Rudolph, great post. Agree with everything (of course, by definition, if I am a poster here).

A couple of points: the thing about the virus being clever enough to know the political content of protests and the time is of course true, but the defenders of those measures will say that's a conscious tradeoff and they are balancing the pros and cons exactly how the lockdown sceptics want them to (of course in order to do that, they will only allow protests they support politically - anti lockdown protests will be shut down).

As for the government not publishing the impact and costs of lockdown (both medical non-COVID and economic), they have blatantly not done so because they know it will exceed the impact of COVID even with their exaggerated statistics and fear hyping of COVID and seriously damage the credibility of their messaging. That's why they haven't even done any kind of impact assessment because they know it will be leaked or they will be forced to release it, and why such an assessment is the key demand from the CRG group of MPs - I'm curious about where you saw the 200,000 figure you mention because I have not seen *anything* public from the government about it - there are plenty of private estimates etc).

There is one key factor you haven't mentioned - a lot of people (including Boris most importantly) are now invested in this narrative. In March, anything could have happened. Even in the summer Boris (and the SAGE scientists etc) could have credibly rowed back from restrictions and taken a different path over the winter. But now? All kinds of reputations and jobs and credibility and money are on the line, heavily supporting the COVID orthodoxy (the pharma companies alone are huge force pro-lockdown) and the government is basically locked into a "suppression of the virus" strategy with lockdown as the default tactic. The vaccine is complete nonsense (efficacy unknown, for a virus that isn't that serious anyway) and will cost vast amounts but the vaccine+mass testing appears to be the only *political* avenue out of the self-created mess for Boris and I back it for that reason.

Also it makes a huge difference that there is no effective political opposition (the new CRG was only formed post lockdown 2 and they will help, although Boris can keep relying on Labour to pass restrictions - but it will be embarrassing for him) and also that the polls consistently show huge majorities in favour of more restrictions (although this is very much in the sense of "Do as I say, not Do as I do", since only small minorities actually follow the rules..)

Thank you for a very informative and sensible post.

This is excellent stuff. Don't hesitate to write more1

Thanks - I will do my best.

The thing that hits me in the face every time I think about this is the magnitude of the difference of the the response to flu and the response to covid.

I can wax lyrical, or not so lyrical, about all sorts of things to do with this pandemic - but every time I come back to this difference in response. It dwarfs everything else and I truly don't understand its rational basis.

Rudolph, great post. Agree with everything (of course, by definition, if I am a poster here).

Thank you - much appreciated
As for the government not publishing the impact and costs of lockdown (both medical non-COVID and economic), they have blatantly not done so because they know it will exceed the impact of COVID even with their exaggerated statistics and fear hyping of COVID and seriously damage the credibility of their messaging. That's why they haven't even done any kind of impact assessment because they know it will be leaked or they will be forced to release it, . . .

It's a curious one this. I can't believe they haven't done those analyses. Surely they couldn't be quite that incompetent?

I hope I'm wrong, but I fear the economic repercussions alone will be felt for many years to come. As I said in the original post, there are no zero-cost options here. People and families are going to be horribly affected whatever we do. But to have no detailed assessment of the various possible options is so very difficult to understand on any rational basis. It's either an act of wanton criminality or borderline insanity.
I'm curious about where you saw the 200,000 figure you mention because I have not seen *anything* public from the government about it - there are plenty of private estimates etc).

I've heard it mentioned on various video commentaries and interviews. I haven't checked it out myself. It might be one of those sticky rumours that circulate that has no basis in fact.
But now? All kinds of reputations and jobs and credibility and money are on the line

That's almost certainly true - but what has already greatly suffered is the credibility of the scientists and the experts. That's very sad. I didn't have all that much faith in politicians to begin with anyway - their lips move and utterly insincere disingenuous drivel emerges. I'm probably too cynical, but I don't even trust most of them to tell the truth about what they had for breakfast that day

Rudolph
An excellent post, one I largely concur with your well expressed view and conclusions . I write as a career engineer/scientist whose professional discipline has involved mathematical analysis to provided predicted feeds into long term strategy control systems. ( For the commercial objective of optimising fuel use in navigating ship voyages - had our systems not been largely successful we would not have survived as a company )

Yes, I believed the official narrative for the first three or 4 weeks before enough data was publicy available to realise that government-SAGE were not basing their 'policies' on anything remotely approaching science but authoritarian control and convergent opportunistic agendas emerged, disproportionate to a low level threat. I have seen precisely the same in 2001 with the foot and mouth outbreak when David King was govt chief scientist, and Neil Ferguson embarked on a career consitently modelling doom-laden predictions that were far more pessimistic than eventual outcomes, King continues to interfere from the sidelines leading alt sage or whatever these hasbeens call themselves.

One point, your para 15 where you suggest that 200,000 over 60-70s.are at risk of death. You say the CFR is 8% ( I've seen ONS stats at up to 12%) BTW I'm in the upper end of this bracket, had Covid in Jan and thought it was just a mild flu with odd sypmtoms are at risk of death. I think your figures are largely correct but the conclusion should be
(Population in age group) x (susceptibility to infection) x (age group Case fatality rate)
which at 2.4 x 10^6 x 10% x 8% gives about 19,000. Which I think is closer to what has happened.

the main conclusion is as you say -the case for a 2nd lockdown is almost non-existent. As was the case for the first lockdown beyond 3-4 weeks.

Waht do we do about it ? If scientists wish to prostitute themselves and lie, they rely on the politicians to be innumerate and illiterate. As well as the population they show their contempt for. We must keep plugging away at this; more and more people who have a gut feeling they are being conned from the beginning are seeking the real situation. What people do with it .....

You cannot fool all of the people all of the time