I think there's an element of projection in the "end lockdown now" stuff - people in houses with big gardens think that people in flats must be miserable, but plenty of people live in flats because they don't want big gardens. People who live in the countryside think that people in cities must be finding it unbearable to be able to have country walks, etc.
Obviously it's inconvenient for all of us, and horrible for people in particularly unpleasant circumstances, but the polls are pretty clear: most people only want lockdowns to ease when it's relatively safe. Crowded pubs, congregating at beauty spots, packed football matches - next year is soon enough.
You're putting it as though it's a question of black and white. In practice I think opinion is more nuanced than that, supporting a lockdown in general without every specific measure within it. I agree that relatively few want a return in the near future to the extreme scenarios of crowded pubs and packed football matches. On the other hand, there is an active debate about other activities.
There seems to me to be some which were initially caught by the broad brush of restrictions which with hindsight seem increasingly counter intuitive ...(examples, snipped for the space limit)
So there are I think areas where the lockdown could be eased now with absolutely no risk. In fact failure to do so will carry its own risk, because the effectiveness of the lockdown rests on public consent which might otherwise start to fragment.
Yes, I agree there's scope for sensible tweaking of definitions, especially as different police forces are interpreting the rules differently, which is just irritating. Broadly speaking, being on your own outdoors should be OK, so long as it's not probable that you are going to be joined by others ("the crowded beauty spot") or, relatedly, will prevent others from enjoying it ("first to the beauty spot and I'm staying all day, haha").
The difficulty is in finding rules that work in all situations - we can't always predict if apparently isolated situations will persist. You mentioned golf - what if, halfway round the course, you are caught up by a small group of players (who perhaps live together)? One of them is coughing a bit. Do you tell them to sod off? Do you run away? Or, more plausibly, do you play the ball quickly, possibly breathing in some contagion and hope for the best?
It is perfectly legitimate for a government advisor to be present and even direct SAGE meetings.
But then the line has to be that we have listened to the advice and our policy is X. It can't be we're following the scientific advice. (What would the scientific advice be on smoking?)
Plus in all of this we (still) have Dom at the controls. Which matters because it's bad enough (but again perfectly legitimate) to have him running the show in normal times when there actually is a prime minister. But it's a lot worse when, as now, we don't have a prime minister.
If you want unbiased scientific advice you don't have a political fixer 'direct'ing the committe giving it.
Oh, so he's now 'directing' the entire committee?
Cummings must be quite a man brainwashing them. Maybe he's the Master.
And of course the other problem is perception. Even if Cummings is behaving impeccably at SAGE - if the truth is benign as per my first para - how can we know this. We can't.
But why would we, and why should we? Unless the entirety of government and government briefings was open and public, that would be case for any government, and any advisor/SPAD.
It ultimately boils down to 'we don't like this guy, and we don't like his influence', but his job is to advise, and therefore have influence on the PM, and that would be true for anyone.
Yes it's defensible - advisable even - on this basis.
But Cummings is not any old SPAD. We all remember Alastair Campbell and his impact on "impartial" experts.
I don't know. Tricky one. It's probably OK. You'd need to be an insider to know.
I think we have to determine whether we think the principle of a SPAD being present and participating or not is acceptable. If it is, then the fact he is 'not any old SPAD' is irrelevant as to whether it is ok. If it isn't, then him being 'not any old SPAD' is still irrelevant.
That he is more and, to many, worse than the others is a legitimate concern, but I think it is separate to this issue and there is too much blending of the concern about Cummings' influence and his position generally, and whether despite not liking that influence and position, his participation in this context was reasonable.
To me it IS about Cummings because therein lies the specific risk that people are worried about (if they are worried). The risk is that the active participation of the second most powerful person in government - a virtual in loco PM who is known to be iconoclastic and forceful - will distort the deliberations and output of a supposedly impartial group of experts in the direction of what he and Johnson want to hear. As happened on Iraq with Campbell (in loco Blair) and the intelligence officials.
I assume meetings are similarly distorted when the PM is present?
The point is about a specific situation - where the government is selling a policy on grounds that it is based on information from independent apolitical experts. The implication is that the information is free of political bias. For example, if senior intelligence officials report that Iraq has WMD, that this is not influenced by them being aware that the PM wishes it to be so.
Isn't that what they do for all crises where SAGE is involved? I don't buy the argument that Dominic Cummings is the only person capable of influencing the others on this panel to such a level that it distorts their reasoning.
It is not totally clear to me whether you understand the risk but judge it acceptably small or you do not understand the risk. If it's the first, please advise and we can stop. Because I'm not sure I disagree. If it's the second, also please advise and I will have another bash.
