An anecdote to explain extra COVID deaths (read this for reference): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-missing-deaths.html

In 2010 my first child, Olivia, was born. As first-time parents we were clueless and took her home from the hospital when all seemed in order.

My wife was exclusively breastfeeding, and little did we know that baby Olivia was not getting enough milk.

Back then, we knew to take her in once a week in the early weeks to the clinic for the sister to weigh her.

A week after she was discharged from hospital after birth, at about 10 days old we took her to the sister. As far as we could tell, everything seemed normal for a newborn.

Very quickly the sister picked something up. She immediately phoned the paediatrician and we went up with baby Olivia. A couple of hours later Olivia was admitted to hospital and put on oxygen.

It turns out she had acute bronchiolitis and the doctors were reasonably worried. She landed up spending a week in the hospital and fortunately made a full recovery.

Fast forward to 12 March 2020 and my latest little girl was born. This time, however, we’re entering lockdown and local clinics have cancelled weigh-ins for newborns.

Had this been the case in 2010, we would never have picked up the lung issues with Olivia and who knows (I shudder to think), she may have simply died in her sleep.

That would have been an unnecessary death as a direct result of lockdown. Not to mention all the other people, today, who are so scared of Covid-19 that they are avoiding seeking medical assistance for fear of the virus. How many lives will this cost?