[johnforbes]

British epidemiologist Sir Chris Whitty, who serves as Chief Medical Officer for England (CMO) and Chief Medical Adviser to the UK Government, has warned of a rising death toll from heart disease and cancers due to the lack of treatment during lockdowns.

Britain will face a ‘prolonged period’ of deaths due to the pandemic — but not from the Covid virus itself, Sir Chris Whitty and the Government’s top virus advisers said today.

[Clownkicker]

PERILS OF NO LOCKDOWNS EVER

Even more millions of people would have died than the 6.6 million who have already died of COVID worldwide.

Does johnforbes ever have a point to make when he starts a thread? Someday dimwit johnny will learn that context matters.

Notice once again dimwit johnny started a thread containing no "Thoughts?" of his own as discussion because he doesn't understand what the article he referenced actually means.

johnfoibles thinks 10 people dying next year of heart disease and cancer is comparable (and somehow worse) than the 100 people in the same population who would have died last year of COVID without COVID restrictions.

It's not, dummy. All you need to do is look at Sweden's terrible 5-to-10-times worse mortality rates compared to the other Scandinavian countries to get an idea of how bad things could have been if johnforbes hadn't been forced to wear his mask and wash his hands and stay home when he was sick.

Did johnny learn nothing from the science I posted recently for him to edify himself? <----(Rhetorical question, obviously)

[johnforbes]

The "would have died" argument is sheer speculation.

Sure, it is tempting to believe that whatever steps were taken were good, but alas there is no evidence.

We do know that lockdowns destroyed jobs, lost kids two years of schooling, fomented isolation and depression and alcoholism, missed cardiac and oncology appointments, etc.

[Clownkicker]

"Sure, it is tempting to believe that whatever steps were taken were good, but alas there is no evidence."-johnfibs

SWEDEN's unfortunate higher mortality rate is evidence, dimwit.

All the Scandinavian countries are similar in incomes, environment, healthcare systems, and lifestyles. We got to see a real world experiment of no lockdowns verses some lockdowns. It demonstrates that measures taken by more restrictive countries saved thousands of lives. No lockdowns showed no discernable benefit to the economy.

If you would simply look at the facts and the science that I posted for you instead of simply swilling the unsupported and out of context talking points of your partisan handlers, you would see that it isn't "sheer speculation" at all. Because of the Sweden 'experiment' it is a proven fact that many more people would have died of covid without lockdowns; up to ten times more.

Meanwhile, your quotation "Britain will face a ‘prolonged period’ of deaths due to the pandemic — but not from the Covid virus itself, Sir Chris Whitty and the Government’s top virus advisers said today." is the actual speculation. It hasn't happened yet, so it is the very definition of "speculation."

My position is a proven fact; not speculation at all.

[johnforbes]

To assess the situation, you have to look at the big picture.

Lockdowns had all sorts of deleterious effects which affected health tangentially at first.

For example, the average person is happier with a job than sitting at home after being forced to close his business down because of a covid restriction.

Of course, bums like Clowntroller -- who subsist on welfare -- must be excluded from this.

[Clownkicker]

"To assess the situation, you have to look at the big picture."-johnfoibles

Exactly, so why are you refusing to look at the hundreds of thousands who would have died if not for lockdowns and pretend that those who die in the future are so much more tragic than if they had died sooner. But those people lived at least three years longer than they would have without lockdowns, and you are refusing to look at THAT big picture.

We have the real world experiment of Sweden's 9X higher mortality from COVID because of no lockdowns. We have some British guy's speculation about future deaths because of lockdowns which nobody knows yet will actually occur. But even if they do, the numbers will not be as high as they would have been with COVID running unchecked.

"Lockdowns had all sorts of deleterious effects which affected health tangentially at first."-johnflubs

And no lockdowns also had all sorts of deleterious effects which affected hundreds of thousands of people, but you are pretending those deleterious effects of needless deaths and long COVID cases lasting for years are somehow less serious than possible future deaths.

Compare China and Japan to the U.S. According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, the U.S. COVID deaths per 100,000 (with very limited (a few months) and only partial lockdowns, never full lockdowns anywhere.) is around 328. Japan's COVID deaths per 100,000 with somewhat more restrictive lockdowns is around 39. China's deaths per 100,000 (with full lockdowns) is less than 2. (And for the sake of argument I'll be generous and say it is really closer to 20.) See if you can figure out which number is 10 to 15 times larger, and how many saved lives that translates to.

But you go ahead and pretend that a few thousand possible deaths in Britain years later are as bad as the millions of deaths that lockdowns likely prevented, johnny.

I'm really puzzled that johnforbes doesn't consider three years of additional life to be a material benefit to people.

[johnforbes]

It is unknown what would have happened, but we all have to hope that lockdowns did some unquantifiable good.

