A startling article out of the UK reports that, entirely unrelated to COVID, England and Wales are experiencing 1,000 excess deaths a week is cause for alarm in countries that also enforced strict lock-downs. Concerns were raised as early as mid-2020 that locking down would result in precisely what appears to be happening. The piece, “Silent crisis of soaring excess deaths gripping Britain is only tip of the iceberg“, notes that a July 2020 UK government report warned delayed healthcare could result in 200,000 deaths.
New Zealand and Australia, among other countries, repeatedly canceled or postponed elective and outpatient surgeries during the multiple lockdowns that were enforced. Cancer screenings and other long-established preventative care methods long recommended by doctors such as scans and annual wellness visits were all missed.
As the UK report notes:
If the current trajectory continues, the number of non-Covid excess deaths will soon outstrip deaths from the virus this year – and be even more deadly than the omicron wave.
Per Prof Robert Dingwall, of Nottingham Trent University is quoted as saying:
We are beginning to see the deaths that result from delay and deferment of treatment for other conditions, like cancer and heart disease, and from those associated with poverty and deprivation.
These come through more slowly – if cancer is not treated promptly, patients don’t die immediately but do die in greater numbers more quickly than would otherwise be the case.
Add excess deaths to the long list of catastrophic costs of lockdowns alongside learning loss and mental health crises in children, economic hardship, spikes in malnutrition and poverty etc.
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