Anyone agree with Lord Sumption?

I disagree with you absolutely MOnica. It will be 18 months before there's a vaccine. During that time many people will have lost their jobs, businesses will have gone bankrupt and lives will have been disrupted. There will be flare ups until a vaccine is found.

Both world wars changed society profoundly and were catalysts for major change. I disagree with your historical interpretation. In the case of WW2, the 1945 Labour victory and the major changes in healthcare, education and welfare showed that.

I think you have a very rose-tinted view of modern society. Millions of people are going to have to live on a small income (even on benefits) over the next couple of years. It's already given a few people a shock now they've realised how low they are. People have already realised that eyebrow trims and finger nails (for example) aren't necessities.

I do not think that the crisis is going to go on long enough to effect any major change in people's attitudes. Even a world war did not make that much difference, in fact, quite the opposite, it sent people back to re creating their rose tinted picture of what the world was like before the war, women in the home, men out at work

The first small seeds of change did not show until the mid 50s and didn't really blossom until the 1960s, some 20 years after the war ended.

I do not think it is the budgeting or managing on a small income that is causing problems, but the fact that we no longer build our lives around our home. Now we are always going out of our houses, to shop, to eat, to enjoy leisure facilities, even of it is just a drive out to, and walk round a local place of beauty or interest. Modern houses and flats are about half the size of their equivalents built70 years ago and as for gardens. The back garden of most new houses are no bigger than the back yards of the Victorian slum housing, now mainly demolished.

No it wont growstuff because there is the double whammy of continents where we get a huge amounts of crop resources from being hit by locus swarms this year

trisher I think you're right. Some people are fearful that people's priorities will have changed because they'll have to think of other ways of relieving people of their money. A few might even realise that a civilised society can't function without public service workers.

notanan The food and housing will still be there. The issue is making sure that money is distributed (probably by taxation and ensuring people earn enough) evenly enough, so that everybody can afford the basics.

MOnica I would like to think (possibly naively) that people will use the time to consider what's really important in life.

Ironically, those of us who haven't had a holiday or meal out for years and really do know how to budget are coping with this better than some others.

Stand back a bit. The UK won't be a war torn country. Our buildings and roads will still be here. There will still be houses and there's no reason why our food production shouldn't return to normal (well, apart from immigration restrictions). The UK isn't Syria or Yemen.

The basic essentials of life will still exist - air, water, food, housing. The issue will be that the means (money) to obtain those essentials will not be evenly distributed. Hopefully, people will think twice about pointing the figure at benefit scroungers because millions are going to be forced to accept state help.

The wealth will still be there but very possibly concentrated in even fewer people's bank accounts. People like Jacob Rees-Mogg are already circling like vultures to buy up the bankrupt businesses and to asset strip them. Banks will be more than ready to lend to people at punitive rates, etc etc. That's why the last couple of years of this government will make or break it. And why the country needs an opposition which understands what's going on. I have absolutely no doubt that people will be sold the weary austerity lies and many of them will accept it, but it doesn't have to be like that.

Use lockdown time to read up and understand the arguments which occurred after WW2. Some economists wanted a form of austerity then and, indeed, life was tough in the couple of years immediately after 1945, but the West spent its way to growth. Read about how the New Deal helped the US recover from the Great Depression.

Rubbish most people will be on the bones of their arse by then

I think the day the breaks come off everyone whether they can aford it or not wll go on frenzied spending spree, mainly on eating out going to places of entertainment and going on holidays.

What will happen after that I really am not sure. That could be enough to get the economy of the floor, say on to its knees, but after that - I do not know.

Nah the fear is that people wont be able to have food and housing etc

It occurs to me that one of the fears that might be rising now is the fear that once this begins to abate we will not go back to our previous consumer society, and shop, and spend, as much as possible, but keep new habits and occupy ourselves with other things.

I do not for one moment believe that not saving the economy will kill as many people as not intervening in the pandemic would. This sounds like the same kind of loony argument Trump is using. Economies can be saved - dead people can't be!!

I've looked at Lord Sumption's background, so to me it seems perfectly logically for him to take this position.

He does not have a medical background.

His view is as valid as any of ours.

There is no doubt we are stuck between a rock and a hard place, either save the economy and lose lives or save lives and lose the economy, which in turn will cost a lot more lives than the virus. Which is it?

That’s true not and it’s also true that some people’s health is being compromised even if it doesn’t lead to death. That’s very hard isn’t it?

Exactly notanan. Some people dying of covid would have died within the next year or so anyway, but others wouldn't. The final figure can't be calculated yet, but people are fooling themselves if they think the excess death figure won't be in six figures.

Toadinthehole Whoever your daughter was listening to, doesn't understand economics. Of course, the "debt" would be paid back by quality jobs and taxes. Government "debt" and "austerity" are false constructs.

But there are people dying of non covid diseases because of the focus on covid, who might otherwise have lived, and THAT data hasnt been properly collected yet

I don't think anyone was suggesting lockdown as a long-term strategy. It was for delaying and spreading the use of life-saving equipment. If it had not been applied, many of us would now be dead who are still alive. We may still succumb, but our chances of surviving are better.

We do not have private ITUs in the UK all ITU beds are nationalised private patients in with nhs patients. Total myth that the rich get better car when it comes to critical illness

(There ARE some units that call themselves private ITUs but they cannot do high acuity, they are more like fancy recoveries/HDUs. If you need ITU doesnt matter who you are here, its all the same!)

Chestnut There is absolutely no doubt there will be a worldwide depression.

MOnica The French and Italian slowdowns followed after lockdowns, as ours probably will. The Imperial College report claimed that there would almost certainly be 500,000 deaths without some intervention and that figure is quoted elsewhere too. The reason it would slow down at 500,000 would be because 50 million people would have been infected and herd immunity would have been achieved. It really isn't scare mongering. Work it out for yourself.

That was an extension of my previous post, not a reply to notanan

Or, perhap, the only people in that position who would receive life-extending medical care would be those who could afford to buy their own equipment and pay their own medical staff. Survival of the wealthiest. Would that be survival of those best fitted to reversing a global depression, or those best fitted to make certain that they themselves stayed comfortable?

How can we predict who will save the world and who will save themselves? What if we got Trump clones?