Relaxation of restrictions

housemouse

The lockdown policy is driven by fear and panic.

Medical experts are not economists. They are tasked with fixing one problem: the spread of disease. They don't know how (because it's not their job, and it's difficult) to do a proper cost-benefit analysis.

The policy of lockdown means the death of our economies. A temporary death, yes. But with long-term consequences that reduce the wealth, happiness and life expectancy of everybody.

A cost-benefit analysis would try to understand what were the full costs of the policy, and see if there are alternatives that are better value, i.e. the opportunity cost.

For example, the Central Bank has predicted that the cost to the Irish government of the current lockdown policy will be €22 billion. I'm going to ignore the absolutely huge cost to everybody else and focus only on this €22 billion cost to government.

The supply of ICU care isn't cheap and the supply of nurses and doctors is not very elastic.

But for the cost of ten overpriced children's hospitals, don't tell me there was no alternative.

The lockdown is already going to cost an entire annual healthcare budget in lost taxes and income supports. More, if it is extended.

Investing any amount up to €22 billion in ICU care and other measures to deal with the virus would be cheaper to the Irish government than the policy of lockdown, and would be far better for all private citizens and private business. GDP is expected to fall by 8% this year, thanks to lockdown - this has real-life consequences.

A proper cost-benefit analysis would also include the remaining life expectancy of those who are vulnerable to Covid-19, after taking into account their other underlying health conditions. The media doesn't bother distinguishing between those dying with the virus, versus those who die of the virus.

Health budgets should be focused on extending survival for those who can have a high quality of life (see the recent article by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick on his website for more).

The total number of deaths in Western countries has not increased by any noticeable amount as a result of this virus.

And the life expectancy of the typical victim might well be less than 2 years, given their age and existing conditions - so the virus is likely to make almost no difference to the total number of deaths over the next year or two.

If you think it makes sense to spend €22 billion on this project, then you haven't considered the alternatives.

lalababa

road_high wrote: »

Just moved to homes I'd wager. Domestic violence must be through the roof. Desperate for any woman/family trapped by this.
Alcohol is the ultimate non essnetial item. Yet we can't buy a tin of paint?

Desperate for any woman/family ahhhh dog /cat aaahhh yerra man aswell. 😱

fleet_admiral

road_high wrote: »

Just moved to homes I'd wager. Domestic violence must be through the roof. Desperate for any woman/family trapped by this.
Alcohol is the ultimate non essnetial item. Yet we can't buy a tin of paint?

Men are victims of domestic violence too, but sadly society ignores them

Padre_Pio

Allinall wrote: »

Does not compute.

Computes perfectly well. People are already annoyed. Why put unnecessary restrictions on them to top it all off?

VinLieger

road_high wrote: »

Wouldn't bother me in the slightest if alcohol was restricted. Might be a good thing for our medical services. But more likely lead to anarchy from that class.

Which class are youbtalking about? Parents looking to relax, the elderly who are by themselves and one of the few joys they have is a drink? Or maybe you mean Doctors, nurses and all the other frontline staff who have just come off an insane shift and could do with a drink.

What a disgustingly pious, pig ignorant and snobbish comment.

Allinall

Padre_Pio wrote: »

Computes perfectly well. People are already annoyed. Why put unnecessary restrictions on them to top it all off?

If they go spare and start breaking restrictions, then they are not responsible drinkers.

KrustyUCC

Prob would be the last straw kinda like water charges on top of local property tax etc

lalababa

Why were alcohol time restrictions brought in to supermarkets and offies? VFI. Why is min pricing being brought in .VFI. Why was the drink licence for 5k and serve food legislation quashed. VFI.
They are a powerful lobby group, with a very visible presence in every village, town etc.
The only one they lost was the drink driving limits.

KrustyUCC

Yes but at least i can't see the government being crazy enough to follow Joe Barry's advice

They are already asking the population to make major sacrifices as it is

donaghs

Deleted User wrote: »

I honestly don't think you care about the mental health impact. We'd also face a severe mental health if large proportions of the population were to start dropping dead as a result of not taking the measures we have. I'm technically higher risk due to a chronic illness btw, I'm 28 but sure I'm expendable.

Also work for an Irish company that expects no business for months regardless of if everyone went back to work in the morning. It's a global hit, every country is taking similar measures.

Look at the death rate stats. Depends on the interpretation of "high". Of course we don't want people to die from COVID. And provisions can be made to protect the old and vulnerable. Roughly 4.7% of people who get it die, but if you can protect old and vulnerable it goes down to 0.03% or lower, just above season flu which is about 0.01%.

But as you say its global, and if we end up in a global Great Depression, I suspect it will have a worse impact on life expectancy than COVID.

Padre_Pio

Allinall wrote: »

If they go spare and start breaking restrictions, then they are not responsible drinkers.

