
Lockdown 'killed two people for every three who died of coronavirus' at peak - walterbell
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/07/lockdown-killed-two-three-died-coronavirus/
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thomaslord
"The figures include 6,000 people who did not attend A&E at the height of
lockdown because of fears they might catch the virus and the feeling they
should remain at home because of the "Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives"
message."

This seems like two distinctly separate categories to me - if someone didn't
go to the hospital because they feared the virus and later died, that person's
death was completely unrelated to the lockdown (and if anything, a stronger
lockdown could have saved some of those lives by ending the risk that drove
them to stay home). If they didn't go to the hospital because of the advice to
stay home rather than their own caution, I think that's a reasonable death to
include in the numbers.

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nelaboras
The long term data will be fascinating. Less travel means fewer car accidents
and better air for example. As air quality is a key proxy for longevity/many
diseases this alone might add a long term positive. Not to mention all the
other infections prevented through social distancing, think flu, measles, ...

On the other hand especially the early days (or current reality for the US)
meant much stress, especially for parents. Busy hospitals are also a challenge
and can cause mistakes - and yet at the same time avoidance of less necessary
procedures might in some ways again add a positive angle.

My point being it's all about the kind of data and timeframe you look at. In
more practical terms the real consideration of the lockdowns needs to be
counterfactual: how many people _would have died_ without the lockdown. This
by definition is really difficult to do as it's to a large degree guesswork.

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olliej
People being discharged early _is_ a result of coronavirus, not "the
lockdown".

Seriously, the problem with pandemics isn't just large numbers of people dying
due to coronavirus, it's large numbers of people not being able to receive
medical care because pandemic cases have _already_ overwhelmed health
services.

When there are no ICU rooms left, people who would otherwise survive (car
accidents, heart attacks, strokes, etc) end up dying because the necessary
level of care isn't possible.

When calculating the number of people who have died as a result of a pandemic
you need to look at the excess death tally - e.g. how many people died during
the pandemic, vs average death rate in prior years.

The other thing the article fails to acknowledge is that many of the people
who died through not going the hospital may well have died anyway. So again,
excess deaths is what matters.

Finally, if a hard lock down were actually enforced (like NZ), you bring the
numbers down sufficiently rapidly to decrease the length of time of the
lockdown, get the immediate load off the health care system, and then because
you have a harsh lockdown, you can reopen more afterwards, and not immediately
return to lockdown.

The various half assed lockdowns in the US demonstrate that "saving the
economy" by not actually locking down has only served to damage the economy
more by killing more people and increasing the length of time that those half
assed lockdowns will need to hang around disrupting the economy.

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scotty79
In Poland people postponing planned surgeries and treatments actually lowered
deaths, at least in the short run.

Each treatment is risky and in short term some of them are are riskier than
actually doing nothing with the medical problem you have. So less attempts at
treatments means less deaths.

This effect was visible in Poland since we went into full lock down early on
and never had peak infections like Spain or Italy so drop in mortality was not
masked by deaths from covid.

Since the beginning of epidemic we had as much daily cases as countries have
after regaining control after the huge peak.

Unfortunately since we really relaxed restrictions (formally and informally)
and it's now summer we doubled the number of daily cases in less than two
weeks which is scary.

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ncmncm
The larger that fraction is -- 2 of 5, from the title, the more successful the
lockdown was, because there is no upper limit on the denominator.

