How many years of life did lockdown save – or destroy?

It’s official – lockdown will eventually have a greater impact on our lives and health than Covid-19 itself. That, at any rate, is the conclusion of a study by the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), which was published quietly on 15 July. 

The study uses a measure known as quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), which takes into account the age, health and quality of life of people prior to their death – if a young child died in an accident, for example, it would result in a loss of around 80 QALYs, on the basis that they might otherwise have been expected to live a full and healthy life; if a bedridden 80-year-old with terminal lung cancer died of Covid-19, on the other hand, it would result in a loss of virtually zero QALYs, on the basis that they were soon expected to die anyway, and that their quality of life in the interim was very low.