Gosh, maybe they should have emphasised the "If" in the slide and when they spoke about it.
Oh, wait. They did.
Doubling faster than that has happened before.
Hospitalisations have been doubling every 8 days.
Accordingly, a worst-case without interventions of every 7 days is certainly feasible.
AND THEY EMPHASISED IT WAS A WORST CASE AND NOT A PREDICTION
Why the suffering FUCK are people ignoring that and claiming otherwise and that they're scaremongering? Seriously, why?
Because they desperately, desperately want it not to be so.
I would very much hope that everyone desperately wants it not to be so.
Agreed. However, you will accept I expect, that there is a huge gulf between not wanting it to be so, resigning oneself to it and working out a way to move forward. And furiously twisting or denying any evidence that it is so in the hope of not having to come up with a plan at all.
Who is doing this?
Covid is a serious thing. A very serious problem.
Yet treating all groups the same despite their having vastly different risk profiles strikes me as the wrong approach.
That is all.
Any attempt at risk segmentation falls straight down the "The Gov't isn't keeping me from seeing my grandkids" rabbithole.
And the "my kid can't go to school due to me shielding what remote learning support will they get from already over stretched teachers?" rabbit hole.
I generally rate Ed Conway but I think he misleads on that thread, where he implies that the growth rate is linear. If R>1, by definition we are in exponential growth. The valid issue with the UK gov chart is the rate of that exponential growth (counterfactual if we don't do the interventions talked about). Whether we get to the higher figure sooner or later does matter.
We had this discussion last night. The growth line for France, Spain and the UK (since our numbers started growing again) is linear. That is a fact. Claiming that we are going to somehow switch to exponential growth is misleading and frankly dishonest.
In the real world what would otherwise be exponential is restricted by numerous factors, changes in human behaviour, dead ends where people in a particular locale run out of people to infect, etc. I have been trying to find the graph that was repeatedly linked to in February. By now everyone in the world would have had the virus. Its not worked out that way.
Epidemiologists relying upon exponential growth models tell us as much as economists relying on perfect markets, ie nothing about the real world.
R>1 means exponential growth. By definition, if people are on average infecting more than one other person, as Ed Conway accepts and as the UK and Scottish figures are calculated, it's exponential. The linear line is an interpretation, not a fact. A lot will depend on what happens next and in particular how well the new interventions work.
So by 27th October I reckon that we will have something like 12k new cases a day if the new interventions do not slow down the rate of increase.
No, this is mathematically nonsense. You would end up with 12k cases if R was reduced, but still above 1 (or if we were unable to count all the cases that were happening).
Well we might see. It is a continuation of the current rate of growth in line with what has happened in 2 similar European countries whose growth started some weeks before ours.
French and Spanish real case numbers have grown much faster than their official data shows since unlike ours (yet) their testing regime has failed.
Spanish case numbers now are as believable as the UKs were in April.
No one is Europe is testing anything like as much as we are but I don't think its correct to say that their testing regimes have failed.
Its not reasonable to compare Spanish case numbers now to Spanish case numbers in June given the change in positivity rates.
Spanish reporting runs about a week behind, they update the numbers every Thursday and backfill the data on case numbers and deaths. The death statistics are dodgy as they use a 7 day cut off vs the European standard of 21 or 28 days.
Flat out ban all travel to Spain based on that graph.
Gosh, maybe they should have emphasised the "If" in the slide and when they spoke about it.
Oh, wait. They did.
Doubling faster than that has happened before.
Hospitalisations have been doubling every 8 days.
Accordingly, a worst-case without interventions of every 7 days is certainly feasible.
AND THEY EMPHASISED IT WAS A WORST CASE AND NOT A PREDICTION
Why the suffering FUCK are people ignoring that and claiming otherwise and that they're scaremongering? Seriously, why?
Because they desperately, desperately want it not to be so.
I would very much hope that everyone desperately wants it not to be so.
Agreed. However, you will accept I expect, that there is a huge gulf between not wanting it to be so, resigning oneself to it and working out a way to move forward. And furiously twisting or denying any evidence that it is so in the hope of not having to come up with a plan at all.
Who is doing this?
Covid is a serious thing. A very serious problem.
Yet treating all groups the same despite their having vastly different risk profiles strikes me as the wrong approach.
That is all.
Any attempt at risk segmentation falls straight down the "The Gov't isn't keeping me from seeing my grandkids" rabbithole.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
The government really need to lay out longer term stuff today e.g. forget that ski holiday or trip to Dubai for Christmas. Otherwise, all the idiots will be booking they up, then screaming blue murder when the government finally pulls the handbrake and tells them they can't go.
What we need is a 6 month plan and made clear this is what we are sticking to for the duration. No more stop / start, no more airbridge to this country this week, different one next week. It doesn't matter if the cases go down, this is the plan.
Its WFH if you can, limit interactions between households, no foreign travel unless absolutely necessary, secure care homes, masks everywhere that is viable etc.
I generally rate Ed Conway but I think he misleads on that thread, where he implies that the growth rate is linear. If R>1, by definition we are in exponential growth. The valid issue with the UK gov chart is the rate of that exponential growth (counterfactual if we don't do the interventions talked about). Whether we get to the higher figure sooner or later does matter.
We had this discussion last night. The growth line for France, Spain and the UK (since our numbers started growing again) is linear. That is a fact. Claiming that we are going to somehow switch to exponential growth is misleading and frankly dishonest.
In the real world what would otherwise be exponential is restricted by numerous factors, changes in human behaviour, dead ends where people in a particular locale run out of people to infect, etc. I have been trying to find the graph that was repeatedly linked to in February. By now everyone in the world would have had the virus. Its not worked out that way.
Epidemiologists relying upon exponential growth models tell us as much as economists relying on perfect markets, ie nothing about the real world.
R>1 means exponential growth. By definition, if people are on average infecting more than one other person, as Ed Conway accepts and as the UK and Scottish figures are calculated, it's exponential. The linear line is an interpretation, not a fact. A lot will depend on what happens next and in particular how well the new interventions work.
So by 27th October I reckon that we will have something like 12k new cases a day if the new interventions do not slow down the rate of increase.
No, this is mathematically nonsense. You would end up with 12k cases if R was reduced, but still above 1 (or if we were unable to count all the cases that were happening).
Well we might see. It is a continuation of the current rate of growth in line with what has happened in 2 similar European countries whose growth started some weeks before ours.
French and Spanish real case numbers have grown much faster than their official data shows since unlike ours (yet) their testing regime has failed.
Spanish case numbers now are as believable as the UKs were in April.
No one is Europe is testing anything like as much as we are but I don't think its correct to say that their testing regimes have failed.
Its not reasonable to compare Spanish case numbers now to Spanish case numbers in June given the change in positivity rates.
Spanish reporting runs about a week behind, they update the numbers every Thursday and backfill the data on case numbers and deaths. The death statistics are dodgy as they use a 7 day cut off vs the European standard of 21 or 28 days.
So the spike in the death figures we've already seen there is in fact a lot bigger?
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
(That's not to mention the knock-on effects of having so much of the NHS devoted to covid treatments for so long. Cancer treatments, heart treatments and the like could be squeezed out; additional deaths from those sources would increase.
If you want to maintain more capacity for those, you need to slow the input - halving the rate in doubles the amount of time it lasts for.
And if acquired immunity wears off, if it wears off in a similar timescale to the one above, you're in a horrible permanent loop.
This is the kind of stuff we've needed for a while, a bit of flag waving
Turns me off a bit, I have to say. But my vote is safe (if not my membership) and it clearly is the case that the party under Corbyn was perceived as lacking in "proud to be British" sentiment and that this did cost votes and seats. It's important to counter this now and win a proportion of those voters back. So to this extent, I approve. "Go Keir. Wave that wi... flag."
But caution is required - because it's undeniable that xenophobic attitudes were a factor in taking some of these erstwhile Labour voters down the Brexit and UKIP-to-Tory path and Starmer should not imo be chasing this constituency. For 2 reasons. (i) Such attitudes are at odds with the core values of the party. (ii) It would backfire. The support picked up by pandering to xenophobic variety "patriotism" would be outweighed by the support lost in the party's new metropolitan base.
I don't think Starmer is pandering to anti-foreigner xenophobic patriotism but appealing to the middle of the road proud to be British patriotism.
Most of the party's new metropolitan base are bright enough to recognise that this is a route to power and won't be put off by it. It might even appeal to some.
I do hope and expect he will get things right. The risk I'm highlighting - of chasing Red Wall and losing Red Metro - is one he will have given far more thought to than I have. But I do fret about it. The shift to the left in 2015 turned me from a loyal Labour voter into a party member.
