DarloRich
Veteran Member
My personal view is that not enough attention is being paid to the economic impact. Yes, significant numbers of people will lose their jobs, and that will inevitably impact the economy. More importantly, as I have mentioned on another thread, our government is proposing to spend billions of pounds it doesn't have, likewise the EU is proposing to spend billions of Euros that it doesn't have, and the US is proposing to spend trillions of dollars that it doesn't have. Where is all this money coming from? Who is lending it? China - I doubt it. If governments around the world are just printing money on this scale, then there will sooner or later be a financial melt-down that is going to make the 1929 crash, let alone the 2008 crash, look like a storm in a tea-cup. What is the point in saving our NHS now if we cripple ourselves so badly we can't afford it in future? This to my mind is the big elephant in the room, that nobody is asking questions about.
I am not sure it is as clear-cut as you say. Not only is it difficult to say that people of one group should be a bigger priority than others, the numbers are really difficult to quantify. We just don't know the impact; it may be that for every person over 70 whose life we prolong might cause major health problems for 10 young people who would otherwise lead healthy lives. But it may be the other way round of course. We just don't know. I do worry that if this goes on for too long, the damage to young people will have been far greater than could be justified. But I do not know how long it will be before it is "too long". It is easy to say this or that should be a priority but is much harder to know for a fact what the actual wider impact of any particular action will be.
I take the points both of you make but I maintain these are issues ( terrible, scary, awful issues) for tomorrow. Today we have to stop this virus. We should be parking these issues and putting everything into stopping this situation getting worse. We might not have the luxury for long!