Current estimates of the cost of Government measures announced so far range from about £310 to £410 billion. This is the equivalent of about £4,600 to £6,100 per person in the UK.

[Link]

Any pandemic is going to cost society. What we don't know, and will never know, is what the cost would have been had we not taken the measures we did.

Some people assume it would be less, but their assumptions always just discount the cost of the measures taken, and never try to estimate the costs that would have accrued elsewhere. The most important of which would likely have been many more deaths. How do you value a life? There would though have been other, unforeseen costs that would quickly accrue. We could have had the economy grind to a halt with sickness and hospitals overwhelmed. We didn't know.

When the pandemic struck the people expected and needed a response. Sitting back and telling them don't worry, you will all get it, some of you will die, but we don't actually know how many, and in a year or so we might have some vaccines ready, wasn't going to satisfy anyone, except the political fundamentalists on the right.

So we acted. We supported people's well-being by showing them something was being done. Keeping the nation onside was important. It wasn't just medical scientists advising government, it was behavioural ones too.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

It's podcast's mainly, but Dan Tubb can be heard elsewhere too. Try [Link] for starters. He's a bitcoiner, so if you don't agree with that bent, he's not for you.

edit: it is a sponsored vlog, so starts with a promo I'm afraid...

Edited by Tim Gypsy Hill '64 (09 Mar 2023 12.42am)

Systematically dragged down by the lawmakers

Two points about this post.

The idea that doctors know the long term affects of either covid or these vaccines on children is more than just a stretch: they don't and can't.

What is known is that for healthy children covid was never a life threatening virus though as stated long term nothing can be certain.

Personally I just don't understand how, that once the severity of this virus was known for children, people would vaccinate children...with the exception of those children known to be immune weak. Our medical board had to be told to pass this advice because they initially refused.

The second point: you may regard the spending of more money that this country spent on world war 2 on combating a virus that mainly threatened people over seventy at a 1 in 20 rate for death as justified at its very height......sure there are other effects but that's across the board and it seems that the vaccines don't make a difference on them anyway.

I think it's insane.

I want to push back against this idea that when a new virus turns up that we can just throw money at it and suffer no cost. Ultimately the fault for this virus doesn't reside here, with our government or even our mad policy makers, it resides with the Chinese and probably dubious mistakes the Americans made with funding.

My point is that this virus was always going to kill and harm people, the question was always how much money can effectively be spent combating it without causing more harm down the line. I stated this position at the time as many others did and more are doing today.

This country is now incredibly vulnerable economically. If something like the black death turned up now....something that actually killed 1 in 3 we would have no financial recourse because the insane have been running things.

The spending of all that money made very little difference to the outcomes. The excess deaths that are happening now are a direct consequence of the hubris of those who think that throwing money at something can suddenly control and change the effects of nature. Not when it comes to these kind of airborn viruses anyway.

God save us from the over confidence and hubris of control freaks with other people's money.

Edited by Stirlingsays (09 Mar 2023 5.28am)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

Still seems excessive to call people who make an informed decision not to get vaccinated selfish whilst expecting the next generation to pay for lockdowns after having had their education severely interrupted and seeing the number of businesses which have closed and unknown future problems as an acceptable price to pay.

I'm still not clear on what's being said here. Are you saying that there should have been no cost or impact as a result of COVID? Because that's how it comes across... as though there should have been no impact at all.

Maybe you mean it would have been better if the cost/impact had been less, sure, don't think anyone can disagree with that. But 'we' and future generations would still have negative impacts do deal with even if we'd managed to spend half the amount we did.

Also on the selfish point... at the time I viewed people deciding not to have the vaccine and then going on to freely mix with anyone and everyone of all ages with joyful abandon and no care, selfish. I still stand by that. There was also a correlation between the people I knew that didn't want to be vaccinated also being deadly anti-rules, therefore more likely to be the ones spreading it around. So yeah I thought that was fair then and I stand by that. Should they have been demonised? No. Should they have been open to criticism? Sure. Free speech and all that. Works both ways.

I view it as no different from calling someone who decides not to have a flu jab in a bad flu season selfish... ultimately it's their choice but it increases the risk of others getting infected.

Edited by SW19 CPFC (09 Mar 2023 5.23pm)

Did you know? 98.0000001% of people are morons.