The answer to that will depend on whether he thinks the number of party members or the number of votes for his party at a general election is the more important statistic.
Oh the answer will be votes. No question. He will only take a direction if he is confident that the Red Wall gained will be bigger than the Red Metro lost. And of course in an ideal world - or even in this world if things go his way - he will gain both.
Gosh, maybe they should have emphasised the "If" in the slide and when they spoke about it.
Oh, wait. They did.
Doubling faster than that has happened before.
Hospitalisations have been doubling every 8 days.
Accordingly, a worst-case without interventions of every 7 days is certainly feasible.
AND THEY EMPHASISED IT WAS A WORST CASE AND NOT A PREDICTION
Why the suffering FUCK are people ignoring that and claiming otherwise and that they're scaremongering? Seriously, why?
Because they desperately, desperately want it not to be so.
I would very much hope that everyone desperately wants it not to be so.
Agreed. However, you will accept I expect, that there is a huge gulf between not wanting it to be so, resigning oneself to it and working out a way to move forward. And furiously twisting or denying any evidence that it is so in the hope of not having to come up with a plan at all.
Who is doing this?
Covid is a serious thing. A very serious problem.
Yet treating all groups the same despite their having vastly different risk profiles strikes me as the wrong approach.
That is all.
Any attempt at risk segmentation falls straight down the "The Gov't isn't keeping me from seeing my grandkids" rabbithole.
And the "my kid can't go to school due to me shielding what remote learning support will they get from already over stretched teachers?" rabbit hole.
Only just about stopped short of calling Starmer a racist.
I don't tend to think the Sun shines out of Goodwin's arse but I do think Grace's strategy crashed and burned in 2019 so the fact she gets any airtime at all is ridiculous.
Pollsters are fairly united now, slim or no Tory lead. We will see crossover soon.
Going to catch up on Keir's speech, apparently it's fantastic.
The more the public see of Sir Keir, the duller they find him - personality rating down from 32 to 25 in today’s IPSOS-MORI.
Maybe COVID has changed everything, but leaders of the opposition who the public find this in charismatic, especially compared to the PM, don’t get the top job,
My mistake, it is down from 30 to 25
It's going to be really fascinating to see how your theory plays out, because I suspect the UK will emerge from the twin crises of Covid and Brexit long before Sir Keith grows a personality...
Starmer's absence of charisma is certainly an issue, it's why I didn't vote for him as leader. On the other hand he is clearly a lot smarter than most politicians, which is an advantage, and is quite good looking too. He looks like a winner to me, which I've not really felt in my gut since Blair.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Long covid is the one people want to stick their fingers in their ears and wish away. The chance of getting it seems quite high - scarier than the deaths by a mile.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing, analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
I generally rate Ed Conway but I think he misleads on that thread, where he implies that the growth rate is linear. If R>1, by definition we are in exponential growth. The valid issue with the UK gov chart is the rate of that exponential growth (counterfactual if we don't do the interventions talked about). Whether we get to the higher figure sooner or later does matter.
We had this discussion last night. The growth line for France, Spain and the UK (since our numbers started growing again) is linear. That is a fact. Claiming that we are going to somehow switch to exponential growth is misleading and frankly dishonest.
In the real world what would otherwise be exponential is restricted by numerous factors, changes in human behaviour, dead ends where people in a particular locale run out of people to infect, etc. I have been trying to find the graph that was repeatedly linked to in February. By now everyone in the world would have had the virus. Its not worked out that way.
Epidemiologists relying upon exponential growth models tell us as much as economists relying on perfect markets, ie nothing about the real world.
R>1 means exponential growth. By definition, if people are on average infecting more than one other person, as Ed Conway accepts and as the UK and Scottish figures are calculated, it's exponential. The linear line is an interpretation, not a fact. A lot will depend on what happens next and in particular how well the new interventions work.
So by 27th October I reckon that we will have something like 12k new cases a day if the new interventions do not slow down the rate of increase.
No, this is mathematically nonsense. You would end up with 12k cases if R was reduced, but still above 1 (or if we were unable to count all the cases that were happening).
Well we might see. It is a continuation of the current rate of growth in line with what has happened in 2 similar European countries whose growth started some weeks before ours.
French and Spanish real case numbers have grown much faster than their official data shows since unlike ours (yet) their testing regime has failed.
Spanish case numbers now are as believable as the UKs were in April.
No one is Europe is testing anything like as much as we are but I don't think its correct to say that their testing regimes have failed.
Its not reasonable to compare Spanish case numbers now to Spanish case numbers in June given the change in positivity rates.
Spanish reporting runs about a week behind, they update the numbers every Thursday and backfill the data on case numbers and deaths. The death statistics are dodgy as they use a 7 day cut off vs the European standard of 21 or 28 days.
Flat out ban all travel to Spain based on that graph.
Agreed but I think that we need to do more. We need to work out how the hell it went so wrong. Our Spanish contributors on here can maybe help with this. Was it allowing internal travel for holidays? Schools? Was it never as under control as we thought?
Gosh, maybe they should have emphasised the "If" in the slide and when they spoke about it.
Oh, wait. They did.
Doubling faster than that has happened before.
Hospitalisations have been doubling every 8 days.
Accordingly, a worst-case without interventions of every 7 days is certainly feasible.
AND THEY EMPHASISED IT WAS A WORST CASE AND NOT A PREDICTION
Why the suffering FUCK are people ignoring that and claiming otherwise and that they're scaremongering? Seriously, why?
Because they desperately, desperately want it not to be so.
I would very much hope that everyone desperately wants it not to be so.
Agreed. However, you will accept I expect, that there is a huge gulf between not wanting it to be so, resigning oneself to it and working out a way to move forward. And furiously twisting or denying any evidence that it is so in the hope of not having to come up with a plan at all.
Who is doing this?
Covid is a serious thing. A very serious problem.
Yet treating all groups the same despite their having vastly different risk profiles strikes me as the wrong approach.
That is all.
Not suggesting you were doing so in the slightest. You have your risk segmentation strategy. That is a coherent plausible plan. One of a small handful. I do, however, detect a "I don't want this so it isn't" attitude amongst some influential voices.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
Thinking about practicalities rather than philosophies that is the main thing for me. It seems reasonable now to think we will have good news on the vaccine front in the next couple of months not years or quarters from now.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
It's unfortunately basic calculator maths. When this kicked off and the columnist were writing their initial "actually, the best plan is for 60% of the population to get Covid before winter" columns the simple maths showed that that was a million people a week getting Covid.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing, analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
A vaccine has very different logistics. We routinely do a rate of about 200,00-250,000 per day of flu jabs every winter. If we could ramp that up be a factor of four or five (which should be eminently doable with enough resources), that becomes 40 days to reach herd immunity with sufficient vaccine available.
Gosh, maybe they should have emphasised the "If" in the slide and when they spoke about it.
Oh, wait. They did.
Doubling faster than that has happened before.
Hospitalisations have been doubling every 8 days.
Accordingly, a worst-case without interventions of every 7 days is certainly feasible.
AND THEY EMPHASISED IT WAS A WORST CASE AND NOT A PREDICTION
Why the suffering FUCK are people ignoring that and claiming otherwise and that they're scaremongering? Seriously, why?
Because they desperately, desperately want it not to be so.
I would very much hope that everyone desperately wants it not to be so.
Agreed. However, you will accept I expect, that there is a huge gulf between not wanting it to be so, resigning oneself to it and working out a way to move forward. And furiously twisting or denying any evidence that it is so in the hope of not having to come up with a plan at all.
Who is doing this?
Covid is a serious thing. A very serious problem.
Yet treating all groups the same despite their having vastly different risk profiles strikes me as the wrong approach.
That is all.
Any attempt at risk segmentation falls straight down the "The Gov't isn't keeping me from seeing my grandkids" rabbithole.
We already have a great deal of 'risk segmentation' in that people at high risk will on the whole be less relaxed about the virus and will behave accordingly. To try to formalize it in the law - the elderly or otherwise vulnerable locked down, everyone else free of restrictions - sounds in theory sensible but in practice would be unenforceable and deeply divisive. No UK government is imo going to go down that route. It is, in my parlance, another if those Not Happening Events. Pity I can't do what I usually do with such things - my licence to print money - lay it on Betfair.
This is the kind of stuff we've needed for a while, a bit of flag waving
Turns me off a bit, I have to say. But my vote is safe (if not my membership) and it clearly is the case that the party under Corbyn was perceived as lacking in "proud to be British" sentiment and that this did cost votes and seats. It's important to counter this now and win a proportion of those voters back. So to this extent, I approve. "Go Keir. Wave that wi... flag."
