I don't know if the government's strategy is the right one. My guess is that it isn't, but I am an economist not a public health expert, so I just don't know. But I am fairly certain that they will be forced to change tack. It doesn't really pass the smell test. Just seems wrong, counterintuitive, callous. The problem is, when they do change tack, their credibility will be shot to pieces. And that is a big problem, because to get through this all of us have to be on the same page. Once the public loses trust in their leaders, it could get pretty dangerous pretty quickly.
I thought I was a cynic, who had seen it all in politics.
Yet, I have to say, I am genuinely stunned by the number of people on twitter who are desperate, and I mean desperate, to see the Chief Science Officer and Chief Medic wrong.
The way their tweets read. They want granny to die to prove Boris should never have trusted these guys.
This was how non remainers felt during Brexit.
I have deja vu.
The difference is that we have no choice about facing this pandemic.
I thought I was a cynic, who had seen it all in politics.
Yet, I have to say, I am genuinely stunned by the number of people on twitter who are desperate, and I mean desperate, to see the Chief Science Officer and Chief Medic wrong.
The way their tweets read. They want granny to die to prove Boris should never have trusted these guys.
The number in the media and partisans who think the normal rules of the game apply i.e. get a group letter signed and up-sell it as "scientists and experts" (of which basically none are experts in the field).
This isn't normal times, this is war.
The grown-ups like Dougie Alexander realise this, while Mason plays silly buggers.
This might be true if we didn't have a PM as divisive and loathsome as #boristhebutcher. He gets no quarter ever. When there are just two people left alive in the UK one will be burning him in effigy and the other will be carving a marble statue of him.
I don't know if the government's strategy is the right one. My guess is that it isn't, but I am an economist not a public health expert, so I just don't know. But I am fairly certain that they will be forced to change tack. It doesn't really pass the smell test. Just seems wrong, counterintuitive, callous. The problem is, when they do change tack, their credibility will be shot to pieces. And that is a big problem, because to get through this all of us have to be on the same page. Once the public loses trust in their leaders, it could get pretty dangerous pretty quickly.
"If you need to be right before you move, you will never win."
I think I might have to switch off from following the media / social media, as it might cause me to have a heart attack.
We need the nation to pull together, but it seems lots of people still have Boris Derangement Syndrome affecting their judgement.
Noting wrong with the sensible criticism / questioning such as Hunt and Ashworth have undertaken, but the rest of the crap, its like they want the virus to win just to damage Boris.
My centre-left cousin is a doctor deeply involved in the virus response from her hospital. She says they are all supportive of what Boris is trying to do.
Yep like I said yesterday, this antipathy towards the plan does not seem to be a party thing. I don't know what underlies it but there are some people simply unwilling to accept reality.
I think I might have to switch off from following the media / social media, as it might cause me to have a heart attack.
We need the nation to pull together, but it seems lots of people still have Boris Derangement Syndrome affecting their judgement.
Noting wrong with the sensible criticism / questioning such as Hunt and Ashworth have undertaken, but the rest of the crap, its like they want the virus to win just to damage Boris.
My centre-left cousin is a doctor deeply involved in the virus response from her hospital. She says they are all supportive of what Boris is trying to do.
Interesting fact: in Germany and Scandinavia the current mortality rate is only twice that of seasonal flu: 0.2 vs 0.1.
There are a large number of therapies you can use to keep people alive in the most sophisticated ICUs where there is capacity.....
If Covid 19 swept through an immigrant camp in Turkey...do you still think the mortality rate will be 0.2%.
The only difference is the medical capacity and range of therapies to treat human beings who are sick. I cannot understand why you have not grasped this...and seek to use this data as some indication that there is a master race.....
You're the person who went to discussing race, not Andy.
Andy has constantly brought up the differential rates in fatalities.....it is obvious...those countries with more capacity for ICU's and more capability for invasive treatments (with elderly and co-morbid) will do better initially....
I'll tell you why this matters.....my wife (Italian) is really worried that Italians seem to have a higher fatality rate....
You see...this kind of stuff that people put out there matters...it impacts on people.....
Compare Apples to Apples...people will live and die in exactly the same way as the result of Covid 19...the difference depends on health interventions....
I wish Andy didn't carry on putting this shit out to be honest....
I'm away to my bed, before my blood pressure explodes reading the bilge from the Left on Johnson's 'kill all the pensioners to save national insurance' policy crap.
I thought I was a cynic, who had seen it all in politics.
Yet, I have to say, I am genuinely stunned by the number of people on twitter who are desperate, and I mean desperate, to see the Chief Science Officer and Chief Medic wrong.
The way their tweets read. They want granny to die to prove Boris should never have trusted these guys.
This was how non remainers felt during Brexit.
I have deja vu.
Do you still think people “are bored of the Shanghai Sniffle” as you said last week?
Interesting fact: in Germany and Scandinavia the current mortality rate is only twice that of seasonal flu: 0.2 vs 0.1.
There are a large number of therapies you can use to keep people alive in the most sophisticated ICUs where there is capacity.....
If Covid 19 swept through an immigrant camp in Turkey...do you still think the mortality rate will be 0.2%.
The only difference is the medical capacity and range of therapies to treat human beings who are sick. I cannot understand why you have not grasped this...and seek to use this data as some indication that there is a master race.....
This is absolutely right.
And after a few weeks of pandemic, then every country becomes, say, Nigeria dealing with cholera.
This is what we all face.
I cannot understand why Andy...a seemingly bright person...does not understand this......
If Italy has 21,157 confirmed cases which is managing to overwhelm their health system, then how would the British plan to have 60-80% infected work without doing the same many times over.
That is 39-52 million people getting the virus.
Even if the Italian cases are in reality 10 times more, so 210,000, we are still planing on have 185-247 times as many people infected overall in comparison to Italy right now.
Italy has been swamped for weeks on those lower numbers, so if as planned we have people getting infected at an even slower than them as they did it too fast (let's say a month for 210,000 people instead of 3 weeks), then the whole operation would take about about 200 months, which is about 16 years.
I don't really see how this is plausible.
Italy does not have enough critical care beds.
It has more than twice as many as us 12.8 per 100,000 compared to our 6.3 per 100,000.
Here's a newsflash for you. No country has enough ICU beds. If they had enough ICU beds, they'd have been wasting a staggering amount of money on them for the past hundred years.
We have the least in Western Europe but we can wash our hands and carry on praising the cutting of a 1/3 of Acute beds since 2010.
How cheap do you think panic buying private sector beds at over 50 times the going rate for an Acute bed is?
At this point I doubt the price of things is a concern for the government.
Well you claimed having more beds was too expensive a minute ago make your mind up.
Having them when you don't need them is expensive. And they would have gone unused decades if we had enough to deal with the current outbreak. I would have thought you would have been against waste in the NHS?
2.4m per bed as opposed to 48000 per bed though. The private sector ripping off the taxpayer by a multiple of 50 is obscene
I expect as a capitalist you approve of supply and demand and super profit though.
What's the source of this number?
5 live quoting one of tomorrows front pages
Sounds like that might have been the asking price, and the government just said "fuck that" and requisitioned them.
Hopefully.
Bloke on 5 live reckoned cost per day was inflated by a factor of 50 dont see that number in the article though tbf.
Anyway I am self isolating myself from PB till tomorrow goodnight
So as the Govt. is paying £300, you're saying if inflated by a factor of 50, the true cost is £6 a day?
That isn't the National Health Service, that is the Youth Hostel Associaition.
I’ve no problem with paying £300/day - easy way to keep money moving around the economy. The government needs find other outlets for pumping cash about the place.
I half expect a helicopter drop at some point.
Agreed.
Actually a massive temporary increase in benefit payments is the best way of injecting cash - as poorer groups are much more likely to spend than save.
I thought I was a cynic, who had seen it all in politics.
Yet, I have to say, I am genuinely stunned by the number of people on twitter who are desperate, and I mean desperate, to see the Chief Science Officer and Chief Medic wrong.
The way their tweets read. They want granny to die to prove Boris should never have trusted these guys.
It's strange how so many of them are left-wing. Usually they support the experts.
Only if the experts agree with them on everything.
Whereas everywhere else is banking the virus doesn't come in waves.
No, they know the virus comes in waves.
They've just made a different cost-benefit analysis decision to us.
Only time will tell who is right.
Personally, I think the UK will rapidly switch to the continental (and Asian) "shut it down" model, because the headlines of large numbers of infected, in ICU and/or dying are too serious.
