Anyone agree with Lord Sumption?

Elegran But how would they cope with the admin!

I was wondering today how many deaths on the roads had been saved by this lockdown.

Everyone has their own agenda, including LordSump (what a great name he has)
Our personal dilemma today is : Does DH keep his hospital appt or cancel it? The hospital haven't cancelled it but we tend to think that a trip to the cancer ward at the present time, would not be wise.
So which of the Big Cs is more important?

Did the Daily Mail invent this story to get us all outraged?

Nope.

It was an interview he gave to the Times

Don't forget this is a worldwide problem and whatever we do we are not going to be isolated from the rest of the world. People will start flying again and carrying corona from other countries. We could all end up trashing our economies before the virus is dealt with. I think all countries should protect their economy first, because a serious enough global downturn will bring about a worldwide depression and the suffering then will be much worse than the virus.

I'm not sure where you get that figure from mary51. There are 1257 hospitals in the UK and we're heading (as of today) towards 1000 deaths a day.

Many of the hospitals don't have emergency or ICU departments, so there are a number of deaths in each hospital every day.

That's in addition to people who die of totally unrelated causes.

Trisher I hope they see the irony in my post, too!

We could just cut out the middleman (the virus) and send all the old and/or vulnerable direct to a euthanasia centre, where they could be despatched efficiently without suffering all the distress and indignity of catching the virus then having to prove that they were unable to breathe before being accepted for ICU treatment. No wasting the time of medical teams on those unlikely to survive. Much speedier, and it would have the same final result.

In fact, we could label them "Final solution centres". Oh I nearly forgot - that has been done before.

It's a very visible problem. Air pollution kills far more people world wide - but it's largely ignored as the cause and effect aren't so obvious.

The last figures that I could see for annual deaths on the road were around 1,784.
This virus will kill many more than this, not all of them elderly, so it is not a relevant comparison.
To decide that to save the economy is worth the trade off of multiple deaths, some of whom (not all) will be elderly and vulnerable, would mean a society lacking in humanity and compassion and not one I would care to be part of.

I hope everyone realises I'm not actually advocating this!

If we are taking logic to its fullest extent what we should do then is send infected people into care homes and sheltered housing and spread it there. Then those people could just stay home and die. Hospitals would be clear to deal with younger people. We might extend that to opening schools and ask people to send their children in even if they are not well, we could have grandparent days and send in GPs. The virus would then be spread about naturally and those most likely to die would be infected quickly. Then the economy would suffer even less!!!

Elegran He is a retired supreme court judge and is simply stating his opinion as are we.

suziewoozie

'Does anyone believe it can ever be business as usual or instead we will have to rethink our economic and social model - as we did after WW2?'

I really hope we have a rethink - otherwise we're doomed!

It's a case of (as Albert Einstein is widely credited with saying) “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.

I haven't read all the comments so just venturing in for the
first time!

It seems that one person for every three hospitals is dying each day. That in itself is not too great a figure, if you average out daily death totals.

I worry about the next two generations how all this will affect them. That is my main worry.

Who is Lord Sumption? I have never heard of him. Is he an expert at something or other? If so, why isn't he on a professional team advising the Government on strategies for dealing with the virus?

Does he have a nice big estate where he can wander around without coming into contact with other people and spreading the disease wholesale around. Is he elderly with health issues?

Does he employ a personal doctor and not have to join a queue for a ventilator?

Is he happy to face death in support of his views?

Is he happy to have a sizeable section of the population critically ill all at the same time? Who does he think will look after them? Is he volunteering to do so?

Lastly - Did the Daily Mail invent this story to get us all outraged?

Its an interesting point of view. There are people who will die because of the withdrawal of services, those who have had cancer treatments delayed for example and these deaths will not be counted as Covid related.
Its hard to know what the actual effects of this lockdown will be to the economy. As someone said this what happens in Paris every summer!

The economy will recover, with a measure of austerity .

The economy will recover in the manner the Tories want it to recover with the workers who saw us through hard times, the low paid, continuing to be low paid.

The only way we can have a better society after the emergency is to have a Labour govenment. Why cannot some people see the Tories are self seeking?

What Lord Sumption appears to doing is to present this argument as a logical one. Pitting a theory in logical terms to advance it's acceptance since one surely cannot disagree with logic. One problem with this kind of presentation, however, always remains. The survival of the fittest never has or never will be entirely dependent upon the strength of reasoning alone. The human brain is equiped with so much more than that and when it comes down to it, like any other creature on earth, the basest instinct is to survive. All our senses, emotions and intellect have developed to preserve our species and in the end it is illogical to dispense any one of these facets of our human nature.

Yes, I think there’s a lot of mileage in what he says. Will trying to save one set of people put to detriment, another? I suppose we won’t know for a while.

I thought deaths outside of hospital are not in the daily count but will now appear in the ONS weekly stats.

suziewoozie There wouldn't be a queue for beds and ventilators if people were just to be allowed to die at home. Even now, deaths outside a hospital setting don't always show up in the official death statistics.

The real issues are going to be what next, whenever next comes along. Does anyone believe it can ever be business as usual or instead we will have to rethink our economic and social model - as we did after WW2?

Any government that didn't try to save lives would be judged later - for mass murder. I can see both sides of the argument but there is only one way. The death toll will be horrendous anyway, despite everyone's best efforts

I do also feel that white men if LS’s age and privileged background do not and can not appreciate or understand the lives of many UK citizens. In a pandemic free for all, who do you think would be first in the queue for the inadequate number of hospital beds and ventilators?

Especially Davidhs as those who would die tend to vote for the political party currently in power (in the UK, at least).