Well, well, well.

https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m3588

Tldr; Lockdowns increase deaths. As we’ve been telling you from the start.

 

And, as an aside....John Lennon Plastic Ono Band 1970....

 

I took my love up to big field

 

Thought the discredited Ferguson Imperial College model was rubbish? - Because thats what they've used for this prediction.

 

from the dept of selective statistics

 

Should just consult the Bbs, full of experts! I

 

*Sigh*. They've used a model with different software as closely as possible recreating the code from a collaboration effort that the original authors at Imperial, amongst others, input into. The aim is to say - OK - with your assumptions that generated the argument for lockdown, what would happen if we model in what was actually done.

They haven't used the original code used in the initial model that churned out the widely reported half a million dead in Report 9, mainly because Ferguson and Imperial refuse to release it. (By the way - did you know that they never actually modelled lockdown scenario in it).

So you're kind of half right. But the point is - even replicating this code that the whole lockdown was justified on said that more people would die FROM COVID with a lockdown than without one!!! And that's before you even factor in the massive increases predicted in cancer, suicides etc.

I don't know how much more damning you want it to be. Even the very thing used to justify the whole lockdown says it shouldn't have been done.

 

If you went looking for it you could find scientifically sound research to justify your opinion on just about anything.

So the BMJ have ran this - to be fair there are other articles which partially disagree even on the same source. But globally and even nationally there are just as credible and worthy sources as the BMJ say quite the opposite. There are Dr’s and professors in the same field drawing apparently different conclusions about the same things.

So quoting this source and proclaiming it to be the only version of right and true is disingenuous at best and probably actually just downright misleading. You can’t just decide this is the best and most credible source just on the basis that it happens to be what you believe.

Are these continued posts an attempt to get us all to say ‘yes, you were right all along’?

Because over and above that, unless you’ve invented a time machine lockdown is never not going to happen, and getting us to change our differing view achieves nothing other than stoking your ego to my eye.

I still believe lockdown was necessary. I might not be right, and the differing views indicate we might never fully decisively prove one way or the other. I do know, though, and will never be convinced otherwise, that it was made a complete pigs-ear of by the numpties who implemented it, who dallied, delayed, then wasted the opportunity to use the time and achieved very little.

 

Can you not read the mood music? We're about to have another one imposed on us, which I believe will cause further death, unemployment, illness and misery.

I want people to understand what the implications of the last one were to try and do whatever little bit I can to influence opinion this time so that when it's imposed again in the next few weeks, as it surely will be, this time there's some decent level of resistance and opposition.

 

You omitted that this will be a very different lockdown. No nice sunny days, joe wicks, bake a cake, clap for the NHS. We’re all ‘in it together’ facing an existential threat.

This time it will be cold wet days with long dark nights, the furlough money will be gone. Mental health will be shattered as long periods of being cooped up are dominated by anxiety, particularly people who will face the new year with no income.

Other people will despair in the thought that there could be a mind numbing cycle of lockdown/ release where you can’t even see close family. They may crave for a life of near normality that they perceive could never be in reach.

In February folk were saying ‘be kind’. As world mental health day approaches I hope that wasn’t just a slogan.

 

Whether we should have a further lockdown is of course a separate argument.

Yes, of course I see the path we are progressing down.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think I would back another lockdown.

Not because I don’t think it could benefit, but because I don’t think it would be done properly. I have no faith in this government on anything, and I could only support a further lockdown on the proviso it was needed and would be done properly.

What we will get, and we will, we don’t have power to stop it, will be another half arsed attempt which will be spun to say worked but in reality won’t.

All this said, long term benefit wise, another lockdown might work out well for most. It will piss a lot of people right off, even more than already. It will piss a lot of the Tory backbenchers off and some large scale backers.

They might revolt, we might end up in a mess leading to another election, and we can try and get rid of them. Rose tinted? Yes, but we can only hope.

 

Surely it's about looking forward not back. It's not getting you to change your mind about what you thought then, it's about keeping the discussion going regarding what may be going to happen and deciding if it's the right thing to do. And it's not even about changing your mind now, it's about hearing from you if you believe lockdown is the right thing to do and why, so we can take your opinion on board and either challenge it or accept it so it may change our opinion. Because none of this is about I, it's about us, more than anything we have ever faced.

 

Absolutely on the head.

 

Jesus mate, pissing people off is the least of it. How about totally devastating their livelihoods and therefore their lives.

 

I don't think anyone on here is actually advocating going back into Lockdown are they? People who were initially in favour of a Lockdown back in March/April are having that used against them now there is a threat of a second one.

"THERE YOU ARE. WE'RE GETTING A SECOND LOCKDOWN. ARE YOU HAPPY?"

Well no, I can't remember anyone saying it would be a good idea. And I also can't remember anyone saying that the initial lockdown was handled anywhere near as well as it needed to be and therefore there have been a multitude of subsequent issues.

Just because I thought Lockdown was a good idea in March doesn't mean I automatically want businesses to be destroyed and folks committing suicide.

 

Just for debate

https://lockdownsceptics.org/counting-covid-19-cases-is-misleading-everybody/

 

I think that is a fair comment Fonzie.

 

No more lockdowns. Just get some of this technology over here and get on with life.

 

You missed an important caveat from their conclusion (They being an astrophysicist, a collider physicist, a research student and a computational simulationist so no medical experts)

"The model used for Report 9 was independently validated and verified, and predicts that, in the absence of an effective vaccine for covid-19, school closures would result in more overall deaths than no school closures"

If a vaccine (or effective treatment) appears, then this model is just another complicated sequence of sums. It also doesn't model for a second, or regional lockdown, or other preventative measures. It also just assumes one lockdown, then open up and infection confers immunity (not proven yet) and not long-term effects on the infected population (Spanish flu caused a significant increase in Parkinson's for example).

Don't get me wrong, I am happy that other situations are being modeled, and we need all the accuracy we can get. The geek in me wants to get my hands on it and see what results I can produce.

 

Businesses being destroyed is entirely an ideological decision by the government. They could choose to support anyone they want financially for as long as they wanted. They are *choosing* not to.