GOVERNMENTS should be more truthful about Covid ‘trade off' decisions that benefit the economy but may threaten lives, a Glasgow academic has said.
Professor Cam Donaldson says political messages have avoided ‘uncomfortable truths’ throughout the pandemic and increasingly as lockdown restrictions are lifted, businesses re-open and cases of the virus begin to increase.
The re-opening of schools - seen as vital to the economy as well as education - has resulted in a steady growth in cases involving pupils and teachers.
A cluster affecting Kingspark School in Dundee has now reached 22 cases - made up of 17 members of staff, two pupils and three community contacts.
A report by health economists at Glasgow Caledonian University and the University of British Columbia argues that governments should be more transparent with the public about decision that risk lives.
READ MORE: Kingspark School: Linked cluster rises as school remains closed
Other examples cited include prioritising resources in the NHS rather than on social care, which may have resulted in care home deaths and investing in costly (but un-used) healthcare facilities such as the Louisa Jordan hospital in Glasgow.
The UK government is specifically criticised for focussing on ‘meaningless large numbers” in public messages such as pledging in April to carry out 100,000 tests every day.
Professor Cam Donaldson, Pro Vice-Chancellor Research at Glasgow Caledonian University and one of the authors, said: “The need for trade-offs is quite apparent and I think people would generally recognise that.
“The Scottish Government frequently talk about the need to have a grown-up debate and this would involved talking about these aspects.
“Say you are opening up schools for example, what has to happen on the health front to mean the government might reign that in?
“At some point I would say in the future there is going to be a small number of serious cases of Covid amongst children because the risks now are higher than they were before.
“So the question we are asking is, what level of risk is acceptable and what is unacceptable?
READ MORE: Face coverings to be brought in for schools on 'limited' basis
“It’s ultimately about saying what is the value to human life because there may be situations where we let the r number - of the background level of infection - drift upwards in order to get far greater benefits by opening up the economy, opening up schools.
“That is the judgment that they have to make. Are they going to let cases drift for the sake of the schools and the economy.
“But by letting the r number drift upwards that is actually going to lead to lower cases of Covid in the end and a lower risk to life.”
Prof Donaldson says decisions are being made ‘at the margin’ can we do a little bit more of this with minimal risk or at least letting the risk drift upwards a bit because it’s not going to take the country bac into the critical area where everything has to be shut down.
READ MORE: Gyms and pools to re-open in Scotland on August 31
He said: “The trade offs have been there all along. You could argue that we have been trading off health and social care in the early days of the lockdown when social care seemed to be neglected with more resources put into the NHS and you could argue that that cost lives.
“Health and social care have been traded off against each other, with investments in large (often unused) health care capacity at the expense of services and equipment for people in care homes.”
The report also argues that health economists should be more involved in public messaging by governments.
He said: “Lots of the scientific advisory committees are obviously full of virologists because they know the nature of viruses, epidemiologists because they know the nature of health, the occasional behavioural scientist but no health economics which to me seems odd.
“It could be, that there are health economists in the background that are feeding in numbers and data.
“Given that we have world-class health economics in Scotland and in the UK, it just seemed to me very odd that that was happening.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “The Scottish Government has clearly and transparently set out how we will carefully and gradually seek to change current restrictions.
"At each three-weekly review stage, we consider the likely impact of the package of changes in terms of the suppression of Covid-19, but also other health impacts and impact upon the economy and society.
“We have been clear that each change depends on us continuing to suppress the virus, and that lockdown restrictions may come into effect again if it starts to spread again. These decisions will be taken on a case by case basis, according to the evidence and the wider context at the time.”
Health Economics and Emergence from Lockdown is published by Cambridge University Press in its journal Health Economics, Policy and Law, the UK Government.
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