I don't see how the two are related.
Unless they ban alcohol in the North, people will just drive up there and stock up for friends and family, same as they do when the pound falls against the euro.

The suggestion is overly pious and I believe the poster is using the pandemic as an excuse to push their own agenda.

hmmm

housemouse wrote: »

If you think it makes sense to spend €22 billion on this project, then you haven't considered the alternatives.

We didn't have time to consider the alternatives. Being all captain hindsight about it isn't helpful.

The government and HSE had to take the WHO & ECDC advice, and act on it. Which in fairness they have. It's not perfect, but in any crisis you have to make quick decisions and just get on with things as best you can.

The pandemic plans we had were based on Influenza. No-one (anywhere in the world) was prepared for a pandemic with this rate of hospitalisations.

Dodge

housemouse wrote: »

The lockdown policy is driven by fear and panic.

Medical experts are not economists.

See what you’ve done there is suggest that economists should be the ultimate decider in any policy decision

And that won’t and can’t ever happen.

Because economists rarely think about people and often get figures quite wrong. Mostly because they guess/project based off their own biases of course

Medicine is a hard science. Economics isn’t. And policy can’t be decided solely by either

donaghs

Dodge wrote: »

See what you’ve done there is suggest that economists should be the ultimate decider in any policy decision

And that won’t and can’t ever happen.

Because economists rarely think about people and often get figures quite wrong. Mostly because they guess/project based off their own biases of course

Medicine is a hard science. Economics isn’t. And policy can’t be decided solely by either

We also need to plan for the future. Is it wrong to consider that we could destroy our future because of a particular approach taken to save lives in the present?

Not just "the economy", but the basic society we have now. Basic standards of living and current life expectancy. Look at Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, except far more global.

VonLuck

housemouse wrote: »

Investing any amount up to €22 billion in ICU care and other measures to deal with the virus would be cheaper to the Irish government than the policy of lockdown, and would be far better for all private citizens and private business. GDP is expected to fall by 8% this year, thanks to lockdown - this has real-life consequences.

Even if the government was to by some miracle invest €22 billion today, the results of this investment would not be instantaneous. The problem is that there are limited ventilators globally and therefore cannot be purchased. There are limited medical professionals and cannot just appear overnight. In the short term the only solution is lock down until the number of cases become manageable with the resources available.

Dodge

donaghs wrote: »

We also need to plan for the future. Is it wrong to consider that we could destroy our future because of a particular approach taken to save lives in the present?

Not just "the economy", but the basic society we have now.

What will be destroyed? Everything is just on pause. That’s all. Some jobs will be lost. Some more will be created. The same raw materials will still exist and the same corporations will still provide everything we want and need.

It can obviously be discussed over and over again here but surely everybody realises deep down that most people would want to get back normality ASAP, and that when restrictions are removed that will happen naturally enough?

Talk of society being destroyed is ridiculous

KrustyUCC

donaghs wrote: »

We also need to plan for the future. Is it wrong to consider that we could destroy our future because of a particular approach taken to save lives in the present?

Not just "the economy", but the basic society we have now. Basic standards of living and current life expectancy. Look at Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, except far more global.

We'll apparently there is "no roadmap" and the governemnt have to "figure it out as they're going along"

https://www.pressreader.com/ireland/irish-independent/textview

In fairness I don't really see an alternative for that course of action but I'd really love a semblance of a plan to get back to some bit of normality

ITman88

housemouse wrote: »

The lockdown policy is driven by fear and panic.

Medical experts are not economists. They are tasked with fixing one problem: the spread of disease. They don't know how (because it's not their job, and it's difficult) to do a proper cost-benefit analysis.

The policy of lockdown means the death of our economies. A temporary death, yes. But with long-term consequences that reduce the wealth, happiness and life expectancy of everybody.

A cost-benefit analysis would try to understand what were the full costs of the policy, and see if there are alternatives that are better value, i.e. the opportunity cost.

For example, the Central Bank has predicted that the cost to the Irish government of the current lockdown policy will be €22 billion. I'm going to ignore the absolutely huge cost to everybody else and focus only on this €22 billion cost to government.

The supply of ICU care isn't cheap and the supply of nurses and doctors is not very elastic.

But for the cost of ten overpriced children's hospitals, don't tell me there was no alternative.

The lockdown is already going to cost an entire annual healthcare budget in lost taxes and income supports. More, if it is extended.

Investing any amount up to €22 billion in ICU care and other measures to deal with the virus would be cheaper to the Irish government than the policy of lockdown, and would be far better for all private citizens and private business. GDP is expected to fall by 8% this year, thanks to lockdown - this has real-life consequences.

A proper cost-benefit analysis would also include the remaining life expectancy of those who are vulnerable to Covid-19, after taking into account their other underlying health conditions. The media doesn't bother distinguishing between those dying with the virus, versus those who die of the virus.