Presumably the furore would be even greater if the government hadn't sent anyone to the SAGE meetings? Or, even worse, sent a deputy assistant SPAD from the Department of Health (England branch).
Possibly. Certainly I can see the argument for Cummings being there. It's an efficiency argument. Then again, it's more efficient if the M&A dept of a bank talks to its trading arm. Yet there are rules to prevent this in certain circumstances - where it is deemed more important to prevent a conflict of interest, real or perceived.
The last conflict of interest problem SAGE had was with the scientists - over swine flu, 5 of them forgot to disclose links to pharma companies.
more relevantly, there are 20 odd big hitters in the room with Cummings, not by any means guaranteed to be tory by inclination, and not easily bullied. The dodgy dossier was compiled in private by nicking stuff off the internet; no one would get it past a proper committee like this one.
OK. But for me it revolves around 2 questions -
1. Is Cummings motivated to shape "the science" in a certain direction? 2. If he were, does participating in SAGE facilitate this?
If you think "no" and "no" this is a complete non-story. If you think "yes" and "yes" it's a scandal. If it's a "yes" and a "no" - either order - you will consider it a valid concern but not personally be too concerned. FWIW, which is not an enormous amount given I know little of the man or the SAGE process, I incline to this latter position.
I don’t think the issue anywhere near as binary as that.
Probably not. But which other key questions (other than those two) would you ask yourself to determine whether you feel it is a problem that Cummings contributes to SAGE?
Ferguson just said on the record he hasn't contributed, nor has any of the political figures that have attended as an observers to these meetings.
When asked, his statement was pretty categorical on the matter.
So for you it's a non-story then?
If he sat there like a girly-swot fan boy listening in and gets to ask a question at the end. Just because it hasn't been done before, we haven't had to lock down the whole country before either, it isn't some mega scandal.
However, if he was there sticking his uninformed beak in trying to direct the meeting, arguing with the egg-heads, well that is a different matter.
The Guardian claim he was was, Ferguson said he wasn't. Ferguson also said numerous political figures were present at various times.
I don't see how you couldn't have someone speaking for the government at such a meeting. Say the boffins were considering the notion of moving the entire population to underwater cities in the Irish Sea for five years to escape the virus. There's an endless amount of interesting science connected with such a project, and therefore an endless amount of time to be saved if someone tells them that it's unfeasible from a political POV.
Expecting them to drop to virtually zero by July looks optimistic in the extreme.
Been saying for a while we are headed for highest number of deaths in Europe.
I expect when we do so, the daily slides will change to measuring deaths on a per million population basis. That will for a while at least , not have us as worst.
The figures are massively skewed today due to a large number of back dated deaths from early April. Here is the trend...
However, I think it is clear from all countries (except China) that there is a long tail where we will see significant deaths for a long period to come.
I think there's an element of projection in the "end lockdown now" stuff - people in houses with big gardens think that people in flats must be miserable, but plenty of people live in flats because they don't want big gardens. People who live in the countryside think that people in cities must be finding it unbearable to be able to have country walks, etc.
Obviously it's inconvenient for all of us, and horrible for people in particularly unpleasant circumstances, but the polls are pretty clear: most people only want lockdowns to ease when it's relatively safe. Crowded pubs, congregating at beauty spots, packed football matches - next year is soon enough.
You're putting it as though it's a question of black and white. In practice I think opinion is more nuanced than that, supporting a lockdown in general without every specific measure within it. I agree that relatively few want a return in the near future to the extreme scenarios of crowded pubs and packed football matches. On the other hand, there is an active debate about other activities.
There seems to me to be some which were initially caught by the broad brush of restrictions which with hindsight seem increasingly counter intuitive ...(examples, snipped for the space limit)
So there are I think areas where the lockdown could be eased now with absolutely no risk. In fact failure to do so will carry its own risk, because the effectiveness of the lockdown rests on public consent which might otherwise start to fragment.
Yes, I agree there's scope for sensible tweaking of definitions, especially as different police forces are interpreting the rules differently, which is just irritating. Broadly speaking, being on your own outdoors should be OK, so long as it's not probable that you are going to be joined by others ("the crowded beauty spot") or, relatedly, will prevent others from enjoying it ("first to the beauty spot and I'm staying all day, haha").
The difficulty is in finding rules that work in all situations - we can't always predict if apparently isolated situations will persist. You mentioned golf - what if, halfway round the course, you are caught up by a small group of players (who perhaps live together)? One of them is coughing a bit. Do you tell them to sod off? Do you run away? Or, more plausibly, do you play the ball quickly, possibly breathing in some contagion and hope for the best?
If they are getting anywhere near 2m Im telling them to sod off! When one group plays thru another in normal conditions you wouldnt tend to get within 2m of each other anyway so trivial to avoid now and would be automatically expected (and adhered to) etiquette.
