Crippling cost of Covid is killing us
LAST YEAR, I was one of a small group of MPs who raised the issue of extended lockdowns and the toll it would take on the country. I asked the uncomfortable question, what is the predicted cost of lockdown for the nation’s health, wealth and livelihood?
Silence was the reply. But the answer should have been obvious, for you can’t put a country into a national lockdown for 213 days, over three spells, and not expect serious fallout. We all appreciated we needed to protect and shield the most vulnerable from Covid – the elderly, the obese and those with underlying health conditions – but locking everything and everyone down has left an economic and health wasteland in its wake.
As University of Leicester professor of genomics and bioinformatics Anthony Brookes said, “We have done everything that could be done to reduce the virus spread and not allowed for full consideration for all the harm.”
Those lockdown harms are now beginning to take their toll and include a significant rise in mental health issues, the rapid increase in dementia deaths and the tens of thousands of undetected cancers as people stayed at home or couldn’t get GP appointments.
For instance, between March and December 2020 nearly 1.2 million fewer women underwent breast screening; between April and October 2020 over 3,500 fewer patients than expected were diagnosed with bowel cancer; and around 50 per cent of people with heart and circulatory diseases found it harder to get medical treatment.
Only last week deputy Chief Medical officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam estimated there could be as many as 60,000 flu deaths this winter. As not many people had the flu last year because we remained inside under Covid restrictions, there isn’t as much natural immunity in our communities as usual, making this the deadliest flu outbreak for 50 years – something Prof Brookes warned would happen from the very start.
There is a cost of Covid and there is a cost of lockdown too, much of which is only emerging now. While the worst might be untreated and undiagnosed health conditions there are plenty of other costs too, from empty shelves and lack of goods, a shortage of gas and rising energy costs – all caused by the lockdowns followed by a sudden worldwide reopening.
The fallout from lockdown is only just beginning, and history will judge it very harshly indeed.