cancelled - I phoned earlier this week to ask when they were starting them again, to be told "maybe Summer"! The NHS are cleverly trying to blame the public for not accessing healthcare, but in reality, unless you're about to die, they're not interested!
 

richw

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The apparently 'better' figures in some of the Eastern European countries might be explained due to just that.
In many parts of Rural Eastern Europe family burials are arranged within 24 hours of death with no formal records.
 

Huntergreed

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It's not just fear of accessing healthcare. Huge amounts of the NHS is still closed or on very skeleton service. My OH had his cancer treatment stopped and they're not even going to do a blood test until July - despite his chemo being urgent back in February! My MIL has finally got a blood test appointment tomorrow, despite her being clearly anaemic and ill following a number of pointless telephone consultations with her GP surgery where they just said take paracetamol. I had my diabetic blood test and review appointment cancelled - I phoned earlier this week to ask when they were starting them again, to be told "maybe Summer"! The NHS are cleverly trying to blame the public for not accessing healthcare, but in reality, unless you're about to die, they're not interested!
The problem is leading to a quite ridiculous situation in my region. A family member who works for the NHS in the region has told me that the hospital is currently lying empty with less than 50% of beds full, there are less than 5 people in hospital in this region with the virus (the population of the region is 130-140,000) and yet all NHS treatments are suspended and everyone is being told it's vital to stay home to prevent the service being overwhelmed. It's running at the lowest levels it has in years and quite frankly I think it's shocking that they're trying to cancel operations and important procedures when the hospital is literally lying half empty and in the last week we've had less than 10 confirmed cases and only 4 deaths. Problem is I'm in Scotland so even if regions in England get opened up on Monday, it sounds unlikely that we will even though we arguably have one of the lowest case counts in the country.
 

eastdyke

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It's not just fear of accessing healthcare. Huge amounts of the NHS is still closed or on very skeleton service. My OH had his cancer treatment stopped and they're not even going to do a blood test until July - despite his chemo being urgent back in February! My MIL has finally got a blood test appointment tomorrow, despite her being clearly anaemic and ill following a number of pointless telephone consultations with her GP surgery where they just said take paracetamol. I had my diabetic blood test and review appointment cancelled - I phoned earlier this week to ask when they were starting them again, to be told "maybe Summer"! The NHS are cleverly trying to blame the public for not accessing healthcare, but in reality, unless you're about to die, they're not interested!
You are so right, my bad. It was very remiss of me to put all of those in the category 'amongst other reasons'. You should write to your MP, Cancer patients were supposed to have been on the list for treatment re-start. And keep up pressure on the contact points for all the other issues. I really hope that you get some engagement and the right results for both you and all of your family.
As an example of how underwelmed the NHS is, it has been reported that (as of last Monday) Norfolk and Norwich University Hospial had just 4 ICU beds occupied by Covid-19 patients. That is out of 36 ICU beds and an extra 60 'surge' ready beds!
In many parts of Rural Eastern Europe family burials are arranged within 24 hours of death with no formal records.
So the excess death measure is important for all Countries, including those in 'Rural' Eastern Europe. How many people in, for example Poland, live in 'Rural' areas? My point about how the elderly and more vulnerable are cared for in the UK still stands.

Just who in this Country is going to grasp reality?
 
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HH

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Being brutally objective, a lot depends on how many would have “died anyway”, and in what timescale that would have happened.

There’s been surprisingly little in this respect in the wall-to-wall media coverage.
However PHS have published findings a couple of weeks ago. They found that the average reduction in life expectancy was 13 years.

Here's the research article.

Results: Using the standard WHO life tables, YLL per COVID-19 death was 14 for men and 12 for women. After adjustment for number and type of LTCs, the mean YLL was slightly lower, but remained high (13 and 11 years for men and women, respectively).
 
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bramling

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However WHO have publiched findings a coule of weeks ago. They found that the average reduction in life expectancy was 13 years.

That’s what has worried me all along. The various talk of “it’s people who were about to die anyway” doesn’t seem quite accurate. Likewise the other line we hear, “it’s people with underlying health issues” also ignores the fact that many such people would also have lived for many years with their condition managed.

Whilst I absolutely take on board the arguments about the economic effects on younger people, equally I think some people are being way too quick to seize on the “it’s only old people and those with underlying issues” as a means of dismissing some of the control measures.
 

johnnychips

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However WHO have published findings a couple of weeks ago. They found that the average reduction in life expectancy was 13 years.
Have you a source for this? Given the group with highest deaths by far is the over 80s, is it suggesting that if they hadn’t got CV they would have lived another ten or so years? I am not doubting you, but I haven’t heard this before.
 