In which case we have lost. By 'we' I mean everyone because we will lose far more people in the medium to long term.
Does the Home Guard still exist? It may be needed to ensure people don't buy too many essentials for themselves, denying them to others.
You could just make the shops limit how much they sell to people. No soldiers are involved in preventing sales of drink to under 18s, so why would they be necessary or useful here?
This would be helpful. In fact, the shops have been doing some of this already, although the limits they set are often so high as to be useless and laughable ("five items each" in the Tesco bog roll aisle, for example, which means someone can still load five dozen-roll bags of Andrex into their trolley and wheel them off.) But there is also, I would imagine, some concern about civil disorder.
Fights are already breaking out sporadically over panic-hoarded goods, and things may well get considerably worse once the big self-isolation order is issued and all the medically vulnerable people and over 70s in the land all have to go into quarantine at once. Many, perhaps most, of them will be ill-prepared, leading to pandaemonium in the shops.
Just limit each punter to two loll rolls. No different to the current limit of two boxes of paracetamol.
Whereas everywhere else is banking the virus doesn't come in waves.
No, they know the virus comes in waves.
They've just made a different cost-benefit analysis decision to us.
Only time will tell who is right.
Personally, I think the UK will rapidly switch to the continental (and Asian) "shut it down" model, because the headlines of large numbers of infected, in ICU and/or dying are too serious.
In which case we have lost. By 'we' I mean everyone because we will lose far more people in the medium to long term.
I disagree.
I think the Asian "shut it down" model probably results in fewer deaths. So, you'd have a two week quarantine period every 10-12 weeks. In between, you'd see the numbers infected spike up. But you wouldn't ever let it get to a level where more than (say) 5% of the population has it. In this way, you manage to ensure your health service is never completely overwhelmed.
The problem with the Asian strategy is that it causes massive - and ongoing - economic damage compared to the effect of our government's short, sharp shock.
If a vaccine is discovered relatively quickly, then the Asian strategy will look correct. If we're still searching in 18 months, then it will look very foolish indeed.
I don't know if the government's strategy is the right one. My guess is that it isn't, but I am an economist not a public health expert, so I just don't know. But I am fairly certain that they will be forced to change tack. It doesn't really pass the smell test. Just seems wrong, counterintuitive, callous. The problem is, when they do change tack, their credibility will be shot to pieces. And that is a big problem, because to get through this all of us have to be on the same page. Once the public loses trust in their leaders, it could get pretty dangerous pretty quickly.
Interesting fact: in Germany and Scandinavia the current mortality rate is only twice that of seasonal flu: 0.2 vs 0.1.
There are a large number of therapies you can use to keep people alive in the most sophisticated ICUs where there is capacity.....
If Covid 19 swept through an immigrant camp in Turkey...do you still think the mortality rate will be 0.2%.
The only difference is the medical capacity and range of therapies to treat human beings who are sick. I cannot understand why you have not grasped this...and seek to use this data as some indication that there is a master race.....
The point of my post was to show what is possible, and to hope we can extend that to as many other places as we can, difficult though that may be.
I apologise if I misunderstood what you were doing.....
I think if you looked at therapies applied (against age and co-morbidity) you will see why the fatality rate is so much lower in certain countries.....
You can artificially keep a 90 year old for a longish time by keeping his lungs going and his oxygen levels up using machines......
I thought I was a cynic, who had seen it all in politics.
Yet, I have to say, I am genuinely stunned by the number of people on twitter who are desperate, and I mean desperate, to see the Chief Science Officer and Chief Medic wrong.
The way their tweets read. They want granny to die to prove Boris should never have trusted these guys.
The number in the media and partisans who think the normal rules of the game apply i.e. get a group letter signed and up-sell it as "scientists and experts" (of which basically none are experts in the field).
This isn't normal times, this is war.
The grown-ups like Dougie Alexander realise this, while Mason plays silly buggers.
This might be true if we didn't have a PM as divisive and loathsome as #boristhebutcher. He gets no quarter ever. When there are just two people left alive in the UK one will be burning him in effigy and the other will be carving a marble statue of him.
Thus making the usual mistake of assuming that everyone in the land has strong personal feelings about the PM, in the same way as people always spoke rather lazily of the country being split down the middle into two armed camps on bloody Brexit. Of course, most of the population isn't strongly committed one way or the other on either issue.
Thus, in this particular case, most people may be very nervous about whether or not the Government is calling this right but they will be united in wanting its strategy to succeed - regardless of whether or not they're inclined to give Boris any credit for it.
I don't know if the government's strategy is the right one. My guess is that it isn't, but I am an economist not a public health expert, so I just don't know. But I am fairly certain that they will be forced to change tack. It doesn't really pass the smell test. Just seems wrong, counterintuitive, callous. The problem is, when they do change tack, their credibility will be shot to pieces. And that is a big problem, because to get through this all of us have to be on the same page. Once the public loses trust in their leaders, it could get pretty dangerous pretty quickly.
Change tack to what ?
I habve no idea. The government's whole strategy is about timing the introduction of more draconian measures. What OnlyLivingBoy calls a change of tack is actually just the next phase in the established plan.
I don't know if the government's strategy is the right one. My guess is that it isn't, but I am an economist not a public health expert, so I just don't know. But I am fairly certain that they will be forced to change tack. It doesn't really pass the smell test. Just seems wrong, counterintuitive, callous. The problem is, when they do change tack, their credibility will be shot to pieces. And that is a big problem, because to get through this all of us have to be on the same page. Once the public loses trust in their leaders, it could get pretty dangerous pretty quickly.
Change tack to what ?
I think the government's strategy, of timing shutdowns to have maximum effectiveness, is a good one.
But I also think @OnlyLivingBoy is correct. You see, the optimal point to enforce a quarantine is when quite a lot of people have the virus. You then slam the brakes on and go to almost zero infections in a short period of time.
The risk of doing it this way, though, is that you mistime it, and the number infected overwhelms the health service, because there are one million people with the virus, and 80,000 of them want to use intensive care at the same time.
I therefore think the UK is going to end up declaring a "shut down" sooner than the science advisors would like.
I don't know if the government's strategy is the right one. My guess is that it isn't, but I am an economist not a public health expert, so I just don't know. But I am fairly certain that they will be forced to change tack. It doesn't really pass the smell test. Just seems wrong, counterintuitive, callous. The problem is, when they do change tack, their credibility will be shot to pieces. And that is a big problem, because to get through this all of us have to be on the same page. Once the public loses trust in their leaders, it could get pretty dangerous pretty quickly.
Change tack to what ?
I habve no idea. The government's whole strategy is about timing the introduction of more draconian measures. What OnlyLivingBoy calls a change of tack is actually just the next phase in the established plan.
So why not go full China now? It'll save lives....most people would go with it...I don't understand why they wouldn't? And if they don't...make them....it'll save lives
FFS...this is like fake news central tonight....that is from 3 weeks ago and it has since been shown that you need to test people multiple times over quite a period of time to ensure they are free of the virus.
Interesting fact: in Germany and Scandinavia the current mortality rate is only twice that of seasonal flu: 0.2 vs 0.1.
There are a large number of therapies you can use to keep people alive in the most sophisticated ICUs where there is capacity.....
If Covid 19 swept through an immigrant camp in Turkey...do you still think the mortality rate will be 0.2%.
The only difference is the medical capacity and range of therapies to treat human beings who are sick. I cannot understand why you have not grasped this...and seek to use this data as some indication that there is a master race.....
The point of my post was to show what is possible, and to hope we can extend that to as many other places as we can, difficult though that may be.
Problem is the way you're estimating is statistically deficient, you need to trace the progress of waves of people through the care pathway to understand what the probability is for a given case to die during the entire duration of their infection. If you are only looking at the first few days of their care, you're missing the chances of dying later. If you're only looking at the people who have shown up in the health system, you're missing unreported cases. The epidemiologists can do a decent job of that because they have access to more data (eg. they can even track individuals through the system) and hence make necessary adjustments...
I don't know if the government's strategy is the right one. My guess is that it isn't, but I am an economist not a public health expert, so I just don't know. But I am fairly certain that they will be forced to change tack. It doesn't really pass the smell test. Just seems wrong, counterintuitive, callous. The problem is, when they do change tack, their credibility will be shot to pieces. And that is a big problem, because to get through this all of us have to be on the same page. Once the public loses trust in their leaders, it could get pretty dangerous pretty quickly.
