A report from imperial college stated that in the first wave 20,000 deaths could have been prevented had followed the SAGE advice and locked down a week earlier.
Boris Johnson again ignored SAGE requests in October for a circuit breaker lockdown while infections were relatively low but rising. Since then two lockdowns have been necessary and 50,000 more people have died.
On austerity
As part of Tory-Liberal coalition and later Tory government “reforms,” unprecedented numbers of social security claims were denied or terminated. Between March 2014 and February 2017, 119,590 deaths were
recorded by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
The deceased had recently been “flowed off” Incapacity Benefit, Severe Disablement Allowance, and/or Employment Support Allowance. Many died as a direct result: Stress triggered fatal heart-attacks, strokes, and seizures; significant numbers of claimants with depression killed themselves; anxiety shortened the lives of terminally-ill people; and some starved to death. In the same period,
life expectancy declined. Consider the following cases as a tiny sample of the broader toll:
After his social security was terminated, Mark Wood (44) of Oxfordshire was
found dead, weighing five stone. Likewise, Errol Graham (57)
died in his Nottingham flat with no gas or electricity, weighing four-and-a-half-stone.
Forty-nine-year-old James Oliver’s death in Hastings from chronic liver disease was accelerated by the stress caused by the DWP’s refusal to award social security. His brother, David Smith,
says that James sank into despair: “He just downed more or less anything he could lay his hands on.” The death of Moira Drury (61) of Essex, who had cancer, was also hastened by the torment. Her daughter Nichole
said: “She told me the day before she died that the stress of having her benefits removed contributed to her decline.”
The UN was so concerned that they published a report attacking the extreme poverty caused by government policies in 2019.