Yeah I know that, my best mates girlfriend is a doctor. But that's not at all proof of anything. There is a reason that wars aren't planned and architected by the foot soldier in the trench. They don't have perspective and the task at hand detracts from the bigger picture. I have the utmost respect for our NHS heroes but front line personnel are the last people you should ask. They have been put through hell over the past year and if I were in their shoes I would be ready to keel over. And that's exactly why these individuals shouldn't be calling the shots...they're just seeing one part of the puzzle.
Do you realise that in two successive comments, you have literally just claimed that hospitals are not really filling up, then claimed that reports from front-line staff working in those hospitals don't prove anything?
There is a reason that wars aren't planned and architected by the foot soldier in the trench. They don't have perspective and the task at hand detracts from the bigger picture.
A curious metaphor. There is a reason for the saying that an army is run by its sergeants. All the plans made by generals aren't worth squat if you don't have boots on the ground who know what they're doing to implement those plans.
Um, what? That's exactly right. Hospitals are not filling up. The NHS own data shows this. The fact that doctors think the hospitals are filling up is irrelevant. People's estimates of things are notoriously incorrect, especially when they are under pressure. I'm not sure what you've taken issue with.
Are you disputing the NHS data that hospitals are not filling up?
> There is a reason for the saying that an army is run by its sergeants. All the plans made by generals aren't worth squat if you don't have boots on the ground who know what they're doing to implement those plans.
Right, Sergents run the implementation, not the planning. What we are talking about is the planning. But the bigger issue with this logic is that this isn't a medical plan. It's a social one. The people who should develop a strategy around a global pandemic are not the same people who intubate the casualties of said pandemic. It's like asking a car mechanic how we should build safer roads...they're just not the same thing.
Lockdown is just cop out and not only it doesn't help it creates tons of additional problem.
What exactly would "better managed" look like, in your opinion, and what evidence do you have that your version of events would result in better outcomes than the lockdown measures that have been used?
By implementing lockdown, now you have 2 issue : Ambulance delay and the damage from lockdown.
Why it has better outcome?
From the data we know that for vast majority of people who get infected it will be either asymptomatic or only have mild symptoms and the serious case/death is skewed towards the elderly.
Lockdown cause harm. The virus cause harm.
More people suffer from lockdown than the virus.
At the minimum doing nothing different than the government already done in the past would lead better outcome than what we currently have.
If you want to do something, then there are many ways that are not lockdown, that can be done such as:
- increasing healthcare capacity/funding when needed
- accelerate development of better treatment
- accelerate vaccine development
- do not test everyone, so much wasted resource spent on this.
- media campaign to educate people about the actual risk of covid
- increase campaign on exercise, healthy diet, outdoor activities.
That's pretty much what I would do if I'm in power.
And that's still making the implicit assumption that the greater number of people getting the virus and therefore greater number of opportunities for new mutations to develop don't make things any worse, for example by evolving a mutation that severely affects other demographics in the same way that the current known variations of the virus affect elderly or otherwise vulnerable groups and/or that can withstand the treatments and vaccines we have available so far.
And it's also making the obviously false assumption that the NHS has the resources to offer the best possible care to everyone who does get the virus in your scenario, and that care for others with serious conditions is not compromised causing further suffering and loss of life.
I don't think most people would agree that such a strategy is either ethical or likely to be more effective at controlling the virus than the lockdown measures, under the present circumstances.
I didn't say that, I listed multiple measure that can be taken.
What I'm saying is, if for some reason the government refuse/unable to do those, at the minimum no lockdown is better.
>on the evidence so far, probably kill around 1 million people
1 million out of how many ? How many million people who going to suffer from lockdown?
>that we don't fully understand yet
Right, its not fully understood yet, so its not a justification to implement a measure that is harmful for million of people such as lockdown.
>or example by evolving a mutation that severely affects other demographics in the same way that the current known variations of the virus affect elderly or otherwise vulnerable groups and/or that can withstand the treatments and vaccines we have available so far
New mutation generally evolve into something that spread more easily but less deadly.
>And it's also making the obviously false assumption that the NHS has the resources to offer the best possible care to everyone
I never made assumption that the NHS has the resources to offer the best possible care to everyone.
>I don't think most people would agree that such a strategy is either ethical or likely to be more effective at controlling the virus than the lockdown measures, under the present circumstances.
I acknowledge that everybody has their own preference, if you like to live in the place with lockdown then to each their own. I'm just trying my best to everybody people I know. If I can choose I would much much prefer to live where the government handling this without lockdown. I ready to move to place with less lockdown, if the government in my place decided to increase the lockdown.
That being said I think each of us lives in their own preferable place is probably only thing that going to work for both of us.
I think they are exactly the ones we should be listening to.
But you don't listen to the foot soldier when they tell you how you should position your troops. And that's exactly what you're suggesting.
Or, even better, talk to anyone who works in a front-line NHS role, particularly in areas like A&E/intensive care. People who understand the context of the statistics and how they translate to real standards of patient care do not think everything is OK right now.
As it happens, I've spent some time over the past few days travelling to and from various medical facilities. Every single one of them had heavy precautions in place. And on the radio in the car this afternoon, there was a whole series of medical and public health professionals talking about not only the current situation with the virus but also how damaging it is when people do exactly what you're doing right now.
Remember, if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, they probably know something you don't.