On the other hand, a scientific attitude is to be skeptical of creeds and to wonder.

Did lockdowns merely delay herd immunity?

We know they did harm up front, and Hippocrates said in Of the Epidemics "First do no harm."

[Clownkicker]

^^^^^^ I see dimwit johnforbes couldn't figure out which number was larger.


"On the other hand, a scientific attitude is to be skeptical of creeds and to wonder."-Dishonestjohn

Skeptical, yes, but not to the point you spread highly unlikely partisan speculation as though it were the same as facts and actual science. That's unconscionable.


"Did lockdowns merely delay herd immunity?"-johnflubs

Perhaps, since so many Trump supporters refused (and still refuse) to get vaccinated. If COVID had been allowed to run amok unchecked, as johnforbes prefers, many of those unvaccinated clowns would be dead and would no longer be potential vectors of the virus, leading to herd immunity being achieved sooner.

But the one thing that is without any doubt is that COVID public health policies kept our medical system from collapsing (barely) under the weight of a mass of sick Trump supporters.

That's the thing about public health policies, johnny--they aren't JUST about the viral science. Sometimes they are about preventing system collapse by slowing the spread of a virus to a level that allows the masses of infected people to be coped with. Public health policy is never as black-and-white as science. Nor is it as black-and-white as johnforbes is pretending it to be. Difficult calls must be made that technically appear to go against the science, but such calls take into account non-science factors such as the limited number of existing medical facilities, available drugs and equipment (such as respiraters) and the state of trained personnel to care for patients.


"We know they did harm up front, and Hippocrates said in Of the Epidemics "First do no harm.""-Dishonestjohn

Once again johnforbes shows he misunderstands what Hippocrites meant. He was talking about intentional harm such as bleeding a patient to the point they die of blood loss, regardless of the fact that bleeding was considered by many to be the best treatment of the day.

Doctors do 'harm' all the time when cutting out or amputating failing or diseased body parts, for example. The patient lives, but not because they weren't harmed. They WERE harmed, literally. It's just that the treatment is considered the lesser of two evils. Such patients can then become reliant on expensive and harmful drugs the rest of their lives.

johnforbes is pretending that public health policy was made to intentionally harm people, which it wasn't. Any harm done was an unintended and unfortunate necessity to care for the largest number of people to the extent possible.

Meanwhile, johnforbes has not started a single thread questioning or criticizing the harm intentionally done by Trump supporters who refused to get vaccinated and thus became vectors for COVID, delaying herd immunity to this day. The difference here is that those clowns could be vaccinated now and stop the harm they are intentionally doing, but they still refuse. And johnforbes doesn't care about that at all. He even supports it.

So I can't get too upset about what johnforbes thinks might have done unnecessary harm. He supports doing unnecessary harm every single day.

[johnforbes]

There is a reason that "First do no harm" has been regarded for centuries as wisdom.

You should not, as a doctor, being by making the present situation worse.

"First, do no harm."

Hippocrates was in fact speaking about epidemics when he wrote that.

[Clownkicker]

So you do support Fauci's actions. Good to hear, johnny.

The only harm he inflicted was the exploding brains of Trump supporters like yourself.

But you clowns don't even miss them.

[johnforbes]

No, I supported the general notion that elders were most at risk.

PA's health secretary, now a transgender "admiral", took his own mother out of a nursing home but left others there to die of covid.

Kids were never at much covid risk, nor could they spread well, so schools should have swiftly reopened.

But then I'm not a doctor, although Jay Bhattacharya was (MD and PhD) and said much the same thing.

[Clownkicker]

"No, I supported the general notion that elders were most at risk."-johnfibs

But nobody knew this at the time when the restrictions were put in place. It took many months to collect enough data to make that call. In other words, you simply made up what your 'opinion' of the time was long after the restrictions against a still-unknown pathogen were correctly put in place.


"Kids were never at much covid risk, nor could they spread well, so schools should have swiftly reopened."-johnflubs

No, dummy. Children CAN spread COVID. Why do you think COVID spread like wildfire between children at schools in the first place? Just because they didn't die in large numbers doesn't mean they are harmless. Just as with other coronaviruses such as common colds and flu, they go home and infect all those more susceptible victims living there or any other people they are around regularly, which includes grandparents and people with immunocompromised systems. Also, many of the teachers who would be forced to be around the little dears were immunocompromised themselves or were caring for children or parents who were. They didn't want to be forced to take the sickness of a bunch of rug rats home with them.

Your position is that you have the right to infect and possibly kill others because of your personal nonchalance toward a deadly virus with long term consequences for many average adults who never fully recover from its effects. You don't have that right. Everything isn't all about you and what's convenient for you.