But caution is required - because it's undeniable that xenophobic attitudes were a factor in taking some of these erstwhile Labour voters down the Brexit and UKIP-to-Tory path and Starmer should not imo be chasing this constituency. For 2 reasons. (i) Such attitudes are at odds with the core values of the party. (ii) It would backfire. The support picked up by pandering to xenophobic variety "patriotism" would be outweighed by the support lost in the party's new metropolitan base.
I don't think Starmer is pandering to anti-foreigner xenophobic patriotism but appealing to the middle of the road proud to be British patriotism.
Most of the party's new metropolitan base are bright enough to recognise that this is a route to power and won't be put off by it. It might even appeal to some.
I do hope and expect he will get things right. The risk I'm highlighting - of chasing Red Wall and losing Red Metro - is one he will have given far more thought to than I have. But I do fret about it. The shift to the left in 2015 turned me from a loyal Labour voter into a party member.
The answer to that will depend on whether he thinks the number of party members or the number of votes for his party at a general election is the more important statistic.
Oh the answer will be votes. No question. He will only take a direction if he is confident that the Red Wall gained will be bigger than the Red Metro lost. And of course in an ideal world - or even in this world if things go his way - he will gain both.
But how much Red Metro is there to actually lose at a GE? I’d say not much at all.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
It's unfortunately basic calculator maths. When this kicked off and the columnist were writing their initial "actually, the best plan is for 60% of the population to get Covid before winter" columns the simple maths showed that that was a million people a week getting Covid.
A million a week.
That never, ever stacked up.
That's not much more than we were at in March or April is it? I think the estimate was 100k per day then, so we would have needed it to continue increasing by about another 50% then stabilising at that for months without coming back down for months.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
It's unfortunately basic calculator maths. When this kicked off and the columnist were writing their initial "actually, the best plan is for 60% of the population to get Covid before winter" columns the simple maths showed that that was a million people a week getting Covid.
A million a week.
That never, ever stacked up.
We were probably running at about two thirds of that at the very peak in April, we saw the results of that so it was always unrealistic. However, we could realistically run at 200k infections per week without seeing an unsustainable rise in the hospitalisation rate. The issue is that stopping that tipping over into the unsustainable range is close to impossible in a country like the UK.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing, analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
A vaccine has very different logistics. We routinely do a rate of about 200,00-250,000 per day of flu jabs every winter. If we could ramp that up be a factor of four or five (which should be eminently doable with enough resources), that becomes 40 days to reach herd immunity with sufficient vaccine available.
However, that doesn't sound like that is the plan. Likes of Hancock talking about best case scenario a limited number of people get a vaccine at the end of this year, but it will be until next summer before they have got the general population vaccinated.
Hmm, so should I watch Boris at 8pm or Sturgeon at 8.05pm, or watch something less likely to have me reaching for the brandy and shotgun and stick with the Bake Off at the same time?
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing, analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
A vaccine has very different logistics. We routinely do a rate of about 200,00-250,000 per day of flu jabs every winter. If we could ramp that up be a factor of four or five (which should be eminently doable with enough resources), that becomes 40 days to reach herd immunity with sufficient vaccine available.
Plus a vaccine can be targetted at the at-risk quicker.
EG to keep the virus out of care homes you need to try and ensure no care staff catch it and bring it in with them, which means preventing any staff member from catching it from anyone they come into contact with - and many care staff will be young people on minimum wage wanting to socialise like the rest of their friends.
Whereas with a vaccine it is easy to vaccinate the staff working at a home before fussing about everyone they come into contact with.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
+1. This is absolutely spot on. There aren't any good outcomes with Covid before a vaccine is widely available. But the first duty of the government is to avoid hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing, analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
A vaccine has very different logistics. We routinely do a rate of about 200,00-250,000 per day of flu jabs every winter. If we could ramp that up be a factor of four or five (which should be eminently doable with enough resources), that becomes 40 days to reach herd immunity with sufficient vaccine available.
Yes, but depending on the effectiveness of the vaccine - it is possible it might only protect 60% of those who take it.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
It's unfortunately basic calculator maths. When this kicked off and the columnist were writing their initial "actually, the best plan is for 60% of the population to get Covid before winter" columns the simple maths showed that that was a million people a week getting Covid.
A million a week.
That never, ever stacked up.
We were probably running at about two thirds of that at the very peak in April, we saw the results of that so it was always unrealistic. However, we could realistically run at 200k infections per week without seeing an unsustainable rise in the hospitalisation rate. The issue is that stopping that tipping over into the unsustainable range is close to impossible in a country like the UK.
At that rate it'd take 4 years to reach herd immunity.
There's no easy answer without a vaccine it seems.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing, analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
A vaccine has very different logistics. We routinely do a rate of about 200,00-250,000 per day of flu jabs every winter. If we could ramp that up be a factor of four or five (which should be eminently doable with enough resources), that becomes 40 days to reach herd immunity with sufficient vaccine available.
Yes, but depending on the effectiveness of the vaccine - it is possible it might only protect 60% of those who take it.
I believe if it is found that the first generation of vaccine is that effective, it will be considered a huge win. That is top end of likely effectiveness.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing, analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
A vaccine has very different logistics. We routinely do a rate of about 200,00-250,000 per day of flu jabs every winter. If we could ramp that up be a factor of four or five (which should be eminently doable with enough resources), that becomes 40 days to reach herd immunity with sufficient vaccine available.
Yes, but depending on the effectiveness of the vaccine - it is possible it might only protect 60% of those who take it.
I'll take a wild guess that for viewers in Scotland this means putting up with having 'nationalist' BJ imposed on us for another 4 years in the indistinct hope of having 'patriot' SKS taking over.
Gosh, maybe they should have emphasised the "If" in the slide and when they spoke about it.
Oh, wait. They did.
Doubling faster than that has happened before.
Hospitalisations have been doubling every 8 days.
Accordingly, a worst-case without interventions of every 7 days is certainly feasible.
AND THEY EMPHASISED IT WAS A WORST CASE AND NOT A PREDICTION
Why the suffering FUCK are people ignoring that and claiming otherwise and that they're scaremongering? Seriously, why?
Because they desperately, desperately want it not to be so.
I would very much hope that everyone desperately wants it not to be so.
Agreed. However, you will accept I expect, that there is a huge gulf between not wanting it to be so, resigning oneself to it and working out a way to move forward. And furiously twisting or denying any evidence that it is so in the hope of not having to come up with a plan at all.
Who is doing this?
Covid is a serious thing. A very serious problem.
Yet treating all groups the same despite their having vastly different risk profiles strikes me as the wrong approach.
That is all.
Not suggesting you were doing so in the slightest. You have your risk segmentation strategy. That is a coherent plausible plan. One of a small handful. I do, however, detect a "I don't want this so it isn't" attitude amongst some influential voices.
I'll take a wild guess that for viewers in Scotland this means putting up with having 'nationalist' BJ imposed on us for another 4 years in the indistinct hope of having 'patriot' SKS taking over.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing, analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
A vaccine has very different logistics. We routinely do a rate of about 200,00-250,000 per day of flu jabs every winter. If we could ramp that up be a factor of four or five (which should be eminently doable with enough resources), that becomes 40 days to reach herd immunity with sufficient vaccine available.
Yes, but depending on the effectiveness of the vaccine - it is possible it might only protect 60% of those who take it.
I believe if it is found that the first generation of vaccine is that effective, it will be considered a huge win. That is top end of likely effectiveness.
Yes. Which is why the vaccine may well need to be combined with various measures to suppress the virus. The vaccine will simply shift R to very small. We hope.
Only just about stopped short of calling Starmer a racist.
What nonsense. So basically they are saying that the only true party of patriotism is the Conservative Party.
Well we all knew Jeremy was an enthusiast for the Soviet Union even down to his confusion over the Salisbury poisonings and his inability to criticise Putin for sanctioning the murder of Dawn Sturgess, fearing upsetting his beloved USSR. Did no one tell him it collapsed circa 1990. Fortunately Corbyn is consigned to history and common sense can prevail.
I am not a Conservative. I will never drape a flag of St. George from my home or indulge in a Union flag tattoo. I am a former Remainer and a Unionist, but I nonetheless consider myself a patriot and I am heartbroken at the route Cummings is taking this great country on.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing, analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
A vaccine has very different logistics. We routinely do a rate of about 200,00-250,000 per day of flu jabs every winter. If we could ramp that up be a factor of four or five (which should be eminently doable with enough resources), that becomes 40 days to reach herd immunity with sufficient vaccine available.