Ferguson just shot down Guardian story.....a number of political figures have attended these meetings as observers, but not interfered in anyway.
Made a big point of saying he basically only interacts with Witty and Vallance, who are apolitical.
So Ferguson shot down the story by confirming it while minimising its importance? This is the same pattern I observed last night: people in the loop were saying the story was insignificant, not that it was false. However, the trouble is the Guardian claims from SAGE sources that Cummings (and Warner, the data scientist) did participate.
But as @MaxPB suggested earlier, this may be acting as a dead cat story by distracting attention from more urgent issues.
You have just contradicted yourself there. He said they didn't participate, the Guardian claimed they did.
Maybe he isn't telling the truth, but his statement was pretty categorical. He could have easily used very vague language. Seems a bit of a strange hill to die on if you are him.
The Guardian really needs to find - and quickly - a credible source to back up their original claim, or they could be badly damaged.
Nah. The Graun's customer base are lefties who will automatically assume the worst of the Government, and will still believe the worst of the Government regardless of the evidence presented. If they made unsubstantiated claims to the effect that the Cabinet barbecued the babies of the poor and ate them for lunch after every weekly meeting then their readership wouldn't be outraged or even suspicious. They'd be thrilled.
Normally that would be true. But these are not normal times. I suspect they might regret this story, in months to come, if they can't stand it up
What has the Guardian said that isn't true? Information about Cummings's attendance was leaked, they reported the leak and the government has conceded he did indeed attend. What's your gripe? They should have suppressed the story? Or published it with the caveat that it's much ado about nothing and Boris and Dom are still jolly good eggs?
"Various attendees of Sage told the Guardian that both Cummings and Warner had been taking part in meetings of the group as far back as February and had not merely observed but actively participated in discussions about the formation of advice."
Ferguson just shot down Guardian story.....a number of political figures have attended these meetings as observers, but not interfered in anyway.
Made a big point of saying he basically only interacts with Witty and Vallance, who are apolitical.
So Ferguson shot down the story by confirming it while minimising its importance? This is the same pattern I observed last night: people in the loop were saying the story was insignificant, not that it was false. However, the trouble is the Guardian claims from SAGE sources that Cummings (and Warner, the data scientist) did participate.
But as @MaxPB suggested earlier, this may be acting as a dead cat story by distracting attention from more urgent issues.
You have just contradicted yourself there. He said they didn't participate, the Guardian claimed they did.
Maybe he isn't telling the truth, but his statement was pretty categorical. He could have easily used very vague language. Seems a bit of a strange hill to die on if you are him.
The Guardian really needs to find - and quickly - a credible source to back up their original claim, or they could be badly damaged.
Nah. The Graun's customer base are lefties who will automatically assume the worst of the Government, and will still believe the worst of the Government regardless of the evidence presented. If they made unsubstantiated claims to the effect that the Cabinet barbecued the babies of the poor and ate them for lunch after every weekly meeting then their readership wouldn't be outraged or even suspicious. They'd be thrilled.
Normally that would be true. But these are not normal times. I suspect they might regret this story, in months to come, if they can't stand it up
What has the Guardian said that isn't true? Information about Cummings's attendance was leaked, they reported the leak and the government has conceded he did indeed attend. What's your gripe? They should have suppressed the story? Or published it with the caveat that it's much ado about nothing and Boris and Dom are still jolly good eggs?
"Various attendees of Sage told the Guardian that both Cummings and Warner had been taking part in meetings of the group as far back as February and had not merely observed but actively participated in discussions about the formation of advice."
21.2% +ve test rate, lowest it's been for a good while ?
And the positives declared today as a % of the total cases is the lowest yet on my figures. This is the key figure for the Israeli guy.
Given that it has been accompanied by a increase in testing, what it I think means is that some or even most the increased use of the capacity available is being squandered by testing the wrong people, rather than by focusing on who really needs testing.
Expecting them to drop to virtually zero by July looks optimistic in the extreme.
Been saying for a while we are headed for highest number of deaths in Europe.
I expect when we do so, the daily slides will change to measuring deaths on a per million population basis. That will for a while at least , not have us as worst.
The figures are massively skewed today due to a large number of back dated deaths from early April. Here is the trend...
However, I think it is clear from all countries (except China) that there is a long tail where we will see significant deaths for a long period to come.
Is that the graph that everybody says is misleading as last 4 days will increase?
If there have been a lot of early April deaths added are we getting close to 1,000 on the peak day? From memory 8.4.20?
Should have listened to the Orange Healer. You don't ingest it, you need to inject it, much more powerful.
It's a shame that in the furore over bleach his other significant steer has been somewhat overlooked. This being, given viruses hate the sun, the need to look at how to get "a tremendous amount of light into the body".
