Is lockdown really protecting the NHS?

 I don't know about you, but I think I've adjusted to lockdown. We're told the purpose of it is to 'protect the NHS' ... or maybe it is to 'defeat the virus'... no-one seems to be clear, those in charge don't seem to know what they're doing, but I've now got to the point where I'm getting through each day without any disappointment about things I'm not able to do. I'm not thinking of things I would be doing if it weren't for lockdown, or how they might benefit me. Neither, I suspect, do many people think of how much better off they might be if it weren't for lockdown - they are too frightened of 'the virus'.

That lockdowns are damaging businesses and children's education is unquestionable. Lockdowns may help to 'protect the NHS' or 'defeat the virus', but, from my recent personal experience, I'm not sure.

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Just over two years ago I had a gastroscopy - a not-terribly-pleasant experience involving a probe being put down your throat to have a look inside your stomach. I'd been having gastric issues for a couple of years prior to that, perhaps ever since eating a breakfast too hastily one morning when Viv was in the Lister recovering from an emergency appendectomy, and needing to get to Stevenage for the 6.59 train so I could get to work early and then get to see her after work; however, my troubles really kicked off as she recovered from her hydrocephalus in 2018 and I went to see the GP, who sent me for the said procedure. (Strangely, my body somehow knew that the time when she was really ill was not a time to mess me about, and I had no trouble stomach-wise all the time I was doing 'extreme' caring.) That gastroscopy revealed a small ulcer, gastritis, and a small hiatus hernia.

These three buddies have been irritating me on-and-off ever since, particularly the last of the three, with cramp-like pain developing at the base of my chest on many mornings, but easing once I'm up and moving. These problems have quite definitely been worse during the lockdowns.

Yesterday was different. I'd slept badly, having a headache for most of the night, and having a bad taste developing in my mouth, together with quite uncomfortable tension in my chest, and pain in both jaws. This didn't clear when I got up, and I spent most of the day feeling unwell, trying to work out what to do. 

Today I'm better, having had a better night, and - more significantly - a good walk, perhaps two miles, to do some shopping. The simple activity of walking seemed to massage my innards and settle my muscles and organs to relieve the discomfort; I then realised that, if there was no lockdown, I would have been walking much more - not just to the shops and back, or a mile or two for our 'permitted exercise'. However, it's still possible that my condition will deteriorate and I'll need surgery to tighten up the muscles around the top of my stomach; if the problems are allowed to continue unchecked they can creat the conditions for tumours to develop.

So, it seems, lockdowns are making my health worse; and I'm just one of perhaps ten or twenty million 'older but mobile' people in the UK that might suffer the sort of health problems I have (it is estimated that 60% of over-60s have a hiatus hernia) or something equivalent. All of our conditions are being made worse by lockdowns; we may be avoiding Covid, but we are most certainly not keeping our health at the level it would be at if Covid had never happened. Therefore many people will need help from their GP, hospital or clinic as a result of lockdowns; how is this protecting the NHS? Moreover, some people have been so frightened by government advertising that they have refused to set foot outside their homes; what state will their immune systems be in, after months without fresh air and vitamin-D generating sunlight? How many victims of Covid would have survived if we hadn't had lockdown?

Worse, as lockdowns seem to be going on longer, and may be needed again, so we've been warned, are we heading for a situation where the lockdowns will be justified by deaths, or cases, that would not have arisen without the very lockdowns supposed to stop them ... so lockdowns become permanent?

How did we end up in this insane situation?

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