Do Lockdowns Help?

In this post we compare the benefits from lockdowns and the the negative of lockdowns to see which option comes out on top.

Lockdown Measure	Positive Points	Negative Points
Forced imprisonment at home	Reduces circulation of ill people	Ill people can still circulate
		Ill people have less fresh air, potentially aggravating existing condition eg flu
		Ill people have less sunshine, potentially aggravating existing condition eg flu
		Creates depression depending on person and situation, reducing effectiveness of immune system.
		Increased stress and fear in population, reducing effectiveness of immune system
		Increased alcohol and food consumption, reducing effectiveness of immune system
		Reduced work productivity, reduced profits, reduced taxes, increased government debt, business bankruptcies.
		Isolation of elderly leading to premature death
		Healthy people have less fresh air increasing their chance of falling ill
		Healthy people have less sunshine, compromising their immune system
Closure of businesses	Reduces circulation of ill people	Reduces circulation of all people, ill people can still circulate.
		Creates job losses
		Businesses closing
		Lost tax revenue from company profits
		Lost tax revenue from employees wages
		Less budget for services in future
		More government borrowing for furloughs & benefits
		Increased taxes in future for debt repayment and servivcing
		Increase in suicides
		Loss of income for self employed
		More people on benefits
		Businesses left unpaid due to bankruptcies causing domino bankruptcies
Movement Restrictions	Reduces circulation of ill people	Ill people can still circulate
		Reduced government services eg NHS
		Later diagnoses of diseases leading to premature deaths
		People not seeking medical care and dying at home from treatable ailments
		Less circulation of people socially, damaging immune systems, without knowing the extent of this damage

Summary

This quick comparison does not go into specifics such as mask wearing, curfews, restrictions on the number of people meeting and so on.

The conclusion is very simple.

The massive economic and social cost of lockdowns are to achieve one thing only and that is to stop ill people from circulating.

It has been established that healthy people/asymptomatic people do not contribute to the spread of the virus ie they do not multiply the virus and that close proximity to people with symptoms can potentially increase the spread of the virus.

Yet the measures targetted at people who are known to be ill is about zero.

If someone is living alone what help is the government providing to ensure that person has what they need? It does not matter if that person is young or old, their requirements are the same, they need to isolated, this should be made as easy for them as possible. The government should have teams set aside to serve these people who are in isolation. This would demonstrate the government is serious about containing the spread. Yet this very simple measure, this very cost effective measure has been completely ignored.

Surely the correct course of action would be to target the drivers of the virus.

Encourage people with symptoms to stay at home, the money that is being used to pay healthy people to stay at home should only be used to support sick people to stay at home and it should be made easy for the ill to access this money, employed or not. Yes there will be fraud but the result will still be and order of magnitude cheaper than paying healthy people.

Its an obvious conclusion so the question remains, why are obviously damaging measures being implemented when targeted measures could be implemented with arguably identical effectiveness but with a fraction of the cost.

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