How do masks lead to undiagnosed cancers, heart disease and diabetes? Masks and lockdowns are not the same.
And if you are trying to peddle the argument that lockdowns lead to an increase in undiagnosed illnesses - what a barrowload of dried donkey's testicles. With COVID rife through a community, healthy people (or those who are not sure they are well -the undiagnosed in your argument) are going to stay far and wide from any medical clinic / hospital as it will be likely overflowing with coughing and spluttering patients and asymptomatic infected health care workers. PPE shortages, no elective surgeries to relieve the burden, I could go on.
By contrast a society with no community transmission will see people wander along to their local clinic as they always did. Rates of diagnoses will be largely the same as always. A good outcome n'est-ce pas?
And the flu argument - well, people are washing their hands and sanitising for a start, and socialising less. And staying at home if they feel feverish. Didn't happen much before, sadly. And surprise surprise there is less flu transmission. But it's not nil. And getting the flu and COVID simultaneously (they are not the same thing!) means an almost certain lengthy hospital stay at best.
Yes, there are some reports of mental illness increased. Undoubtedly some has, but interestingly some jurisdictions have data showing that there has not been an uptick in suicide rates. And even if there was, it is a hell of a lot less than the numbers killed by COVID and the numbers of those with developing mental illness may mirror those with long term illnesses from COVID, so not much of an argument to be made there.
TB? Really? Remind us how many people died from TB in the USA on average? How many has COVID killed this year? I'll save you the math, about 500 times fewer.
All that said, because of poor response and denial (people and media outlets peddling the misinformation like yours emboldening people with a sense of "me" over "us") the virus is here and in many parts of the world it is uncontrollable. It affects almost all of us and I am guessing you, given your location and presumed profession by virtue of being on this site.
Where to from the quagmire we're in, well the first step is to keep the spread from continuing to go nuts, mask up mandatory (easy in an autocratic country) and put a limit on the spread.
Last edited by compressor stall; 8th Nov 2020 at 08:03.