Experts are now openly stating that they expect the lockdown to last at least five years, unless, of course, a vaccine comes sooner.
In early April, experts said they expected the lockdown to kill around 150,000 people.
Now they’re saying that the virus is expected to kill 150,000 people over 5 years (or about as many as the flu), and that an additional 525,000 deaths are expected to result from the lockdown and the collapse of the economy.
Coronavirus and the lockdown measures used to control its spread could result in the deaths of almost 700,000 people in Britain – more than in the Second World War – a professor has warned as part of a shocking new study.
Researchers predict that without a vaccine Britain could be forced to keep social distancing measures until 2024 in order to beat Covid-19.
But if Britain is plunged into a recession as a result, more than 675,000 could die from the virus, poor healthcare and impoverishment over the next five years, experts warn.
Mostly from the latter two things.
The figure, which comes from a new study led by Philip Thomas, a Professor of Risk Management at the University of Bristol, is higher than the approximately 525,000 civilian and military personnel from Britain who died in the Second World War.
Professor Thomas told the Sunday Express: ‘Poverty kills just as surely as the coronavirus.
‘The only reason we have good health and live a long time in the UK is because we are one of the wealthiest nations in the world.
‘The policy of coming out of lockdown gradually, over five years – which will be necessary if we are to keep the infection rate close to or below 1 – will reduce the toll on life from the coronavirus but incur a far greater loss of life through the impoverishment of the nation.’
He warned the net loss of life is likely to be ‘of the order of 675,000 lives’
The study, which is due to be published in the Scientific Journal Nanotechnology Perceptions, estimates around 150,000 people will die from coronavirus over five years under semi-lockdown conditions.
So that means the other 525,000 will die from the lockdown itself.
The theory of course is that many more would die from the virus without the lockdown. There is, however, no reason to believe this. And everyone knows if we’d just allowed herd immunity to form, we’d already be fine. I don’t know how over a five-year period we could possibly avoid developing herd immunity, but I guess their plan is to prevent that so they have an excuse to keep everyone locked down.