This Telegraph splash on July 20th 2020 is about a scenario in a government report, published in April 2020, which the paper says has now "emerged" within the debate inside government about policy now. https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1284953865813622786

"the report, published in April, has emerged amid debate over the easing of lockdown restrictions"

The Telegraph runs this story regularly

It has also run some news stories on claims that delaying the lockdown cost lives, as well as news stories on claims that having the lockdown cost lives

The report seems to give a pretty clear signal that the newspaper has been asked - by those pursuing the argument inside the government - to use this 3 month old report to try to find a punchy way to promote the argument that "the cure is worse than the disease"

This is the April 2020 report which the Telegraph splash is reporting in July 2020

I would welcome expert advice about this, but the
Telegraph headline and newspaper report seem to me to rather mis-represent what the source report says

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/892030/S0120_Initial_estimates_of_Excess_Deaths_from_COVID-19.pdf

"The actual mortality impact can be expected to be far smaller than this"
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/892030/S0120_Initial_estimates_of_Excess_Deaths_from_COVID-19.pdf

"This is an upper-bound estimate for this scenario. The NHS will be prioritising life-saving treatments and will be hoping to postpone rather than cancel most of this treatment".

(While 185k deaths scenario is based on the treatment being cancelled, rather than rescheduled)

The Telegraph report mentions that "the figures were based on 75 per cent of elective care being cancelled over six months without significant reprioritisation when things returned to normal" - a fairly opaque reference

(Does not include the 'expected to be far smaller' quote)

Response thread from @xtophercook on confused link of lockdown policy & NHS prioritisation policy

https://twitter.com/xtophercook/status/1284966511451475969

Cause of these potential deaths is not lockdown policy (in terms of 185k of the 200k)

Risk arises from reprioritising NHS away from other treatment because of Covid pressure (if NHS can not reprioritise quickly once pressure from Covid subsides)

- The virus is the cause of this risk to NHS treatment

- Lockdown policy may help to avoid this risk (if it helps to contain the virus
- Lockdown policy may mildly increase this risk, unless patients are reluctant to attend, once offered treatment, but is not the main factor

The report looks for the 'could lockdown itself cause deaths' - for example, by causing a recession that might have been avoided.

It is very tentative, but range here is the "low thousands", not the 200,000 in the headline

So the headline is nonsense - (source report just does not say this). Report should be challenged on accuracy grounds.

Covid virus & impact on NHS services *could* cause 200k deaths (but probably won't) if NHS services don't reprioritise quickly after Covid.

Not "Lockdown"

I have commented on the newspaper's twitter feed

Its headline should be "Covid could cost 200k lives"
*not* "Lockdown could cost 200k lives"

That's just an invention of something the report doesn't say https://twitter.com/sundersays/status/1284974465517072385

This is the 20th paragraph of the Telegraph news story

"The report points out that nearly 500,000 people would have died from coronavirus if the virus had been allowed to run through the population unchecked"

How this aligns with the headline is not clear to me

The Sun has copied Telegraph headline
- Explains 185k risk is mainly hospital delays
- States at the bottom of the pages that the report suggests 500k lives saved, which makes the headline total nonsense (if relying on this April report's hypotheses)
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12168579/coronavirus-lockdown-could-kill-200000-people-report/