2021-11-28
In an age when it sometimes seems that nobody is allowed to do anything as simple as climbing a ladder without first commissioning a risk assessment, it does seem extraordinary that our UK government did not even attempt a cost-benefit-analysis-cum-risk-assessment before implementing its various lockdowns. After all, the dangers to the nation could hardly have been greater, so surely some serious justification was required before we overthrew decades of pandemic planning?
Even if there was no time in February/March, there was opportunity to review that first lockdown in retrospect to assess whether it was successful in mitigating the pandemic impact whilst minimising the side-effects. After all, at the very least we should have used it as a learning opportunity to inform future pandemic planning.
So must we conclude that the government didn't and still doesn't want to know whether the benefits outweighed the costs?
The Epoch Times reports on the latest assessment of one aspect of the medical shutdown that was implemented in the lockdown - the number of additional deaths now expected due to cancers that should have been diagnosed months ago.
Whilst this cannot be a precise estimate due to the myriad unknowns of individual circumstances, University College London has made the attempt (free registration required).