Change tack to what ?
I habve no idea. The government's whole strategy is about timing the introduction of more draconian measures. What OnlyLivingBoy calls a change of tack is actually just the next phase in the established plan.
So why not go full China now? It'll save lives....most people would go with it...I don't understand why they wouldn't? And if they don't...make them....it'll save lives
We've been over this countless times. Because people won't stick at it long enough. Not to mention a china-style shutdown just wouldn't work in the UK. Do you really think you'd see police welding apartments closed?
Does the Home Guard still exist? It may be needed to ensure people don't buy too many essentials for themselves, denying them to others.
You could just make the shops limit how much they sell to people. No soldiers are involved in preventing sales of drink to under 18s, so why would they be necessary or useful here?
This would be helpful. In fact, the shops have been doing some of this already, although the limits they set are often so high as to be useless and laughable ("five items each" in the Tesco bog roll aisle, for example, which means someone can still load five dozen-roll bags of Andrex into their trolley and wheel them off.) But there is also, I would imagine, some concern about civil disorder.
Fights are already breaking out sporadically over panic-hoarded goods, and things may well get considerably worse once the big self-isolation order is issued and all the medically vulnerable people and over 70s in the land all have to go into quarantine at once. Many, perhaps most, of them will be ill-prepared, leading to pandaemonium in the shops.
Just limit each punter to two loll rolls. No different to the current limit of two boxes of paracetamol.
Useless if so many people turn up at once that there's insufficient to go around even at a low number. Also useless if enough irate customers say "F**k off, I can't manage on one, I'm taking six."
Normally social niceties and a security guard are enough to deal with the odd stroppy punter, but we're not living through normal times here. If and when the panic becomes sufficiently acute then a deputy manager backed up by a fat bloke in a blue pullover are going to be no more use in restoring order than they were during the 2011 riots.
I thought I was a cynic, who had seen it all in politics.
Yet, I have to say, I am genuinely stunned by the number of people on twitter who are desperate, and I mean desperate, to see the Chief Science Officer and Chief Medic wrong.
The way their tweets read. They want granny to die to prove Boris should never have trusted these guys.
The number in the media and partisans who think the normal rules of the game apply i.e. get a group letter signed and up-sell it as "scientists and experts" (of which basically none are experts in the field).
This isn't normal times, this is war.
The grown-ups like Dougie Alexander realise this, while Mason plays silly buggers.
This might be true if we didn't have a PM as divisive and loathsome as #boristhebutcher. He gets no quarter ever. When there are just two people left alive in the UK one will be burning him in effigy and the other will be carving a marble statue of him.
I forget - did you want that halfwit Corbyn to be PM right now?
Interesting fact: in Germany and Scandinavia the current mortality rate is only twice that of seasonal flu: 0.2 vs 0.1.
There are a large number of therapies you can use to keep people alive in the most sophisticated ICUs where there is capacity.....
If Covid 19 swept through an immigrant camp in Turkey...do you still think the mortality rate will be 0.2%.
The only difference is the medical capacity and range of therapies to treat human beings who are sick. I cannot understand why you have not grasped this...and seek to use this data as some indication that there is a master race.....
This is absolutely right.
And after a few weeks of pandemic, then every country becomes, say, Nigeria dealing with cholera.
This is what we all face.
I cannot understand why Andy...a seemingly bright person...does not understand this......
Mate, you would not believe the stupidity I have faced here, on PB, for about six weeks now.
I was online diagnosed with suspected corona after coming back from Thailand with a strange flu in late Jan. After a bureaucratic fuck up I was never tested, but Public Health England was really keen for me to get the test. Anyway....
Ever since then I have had an unusual interest in this virus. I started looking at the data coming out of Wuhan, Hubei, wider China, and then east Asia in general.
I realised very early in February that there is no way a smart, aggressive, autocratic economy like China would endanger its entire model (endless growth) by closing down entire provinces, unless they thought this new coronavirus was an absolute belter, with the potential to kill many millions.
The Chinese Communist Party is many bad things, but it is not idiotic. It realises its survival depends upon near-endless growth in GDP-per-capita. So why would they risk that? Only if things were desperately bad.
The videos that then came out of Hubei Province showed that China was desperate.
That's when I realised this was deep deep shit, not just for China, but for the rest of us, as globalisation means nothing can be contained. As the elms fell to Dutch Elm Disease, as the Ashes die to Ash dieback, so humans will be felled or fucked by Covid-19.
Without the floral, flowing prose for a moment, are you of the view that you are now a corona recoveree? If so, what was it like? I’m assuming I get the fucker at some point this spring, so am trying to get info to brace myself.
FFS...this is like fake news central tonight....that is from 3 weeks ago and it has since been shown that you need to test people multiple times over quite a period of time to ensure they are free of the virus.
Good! I should have known someone backing up Nassim Nicholas Taleb wasn't likely to be reliable.
I don't know if the government's strategy is the right one. My guess is that it isn't, but I am an economist not a public health expert, so I just don't know. But I am fairly certain that they will be forced to change tack. It doesn't really pass the smell test. Just seems wrong, counterintuitive, callous. The problem is, when they do change tack, their credibility will be shot to pieces. And that is a big problem, because to get through this all of us have to be on the same page. Once the public loses trust in their leaders, it could get pretty dangerous pretty quickly.
Change tack to what ?
I think the government's strategy, of timing shutdowns to have maximum effectiveness, is a good one.
But I also think @OnlyLivingBoy is correct. You see, the optimal point to enforce a quarantine is when quite a lot of people have the virus. You then slam the brakes on and go to almost zero infections in a short period of time.
The risk of doing it this way, though, is that you mistime it, and the number infected overwhelms the health service, because there are one million people with the virus, and 80,000 of them want to use intensive care at the same time.
I therefore think the UK is going to end up declaring a "shut down" sooner than the science advisors would like.
Certainly but I would say that the cautious choice would be to implement the shut down a little of advance of the predicted optimum point.
Firstly because the risks being a little late would be higher than in being a little early.
Secondly because there will be a level of people ignoring a shut down.
OnlyLivingBoy comes across as wanting to complain whatever the government is doing.
Interesting fact: in Germany and Scandinavia the current mortality rate is only twice that of seasonal flu: 0.2 vs 0.1.
There are a large number of therapies you can use to keep people alive in the most sophisticated ICUs where there is capacity.....
If Covid 19 swept through an immigrant camp in Turkey...do you still think the mortality rate will be 0.2%.
The only difference is the medical capacity and range of therapies to treat human beings who are sick. I cannot understand why you have not grasped this...and seek to use this data as some indication that there is a master race.....
This is absolutely right.
And after a few weeks of pandemic, then every country becomes, say, Nigeria dealing with cholera.
This is what we all face.
I cannot understand why Andy...a seemingly bright person...does not understand this......
Mate, you would not believe the stupidity I have faced here, on PB, for about six weeks now.
I was online diagnosed with suspected corona after coming back from Thailand with a strange flu in late Jan. After a bureaucratic fuck up I was never tested, but Public Health England was really keen for me to get the test. Anyway....
Ever since then I have had an unusual interest in this virus. I started looking at the data coming out of Wuhan, Hubei, wider China, and then east Asia in general.
I realised very early in February that there is no way a smart, aggressive, autocratic economy like China would endanger its entire model (endless growth) by closing down entire provinces, unless they thought this new coronavirus was an absolute belter, with the potential to kill many millions.
The Chinese Communist Party is many bad things, but it is not idiotic. It realises its survival depends upon near-endless growth in GDP-per-capita. So why would they risk that? Only if things were desperately bad.
The videos that then came out of Hubei Province showed that China was desperate.
That's when I realised this was deep deep shit, not just for China, but for the rest of us, as globalisation means nothing can be contained. As the elms fell to Dutch Elm Disease, as the Ashes die to Ash dieback, so humans will be felled or fucked by Covid-19.
Exactly...
Why have Italy closed down.....and other European state done the same...
We are going to close down too.....the herd stuff will just seem stupid in a week...
This thing if horrendous...we were posting last night..and I made a point the legacy of Covid 19 will last for generations....and someone dissed it...
That legacy is already here....it's already an event that eclipses anything else since 1939......
I know in the war there were people wanting the Nazi's to win, but it really feels like at the moment half of twitter seem to think their mission in life is to try and do everything possible to discredit the government.