HH

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Have you a source for this? Given the group with highest deaths by far is the over 80s, is it suggesting that if they hadn’t got CV they would have lived another ten or so years? I am not doubting you, but I haven’t heard this before.
Now linked and re-linked to one story on the research.
 
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yorkie

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Now linked and re-linked to one story on the research.
It appears to be saying that most victims died when about 80 to 84 and could have lived into their 90s.

It's an appalling article in many respects and contains much scaremongering. The fact it's a Daily Mail article says it all!
 

Huntergreed

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It appears to be saying that most victims died when about 80 to 84 and could have lived into their 90s.

It's an appalling article in many respects and contains much scaremongering. The fact it's a Daily Mail article says it all!
This seems to be the media realising that people are spending more time looking at articles and watching news because of lockdown, and in complete disregard for the rest of society they’re trying to brainwash people into wanting to stay locked down for their own benefit.

Quite frankly it’s disgusting and I don’t think people realise how much control the media actually have over their thoughts.
 

js1000

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I agree with the original poster (Yorkie). We must be far, far more pragmatic with this 'lockdown'.

The thing I cannot understand with this lockdown is why the 18-40 age cohort are being included. They are barely effected by this virus apart from in exceptional cases. I don't see why anyone in those age ranges who lives alone or with people of same age cohort in the household, and has their own transportation (car or bike) to work can physically return to work in offices, restaurants, bars etc while adhering appropriate physical distancing measures. At least it keeps some cogs of the economy moving.

Advise the 50 to 70 age cohort work from home where possible - although this is not compulsory. Advise the over 70s, a quarter of whom are hospitalised with this illness, to avoid physical contact until this virus dissipates - either naturally or through herd immunity in the younger age cohorts (as Sweden is doing, although with higher deaths as you would expect, in the long term will be in a far better position) until the later part of the year.

There is nothing age discriminatory about the above. Just pure common sense otherwise we will not have an economy and way of life after this.
 

scotrail158713

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That’s what has worried me all along. The various talk of “it’s people who were about to die anyway” doesn’t seem quite accurate. Likewise the other line we hear, “it’s people with underlying health issues” also ignores the fact that many such people would also have lived for many years with their condition managed.

Whilst I absolutely take on board the arguments about the economic effects on younger people, equally I think some people are being way too quick to seize on the “it’s only old people and those with underlying issues” as a means of dismissing some of the control measures.
Definitely. My Dad has type 1 diabetes so if he died from it he would be someone with “underlying health conditions”. However he is able to manage his diabetes fine, has lived a happy, healthy life so far and will for years to come. So if this virus killed him, it’s not a case of “he would’ve died anyway”.
 

yorkie

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Definitely. My Dad has type 1 diabetes so if he died from it he would be someone with “underlying health conditions”. However he is able to manage his diabetes fine, has lived a happy, healthy life so far and will for years to come. So if this virus killed him, it’s not a case of “he would’ve died anyway”.
But he needs to self-isolate. We can't destroy the economy and have no decent future for everyone.
 

bramling

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I agree with the original poster (Yorkie).

The thing I cannot understand with this lockdown is why the 18-40 age cohort are being included. They are barely effected by this virus apart from in exceptional cases. I don't see why anyone in those age ranges who lives alone or with people of same age cohort in the household and have own transportation to work can work in offices, restaurants, bars etc while adhering appropriate physical distancing measures. At least it keeps some cogs of the economy moving.

Advise the 50 to 70 age cohort work from home where possible - although this is not compulsory. Advise the over 70s, a quarter of whom are hospitalised with this illness, to avoid physical contact until this virus dissipates - either naturally or through herd immunity in the younger age cohorts (as Sweden is doing successfully) until the later part of the year.

There is nothing age discriminatory about the above. Just pure common sense otherwise we will not have an economy and way of life after this.

How do you then stop the under-40s spreading it to those who are more susceptible?

Such an approach *should* be quite possible, however pre-lockdown I distinctly remember seeing various reports on the news where younger people were interviewed and the basic gist was “who cares, why should I modify my behaviour to protect old people?”

Boris tried a voluntary lockdown, and we saw on our TV screens the result of that.
 