Well. it's the children who it is more needed for. As they may get it and not show symptoms they are the ones who need the masks to keep them from infecting each other and us. I presume you've seen the NEU and NASUWT statements, that just sets out what I was suggesting earlier.
With Birbalsingh (probably the most hardline disciplinary teacher there is with a public profile) saying that social distancing is a joke in schools I hope that is now understood. To have it means having at the most half of students (if not more for schools whose staffing is to the bone) in school at any time. So what happens for the days they aren't? Parents can't mind them if they are told to go back to work. Are they going to roam the streets? Socialise with their mates? Get up to no good? Get the virus then come back to school the next week and the whole carousel begins again? Maybe just year ten and twelve and the rest are still taught online? That frees some parents but maybe they aren't the 'right' ones. Thinking through it all I think that moving the school year might be our best current option.
Given those circumstances we might just as well abandon hope of getting the schools open for the entire duration of the pandemic. After all, the number of masks needed would be absolutely colossal, many of them would have to be produced in specific child sizes for little faces, how in the name of God would you get the younger ones in particular to put them on and not pull them back off and/or constantly fiddle with them all day, and what are the children meant to do when they need to eat and drink? The unions might just as well demand that each child arrives at school every morning with a bag of danger money for teacher, in the form of a hundred gold sovereigns.
Nor, as you point out, does trying to implement social distancing by bringing in half the kids each day get us very far, because the rest will still need looking after at home and a lot of the problems aren't solved in any event. They might just as well keep staying at home the whole time and be done with it. Even a change as disruptive as fiddling the start of the school year only works if a vaccine magically turns up before January, or else the same objections that are being raised now will still be pertinent then.
Seems to me that there are no good solutions to this problem. The least worst one may be, therefore, to legislate to force one parent or guardian to give up work and stay at home, acting as a full-time carer and educational mentor until they finish school. If they've nothing else to do with their lives but make the kids their meals and force them to sit down in front of their distance learning classes for three hours each morning and three hours each afternoon, then at least the children might get all their schooling done.
Households that cannot cope on one or no income as a result will simply have to be supported by increased social security, paid out of the 50% standard rate of income tax that is coming to all of us still in work to pay for all this shit.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
The worst part is that they are still taking the same or a very similar economic hit to the nation's who have locked down. They really are in the worst of both worlds situation that we may have avoided, just enough people aren't following the voluntary lockdown measures that the R value hasn't fallen below 1 but enough people are that the economy has tanked.
Is this right? Sweden has not gained a (relative) economic advantage by "locking down" less than the rest?
They could end up having an economic disadvantage. Because pandemic-caused recessions are different from standard ones - the economic change isn't caused by "normal" underlying factors. Ideally, if you could "pause" the economy throughout the pandemic and avoid the health implications (eg through sufficient social distancing and government measures to preserve incomes and assets for companies and individuals), the bounce-back is 100%.
There's some evidence that failure to impose the restrictions can make economic recovery afterwards mroe difficult ("Economists have examined the differences in non-pharmaceutical pandemic interventions across different US cities during the Flu Pandemic of 1918.. The pandemic reduced US manufacturing by an estimated 18 percent making it a large recession indeed. Those cities that pushed earlier and more intensively on pandemic containment ended up bouncing back and having higher economic growth thereafter, and more exposed areas had a decline in economic activity that persisted.")
In essence, if your people end up dying or becoming health-limited, your economy is scarred and you don't get back as far or as fast. It turns a potentially temporary issue into a permanent one.
Which means that the Swedish benefit - other than less "nanny state" to enforce distancing - would be the absence of a second wave.
But the conundrum with this is that avoiding a second wave implies mass immunity - and mass immunity comes at a heavy price in terms of sickness of death.
So is it not the case that Sweden first has to fail - i.e. look dreadful - in order to ultimately succeed?
It also depends on immunity-conferring antibodies resulting from having had the virus, still a moot point as I understand it?
I think it's not so much the fact that they will confer immunity but more how long for. In the short term it will almost surely provide immunity but it can wain depending on several factors, (e.g., mutation rate of the virus) which are still somewhat unclear.
To my knowledge, the mutation rate in the principal antigen to which IgG antibodies (the longer-lasting, long memory specific immune response), the spike protein S, is not high. The only report I have seen says the mutation rate is much lower than SARS and the one mutation relating to the S protein so far observed has rendered it less able to bind to the ACE2 receptor and hence is an evolution towards lower virulence.
All immune responses decay with time, but once antibodies to an antigen have produced, second exposure results in a much faster, higher and longer-lasting antibody response.
