Our local politicians are highly unlikely to read this, so, you all are my sounding board.
Totally hypothetical.
Imagine at the start of this epidemic, in Britain, there were 50000 vulnerable people. This was the time when Herd Immunity was being talked about. If all of those people were to get sick at the same time, would have destroyed the NHS. So, we needed some measures to flatten the curve.

Apologies to everyone who has lost someone due to this Chinese disease.

The government caused the curve to flatten, no doubt, but did they save one sick and/or weak life, NO. So taking our starting point of 50000 vulnerable people and the current death figures of under 43000, leaving approximately 7000 sick and weak, vulnerable people, still self shielding (we hope). So, to my point. Are we all now living in a police state because of 7000 people, who could easily be protected by various means. The economy of the country being destroyed by trying to protect 7000 people THE WRONG WAY. They should all be isolated, their families should all also be isolated. That way the rest of us could all be back at work, making our economy safe. Having just come out of the recession of the 2008 bank crisis, I think none of us want to live our lives under those austerity measures again.

Remember this is all hypothetical.

Wow, you're making so many bad assumptions based on very lacking statistical evidence.

Assuming that 43,000 dead were all out of the vulnerable 50,000 pile for one thing. Lots of fit an healthy people have died, doctors, nurses and other care workers etc...

For one major thing, there are 2,000,000 people classed as vulnerable in the UK. Not 50,000. That 2,000,000 is the number approximately who were told to self shield.

You are right, lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. And it did that, so well that the emergency hospitals were not needed. This is a minor success that rarely is talked about.

However, the current new rise in cases, which can be attributed in large part to the massive increase in testing, has also seen the start of a rise in hospital admissions, they're starting to double week on week. And, with them come the deaths again, they are on the increase, but always track a few weeks behind the admissions.

So, if you're happy to let another 7,000 die to reach your target of 50,000 then I'm not. All lives matter. However if you are talking about letting another 1,947,000 die then i think you're insane!

I think hypothetically the OP needs to experience a day working in a hospital overwhelmed with patients and having to make decisions on who receives care/access to resources .

Also hypothetically ...Wondering if you have included yourself in the vulnerable population stats ???

The figure was/is hypothetical. Sure I could have said 2000000. Would that have made any difference to my arguemenmt? No. How about if I had used 3.175% of the British population. The point I was trying to make was the fact that the countiy's economy is going down the toilet, regardless of the outcome of NOT protecting the vulnerable, but just flattening the curve.

Sadly the decision has to be made. Certainly, flattening the curve, must have allowed the NHS to save some lives, as pointed out the emergency hospitals were not needed. Therefore we can deduce that the population was obeying the instructions to either self-distance or shield. The point I was trying to make was that protecting the NHS instead of vulnerable and the economy, might be something we all will regret for many years.

AND yes I do consider myself vulnerable. I also believe that I got a weakened strain of the virus before Christmas last year. I had bought a beachball from China and I think only for the fact that it took about 4 weeks to travel from China to Britain and therefore made it weaker, I probably would have been infected with full blown covid 19

I am sure this subject will rattle round for ages, I hope a vaccine will soon be available for everyone and we can all get back to a normal life. Do we know what is normal anymore?

Sorry but you are completely incorrect. Using a hypothetical figure of 50k of which 43k have died is hypothetically ridiculous.

May as well have said, hypothetically if lettuce can cure cancer, why aren't we using tomatoes to cure COV ID!