Yes, but depending on the effectiveness of the vaccine - it is possible it might only protect 60% of those who take it.
That gives you herd immunity though (If the whole pop is vaccinated) ? Also depends where that 60% lies.
Pollsters are fairly united now, slim or no Tory lead. We will see crossover soon.
Going to catch up on Keir's speech, apparently it's fantastic.
The more the public see of Sir Keir, the duller they find him - personality rating down from 32 to 25 in today’s IPSOS-MORI.
Maybe COVID has changed everything, but leaders of the opposition who the public find this in charismatic, especially compared to the PM, don’t get the top job,
My mistake, it is down from 30 to 25
It's going to be really fascinating to see how your theory plays out, because I suspect the UK will emerge from the twin crises of Covid and Brexit long before Sir Keith grows a personality...
Starmer's absence of charisma is certainly an issue, it's why I didn't vote for him as leader. On the other hand he is clearly a lot smarter than most politicians, which is an advantage, and is quite good looking too. He looks like a winner to me, which I've not really felt in my gut since Blair.
Oh, he certainly has a better chance than any leader since Blair.
On the one hand, that's not saying much. Blair's successors have so far managed to lose the southern seats the party held for 13 years (Brown), the Scottish seats they held for 50 years (Miliband), and the Northern seats they held for 100+ years (Corbyn). Meanwhile the Tory vote share has increased at every general election since 2001, surpassing Thatcher-landslide levels last time. The trend is not with him!
On the other, all good things do eventually come to an end, and he has the advantage of knowing exactly what has failed to work under previous leaders, and an apparent willingness to learn from those failures. I still think we can beat him - the fact that Labour still doesn't have a lead during the darkest domestic crisis for a British Government in the last century should be flashing red on their dashboard - but it looks like he'll put up a fight.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing, analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
Exactly. The policy is to suppress through distancing until the vaccine (which I think will come for the general population by June 2021). If this vaccine expectation was taken away the policy would change to herd immunity by infection over the next 18 to 24 months. That would be harrowing - so for all the problems we have right now I feel we're in an OK place as regards coronavirus.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
It's unfortunately basic calculator maths. When this kicked off and the columnist were writing their initial "actually, the best plan is for 60% of the population to get Covid before winter" columns the simple maths showed that that was a million people a week getting Covid.
A million a week.
That never, ever stacked up.
We were probably running at about two thirds of that at the very peak in April, we saw the results of that so it was always unrealistic. However, we could realistically run at 200k infections per week without seeing an unsustainable rise in the hospitalisation rate. The issue is that stopping that tipping over into the unsustainable range is close to impossible in a country like the UK.
At that rate it'd take 4 years to reach herd immunity.
There's no easy answer without a vaccine it seems.
That also assumes a close to zero reinfection rate. A vaccine is the best near term answer, but I think risk segmentation needs to be part of the conversation because my wife and I are at zero risk, our friends and family are at zero risk and if asked we would absolutely end our contact with vulnerable people if it meant they would be kept safe from the virus.
Part of the issue is that middle class families want to have their cake and eat it, they want fewer restrictions but also to be able to visit grandma and for her to look after the kids. we need to have a very frank conversation about sacrifices being made in terms of lifestyle to ensure schools stay open and young people have jobs available to them and aren't consigned to years of unemployment.
Pollsters are fairly united now, slim or no Tory lead. We will see crossover soon.
Going to catch up on Keir's speech, apparently it's fantastic.
The more the public see of Sir Keir, the duller they find him - personality rating down from 32 to 25 in today’s IPSOS-MORI.
Maybe COVID has changed everything, but leaders of the opposition who the public find this in charismatic, especially compared to the PM, don’t get the top job,
My mistake, it is down from 30 to 25
It's going to be really fascinating to see how your theory plays out, because I suspect the UK will emerge from the twin crises of Covid and Brexit long before Sir Keith grows a personality...
Starmer's absence of charisma is certainly an issue, it's why I didn't vote for him as leader. On the other hand he is clearly a lot smarter than most politicians, which is an advantage, and is quite good looking too. He looks like a winner to me, which I've not really felt in my gut since Blair.
Oh, he certainly has a better chance than any leader since Blair.
On the one hand, that's not saying much. Blair's successors have so far managed to lose the southern seats the party held for 13 years (Brown), the Scottish seats they held for 50 years (Miliband), and the Northern seats they held for 100+ years (Corbyn). Meanwhile the Tory vote share has increased at every general election since 2001, surpassing Thatcher-landslide levels last time. The trend is not with him!
On the other, all good things do eventually come to an end, and he has the advantage of knowing exactly what has failed to work under previous leaders, and an apparent willingness to learn from those failures. I still think we can beat him - the fact that Labour still doesn't have a lead during the darkest domestic crisis for a British Government in the last century should be flashing red on their dashboard - but it looks like he'll put up a fight.
If you think it is dark at the moment you are in for a surprise. It is barely dusk compared to the darkness that is about to descend when the Government financial assistance schemes end.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing, analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
A vaccine has very different logistics. We routinely do a rate of about 200,00-250,000 per day of flu jabs every winter. If we could ramp that up be a factor of four or five (which should be eminently doable with enough resources), that becomes 40 days to reach herd immunity with sufficient vaccine available.
Yes, but depending on the effectiveness of the vaccine - it is possible it might only protect 60% of those who take it.
I believe if it is found that the first generation of vaccine is that effective, it will be considered a huge win. That is top end of likely effectiveness.
Yes. Which is why the vaccine may well need to be combined with various measures to suppress the virus. The vaccine will simply shift R to very small. We hope.
So long as R is below 1 the virus will shrink towards being eliminated.
If a vaccine means that we can get back to normal and R is below 1 then we can get back to normal. There is no need for R to be zero immediately.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
It's unfortunately basic calculator maths. When this kicked off and the columnist were writing their initial "actually, the best plan is for 60% of the population to get Covid before winter" columns the simple maths showed that that was a million people a week getting Covid.
A million a week.
That never, ever stacked up.
We were probably running at about two thirds of that at the very peak in April, we saw the results of that so it was always unrealistic. However, we could realistically run at 200k infections per week without seeing an unsustainable rise in the hospitalisation rate. The issue is that stopping that tipping over into the unsustainable range is close to impossible in a country like the UK.
At that rate it'd take 4 years to reach herd immunity.
There's no easy answer without a vaccine it seems.
That also assumes a close to zero reinfection rate. A vaccine is the best near term answer, but I think risk segmentation needs to be part of the conversation because my wife and I are at zero risk, our friends and family are at zero risk and if asked we would absolutely end our contact with vulnerable people if it meant they would be kept safe from the virus.
Part of the issue is that middle class families want to have their cake and eat it, they want fewer restrictions but also to be able to visit grandma and for her to look after the kids. we need to have a very frank conversation about sacrifices being made in terms of lifestyle to ensure schools stay open and young people have jobs available to them and aren't consigned to years of unemployment.
Grandma looking after the grand children after school is completely insane but I can't see how you stop families from doing just that.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
It's unfortunately basic calculator maths. When this kicked off and the columnist were writing their initial "actually, the best plan is for 60% of the population to get Covid before winter" columns the simple maths showed that that was a million people a week getting Covid.
A million a week.
That never, ever stacked up.
We were probably running at about two thirds of that at the very peak in April, we saw the results of that so it was always unrealistic. However, we could realistically run at 200k infections per week without seeing an unsustainable rise in the hospitalisation rate. The issue is that stopping that tipping over into the unsustainable range is close to impossible in a country like the UK.
At that rate it'd take 4 years to reach herd immunity.
There's no easy answer without a vaccine it seems.
That also assumes a close to zero reinfection rate. A vaccine is the best near term answer, but I think risk segmentation needs to be part of the conversation because my wife and I are at zero risk, our friends and family are at zero risk and if asked we would absolutely end our contact with vulnerable people if it meant they would be kept safe from the virus.
Part of the issue is that middle class families want to have their cake and eat it, they want fewer restrictions but also to be able to visit grandma and for her to look after the kids. we need to have a very frank conversation about sacrifices being made in terms of lifestyle to ensure schools stay open and young people have jobs available to them and aren't consigned to years of unemployment.
Spot on. Folk need a clear explanation of what they need to do. And far, far more importantly WHY.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
It's unfortunately basic calculator maths. When this kicked off and the columnist were writing their initial "actually, the best plan is for 60% of the population to get Covid before winter" columns the simple maths showed that that was a million people a week getting Covid.
A million a week.
That never, ever stacked up.
