The clown in Downing Street is causing unnecessary infections
You do know that Nicola is part of Cobra policy making along with the Welsh and Northern Ireland First Ministers. She is expressing the Cobra position headed by Boris
Your hatred of Boris shows no bounds
The point is you can understand what the message is when Nicola gives it, your don't with Boris.
Boris gives the message and then totally muddies it with his ad-libbing because he can't help himself.
The clown in Downing Street is causing unnecessary infections
You do know that Nicola is part of Cobra policy making along with the Welsh and Northern Ireland First Ministers. She is expressing the Cobra position headed by Boris
Your hatred of Boris shows no bounds
One doesn't have to hate him to think that he should have pursued a career as a chat-show host, stand-up comedian and journalist, not politician. If the Tory party wanted a serious PM who could also do show-biz, why didn't it try Gyles Brandreth?
I think his final bit re public health is worth quoting. I have noticed that in the public arena, politicians and wonks and medics are talking about vaccination like it's going to be brilliant. They're looking desperately for an exit route from the current chaos. There are difficult issues with mass vaccination, including some delicate ethical problems - eg it is almost certain there will be some vaccine-related adverse events, but the benefits to children of being vaccinated are, on an individual level, likely to be low in the case of COVID-19. Effectively we asking that age group to accept harm in order to confer a benefit on a different group of older or more vulnerable adults. Although not publicised in the media so much (have they learned lessons from Wakefield/MMR?) these perspectives are still fairly well-known and understood. There is though a much more troubling point that I have seen discussed in public health circles, don't think I've ever seen it in the media, suspect isn't common knowledge in political circles, and is subject to grave uncertainty:
I think the bigger worry is even if the vaccine works now will Covid19 come back next year in mutated form and will the same vaccine still work, that is even if you believe a vaccine will be ready soon which frankly I don't. Our successful vaccines for corona have scant evidence
So looking at the evidence the nudge policy has failed. Far from encouraging social distancing, for many it has encouraged the opposite.
My view is that people are making hay whilst the sun shines in fear of worse to come. If so, the approach of ramping up measures has a lot to answer for.
Is this a London thing ? It was bloody quiet when I ventured out this afternoon for a brief walk, and I had no problem keeping well over 3m from the occasional passerby.
I think it might well be tbh. Here as well it's very quiet and when going for a walk people are really keeping their distance very carefully.
I walked the dog and found much the same in North Essex
Mind you one of my sons messaged me earlier from another part of Essex to say people were congregating outdoors even more so than usual
The government may also roll out a tax-free coronavirus “attendance bonus” for people who need to be at their workplace to carry out their jobs, officials have said.
Can I suggest it would be a nice thing to give to front line NHS staff
It’s comparable to soldiers receiving pay for time spent on a tour of duty, so I think that would be appropriate.
It's curious that some countries (e.g., Scandinavia / Austria / Switzerland) have really slowed the number of new cases over the past few days (Worldometer). This can't be due to the recent restrictions imposed as the cases should all have been contracted before that (lockdown only started 5 days ago in Scandinavia at least) - quite curious...
Worldometers says that in Switzerland there were 1,200 new cases yesterday from a total (yesterday) of 6,800. The day before had 1300 new cases the maximum. Is that really a slow down? (Ignore today's figure, today is not yet complete)
More evidence that the virus is much more contagious and much less dangerous than assumed.
% infected x fatality rate = deaths Deaths are known so if %infected is higher, then fatality rate is lower.
This is delusional wishful thinking, I'm afraid. Death is a lagging indicator, so if the virus is spreading very fast, it just means there are a lot of people walking around who are contagious, and some of them are themselves doomed.
More evidence that the virus is much more contagious and much less dangerous than assumed.
% infected x fatality rate = deaths Deaths are known so if %infected is higher, then fatality rate is lower.
This is delusional wishful thinking, I'm afraid. Death is a lagging indicator, so if the virus is spreading very fast, it just means there are a lot of people walking around who are contagious, and some of them are themselves doomed.
Death is a lagging indicator of about than two weeks from infection and one week from symptoms in the rare cases that death results.
If 10% of the population is already infected (most with no symptoms) and it rises to 50% that means five times more deaths , plus two weeks lag (at a doubling every 5 days) giving another multiple of 4 i.e. 20 times the current numer of deaths. 20 x 250 deaths is 5,000. About average for seasonal flu.
You know back in the dim and distant past of a couple of weeks ago when I was furious that the Scotland France game was going ahead and that the idea of 10,000 plague carriers from the south of France turning up was a really dumb idea?
Turns out the first person to die of covid-19 in Scotland was a French Rugby fan who came over for the game.
He had cancer and other such ailments, probably wanted to see his last game
I think his final bit re public health is worth quoting. I have noticed that in the public arena, politicians and wonks and medics are talking about vaccination like it's going to be brilliant. They're looking desperately for an exit route from the current chaos. There are difficult issues with mass vaccination, including some delicate ethical problems - eg it is almost certain there will be some vaccine-related adverse events, but the benefits to children of being vaccinated are, on an individual level, likely to be low in the case of COVID-19. Effectively we asking that age group to accept harm in order to confer a benefit on a different group of older or more vulnerable adults. Although not publicised in the media so much (have they learned lessons from Wakefield/MMR?) these perspectives are still fairly well-known and understood. There is though a much more troubling point that I have seen discussed in public health circles, don't think I've ever seen it in the media, suspect isn't common knowledge in political circles, and is subject to grave uncertainty:
I think the bigger worry is even if the vaccine works now will Covid19 come back next year in mutated form and will the same vaccine still work, that is even if you believe a vaccine will be ready soon which frankly I don't. Our successful vaccines for corona have scant evidence
There have been no successful vaccines for coronaviruses. On the other hand, the coronaviruses we know - SARS, MERS and CV19 - have all been fairly slow to mutate. (Which is a negative, because fast mutating viruses tend to become less virulent quicker.)
But even if assume that there is no vaccine, and it comes back in 2021 in a mutated form, we will still be in a much better situation to deal with it, as those that had CV-19 will have at least partial immunity, we'll have testing infrastructure in place, and better drug and treatment regimes. Plus, governments won't be caught napping.
It's curious that some countries (e.g., Scandinavia / Austria / Switzerland) have really slowed the number of new cases over the past few days (Worldometer). This can't be due to the recent restrictions imposed as the cases should all have been contracted before that (lockdown only started 5 days ago in Scandinavia at least) - quite curious...
Worldometers says that in Switzerland there were 1,200 new cases yesterday from a total (yesterday) of 6,800. The day before had 1300 new cases the maximum. Is that really a slow down? (Ignore today's figure, today is not yet complete)
Sorry - should have been clearer - i was referring to the rate of increase in new cases per day (I agree numbers are not falling, but I think the pattern across all three countries in Scandinavia is interesting).
I've just had to do a Basil Fawlty with my neighbours upstairs...mum with 2 student girls, who think it is OK to have a party with other young people....no it's not...not today.....they have all left.....
All of us have a responsibility to flatten the curve in whichever way we can...and challenging the behaviour of people who are unnecessarily mingling needs to be done...
