Anyone agree with Lord Sumption?

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

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.

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.

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?

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?

He does not have a medical background.

His view is as valid as any of ours.

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

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!!

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

18 months is not very long.

Yes I agree with Lord Sumption.
Hysteria is infectious and critical thinking has been deserted.
99% of covid 9 cases are mild to moderate 1% are critical.
what we are really experiencing is a Health service Crisis in certain areas that is not able to cope with a minor increase in demand because of C19
if we check how Germany are dealing with the outbreak we will find that they have approx. 4X the critical case as the UK has and an above 90% recovery rate from those critical cases whereas the UK as an above 90% death rate.

JTK1 The figures from Germany can't be compared. They are testing, contact tracing and isolating. We are just isolating. We have no idea about the real number of people who have the virus.

The UK has a population of 66 million. 1% is 660,000. Some of those people would die within a year anyway, but by no means all.

I posted a link to a speech by Angela Merkel somewhere. Germany is deliberately aiming to keep the transmission rate low by social distancing. They have more ICU beds per capita than the UK anyway, but the aim is to try and ensure that hospitals aren't overwhelmed, so that those people who are affected badly have the best chance of survival. They are trying to keep the transmission rate to 1 or below, which cannot happen if social distancing measures were to be relaxed.

JTK1 do you have a source for your claim that Germany has four times the number of critical cases? My understanding was that Germany has more cases, but the majority of them are mild. They know they have them because they test more. The mean age of cases in Germany is in the mid 40s, whereas the people who are known to be infected in the UK are much older.

I have come to the conclusion that the only information you can get from the Covid statistics in any country is the direction of movement and a broad idea of how many are dying. They are otherwise so varied and flawed as to be totally useless.

For example we only count as Covid deaths, those who die in hospital and have been tested, but, that includes those who died of other causes but happened to have the virus present when they died, but no symptoms. It seems probably that a lot of care home deaths are not being registered as Covid, presumably, just pneumonia because the deceased never had a Covid test. On top of that it can take over a week for a death to be registered, so again another imprecision.

Repeat that and different reasons in every other country and all the statistics can tell you is roughly which direction they are going, up or down.