For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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#1895231
I think the reality is that the pandemic experts are being asked for advice on how to minimise the health effects of the virus whereas governments have to view the wider picture.

We could require everyone to stay home for 2 months, weld our front doors shut, compulsory quarantine centres a la China, etc. That would end Covid in the UK, at least until someone brought it in from abroad again, but in the meantime half the population will have starved to death. Those with an axe to grind will of course rant and rave at the politicians for ignoring "the science" as johnm liked to call it but there has to be a compromise between full on pandemic control & society continuing to function. It is very noticeable how many of the harsh lockdown proponents have tax funded jobs with a guaranteed salary, irrespective of the health of the economy.

No-one is suggesting that "only" 17,000 people died from Covid; the suggestion is that the 100,000+ other deaths were in many cases people seriously ill with other conditions & that Covid may have contributed to their deaths rather than cause it.
Flyin'Dutch', StratoTramp, Sooty25 and 3 others liked this
#1895235
leiafee wrote:
Robin500 wrote:Whitty Ferguson & co would have lockdowns and restrictions for ever and a day if they could.


What do you imagine they stand to gain from such behaviour?


It's purely reputational now. They dropped a massive clanger by following China. Quite simply, they don't know how to unwind the situation they created, all the while justifying small wins in isolation without the surrounding context of damage that sits outside their professional remit and the catastrophic decisions they made.

They are joined in their dilemma by many thousands of others in the same situation. They could pay for it with their career.
flybymike, Robin500 liked this
#1895250
low&slow wrote:
No-one is suggesting that "only" 17,000 people died from Covid; the suggestion is that the 100,000+ other deaths were in many cases people seriously ill with other conditions & that Covid may have contributed to their deaths rather than cause it.


Indeed, and more to the point, that any other infectious transmissible disease might just as easily have had the exactly the same cumulative result, but without the disastrous economic and health collateral damages caused by lockdowns and restrictions.
#1895257
low&slow wrote:No-one is suggesting that "only" 17,000 people died from Covid; the suggestion is that the 100,000+ other deaths were in many cases people seriously ill with other conditions & that Covid may have contributed to their deaths rather than cause it.


This is backwards. People were made seriously ill and died from Covid. They may have had other conditions which may have contributed to their deaths rather than caused it. Obesity is one of them. Hands up the forumites over 50 who couldn't do with losing a few kg... :D

Sure, there may be some people who would only have had a few months left, but overall there were many more who would have had 20 years or more left.

flybymike wrote:Indeed, and more to the point, that any other infectious transmissible disease might just as easily have had the exactly the same cumulative result, but without the disastrous economic and health collateral damages caused by lockdowns and restrictions.


If another infectious transmissible deadly disease like Covid came along, I would expect the same sort of lockdowns and precautions would be put in place. Other infectious transmissible we tend to put up with are only 1/20th to 1/50th as deadly as Covid.
Flyin'Dutch', kanga liked this
#1895260
Paul_Sengupta wrote
This is backwards. People were made seriously ill and died from Covid. They may have had other conditions which may have contributed to their deaths rather than caused it. Obesity is one of them. Hands up the forumites over 50 who couldn't do with losing a few kg... :D


Paul the “people who were made seriously ill and died from covid” who had no other health conditions number 17300, out of an estimated 16million infections in the U.K. virtually all of which were mild, (or like my daughter in law at the moment, completely asymptomatic.)

All you are simply saying above is that it is their other conditions which caused their death and not covid.

Regardless of transmissibility, such a low level of lethality which is comparable with many other infectious diseases, does not, and has never previously warranted wholesale lockdowns and restrictions.
Robin500 liked this
#1895261
flybymike wrote:number 17300


May I refer you to the answer given by someone in the medical profession?

https://forums.flyer.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=1895228#p1895228

This may be the number who died who have had no other issues, but issues are something as simple as being overweight, not something that's imminently about to kill you. And who, over 60, doesn't have elevated blood pressure for instance?

flybymike wrote:which is comparable with many other infectious diseases


Lowest estimated are 20 times other infectious diseases.
Flyin'Dutch', kanga liked this
#1895265
Paul_Sengupta wrote:And who, over 60, doesn't have elevated blood pressure for instance?

