Posted: Wed May 27, 2020 11:11am
Agree Dagurney but one of the frustrating things about this disease is that folks either don't want to, or are unable to, look at and understand the more detailed statistics underlying the headline numbers. Even the BBC news leads with "total number of deaths in UK now reaches 33,000 an increase of 250 since yesterday " which although shocking numbers is hardly informative. It is the trends in daily infection rates and deaths that should be of wider interest to the public because that will determine the return of our basic liberties not absolute numbers.
And your point on demographics is also highly relevant but, if one were cynical, an inconvenient truth for governments and media who wish to promote the idea of "we're all in this together" regardless of the glaring differences in mortality rates that could drive a much more segmented and targeted approach. In UK 89% of all deaths are 65+ and 40% of all deaths are 85+. It is also believed that only 1% of deaths occurred where there was no underlying condition ( for disclosure purposes I do have underlying conditions).
So everyone will need to make their own minds up on whether the respective governments policies have been commensurate with the risks to public health. Personally, I think there are questions around this. One would be whether the huge disruption to education through (disputed - 1 v 2 metre) social distancing measures will have a material impact on the R number. In other words what would the likely impact on R be if schools returned to normal. Another question would be that there are 5.5 million people in Scotland of which 28 are in intensive care with Covid 19. Whilst this is obviously a success brought about by mass incarceration, nevertheless does it not make the mantra of "stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives" start to feel a bit fraudulent?
75,000 planned operations cancelled in Scotland and yet reports of huge swathes of the NHS estate still lying empty. It's a hard but indisputable fact that measures to save lives from Covid 19 have signed the death warrant for others.