I think his final bit re public health is worth quoting. I have noticed that in the public arena, politicians and wonks and medics are talking about vaccination like it's going to be brilliant. They're looking desperately for an exit route from the current chaos. There are difficult issues with mass vaccination, including some delicate ethical problems - eg it is almost certain there will be some vaccine-related adverse events, but the benefits to children of being vaccinated are, on an individual level, likely to be low in the case of COVID-19. Effectively we asking that age group to accept harm in order to confer a benefit on a different group of older or more vulnerable adults. Although not publicised in the media so much (have they learned lessons from Wakefield/MMR?) these perspectives are still fairly well-known and understood. There is though a much more troubling point that I have seen discussed in public health circles, don't think I've ever seen it in the media, suspect isn't common knowledge in political circles, and is subject to grave uncertainty:
I think the bigger worry is even if the vaccine works now will Covid19 come back next year in mutated form and will the same vaccine still work, that is even if you believe a vaccine will be ready soon which frankly I don't. Our successful vaccines for corona have scant evidence
There have been no successful vaccines for coronaviruses. On the other hand, the coronaviruses we know - SARS, MERS and CV19 - have all been fairly slow to mutate. (Which is a negative, because fast mutating viruses tend to become less virulent quicker.)
But even if assume that there is no vaccine, and it comes back in 2021 in a mutated form, we will still be in a much better situation to deal with it, as those that had CV-19 will have at least partial immunity, we'll have testing infrastructure in place, and better drug and treatment regimes. Plus, governments won't be caught napping.
I thought none was the correct answer but wasn't sure so used the word scant as I do not intend to fear monger. Unlike some here I am sanguine about both the chance of being infected and surviving and trying to plot what I think is the right note between the optimists and pessimists
I still think about Boris's casual lie at the start of the month about shaking hands with people at a hospital treating coronavirus patients (there were not such patients at the hospital) .
Totally anchoring people to the idea that there was nothing to worry about.
The government may also roll out a tax-free coronavirus “attendance bonus” for people who need to be at their workplace to carry out their jobs, officials have said.
Can I suggest it would be a nice thing to give to front line NHS staff
It’s comparable to soldiers receiving pay for time spent on a tour of duty, so I think that would be appropriate.
Considering this news (the lady in a nurse) from a bit earlier today and a doctor dieing in France I think they deserve it
Mother of three Areema Nasreen, who has no underlying health issues, is critically ill in the intensive care unit (ICU) at Walsall Manor, the hospital in which she has worked for the last 16 years.
Areema first developed symptoms ten days ago, suffering body aches followed by a soaring temperature and cough. Two days ago tests revealed she was positive for the severe respiratory illness.
But I think this might be some tentative news from Italy that things might be slowly improving
The death toll in the northern region of Lombardy, which has borne the brunt of Italy’s virus outbreak, has risen by around 360 in a day to more than 3,450, a source has told Reuters.
The number of cases in the region, which includes Italy’s financial capital Milan, has increased by around 2,590 to more than 28,370. However, a number of results were still awaiting confirmation and it was not clear if they would be added later.
Sunday’s figures represented an improvement on Saturday, when the death toll in the region rose by 546 and new cases increased by 3,251. The national death toll is due to be released later on Sunday. The tally stood at 4,825 on Saturday - the highest in the world.
I don't think it's a matter of there being no disruption (there's already been plenty of disruption, of course.) It's a matter of how much disruption society can bear. Government will have to weigh that up against the number of lives that would be saved - just like it does all the time.
This is the point where I remind people that huge numbers of lives would be saved if only the use of motor vehicles by private citizens were abandoned (so that they became the exclusive preserve of the State, e.g. for the provision of ambulances and buses) and we were made to walk or cycle everywhere that could not be accessed by the (massively overloaded) public transport system. It would save many thousands of lives every year, but the costs in terms of personal freedom and especially to the economy would be ruinous.
Therefore, we write off the lives of road traffic accident victims for the sake of personal convenience and economic efficiency.
The principle of lives having a quantifiable value, rather than an infinite one, having been established, it's merely a matter of society determining what that value is.
£50,000?
Oddly the UK government uses a range of values for different purposes, and even measures the goals differently differently for eg changing road infrastructure to reduce traffic deaths versus offering a new drug on the NHS. It's a bit of a mess.
HM Treasury have a Green Book on economic appraisal methods:
There is "Value of a Prevented Fatality" (VPF) extensively discussed in Annex 2, but "valuation can also involve estimating the impact of risks to the length of life, measured using Statistical Life Years (SLYs), and risks to health related quality of life (QoL) measured using QualityAdjusted Life Years (QALYs). In practice, particularly in the health sector, QoL can be thought of as different dimensions of health (e.g. the capacities for mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain or discomfort and anxiety or depression)"
@Black_Rook may be interested to read the methodology used to estimate the economic cost of road traffic accidents and the RAS60 data set of accident casualty costs, including gloomy spreadsheets of "Average value of prevention per reported casualty and per reported road accident" and "Total value of prevention of reported accidents by severity and road type" which get fed into cost-benefit analysis decision-making...
Did we have a prediction this will be calming down in 4-6 weeks. That would be fantastic, but based on what though?
Here's my prediction:
UK numbers will continue to climb, prompting ever more significant lockdowns.
The results in a near total lockdown from 7 April onwards. Only those with essential work, or getting groceries, will be allowed out.
This results in the UK infection rate peaking on around 20 April, and then gradually tailing off. On 6 May, the first "new infections" below 200 is recorded, and on 10 May, it goes below 100.
The UK government now has the capability to test more than 25,000 people per day. Furthermore, the first large scale random antibody test is carried out in London to see how many people have had CV-19. To the government's surprise, it comes out as a little more than 15%.
As the crisis continues, treatments improve and improve. There are more ventilators in hospitals and special wards are created. Drug regimes continue to get better, and the use of a smartphone app for rapid testing, and prevenitive courses means that hospitalisation rates decline.
The government allows schools to reopen for the last month of the school year, although attendance is spotty. Most large scale restrictions are lifted in late June.
Although the pace of growth is slower, thanks to much better testing, the virus does come back. By the end of July, the new infection rate is back to 200-300/day, even with South Korean type measures. The UK government announces that there will be a further two week lockdown in the last two weeks of the school summer holidays. At the time of lockdown, new cases are running just north of 1,000/day again, but this is rapidly squashed down by the two week lockdown. The early notice helped too: simply it turns out that the economic impact of shutdowns is much less if - like Christmas - they are telegraphed well in advance.
Again, daily cases collapse during the lockdown. The govenrnment announces the next lockdown period will be over Christmas 2020. Adult children are faced with a difficult choice... two weeks with their parents all the time, or two weeks without their parents at all...
The pace of new cases grows again, but slower this time around. With a quarter of Londoners having already had CV-19, there are fewer infection vectors. People are better about using the app. And the UK Testing Force sets up mobile testing checkpoints to do random tests.
Britain ends 2020 having seen around 25,000 deaths, a nasty recession, but society is intact, and there is room for optimism about 2021.
I've just had to do a Basil Fawlty with my neighbours upstairs...mum with 2 student girls, who think it is OK to have a party with other young people....no it's not...not today.....they have all left.....
All of us have a responsibility to flatten the curve in whichever way we can...and challenging the behaviour of people who are unnecessarily mingling needs to be done...
This crisis has been a trying time for my social democratic principles. You want to care for your fellow man... it is just so many of them are such bastards.
I've just had to do a Basil Fawlty with my neighbours upstairs...mum with 2 student girls, who think it is OK to have a party with other young people....no it's not...not today.....they have all left.....
All of us have a responsibility to flatten the curve in whichever way we can...and challenging the behaviour of people who are unnecessarily mingling needs to be done...
