Comments by "Dale Crocker" (@dalecrocker3213) on "Teacher Schools Boris Johnson \u0026 Shows How To Protect Yourself From This Government | Daniel Kebede" video.

The NHS is not at breaking point. Covid 19 is no worse than many of the seasonal influenzas it has replaced. It is shameful that this illness is being used as a political weapon. The reality is that thousands of babies and young children in third world countries are dying of malnutrition due to worldwide economic downturn created by lockdown policies. In the UK the largest single group of people to die are those aged 90 and above. Less than 1,000 under the age of 45 have done so. Check the ONS website if you don't believe me. Teachers who refuse to teach children on the offchance that they will catch Covid are cowards. So are the health workers whose absenteeism is largely responsible for whatever pressures the NHS currently faces. Neither group is especially vulnerable . Proportionately, bus drivers and taxi drivers are more at risk of death or serious outcomes.
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@stephencapel5630 In fact until November the number of under 45s deaths was around 700. I admit I guesstimated the extra 300 but I doubt it will be any more. The numbers game is pretty distasteful. There are as many people trying to make this look worse than it is as there are trying to minimise it. I suppose it has something to do with a psychological mindset. The fact is that when the novel coronavirus hit in Spring it hit hard - simply because it was novel and immune systems were ill prepared to deal with it. Since then it has done what many epidemiologists predicted it would and become a seasonal respiratory infection. If there is any surprise at all is that it has more or less replaced influenzas. But none of this really affects my original point. If we are citizens of the world we must act as such. In terms of years of meaningful life lost Covid is a babe in arms. There is no comparison with HIV or many earlier influenzas. The Hong Kong flu of 68/69 killed well over 40,000 in the UK, very many of them children and young people. There were no lockdowns or anything like that; just simple precautions and we got on with life until it went away. Which it did. That's what we should be doing now instead of acting like cowards who think they somehow have the right to live forever.
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@stephencapel5630 There is no evidence that the long term effects from Covid 19 are any worse or more common than is the case with many influenzas. Some immune systems over-react to some pathogens and this is something which is constantly being researched. Life's tough, but that's no reason to huddle under the duvet with your thumb in your mouth. (Actually there WERE lockdowns during plagues. The very word "quarantine" comes from old Italian for the 14 days ships' crews had to stay aboard when arriving at port during such times.) Surely the fact that health systems have improved since 1969 should mean there is less need for lockdowns than more? As for living forever I do sometimes think that death is regarded as an abuse of human rights by a certain class of people.
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@ClarkyGuitar Okay I get you. The fact that it's a covid not an influenza has certainly and understandably caused concern. The fact that it arrived in the Spring and created such havoc certainly put it into another category. The point I'm making is that we now know what it is being insanely afraid of it is, in my view, entirely counterproductive. The lockdowns are causing far, far more damage nationally and internationally than the disease itself. A lot is going to depend on the behaviour of the new variant which is, incidentally, only the latest of a dozen or so - all of which have tended towards being more infectious but seemingly less harmful. If this variant follows that trend then it really will be time to take down the shutters and throw away our masks. We should know by the end of February.
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@davecole7795 That is an a rather silly question. It's not really about the number of deaths as such; more about the number of months or years of meaningful existence. It might perhaps be more pertinent to ask how many black babies is it acceptable to cause to die from malnutrition per extra month of life for an incontinent white 90 year old with dementia? Or even , on a lesser scale, how many British schoolchildren with severe lifelong depressive illnesses can we match to our baseline 90 year old? Or small businesses gone bust? It's a game you can play for hours.
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@ClarkyGuitar I'm sure I would have the same attitude. Allowing one's rational judgement to be affected by an individual experience is foolish and weak. If my brother was run over I wouldn't expect cars to be banned.
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@ClarkyGuitar People die all the time. People get ill all the time and death is just about the most individual experience there is. Covid 19 is just one of the many things out there ready to do us harm. It's not even the worst, not by a long chalk. I have personal experience of two individuals whose lives have been ruined by influenza but I'm not going to hide in a cupboard because of it. Covid has been magnified out of all proportion and I guess because most developed countries have had it so easy for three or four generations we're howling like babies because of it. It's time to grim up and grow up.
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@stephencapel5630 As far as I'm concerned the jury's out on the effectiveness of immediate lockdowns prior to the virus taking a real hold. It could well be so - although there are many, many factors and imponderables affecting each country's experience of the disease. But it doesn't matter now. The thieves are in the house with us and locking the doors and windows is pretty pointless. (My clubbing days are long over, by the way. I was into them (or their equivalent) in 1969 and far, far too busy to even NOTICE the Hong Kong flu. It could be like that now. Without media hysteria and weak and obnoxious politicians would you know Covid was among us now? Think about it. How many people do you know of who have died? At the worst without all the hoo-hah you might be vaguely aware there's a nasty bug going around.)
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@ClarkyGuitar I'm sorry, I don't quite see your point. Vaccines aren't the be all and all of everything. Quite often a new flu strain appears which a new vaccine has to be created for. We've had it very lucky for the past twenty years or so - which is why there have been so many very elderly and frail people around to die from Covid.
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@davecole7795 Plenty of people do die at home, though not always quietly. It's not worth wasting resources on the very elderly and very frail. Better to use them for 60 year olds 70 year olds and even fit 80 year olds who statistically have every chance of survival if treated correctly. As to ICU capacity, this is the same old tune every winter, Providing this new variant doesn't send things off the chart hospitals will easily be able to cope as they always do.
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@davecole7795 You don't send them home to die, they're there already. Moving them and shoving them in ambulances and intubating them is just going to cause incredible distress and will do no good anyway. What figures? If you watch the likes of BBC and Sky you are going to be lied to. And you can be sure that, yes, plenty of doctors are going to be stressed and will say so. But take a step or two back and you will realise that in reality while a few hospitals have 80-90% of ITU capacity used up there will actually be empty beds in nearby wards and even if ventilators etc are not on the premises they can be shipped in swiftly from elsewhere or, if the worst comes to the worst, patients can be taken by ambulance to another hospital where there are empty ITU beds. You must realise that this happens every year at this time. Between 1,500 and 2,000+ people die every day in the winter, between a third and a half of them in a hospital and most of these due to respiratory infections such as Covid 19. At the moment the situation is within those limits and we can just hope it stays that way.
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@davecole7795 People die when they get old. That's the way it is. With proper care the process can be made as painless as possible. The BBC always lies but there's no need to stage the scenes in the wards. Things can get pretty hairy in there sometimes, even without covid. You are quite right about staff shortages. A major problem at the moment is the high level of absenteeism due to covid fears but since nursing agencies supply a considerable portion of staff there is at least some flexibility. I actually don't see much evidence that things this year have been particularly bad until now but it certainly seems as though a sudden surge of relatively serious cases is pushing the situation further than one would like. The trouble with suddenly fast-moving scenarios is that it is impossible to get hold of the figures fast enough to keep up. Many of the dramatic emergencies we have be told about in the past have turned out to be journalistic and political exaggerations and while this sudden most recent one will probably turn out the same way it would be foolish to assume it. Fingers crossed, eh?
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