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We are killing more people because of lockdown than we are saving

By Graham Young - posted Monday, 13 July 2020


This is severe, but much less than the official projections. And it is only a measure of those deaths we can see.

The AMA estimates that as a result of the lockdowns there will be an additional 750 to 1500 suicides per annum. Based on a UK estimate of death due to people deferring procedures or consultations, you can add another 10,000 to the likely total.

Then there is the susceptibility of those affected.

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Instead of looking at absolute mortalities we should really be looking at excess deaths – the increase over what would happen in a normal year, a concept encapsulated in the colloquial "When your number's up, your number's up".

Again, projecting the Swedish figures, since the beginning of 2020 they have had an excess of deaths over the average of 3,785 up until June 18, which scales up to 9,460 in Australian terms (and this figure is likely to drop as the year progresses).

Then you have to take into consideration the average age of those affected by COVID, plus their remaining quality of life. There are two reasons when they are allocating lifeboats they say "women and children first" – chivalry towards women, and quality and length of life for children.

Yet in our rush to save baby boomers we've thrown the kids overboard.

Once you take into account Quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) or Wellbeing-adjusted life-years (WELLBYs) then the cost to life from the shutdowns is staggering, and something like 24 times higher in lives lost compared to lives saved.

So we are killing more people because of the lockdown than we are saving.

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Many of my friends object to these calculations as being cold-blooded, and they are, but they are also just and fair and equitable, even while they emotionally difficult to make. How else are we to allocate scarce resources other than thoughtfully and with calculation? Why should the lives of those likely to be killed indirectly by COVID be valued by orders of magnitude less than those directly killed by it? The premium we have put on COVID is unjustifiable and unaffordable.

How did we get here?

In the view of those of us who signed the letter it is a failure of science and governance. In the first place we put our trust in worst case models produced by people whose models have proven to exaggerate beyond reason in the past – like Neil Ferguson of Imperial College whose miscalculations on Bovine Encephalitis is legendary.

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An edited version of this article was first published on The Spectator.



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About the Author

Graham Young is chief editor and the publisher of On Line Opinion. He is executive director of the Australian Institute for Progress, an Australian think tank based in Brisbane, and the publisher of On Line Opinion.

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