This crisis has been a trying time for my social democratic principles. You want to care for your fellow man... it is just so many of them are such bastards.
its why some of us have cross bows *to make clear that is a joke
To stick some numbers on things in the UK context:
In the realm of medicine, NICE have a figure, which they don't stick rigidly to, of £30k per QALY (quality-adjusted life-year) to deem an intervention like a new drug cost-effective, and plenty of health economists think they should switch to the marginal cost per QALY gained within the NHS system (which current estimates suggest to be well below that, perhaps a half to a third of it - see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25692211 or full article at https://www.york.ac.uk/media/che/documents/reports/resubmitted_report.pdf ). On the other hand, the Green Book says "The current monetary WTP value for a QALY is £60,000. Further information on the basis for the value of a QALY can be obtained by contacting the Department of Health and Social Care" (WTP = Willingness To Pay, a quite different approach of measuring value to marginal cost) and that figure is used in economic evaluation of other projects.
For comparison, the Green Book also values a Statistical Life Year (a different concept to QALY as it isn't quality-of-life adjusted and not usually used in medical evaluations) at £60k too!
In international comparisons, it's been quite common for people to use a threshold of 3 x GDP per capita for each DALY averted (DALY = disability-adjusted life year versus QALY = quality-adjusted life year; the main difference is QALYs are good and we try to "gain" them but we want to "avert" DALYs because they measure how many years of life, or their equivalent, are lost to the disease; DALYs are the far more common measure in development economics, international aid etc) which would give a figure of about £90k per DALY. However, economic evaluations of health interventions quite often switch "per DALY" to "per QALY" as if they were interchangeable.
Other people suggest a figure of one times GDP/capita as a more realistic threshold (particularly in terms of affordability to governments), which would come close to the NICE £30k threshold, but national income is a highly controversial benchmark of health-intervention cost-effectiveness anyway and again lots of health economists would prefer an alternative system to be thought out, see e.g. https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/2/14-138206/en/
I've just had to do a Basil Fawlty with my neighbours upstairs...mum with 2 student girls, who think it is OK to have a party with other young people....no it's not...not today.....they have all left.....
All of us have a responsibility to flatten the curve in whichever way we can...and challenging the behaviour of people who are unnecessarily mingling needs to be done...
This crisis has been a trying time for my social democratic principles. You want to care for your fellow man... it is just so many of them are such bastards.
It's curious that some countries (e.g., Scandinavia / Austria / Switzerland) have really slowed the number of new cases over the past few days (Worldometer). This can't be due to the recent restrictions imposed as the cases should all have been contracted before that (lockdown only started 5 days ago in Scandinavia at least) - quite curious...
In Norway the counts on 19th ,20th, 21st are noticibly higher than in the 5 days before (14th to 18th). A similar but not so pronounced effect in Sweden. Finland had it's biggest number of new cases yesterday, but in total has only(!) 523 cases.
The only country you list, where the last few days have noticibly slowed is in Austria.
I've just had to do a Basil Fawlty with my neighbours upstairs...mum with 2 student girls, who think it is OK to have a party with other young people....no it's not...not today.....they have all left.....
All of us have a responsibility to flatten the curve in whichever way we can...and challenging the behaviour of people who are unnecessarily mingling needs to be done...
This crisis has been a trying time for my social democratic principles. You want to care for your fellow man... it is just so many of them are such bastards.
The clown in Downing Street is causing unnecessary infections
You do know that Nicola is part of Cobra policy making along with the Welsh and Northern Ireland First Ministers. She is expressing the Cobra position headed by Boris
Your hatred of Boris shows no bounds
One doesn't have to hate him to think that he should have pursued a career as a chat-show host, stand-up comedian and journalist, not politician. If the Tory party wanted a serious PM who could also do show-biz, why didn't it try Gyles Brandreth?
More evidence that the virus is much more contagious and much less dangerous than assumed.
% infected x fatality rate = deaths Deaths are known so if %infected is higher, then fatality rate is lower.
This is delusional wishful thinking, I'm afraid. Death is a lagging indicator, so if the virus is spreading very fast, it just means there are a lot of people walking around who are contagious, and some of them are themselves doomed.
More evidence that the virus is much more contagious and much less dangerous than assumed.
% infected x fatality rate = deaths Deaths are known so if %infected is higher, then fatality rate is lower.
This is delusional wishful thinking, I'm afraid. Death is a lagging indicator, so if the virus is spreading very fast, it just means there are a lot of people walking around who are contagious, and some of them are themselves doomed.
Death is a lagging indicator of about than two weeks from infection and one week from symptoms in the rare cases that death results.
If 10% of the polulation is already infected (most with no symptoms) and it rises to 50% that means five times more deaths , plus two weeks lag (at a doubling every 5 days) giving another multiple of 4 i.e. 20 times the current numer of deaths. 20 x 250 deaths is 5,000. About average for seasonal flu.
"The mean time from onset to death is 20 (17–24) days, with a standard deviation of 10 (7–14) days."
but you say, without authority, one week. You have also selfishly endangered lives by going to Italy to ski because Covid death numbers are trivial compared to Italian road deaths (current score road deaths 3300 annually Covid 4850 in 6 weeks). It is not my job to stop you being an arse on the internet, but please leave the statistics alone because you aren't very good at either stating or interpreting them. You have done enough damage, surely?
I don't think it's a matter of there being no disruption (there's already been plenty of disruption, of course.) It's a matter of how much disruption society can bear. Government will have to weigh that up against the number of lives that would be saved - just like it does all the time.
This is the point where I remind people that huge numbers of lives would be saved if only the use of motor vehicles by private citizens were abandoned (so that they became the exclusive preserve of the State, e.g. for the provision of ambulances and buses) and we were made to walk or cycle everywhere that could not be accessed by the (massively overloaded) public transport system. It would save many thousands of lives every year, but the costs in terms of personal freedom and especially to the economy would be ruinous.
Therefore, we write off the lives of road traffic accident victims for the sake of personal convenience and economic efficiency.
The principle of lives having a quantifiable value, rather than an infinite one, having been established, it's merely a matter of society determining what that value is.
£50,000?
Oddly the UK government uses a range of values for different purposes, and even measures the goals differently differently for eg changing road infrastructure to reduce traffic deaths versus offering a new drug on the NHS. It's a bit of a mess.
HM Treasury have a Green Book on economic appraisal methods:
There is "Value of a Prevented Fatality" (VPF) extensively discussed in Annex 2, but "valuation can also involve estimating the impact of risks to the length of life, measured using Statistical Life Years (SLYs), and risks to health related quality of life (QoL) measured using QualityAdjusted Life Years (QALYs). In practice, particularly in the health sector, QoL can be thought of as different dimensions of health (e.g. the capacities for mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain or discomfort and anxiety or depression)"
@Black_Rook may be interested to read the methodology used to estimate the economic cost of road traffic accidents and the RAS60 data set of accident casualty costs, including gloomy spreadsheets of "Average value of prevention per reported casualty and per reported road accident" and "Total value of prevention of reported accidents by severity and road type" which get fed into cost-benefit analysis decision-making...
I remember many years ago on the day of the Hatfield Rail Crash in which 4 people died, a family of 4 were killed in a head on crash on a particular local black spot.