I am no fan of Bonking Boris, but this isn't about him.
And don't forget Bob the lab tech....I am not bullshitting you, MSc student, lab techs and other individuals who aren't qualified to match their academic opinion against government scientists on anything.
This is worse than the Newsnight checklist. There are really making it seem like there are 100s of elite academics in the field disagreeing with the teams lead by CSO and CMO.
It is as valid as having a letter signed by Dr Farage and Dr Morgan.
Whereas everywhere else is banking the virus doesn't come in waves.
No, they know the virus comes in waves.
They've just made a different cost-benefit analysis decision to us.
Only time will tell who is right.
Personally, I think the UK will rapidly switch to the continental (and Asian) "shut it down" model, because the headlines of large numbers of infected, in ICU and/or dying are too serious.
In which case we have lost. By 'we' I mean everyone because we will lose far more people in the medium to long term.
I disagree.
I think the Asian "shut it down" model probably results in fewer deaths. So, you'd have a two week quarantine period every 10-12 weeks. In between, you'd see the numbers infected spike up. But you wouldn't ever let it get to a level where more than (say) 5% of the population has it. In this way, you manage to ensure your health service is never completely overwhelmed.
The problem with the Asian strategy is that it causes massive - and ongoing - economic damage compared to the effect of our government's short, sharp shock.
If a vaccine is discovered relatively quickly, then the Asian strategy will look correct. If we're still searching in 18 months, then it will look very foolish indeed.
There's nothing to stop anyone self isolating themselves.
Though I suspect there will be no shortage of people not doing so and not washing their hands but still demanding that the government 'does something'.
I know in the war there were people wanting the Nazi's to win, but it really feels like at the moment half of twitter seem to think their mission in life is to try and do everything possible to discredit the government.
I think it's a function of some people still not having grasped the seriousness of it.
Some of the idiocy goes beyond partisanship though. On the Bill Gates video someone posted earlier, there was a comment suggesting that he might be implicated in coronavirus because it's too much of a coincidence that he predicted a major pandemic...
I know in the war there were people wanting the Nazi's to win, but it really feels like at the moment half of twitter seem to think their mission in life is to try and do everything possible to discredit the government.
I am no fan of Bonking Boris, but this isn't about him.
If Johnson and the government lose the credibility to play a leadership role during this crisis the result will not be that a left-wing government takes over on a tide of public support.
The result will be that the public give up on collective action altogether and society will break down. It's exceptionally dangerous and irresponsible behaviour.
Interesting fact: in Germany and Scandinavia the current mortality rate is only twice that of seasonal flu: 0.2 vs 0.1.
There are a large number of therapies you can use to keep people alive in the most sophisticated ICUs where there is capacity.....
If Covid 19 swept through an immigrant camp in Turkey...do you still think the mortality rate will be 0.2%.
The only difference is the medical capacity and range of therapies to treat human beings who are sick. I cannot understand why you have not grasped this...and seek to use this data as some indication that there is a master race.....
This is absolutely right.
And after a few weeks of pandemic, then every country becomes, say, Nigeria dealing with cholera.
This is what we all face.
I cannot understand why Andy...a seemingly bright person...does not understand this......
Mate, you would not believe the stupidity I have faced here, on PB, for about six weeks now.
I was online diagnosed with suspected corona after coming back from Thailand with a strange flu in late Jan. After a bureaucratic fuck up I was never tested, but Public Health England was really keen for me to get the test. Anyway....
Ever since then I have had an unusual interest in this virus. I started looking at the data coming out of Wuhan, Hubei, wider China, and then east Asia in general.
I realised very early in February that there is no way a smart, aggressive, autocratic economy like China would endanger its entire model (endless growth) by closing down entire provinces, unless they thought this new coronavirus was an absolute belter, with the potential to kill many millions.
The Chinese Communist Party is many bad things, but it is not idiotic. It realises its survival depends upon near-endless growth in GDP-per-capita. So why would they risk that? Only if things were desperately bad.
The videos that then came out of Hubei Province showed that China was desperate.
That's when I realised this was deep deep shit, not just for China, but for the rest of us, as globalisation means nothing can be contained. As the elms fell to Dutch Elm Disease, as the Ashes die to Ash dieback, so humans will be felled or fucked by Covid-19.
Without the floral, flowing prose for a moment, are you of the view that you are now a corona recoveree? If so, what was it like? I’m assuming I get the fucker at some point this spring, so am trying to get info to brace myself.
I wish I could reassure you 100%, but because the NHS never tested me (in their idiocy) I cannot be certain.
My guess is that I had it. I say this not because of my own symptoms, more because of the symptoms of the people I clearly gave it to: ie my wife and her mum.
I didn't have much of the cough, but my wife did, and certainly her mum had it really bad, coughing fits that kept her up for an entire night. This is unusual for flu. Massive coughing fits but no runny nose, sneezes etc
But then (if we had it) you recover, but with a reallllllly slow recovery rate, and the post-viral symptoms drag on,
The weird thing is (IF I had it) is that, in my experience, it's not as debilitating as normal flu. It fluctuates. This too chimes with SOME other experiences.
That's the best I can offer. If I had it, it is nothing to be scared of, if you don't have a co-morbidity or you aren't over 70.
You are one of the herd now. Your duty is to protect the frail and the infirm.
One of the disheartening things is that the British government is saying that they will introduce stricter controls in the future, but everyone reacts as though they are opposed to controls altogether. So then when stricter controls are introduced later it is presented as a u-turn, rather than exactly as trailed.
I don't know if the government's strategy is the right one. My guess is that it isn't, but I am an economist not a public health expert, so I just don't know. But I am fairly certain that they will be forced to change tack. It doesn't really pass the smell test. Just seems wrong, counterintuitive, callous. The problem is, when they do change tack, their credibility will be shot to pieces. And that is a big problem, because to get through this all of us have to be on the same page. Once the public loses trust in their leaders, it could get pretty dangerous pretty quickly.
Change tack to what ?
I habve no idea. The government's whole strategy is about timing the introduction of more draconian measures. What OnlyLivingBoy calls a change of tack is actually just the next phase in the established plan.
So why not go full China now? It'll save lives....most people would go with it...I don't understand why they wouldn't? And if they don't...make them....it'll save lives
One of the disheartening things is that the British government is saying that they will introduce stricter controls in the future, but everyone reacts as though they are opposed to controls altogether. So then when stricter controls are introduced later it is presented as a u-turn, rather than exactly as trailed.
Maybe Theresa May’s presentation style (before she lost her authority) would have suited something like this.
One of the disheartening things is that the British government is saying that they will introduce stricter controls in the future, but everyone reacts as though they are opposed to controls altogether. So then when stricter controls are introduced later it is presented as a u-turn, rather than exactly as trailed.
This has been happening from the very start, the airwaves were filled with why hasn't there been COBRA meetings, where is Boris, there is no planning. The media will have known (or could have asked) and found out they started meeting at the very beginning of January. But even on the day Boris appeared and said here is the plan I just signed off on, they spun it as a last minute thing he had been bounced into.
This is actually way worse than when Hague got smashed from pillar to post over Libya, when he had actually sent the SAS in weeks before the media even started reporting....and of course they got everybody out...and yet still there was well you were a bit slow.
Interesting fact: in Germany and Scandinavia the current mortality rate is only twice that of seasonal flu: 0.2 vs 0.1.
There are a large number of therapies you can use to keep people alive in the most sophisticated ICUs where there is capacity.....
If Covid 19 swept through an immigrant camp in Turkey...do you still think the mortality rate will be 0.2%.
The only difference is the medical capacity and range of therapies to treat human beings who are sick. I cannot understand why you have not grasped this...and seek to use this data as some indication that there is a master race.....
This is absolutely right.
And after a few weeks of pandemic, then every country becomes, say, Nigeria dealing with cholera.
This is what we all face.
I cannot understand why Andy...a seemingly bright person...does not understand this......
Mate, you would not believe the stupidity I have faced here, on PB, for about six weeks now.
I was online diagnosed with suspected corona after coming back from Thailand with a strange flu in late Jan. After a bureaucratic fuck up I was never tested, but Public Health England was really keen for me to get the test. Anyway....
Ever since then I have had an unusual interest in this virus. I started looking at the data coming out of Wuhan, Hubei, wider China, and then east Asia in general.
I realised very early in February that there is no way a smart, aggressive, autocratic economy like China would endanger its entire model (endless growth) by closing down entire provinces, unless they thought this new coronavirus was an absolute belter, with the potential to kill many millions.
