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Again the problem of hunkering down too long to be "better safe than sorry" will likely cause more deaths due to the ongoing detrimental effects on mental and physical health, and (more specifically) the austerity it creates than are saved due to avoiding Covid-19 deaths.
I see a lot of people say this but is there any data/studies to suggest it's true? I feel like a lot of people (Telegraph types) repeat this as gospel but are not actually informed in any way
Edit: I mean obviously it is true by default that at some point lockdown is worse than COVID. But I'm interested to know where that point is, because I don't think we're even close to it yet (lockdown would have to be pretty bad to be worse than 100,000s dead)
frankenbike
@Greenbank
Again the problem of hunkering down too long to be "better safe than sorry" will likely cause more deaths due to the ongoing detrimental effects on mental and physical health, and (more specifically) the austerity it creates than are saved due to avoiding Covid-19 deaths. Especially now that the groups responsible for 99% of Covid-19 deaths are long on their way to as good a vaccination status as we can expect.
If the recent decisions are being science/data led then hopefully the consensus agreement behind it factors this in to how long they think they can reasonable keep the lockdown in place.
I'm sure there will be dissenting views in SAGE and iSAGE, it's obviously not a decision that is going to be unanimous or clearly defined by "Science", otherwise the decision would be obvious to all. And I expect that the dissenting views will get more air time and twitter time than the majority of the SAGE/iSAGE members that do agree. Such is life.
The other problem is that even in a mostly vaccinated population (e.g. if they have offered all adults at least the first dose of the vaccine by 21st June) there will still be deaths from Covid-19 much like there are usually 20,000 deaths from flu each year. The vaccine isn't 100% effective, nor is it going to have 100% coverage, plus there are even more unknowns. But, the key difference between Influenza and Covid-19 is the possibility of large number of cases of severe "Long Covid".
I also suspect that by June there will be a plan (or a plan for a plan) for childhood immunisiation, probably in the form of an intranasal spray like the Flu vaccine that school kids are offered each year. There must be hundreds of trials of vaccines for children underway in the UK and abroad.