Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[Billy Dean]

In England alone, 78,000 people a year - or 200 per day - die from smoking. In addition to the human cost, smoking costs the economy £14.7 billion per year, £2.5 billion of which falls to the NHS.

£2.5 billion of the NHS budget up in smoke every year and that’s acceptable? OK.

I’m just trying to make the point that comparing smoking to a contagious virus is completely different.

Whether smoking could or should be banned is a completely different debate and you can have the same one about alcohol. But I’m struggling to see how it compares to a zoonotic contagious virus

 

[whiteshadow]

In England alone, 78,000 people a year - or 200 per day - die from smoking. In addition to the human cost, smoking costs the economy £14.7 billion per year, £2.5 billion of which falls to the NHS.

£2.5 billion of the NHS budget up in smoke every year and that’s acceptable? OK.

• We estimate a net saving of £14.7 billon per annum at current rates of consumption, with the costs smokers incur significantly outweighed by the sum of tobacco duty paid and old-age expenditures avoided due to premature mortality.

• The government spends £3.6 billion treating smoking-attributable diseases on the NHS and up to £1 billion collecting cigarette butts and extinguishing smoking-related house fires. But these costs are covered more than four times over by early death savings and tobacco duty revenue.

• In the absence of smoking, the government would spend an extra £9.8 billion annually in pension, healthcare and other benefit payments (less taxes forgone). Duty paid on tobacco products is £9.5 billion a year. In total, the gross financial benefit to the government from smoking therefore amounts to £19.3 billion. Subtracting the £4.6 billion of costs (above) produces an overall net benefit of £14.7 billion per annum.

You're misinterpreting the data. The report shows the government saves money through smokers paying duty. The smokers pay way over the amount they cost the NHS in taxes and save the government loads of money as they die young, making huge savings on the cost of social care for the elderly.

Smokers save the goverment 14.7 billion a year, not cost them it.

Apologies if wrong but I don't think so.

https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Smoking-and-the-Public-Purse.pdf

 

[Bruce Wayne]

• We estimate a net saving of £14.7 billon per annum at current rates of consumption, with the costs smokers incur significantly outweighed by the sum of tobacco duty paid and old-age expenditures avoided due to premature mortality.

• The government spends £3.6 billion treating smoking-attributable diseases on the NHS and up to £1 billion collecting cigarette butts and extinguishing smoking-related house fires. But these costs are covered more than four times over by early death savings and tobacco duty revenue.

• In the absence of smoking, the government would spend an extra £9.8 billion annually in pension, healthcare and other benefit payments (less taxes forgone). Duty paid on tobacco products is £9.5 billion a year. In total, the gross financial benefit to the government from smoking therefore amounts to £19.3 billion. Subtracting the £4.6 billion of costs (above) produces an overall net benefit of £14.7 billion per annum.

You're misinterpreting the data. The report shows the government saves money through smokers paying duty. The smokers pay way over the amount they cost the NHS in taxes and save the government loads of money as they die young, making huge savings on the cost of social care for the elderly.

Smokers save the goverment 14.7 billion a year, not cost them it.

Apologies if wrong but I don't think so.

https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Smoking-and-the-Public-Purse.pdf

They're a free market think tank, so you'd kinda expect such a conclusion.

 

[Toffee in Jandals]

100 days now without any community transmission (that we know of) in New Zealand.

As brilliant a job as we have done protecting the vulnerable in our population, I do worry though if NZ will get "left behind" the world when globally things start to re-open - we've gone so far down this road to keep the virus out, we basically now have no choice but to continue with very tight border controls until a vaccine is developed, and the rest of the world sorts itself out (yeah USA, we're looking at you).

The bitter irony of being a COVID success.

 

[verreauxi]

But there is no case for saying the next one . The last serious virus that existed came from China , happened to be a respiratory one as well, within 20 years, if you want a conspiracy theory.

I'm being pedantic here, but the last major respiratory virus that killed off lots of people was MERS and was from the Middle East in 2012, not China.

 

[verreauxi]

I haven't really run the numbers, but I would have thought the relevant metrics are the number of official new cases as a percentage of the number of tests being carried out. Although # new cases seems to be creeping up again, we are also doing more testing too, so it might just be that the true incidences of CV19 aren't increasing, just that we're capturing more of them in the general population.