Depends how you view it. Not too long ago blood pressure was expected to rise slowly with age. That was “normal”. Now we are expected to have the health parameters of a twenty year old until we drop down dead of old age.
There is no longer any room for variation .
Robin500, flybymike, Rjk983 liked this
#1895277
flybymike wrote:
low&slow wrote:
No-one is suggesting that "only" 17,000 people died from Covid; the suggestion is that the 100,000+ other deaths were in many cases people seriously ill with other conditions & that Covid may have contributed to their deaths rather than cause it.


Indeed, and more to the point, that any other infectious transmissible disease might just as easily have had the exactly the same cumulative result, but without the disastrous economic and health collateral damages caused by lockdowns and restrictions.


Lots of decisions had to be made on the fly, some right, some wrong. I was/is a global pandemic that spread like wildfire and nobody really knew what to expect. Less of a response could have filled all the temporary hospitals in days and collapsed the NHS completely.

Could it have been handled better? Yes, but it could have been handled worse. Nobody had the benefit of hindsight.

I would think there was a lot of politicians thinking "phew, glad I didn't get elected".

For what its worth, day after boxing day, my daughter tested positive. My wife and I had symptoms and tested positive the following day. We all spent the following week isolated with flu like symptoms and completely exhausted. It wasn't pleasant at all, even having had vaccine jabs and booster. It is the first festive season in probably 3 decades where I've lost body weight, rather than gained! Delta variant, not Omicron.
kanga liked this
#1895289
Flyingfemme wrote:
Paul_Sengupta wrote:And who, over 60, doesn't have elevated blood pressure for instance?

Depends how you view it. Not too long ago blood pressure was expected to rise slowly with age. That was “normal”. Now we are expected to have the health parameters of a twenty year old until we drop down dead of old age.
There is no longer any room for variation .


Define 'not long ago'

Just as with smoking and drinking, the knowledge that a rising blood pressure is associated with a higher risk of strokes, cardiovascular incidents and death has been long known.

It is indeed normal that with age blood pressure rises.

What we also know that if people's blood pressure is well managed (if necessary with medication) is that the frequency of diseases associated with high blood pressure does not.

It's a bit like all other things in life, we discover what doesn't work so well and with modifications/adjustments/developments we try to make it better.

That's were we are lucky we have brains, think of the poor amoeba, since time immemorial only able to find its way by bumping into things which change its course.
kanga liked this
#1895300
Flyin'Dutch' wrote:.., think of the poor amoeba, since time immemorial only able to find its way by bumping into things which change its course.


In human, particularly political governance, affairs this reminded me of the quote attributed to Macmillan (one of the brightest post-War PMs, IMHO)

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harold_Macmillan

"Disputed

Events, dear boy, events.

Response to a journalist when asked what is most likely to blow governments off course.
The quote is also given as "Events, my dear boy, events", with the word "my", but it may never have been uttered at all.
Knowles, Elizabeth M. (2006). What they didn't say: a book of misquotations. Oxford University Press. pp. vi, 33. "

Whether the attribution is true or not, his administration was rather knocked off its thitherto apparently steady course by something outside his control (Profumo) and easily mockable (eg by the very new Private Eye, the Establishment Club and TWTWTW on TV). His sudden illness (no doubt genuine. but as it turned out far from terminal physically or mentally) may have been a welcome escape route, leaving something of a poisoned chalice to his successor (Douglas-Home, also able but mockable; but it should have been Butler, effectively vetoed by Party grandees' snobbery) :wink:

</politics nerd - who remembers that period very well>
Sooty25, Flyin'Dutch' liked this
#1895304
Of possibly apposite relevance, here is a fairly recent think piece by an 'ethical egalitarian philosophical capitalist', for whom I have a great deal of respect. Incidentally, he's also an engineer and (lapsed) PPL. He's 'put his money where his mouth is' by endowing a research project at my (not his own) College:

https://www.zyen.com/events/all-events/ ... portunity/
#1895419
eltonioni wrote:It's purely reputational now. They dropped a massive clanger by following China. Quite simply, they don't know how to unwind the situation they created, all the while justifying small wins in isolation without the surrounding context of damage that sits outside their professional remit and the catastrophic decisions they made.

They are joined in their dilemma by many thousands of others in the same situation. They could pay for it with their career.


What IS their career, again?
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