Health budgets should be focused on extending survival for those who can have a high quality of life (see the recent article by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick on his website for more).

The total number of deaths in Western countries has not increased by any noticeable amount as a result of this virus.

And the life expectancy of the typical victim might well be less than 2 years, given their age and existing conditions - so the virus is likely to make almost no difference to the total number of deaths over the next year or two.

If you think it makes sense to spend €22 billion on this project, then you haven't considered the alternatives.

Nobody can argue with any single point made in this post.

KrustyUCC

Dodge wrote: »

What will be destroyed? Everything is just on pause. That’s all. Some jobs will be lost. Some more will be created. The same raw materials will still exist and the same corporations will still provide everything we want and need.

It can obviously be discussed over and over again here but surely everybody realises deep down that most people would want to get back normality ASAP, and that when restrictions are removed that will happen naturally enough?

Talk of society being destroyed is ridiculous

It's very hard hard to pause life

Life moves on and you just can't pause things

Starting 12th of March and up to 19th April is 39 days of restrictions

Add two more weeks as is most likely up to 3rd of May is 54 days

Some people say up to the end of May which is 81 days or 11 weeks and 4 days

It's not easy not seeing family, friends and those in relationships

Many relationships won't survive this

brutes1

ITman88 wrote: »

Nobody can argue with any single point made in this post.

Yes totally agree and would go farther and question the whole agenda re lockdown . Never happened before with bad flu or Swine flu seasons.
Needs to end know.
I am not sure if any politican has any courage to put forward this though it is incredible the lack of critical thinking. Although I understand questions are limited or not allowed at briefings and the Dail is shut. Why .

rm212

ITman88 wrote: »

Nobody can argue with any single point made in this post.

Ok, here’s just one single, simple argument against a point in that post. The post assumes that we can buy any number of ventilators / healthcare resources and have them immediately available. There is currently a worldwide shortage of ventilators and healthcare resources.

Dodge

KrustyUCC wrote: »

It's not easy not seeing family, friends and those in relationships

Many relationships won't survive this

And new ones will be created after it. It isn’t like every relationship lasts for eternity anyway.

I wasn’t suggesting it was easy either btw

ITman88

brutes1 wrote: »

Yes totally agree and would go farther and question the whole agenda re lockdown . Never happened before with bad flu or Swine flu seasons.
Needs to end know.
I am not sure if any politican has any courage to put forward this though it is incredible the lack of critical thinking. Although I understand questions are limited or not allowed at briefings and the Dail is shut. Why .

“We will figure it out as we go along”

Leo has been excellent during this crisis, excellent from a healthcare point of view, and has handled it better than nearly all PMs, but that’s a doctors response to an economic meltdown

KrustyUCC

Ghost Dog 4 wrote: »

Based on latest reports we have passed the peak I would hope restrictions case be eased from May 1 and get fully back to normal by June 30th

Unfortunately I'm not sure that's true

Tony Holohan is still expecting a surge

https://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/irish-news/optimism-that-coronavirus-peak-will-be-smaller-than-first-feared-39108377.html

Larbre34

I mentioned this yesterday and I'll say it again.

A medic friend of mine works in a Dublin tertiary hospital that has been prepped to provide intensive care to the expected surge of cases.

He told me on Sunday that the internal discussion in this hospital is for these restrictions to continue exactly as they are for 5/6 more weeks, with a gradual, closely monitored unwinding thereafter.

Get used to it.

KrustyUCC

I presume that's based on worse case scenario planning?

Cork Boy 53

Ghost Dog 4 wrote: »

Based on latest reports we have passed the peak I would hope restrictions case be eased from May 1 and get fully back to normal by June 30th

What latest reports are you looking at? We certainly have not passed the peak from this wave of the virus and won`t for weeks to come.

Nermal

housemouse wrote: »

If you think it makes sense to spend €22 billion on this project, then you haven't considered the alternatives.

Great post.

KrustyUCC

Cork Boy 53 wrote: »

What latest reports are you looking at? We certainly have not passed the peak from this wave of the virus and won`t for weeks to come.

Think this is a bit simplistic and would like to see more reports

Coronavirus: Ireland’s infection peak may have passed, toll could hit 400 by August, report forecasts
New modelling data claims Covid-19 infections peaked in Ireland on April 4th

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/coronavirus-ireland-s-infection-peak-may-have-passed-toll-could-hit-400-by-august-report-forecasts-1.4223043

Plumbthedepths

Larbre34 wrote: »

I mentioned this yesterday and I'll say it again.

A medic friend of mine works in a Dublin tertiary hospital that has been prepped to provide intensive care to the expected surge of cases.

He told me on Sunday that the internal discussion in this hospital is for these restrictions to continue exactly as they are for 5/6 more weeks, with a gradual, closely monitored unwinding thereafter.

Get used to it.

Must be true if a friend told you.