The Tele reports that government modelling suggests that 150,000 deaths will be caused by the lockdown and that the government has been surprised at people actually sticking to the rules. For those who have access, it's a rather eye-opening piece!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/09/boris-worried-lockdown-has-gone-far-can-end/
Other options are, now, being discussed. Perhaps adverts, politely telling us that our country needs us to work. (As one minister puts it: “somebody has to pay for the NHS”). Parents, too, might be urged to send their children to school after Easter – if they qualify. But it’s easy to see how employers, workers and parents have gone to ground. “Stay at home, Protect the NHS, Save lives” – a message honed by Isaac Levido, the Tory election campaign chief – has worked. All too well.
Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, had been working with the Prime Minister on the next step: how to stop the end of lockdown being seen as a question of “lives vs money”. As a former economic adviser, Hancock is certainly mindful of the money: a £200 billion deficit could mean another decade of austerity. But other figures – infections, mortality rates and deaths – are rightly holding the national attention. Phasing out the lockdown needs to be spoken about in terms of lives vs lives. Or, crudely, whether lockdown might end up costing more lives than the virus.
Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, has worried about this from the offset. In meetings he often stresses that a pandemic kills people directly, and indirectly. A smaller economy means a poorer society and less money for the NHS – eventually. But right now, he says, there will be parents avoiding the NHS, not vaccinating their children – so old diseases return. People who feel a lump now may not get it checked out. Cancer treatment is curtailed. Therapy is abandoned.
Work is being done to add it all up and produce a figure for “avoidable deaths” that could, in the long-term, be caused by lockdown. I’m told the early attempts have produced a figure of 150,000, far greater than those expected to die of Covid.
Originally Posted by: Retron