I have been challenged to give an opinion on the lock-down, based on a claim that “99.7% of people recover” (source unknown).  A referenced and logically argued study suggests that in fact the death rate is much higher.

But let’s assume for a moment that the death rate is only 3 in every thousand (0.3%). 

Evidence shows that “a 20-year age-gap increased the risk by around 10-fold. So, compared to a 20-year-old, an 80-year-old had 10 * 10 * 10 ~ 1000 times the risk of dying.”  And the same document references that 90% of deaths have pre-exisiting conditions, and the chance of a healthy 30 year old woman  dying if infected is only one in 30,000.  In other words, the risk is highest for older people, and those with pre-existing conditions.  Roughly  two thirds of deaths are in those over 75.

So, if we were to simply allow the virus to ‘let rip’, and the death rate were only the 0.3% quoted we would see deaths in the over 75s equivalent to two in every thousand of the population. 

Deaths from the disease are highly selective.  Accepting this situation would be equivalent to sacrificing our over 75’s population.   To put the ‘two in every thousand of the population’ into context, roughly two in every thousand of the world’s population are Jews – so this would be equivalent to eliminating all the Jews.  Do I need to go on?

Data shows that hospital treatment has improved, with the chance of surviving if hospitalised with Covid increasing from 70% to nearly 90%.  Without hospital treatment the death toll would increase between three and ten times.  This is why there is so much focus on ‘protecting the NHS’. 

If we were to let the virus ‘let rip’ then our hospitals would indeed be overwhelmed and the death rate would conservatively increase by a factor of 3.  Using the death rate from my challenger of 0.3% today, that would increase it to about one in every hundred of the population.

 Again this would be targeted at the older generation, and equivalent in numbers to eliminating the world’s population of Jews three times over.  Or globally that would be equivalent to wiping out the whole population of the United Kingdom.

We have a clear choice. 

Either we accept personal restrictions in order to save a category of our population.  Or we ‘sacrifice’ that population for the sake of our ‘personal freedom’.

This is something that I completely oppose.  And many of our fathers and grandfathers fought and died in the Second World War to destroy a regime which had that approach;  I deliberately used the example of the number of Jews to reinforce the point.

I for one am willing to accept some personal sacrifice in order to protect the vulnerable, and those who dedicate their lives to care for those who are vulnerable, and I call on everyone to do the same.

POSTSCRIPT

To be clear – there have been appalling decisions, profiteering and cronyism by those in power.  But we must not let such behaviour prevent us from doing what is right.  We have to make up for the shortcomings of leadership, but perhaps we might remember this when we next get the chance to choose who will lead our country.