Should we continue with the Lockdown?

 There are mutterings about the current lockdown in NSW and we should simply do away with it.

Our freedoms have been curtailed and this will continue into the future. This is absurd. Our freedoms are curtailed in times of war such as WW1 and WW2 but we went back to 'normal' conditions  after it was over. It is no different during a pandemic where the problem is humans spreading the virus to other humans fast because it rises at an exponential rate. 

Covid is deadly in three ways to human beings.

1. It kills 1 in 100 people directly
2. It affects between 1in 3 and 1 in 8 people for long covid. 
3. It kills 1 in 12 people indirectly as it exacerbates existing conditions usually either lung or heart.

To all this we must add the problems of hospitals An infectious disease such as covid would simply overwhelm the health system in two ways if nothing was done. 

1. Covid patients would crowd out all other patients simply on volume
2. As Jane Halton has stated the other problem is health workers getting covid and being unable to work. They cannot be replaced as they are highly skilled.
3. Those working would be overworked to the point of exhaustion.

All this would mean greater deaths.

I was going to quote John Cochrane on his change on masks , Hassan Vally or Catherine Bennett HERE and HERE however I heard Marylouise Mclaws yesterday on the ABC News channel say WHO  now believes the delta variant RO is 5 8. This means the delta variant has gone to a new level. It spreads like wildfire. 

The important differences from the original covid is the death rate is more like 0.3% not 1%. We should add however this is based on UK experience where a lot more people have the vaccine than here. However the delta variant means more hospitalisations thus the pressure would be much greater.

We have seen the delta variant 'burn out' in places such as India so there is that hope.

All in all I think we can see if the NSW government simply abolished the lockdown then  the hospital system would 'blow up'. If only that occurred it would have a negative effect on confidence all round.

In other words we would be worse off in both economic and health terms.

We can also say lockdowns cannot eliminate covid as they have in the past if they are not implemented very quickly. 

update:

Westmead hospital is now full up with covid patients and is now commandeered Westmead private for more beds. Remember this is a lockdown!!