Quote:
Originally Posted by JNW1
I don't disagree with that but thus far the evidence has been the ratio of infections to deaths varies significantly depending on age (with the elderly by far the most likely to develop severe symptoms and die). Therefore, if that vulnerable group has been vaccinated, what I'm questioning is why we'd continue with a general lockdown; in effect wouldn't you be doing it - with all the negatives it involves - to protect a group which, on the whole, doesn't really need protecting?
In saying that I'm certainly not suggesting people under 50 don't get Covid and die; some clearly do and it's obviously very sad when that happens. However, the point I'm making is there are other activities which apparently present a higher risk to that age group yet we seem perfectly happy to continue to undertake those. It therefore seems to me some people have an additional risk aversion where Covid's concerned and, while that's understandable given the events of the last year, condemning everyone to on-going lockdowns to mitigate that heightened anxiety isn't reasonable or sensible in my view.
I should probably also clarify that I'm not suggesting we'd just jump straight from lockdowns back to the "old normal" either; I'm sure an element of social distancing - and things like mask wearing - will be with us for a while but IMO that's quite different from a lockdown.
I just think there's a balance to be struck between protecting people from Covid on the one hand and destroying the economy and society through lockdowns on the other. There has to come at time when you start to relax restrictions and commence a move back towards normality and personally I think that process should start once the vulnerable groups have been vaccinated....
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I completely agree with those points. The risk of death from covid for under 50s (0.1/2%) is considerably lower than the risk from flu for say over 70s (1%). So once they’ve vaccinated the majority of the over 50s and vulnerable people we should be able to remove the majority of lockdown restrictions while then gradually rolling the vaccine out to the younger population.
There has to be a sensible balance between protecting people and destroying the economy and taking away your freedom which affects mental health considerably for many.