During the subsequent months of many millions being spent to make changes to the rail system to try and prevent re-occurrence, it was interesting to see that proposals to improve the accident blackspot had been rejected because of a VPF calculation exactly like the one you are referring to.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I really, really don't think the situations in Hubei and Italy can be described as "serious cases of seasonal flu". There have been no convincing arguments that we will avoid going down the same route here.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
You get a like from me for your point about hysteria and the level of condemnation of people who, like all of us, have never been in this situation before. I’m certainly not saying you’re right about “seasonal flu”, I do hope you are, but all predictions deserve to be taken seriously, even if most (hysterical or otherwise) turn out to be wrong.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
Which would be a great success for "authoritarian" measures. Though there aren't military on the streets, and really Boris has been quite liberal so "authoritarian," is a bit of a stretch so far. It can continue like this if people aren't stupid.
I've just had to do a Basil Fawlty with my neighbours upstairs...mum with 2 student girls, who think it is OK to have a party with other young people....no it's not...not today.....they have all left.....
All of us have a responsibility to flatten the curve in whichever way we can...and challenging the behaviour of people who are unnecessarily mingling needs to be done...
This crisis has been a trying time for my social democratic principles. You want to care for your fellow man... it is just so many of them are such bastards.
that's so true.....I felt solidarity with young remainers...collectivism, internationalism...but now look how they are behaving. I was getting fed up with them on climate change too with them ordering deliveroos, and thinking they have a god given right to go flying around the globe.....
It's curious that some countries (e.g., Scandinavia / Austria / Switzerland) have really slowed the number of new cases over the past few days (Worldometer). This can't be due to the recent restrictions imposed as the cases should all have been contracted before that (lockdown only started 5 days ago in Scandinavia at least) - quite curious...
In Norway the counts on 19th ,20th, 21st are noticibly higher than in the 5 days before (14th to 18th). A similar but not so pronounced effect in Sweden. Finland had it's biggest number of new cases yesterday, but in total has only(!) 523 cases.
The only country you list, where the last few days have noticibly slowed is in Austria.
Although, to be fair, both Sweden and Norway had higher counts on the days preceding the 14th and are only reverting back to similar levels now...
What I was pointing out was that the number of new cases there has not exploded in the past few days, unlike countries like the UK / Netherlands etc., and I did wonder if this was due to differences in the behaviour of the public. (PS I am well aware of the risks of over-interpreting small sample sizes to find trends you want).
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I really, really don't think the situations in Hubei and Italy can be described as "serious cases of seasonal flu". There have been no convincing arguments that we will avoid going down the same route here.
Let’s see what happens in China now restrictions are being relaxed. If it comes back (other than through reimportation from abroad) then you have a point. If it doesn’t then Barnsean may be right.
So looking at the evidence the nudge policy has failed. Far from encouraging social distancing, for many it has encouraged the opposite.
My view is that people are making hay whilst the sun shines in fear of worse to come. If so, the approach of ramping up measures has a lot to answer for.
Is this a London thing ? It was bloody quiet when I ventured out this afternoon for a brief walk, and I had no problem keeping well over 3m from the occasional passerby.
I think it might well be tbh. Here as well it's very quiet and when going for a walk people are really keeping their distance very carefully.
All I did today was (a) come home on the Tube from my key worker job, and (b) go out to the store. Even if you only have people doing mostly (b), you're still going to have a lot of people out on the sidewalk.
London Underground seems to be one of the last proponents of the herd immunity theory. There was a fraction of the trains today on an already unambitious Sunday service. The perfect way for producing moderately full cars when you really don;t have a lot of passengers to work with.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I am the last person to be authoritarian without due cause....sorry I dont think skiing in italy was essential
It didn't have to be essential. It was certainly safer than staying in London. 3 cases in South Tyrol. About 200 in London at the time. I skied alone and stayed in an almost deserted hotel. I wasn't travelling by tube or joining the throng in Barnes farmers market. In spite of being safer, I took the precaution of self isolating for 14 days.
You know back in the dim and distant past of a couple of weeks ago when I was furious that the Scotland France game was going ahead and that the idea of 10,000 plague carriers from the south of France turning up was a really dumb idea?
Turns out the first person to die of covid-19 in Scotland was a French Rugby fan who came over for the game.
He had cancer and other such ailments, probably wanted to see his last game
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
Which would be a great success for "authoritarian" measures. Though there aren't military on the streets, and really Boris has been quite liberal so "authoritarian," is a bit of a stretch so far. It can continue like this if people aren't stupid.
I have no truck with auroitharianism and in general I think our government in normal times is far too much so.....however these are not normal times it is a national emergency they are trying to prevent and in times like this sorry a great deal of the country needs a sharp cuff round the ear
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I am the last person to be authoritarian without due cause....sorry I dont think skiing in italy was essential
It didn't have to be essential. It was certainly safer than staying in London. 3 cases in South Tyrol. About 200 in London at the time. I skied alone and stayed in an almost deserted hotel. I wasn't travelling by tube or joining the throng in Barnes farmers market. In spite of being safer, I took the precaution of self isolating for 14 days.
I wonder who else went there, and then went back to their own cities. Wasn't this how this first spread, by people returning from skiing trips?
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
Which would be a great success for "authoritarian" measures. Though there aren't military on the streets, and really Boris has been quite liberal so "authoritarian," is a bit of a stretch so far. It can continue like this if people aren't stupid.
I have no truck with auroitharianism and in general I think our government in normal times is far too much so.....however these are not normal times it is a national emergency they are trying to prevent and in times like this sorry a great deal of the country needs a sharp cuff round the ear
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I really, really don't think the situations in Hubei and Italy can be described as "serious cases of seasonal flu". There have been no convincing arguments that we will avoid going down the same route here.
The average number of deaths from seasonal flu in Italy is about 15,000 a year. So far there have been about 4,000 deaths from Covid-19.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
Have you fucking seen what this disease is doing to a region that didn't get ontop of it quickly enough? One dying every minute and a half or so in Italy...most in a discrete area.....The health service is overrun. Bodies are being piled up by the army.
Can you please tell me when a seasonal flu has had this effect anywhere?
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I am the last person to be authoritarian without due cause....sorry I dont think skiing in italy was essential
It didn't have to be essential. It was certainly safer than staying in London. 3 cases in South Tyrol. About 200 in London at the time. I skied alone and stayed in an almost deserted hotel. I wasn't travelling by tube or joining the throng in Barnes farmers market. In spite of being safer, I took the precaution of self isolating for 14 days.
And how many might you have passed it on to in the plane or the airport and your self isolating has probably not excluded going to a shop etc. You went to a hot spot, you came back
On the red funnel back to the mainland, noticeably fewer private cars than coming over on Friday, mostly commercial vehicles. Safer than London at present, but with only a handful if ICU beds it wouldn't take much to overwhelm St Mary's Hospital.
Oldies doing alright and in good spirits, spoken to though closed windows. The only place with toilet rolls was the foodbank hamper in Tescos.
The island co-ops have toilet rolls. For some reason, when it comes to buying in a panic, no-one rushes down to the co-op.
Going shopping with my dad tomorrow. Only way he could get a 'delivery' was click and collect. Not sure how that works... hopefully it'll at least minimise the time we're out and about.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I really, really don't think the situations in Hubei and Italy can be described as "serious cases of seasonal flu". There have been no convincing arguments that we will avoid going down the same route here.
Let’s see what happens in China now restrictions are being relaxed. If it comes back (other than through reimportation from abroad) then you have a point. If it doesn’t then Barnsean may be right.
I don't accept this. China has kept a lid on transmissions and therefore deaths, and if you will avoided the end of the world, outside of Hubei precisely by applying those measures Barnessian deems to be authoritarian.