There has been a lot of speculation that SARS-CoV-2 is not generating a strong enough (or any) antibody response in asymptomatic individuals, but it is unclear to me whether this is in fact the case or whether it reflects the fact that serological tests are not yet as sensitive as they need to be.
Expecting them to drop to virtually zero by July looks optimistic in the extreme.
Been saying for a while we are headed for highest number of deaths in Europe.
I expect when we do so, the daily slides will change to measuring deaths on a per million population basis. That will for a while at least , not have us as worst.
The figures are massively skewed today due to a large number of back dated deaths from early April. Here is the trend...
However, I think it is clear from all countries (except China) that there is a long tail where we will see significant deaths for a long period to come.
Is that the graph that everybody says is misleading as last 4 days will increase?
If there have been a lot of early April deaths added are we getting close to 1,000 on the peak day? From memory 8.4.20?
No, its not misleading. I have seen nobody complain about the info this guy is putting out. Last 4 days, again, the headline figure has increased, but it is all about when actual deaths have occurred and each day different historic dates are having dribs and drabs of deaths added, but with differing amounts. Deaths are still coming in from right back in March.
From that, and using the 6-day-old data for all (the brick-red colour, which is the day after it is judged no longer too unreliable) it looks to me as though:
- The peak was indeed in the 5 day period from 6th April to 11th April (cannot really be more precise than that). - Since the peak, the 5-day rate has decreased by an average of 11% per 5 days (comparison with 5 days earlier; chosen as 5 days is the median incubation period, and the death toll should be a better pointer to infection rates than the testing results at the moment). Range has been -5% to -22% per 5-days.
Which implies that the Rt as of 3-4 weeks had diminished to an average of 0.89 or so. A bit higher than the estimate from the Imperial team from earlier, but not a million miles away. And, importantly, under 1.0, so under control and going in the right direction.
The drop seems to be accelerating in recent days, which could (bear in mind my comments from earlier about seeing what I want to see) indicate that the current Rt is lower - as the period between infection and death is 3-4 weeks, there would still have been some people infected prior to the lockdown who were dying in the period under question, but the proportion of such would be becoming a smaller and smaller fraction of the whole.
The largest fall has been the most recent one, which is not incompatible with that idea. (Although nothing firmer can possibly be said from one day of results).
It implies that the 0.68 estimate could very well be accurate.
If, and it's a big IF, still, the above is broadly accurate, then: 6-day-old deaths (brick red colour) from 24 April (declared on the 30th of April) would end up being somewhere around 430 (say 400-460) ... from 29 April (declared on 5th May) would end up being about 340 deaths (call it 310-370) ... from 04 May (declared on 10th May) would end up being around 235 deaths (call it 205-265) ... from 09 May (declared on 15th May) would end up around 160 deaths (135-185) ... from 14 May (declared on 20th May) would end up around 110 deaths (85-145)
Expecting them to drop to virtually zero by July looks optimistic in the extreme.
Been saying for a while we are headed for highest number of deaths in Europe.
I expect when we do so, the daily slides will change to measuring deaths on a per million population basis. That will for a while at least , not have us as worst.
The figures are massively skewed today due to a large number of back dated deaths from early April. Here is the trend...
However, I think it is clear from all countries (except China) that there is a long tail where we will see significant deaths for a long period to come.
Is that the graph that everybody says is misleading as last 4 days will increase?
If there have been a lot of early April deaths added are we getting close to 1,000 on the peak day? From memory 8.4.20?
No - David Paton is doing it right: he's comparing "deaths declared by x days after the date in question" for every date.
Expecting them to drop to virtually zero by July looks optimistic in the extreme.
Been saying for a while we are headed for highest number of deaths in Europe.
I expect when we do so, the daily slides will change to measuring deaths on a per million population basis. That will for a while at least , not have us as worst.
The figures are massively skewed today due to a large number of back dated deaths from early April. Here is the trend...
However, I think it is clear from all countries (except China) that there is a long tail where we will see significant deaths for a long period to come.
Is that the graph that everybody says is misleading as last 4 days will increase?
If there have been a lot of early April deaths added are we getting close to 1,000 on the peak day? From memory 8.4.20?
No - David Paton is doing it right: he's comparing "deaths declared by x days after the date in question" for every date.
Now if only the media could do this...rather than sticking trend lines through the daily announced figures...
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
Perhaps they realise that there isn't a one size fits all solution for different societies and cultures, and interpreting stats in another country to reflect one's hopes for one's own country isn't very useful.
Why would that stop them hoping that Sweden have got it right?
In glittery unicorns and sparkly rainbows world I hope all countries have to some degree got it 'right', unfortunately that's not going to be the case. I don't see why I should go along with various liberty or death loons and agree that a Swedish death rate much higher than those of their comparable neighbours means that they're getting it right.
