[Rescue Dog]

Rescue Dog ... there are lots of people with similiar stories to your cousin, but to their credit the NHS has kept up with more life-threatening condiitions like cancer treatment.   But to blame them on lockdowns is ridiculous - the cause of delays to treatment to people was the pandemic itself filling the hospitals to over capacity. Quite how anyone can think allowing more cases to develop in the community more quickly by increasing contact between people would help that is a mystery. The reality is that without restrictions the NHS would have been even more overloaded by Covid cses and even more people would have had to wait for other treatment. 

I also think judging the efeectiveness of lockdowns on country death rates is missing the whole point of lockdowns.  The only objective of the lockdown was to stop the NHS being overhwelmed to the level that it could no longer function, which it came very close to even with lockdown.  Yes, that has a secondary benefit of saving lives, but that was not the primary purpose of the lockdown. So the only measure of success or not  of lockdowns is whther the NHS kept going or not. It did, just.

Many valid points Deep and I agree up to a point. My Dad got his cancer treatment. 

However, it is also true that many, many check-ups and operations have been cancelled as part of the Covid restrictions and that these, obviously, also have tragic implications; as does dying of Covid.

I have never seen an honest and realistic evaluation of the need for Covid restrictions v the consequence of Covid restrictions. 

Given the amount of censorship and lies told over Covid (and many other matters) I find it close to impossible to believe anyone in Govt (or Starmer's 'opposition' for that matter).

Yes, of course its true that lots of check-ups and operations have been cancelled, but my point was that is nothing to do with lockdowns and restrictions. Without the restrictions there would have been even more cancelled because they would have been dealing with even more Covid cases.  Surey that is obvious ?

No, it is not obvious, it may be true, it may not. Without a proper evaluation it is not obvious, it is conjecture. 

I disagree that the cancellation of check ups and operations had nothing to do with lockdown, though, they had everything to do with lockdown as they were part of the lockdown measures.

For many it was 'obvious' lockdown saves lives from Covid UNTIL scientists actually look into the real data with many researchers finding compelling evidence to show that this is not the case (the link I provide is one example of this). Of course, there have been some research showing lockdown did reduce Covid deaths but the actual evidence is far from settled despite what the media would have us believe.

We desperately need a realistic evaluation of the benefits of Covid restrictions v the consequence of Covid restrictions (and we simply 'aint' getting it). 

[DeepBlue]

Rescue Dog ... there are lots of people with similiar stories to your cousin, but to their credit the NHS has kept up with more life-threatening condiitions like cancer treatment.   But to blame them on lockdowns is ridiculous - the cause of delays to treatment to people was the pandemic itself filling the hospitals to over capacity. Quite how anyone can think allowing more cases to develop in the community more quickly by increasing contact between people would help that is a mystery. The reality is that without restrictions the NHS would have been even more overloaded by Covid cses and even more people would have had to wait for other treatment. 

I also think judging the efeectiveness of lockdowns on country death rates is missing the whole point of lockdowns.  The only objective of the lockdown was to stop the NHS being overhwelmed to the level that it could no longer function, which it came very close to even with lockdown.  Yes, that has a secondary benefit of saving lives, but that was not the primary purpose of the lockdown. So the only measure of success or not  of lockdowns is whther the NHS kept going or not. It did, just.

Many valid points Deep and I agree up to a point. My Dad got his cancer treatment. 

However, it is also true that many, many check-ups and operations have been cancelled as part of the Covid restrictions and that these, obviously, also have tragic implications; as does dying of Covid.

I have never seen an honest and realistic evaluation of the need for Covid restrictions v the consequence of Covid restrictions. 

Given the amount of censorship and lies told over Covid (and many other matters) I find it close to impossible to believe anyone in Govt (or Starmer's 'opposition' for that matter).

Yes, of course its true that lots of check-ups and operations have been cancelled, but my point was that is nothing to do with lockdowns and restrictions. Without the restrictions there would have been even more cancelled because they would have been dealing with even more Covid cases.  Surey that is obvious ?

No, it is not obvious, it may be true, it may not. Without a proper evaluation it is not obvious, it is conjecture. 

I disagree that the cancellation of check ups and operations had nothing to do with lockdown, though, they had everything to do with lockdown as they were part of the lockdown measures.

For many it was 'obvious' lockdown saves lives from Covid UNTIL scientists actually look into the real data with many researchers finding compelling evidence to show that this is not the case (the link I provide is one example of this). Of course, there have been some research showing they did reduce Covid deaths but the actual evidence is far from settled despite what the media would have us believe.

