Tory election donors call on Boris Johnson to end 'harmful' lockdown

"The “second wave” is already breaking. It is made up of non-coronavirus patients not able or willing to access healthcare because of the crisis. Based on ONS and NHS data, Edge Health estimates these deaths now total approximately 10,000 and are running at around 2,000 a week"

How did the work that out?

There are about 10,000-12,000 deaths a week in "normal" times. Those people would have died regardless. It doesn't sound likely that an extra 20% have died because they weren't treated.

It's a good article. But those people will still be there IN ADDITION to all the C19 patients if we ease lockdown. C19 hasn't gone away and the infection rate, number of patients and death rates will rocket if we come out of lockdown.

Lots of specialists across the board have been warning about the risk of increased deaths due to lockdown

Face to face mental heath and addiction therapies were abruptly stopped (and theres reports that dtug related crimes like stabbings are up)

Oncologists and GPs are worried about their NON CV19 patients.

People have no access to rehab to help them recover from illnesses

It is NOT business as usual in non CV specialities.

The NHS is on pause for you if you have some non CV health needs

notanan2 The NHS is still mending broken bones, dealing with heart attacks, strokes, asthma flare ups and many people are still having chemotherapy and radiotherapy etc. Our hospitals are 41% empty due to cancellation of what are classed as^non essential operations/procedures^ two thirds of ventilators are not in use (all the above are verifiable if you care to look at a reliable source on the internet).

You can get acute emergency treatment if you have a heart attack, sure..

... but what you can't get right now is the treatments that prevent you from having that heart attack, like cardiac rehabilitation.

Our hospitals are 41% empty due to cancellation of what are classed as^non essential

Yup.
And what happens if you cancell "minor" elective operations?
Some of them deteriorate and become bigger more fatal energency ops!

Cancel someones non emergency stent, increase the risk of them coming in as an energency with a big clot.

Which do you think is more likely to kill you?

As for cancers.

Not all of the new diagnosis come through the suspected cancer pathway.

A LOT are "incidental" findings
Which means, people who had routine or non energency scans/tests for unrelated things.
And then a cancer happens to be spotted.
Those cancers are not being diagnosed or treated under lockdown.
Meaning they will come in as emergencies when the cancer progresses. Instead of being picked up as a routine/non emergency patient sooner.

E.g. a shoulder x-ray showing up a neck or upper lung lesion.

Treatable at that point

Not treatable if not spotted until fitting with brain mets.

Because the shoulder xray was "non essential/not emergency" as it was for a long term problem not a new injury.

This is the sort of way a lot of new cancer findings end up under the cancer doctors. Right now they are not getting these "incidental" cancer findings.

Let the rich fund the economy !!

Councils fund social care.

Things like car parks and business rates fund councils

Cuts to social care costs lives

May is the time to start moving things on gradually. Those people who need or want to can remain at home. Notanan2 is right about health care.
The "fat cats" may have their own interests at heart but they do have a point.

Let the rich fund the economy !!

Wouldnt that be great?

But theyre not going to. So we need to.

What point? We are nowhere near to seeing a steep fall in the number of deaths and we are in serious danger of a second wave if we open up the country too soon. It is very possible that a second wave could be worse than the first.

The people pushing for a return to business as usual seem to feel that we can make the pandemic be over when we want it to be. We have had enough of lockdown, the economy is suffering, therefore we decide that it is time to open up. The problem is that the virus does not work like that. We can't say, "Right, this has gone on too long, time for it to be over", just because some wealthy and powerful men want the country to get back to work. If we do, it's likely that thousands more will die.

What point? We are nowhere near to seeing a steep fall in the number of deaths

We are on a tipping point of becoming dangerously close to the non Covid lockdowm related deaths over taking the number of covid deaths lockdown might prevent.

Thats not counting the long term deaths caused by people losing jobs, the long term consequences of national lockdown debts (taxation and austerity) and the strain on social care and mental health provision.

Prolongued lockdown will cause far more deaths than Covid in so many ways for years to come

One report said that domestic violence murder rates have doubled under lockdown.

Fixating on Covid alone is dangerous. We need to consider the deaths that lockdown will CAUSE if its not ended soon

www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/15/domestic-abuse-killings-more-than-double-amid-covid-19-lockdown

We are building up to having huge waves of serious cancers that werent picked up. A big safeguarding crisis. Complications from chronic illnesses as clinics and rehab services are shut. Missed routine ops turning into serious emergency ops.

And lets not forget: austerity and poverty kills!

But lets go back to Covid for a moment. What makes you most at risk of dying of covid if you catch it?

Poorly managed chronic conditions (lockdown makes this worse)
Poverty and poor nutrition or obesity (lockdown makes this worse)
Being an ethnic minority (possibly because of challenges accessing appropriate healthcare, lockdown makes this worse)
Being a man (not changed by lockdown)
Being older (not changed by lockdown)

So are we going to make Covid more fatal by prolonging lockdown? Quite possibly.

In the short term, look internationally. Different countries have very different approaches but what is consistant is that outcomes relate to population density regardless of gov approach.

Not only that but the countries who went in early with a hard lockdown initially praised as success stories, are now getting hit. Lockdown postpones or streatches out covid deaths. It doesnt prevent them. So is it worth the other deaths that lockdown causes?

So if you ease up a long way on lockdown, you will have three weeks or so until the effects of the free intermingling of people gives you the second wave of hospitalisations of seriously affected cases of CoVid to fill up beds and keep out the patients who would benefit from admittance. In those three weeks, everyone who has been holding back from visiting their doctor/dentist/optician with minor ailments will try to get appointments. Those who are suffering emotionally and mentally from isolation will need identifying and treating.

Once those three weeks are up, the ICU wards and the new hospitals will be full of patients, those whose nerves have been shattered will be full of tranquillisers, and for the rest of the population a second round of lockdown will have to be considered to stop the even greater infection rate than we have already experienced from again paralysing the country. Nothing will have been gained.

Thats not the case because the first lockdown bought hospitals time to reconfigure to cope with covid peaks. Those systems are now in place.

Of course, there may be plans under discussion at this very moment for countering all the poorly managed chronic conditions, the poor nutrition, poverty and obesity, the lack of appointments for conditions other than CoVid19, the mental and emotional stress of lockdown, the access to healthcare of ethnic minorities, and all the other things that make lockdown an unpopular, uncomfortable and even a dangerous precaution. Perhaps a squad of flying pigs is being formed to administer it all.