What makes Denmark and Norway comparable with Sweden other than geographic location?
Which are you're favoured and appropriate comparators for Sweden?
I’m not trying to have an argument, actually. I’m asking a question because I’m interested in the answer
It wouldn't be much of a one if you were.
You went off on a line about folk not wanting Sweden to have got it right, I said that wasn't the case for me but pointed out that on comparisons with geographical neighbours with *some* similarities Sweden didn't seem to be getting it right. You then asked why should Sweden be compared to its neighbours, I asked you which countries should it be compared to (a q. the answer to which I'd be interested).
The last redoubt of the Sverigers, you can't compare Sweden to it's immediate neighbours, you should compare it to *inaudible mumble*.
Oh, I am sorry you just want to argue all the time about everything! Yes, I asked a question which you didn’t answer.
I think there's an element of projection in the "end lockdown now" stuff - people in houses with big gardens think that people in flats must be miserable, but plenty of people live in flats because they don't want big gardens. People who live in the countryside think that people in cities must be finding it unbearable to be able to have country walks, etc.
Obviously it's inconvenient for all of us, and horrible for people in particularly unpleasant circumstances, but the polls are pretty clear: most people only want lockdowns to ease when it's relatively safe. Crowded pubs, congregating at beauty spots, packed football matches - next year is soon enough.
You're putting it as though it's a question of black and white. In practice I think opinion is more nuanced than that, supporting a lockdown in general without every specific measure within it. I agree that relatively few want a return in the near future to the extreme scenarios of crowded pubs and packed football matches. On the other hand, there is an active debate about other activities.
There seems to me to be some which were initially caught by the broad brush of restrictions which with hindsight seem increasingly counter intuitive ...(examples, snipped for the space limit)
So there are I think areas where the lockdown could be eased now with absolutely no risk. In fact failure to do so will carry its own risk, because the effectiveness of the lockdown rests on public consent which might otherwise start to fragment.
Yes, I agree there's scope for sensible tweaking of definitions, especially as different police forces are interpreting the rules differently, which is just irritating. Broadly speaking, being on your own outdoors should be OK, so long as it's not probable that you are going to be joined by others ("the crowded beauty spot") or, relatedly, will prevent others from enjoying it ("first to the beauty spot and I'm staying all day, haha").
The difficulty is in finding rules that work in all situations - we can't always predict if apparently isolated situations will persist. You mentioned golf - what if, halfway round the course, you are caught up by a small group of players (who perhaps live together)? One of them is coughing a bit. Do you tell them to sod off? Do you run away? Or, more plausibly, do you play the ball quickly, possibly breathing in some contagion and hope for the best?
I can drive the ball about 220 yards on a good day. I won't tee off until the group in front is around 240 yards distant, nor will I play the ball onto the green when the group in front is standing on it. And if the group behind breaks long established procedure by playing the ball onto the green while I am standing on it, I will indeed turn around and wave at them in case they can't hear me shouting at them to sod off (since they will be outside of shouting range), just as would have happened before anyone had ever heard of Covid-19.
On most parts of a golf course, if you get within 2 yards of your playing partner, you are likely to die as a consequence of being hit by a heavy metal object (called a club) travelling at over 100mph. All clubs had also brought in minor changes in the weeks before the lockdown to ensure that social distancing was fully effective, such as requiring flagsticks to be left in, removal of bunker rakes and other shared equipment, and marking you own rather than others cards.
I expect that when we resume we will be limited to playing in groups of two, which is fine.
I think there's an element of projection in the "end lockdown now" stuff - people in houses with big gardens think that people in flats must be miserable, but plenty of people live in flats because they don't want big gardens. People who live in the countryside think that people in cities must be finding it unbearable to be able to have country walks, etc.
Obviously it's inconvenient for all of us, and horrible for people in particularly unpleasant circumstances, but the polls are pretty clear: most people only want lockdowns to ease when it's relatively safe. Crowded pubs, congregating at beauty spots, packed football matches - next year is soon enough.
You're putting it as though it's a question of black and white. In practice I think opinion is more nuanced than that, supporting a lockdown in general without every specific measure within it. I agree that relatively few want a return in the near future to the extreme scenarios of crowded pubs and packed football matches. On the other hand, there is an active debate about other activities.
There seems to me to be some which were initially caught by the broad brush of restrictions which with hindsight seem increasingly counter intuitive ...(examples, snipped for the space limit)
So there are I think areas where the lockdown could be eased now with absolutely no risk. In fact failure to do so will carry its own risk, because the effectiveness of the lockdown rests on public consent which might otherwise start to fragment.