The rolling number of deaths is also the other metric that I track. This hasn't really moved any higher, so it fits in with the narrative that the real number of cases hasn't really increased, assuming the fatality rate amongst all cases (both symptomatic and asymptomatic) is still constant.

I do admit though that things look much different some some countries where the situation is still getting worse, or they are experiencing a very long and drawn out peak.

See here, if it helps:

Current Affairs - Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

Best in der werld, allegedly. Other LA's are kicking butt too iirc, but obviously being good, efficient or excelling doesn't come into it with our government for some reason.

www.grandoldteam.com

 

[verreauxi]

How so?

If 50000 die from covid-19 this year , that was completely out of our control.

If 77000 for example die from smoking related illnesses , that could have been prevented.

Why is the preventable death rate (the bigger number) dismissive?

People choose to smoke, but people don't choose to get a respiratory virus with idiosyncratic symptoms and unpredictable effects. Individuals in society have some personal freedoms, including the freedom to do things that they know might be harmful to them, such as paragliding, smoking, flying, going to the FA cup match between Everton and Millwall, and drinking. With respect to smoking, there are now many laws that prevent second-hand smoke from damaging those who don't want to be around it (which is why people, in most cities, are required to smoke outside). With respect to the virus, the government has suggested, even mandated, that people wear masks to prevent the spread, similar to second-hand smoke mandates/laws; it helps protect those who might not have a choice with respect to working in high-risk areas. As to preventable deaths...I really don't see your point, unless you want to suggest that the government should work to limit all preventable deaths, which is both unrealistic and violates individual sovereignty; sumptuary laws that unreasonably prevent preventable deaths related to individual freedoms are generally regarded as violating basic principles of self-autonomy (i.e., it is unreasonable for a government to tell someone they can't have a cigarette in their own home, but not unreasonable to say they can't smoke in a hospital).

 

[evilwebby]

See here, if it helps:

Current Affairs - Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

Best in der werld, allegedly. Other LA's are kicking butt too iirc, but obviously being good, efficient or excelling doesn't come into it with our government for some reason.

www.grandoldteam.com

Thanks, yes - I do agree that Florida and some of the other US states the situation has got worse with a 2nd wave kicking in, although this too looks like it has just about got past the peak.

I was referring more to our UK numbers where we've seen confirmed cases moving up by about 30-40% in the last few weeks, but deaths have remained pretty flat.

 

[Catfish Blues]

.I really don't see your point, unless you want to suggest that the government should work to limit all preventable deaths, which is both unrealistic and violates individual sovereignty.

The UK's record on preventable deaths is less than the European average, many of which have a higher GDP per capita than us, and the main people affected in this country come from deprived areas.

If, over the last twenty years, we'd shown as much interest in dealing with preventable cardiovascular and cancer deaths and the underlyng causes, then many people would have lived healthier, longer lives. A secondary affect would likely have been less COVID deaths.

I would argue that it should be a priority for any government that they should work to limit all preventable deaths ( including COVID ).

 

[COYBL25]

 

[Prevenger17]

People choose to smoke, but people don't choose to get a respiratory virus with idiosyncratic symptoms and unpredictable effects. Individuals in society have some personal freedoms, including the freedom to do things that they know might be harmful to them, such as paragliding, smoking, flying, going to the FA cup match between Everton and Millwall, and drinking. With respect to smoking, there are now many laws that prevent second-hand smoke from damaging those who don't want to be around it (which is why people, in most cities, are required to smoke outside). With respect to the virus, the government has suggested, even mandated, that people wear masks to prevent the spread, similar to second-hand smoke mandates/laws; it helps protect those who might not have a choice with respect to working in high-risk areas. As to preventable deaths...I really don't see your point, unless you want to suggest that the government should work to limit all preventable deaths, which is both unrealistic and violates individual sovereignty; sumptuary laws that unreasonably prevent preventable deaths related to individual freedoms are generally regarded as violating basic principles of self-autonomy (i.e., it is unreasonable for a government to tell someone they can't have a cigarette in their own home, but not unreasonable to say they can't smoke in a hospital).

If he we can't prevent all deaths, then we should prevent none at all. It is time to abolish medicine

 

[evilwebby]

The UK's record on preventable deaths is less than the European average, many of which have a higher GDP per capita than us, and the main people affected in this country come from deprived areas.

