dsr-burnley
Well-known member
- Aug 15, 2014
- 2,634
That's a very complex question. There's no simple answer.
For one thing, it depends who is dying. The current coronavirus deaths are made up mostly of two types - one, people who could have had the vaccine and chose not to. For them, pretty much any number is acceptable because they have made their own choice. They still have the option of self-isolation, or they have the option of vaccination, and I don't think they need any further options that rely on the rest of us suffering for their decision.
The second large group who are dying are the old and tired. Just like with flu, in fact - the majority of flu deaths are the people who are very old and already, so to speak, sitting in God's waiting room. And I know people will say I am being cruel and heartless and cynical, but we know that some lives are (in macro government terms) worth more than others - just consider who will get the kidney transplant, the otherwise healthy 10 year old or the otherwise healthy 90 year old to judge that. I would suggest that there are few grandparents who would insist their grandchildren's education should be messed about for another year, just to marginally increase grandma's chance of living six months longer in a nursing home. These are the people where we need to seriously consider how much harm we are doing to other people in doing our best to preserve their lives for a relatively short while longer.
We can look at it from the other side, of course. The average daily deaths by respiratory disease in general, where respiratory disease was the underlying cause, was 223 for the first 25 weeks of 2019. That was considered acceptable - at least, I don't remember any outcry. (For the first 25 weeks of this year, the number is 136 per day, much lower - 15,000 deaths over the six months - possibly because many of the people dying of covid already had imperfect lungs and would have died of another respiratory disease.) In 2019, the average number of respiratory disease deaths in May and June was 174 per day. In 2021 for the same weeks, 137 per day (126 "traditional" diseases, 11 covid). If Covid deaths rise to 48 and total respiratory deaths are back at 174 per day, would that be acceptable or not? It's a tough choice.
Regardless of what the government do, at least 600,000 people who are alive today will not be alive this time next year. Brutal though it sounds, they have to accept (like with the vaccination programme) that their actions will result in the deaths of people who would have lived longer if the decision had been different.