The Chinese regime is obviously an authoritarian one, but stringent measures to reduce transmission and death aren't necessarily authoritarian in themselves.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I really, really don't think the situations in Hubei and Italy can be described as "serious cases of seasonal flu". There have been no convincing arguments that we will avoid going down the same route here.
Let’s see what happens in China now restrictions are being relaxed. If it comes back (other than through reimportation from abroad) then you have a point. If it doesn’t then Barnsean may be right.
I don't accept this. China has kept a lid on transmissions and therefore deaths, and if you will avoided the end of the world, outside of Hubei precisely by applying those measures, Barnessian deems to be authoritarian.
The Chinese regime is obviously an authoritarian one, but stringent measures to reduce transmission and death aren't necessarily authoritarian in themselves.
I remember many years ago on the day of the Hatfield Rail Crash in which 4 people died, a family of 4 were killed in a head on crash on a particular local black spot.
During the subsequent months of many millions being spent to make changes to the rail system to try and prevent re-occurrence, it was interesting to see that proposals to improve the accident blackspot had been rejected because of a VPF calculation exactly like the one you are referring to.
What approx would be the VPF, would you say, for UK public spend?
Does £50,000 (as a one off not p/a) strike you as in the ballpark?
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I really, really don't think the situations in Hubei and Italy can be described as "serious cases of seasonal flu". There have been no convincing arguments that we will avoid going down the same route here.
Let’s see what happens in China now restrictions are being relaxed. If it comes back (other than through reimportation from abroad) then you have a point. If it doesn’t then Barnsean may be right.
I don't accept this. China has kept a lid on transmissions and therefore deaths, and if you will avoided the end of the world, outside of Hubei precisely by applying those measures, Barnessian deems to be authoritarian.
The Chinese regime is obviously an authoritarian one, but stringent measures to reduce transmission and death aren't necessarily authoritarian in themselves.
If someone runs around on the high st with a loaded gun they might kill people with and the law stops them its deemed good
If someone wanders around on the high st with a loaded virus which might kill people its authoritarian
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I really, really don't think the situations in Hubei and Italy can be described as "serious cases of seasonal flu". There have been no convincing arguments that we will avoid going down the same route here.
The average number of deaths from seasonal flu in Italy is about 15,000 a year. So far there have been about 4,000 deaths from Covid-19.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I really, really don't think the situations in Hubei and Italy can be described as "serious cases of seasonal flu". There have been no convincing arguments that we will avoid going down the same route here.
The average number of deaths from seasonal flu in Italy is about 15,000 a year. So far there have been about 4,000 deaths from Covid-19.
About 3,500 have died in smallish area in just over 12 days in an area like the northwest...and many concentrated in a much smaller area...and the death toll is escalating....the health service has collapsed...all the ICU beds have been taken...the death toll is mounting....
Your ignorance on this is quite frankly shocking.....
You are dangerously misinforming people....and ignorance like yours posted on a public site will cost lives....
Going shopping with my dad tomorrow. Only way he could get a 'delivery' was click and collect. Not sure how that works... hopefully it'll at least minimise the time we're out and about.
You pitch up at the supermarket service desk, give them your order number and flash your credit card, then stand around for five minutes or so while they go and get your shopping.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I really, really don't think the situations in Hubei and Italy can be described as "serious cases of seasonal flu". There have been no convincing arguments that we will avoid going down the same route here.
Let’s see what happens in China now restrictions are being relaxed. If it comes back (other than through reimportation from abroad) then you have a point. If it doesn’t then Barnsean may be right.
Of course it's going to come back!
The question is not whether it comes back, but whether it can be managed - i.e. new infections growing at 0-10%/day, not 33%/day.
This isn't going to be eradicated, but if you combine good testing and better treatments, then it can be controlled.
More evidence that the virus is much more contagious and much less dangerous than assumed.
% infected x fatality rate = deaths Deaths are known so if %infected is higher, then fatality rate is lower.
This is delusional wishful thinking, I'm afraid. Death is a lagging indicator, so if the virus is spreading very fast, it just means there are a lot of people walking around who are contagious, and some of them are themselves doomed.
More evidence that the virus is much more contagious and much less dangerous than assumed.
% infected x fatality rate = deaths Deaths are known so if %infected is higher, then fatality rate is lower.
This is delusional wishful thinking, I'm afraid. Death is a lagging indicator, so if the virus is spreading very fast, it just means there are a lot of people walking around who are contagious, and some of them are themselves doomed.
Death is a lagging indicator of about than two weeks from infection and one week from symptoms in the rare cases that death results.
If 10% of the polulation is already infected (most with no symptoms) and it rises to 50% that means five times more deaths , plus two weeks lag (at a doubling every 5 days) giving another multiple of 4 i.e. 20 times the current numer of deaths. 20 x 250 deaths is 5,000. About average for seasonal flu.
"The mean time from onset to death is 20 (17–24) days, with a standard deviation of 10 (7–14) days."
but you say, without authority, one week. You have also selfishly endangered lives by going to Italy to ski because Covid death numbers are trivial compared to Italian road deaths (current score road deaths 3300 annually Covid 4850 in 6 weeks). It is not my job to stop you being an arse on the internet, but please leave the statistics alone because you aren't very good at either stating or interpreting them. You have done enough damage, surely?
I used 14 days in my calculation. Table 7 in the link you gave indicates 17 days.
I was safer in South Tyrol than in London and i self-isolated for 14 days.
Italy averages 15,000 deaths annually from seasonal flu compared with 4840 from Covid-19 in six weeks.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I really, really don't think the situations in Hubei and Italy can be described as "serious cases of seasonal flu". There have been no convincing arguments that we will avoid going down the same route here.
The average number of deaths from seasonal flu in Italy is about 15,000 a year. So far there have been about 4,000 deaths from Covid-19.
About 3,500 have died in smallish area in just over 12 days in an area like the northwest...and many concentrated in a much smaller area...and the death toll is escalating....the health service has collapsed...all the ICU beds have been taken...the death toll is mounting....
Your ignorance on this is quite frankly shocking.....
You are dangerously misinforming people....and ignorance like yours posted on a public site will cost lives....
I know I live in a messed up world when I agree with Tyson
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I am the last person to be authoritarian without due cause....sorry I dont think skiing in italy was essential
It didn't have to be essential. It was certainly safer than staying in London. 3 cases in South Tyrol. About 200 in London at the time. I skied alone and stayed in an almost deserted hotel. I wasn't travelling by tube or joining the throng in Barnes farmers market. In spite of being safer, I took the precaution of self isolating for 14 days.
And how many might you have passed it on to in the plane or the airport and your self isolating has probably not excluded going to a shop etc. You went to a hot spot, you came back
I'm not sure if it was selfish or stupid to go skiing in Italy at that time.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I really, really don't think the situations in Hubei and Italy can be described as "serious cases of seasonal flu". There have been no convincing arguments that we will avoid going down the same route here.
The average number of deaths from seasonal flu in Italy is about 15,000 a year. So far there have been about 4,000 deaths from Covid-19.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
In a sense, it’s catch-22 for the government. If their draconian measures work, deaths will not show a noticeable increase and people will explode at them for over reacting.
If they do nothing, and 500,000 people die, the NHS implodes and the economy collapses, they will be engulfed by a wave of fury as people ask why we weren’t put into lockdown.
So it is a no-win situation.
