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THREAD please read with an open mind.
As new evidence has emerged & our understanding has grown, I believe the (partially-abandoned) slogan “Stay home, Save lives” is overly now simplistic, out of date & must now be purged from our lexicon. Here’s why:
As new evidence has emerged & our understanding has grown, I believe the (partially-abandoned) slogan “Stay home, Save lives” is overly now simplistic, out of date & must now be purged from our lexicon. Here’s why:
1) This slogan & the lockdown it supported was originally devised to protect NHS capacity as #Covid19 surged. Lockdown was never meant to defeat the virus, only slow it in order to manage NHS capacity. Well, emergency field hospital Nightingale has closed due to lack of patients.
2) Putting aside *global* PPE shortages and the need for reliable testing (because there’s no quick fix to either of these) now that the NHS has capacity, we must entertain the notion of phasing out our lockdown, *in order to save lives*. I explain why:
3) Privileged metropolitans who resist ending lockdown - while on state backed furlough schemes mind you - as they enjoy an extended summer in the parks, should consider those less fortunate before they exploit this opportunity to judge, preach & moralise at their “lessers”
4) Some try to bamboozle people with mathematical risk calculations for what we *don’t know* about #Covid19 (clue: lots) ergo “stay at home” or “you risk killing people”. This is not only disgusting (as you shall shortly see) it also betrays typical snobbery & bullying
... metropolitan middle class written-word based professionals & opinion formers can pretty much work from home computers and be paid, while the working class manual or physical labourers, migrants, students, single mothers etc.. suffer.
5) This mentality (“Stay at home & be scared”) suffers from “Rain Man” levels of tunnel vision, that focuses *only* on the risks from the virus, and not the unintended social & health consequences of a prolonged lockdown...
...we now know catching the virus is highly unlikely to kill people under 70 with no other conditions. We also know immunity likely occurs. This is why Sweden &South Korea (neither of which had a national lockdown) haven’t just dropped dead over Spring https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-patients-cant-relapse-south-korean-scientists-believe-rkm8zm7d9 (£)
Meanwhile, greater risks we’re ignoring are as follows:
6) UN Secretary General has said hundreds of thousands of children could die this year due to the global economic downturn sparked by the pandemic & tens of millions could fall into extreme poverty https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-children-un-idUKKBN21Y2WX
6) UN Secretary General has said hundreds of thousands of children could die this year due to the global economic downturn sparked by the pandemic & tens of millions could fall into extreme poverty https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-children-un-idUKKBN21Y2WX
7) Philip Thomas, professor of risk at Bristol University has calculated that if the economy drops more than 6.4% in GDP, more people will die from a jr associated economic hardships, than from the virus
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/economic-crash-could-cost-more-lives-than-coronavirus-study-warns-nxrn3bzbs (£)
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/economic-crash-could-cost-more-lives-than-coronavirus-study-warns-nxrn3bzbs (£)
8) Former @UKLabour Home and Education Secretary David Blunkett told me we’ve already slipped back 10 years in endeavours to narrow the education gap between wealthy & poorer kids due to lockdown school closures. He said primary schools must reopen, for social justice reasons https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1262024756850839553
9) prolonged school closures may not harm those who buy home tuition & private school. But underprivileged inner city kids are targeted by gangs, suffer domestic abuse, mental health issues, single parents families & cramped Grenfell-style council housing https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/maajid-nawaz/schools-must-reopen-protect-bame-students-teachers
10) issues of law enforcement over-policing minority communities, which existed prior to lockdown, haven’t just gone away. They’ve intensified. New data reveals Black& S.Asian people are disproportionately fined under the Coronavirus Act, by @Nadine_Writes https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/dozens-of-brits-wrongly-charged-by-police-under-new-coronavirus-laws_uk_5eb6c529c5b6c3bd87000d9f
11) suicides are predictably rising as (already austerity-hit) mental health services suffer even more under lockdown https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/suicides-rise-after-years-of-mental-health-provision-cuts-x2nv62gpv
12) We can’t have it both ways. If austerity was bad then (it was) then prolonging #Covid19 lockdown now is bad too (it is).
And visa versa.
But left and right both seem to be making disingenuous cases (now & then) based on politicking over principle.
And visa versa.
But left and right both seem to be making disingenuous cases (now & then) based on politicking over principle.
13) and you thought this was bad? Wait till we add short-term Brexit economic woes (No Deal is still on the table of options) to the existing economic woes of lockdown. Can we take all this battering? https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/calls-grow-uk-extend-brexit-transition-pandemic-200423180049836.html
13) As a priority we should focus on how to kickstart our economy while using the hotspot lockdown model of S.Korea (contingent on *controlled* testing samples) and while shielding the most vulnerable in society, until +60% of us have immunity antibodies, so the virus loses steam
14) Reopening risks an *inevitable* 2nd wave. We must covert that to a ripple instead. Sweden is unlikely to have a 2nd wave because they focused on immunity & shielding from the start. I don’t wish to argue the past. But we do now have a duty to avoid more future economic harm
15) This is the only way I see to save more lives. To those who emotionally object (because this is “right wing”, or something silly like that) I ask: what happened to your social justice principles all of a sudden?
I aghast at how fast certain people “forgot” their concern for the vulnerable & austerity, simply to land blows at a government led by a man & party they dislike. That kid living 4 to a room in a Tower Block doesn’t care about your disdain for the PM. He needs to go to school
16) Many activists indulge in motivated reasoning & are not genuinely led by evidence nor sincerely moved by emotion. This is the only plausible explanation for the cognitive dissonance evident in most people’s stances on identical (but party-political) issues pre and post-Covid
So, that slogan “Stay Home Save Lives”?
Well using the latest evidence, facts point to a new risk:
“Stay Home, Cost More Lives” (especially for the vulnerable who can’t work from their garden on a laptop & still be paid full time wages while they write self-indulgent Op-Eds)
Well using the latest evidence, facts point to a new risk:
“Stay Home, Cost More Lives” (especially for the vulnerable who can’t work from their garden on a laptop & still be paid full time wages while they write self-indulgent Op-Eds)
Argh!! Sorry for the awful typos (you can imagine how desperate I was just to hit send rather than proof read, after typing all that out with my thumbs!) Anyway, standard fair warning: https://twitter.com/maajidnawaz/status/1255541339762102273?s=21 https://twitter.com/maajidnawaz/status/1255541339762102273
This thread can all be found in one place minus some glaring typos, on my Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/135775283156412/posts/3020876517979593/
https://twitter.com/maajidnawaz/status/1262190637354541057?s=21 https://twitter.com/maajidnawaz/status/1262190637354541057