Yes, I agree there's scope for sensible tweaking of definitions, especially as different police forces are interpreting the rules differently, which is just irritating. Broadly speaking, being on your own outdoors should be OK, so long as it's not probable that you are going to be joined by others ("the crowded beauty spot") or, relatedly, will prevent others from enjoying it ("first to the beauty spot and I'm staying all day, haha").
The difficulty is in finding rules that work in all situations - we can't always predict if apparently isolated situations will persist. You mentioned golf - what if, halfway round the course, you are caught up by a small group of players (who perhaps live together)? One of them is coughing a bit. Do you tell them to sod off? Do you run away? Or, more plausibly, do you play the ball quickly, possibly breathing in some contagion and hope for the best?
I can drive the ball about 220 yards on a good day. I won't tee off until the group in front is around 240 yards distant, nor will I play the ball onto the green when the group in front is standing on it. And if the group behind breaks long established procedure by playing the ball onto the green while I am standing on it, I will indeed turn around and wave at them in case they can't hear me shouting at them to sod off (since they will be outside of shouting range), just as would have happened before anyone had ever heard of Covid-19.
On most parts of a golf course, if you get within 2 yards of your playing partner, you are likely to die as a consequence of being hit by a heavy metal object (called a club) travelling at over 100mph. All clubs had also brought in minor changes in the weeks before the lockdown to ensure that social distancing was fully effective, such as requiring flagsticks to be left in, removal of bunker rakes and other shared equipment, and marking you own rather than others cards.
I expect that when we resume we will be limited to playing in groups of two, which is fine.
Imperial model had an update on various effects, it also spits out raw numbers now. Here's current estimates on Rt:
Austria 0.79 Belgium 1.09 Denmark 0.71 France 0.89 Germany 0.78 Greece 0.38 Italy 0.64 Netherlands 0.62 Norway 0.71 Portugal 0.72 Spain 0.69 Sweden 1.27 Switzerland 0.67 United_Kingdom 0.68
Do you think the numbers above bear any resemblance with the reality on the ground? They estimate a lower Rt for the UK than for Germany, while in reality the UK has consistently registered more than twice the number of new infections over the the last couple of weeks. That doesn't seem to reconcile.
Assuming we can drop R from above 3 to below 1 as seems to have happened, then surely current infections are surely more related to previous R than current R?
previous=incubation time of 5 days (average)
5-15 days ago: Germany new cases 2-2.5k/day; UK new cases 5-5.5k/day
The Imperial model looks like unadulterated Imperial nonsense to me.
The number of new cases will depend on the product of R and the number of infected people. If Germany has 40% of the number of current infections that the UK does then even if its R value is A bit greater than the UK the number Of new infections will be about half what the UK gets.
From that, and using the 6-day-old data for all (the brick-red colour, which is the day after it is judged no longer too unreliable) it looks to me as though:
- The peak was indeed in the 5 day period from 6th April to 11th April (cannot really be more precise than that). - Since the peak, the 5-day rate has decreased by an average of 11% per 5 days (comparison with 5 days earlier; chosen as 5 days is the median incubation period, and the death toll should be a better pointer to infection rates than the testing results at the moment). Range has been -5% to -22% per 5-days.
Which implies that the Rt as of 3-4 weeks had diminished to an average of 0.89 or so. A bit higher than the estimate from the Imperial team from earlier, but not a million miles away. And, importantly, under 1.0, so under control and going in the right direction.
The drop seems to be accelerating in recent days, which could (bear in mind my comments from earlier about seeing what I want to see) indicate that the current Rt is lower - as the period between infection and death is 3-4 weeks, there would still have been some people infected prior to the lockdown who were dying in the period under question, but the proportion of such would be becoming a smaller and smaller fraction of the whole.
The largest fall has been the most recent one, which is not incompatible with that idea. (Although nothing firmer can possibly be said from one day of results).
It implies that the 0.68 estimate could very well be accurate.
If, and it's a big IF, still, the above is broadly accurate, then: 6-day-old deaths (brick red colour) from 24 April (declared on the 30th of April) would end up being somewhere around 430 (say 400-460) ... from 29 April (declared on 5th May) would end up being about 340 deaths (call it 310-370) ... from 04 May (declared on 10th May) would end up being around 235 deaths (call it 205-265) ... from 09 May (declared on 15th May) would end up around 160 deaths (135-185) ... from 14 May (declared on 20th May) would end up around 110 deaths (85-145)
Your posts are very helpful, but I am greatly reassured by the way the numbers are trending, as well as the least estimates from Imperial.
Some form of easing from May 10 is absolutely the right thing to do; maybe even a partial reopening of the primary school system.
I believe we locked down too late (said so at the time and was criticised on here) and we are now to slow to *communcate* the likely easing of lock down.
The first has cost us unnecessary deaths, the latter will cost unnecessary economic damage.