The Chinese Communist Party is many bad things, but it is not idiotic. It realises its survival depends upon near-endless growth in GDP-per-capita. So why would they risk that? Only if things were desperately bad.
The videos that then came out of Hubei Province showed that China was desperate.
That's when I realised this was deep deep shit, not just for China, but for the rest of us, as globalisation means nothing can be contained. As the elms fell to Dutch Elm Disease, as the Ashes die to Ash dieback, so humans will be felled or fucked by Covid-19.
Without the floral, flowing prose for a moment, are you of the view that you are now a corona recoveree? If so, what was it like? I’m assuming I get the fucker at some point this spring, so am trying to get info to brace myself.
I wish I could reassure you 100%, but because the NHS never tested me (in their idiocy) I cannot be certain.
My guess is that I had it. I say this not because of my own symptoms, more because of the symptoms of the people I clearly gave it to: ie my wife and her mum.
I didn't have much of the cough, but my wife did, and certainly her mum had it really bad, coughing fits that kept her up for an entire night. This is unusual for flu. Massive coughing fits but no runny nose, sneezes etc
But then (if we had it) you recover, but with a reallllllly slow recovery rate, and the post-viral symptoms drag on,
The weird thing is (IF I had it) is that, in my experience, it's not as debilitating as normal flu. It fluctuates. This too chimes with SOME other experiences.
That's the best I can offer. If I had it, it is nothing to be scared of, if you don't have a co-morbidity or you aren't over 70.
Thanks. To my mind, from that account, it does sound likely that you had it. No, I am relatively young (40s) and fit. I fear though for my dad and mum.
I think I might have to switch off from following the media / social media, as it might cause me to have a heart attack.
We need the nation to pull together, but it seems lots of people still have Boris Derangement Syndrome affecting their judgement.
Noting wrong with the sensible criticism / questioning such as Hunt and Ashworth have undertaken, but the rest of the crap, its like they want the virus to win just to damage Boris.
My centre-left cousin is a doctor deeply involved in the virus response from her hospital. She says they are all supportive of what Boris is trying to do.
Yep like I said yesterday, this antipathy towards the plan does not seem to be a party thing. I don't know what underlies it but there are some people simply unwilling to accept reality.
Who wouldn't wish the virus away if they could?
Believing that if we just drop everything for a couple of months will solve it in a simple way is much more attractive than "one death now to avoid two deaths later". I'm surprised Johnson went with this approach.
Thing is, it's rational to believe both that HMG are getting top-notch expert advice on how to make their big calls, but also that the advice that they dole out to Joe Bloggs may not be 100% to be trusted. Personally I'm going to take it very seriously, but it would be odd not to apply some critical filters to it. In particular public advice might be
1) Oversimplified in order to reduce complexity or apparent uncertainty,
2) Minimalist in the sense that they're going to need to repeat core messages again and again (e.g. about hand-washing) for the public to take it in, and so there may be other stuff they know would be a good idea but don't want to put in to their messaging mix just yet,
3) Not optimal for your particular risk group or risk preferences, since it would risk mixed messages to tell different people to do different things and the current focus has been on getting the general population to reduce transmission in general, not helping high-risk groups to risk-minimise (though I believe we'll be getting specific high-risk advice soon, it's likely they already know what actions have the best evidence of risk reduction but just aren't broadcasting it),
4) Tardy, either because it's a fast-moving situation (their Italy travel in particular often seemed a few steps behind) or because of their chosen timing for their messaging strategy (they must have known that over-70s shouldn't be booking cruises well before they announced that it was a bad idea),
5) Deliberately partial if they believe some things need to be concealed to help control the media narrative, eg there must be a reason only high-end rather than central or low-end estimates for % ultimately infected were published (presumably because they want to cause "the right amount" of public concern and didn't want people thinking things didn't sound too bad - even though knowing the full range of estimates would help a rational individual make more informed decisions); we can surely expect them to be particularly secretive about the timing of measures they wouldn't want people to preempt, even though more advice on that would massively help us plan our lives and behaviour!
Thing is, that doesn't mean it makes sense to turn to celebrities or random people on Twitter either, but no doubt people will. I hope that HMG err towards transparency where possible - but that's selfishly because I want to receive the best information I can, and I'm not sure it would help all that much in persuading people not to look elsewhere for advice. If HMG were to head in the direction of an information drought, no doubt that cause all kind of misinformation to propagate from other sources, but that's a risk they're well aware of.
Whereas everywhere else is banking the virus doesn't come in waves.
No, they know the virus comes in waves.
They've just made a different cost-benefit analysis decision to us.
Only time will tell who is right.
Personally, I think the UK will rapidly switch to the continental (and Asian) "shut it down" model, because the headlines of large numbers of infected, in ICU and/or dying are too serious.
In which case we have lost. By 'we' I mean everyone because we will lose far more people in the medium to long term.
I disagree.
I think the Asian "shut it down" model probably results in fewer deaths. So, you'd have a two week quarantine period every 10-12 weeks. In between, you'd see the numbers infected spike up. But you wouldn't ever let it get to a level where more than (say) 5% of the population has it. In this way, you manage to ensure your health service is never completely overwhelmed.
The problem with the Asian strategy is that it causes massive - and ongoing - economic damage compared to the effect of our government's short, sharp shock.
If a vaccine is discovered relatively quickly, then the Asian strategy will look correct. If we're still searching in 18 months, then it will look very foolish indeed.
Or if drug trials come up with effective treatments (Actemra, Remdesivir),:and treatment protocols improve. Having said what an advantage it was to be able to watch how other nations dealt with it, we just became a massive trial for the rest of the world to watch.
“ The specialist explains that it also regularly happens with regular flu that younger people end up in intensive care. "You can see that with the flu: those people get severe double-sided pneumonia." In addition, older people also choose not to be treated in intensive care.
16 year old A 16-year-old boy from Breda is infected with the coronavirus and is currently in the intensive care unit of the Erasmus MC-Sophia Children's Hospital. His family calls on the whole of the Netherlands: "Wake up and take this virus seriously."
The IC specialist also says that admissions to intensive care because of the Covid-19 virus can take weeks. ,, In Erasmus there are two patients who have been on respiration for three weeks now. All other patients on the intensive care unit are shorter. "
Dutch doctors have also been informed about patients from Lombardy, Italy, who confirm data that young and relatively healthy people are also affected by the corona virus. ,, The youngest intubated Covid-19 patient is a girl of 16 years old. Two children with Covid-19 were admitted to the pediatric IC for observation but did not require additional therapy, "the information circulated among Dutch physicians states. The first patient to be ventilated in that Italian region was ventilated for eighteen days, while he was relatively healthy. "It was a 38-year-old, otherwise very healthy man, who ran marathons for this."
Main risk factor for obesity The average age of all covid-19 ic patients in Lombardy, Italy, was 70 years, according to which "the main risk factor for ic uptake is obesity". According to that information, the transfer of corona from mother to unborn children does not seem to take place. ,, This is based on three positively tested mothers (all incidentally complaint-free) who gave birth to a child which tested negative for covid-19. The same was observed in China, "according to the information distributed to Dutch specialists based on the Italian region.
How will after event write ups in history books report this.
forward to another time another place
1. See how it spread not through poorer country’s but the richer ones who zip about on aeroplanes. Air travel not shut down quickly enough. For all the criticism of President Trump Senior in his first term, he reacted bravest on air travel. Yet still too slow, that horse had bolted. 2. Capitalism ruled earth at this point, capitalist governments plan was to protect the workers at the expense of all those who take and do not contribute. 3. It was start of what became known as the yellow cloud period, when humans struggled to control a sequence of pandemics and pollution related health issues. The worse being a form avian flu dubbed raptures, where from seemingly well to death was less than 24 hours in majority of cases.
Houston, we have a communications problem.... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51892402 Prof van Schaik noted that the UK is the only country in Europe that is following what he described as its "laissez-faire attitude to the virus". But a Department of Health and Social care spokesperson said that Sir Patrick's comments had been misinterpreted. "Herd immunity is not part of our action plan, but is a natural by-product of an epidemic. Our aims are to save lives, protect the most vulnerable, and relieve pressure on our NHS," he said. "We have now moved out of the contain phase and into delay, and we have experts working round the clock. Every measure that we have or will introduce will be based on the best scientific evidence. "Our awareness of the likely levels of immunity in the country over the coming months will ensure our planning and response is as accurate and effective as possible."