We desperately need a realistic evaluation of the need for Covid restrictions v the consequence of Covid restrictions (and we simply 'aint' getting it). 

The NHS having to cancel appointments was entirely their reaction to being overwhelmed with Covid cases, decisions made by medics not government, each hospital reacting to its own individual circumstances and priorites. Some needed to cancel lots, others not such a high percentage. And they cancelled things during lockdown and they cancelled things after lockdown, based on individual hospital case loads.  

Having more Covid cases from additional social contacts in society would have meant more hosptialisation and more cancellations. That's not conjecture that's a definite consequence of there being more cases of Covid.

[Rescue Dog]

Rescue Dog ... there are lots of people with similiar stories to your cousin, but to their credit the NHS has kept up with more life-threatening condiitions like cancer treatment.   But to blame them on lockdowns is ridiculous - the cause of delays to treatment to people was the pandemic itself filling the hospitals to over capacity. Quite how anyone can think allowing more cases to develop in the community more quickly by increasing contact between people would help that is a mystery. The reality is that without restrictions the NHS would have been even more overloaded by Covid cses and even more people would have had to wait for other treatment. 

I also think judging the efeectiveness of lockdowns on country death rates is missing the whole point of lockdowns.  The only objective of the lockdown was to stop the NHS being overhwelmed to the level that it could no longer function, which it came very close to even with lockdown.  Yes, that has a secondary benefit of saving lives, but that was not the primary purpose of the lockdown. So the only measure of success or not  of lockdowns is whther the NHS kept going or not. It did, just.

Many valid points Deep and I agree up to a point. My Dad got his cancer treatment. 

However, it is also true that many, many check-ups and operations have been cancelled as part of the Covid restrictions and that these, obviously, also have tragic implications; as does dying of Covid.

I have never seen an honest and realistic evaluation of the need for Covid restrictions v the consequence of Covid restrictions. 

Given the amount of censorship and lies told over Covid (and many other matters) I find it close to impossible to believe anyone in Govt (or Starmer's 'opposition' for that matter).

Yes, of course its true that lots of check-ups and operations have been cancelled, but my point was that is nothing to do with lockdowns and restrictions. Without the restrictions there would have been even more cancelled because they would have been dealing with even more Covid cases.  Surey that is obvious ?

No, it is not obvious, it may be true, it may not. Without a proper evaluation it is not obvious, it is conjecture. 

I disagree that the cancellation of check ups and operations had nothing to do with lockdown, though, they had everything to do with lockdown as they were part of the lockdown measures.

For many it was 'obvious' lockdown saves lives from Covid UNTIL scientists actually look into the real data with many researchers finding compelling evidence to show that this is not the case (the link I provide is one example of this). Of course, there have been some research showing they did reduce Covid deaths but the actual evidence is far from settled despite what the media would have us believe.

We desperately need a realistic evaluation of the need for Covid restrictions v the consequence of Covid restrictions (and we simply 'aint' getting it). 

The NHS having to cancel appointments was entirely their reaction to being overwhelmed with Covid cases, decisions made by medics not government, each hospital reacting to its own individual circumstances and priorites. Some needed to cancel lots, others not such a high percentage. And they cancelled things during lockdown and they cancelled things after lockdown, based on individual hospital case loads.  

Having more Covid cases from additional social contacts in society would have meant more hosptialisation and more cancellations. That's not conjecture that's a definite consequence of there being more cases of Covid.

I have just been reading through the, "The Health Protection (Coronovirus Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020" (it was really boring and I'm not going to be reading the other acts....life's too short).

I did not find any information that the Govt had stopped appointments or operations as part of their Covid measures.

You are correct on this and I was wrong.

[Rescue Dog]

"Having more Covid cases from additional social contacts in society would have meant more hosptialisation and more cancellations. That's not conjecture that's a definite consequence of there being more cases of Covid." Obviously, this is true for the duration of a lockdown and for the exact reasons you give. 

The explanation the researchers gave for why lockdowns do not lower deaths in the long run is that lockdowns cannot last and when we come out of them the people who would have died tend to die then. They claim it delays, but does not prevent, death. 

However, I fully accept this delay would ease pressure on the NHS and would lower hospitalisations; so lives would be saved in this regard.

For those interested (I guess you will be Deep) I've cut & pasted some research  findings about the effectiveness of other measures: 

"According to Haug et al. [14], the most significantly effective interventions with an effectiveness score greater than 50% (0% and 100% account for least and most effective, respectively) are as following: small gathering cancellation (83%); closure of educational institutions (73%); border restriction (56%); mass gathering cancellation (53%); increased availability of PPE (such as masks; 51%)"