We were probably running at about two thirds of that at the very peak in April, we saw the results of that so it was always unrealistic. However, we could realistically run at 200k infections per week without seeing an unsustainable rise in the hospitalisation rate. The issue is that stopping that tipping over into the unsustainable range is close to impossible in a country like the UK.
At that rate it'd take 4 years to reach herd immunity.
There's no easy answer without a vaccine it seems.
That also assumes a close to zero reinfection rate. A vaccine is the best near term answer, but I think risk segmentation needs to be part of the conversation because my wife and I are at zero risk, our friends and family are at zero risk and if asked we would absolutely end our contact with vulnerable people if it meant they would be kept safe from the virus.
Part of the issue is that middle class families want to have their cake and eat it, they want fewer restrictions but also to be able to visit grandma and for her to look after the kids. we need to have a very frank conversation about sacrifices being made in terms of lifestyle to ensure schools stay open and young people have jobs available to them and aren't consigned to years of unemployment.
Absolutely right. And this requires an honest debate.
Interestingly, when you ask those who are anti risk segmentation what their suggested approach should be you are frequently met with a wall of silence.
Only just about stopped short of calling Starmer a racist.
What nonsense. So basically they are saying that the only true party of patriotism is the Conservative Party.
Well we all knew Jeremy was an enthusiast for the Soviet Union even down to his confusion over the Salisbury poisonings and his inability to criticise Putin for sanctioning the murder of Dawn Sturgess, fearing upsetting his beloved USSR. Did no one tell him it collapsed circa 1990. Fortunately Corbyn is consigned to history and common sense can prevail.
I am not a Conservative. I will never drape a flag of St. George from my home or indulge in a Union flag tattoo. I am a former Remainer and a Unionist, but I nonetheless consider myself a patriot and I am heartbroken at the route Cummings is taking this great country on.
I always found it amusing that the hard-left Tankie types don't seem to notice that the Soviet Union is under new management.
The weirdest one was the hard-left support for Serbia during the Yugoslav civil wars. Supporting extreme racism based nationalism complete with genocide.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
It's unfortunately basic calculator maths. When this kicked off and the columnist were writing their initial "actually, the best plan is for 60% of the population to get Covid before winter" columns the simple maths showed that that was a million people a week getting Covid.
A million a week.
That never, ever stacked up.
We were probably running at about two thirds of that at the very peak in April, we saw the results of that so it was always unrealistic. However, we could realistically run at 200k infections per week without seeing an unsustainable rise in the hospitalisation rate. The issue is that stopping that tipping over into the unsustainable range is close to impossible in a country like the UK.
At that rate it'd take 4 years to reach herd immunity.
There's no easy answer without a vaccine it seems.
That also assumes a close to zero reinfection rate. A vaccine is the best near term answer, but I think risk segmentation needs to be part of the conversation because my wife and I are at zero risk, our friends and family are at zero risk and if asked we would absolutely end our contact with vulnerable people if it meant they would be kept safe from the virus.
Part of the issue is that middle class families want to have their cake and eat it, they want fewer restrictions but also to be able to visit grandma and for her to look after the kids. we need to have a very frank conversation about sacrifices being made in terms of lifestyle to ensure schools stay open and young people have jobs available to them and aren't consigned to years of unemployment.
Grandma looking after the grand children after school is completely insane but I can't see how you stop families from doing just that.
Just about any solution is better than having over 60s at the school gate and looking after children.
Now of course in some areas the grandparents might only be 35 or 40...
Only just about stopped short of calling Starmer a racist.
What nonsense. So basically they are saying that the only true party of patriotism is the Conservative Party.
Well we all knew Jeremy was an enthusiast for the Soviet Union even down to his confusion over the Salisbury poisonings and his inability to criticise Putin for sanctioning the murder of Dawn Sturgess, fearing upsetting his beloved USSR. Did no one tell him it collapsed circa 1990. Fortunately Corbyn is consigned to history and common sense can prevail.
I am not a Conservative. I will never drape a flag of St. George from my home or indulge in a Union flag tattoo. I am a former Remainer and a Unionist, but I nonetheless consider myself a patriot and I am heartbroken at the route Cummings is taking this great country on.
I always found it amusing that the hard-left Tankie types don't seem to notice that the Soviet Union is under new management.
The weirdest one was the hard-left support for Serbia during the Yugoslav civil wars. Supporting extreme racism based nationalism complete with genocide.
Personally find it slightly less weird than the same hard-left's support for BJ and his project.
Pollsters are fairly united now, slim or no Tory lead. We will see crossover soon.
Going to catch up on Keir's speech, apparently it's fantastic.
The more the public see of Sir Keir, the duller they find him - personality rating down from 32 to 25 in today’s IPSOS-MORI.
Maybe COVID has changed everything, but leaders of the opposition who the public find this in charismatic, especially compared to the PM, don’t get the top job,
My mistake, it is down from 30 to 25
It's going to be really fascinating to see how your theory plays out, because I suspect the UK will emerge from the twin crises of Covid and Brexit long before Sir Keith grows a personality...
Starmer's absence of charisma is certainly an issue, it's why I didn't vote for him as leader. On the other hand he is clearly a lot smarter than most politicians, which is an advantage, and is quite good looking too. He looks like a winner to me, which I've not really felt in my gut since Blair.
Oh, he certainly has a better chance than any leader since Blair.
On the one hand, that's not saying much. Blair's successors have so far managed to lose the southern seats the party held for 13 years (Brown), the Scottish seats they held for 50 years (Miliband), and the Northern seats they held for 100+ years (Corbyn). Meanwhile the Tory vote share has increased at every general election since 2001, surpassing Thatcher-landslide levels last time. The trend is not with him!
On the other, all good things do eventually come to an end, and he has the advantage of knowing exactly what has failed to work under previous leaders, and an apparent willingness to learn from those failures. I still think we can beat him - the fact that Labour still doesn't have a lead during the darkest domestic crisis for a British Government in the last century should be flashing red on their dashboard - but it looks like he'll put up a fight.
You can beat him but I don't think you will. You've been in power too long and made too many mistakes, and the economic impact of Covid will cast a long shadow. If Starmer doesn't slip up I expect he will win enough seats to form a government of some kind.
Only just about stopped short of calling Starmer a racist.
What nonsense. So basically they are saying that the only true party of patriotism is the Conservative Party.
Well we all knew Jeremy was an enthusiast for the Soviet Union even down to his confusion over the Salisbury poisonings and his inability to criticise Putin for sanctioning the murder of Dawn Sturgess, fearing upsetting his beloved USSR. Did no one tell him it collapsed circa 1990. Fortunately Corbyn is consigned to history and common sense can prevail.
I am not a Conservative. I will never drape a flag of St. George from my home or indulge in a Union flag tattoo. I am a former Remainer and a Unionist, but I nonetheless consider myself a patriot and I am heartbroken at the route Cummings is taking this great country on.
I always found it amusing that the hard-left Tankie types don't seem to notice that the Soviet Union is under new management.
The weirdest one was the hard-left support for Serbia during the Yugoslav civil wars. Supporting extreme racism based nationalism complete with genocide.
The hard left have no issues with racism when it is on their side. Just look at how completely they supported antisemitism just a few months ago.
There are very few meaningful differences between the hard left and the far right.
Starmer's speech has gone over really well with the pundits and the Labour mainstream, while the left are generally observing a polite silence. In normal circs I think it'd make a big impact. But currently I doubt if either party's pseudo-conference will change much. We may be locked into the current political stasis until the virus starts to fade from attention, as it did briefly in the summer (which is when Labour caught up in the polls).
How long did it take to go from 1% to 20% back in March?
Subtract a few weeks’ lag and you’ll have an idea of how many people are being infected today, who will die in October if people don’t start reducing their contact levels.
You'd think a man who has made a living for decades banging on about 'floodgates' and being overrun would have a better understanding of exponential growth.
Only just about stopped short of calling Starmer a racist.
What nonsense. So basically they are saying that the only true party of patriotism is the Conservative Party.
Well we all knew Jeremy was an enthusiast for the Soviet Union even down to his confusion over the Salisbury poisonings and his inability to criticise Putin for sanctioning the murder of Dawn Sturgess, fearing upsetting his beloved USSR. Did no one tell him it collapsed circa 1990. Fortunately Corbyn is consigned to history and common sense can prevail.
I am not a Conservative. I will never drape a flag of St. George from my home or indulge in a Union flag tattoo. I am a former Remainer and a Unionist, but I nonetheless consider myself a patriot and I am heartbroken at the route Cummings is taking this great country on.