HH

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It's an appalling article in many respects and contains much scaremongering. The fact it's a Daily Mail article says it all!
The article is rubbish, but the research is not by the daily mail. The story was published elsewhere if anyone wants to search.
 

yorkie

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Boris tried a voluntary lockdown, and we saw on our TV screens the result of that.
We never got to see the results of that because it only lasted one week so there is insufficient data to analyse. It's very easy for you to claim it wouldn't have worked, but if it was done at the right tie, the evidence elsewhere suggests it would have.
The article is rubbish, but the research is not by the daily mail. The story was published elsewhere if anyone wants to search.
The onus is on you to provide a source; if the best you can do is the Daily Mail then that's your prerogative. I still don't see how the claim in the article justifies attempts at trashing the economy, either.
 

richw

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Advise the over 70s, a quarter of whom are hospitalised with this illness

not sure where you get that a quarter of over 70s are hospitalised. My local hospital currently has 2 covid patients with a catchment area of around 750 square miles.
 

bramling

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We never got to see the results of that because it only lasted one week so there is insufficient data to analyse. It's very easy for you to claim it wouldn't have worked, but if it was done at the right tie, the evidence elsewhere suggests it would have.

I simply don’t believe it would have worked. Some people in this country are too ingrained in their ways. Likewise somewhere like Sweden has a much lesser population density than Britain making such a policy easier to work.
 

Huntergreed

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I agree with the original poster (Yorkie). We must be far, far more pragmatic with this 'lockdown'.

The thing I cannot understand with this lockdown is why the 18-40 age cohort are being included. They are barely effected by this virus apart from in exceptional cases. I don't see why anyone in those age ranges who lives alone or with people of same age cohort in the household, and has their own transportation (car or bike) to work can physically return to work in offices, restaurants, bars etc while adhering appropriate physical distancing measures. At least it keeps some cogs of the economy moving.

Advise the 50 to 70 age cohort work from home where possible - although this is not compulsory. Advise the over 70s, a quarter of whom are hospitalised with this illness, to avoid physical contact until this virus dissipates - either naturally or through herd immunity in the younger age cohorts (as Sweden is doing successfully) until the later part of the year.

There is nothing age discriminatory about the above. Just pure common sense otherwise we will not have an economy and way of life after this.
I agree completely, whilst I hate to sound selfish (as I’m normally called when I express my views on this), of course I feel sorry for the older generation who are at risk and wish to protect them to some degree, I am genuinely concerned that my future prospects and those of my generation are being jeopardised because the government view the needs of the older generation above ours (I really don’t mean for that to sound bad!) but ultimately if we keep destroying the economy, it’s us that’s going to have to clean up this mess with our lower prospects, little economic stability and with some of us having even lost our ability to study in further education due to the exam formats this (and potentially next year if schools aren’t normal). Whilst of course I want to protect the elderly and vulnerable, I don’t want people from my generation having poor life quality, risk to livelihood for years to come and as a result of this exceptionally poor mental health (which will cause deaths that Covid absolutely would not have) just because the Government were so focused on the suppression of Covid that they didn’t realise the economic and social impacts of this crisis.
 

yorkie

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I simply don’t believe it would have worked. Some people in this country are too ingrained in their ways.
So you've told us in dozens of posts before, but you have no evidence. In fact, the evidence is that the public have been extremely compliant (perhaps overly so, making it harder to restart the economy)
...I am genuinely concerned that my future prospects and those of my generation are being jeopardised because the government view the needs of the older generation above ours....
To be fair the Government doesn't want to do this but is being forced into it, partly because of 'public opinion', but I think that the opinion among more informed people who look at the bigger picture is rapidly beginning to change. Hopefully they will realise this before it's too late.
 

bramling

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So you've told us in dozens of posts before, but you have no evidence. In fact, the evidence is that the public have been extremely compliant (perhaps overly so, making it harder to restart the economy)

We saw pictures of beauty spots and beaches filled with people, some of us know people who had to deal with trains full of people on trains trying to get to particular places.

I don’t think you can reasonably draw comparisons with how compliant people may have been since the lockdown came in, versus what might have happened had it not.
 

HH

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The onus is on you to provide a source; if the best you can do is the Daily Mail then that's your prerogative. I still don't see how the claim in the article justifies attempts at trashing the economy, either.
As I said the research was by Public Health Scotland, so the article itself is irrelevant, but I have now provided a link the the research paper. It was just de-bunking the claim that all the covid victims were about to die anyway.

Your claim about the economy is something different, and I agree it is trash.
 
