[iforgotmypass23]

Here's the data on bed availability where I live (Wales):

https://statswales.gov.wales/Catalogue/Health-and-Social-Car...

To pick out two dates, roughly at each Covid peak:

16 Apr 2020: 3,033 general beds occupied, 3,200 general beds available. 190 ICU beds used, 204 ICU beds available.

25th Jan 2021: 7,840 general beds occupied, 1,459 general beds available. 218 ICU beds used, 49 ICU beds available.

The publicly-available statistics do not support the notion that our hospitals are in dire straights due to sheer numbers of patients, nor the idea that they were full to bursting with Covid patients. As I have said repeatedly, they were emptier than usual.

Further, denigrating anyone who disagrees with you as "shrill" does you no favours.

Edit: Hopefully you understand why I'm upset about this topic. I suffered with a very young family under effective house arrest for many months, and many further months of restrictions (some of which are ongoing), as well as the inevitable long-term effects on my country, all to "protect the NHS". As the figures clearly show, at the peak of the first wave, the hospitals were less than 50% full.

The immediate question is - what on earth else has gone wrong?

[sofixa]

Has it occurred to you that the statistics for Wales only might not be telling the same story? How were the hospitals in England and Scotland? Considering it would be impossible to force a quarantine between them, a global UK policy wasn't a ludicrous idea. Furthermore, the point of the restrictions was to stop the exponential growth before hospitals were overwhelmed.

> Edit: Hopefully you understand why I'm upset about this topic. I suffered with a very young family under effective house arrest for many months, and many further months of restrictions (some of which are ongoing), as well as the inevitable long-term effects on my country, all to "protect the NHS

And many many others did, but don't bitch about it for months on end.

[lithium_throw]

Months? I'm going to be paying for this folly, probably for the rest of my working life.

I thought you told me that we couldn't compare numbers between different countries, what with them being different and all? Wales is an especially interesting case, because we had significantly more onerous restrictions than England (and if I lived in England, I might not have such a strong opinion that the downsides of lockdowns outweigh the benefits).

As you absolutely insist though, here's the data for England:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas...

For the time period April-June 2020, overall occupancy was at 65%, compared to 90% for the same period in 2019. Some pandemic.