Which might come as news to those staunchly defending the herd immunity strategy over the last couple of days...
Houston, we have a communications problem.... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51892402 Prof van Schaik noted that the UK is the only country in Europe that is following what he described as its "laissez-faire attitude to the virus". But a Department of Health and Social care spokesperson said that Sir Patrick's comments had been misinterpreted. "Herd immunity is not part of our action plan, but is a natural by-product of an epidemic. Our aims are to save lives, protect the most vulnerable, and relieve pressure on our NHS," he said. "We have now moved out of the contain phase and into delay, and we have experts working round the clock. Every measure that we have or will introduce will be based on the best scientific evidence. "Our awareness of the likely levels of immunity in the country over the coming months will ensure our planning and response is as accurate and effective as possible."
Which might come as news to those staunchly defending the herd immunity strategy over the last couple of days...
Anyone care to take a stab at what government strategy actually is now ?
Houston, we have a communications problem.... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51892402 Prof van Schaik noted that the UK is the only country in Europe that is following what he described as its "laissez-faire attitude to the virus". But a Department of Health and Social care spokesperson said that Sir Patrick's comments had been misinterpreted. "Herd immunity is not part of our action plan, but is a natural by-product of an epidemic. Our aims are to save lives, protect the most vulnerable, and relieve pressure on our NHS," he said. "We have now moved out of the contain phase and into delay, and we have experts working round the clock. Every measure that we have or will introduce will be based on the best scientific evidence. "Our awareness of the likely levels of immunity in the country over the coming months will ensure our planning and response is as accurate and effective as possible."
Which might come as news to those staunchly defending the herd immunity strategy over the last couple of days...
Anyone care to take a stab at what government strategy actually is now ?
My best guess is that the 'herd immunity' messaging will not persist very long, maybe until Tuesday, next weekend at most, possibly just until the Marr show. Then the messaging will presumably revert back to the 'flattening the curve' mantra, that is mostly applied on the continent and elsewhere. School closures will be called for before the next week is over. The long-term strategy may remain fluid for a while. One can only hope for the sake of everyone that the underlying groundwork is as coherent as can be.
He probably doesn't realise it, but Trump has been very lucky.
If he's successfully repealed Obamacare, he would be doomed. If he'd managed to kick people off food stamps in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic, he would be doomed.
Houston, we have a communications problem.... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51892402 Prof van Schaik noted that the UK is the only country in Europe that is following what he described as its "laissez-faire attitude to the virus". But a Department of Health and Social care spokesperson said that Sir Patrick's comments had been misinterpreted. "Herd immunity is not part of our action plan, but is a natural by-product of an epidemic. Our aims are to save lives, protect the most vulnerable, and relieve pressure on our NHS," he said. "We have now moved out of the contain phase and into delay, and we have experts working round the clock. Every measure that we have or will introduce will be based on the best scientific evidence. "Our awareness of the likely levels of immunity in the country over the coming months will ensure our planning and response is as accurate and effective as possible."
Which might come as news to those staunchly defending the herd immunity strategy over the last couple of days...
Anyone care to take a stab at what government strategy actually is now ?
Houston, we have a communications problem.... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51892402 Prof van Schaik noted that the UK is the only country in Europe that is following what he described as its "laissez-faire attitude to the virus". But a Department of Health and Social care spokesperson said that Sir Patrick's comments had been misinterpreted. "Herd immunity is not part of our action plan, but is a natural by-product of an epidemic. Our aims are to save lives, protect the most vulnerable, and relieve pressure on our NHS," he said. "We have now moved out of the contain phase and into delay, and we have experts working round the clock. Every measure that we have or will introduce will be based on the best scientific evidence. "Our awareness of the likely levels of immunity in the country over the coming months will ensure our planning and response is as accurate and effective as possible."
Which might come as news to those staunchly defending the herd immunity strategy over the last couple of days...
Anyone care to take a stab at what government strategy actually is now ?
Delay I'd imagine. Try to time the peak for late spring/summer. Isolate the vulnerable groups (who will cause greatest resource strain if infected).
Importantly we don't know whether the Italian measures will work, if they do then contain becomes a potential option.
Then: pray to any deity that when the second wave hits towards the winter there are enough people with some level of immunity to reduce the R0 to quite near one.
I thought I was a cynic, who had seen it all in politics.
Yet, I have to say, I am genuinely stunned by the number of people on twitter who are desperate, and I mean desperate, to see the Chief Science Officer and Chief Medic wrong.
The way their tweets read. They want granny to die to prove Boris should never have trusted these guys.
It's strange how so many of them are left-wing. Usually they support the experts.
The other angle here is whether you pay attention to other countries, or whether the only authority you believe in is the *British* government.
I thought I was a cynic, who had seen it all in politics.
Yet, I have to say, I am genuinely stunned by the number of people on twitter who are desperate, and I mean desperate, to see the Chief Science Officer and Chief Medic wrong.
The way their tweets read. They want granny to die to prove Boris should never have trusted these guys.
The number in the media and partisans who think the normal rules of the game apply i.e. get a group letter signed and up-sell it as "scientists and experts" (of which basically none are experts in the field).
This isn't normal times, this is war.
The grown-ups like Dougie Alexander realise this, while Mason plays silly buggers.
This might be true if we didn't have a PM as divisive and loathsome as #boristhebutcher. He gets no quarter ever. When there are just two people left alive in the UK one will be burning him in effigy and the other will be carving a marble statue of him.
I forget - did you want that halfwit Corbyn to be PM right now?
Can you imagine what media he'd be getting if he'd done the same as Boris, right down to the weird, dangerous lie about shaking hands with infected people?
Interesting fact: in Germany and Scandinavia the current mortality rate is only twice that of seasonal flu: 0.2 vs 0.1.
There are a large number of therapies you can use to keep people alive in the most sophisticated ICUs where there is capacity.....
If Covid 19 swept through an immigrant camp in Turkey...do you still think the mortality rate will be 0.2%.
The only difference is the medical capacity and range of therapies to treat human beings who are sick. I cannot understand why you have not grasped this...and seek to use this data as some indication that there is a master race.....
The point of my post was to show what is possible, and to hope we can extend that to as many other places as we can, difficult though that may be.
I apologise if I misunderstood what you were doing.....
I think if you looked at therapies applied (against age and co-morbidity) you will see why the fatality rate is so much lower in certain countries.....
You can artificially keep a 90 year old for a longish time by keeping his lungs going and his oxygen levels up using machines......
Although the low number of people in intensive care in Germany means that isn't the whole story.
I thought I was a cynic, who had seen it all in politics.
Yet, I have to say, I am genuinely stunned by the number of people on twitter who are desperate, and I mean desperate, to see the Chief Science Officer and Chief Medic wrong.
The way their tweets read. They want granny to die to prove Boris should never have trusted these guys.
It's strange how so many of them are left-wing. Usually they support the experts.
The other angle here is whether you pay attention to other countries, or whether the only authority you believe in is the *British* government.
Yep our myopia is quite fantastic. We genuinely seem to think the only top scientists are old British white men. Never mind the phenomenal knowledge base in places who are actually experienced in dealing with this kind of deadly disease.
It's so pathetic. Brexit is partly to blame, of course. The quaint old notion that Britain is actually still a superpower.
We're not. And we're making a laughing stock of ourselves.
"how government really works - and not always work in the public's interest."
"Facebook" "trending". Who gives a flying fuck. No one has yet answered the question what countries in lockdown are going to do when the lockdown ends and international travel ramps up again. Unless you're really stupid and think every single person in the world is going to be cured by then?
"how government really works - and not always work in the public's interest."
"Facebook" "trending". Who gives a flying fuck. No one has yet answered the question what countries in lockdown are going to do when the lockdown ends and international travel ramps up again. Unless you're really stupid and think every single person in the world is going to be cured by then?
Holding back the virus for as long as possible achieves:
1. Pushing it into Northern hemisphere summer when, we hope, the virus' hold will diminish this in turn buys us time for 2a. improving and perfecting treatments 2b. building better facilities and supplies 2c. buying time for vaccine development
Johnson's mass cull is driven by economics. But it's also massively flawed. Flu viruses mutate and this one is particularly pernicious. No one knows that you can't be re-infected. Indeed, a recent case in Japan seems to suggest that you can indeed be. Which would mean 'herd immunity' is like herding the population into the gas chambers.