I always found it amusing that the hard-left Tankie types don't seem to notice that the Soviet Union is under new management.
The weirdest one was the hard-left support for Serbia during the Yugoslav civil wars. Supporting extreme racism based nationalism complete with genocide.
The hard left have no issues with racism when it is on their side. Just look at how completely they supported antisemitism just a few months ago.
There are very few meaningful differences between the hard left and the far right.
That is the point at which the circle almost completes.
Only just about stopped short of calling Starmer a racist.
What nonsense. So basically they are saying that the only true party of patriotism is the Conservative Party.
Well we all knew Jeremy was an enthusiast for the Soviet Union even down to his confusion over the Salisbury poisonings and his inability to criticise Putin for sanctioning the murder of Dawn Sturgess, fearing upsetting his beloved USSR. Did no one tell him it collapsed circa 1990. Fortunately Corbyn is consigned to history and common sense can prevail.
I am not a Conservative. I will never drape a flag of St. George from my home or indulge in a Union flag tattoo. I am a former Remainer and a Unionist, but I nonetheless consider myself a patriot and I am heartbroken at the route Cummings is taking this great country on.
I always found it amusing that the hard-left Tankie types don't seem to notice that the Soviet Union is under new management.
The weirdest one was the hard-left support for Serbia during the Yugoslav civil wars. Supporting extreme racism based nationalism complete with genocide.
The hard left have no issues with racism when it is on their side. Just look at how completely they supported antisemitism just a few months ago.
There are very few meaningful differences between the hard left and the far right.
That is the point at which the circle almost completes.
Piers Corbyn quite literally sharing a platform with the err.... boot boys....
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
It's unfortunately basic calculator maths. When this kicked off and the columnist were writing their initial "actually, the best plan is for 60% of the population to get Covid before winter" columns the simple maths showed that that was a million people a week getting Covid.
A million a week.
That never, ever stacked up.
We were probably running at about two thirds of that at the very peak in April, we saw the results of that so it was always unrealistic. However, we could realistically run at 200k infections per week without seeing an unsustainable rise in the hospitalisation rate. The issue is that stopping that tipping over into the unsustainable range is close to impossible in a country like the UK.
At that rate it'd take 4 years to reach herd immunity.
There's no easy answer without a vaccine it seems.
That also assumes a close to zero reinfection rate. A vaccine is the best near term answer, but I think risk segmentation needs to be part of the conversation because my wife and I are at zero risk, our friends and family are at zero risk and if asked we would absolutely end our contact with vulnerable people if it meant they would be kept safe from the virus.
Part of the issue is that middle class families want to have their cake and eat it, they want fewer restrictions but also to be able to visit grandma and for her to look after the kids. we need to have a very frank conversation about sacrifices being made in terms of lifestyle to ensure schools stay open and young people have jobs available to them and aren't consigned to years of unemployment.
Grandma looking after the grand children after school is completely insane but I can't see how you stop families from doing just that.
It's their decision. Some grandparents will accept both a risk and an assurance that people they want to see have been sensible. A friend of mine just accompanied their parents to Cornwall for a week - the father is super-vulnerable via reduced lung capacity.
My friend offered not to go and their parents would have nothing of it. There is psychological well-being to be considered also.
Starmer's speech has gone over really well with the pundits and the Labour mainstream, while the left are generally observing a polite silence. In normal circs I think it'd make a big impact. But currently I doubt if either party's pseudo-conference will change much. We may be locked into the current political stasis until the virus starts to fade from attention, as it did briefly in the summer (which is when Labour caught up in the polls).
My take is that the polls should open up when the financial safety net is removed and blame is apportioned for any second wave.
For the most part these issues are a side effect of incumbency. IF as looks likely Covid takes hold again there will be questions asked as to the clarity of Johnson's messaging throughout the summer. Let's hope he won't need to dodge that bullet.
Hmm, so should I watch Boris at 8pm or Sturgeon at 8.05pm, or watch something less likely to have me reaching for the brandy and shotgun and stick with the Bake Off at the same time?
Bake off. Given the capacity of the NHS to cope with high blood pressure right now it is the rational option.
This is the kind of stuff we've needed for a while, a bit of flag waving
Turns me off a bit, I have to say. But my vote is safe (if not my membership) and it clearly is the case that the party under Corbyn was perceived as lacking in "proud to be British" sentiment and that this did cost votes and seats. It's important to counter this now and win a proportion of those voters back. So to this extent, I approve. "Go Keir. Wave that wi... flag."
But caution is required - because it's undeniable that xenophobic attitudes were a factor in taking some of these erstwhile Labour voters down the Brexit and UKIP-to-Tory path and Starmer should not imo be chasing this constituency. For 2 reasons. (i) Such attitudes are at odds with the core values of the party. (ii) It would backfire. The support picked up by pandering to xenophobic variety "patriotism" would be outweighed by the support lost in the party's new metropolitan base.
I don't think Starmer is pandering to anti-foreigner xenophobic patriotism but appealing to the middle of the road proud to be British patriotism.
Most of the party's new metropolitan base are bright enough to recognise that this is a route to power and won't be put off by it. It might even appeal to some.
I do hope and expect he will get things right. The risk I'm highlighting - of chasing Red Wall and losing Red Metro - is one he will have given far more thought to than I have. But I do fret about it. The shift to the left in 2015 turned me from a loyal Labour voter into a party member.
The answer to that will depend on whether he thinks the number of party members or the number of votes for his party at a general election is the more important statistic.
Oh the answer will be votes. No question. He will only take a direction if he is confident that the Red Wall gained will be bigger than the Red Metro lost. And of course in an ideal world - or even in this world if things go his way - he will gain both.
But how much Red Metro is there to actually lose at a GE? I’d say not much at all.
Why do you say that? Labour has become the party of the big cities and affluent uni towns. This is the new base - educated, urban, diverse, socially liberal - and it's bigger (now) than the old trad one that has drifted away on culture issues. There is a risk of overreaction to the loss of the Red Wall. That's my point. I'm sure Keir is aware of it. Certainly hope he is. Let's remember that a ton of votes are coming our way next time just purely based on integrity and competence. Johnson is being exposed as mendacious and utterly clueless. So, reap that harvest, by all means alter the mood music on "patriotism" so it doesn't turn people off unnecessarily, but do not make "Britain First" a key part of the offering, above all stay radical and socially liberal, do NOT lose people like me. There are loads of us. Ok, so we don't own a Union Jack or a St George, and we don't race whippets, but we vote.
Only 15 is very good indeed for Boris. If that's the level of revolt when he's beset by crises on all sides and asking his troops to march through fire, then fantasies of his imminent demise are rather premature, to say the least
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
It's unfortunately basic calculator maths. When this kicked off and the columnist were writing their initial "actually, the best plan is for 60% of the population to get Covid before winter" columns the simple maths showed that that was a million people a week getting Covid.
A million a week.
That never, ever stacked up.
We were probably running at about two thirds of that at the very peak in April, we saw the results of that so it was always unrealistic. However, we could realistically run at 200k infections per week without seeing an unsustainable rise in the hospitalisation rate. The issue is that stopping that tipping over into the unsustainable range is close to impossible in a country like the UK.
At that rate it'd take 4 years to reach herd immunity.
There's no easy answer without a vaccine it seems.
That also assumes a close to zero reinfection rate. A vaccine is the best near term answer, but I think risk segmentation needs to be part of the conversation because my wife and I are at zero risk, our friends and family are at zero risk and if asked we would absolutely end our contact with vulnerable people if it meant they would be kept safe from the virus.
Part of the issue is that middle class families want to have their cake and eat it, they want fewer restrictions but also to be able to visit grandma and for her to look after the kids. we need to have a very frank conversation about sacrifices being made in terms of lifestyle to ensure schools stay open and young people have jobs available to them and aren't consigned to years of unemployment.
Grandma looking after the grand children after school is completely insane but I can't see how you stop families from doing just that.
It's their decision. Some grandparents will accept both a risk and an assurance that people they want to see have been sensible. A friend of mine just accompanied their parents to Cornwall for a week - the father is super-vulnerable via reduced lung capacity.
My friend offered not to go and their parents would have nothing of it. There is psychological well-being to be considered also.
But then it is up to those families to form a support bubble and limit contact with the rest of us to ensure granny and grandpa don't die. As I said, there are too many people who believe in cakeism (ironic, I know) and want to have normal social lives but also be in regular contact with their parents and grandparents who are vulnerable and have a high chance of death of they catch the virus and a very high chance of severe ongoing problems if they don't die.
It just seems as though no one in the country is willing to have this conversation in a grown up way without calling everyone who thinks risk segmentation has a role to play a bunch of heartless Nazis or something like that.