"But then I'm not a doctor, although Jay Bhattacharya was (MD and PhD) and said much the same thing."-johnfoibles

Yes, and he is free to get his ideas published in medical journals or to testify to public health officials as to the best public health policies to implement. Fauci didn't make any of his decisions based on Twitter, so who cares what was or wasn't on it?

I have no interest in what some clown says on Twitter, and neither should you. If he is really a credible authority, he will be listened to by people in authority. Why you value the opinions of trolls on internet gossip sites so much is simply beyond me. So what does that QAnon guy think about it, johnny? We need to know, right? Or are you saying it is Twitter's job to vet every poster on their website for educational background and professional accomplishments? Don't be so stupid.

And stop getting your medical information from college drop outs, internet gossip sites, and pop stars fer cripes sake. It makes YOU look like a real moron. Try posting something from reputable medical journals for a change that everyone can validate for themselves. Nobody cares what YOU think about it. As you said yourself, you aren't a doctor.

You aren't even a good lawyer.

[johnforbes]

The reality is that kids were never at much risk.

But lockdowns did harm first.

First, do no harm.

That is the timeless wisdom.

[Clownkicker]

"The reality is that kids were never at much risk.'-JOHFOIBLES

Yes, but nobody knew that at the time. It took months to collect that data. Meanwhile =, public health officials had to make their best calls, which they did.

The people who WERE at risk were the teachers, their imunocompromised children, adults with higher risk factors, and the families of the children taking COVID home with them, including their vulnerable grandparents.

So Fauci's policies were to first do no harm to all of those people whom sociopath johnforbes cares nothing about and who weren't as fortunate to not die as children turned out to be. By going into partial lockdowns Fauci prevented the collapse of the health care system and saved many lives that way.

Some day johnforbes will realize that his idiotic repetition of a platitude taken completely out of context is not an argument for public health policies. It is an argument for medical doctors in deciding how to treat their individual patients.

Public health policies must take into account many more critical variables and many more people than an MD must consider, so johnforbes' irrelevant babbling about Hippocrates is only an demonstration of his ignorance, not his education.

[johnforbes]

Actually, there were experts who did argue that, and state that, not far into the year 2020.

They realized kids didn't get covid much, or transmit it well.

See the Great Barrington Declaration for more info.

[Clownkicker]

"Actually, there were experts who did argue that, and state that, not far into the year 2020."-johnforbes

Great, johnny, you can get "experts" who say anything you want them to say. It doesn't make Fauci's public health policies wrong. As I said, just because the children themselves aren't personally at great risk from COVID doesn't mean that everyone around them magically isn't endangered by them passing on COVID. They are. And everyone else has a right to be protected from their super-spreader school lifestyle.

Kids DO get COVID "much." They pass it around just as they pass around flu and colds. i.e. ALL THE TIME. Especially the newer, more infectious strains. They are just often asymptomatic or get only a mild case.

None of that makes Fauci's partial lockdowns the wrong choice at the time. When you have some scientific evidence that kids don't pass on COVID to vulnerable populations, then post it. Until then, stop second guessing Fauci with 20/20 hindsight. That isn't science. It's partisan dishonesty.

As to your "Not-so-great Barrington Declaration", they said that herd immunity would be reached in three months by not having lockdowns. We all see how that went in places like Sweden without lockdowns. They suffered five to nine times greater mortality from COVID when compared to their immediate neighbors.

And who cares what a bunch of economists have to say about a pandemic anyway? They, just like you, are not medical doctors, they have no training in virology, and they are only "experts" in economics, not medicine..

That's as bad as getting your medical/pandemic information from college drop outs, internet gossip sites, and pop stars, johnny. When will you ever learn?

[johnforbes]

That is true as far as it goes, but it was also known in 2020 that kids did not transmit well either.

So the argument to close schools for years was also oddly devoid of scientific support.

Face it, it was a moment -- not the only one in history -- of irrationality, not of science.

[Clownkicker]

"So the argument to close schools for years was also oddly devoid of scientific support."-Dishonestjohn

Nobody closed schools for years and nobody ever argued to close schools for years either, you lying sack of shit. You simply made it up.

And kids DO contract and spread COVID quite well. Early on there were cases of one kid in a class getting COVID and then most of the class got it from him and the school was forced to shut down anyway. They spread it well enough to kill their extended family with it as they do with flu, which is far less contagious than the COVID variants that are out and about. Just because COVID doesn't kill many of the kids spreading it doesn't mean it was just fine that they attend super spreader venues.

Please stop getting your fictional medical information from engineers, college drop outs, internet gossip sites, and pop stars. Try reading the science on the subject instead of merely consuming and regurgitating partisan propaganda, dimwit.

[johnforbes]

Yes, most public schools were indeed closed for 2 years.

Though not as closed as Clowntoker's "mind"...