That is not the same as saying they are taking the right decisions, or in the right way.
You may be surprised to learn, for example, that despite media reports we still do not know what process will replace public examinations this summer. This is because the government have not, so far as anyone knows, consulted OFQUAL or the exam boards,
All kinds of Excitement and Adventure for the olds with their isolation. Skyped Mum to wish her Happy Mother's Day. Chromebook was interestingly laggy. Asked my Dad to set me up to be able to remote control it. Powerwash, Update, Reboot. He's got some bizarre mapping extension which has largely rewritten the OS - first such thing I have ever seen on a Chromebook. Couple of clicks to remove it. Happy Chromebook again.
Now all that I need to do is get him and my brother on a Zoom conference and we're actually in the 21st century...
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I am the last person to be authoritarian without due cause....sorry I dont think skiing in italy was essential
It didn't have to be essential. It was certainly safer than staying in London. 3 cases in South Tyrol. About 200 in London at the time. I skied alone and stayed in an almost deserted hotel. I wasn't travelling by tube or joining the throng in Barnes farmers market. In spite of being safer, I took the precaution of self isolating for 14 days.
And how many might you have passed it on to in the plane or the airport and your self isolating has probably not excluded going to a shop etc. You went to a hot spot, you came back
I'm not sure if it was selfish or stupid to go skiing in Italy at that time.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
You get a like from me for your point about hysteria and the level of condemnation of people who, like all of us, have never been in this situation before. I’m certainly not saying you’re right about “seasonal flu”, I do hope you are, but all predictions deserve to be taken seriously, even if most (hysterical or otherwise) turn out to be wrong.
I agree in the precautionary principle - i.e. planning for the worst and hoping for the best. But you have to avoid the cure being worse than the disease.
More evidence that the virus is much more contagious and much less dangerous than assumed.
% infected x fatality rate = deaths Deaths are known so if %infected is higher, then fatality rate is lower.
This is delusional wishful thinking, I'm afraid. Death is a lagging indicator, so if the virus is spreading very fast, it just means there are a lot of people walking around who are contagious, and some of them are themselves doomed.
More evidence that the virus is much more contagious and much less dangerous than assumed.
% infected x fatality rate = deaths Deaths are known so if %infected is higher, then fatality rate is lower.
This is delusional wishful thinking, I'm afraid. Death is a lagging indicator, so if the virus is spreading very fast, it just means there are a lot of people walking around who are contagious, and some of them are themselves doomed.
Death is a lagging indicator of about than two weeks from infection and one week from symptoms in the rare cases that death results.
If 10% of the polulation is already infected (most with no symptoms) and it rises to 50% that means five times more deaths , plus two weeks lag (at a doubling every 5 days) giving another multiple of 4 i.e. 20 times the current numer of deaths. 20 x 250 deaths is 5,000. About average for seasonal flu.
"The mean time from onset to death is 20 (17–24) days, with a standard deviation of 10 (7–14) days."
but you say, without authority, one week. You have also selfishly endangered lives by going to Italy to ski because Covid death numbers are trivial compared to Italian road deaths (current score road deaths 3300 annually Covid 4850 in 6 weeks). It is not my job to stop you being an arse on the internet, but please leave the statistics alone because you aren't very good at either stating or interpreting them. You have done enough damage, surely?
I used 14 days in my calculation. Table 7 in the link you gave indicates 17 days.
I was safer in South Tyrol than in London and i self-isolated for 14 days.
Italy averages 15,000 deaths annually from seasonal flu compared with 4840 from Covid-19 in six weeks.
And the plane and airport and travel to and from? Oh let me guess as a lib dem you walked on water and walked home alone.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I really, really don't think the situations in Hubei and Italy can be described as "serious cases of seasonal flu". There have been no convincing arguments that we will avoid going down the same route here.
The average number of deaths from seasonal flu in Italy is about 15,000 a year. So far there have been about 4,000 deaths from Covid-19.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I am the last person to be authoritarian without due cause....sorry I dont think skiing in italy was essential
It didn't have to be essential. It was certainly safer than staying in London. 3 cases in South Tyrol. About 200 in London at the time. I skied alone and stayed in an almost deserted hotel. I wasn't travelling by tube or joining the throng in Barnes farmers market. In spite of being safer, I took the precaution of self isolating for 14 days.
I wonder who else went there, and then went back to their own cities. Wasn't this how this first spread, by people returning from skiing trips?
Surely spread in the aeroplanes, not on the slopes.
As of 9am on 22 March 2020, 78,340 people have been tested in the UK, of which 72,657 were confirmed negative and 5,683 were confirmed positive. 281 patients in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) have died.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I am the last person to be authoritarian without due cause....sorry I dont think skiing in italy was essential
It didn't have to be essential. It was certainly safer than staying in London. 3 cases in South Tyrol. About 200 in London at the time. I skied alone and stayed in an almost deserted hotel. I wasn't travelling by tube or joining the throng in Barnes farmers market. In spite of being safer, I took the precaution of self isolating for 14 days.
I wonder who else went there, and then went back to their own cities. Wasn't this how this first spread, by people returning from skiing trips?
Surely spread in the aeroplanes, not on the slopes.
probably which as I pointed out he used. He could well be asymtomatic and have given it to people who are now dead but hey its no different to flu
More evidence that the virus is much more contagious and much less dangerous than assumed.
% infected x fatality rate = deaths Deaths are known so if %infected is higher, then fatality rate is lower.
This is delusional wishful thinking, I'm afraid. Death is a lagging indicator, so if the virus is spreading very fast, it just means there are a lot of people walking around who are contagious, and some of them are themselves doomed.
More evidence that the virus is much more contagious and much less dangerous than assumed.
% infected x fatality rate = deaths Deaths are known so if %infected is higher, then fatality rate is lower.
This is delusional wishful thinking, I'm afraid. Death is a lagging indicator, so if the virus is spreading very fast, it just means there are a lot of people walking around who are contagious, and some of them are themselves doomed.
Death is a lagging indicator of about than two weeks from infection and one week from symptoms in the rare cases that death results.
If 10% of the polulation is already infected (most with no symptoms) and it rises to 50% that means five times more deaths , plus two weeks lag (at a doubling every 5 days) giving another multiple of 4 i.e. 20 times the current numer of deaths. 20 x 250 deaths is 5,000. About average for seasonal flu.
"The mean time from onset to death is 20 (17–24) days, with a standard deviation of 10 (7–14) days."
but you say, without authority, one week. You have also selfishly endangered lives by going to Italy to ski because Covid death numbers are trivial compared to Italian road deaths (current score road deaths 3300 annually Covid 4850 in 6 weeks). It is not my job to stop you being an arse on the internet, but please leave the statistics alone because you aren't very good at either stating or interpreting them. You have done enough damage, surely?
I used 14 days in my calculation. Table 7 in the link you gave indicates 17 days.
I was safer in South Tyrol than in London and i self-isolated for 14 days.
Italy averages 15,000 deaths annually from seasonal flu compared with 4840 from Covid-19 in six weeks.
Just 4 weeks ago Feb 23 there had been 2 deaths in Italy. this should be compared with 4838 from Covid-19 in four weeks.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
Which would be a great success for "authoritarian" measures. Though there aren't military on the streets, and really Boris has been quite liberal so "authoritarian," is a bit of a stretch so far. It can continue like this if people aren't stupid.
I agree that that Boris has been admirably liberal. I hope it can continue like this. I wasn't referring to Boris. I was referring to authoritarian keyboard warriors.