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Bikeman78

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I wish people would stop repeating the falsehood that life in Sweden is going on pretty much as normal. It isn't. The difference is that when Sweden introduced its advisory lockdown, most people followed it. When the UK government advised people, it was almost universally ignored, and a week later when the situation had got far more serious, they had to mandate. Long after that, there were still many, many people saying "I don't care what the guidelines say, it wasn't made illegal in the legislation so I am entitled to carry on".
Where was this happening? The shopping centres in Cardiff were dead in the week before lockdown. Same with trains on the Cardiff valleys. The last day I recall Cardiff being packed was the date of the cancelled Wales v Scotland match. It was cancelled too late so the Scottish fans were already in Cardiff and filled up all the pubs.
 

WM Bus

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Where was this happening? The shopping centres in Cardiff were dead in the week before lockdown. Same with trains on the Cardiff valleys. The last day I recall Cardiff being packed was the date of the cancelled Wales v Scotland match. It was cancelled too late so the Scottish fans were already in Cardiff and filled up all the pubs.
Same in Birmingham. Weekend before lockdown 21st/22nd March 2020, Birmingham Shopping Centres were dead and public transport usage looked like it had already dropped heavily.
I recall having to get on a packed bus earlier that week, but at that time more people were still at school and work and by the weekend there had bee a big drop in people travelling. However people were panic buying in the supermarkets around that time as well.
 
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muz379

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I suspect as a large American business they were concerned about being sued, basically.

Small businesses have responded rather differently. For instance my local Indian takeaway is operating totally as before with nothing changed whatsoever, whereas the chippy closed for a while and has now reopened with screens up, one person in at once and the staff looking rather like doctors in their attire.
I think there is a slight difference between smaller businesses, my local Indian , and Local Chinese for example are family run , so there is no need for social distancing in their kitchen , they all live together in the case of the Chinese they live above the shop . In the case of these smaller businesses it only needed measures in place to ensure customers practiced social distancing which in both cases have been done by only allowing limited customers into the shop and in the case of the Indian only allowing people to collect telephone orders or have food delivered .

But in a busy fast food environment like Mcdonalds , KFC etc there will be employees from several different households so there is a need for social distancing to be in place and fast food kitchens are not notoriously roomy setups , thats why the KFC outlets that have opened around here have done so with a limited menu and only for delivery or drive through orders , the same with the Mcdonalds that are scheduled to reopen .

Of course with both operations being mostly franchised I think it was necessary for the parent company to make a decision as well because otherwise it would have seen individual franchisees making decisions some of which could have resulted in brand damage . I think the right decision was to close for a period so modified operating practices could be brought into place .

I live in the USA and can totally relate. Perhaps to really open the economy we may have to change the law in the UK (and USA?) so that the threat of being sued is lifted. If we opened up only when totally safe(not realistic) that may help in not getting sued but as discussed in plenty upthread, the world economy and hence everything that follows from that could not handle it.
Im not particularly sure that we should remove the risk of being sued , I think the government should put clear guidelines in place and employers should then be able to rely on these . Be that the wearing of face coverings , keeping 2m away from one another . Giving employers immunity from legal recourse for their actions does not fill me with confidence that they will do the right thing . And could be used by some as an excuse to just take a cavelier attitude towards the health and safety of their employees . I mean look at certain examples of businesses like Sports direct that already have poor records when it comes to staff treatment and had to be forced to close their outlets when the stay at home advice was issued and shops of that kind ordered to close .
 

Domh245

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Im not particularly sure that we should remove the risk of being sued , I think the government should put clear guidelines in place and employers should then be able to rely on these . Be that the wearing of face coverings , keeping 2m away from one another . Giving employers immunity from legal recourse for their actions does not fill me with confidence that they will do the right thing . And could be used by some as an excuse to just take a cavelier attitude towards the health and safety of their employees . I mean look at certain examples of businesses like Sports direct that already have poor records when it comes to staff treatment and had to be forced to close their outlets when the stay at home advice was issued and shops of that kind ordered to close .

The intention of the "impunity" would be to stop people from claiming "you reopened your restaurant, I visited, developed symptoms and then infected my nan" and similar - the sort of cases where despite taking every reasonable precaution there is still a chance of spread. I certainly would hope it wouldn't affect the HSE and reporting to them which should be the first port of call for people taking a cavalier attitude to employee's H&S
 

Starmill

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reopen the economy

pro-lockdown lobbyists

Enough is enough.
huge damage being done for future generations

putting irrational fears first

really annoys me
much scaremongering

destroy the economy and have no decent future for everyone

attempts at trashing the economy
I would be very surprised if anyone's mind is being changed by any of these arguments. Even the thread title is actually a Trump dog-whistle.
 
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