Comments
The difficulty is in finding rules that work in all situations - we can't always predict if apparently isolated situations will persist. You mentioned golf - what if, halfway round the course, you are caught up by a small group of players (who perhaps live together)? One of them is coughing a bit. Do you tell them to sod off? Do you run away? Or, more plausibly, do you play the ball quickly, possibly breathing in some contagion and hope for the best?
https://twitter.com/cricketwyvern/status/1254041726811078656?s=20
However, I think it is clear from all countries (except China) that there is a long tail where we will see significant deaths for a long period to come.
'This Bugatti Watch Features An Actual Working W16 Engine'
https://tinyurl.com/y936t4zo
I'd love to think the virus would put an end to wank like this, but I fear, like the poor, it's always with us.
Occasionally they ask questions or offer help when scientists mention problems in Whitehall
If there have been a lot of early April deaths added are we getting close to 1,000 on the peak day? From memory 8.4.20?
Nor, as you point out, does trying to implement social distancing by bringing in half the kids each day get us very far, because the rest will still need looking after at home and a lot of the problems aren't solved in any event. They might just as well keep staying at home the whole time and be done with it. Even a change as disruptive as fiddling the start of the school year only works if a vaccine magically turns up before January, or else the same objections that are being raised now will still be pertinent then.
Seems to me that there are no good solutions to this problem. The least worst one may be, therefore, to legislate to force one parent or guardian to give up work and stay at home, acting as a full-time carer and educational mentor until they finish school. If they've nothing else to do with their lives but make the kids their meals and force them to sit down in front of their distance learning classes for three hours each morning and three hours each afternoon, then at least the children might get all their schooling done.
Households that cannot cope on one or no income as a result will simply have to be supported by increased social security, paid out of the 50% standard rate of income tax that is coming to all of us still in work to pay for all this shit.
All immune responses decay with time, but once antibodies to an antigen have produced, second exposure results in a much faster, higher and longer-lasting antibody response.
There has been a lot of speculation that SARS-CoV-2 is not generating a strong enough (or any) antibody response in asymptomatic individuals, but it is unclear to me whether this is in fact the case or whether it reflects the fact that serological tests are not yet as sensitive as they need to be.
As for 1000, for England no...
https://twitter.com/cricketwyvern/status/1254041723526922241?s=20
- The peak was indeed in the 5 day period from 6th April to 11th April (cannot really be more precise than that).
- Since the peak, the 5-day rate has decreased by an average of 11% per 5 days (comparison with 5 days earlier; chosen as 5 days is the median incubation period, and the death toll should be a better pointer to infection rates than the testing results at the moment). Range has been -5% to -22% per 5-days.
Which implies that the Rt as of 3-4 weeks had diminished to an average of 0.89 or so. A bit higher than the estimate from the Imperial team from earlier, but not a million miles away. And, importantly, under 1.0, so under control and going in the right direction.
The drop seems to be accelerating in recent days, which could (bear in mind my comments from earlier about seeing what I want to see) indicate that the current Rt is lower - as the period between infection and death is 3-4 weeks, there would still have been some people infected prior to the lockdown who were dying in the period under question, but the proportion of such would be becoming a smaller and smaller fraction of the whole.
The largest fall has been the most recent one, which is not incompatible with that idea. (Although nothing firmer can possibly be said from one day of results).
It implies that the 0.68 estimate could very well be accurate.
If, and it's a big IF, still, the above is broadly accurate, then:
6-day-old deaths (brick red colour) from 24 April (declared on the 30th of April) would end up being somewhere around 430 (say 400-460)
... from 29 April (declared on 5th May) would end up being about 340 deaths (call it 310-370)
... from 04 May (declared on 10th May) would end up being around 235 deaths (call it 205-265)
... from 09 May (declared on 15th May) would end up around 160 deaths (135-185)
... from 14 May (declared on 20th May) would end up around 110 deaths (85-145)
https://twitter.com/spursofficial/status/1253956914083487745?s=21
On most parts of a golf course, if you get within 2 yards of your playing partner, you are likely to die as a consequence of being hit by a heavy metal object (called a club) travelling at over 100mph. All clubs had also brought in minor changes in the weeks before the lockdown to ensure that social distancing was fully effective, such as requiring flagsticks to be left in, removal of bunker rakes and other shared equipment, and marking you own rather than others cards.
I expect that when we resume we will be limited to playing in groups of two, which is fine.
Some form of easing from May 10 is absolutely the right thing to do; maybe even a partial reopening of the primary school system.
I believe we locked down too late (said so at the time and was criticised on here) and we are now to slow to *communcate* the likely easing of lock down.
The first has cost us unnecessary deaths, the latter will cost unnecessary economic damage.