It's their decision. Some grandparents will accept both a risk and an assurance that people they want to see have been sensible. A friend of mine just accompanied their parents to Cornwall for a week - the father is super-vulnerable via reduced lung capacity.
My friend offered not to go and their parents would have nothing of it. There is psychological well-being to be considered also.
The level of risk associated with that risk to Cornwall and picking grandchildren up from school isn't really comparable.
Labour should be thinking about the Tory's soft underbelly. When sun finally sets on this administration there will be rich pickings. Scotland and the Red Wall taught us there are no safe seats.
There are plenty of Tory seats where a fresh start and a new face is loooong overdue.
But then it is up to those families to form a support bubble and limit contact with the rest of us to ensure granny and grandpa don't die. As I said, there are too many people who believe in cakeism (ironic, I know) and want to have normal social lives but also be in regular contact with their parents and grandparents who are vulnerable and have a high chance of death of they catch the virus and a very high chance of severe ongoing problems if they don't die.
It just seems as though no one in the country is willing to have this conversation in a grown up way without calling everyone who thinks risk segmentation has a role to play a bunch of heartless Nazis or something like that.
And it's not really that difficult it's an either or question. You can socialise or see vulnerable people just don't do both...
Only 15 is very good indeed for Boris. If that's the level of revolt when he's beset by crises on all sides and asking his troops to march through fire, then fantasies of his imminent demise are rather premature, to say the least
I am not sure your excitement is shared by those who fear for the heart and future of the Conservative Party.
Starmer's speech has gone over really well with the pundits and the Labour mainstream, while the left are generally observing a polite silence. In normal circs I think it'd make a big impact. But currently I doubt if either party's pseudo-conference will change much. We may be locked into the current political stasis until the virus starts to fade from attention, as it did briefly in the summer (which is when Labour caught up in the polls).
Labour should be thinking about the Tory's soft underbelly. When sun finally sets on this administration there will be rich pickings. Scotland and the Red Wall taught us there are no safe seats.
There are plenty of Tory seats where a fresh start and a new face is loooong overdue.
It was only 10 months ago that HMG achieved an 80 seat majority - not sure where a new face is loooong overdue fits in
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
It's unfortunately basic calculator maths. When this kicked off and the columnist were writing their initial "actually, the best plan is for 60% of the population to get Covid before winter" columns the simple maths showed that that was a million people a week getting Covid.
A million a week.
That never, ever stacked up.
We were probably running at about two thirds of that at the very peak in April, we saw the results of that so it was always unrealistic. However, we could realistically run at 200k infections per week without seeing an unsustainable rise in the hospitalisation rate. The issue is that stopping that tipping over into the unsustainable range is close to impossible in a country like the UK.
At that rate it'd take 4 years to reach herd immunity.
There's no easy answer without a vaccine it seems.
That also assumes a close to zero reinfection rate. A vaccine is the best near term answer, but I think risk segmentation needs to be part of the conversation because my wife and I are at zero risk, our friends and family are at zero risk and if asked we would absolutely end our contact with vulnerable people if it meant they would be kept safe from the virus.
Part of the issue is that middle class families want to have their cake and eat it, they want fewer restrictions but also to be able to visit grandma and for her to look after the kids. we need to have a very frank conversation about sacrifices being made in terms of lifestyle to ensure schools stay open and young people have jobs available to them and aren't consigned to years of unemployment.
Grandma looking after the grand children after school is completely insane but I can't see how you stop families from doing just that.
It's their decision. Some grandparents will accept both a risk and an assurance that people they want to see have been sensible. A friend of mine just accompanied their parents to Cornwall for a week - the father is super-vulnerable via reduced lung capacity.
My friend offered not to go and their parents would have nothing of it. There is psychological well-being to be considered also.
But then it is up to those families to form a support bubble and limit contact with the rest of us to ensure granny and grandpa don't die. As I said, there are too many people who believe in cakeism (ironic, I know) and want to have normal social lives but also be in regular contact with their parents and grandparents who are vulnerable and have a high chance of death of they catch the virus and a very high chance of severe ongoing problems if they don't die.
It just seems as though no one in the country is willing to have this conversation in a grown up way without calling everyone who thinks risk segmentation has a role to play a bunch of heartless Nazis or something like that.
There also seem to be an element in the media and the public not to take the general message and think how do we apply it to our lives, but rather spend an incredible amount of time thinking of all the ways somebody could exploit loopholes to enable to carry on as normal.
But then it is up to those families to form a support bubble and limit contact with the rest of us to ensure granny and grandpa don't die. As I said, there are too many people who believe in cakeism (ironic, I know) and want to have normal social lives but also be in regular contact with their parents and grandparents who are vulnerable and have a high chance of death of they catch the virus and a very high chance of severe ongoing problems if they don't die.
It just seems as though no one in the country is willing to have this conversation in a grown up way without calling everyone who thinks risk segmentation has a role to play a bunch of heartless Nazis or something like that.
And it's not really that difficult it's an either or question. You can socialise or see vulnerable people just don't do both...
Yes, but apparently asking people to make that choice is being heartless and bastarding.
Starmer's speech has gone over really well with the pundits and the Labour mainstream, while the left are generally observing a polite silence. In normal circs I think it'd make a big impact. But currently I doubt if either party's pseudo-conference will change much. We may be locked into the current political stasis until the virus starts to fade from attention, as it did briefly in the summer (which is when Labour caught up in the polls).
Right now he's certainly looking much much better than Boris for sure.
Only just about stopped short of calling Starmer a racist.
What nonsense. So basically they are saying that the only true party of patriotism is the Conservative Party.
Well we all knew Jeremy was an enthusiast for the Soviet Union even down to his confusion over the Salisbury poisonings and his inability to criticise Putin for sanctioning the murder of Dawn Sturgess, fearing upsetting his beloved USSR. Did no one tell him it collapsed circa 1990. Fortunately Corbyn is consigned to history and common sense can prevail.
I am not a Conservative. I will never drape a flag of St. George from my home or indulge in a Union flag tattoo. I am a former Remainer and a Unionist, but I nonetheless consider myself a patriot and I am heartbroken at the route Cummings is taking this great country on.
I always found it amusing that the hard-left Tankie types don't seem to notice that the Soviet Union is under new management.
The weirdest one was the hard-left support for Serbia during the Yugoslav civil wars. Supporting extreme racism based nationalism complete with genocide.
What's so remarkable about that? When your starting point is that whoever is opposing this country is in the right it is inevitable.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
Interesting, if depressing analysis. I think that we will need to buckle down and pray for a vaccine. Hence the last chapter of the boffins presentation yesterday. Even the possibility of a vaccine in December weighs the scales very heavily in favour of not letting rip.
It's unfortunately basic calculator maths. When this kicked off and the columnist were writing their initial "actually, the best plan is for 60% of the population to get Covid before winter" columns the simple maths showed that that was a million people a week getting Covid.
A million a week.
That never, ever stacked up.
We were probably running at about two thirds of that at the very peak in April, we saw the results of that so it was always unrealistic. However, we could realistically run at 200k infections per week without seeing an unsustainable rise in the hospitalisation rate. The issue is that stopping that tipping over into the unsustainable range is close to impossible in a country like the UK.
At that rate it'd take 4 years to reach herd immunity.
There's no easy answer without a vaccine it seems.
That also assumes a close to zero reinfection rate. A vaccine is the best near term answer, but I think risk segmentation needs to be part of the conversation because my wife and I are at zero risk, our friends and family are at zero risk and if asked we would absolutely end our contact with vulnerable people if it meant they would be kept safe from the virus.
Part of the issue is that middle class families want to have their cake and eat it, they want fewer restrictions but also to be able to visit grandma and for her to look after the kids. we need to have a very frank conversation about sacrifices being made in terms of lifestyle to ensure schools stay open and young people have jobs available to them and aren't consigned to years of unemployment.
Grandma looking after the grand children after school is completely insane but I can't see how you stop families from doing just that.
It's their decision. Some grandparents will accept both a risk and an assurance that people they want to see have been sensible. A friend of mine just accompanied their parents to Cornwall for a week - the father is super-vulnerable via reduced lung capacity.
My friend offered not to go and their parents would have nothing of it. There is psychological well-being to be considered also.
But then it is up to those families to form a support bubble and limit contact with the rest of us to ensure granny and grandpa don't die. As I said, there are too many people who believe in cakeism (ironic, I know) and want to have normal social lives but also be in regular contact with their parents and grandparents who are vulnerable and have a high chance of death of they catch the virus and a very high chance of severe ongoing problems if they don't die.