"how government really works - and not always work in the public's interest."
"Facebook" "trending". Who gives a flying fuck. No one has yet answered the question what countries in lockdown are going to do when the lockdown ends and international travel ramps up again. Unless you're really stupid and think every single person in the world is going to be cured by then?
Holding back the virus for as long as possible achieves:
1. Pushing it into Northern hemisphere summer when, we hope, the virus' hold will diminish this in turn buys us time for 2a. improving and perfecting treatments 2b. building better facilities and supplies 2c. buying time for vaccine development
Johnson's mass cull is driven by economics. But it's also massively flawed. Flu viruses mutate and this one is particularly pernicious. No one knows that you can't be re-infected. Indeed, a recent case in Japan seems to suggest that you can indeed be. Which would mean 'herd immunity' is like herding the population into the gas chambers.
The reality is that you can't keep asking democratic countries to go I to lockdown every 3 months for a month at a time. It might work in China, but after the second time there would be a revolution in Europe.
"how government really works - and not always work in the public's interest."
"Facebook" "trending". Who gives a flying fuck. No one has yet answered the question what countries in lockdown are going to do when the lockdown ends and international travel ramps up again. Unless you're really stupid and think every single person in the world is going to be cured by then?
Holding back the virus for as long as possible achieves:
1. Pushing it into Northern hemisphere summer when, we hope, the virus' hold will diminish this in turn buys us time for 2a. improving and perfecting treatments 2b. building better facilities and supplies 2c. buying time for vaccine development
Johnson's mass cull is driven by economics. But it's also massively flawed. Flu viruses mutate and this one is particularly pernicious. No one knows that you can't be re-infected. Indeed, a recent case in Japan seems to suggest that you can indeed be. Which would mean 'herd immunity' is like herding the population into the gas chambers.
The reality is that you can't keep asking democratic countries to go I to lockdown every 3 months for a month at a time. It might work in China, but after the second time there would be a revolution in Europe.
As the bodies pile up I think you'll find people will make the choice for themselves.
Duh.
p.s. and your 'hope' answer is the weakest response I think I've ever seen on this forum.
"how government really works - and not always work in the public's interest."
"Facebook" "trending". Who gives a flying fuck. No one has yet answered the question what countries in lockdown are going to do when the lockdown ends and international travel ramps up again. Unless you're really stupid and think every single person in the world is going to be cured by then?
I've answered this here maybe 10 times. Japan and South Korea have drastically slowed the spread with measures that (with the exception of school closures, which may be helping or may be making it worse) can be continued indefinitely. These countries are not shut down.
These measures are not dependent on eradication. They do not rely on everyone being cured. If you slow the spread so that the average infected person passes it on to less than one person, you'll keep getting clusters but they'll fizzle out rather than growing until everyone is infected.
They've done this to prevent widespread infection from happening in the first place, but it's not obvious that they wouldn't also work phased in emerging from a lockdown.
This is before you do all the things that could slow transmission given time to organize them, like China's pipeline of temperature reading -> dedicated fever clinic -> tests of escalating cost -> quarantine hospital.
It's true that it's not *certain* that this will work, but it's ridiculous to act as if there's no plausible alternative to the British approach, whatever that it.
This is a really pernicious virus which is highly contagious. Playing with people's lives through an experiment in herd immunity is a disgrace. I know plenty of right-leaning friends who think the same.
Anyway, as I say, once the bodies begin piling up people won't happily herd.
"how government really works - and not always work in the public's interest."
"Facebook" "trending". Who gives a flying fuck. No one has yet answered the question what countries in lockdown are going to do when the lockdown ends and international travel ramps up again. Unless you're really stupid and think every single person in the world is going to be cured by then?
Holding back the virus for as long as possible achieves:
1. Pushing it into Northern hemisphere summer when, we hope, the virus' hold will diminish this in turn buys us time for 2a. improving and perfecting treatments 2b. building better facilities and supplies 2c. buying time for vaccine development
Johnson's mass cull is driven by economics. But it's also massively flawed. Flu viruses mutate and this one is particularly pernicious. No one knows that you can't be re-infected. Indeed, a recent case in Japan seems to suggest that you can indeed be. Which would mean 'herd immunity' is like herding the population into the gas chambers.
"how government really works - and not always work in the public's interest."
"Facebook" "trending". Who gives a flying fuck. No one has yet answered the question what countries in lockdown are going to do when the lockdown ends and international travel ramps up again. Unless you're really stupid and think every single person in the world is going to be cured by then?
I've answered this here maybe 10 times. Japan and South Korea have drastically slowed the spread with measures that (with the exception of school closures, which may be helping or may be making it worse) can be continued indefinitely. These countries are not shut down.
These measures are not dependent on eradication. They do not rely on everyone being cured. If you slow the spread so that the average infected person passes it on to less than one person, you'll keep getting clusters but they'll fizzle out rather than growing until everyone is infected.
They've done this to prevent widespread infection from happening in the first place, but it's not obvious that they wouldn't also work phased in emerging from a lockdown.
This is before you do all the things that could slow transmission given time to organize them, like China's pipeline of temperature reading -> dedicated fever clinic -> tests of escalating cost -> quarantine hospital.
It's true that it's not *certain* that this will work, but it's ridiculous to act as if there's no plausible alternative to the British approach, whatever that it.
Nailed it.
I find it gobsmacking that we can be so flaming arrogant as to think Britain knows best. It's evident that we should be taking our lead from China, Japan, South Korea whose efforts to get on top of this are outstanding.
Jeez, some people are totally losing their minds, both here and elsewhere.
I also get the impression that half of British Twitter in 1942 would have been supporting the Nazis, and the BBC would have made sure their view was represented on the news every night.
Regardless of the prophylactic merits or otherwise of Johnson's genocide project the communication has been bungled and the #boristhebutcher name is going to stick.
Off the record, and therefore deniable, briefings relating to COVID-19 to selected journalists are a very bad look. Journalists with any integrity would refuse to report them. There is a duty right now to avoid any ambiguities. Confusion can quite literally be a killer. It’s time for all to be grown-up.
"how government really works - and not always work in the public's interest."
"Facebook" "trending". Who gives a flying fuck. No one has yet answered the question what countries in lockdown are going to do when the lockdown ends and international travel ramps up again. Unless you're really stupid and think every single person in the world is going to be cured by then?
I've answered this here maybe 10 times. Japan and South Korea have drastically slowed the spread with measures that (with the exception of school closures, which may be helping or may be making it worse) can be continued indefinitely. These countries are not shut down.
These measures are not dependent on eradication. They do not rely on everyone being cured. If you slow the spread so that the average infected person passes it on to less than one person, you'll keep getting clusters but they'll fizzle out rather than growing until everyone is infected.
They've done this to prevent widespread infection from happening in the first place, but it's not obvious that they wouldn't also work phased in emerging from a lockdown.
This is before you do all the things that could slow transmission given time to organize them, like China's pipeline of temperature reading -> dedicated fever clinic -> tests of escalating cost -> quarantine hospital.
It's true that it's not *certain* that this will work, but it's ridiculous to act as if there's no plausible alternative to the British approach, whatever that it.
I agree with a lot of that, however, South Korea and Japan are countries used to this kind of pandemic style emergency. How likely is it that we can implement widespread mask wearing in public, rigorous hygiene and social isolation measures in the same way that Japan and SK have done. I think it's worth attempting and for the government to send a 20 pack of masks to every household and make wearing them in public mandatory until further notice along with good quality soap and hand washing instructions. Ultimately it's up to the individual to follow the guidelines. You live in Japan, I've been there countless times, though people are fairly individual, they have a collectivist "for the greater good" kind of attitude we don't have anywhere in Europe let alone the UK.
Jeez, some people are totally losing their minds, both here and elsewhere.
I also get the impression that half of British Twitter in 1942 would have been supporting the Nazis, and the BBC would have made sure their view was represented on the news every night.
The virus can’t read. I am very sympathetic to the difficulties the government faces with this challenge but self-evidently there are other courses of action. They can and should be aired.
If the government starts from a position of lacking credibility with a lot of the public, its supporters might usefully reflect that is a product of its extreme majoritarianism.
Jeez, some people are totally losing their minds, both here and elsewhere.
I also get the impression that half of British Twitter in 1942 would have been supporting the Nazis, and the BBC would have made sure their view was represented on the news every night.
