David Spiegelhalter

And how do we do that?

Do we sample them?

Do we go back and look at some, check the death certification?

This is a massive operation and we have to decide, actually, is it worth it?

So I think this is a real challenge.

No, I think this was predictable that we were going to get a big spike.

And in a way, we don't know about the whole pattern until after it's all over almost, when we look back on the whole year and we count up over the whole year and see, well, actually, what was the excess?

And I think what would be very unfortunate, and this is already people saying this is going to happen, is that when we get to the end of the year and there is not a massive excess deaths over the year, or perhaps like a, you know,

a bad flu year, which is about 25,000 excess deaths, people will say, oh, well, what was all the fuss about?

Why do we have to lock this down?

And I think the crucial thing is, it's the acuteness of the spike.

The flu year, you do get spread over much of the season.

The NHS is not overwhelmed, it can cope.

The NHS is coping at the moment, which is very impressive, an absolute testament to the people involved.

But it's the concentration of this impulse, of this surge of disease.

Now, once we know, essentially, which I think we do know, that the NHS can cope, once that really acute surge starts dropping,

I think then there will be very genuine arguments that could be made for, I'm not involved in any policy decisions or advising even, but there could be to relax lockdown with the knowledge that this will not minimize COVID-related deaths, with the knowledge that this will, in a sense, have impact on overall mortality, that people will continue to get infections and die, but

There will be a trade-off there against the harm being done to future generations.

long-term impact of this and talking to doctors just saying the staggering backlog of routine operations and hip replacements even cancer surgery that's being delayed at the moment just this backlog that's building up there's going to be a massive downstream impact of this not just the economic harm that's being done and I think that there would be genuine discussions that that actually minimizing this excess deaths is not necessarily

the objective that policy should have.