As of 9am on 22 March 2020, 78,340 people have been tested in the UK, of which 72,657 were confirmed negative and 5,683 were confirmed positive. 281 patients in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) have died.
Those are good figures compared to yesterday, at least...
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I really, really don't think the situations in Hubei and Italy can be described as "serious cases of seasonal flu". There have been no convincing arguments that we will avoid going down the same route here.
Let’s see what happens in China now restrictions are being relaxed. If it comes back (other than through reimportation from abroad) then you have a point. If it doesn’t then Barnsean may be right.
That is key. It is possible that China is not seeing more cases because it is saturated. 50-60% already have had it. That's one explanation. If it comes back big time then my hypothesis is incorrect.
As of 9am on 22 March 2020, 78,340 people have been tested in the UK, of which 72,657 were confirmed negative and 5,683 were confirmed positive. 281 patients in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) have died.
As of 9am on 22 March 2020, 78,340 people have been tested in the UK, of which 72,657 were confirmed negative and 5,683 were confirmed positive. 281 patients in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) have died.
So up 665 from yesterday.
Record number of tests. The percentage of positive tests must be well down.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I am the last person to be authoritarian without due cause....sorry I dont think skiing in italy was essential
It didn't have to be essential. It was certainly safer than staying in London. 3 cases in South Tyrol. About 200 in London at the time. I skied alone and stayed in an almost deserted hotel. I wasn't travelling by tube or joining the throng in Barnes farmers market. In spite of being safer, I took the precaution of self isolating for 14 days.
I wonder who else went there, and then went back to their own cities. Wasn't this how this first spread, by people returning from skiing trips?
No it wasn't. Fake news. The hot spots in Italy were not in skiing resorts. There was an early isolated case of a chalet in France.
As of 9am on 22 March 2020, 78,340 people have been tested in the UK, of which 72,657 were confirmed negative and 5,683 were confirmed positive. 281 patients in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) have died.
This tells me either our testing regime is incredibly shit, OR that an awful lot of people who thought they had CV19 actually have a common cold like I did.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I am the last person to be authoritarian without due cause....sorry I dont think skiing in italy was essential
It didn't have to be essential. It was certainly safer than staying in London. 3 cases in South Tyrol. About 200 in London at the time. I skied alone and stayed in an almost deserted hotel. I wasn't travelling by tube or joining the throng in Barnes farmers market. In spite of being safer, I took the precaution of self isolating for 14 days.
I wonder who else went there, and then went back to their own cities. Wasn't this how this first spread, by people returning from skiing trips?
No it wasn't. Fake news. The hot spots in Italy were not in skiing resorts. There was an early isolated case of a chalet in France.
In a sense, it’s catch-22 for the government. If their draconian measures work, deaths will not show a noticeable increase and people will explode at them for over reacting.
If they do nothing, and 500,000 people die, the NHS implodes and the economy collapses, they will be engulfed by a wave of fury as people ask why we weren’t put into lockdown.
So it is a no-win situation.
This.
That being said, we will be able to compare the outcome in the UK with that in Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.
And with South Korea and Germany.
One thing I'd note: based on reports from my friends, and colleagues in London, I think 10+% of Londoners have had CV-19, and I wouldn't be surprised if the total number - when antibody tests are developed - comes out at 15% or more.
If I am correct in this estimate, and only time will tell if I am, then the morbidity rate for CV-19 (in London) is likely to be no more than 0.2-0.3% at most. Now, this may very well be because we go to the edge of the healthcare system's ability to treat, and not beyond. But if so (and it's a big if), then this has to inform our future response to the virus.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I am the last person to be authoritarian without due cause....sorry I dont think skiing in italy was essential
It didn't have to be essential. It was certainly safer than staying in London. 3 cases in South Tyrol. About 200 in London at the time. I skied alone and stayed in an almost deserted hotel. I wasn't travelling by tube or joining the throng in Barnes farmers market. In spite of being safer, I took the precaution of self isolating for 14 days.
I wonder who else went there, and then went back to their own cities. Wasn't this how this first spread, by people returning from skiing trips?
No it wasn't. Fake news. The hot spots in Italy were not in skiing resorts. There was an early isolated case of a chalet in France.
I though the UK's first super spreader came back on holiday from a skiing trip?
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I am the last person to be authoritarian without due cause....sorry I dont think skiing in italy was essential
It didn't have to be essential. It was certainly safer than staying in London. 3 cases in South Tyrol. About 200 in London at the time. I skied alone and stayed in an almost deserted hotel. I wasn't travelling by tube or joining the throng in Barnes farmers market. In spite of being safer, I took the precaution of self isolating for 14 days.
And how many might you have passed it on to in the plane or the airport and your self isolating has probably not excluded going to a shop etc. You went to a hot spot, you came back
It wasn't remotely a hot spot, I didn't go to a shop, and I don't have it.
I think PB has an unhealthy proportionof authoritarians ("Do as you are told FFS") and hysterics ("It's the end of the world as we know it").
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
I am the last person to be authoritarian without due cause....sorry I dont think skiing in italy was essential
It didn't have to be essential. It was certainly safer than staying in London. 3 cases in South Tyrol. About 200 in London at the time. I skied alone and stayed in an almost deserted hotel. I wasn't travelling by tube or joining the throng in Barnes farmers market. In spite of being safer, I took the precaution of self isolating for 14 days.
I wonder who else went there, and then went back to their own cities. Wasn't this how this first spread, by people returning from skiing trips?
No it wasn't. Fake news. The hot spots in Italy were not in skiing resorts. There was an early isolated case of a chalet in France.
I though the UK's first super spreader came back on holiday from a skiing trip?
@YBarddCwsc was pretty conviced it was Remainers skiing in Italy.
Comments
Mind you one of my sons messaged me earlier from another part of Essex to say people were congregating outdoors even more so than usual
If 10% of the population is already infected (most with no symptoms) and it rises to 50% that means five times more deaths , plus two weeks lag (at a doubling every 5 days) giving another multiple of 4 i.e. 20 times the current numer of deaths. 20 x 250 deaths is 5,000. About average for seasonal flu.
But even if assume that there is no vaccine, and it comes back in 2021 in a mutated form, we will still be in a much better situation to deal with it, as those that had CV-19 will have at least partial immunity, we'll have testing infrastructure in place, and better drug and treatment regimes. Plus, governments won't be caught napping.
All of us have a responsibility to flatten the curve in whichever way we can...and challenging the behaviour of people who are unnecessarily mingling needs to be done...
Now THAT's what I call optimism.
Totally anchoring people to the idea that there was nothing to worry about.
Mother of three Areema Nasreen, who has no underlying health issues, is critically ill in the intensive care unit (ICU) at Walsall Manor, the hospital in which she has worked for the last 16 years.
Areema first developed symptoms ten days ago, suffering body aches followed by a soaring temperature and cough. Two days ago tests revealed she was positive for the severe respiratory illness.
The death toll in the northern region of Lombardy, which has borne the brunt of Italy’s virus outbreak, has risen by around 360 in a day to more than 3,450, a source has told Reuters.
The number of cases in the region, which includes Italy’s financial capital Milan, has increased by around 2,590 to more than 28,370. However, a number of results were still awaiting confirmation and it was not clear if they would be added later.
Sunday’s figures represented an improvement on Saturday, when the death toll in the region rose by 546 and new cases increased by 3,251. The national death toll is due to be released later on Sunday. The tally stood at 4,825 on Saturday - the highest in the world.
