Not saying you’re wrong, I do think there would be some of that but I am looking at a way to quantify it, especially since my friend is convinced that the lockdown is worse than the virus.
Now I realise that some people that would normally die are not (car accidents etc), but at the same time if the lockdown itself was causing significant mortality you wouldn’t expect the excess mortality to drop to normal levels, would you? You would expect a small offset from 0 unless the savings from car crashes are exactly the same compared to “lockdown deaths” - and if they are, and the lockdown is saving “extra” lives then is it not still worth it?
We have to wait and see for England to see if it falls back to normal or below normal levels.
> Spain has a “hard lockdown” too. Their excess mortality has returned to a normal level according to momo
That's probably inaccurate. I've been following MOMO's graphs, and the yellow-band portions (most recent weeks) grossly underreport and are subject to upward correction. Data points get larger and larger as they age. For example, "Spain Week 11" was pretty small when first reported (in week 12?), was larger the next week, and larger still a week later.
Here is something I found interesting:
Spain has a “hard lockdown” too. Their excess mortality has returned to a normal level according to momo: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/
Now I realise that some people that would normally die are not (car accidents etc), but at the same time if the lockdown itself was causing significant mortality you wouldn’t expect the excess mortality to drop to normal levels, would you? You would expect a small offset from 0 unless the savings from car crashes are exactly the same compared to “lockdown deaths” - and if they are, and the lockdown is saving “extra” lives then is it not still worth it?
We have to wait and see for England to see if it falls back to normal or below normal levels.