Thanks to everyone for the great discussion here.

If you google "200000 deaths from lockdown" you will get various links/reports about a paper produced in April by the ONS, Department of Health and others.

It's hard not to get angry and frustrated by what's going on, especially as most of my friends just don't want to know. Grim, but also somehow uplifting, is the video by Kate Wand mentioned in yesterdays LS blog called "Lockdown: the Right Side of History". I recommend watching it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJc2Ybe7F3E

Thank you for a very informative and sensible post.

Thanks for the kind words. It's hard to express the growing sense of unreality I've felt this year. I find myself thinking "am I insane, or are they insane?"

I read various forums and the number of people horrified at the benevolence of our majestic and glorious government giving us all permission to celebrate Christmas is a real eye-opener. No real comment about the principle, let alone a rational examination of what the data might tell us - just lots of fear about killing off granny and massive spikes in infection. Sigh.

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.

Thanks - nice to see another scientist/techie type disagreeing with the overall covid narrative. I can question my sanity a little less now 😉
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%

Here I was estimating the IFR for the various age ranges. Assuming a uniform 10% infection rate for the ages and using the 2019 population data from ONS. The IFR then works out at about 8% in the 80-90 age range using the data up to 10th July. The CFR will be higher.
What do we do about it ?

I wish I knew. I've been appalled at Whitty and Vallance - in my view they are guilty of perpetrating scientific fraud. Their outrageous cherry-picking of the hospital data during the press conference before the 2nd lockdown was nothing short of scandalous - they brought themselves, and science itself, into disrepute. I am still angry about it. They are not only representing the government, they are representing science and the scientific method to the public. I have nothing but contempt for their actions.

thanks Rachel

I've done so and most articles talk about Non covid deaths as a direct result of lockdown rather than because of Covid in any or all age groups. This Mail article
"Lockdown 'caused up to 21,000 extra deaths - many due to reduced access to healthcare', shocking study claims

Rudolph
Thanks - nice to see another scientist/techie type disagreeing with the overall covid narrative. I can question my sanity a little less now ....

I wish I knew. I've been appalled at Whitty and Vallance - in my view they are guilty of perpetrating scientific fraud. Their outrageous cherry-picking of the hospital data during the press conference before the 2nd lockdown was nothing short of scandalous - they brought themselves, and science itself, into disrepute. I am still angry about it. They are not only representing the government, they are representing science and the scientific method to the public. I have nothing but contempt for their actions.

Thanks Rudolph
My sanity has take a bashing the last 8 months. Others have described it as living in a parallel universe. Thank you 'Lockdown Sceptics' and others for the common sense grounding. On one hand there are the politicians (with a very few notable exceptions such as Steve Baker and Edmund Swayne) churning out fearmongering hysteria in support of their sinister control policies; on the other an apparently unbeliveably uncritical unscientific public; the 'Sheeple' swallowing their lies and even goldplating them. But I find even in rural Wales, face to face, people are developing a gut feeling that they are being deceived and manipulated wholesale We have a duty to provide the facts to support them.

I too have been appalled by Whitty and Vallance who, as you say are guilty of fraud, I'd say on a monstrous scale. I know that in 3-4 decades, the whole academic structure has been massively debased and subverted by the 'cult of the adminstrator' much as has the NHS. Mediochrity is celebrated as excellence and true excellence is despised. I know that there remain excellent people in both sectors but they seem to be swimming against the tide. Certain select academic institutions have long been part of a 'cosy club' with the government; ICL and a few others have been doing this, regardless of the party in power. Whitty and Vallance reportedly have chosen the entire complement of SAGE and subgroups such as SPI-B, the 'behavioural' group. These people are simply propagandists and manipulators and are the of the same ilk as those in Soviet era and Nazi Germany and elsewhere. See List of participants of SAGE and related sub-groups If you have a few hours, Google some of the names like and follow through theri links, peers and publications. For instance The behavioural insights team who have brought us The little Green Book of Nudges ; others there are pushing for compulsory vaccination. The whole picture dovetails with the demonstrably false narrative of 'Climate Change' and the emerging 'woke'/ critical race theory agenda.

The answering of questions that have niggled me most of my life - such as .."How did a civilised and cultured society like Germany and others degenerate and accept what happened in the 30's?" ( and for the countries of former Yugoslavia in the 90s) Working there in the 70s and 80s with friends and colleagues showed me that the same might have happened in the UK under extraordinary cicumstances; 'How' became crystal clear a few months ago.

There are some signs that the government is starting to distance itself a bit from them and using the JBC as a buffer from what might be the future scientific scapegoats for this mess.

A plague on the lot of them.