If, over the last twenty years, we'd shown as much interest in dealing with preventable cardiovascular and cancer deaths and the underlyng causes, then many people would have lived healthier, longer lives. A secondary affect would likely have been less COVID deaths.

I would argue that it should be a priority for any government that they should work to limit all preventable deaths ( including COVID ).

I'm not making the argument either for or against smoking or preventable death, but I'll just point out that you're picking the data to suit your own argument as much as anybody.

Suppose we do have a below average record on preventable deaths, we also have an above average GDP per capita. If you want to argue that there is an inverse correlation between smoking and economic wellbeing then you need to look at all the data, not just cherry-pick the datapoints that happen to support your argument.

 

[Catfish Blues]

Suppose we do have a below average record on preventable deaths, we also have an above average GDP per capita. If you want to argue that there is an inverse correlation between smoking and economic wellbeing then you need to look at all the data, not just cherry-pick the datapoints that happen to support your argument

I wasn't mate, maybe you made an assumption about where I was coming from ?

Apologies if I wasn't clear, but the point I was trying to make that we have a below average record on preventable deaths despite a decent GDP. That not's implying a correlation, but what it does do is demonstrate that the overall wealth of a country doesn't necessarily feed through to the overall health of the country. Smoking's an example of things which cause poor health, but it's Kenshin's example, not mine, and its much wider than just tobacco, and I'm more interested in the whole picture rather than just one element of it.

People do lots of things ( smoke, drink too much, eat poorly, live sedentary lives etc ) which they know are bad for them, but they do them anyway. Some of that is because they enjoy those things, but there will be many complicated underlying issues contributing to that mindset.

To solve that, you'd have to, among other things, to use the current buzz phrase, "level up" the country, and, just as importantly, look at using more preventative measures to limit treatments needed. Both of those measures would take a long time to have an effect, and long term planning isn't something governments of any persuasion are desperately good at.

The reaction to COVID is eating up huge amounts of cash, rightly so in many ways, but it'd be interesting to see forecasts for throwing cash at making the population healthier and, given a presumably finite pot of cash, how to get the most benefit. That doesn't mean doing one thing and not the other, but like everything else in life, priorities have to be chosen.

 

[Kurt.]

Just been to the gym. I didn’t do anything whilst there though, I just sat, because I can.

 

[evilwebby]

I wasn't mate, maybe you made an assumption about where I was coming from ?

Apologies if I wasn't clear, but the point I was trying to make that we have a below average record on preventable deaths despite a decent GDP. That not's implying a correlation, but what it does do is demonstrate that the overall wealth of a country doesn't necessarily feed through to the overall health of the country. Smoking's an example of things which cause poor health, but it's Kenshin's example, not mine, and its much wider than just tobacco, and I'm more interested in the whole picture rather than just one element of it.

People do lots of things ( smoke, drink too much, eat poorly, live sedentary lives etc ) which they know are bad for them, but they do them anyway. Some of that is because they enjoy those things, but there will be many complicated underlying issues contributing to that mindset.

To solve that, you'd have to, among other things, to use the current buzz phrase, "level up" the country, and, just as importantly, look at using more preventative measures to limit treatments needed. Both of those measures would take a long time to have an effect, and long term planning isn't something governments of any persuasion are desperately good at.

The reaction to COVID is eating up huge amounts of cash, rightly so in many ways, but it'd be interesting to see forecasts for throwing cash at making the population healthier and, given a presumably finite pot of cash, how to get the most benefit. That doesn't mean doing one thing and not the other, but like everything else in life, priorities have to be chosen.

Well we're way off topic, but it's a relatively small step from banning smoking to giving people a list of things that they can and can't do. People want to smoke, so what? Let them. If its just a question of economics then just raise duty on ciggies as much as you need to be make the cost/benefit analysis positive for the public coffers.

But where does it stop? What if the government says that you must do this, or must not do that for the benefit of society? You MUST attend further education. You MUST get married and have 2 children with your spouse. You MUST surrender 50% of your income to payroll taxes? You MUSTN'T engage in rockclimbing, or you MUSTN'T drink more than 20 units of alcohol a week, or you MUSTN'T listen to, much less produce, ganster rap music?

Individual freedoms matter, but as I also like to point out, the other side of the coin to that is that you must also assume personal rather than collective responsibility.