It just seems as though no one in the country is willing to have this conversation in a grown up way without calling everyone who thinks risk segmentation has a role to play a bunch of heartless Nazis or something like that.
Reading LadyG's posts about "Oh, can't we just get it over with, let other people die, I just want it to be back to normal" - I don't think they've thought about the arithmetic.
I agree with your point, but I don't think it's a matter of arithmetic for certain people. Those who are fundamentally selfish don't care how many die or suffer as long as they think this won't include them. And they are precisely the reason that The Swedish Model would not work for us...
Did Starmer really travel all the way to Doncaster this morning just to stand in front of a red wall, only to come back to London by lunchtime to respond to Boris in the commons?
All that CO2 saved from not eating meat quickly being offset.
Only 15 is very good indeed for Boris. If that's the level of revolt when he's beset by crises on all sides and asking his troops to march through fire, then fantasies of his imminent demise are rather premature, to say the least
How long did it take to go from 1% to 20% back in March?
Subtract a few weeks’ lag and you’ll have an idea of how many people are being infected today, who will die in October if people don’t start reducing their contact levels.
The contact levels now are completely different to the contact levels in February. Trains are empty, buses are empty, the tube is empty, museums and leisure facilities are empty. No one is allowed to attend sporting fixtures. Councils are shut, a large proportion of people work from home. Anecdote, a work colleage visited the Tower of London last week. He spoke to guy on the gate. This time last year they had 12,000 visitors per day in September. So far this year they are averaging 130.
Comments
How many infections/hospitalisations/fatalities/long covid cases per day would be acceptable?
If we go for a steady state of ten times the current rate (if that's within NHS limits), we're looking at 60,000 infections per day, with 1500 hospitalisations per day and 240 deaths per day.
We'd need to have restrictions imposed to sustain it at that level (or, in the absence of restrictions, there's a strong probability that people will "hear sirens, stay home," as per Arizona and @rcs1000 's reports and reduce their own interactions until we reach a steady state level).
To infect 40 million at 60,000 per day (needed for herd immunity levels and assuming 6 million or so are already immune) would take 667 days.
Taking us to late July 2022. With that rate of infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout that time, and the economy pegged back that long (whether through restrictions or the tendency of people to not want to catch a very unpleasant disease. After all, if you just wait, enough other people will catch it for the herd immunity...)
That leaves us with over 450,000 dead, albeit heavily focused in the older demographics, between 1.5 million and 3 million people going into and out of hospital in that time, and ~2-4 million having sustained lengthy post-viral syndrome (up to 3 months ill) and ~400,000-700,000 with lasting medical conditions due to the virus (these not necessarily concentrated in the older demographics).
Maybe, just maybe, there's a significant amount of existing natural immunity and/or cross-immunity from other viruses. If we're lucky, just maybe that 40 million number is as much as halved.
That takes us "only" to the end of August 2021. With those numbers (deaths, hospitalisations, long-term issues) halved. But still massive economic damage.
Maybe, though, if we exercise no restrictions and can convince enough people to just get on with their lives, we can get it over with faster by really letting it rip. Exponential growth could lead to all 20 million to 40 million getting it far faster. Get it over with, right?
The problem there is that while we've brought down the fatality rate considerably with improved treatment, that rather relies on getting treatment to those who need it. Pour 20 million (or worse, 40 million) into the NHS pint pot inside of a few months, and the vast majority of those aren't getting treatment. A big chunk of that 1.5 million to 3 million would then die (and that includes far more of the younger echelons).
Either we don't get it over with quickly at all (because we have to get so many people infected at a rate the NHS can deal with) or we allow a big number of people to die when we could easily have saved them. And, either way, the economy gets so badly hit that it'd be unrecognisable afterwards.
What we need is a 6 month plan and made clear this is what we are sticking to for the duration. No more stop / start, no more airbridge to this country this week, different one next week. It doesn't matter if the cases go down, this is the plan.
Its WFH if you can, limit interactions between households, no foreign travel unless absolutely necessary, secure care homes, masks everywhere that is viable etc.
If you want to maintain more capacity for those, you need to slow the input - halving the rate in doubles the amount of time it lasts for.
And if acquired immunity wears off, if it wears off in a similar timescale to the one above, you're in a horrible permanent loop.
It doesn't "just get it over with."
I do, however, detect a "I don't want this so it isn't" attitude amongst some influential voices.
A million a week.
That never, ever stacked up.
We routinely do a rate of about 200,00-250,000 per day of flu jabs every winter. If we could ramp that up be a factor of four or five (which should be eminently doable with enough resources), that becomes 40 days to reach herd immunity with sufficient vaccine available.
EG to keep the virus out of care homes you need to try and ensure no care staff catch it and bring it in with them, which means preventing any staff member from catching it from anyone they come into contact with - and many care staff will be young people on minimum wage wanting to socialise like the rest of their friends.
Whereas with a vaccine it is easy to vaccinate the staff working at a home before fussing about everyone they come into contact with.
There's no easy answer without a vaccine it seems.
https://twitter.com/RobDunsmore/status/1308355209031225346?s=20
I'll take a wild guess that for viewers in Scotland this means putting up with having 'nationalist' BJ imposed on us for another 4 years in the indistinct hope of having 'patriot' SKS taking over.
Apologies for inferring that.
Thanks for the reply.
Well we all knew Jeremy was an enthusiast for the Soviet Union even down to his confusion over the Salisbury poisonings and his inability to criticise Putin for sanctioning the murder of Dawn Sturgess, fearing upsetting his beloved USSR. Did no one tell him it collapsed circa 1990. Fortunately Corbyn is consigned to history and common sense can prevail.
I am not a Conservative. I will never drape a flag of St. George from my home or indulge in a Union flag tattoo. I am a former Remainer and a Unionist, but I nonetheless consider myself a patriot and I am heartbroken at the route Cummings is taking this great country on.
Also depends where that 60% lies.
On the one hand, that's not saying much. Blair's successors have so far managed to lose the southern seats the party held for 13 years (Brown), the Scottish seats they held for 50 years (Miliband), and the Northern seats they held for 100+ years (Corbyn). Meanwhile the Tory vote share has increased at every general election since 2001, surpassing Thatcher-landslide levels last time. The trend is not with him!
On the other, all good things do eventually come to an end, and he has the advantage of knowing exactly what has failed to work under previous leaders, and an apparent willingness to learn from those failures. I still think we can beat him - the fact that Labour still doesn't have a lead during the darkest domestic crisis for a British Government in the last century should be flashing red on their dashboard - but it looks like he'll put up a fight.
Part of the issue is that middle class families want to have their cake and eat it, they want fewer restrictions but also to be able to visit grandma and for her to look after the kids. we need to have a very frank conversation about sacrifices being made in terms of lifestyle to ensure schools stay open and young people have jobs available to them and aren't consigned to years of unemployment.
If a vaccine means that we can get back to normal and R is below 1 then we can get back to normal. There is no need for R to be zero immediately.
Folk need a clear explanation of what they need to do.
And far, far more importantly WHY.
Interestingly, when you ask those who are anti risk segmentation what their suggested approach should be you are frequently met with a wall of silence.
The weirdest one was the hard-left support for Serbia during the Yugoslav civil wars. Supporting extreme racism based nationalism complete with genocide.
Now of course in some areas the grandparents might only be 35 or 40...
There are very few meaningful differences between the hard left and the far right.
Subtract a few weeks’ lag and you’ll have an idea of how many people are being infected today, who will die in October if people don’t start reducing their contact levels.
It's an impressive level of control for Johnson in the context of how much opposition there is outside of the Parliamentary Conservative Party.
https://mobile.twitter.com/labourwhips/status/1308355875644624896
My friend offered not to go and their parents would have nothing of it. There is psychological well-being to be considered also.
For the most part these issues are a side effect of incumbency. IF as looks likely Covid takes hold again there will be questions asked as to the clarity of Johnson's messaging throughout the summer. Let's hope he won't need to dodge that bullet.
A large gap but significantly smaller than under Corbyn
It just seems as though no one in the country is willing to have this conversation in a grown up way without calling everyone who thinks risk segmentation has a role to play a bunch of heartless Nazis or something like that.
There are plenty of Tory seats where a fresh start and a new face is loooong overdue.
Not a polite silence, they are just too busy with Nandy.
--AS
All that CO2 saved from not eating meat quickly being offset.
Anecdote, a work colleage visited the Tower of London last week. He spoke to guy on the gate. This time last year they had 12,000 visitors per day in September. So far this year they are averaging 130.
The case/death ratio looks different this time