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So far. Secondary effects from lockdown will continue long after the pandemic wave is over. For example, consider how many people delayed a cancer screening or

So far. Secondary effects from lockdown will continue long after the pandemic wave is over. For example, consider how many people delayed a cancer screening or treatment in the last few months. If anyone who loses a month of life to respiratory disease is a “COVID death”, then anyone who loses a year to cancer, because they waited to treat it, is a “lockdown death”, right?

orwin 6y ago
If you know people around Bergame in Italy or Mulhouse in France, please ask them how it was, how it felt. How much did the 210% and 185% excess death affected them. Will the death of one of her child and her ex-husband will make the parent living a bit north, around Strasbourg, suicide, or is will this be caused by lockdown? What about the 26 year old dancer that will never be able to perform at the same level that she did before getting infected unless we manage to find a new medical technique to remove her lung scars? Will she work at Macdonald's now? Europe is mostly out of lockdown right now and yes, lockdown caused deaths too. But look at the addict admission to the hospital in Strsabourg/Mulhouse/Colmar and those in Britanny during the lockdown. Not having a crisis and only a lockdown did kill people, but not nearly as much as havong a crisis. In colmar, they had to close 3/4 or their bed usually used for alcoholic coma and/or OD. Im pretty sure it wasn't the case in Britanny. Maybe you're right about the lockdown in the US though. It might have flattened the curve enough in some state and might have been useless in others, but it is obviously not working as well as it did in europe.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  Im not sure how europe handled the hospitals during the shutdown. In the US, they basically stopped serving the public aside from COVID-19. I know someone who was scheduled for major heart surgery, which has been postponed indefinitely. He could easily fall into the excess mortality category. Meanwhile, hospitals are furloughing employees due lack of patients everywhere besides the hotspots. My specific gripe is not with the lockdowns themselves, but with how the hospitals have reacted by essentially abandoning anyone who suffers from other diseasese.
DangerousPie 6y ago
Aren't those "lockdown deaths" still "Coronavirus deaths" though? The reason lockdowns have to be done is to prevent the much larger number of deaths that would occur if coronavirus is allowed to spread unhindered. So it's not clear to me why you need to make this distinction here. Of course the distinction matters from a biological and medical point of view, but from a policy point of view all you really need to know is that if coronavirus didn't exist then those deaths wouldn't have happened.
- guscost 6y ago
  > The reason lockdowns have to be done is to prevent the much larger number of deaths that would occur if coronavirus is allowed to spread unhindered. This claim is not accepted by all in the medical or scientific community. This is just the line from the epidemiologists who have the most influence, and it has been amplified by the media into some sort of unquestionable creed. My guess is the damage that these epidemiologists have done is going to be far worse than the disease itself. If you can't see that their over-simplified non-linear models are essentially just guesses too, then you are missing a big part of the picture.
  - DangerousPie 6y ago
    Nothing is ever "accepted by all in the medical or scientific community", that's an impossible standard. Of course the models that we have aren't perfect and there can (and will) be mistakes, but most of the community agrees that they are the best we have at the moment. I'm not sure what you mean by "over-simplified non-linear models", please elaborate. I would say in general though that the problem is not the models but the parameters - this is such a new virus that modellers have to make various assumptions about things that we can't possibly know yet.
  - fzeroracer 6y ago
    I mean it's really simple. No lockdown => hospitals overwhelmed => people can't get care they need or people avoid hospitals to avoid getting sick => excess deaths Lockdown => hospitals less overwhelmed => people avoid hospitals due to lockdown or to avoid getting sick => excess deaths (but less than the no lockdown scenario) Here in Austin our medical community is practically begging us to take better precautions because our hospital system is starting to hit capacity due to the second wave we're staring down [1]. Saying it's not 'accepted' in the medical community seems wrong. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv4kCwo1JMc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv4kCwo1JMc

orwin 6y ago

If you know people around Bergame in Italy or Mulhouse in France, please ask them how it was, how it felt. How much did the 210% and 185% excess death affected them. Will the death of one of her child and her ex-husband will make the parent living a bit north, around Strasbourg, suicide, or is will this be caused by lockdown? What about the 26 year old dancer that will never be able to perform at the same level that she did before getting infected unless we manage to find a new medical technique to remove her lung scars? Will she work at Macdonald's now? Europe is mostly out of lockdown right now and yes, lockdown caused deaths too. But look at the addict admission to the hospital in Strsabourg/Mulhouse/Colmar and those in Britanny during the lockdown. Not having a crisis and only a lockdown did kill people, but not nearly as much as havong a crisis. In colmar, they had to close 3/4 or their bed usually used for alcoholic coma and/or OD. Im pretty sure it wasn't the case in Britanny. Maybe you're right about the lockdown in the US though. It might have flattened the curve enough in some state and might have been useless in others, but it is obviously not working as well as it did in europe.

s1artibartfast 6y ago
Im not sure how europe handled the hospitals during the shutdown. In the US, they basically stopped serving the public aside from COVID-19. I know someone who was scheduled for major heart surgery, which has been postponed indefinitely. He could easily fall into the excess mortality category. Meanwhile, hospitals are furloughing employees due lack of patients everywhere besides the hotspots. My specific gripe is not with the lockdowns themselves, but with how the hospitals have reacted by essentially abandoning anyone who suffers from other diseasese.

DangerousPie 6y ago

Aren't those "lockdown deaths" still "Coronavirus deaths" though? The reason lockdowns have to be done is to prevent the much larger number of deaths that would occur if coronavirus is allowed to spread unhindered. So it's not clear to me why you need to make this distinction here. Of course the distinction matters from a biological and medical point of view, but from a policy point of view all you really need to know is that if coronavirus didn't exist then those deaths wouldn't have happened.

guscost 6y ago
> The reason lockdowns have to be done is to prevent the much larger number of deaths that would occur if coronavirus is allowed to spread unhindered. This claim is not accepted by all in the medical or scientific community. This is just the line from the epidemiologists who have the most influence, and it has been amplified by the media into some sort of unquestionable creed. My guess is the damage that these epidemiologists have done is going to be far worse than the disease itself. If you can't see that their over-simplified non-linear models are essentially just guesses too, then you are missing a big part of the picture.
- DangerousPie 6y ago
  Nothing is ever "accepted by all in the medical or scientific community", that's an impossible standard. Of course the models that we have aren't perfect and there can (and will) be mistakes, but most of the community agrees that they are the best we have at the moment. I'm not sure what you mean by "over-simplified non-linear models", please elaborate. I would say in general though that the problem is not the models but the parameters - this is such a new virus that modellers have to make various assumptions about things that we can't possibly know yet.
- fzeroracer 6y ago
  I mean it's really simple. No lockdown => hospitals overwhelmed => people can't get care they need or people avoid hospitals to avoid getting sick => excess deaths Lockdown => hospitals less overwhelmed => people avoid hospitals due to lockdown or to avoid getting sick => excess deaths (but less than the no lockdown scenario) Here in Austin our medical community is practically begging us to take better precautions because our hospital system is starting to hit capacity due to the second wave we're staring down [1]. Saying it's not 'accepted' in the medical community seems wrong. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv4kCwo1JMc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv4kCwo1JMc