HM Treasury have a Green Book on economic appraisal methods:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-green-book-appraisal-and-evaluation-in-central-governent
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/685903/The_Green_Book.pdf
There is "Value of a Prevented Fatality" (VPF) extensively discussed in Annex 2, but "valuation can also involve estimating the impact of risks to the length of life, measured using Statistical Life Years (SLYs), and risks to health related quality of life (QoL) measured using QualityAdjusted Life Years (QALYs). In practice, particularly in the health sector, QoL can be thought of as different dimensions of health (e.g. the capacities for mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain or discomfort and anxiety or depression)"
@Black_Rook may be interested to read the methodology used to estimate the economic cost of road traffic accidents and the RAS60 data set of accident casualty costs, including gloomy spreadsheets of "Average value of prevention per reported casualty and per reported road accident" and "Total value of prevention of reported accidents by severity and road type" which get fed into cost-benefit analysis decision-making...
*to make clear that is a joke
In the realm of medicine, NICE have a figure, which they don't stick rigidly to, of £30k per QALY (quality-adjusted life-year) to deem an intervention like a new drug cost-effective, and plenty of health economists think they should switch to the marginal cost per QALY gained within the NHS system (which current estimates suggest to be well below that, perhaps a half to a third of it - see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25692211 or full article at https://www.york.ac.uk/media/che/documents/reports/resubmitted_report.pdf ). On the other hand, the Green Book says "The current monetary WTP value for a QALY is £60,000. Further information on the basis for the value of a QALY can be obtained by contacting the Department of Health and Social Care" (WTP = Willingness To Pay, a quite different approach of measuring value to marginal cost) and that figure is used in economic evaluation of other projects.
For comparison, the Green Book also values a Statistical Life Year (a different concept to QALY as it isn't quality-of-life adjusted and not usually used in medical evaluations) at £60k too!
In international comparisons, it's been quite common for people to use a threshold of 3 x GDP per capita for each DALY averted (DALY = disability-adjusted life year versus QALY = quality-adjusted life year; the main difference is QALYs are good and we try to "gain" them but we want to "avert" DALYs because they measure how many years of life, or their equivalent, are lost to the disease; DALYs are the far more common measure in development economics, international aid etc) which would give a figure of about £90k per DALY. However, economic evaluations of health interventions quite often switch "per DALY" to "per QALY" as if they were interchangeable.
Other people suggest a figure of one times GDP/capita as a more realistic threshold (particularly in terms of affordability to governments), which would come close to the NICE £30k threshold, but national income is a highly controversial benchmark of health-intervention cost-effectiveness anyway and again lots of health economists would prefer an alternative system to be thought out, see e.g. https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/93/2/14-138206/en/
A similar but not so pronounced effect in Sweden.
Finland had it's biggest number of new cases yesterday, but in total has only(!) 523 cases.
The only country you list, where the last few days have noticibly slowed is in Austria.
This will turn out to be serious case of seasonal flu (20K dead in UK) with a massive overaction that causes more harm than the disease.
Cue for authoritarians and hysterics to do their thing....
ὃν οἱ θεοὶ φιλοῦσιν, ἀποθνῄσκει νέος
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0822-7
but you say, without authority, one week. You have also selfishly endangered lives by going to Italy to ski because Covid death numbers are trivial compared to Italian road deaths (current score road deaths 3300 annually Covid 4850 in 6 weeks). It is not my job to stop you being an arse on the internet, but please leave the statistics alone because you aren't very good at either stating or interpreting them. You have done enough damage, surely?
During the subsequent months of many millions being spent to make changes to the rail system to try and prevent re-occurrence, it was interesting to see that proposals to improve the accident blackspot had been rejected because of a VPF calculation exactly like the one you are referring to.
What I was pointing out was that the number of new cases there has not exploded in the past few days, unlike countries like the UK / Netherlands etc., and I did wonder if this was due to differences in the behaviour of the public. (PS I am well aware of the risks of over-interpreting small sample sizes to find trends you want).
London Underground seems to be one of the last proponents of the herd immunity theory. There was a fraction of the trains today on an already unambitious Sunday service. The perfect way for producing moderately full cars when you really don;t have a lot of passengers to work with.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971219303285
I have put a notice on our front door that states:
If it is dry leave the parcel/delivery at the front door, if it is raining leave it in the garage.
We will not sign any documents and your delivery will be recorded by the doorbell.
If you want to speak to us, ring the bell and give us time to answer, we will communicate with you remotely
Thank you
It is so weird and surreal
Can you please tell me when a seasonal flu has had this effect anywhere?
The Chinese regime is obviously an authoritarian one, but stringent measures to reduce transmission and death aren't necessarily authoritarian in themselves.
Does £50,000 (as a one off not p/a) strike you as in the ballpark?
If someone wanders around on the high st with a loaded virus which might kill people its authoritarian
nods think I got that right
Why don't you crawl back under your rock.
You selfish, I'm alright Jack, I'm going skiing in Northern Italy, cretin.
About 3,500 have died in smallish area in just over 12 days in an area like the northwest...and many concentrated in a much smaller area...and the death toll is escalating....the health service has collapsed...all the ICU beds have been taken...the death toll is mounting....
Your ignorance on this is quite frankly shocking.....
You are dangerously misinforming people....and ignorance like yours posted on a public site will cost lives....
The question is not whether it comes back, but whether it can be managed - i.e. new infections growing at 0-10%/day, not 33%/day.
This isn't going to be eradicated, but if you combine good testing and better treatments, then it can be controlled.
I was safer in South Tyrol than in London and i self-isolated for 14 days.
Italy averages 15,000 deaths annually from seasonal flu compared with 4840 from Covid-19 in six weeks.
If they do nothing, and 500,000 people die, the NHS implodes and the economy collapses, they will be engulfed by a wave of fury as people ask why we weren’t put into lockdown.
So it is a no-win situation.
That is not the same as saying they are taking the right decisions, or in the right way.
You may be surprised to learn, for example, that despite media reports we still do not know what process will replace public examinations this summer. This is because the government have not, so far as anyone knows, consulted OFQUAL or the exam boards,
I'd much prefer an actual delivery but it does at least sound far better than actual shopping.
Ah, for those heady days a few months ago when I didn't fear the plausible risk of my parents being infected with a pandemic virus...
Now all that I need to do is get him and my brother on a Zoom conference and we're actually in the 21st century...
https://twitter.com/newcolaudrup/status/1241525575895973888?s=21
Fruit trees will shortly be coming into blossom so - other than any dead or diseased branches - I would leave well alone until the autumn.
As of 9am on 22 March 2020, 78,340 people have been tested in the UK, of which 72,657 were confirmed negative and 5,683 were confirmed positive. 281 patients in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) have died.
So up 665 from yesterday.
There was an early isolated case of a chalet in France.
That being said, we will be able to compare the outcome in the UK with that in Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.
And with South Korea and Germany.
One thing I'd note: based on reports from my friends, and colleagues in London, I think 10+% of Londoners have had CV-19, and I wouldn't be surprised if the total number - when antibody tests are developed - comes out at 15% or more.
If I am correct in this estimate, and only time will tell if I am, then the morbidity rate for CV-19 (in London) is likely to be no more than 0.2-0.3% at most. Now, this may very well be because we go to the edge of the healthcare system's ability to treat, and not beyond. But if so (and it's a big if), then this has to inform our future response to the virus.