Looking at the ethics, I think it's a fair question - but not sure asking if some people's lives are of less value than others is the right question. Obviously some people's lives should not be of less value and we should have the resources in the NHS to save every life and should not have to pit one person against another. But doctors are telling us we don't have the resources therefore the choices we make as to who to prioritise are political questions. All lives can be considered sacred but some lives still unfortunately have to end regardless of how sacred they are.
The lockdowns seem to have happened because there were not enough resources in the NHS, so apart from risking the lives of exhausted NHS workers by them potentially catching Covid, there was also a risk of overwhelming them with patients with Covid and other illnesses. Hence a decision was made to only treat other non-Covid illnesses if it was an emergency without a regard for the long-term effects of this policy such as people developing terminal illnesses - which sounds a lot like saying some people's lives were considered more valuable than others.
The political question being asked is does reducing the risk of 0.1 - 1% dying from Covid justify cancelling diagnostics, treatment of other illnesses, social isolation, the rise in mental health, financial ruin, loss of education, loss of jobs, young people not being able to start their careers and the long-term effects of that on the majority of the population?
The new mutation seems to have taken hold in young people through contact at school or gathering after school and spread to older people who come into contact with the young. Hence schools were closed again. Trying to isolate the parents of school children or the very elderly or those with underlying health conditions would be difficult as Italy found with generations coming into frequent contact with each other.
If we did not go into lockdown people would potentially be passing on the virus to others and it would be a like a lottery or Russian roulette as to who would die from it and who would suffer temporary or long-term disability and who would have mild symptoms or no symptoms but be infectious. It might be difficult to plan for things because there would be no way of knowing available manpower or if state bodies, the authorities, public services or private businesses and services could even function. It's the government's job to ensure that the state continues to function and that they have sufficient finances for this to happen. I would argue that the state continuing to function adequately for the majority was more important than the life of any one individual, despite every life being sacred, but obviously it is better if people came to this decision for themselves. I think it is the Government coercion some people are objecting to, where the State decides whose life is more valuable by making rules that save some while condemning others.
Lord Sumption appears to hold an opinion on whose life should be saved, despite all lives being sacred. Saving one life while condemning others, as the government have been doing through their policies, does seem to imply that some lives have more value than others. He said his life is less valuable than the lives of his grandchildren as they have longer to live. Bringing a Stage 4 cancer patient on to argue against Lord Sumption was not interesting theatre. She was white right? They should have linked to a 10 year old little brown asthmatic Covid patient with big brown doe eyes and had the Stage 4 cancer patient argue that her life was sacred even if meant the 10 year old little brown girl had to forgo treatment and a bed so the older white woman could have a cancer operation and get the bed instead. I'm being sarcastic of course - but the Big Questions exchange just seemed like theatrics rather than addressing the politics of how to allocate limited resources.
