On Thursday 5th November the UK government enforced a second national lockdown. The justification for the first lockdown in March was to ‘Save Lives’ and ‘Protect the NHS’, preventing the health system from becoming overwhelmed fighting a disease that at the time no one understood.

Eight months later, is the rallying cry of ‘Protect the NHS’ still a legitimate justification? The NHS’ ability to cope with COVID-19 has drastically improved since the initial outbreak. The UK now has a stockpile of 30,000 ventilators, and medical professionals have a more developed understanding of how to treat the virus, with the death rate down by half since the start of the pandemic. New treatments help expedite recovery from the virus, meaning people spend less time in hospital. The country has also expanded its quantity of hospital beds, such as the 4,000-bed facility at the Excel Centre in London, which actually has a significant surplus capacity. As of 10-11th November, there are 14,030 patients in hospital in the UK with COVID, 1,268 of whom are in mechanical ventilation beds, and we are far better equipped now than we were in the spring to handle a winter influx of patients.

Lives are not being lost to the same scale as at the start of the pandemic, and so ‘Protect the NHS’ is being enlisted as an emotive slogan in the absence of an alternative strategy…

Given this material change in our ability to manage those affected by COVID-19, is a lockdown justified? Lives are not being lost to the same scale as at the start of the pandemic, and so ‘Protect the NHS’ is being enlisted as an emotive slogan in the absence of an alternative strategy, or the government’s willingness to incur political criticism for allowing the economy to remain open and the virus to run through the population.

One thing we do know is that lockdowns claim lives, having a devastating effect on society that is just as life-threatening as COVID-19. Last week I wrote about the mental health impact of COVID-19 on young people. Studies have also shown that increases in avoidable cancer deaths are to be expected in the UK due to lockdowns and the limited access to routine diagnostic appointments they cause. Further, the pushing back of “non-essential” surgery due to lockdown is causing previously non-critical conditions to get worse.

The average age of death from COVID is 78.4 years old, close to the current average age of death in the UK, which is 81.16… COVID is not taking the lives of people who would not otherwise have passed away from natural causes…

In a recent interview, Pathologist Professor John A. Lee spoke about how COVID-19 is not significantly bringing the average age of death in the UK down. According to our calculations based on data from Public Health England, the average age of death from COVID is 78.4 years old, close to the current average age of death in the UK, which is 81.16. This supports Professor Lee’s point that COVID is not taking the lives of people who would not otherwise have passed away from natural causes, in particular old-age. Given our knowledge of the non-inevitable loss of life that lockdowns cause, lockdown is surely a hugely irresponsible policy that puts the population’s lives at risk.

Finally, the NHS is a publicly funded service. National lockdown will impact tax collection, from corporation taxes, income taxes, capital gains and more. The economic strain of lockdown will limit the tax contributions that the population make, reducing the critical funding for services like the NHS and further compounding the problem. Protecting the NHS is more than just reducing the number of patients admitted with COVID-19.

If it actually becomes necessary to ‘Protect the NHS’, lockdown might not be the best way to do it.