Esther McVey - 2021 Jan 18th

Dear Esther,


It feels like we’re getting to know each other like an agony aunt listens to troubled youths from the teen mags of yesteryear. My thanks for the daily Telegraph article recounting the office of national statistics citing 200k to 560k potential deaths in the mid to long-term due to covert restrictions/lockdown measures.


I would genuinely love to see that statistical report, as the only data i have found from ONS regarding loss of life due to lockdown was a paper following the July 2030 SAGE meetings (https://www.ons.gov.uk/news/statementsandletters/estimatingtheimpactsofcoronavirusonenglandsmortalityandmorbidity ). The paper estimates the number of excess deaths in England from COVID-19, changes to the healthcare system, and lockdown measures; health impacts are measured using Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs).


Socio-economic effects are estimated to have the greatest impact on quality of life of all categories investigated, over the short and long term combined; from March 2020 to more than five years from now, the impacts of lockdown and a resulting recession are estimated to reduce England’s health by over 970,000 QALYs – the health impacts of contracting COVID-19 are still unclear in the long term, but between March 2020 and March 2021, these represent 570,000 lost QALYs*.


While these negative health impacts of lockdown exceed the impacts of COVID-19 directly, they are much smaller than the negative impacts estimated for a scenario in which these measures are not in place; without these mitigations, the impact of direct COVID-19 deaths alone on both mortality and morbidity would be much higher – an estimated 439,000 excess deaths resulting from COVID-19, and 3,000,000 QALYs* lost.


Which would suggest two things (a) the harm of the lockdown / covid restrictions is five to six times more harmful than covid (b) with the excess deaths for the last year could have 4-5 times worse with no lockdown / restriction. I do accept the same paper, also predicted that we would have only 69,000 deaths due to Covid, from March ‘20 to March ‘21, and we are currently on course for 100,000 by the end of this month.


I would love to see the nightingale hospital be used to their capacity, but it’s is my understanding that there is a 50,000 nurse shortage in the NHS (As cited by the Royal College of Nursing https://www.rcn.org.uk/news-and-events/news/uk-staff-safety-at-risk-unless-nursing-shortages-are-addressed-170920 ) and similar shortage of doctors. Alas I can’t see the nightingale hospitals being used to their optimum capacity.


But as you’ve also mentioned it’s not all doom & gloom, we’ve now surpassed four million first doses of the vaccine (63 mil to go) with 450,000 having had both doses. We might actually hit herd immunity numbers before Christmas 2021 & I can go see my folks in Cardiff (I’ve not seen them since dads birthday last January)


So in conclusion, one of your constituents is grateful for your correspondence & complied with his civic duty in writing to you on this subject, in so that you know the thoughts and views of the public we serve



Yours

NAME & ADDRRESS REDACTED