The virus can’t read. I am very sympathetic to the difficulties the government faces with this challenge but self-evidently there are other courses of action. They can and should be aired.
If the government starts from a position of lacking credibility with a lot of the public, its supporters might usefully reflect that is a product of its extreme majoritarianism.
The problem the government has is this. I reckon most of the public aren't worried by this. My dad certainly isn't, though he has just said that the government should bring in ration cards.
What is giving the impression that a lot of the public are concerned is that a lot of the twitterati and the media are piling in on the government.
What concerns me a little bit is the talk that legislation is needed to put in place some of the more extreme measures. Has that happened elsewhere in the world? Or is democracy at times of crisis another example of British exceptionalism?
Off the record, and therefore deniable, briefings relating to COVID-19 to selected journalists are a very bad look. Journalists with any integrity would refuse to report them. There is a duty right now to avoid any ambiguities. Confusion can quite literally be a killer. It’s time for all to be grown-up.
Yes, I think it's time for the government to have a much better approach to communicating everything with the public. One source of truth, whether that's the PM, Matt Hancock or some other spokesperson. All information should also be on an official website for the public to access easily rather than having to find out in some newspaper or via BBC news.
Jeez, some people are totally losing their minds, both here and elsewhere.
I also get the impression that half of British Twitter in 1942 would have been supporting the Nazis, and the BBC would have made sure their view was represented on the news every night.
The virus can’t read. I am very sympathetic to the difficulties the government faces with this challenge but self-evidently there are other courses of action. They can and should be aired.
If the government starts from a position of lacking credibility with a lot of the public, its supporters might usefully reflect that is a product of its extreme majoritarianism.
The problem the government has is this. I reckon most of the public aren't worried by this. My dad certainly isn't, though he has just said that the government should bring in ration cards.
What is giving the impression that a lot of the public are concerned is that a lot of the twitterati and the media are piling in on the government.
What concerns me a little bit is the talk that legislation is needed to put in place some of the more extreme measures. Has that happened elsewhere in the world? Or is democracy at times of crisis another example of British exceptionalism?
There is polling on this. The government has the support of at least a plurality for its handling of this. A substantial minority, however, do not support it.
Comments
This might be true if we didn't have a PM as divisive and loathsome as #boristhebutcher. He gets no quarter ever. When there are just two people left alive in the UK one will be burning him in effigy and the other will be carving a marble statue of him.
https://twitter.com/Prof_S_Taylor/status/1238598239902994433
Please repost tomorrow when more of PB is online.
I'll tell you why this matters.....my wife (Italian) is really worried that Italians seem to have a higher fatality rate....
You see...this kind of stuff that people put out there matters...it impacts on people.....
Compare Apples to Apples...people will live and die in exactly the same way as the result of Covid 19...the difference depends on health interventions....
I wish Andy didn't carry on putting this shit out to be honest....
Are you now taking it seriously?
That isn't the National Health Service, that is the Youth Hostel Associaition.
It's also complete bollocks.
Actually a massive temporary increase in benefit payments is the best way of injecting cash - as poorer groups are much more likely to spend than save.
Of course most people don't look at issues like this they way someone like Herman Kahn would have.
I think the Asian "shut it down" model probably results in fewer deaths. So, you'd have a two week quarantine period every 10-12 weeks. In between, you'd see the numbers infected spike up. But you wouldn't ever let it get to a level where more than (say) 5% of the population has it. In this way, you manage to ensure your health service is never completely overwhelmed.
The problem with the Asian strategy is that it causes massive - and ongoing - economic damage compared to the effect of our government's short, sharp shock.
If a vaccine is discovered relatively quickly, then the Asian strategy will look correct. If we're still searching in 18 months, then it will look very foolish indeed.
I think if you looked at therapies applied (against age and co-morbidity) you will see why the fatality rate is so much lower in certain countries.....
You can artificially keep a 90 year old for a longish time by keeping his lungs going and his oxygen levels up using machines......
Thus, in this particular case, most people may be very nervous about whether or not the Government is calling this right but they will be united in wanting its strategy to succeed - regardless of whether or not they're inclined to give Boris any credit for it.
https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/484942-japan-confirms-first-case-of-person-reinfected
But I also think @OnlyLivingBoy is correct. You see, the optimal point to enforce a quarantine is when quite a lot of people have the virus. You then slam the brakes on and go to almost zero infections in a short period of time.
The risk of doing it this way, though, is that you mistime it, and the number infected overwhelms the health service, because there are one million people with the virus, and 80,000 of them want to use intensive care at the same time.
I therefore think the UK is going to end up declaring a "shut down" sooner than the science advisors would like.
https://www.ted.com/talks/the_ted_interview_adam_kucharski_on_what_should_and_shouldn_t_worry_us_about_the_coronavirus
Try going to 19:30 on this interview to understand what's off with your approach. The whole thing's worth listening to though.
Normally social niceties and a security guard are enough to deal with the odd stroppy punter, but we're not living through normal times here. If and when the panic becomes sufficiently acute then a deputy manager backed up by a fat bloke in a blue pullover are going to be no more use in restoring order than they were during the 2011 riots.
https://nextstrain.org/ncov?c=gt-ORF8_84&r=country
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/scientists-identified-strains-covid-19/story?id=69391954
Firstly because the risks being a little late would be higher than in being a little early.
Secondly because there will be a level of people ignoring a shut down.
OnlyLivingBoy comes across as wanting to complain whatever the government is doing.
Why have Italy closed down.....and other European state done the same...
We are going to close down too.....the herd stuff will just seem stupid in a week...
This thing if horrendous...we were posting last night..and I made a point the legacy of Covid 19 will last for generations....and someone dissed it...
That legacy is already here....it's already an event that eclipses anything else since 1939......
I am no fan of Bonking Boris, but this isn't about him.
In other news, the weak in the herd must be culled so that the herd may continue to go to the pub.
Shame on the BBC for promoting this.
This is worse than the Newsnight checklist. There are really making it seem like there are 100s of elite academics in the field disagreeing with the teams lead by CSO and CMO.
It is as valid as having a letter signed by Dr Farage and Dr Morgan.
Though I suspect there will be no shortage of people not doing so and not washing their hands but still demanding that the government 'does something'.
Some of the idiocy goes beyond partisanship though. On the Bill Gates video someone posted earlier, there was a comment suggesting that he might be implicated in coronavirus because it's too much of a coincidence that he predicted a major pandemic...
The result will be that the public give up on collective action altogether and society will break down. It's exceptionally dangerous and irresponsible behaviour.
This is actually way worse than when Hague got smashed from pillar to post over Libya, when he had actually sent the SAS in weeks before the media even started reporting....and of course they got everybody out...and yet still there was well you were a bit slow.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/14/politics/food-stamps-work-requirements-usda-rule-blocked/index.html
Believing that if we just drop everything for a couple of months will solve it in a simple way is much more attractive than "one death now to avoid two deaths later". I'm surprised Johnson went with this approach.
1) Oversimplified in order to reduce complexity or apparent uncertainty,
2) Minimalist in the sense that they're going to need to repeat core messages again and again (e.g. about hand-washing) for the public to take it in, and so there may be other stuff they know would be a good idea but don't want to put in to their messaging mix just yet,
3) Not optimal for your particular risk group or risk preferences, since it would risk mixed messages to tell different people to do different things and the current focus has been on getting the general population to reduce transmission in general, not helping high-risk groups to risk-minimise (though I believe we'll be getting specific high-risk advice soon, it's likely they already know what actions have the best evidence of risk reduction but just aren't broadcasting it),
4) Tardy, either because it's a fast-moving situation (their Italy travel in particular often seemed a few steps behind) or because of their chosen timing for their messaging strategy (they must have known that over-70s shouldn't be booking cruises well before they announced that it was a bad idea),
5) Deliberately partial if they believe some things need to be concealed to help control the media narrative, eg there must be a reason only high-end rather than central or low-end estimates for % ultimately infected were published (presumably because they want to cause "the right amount" of public concern and didn't want people thinking things didn't sound too bad - even though knowing the full range of estimates would help a rational individual make more informed decisions); we can surely expect them to be particularly secretive about the timing of measures they wouldn't want people to preempt, even though more advice on that would massively help us plan our lives and behaviour!
Thing is, that doesn't mean it makes sense to turn to celebrities or random people on Twitter either, but no doubt people will. I hope that HMG err towards transparency where possible - but that's selfishly because I want to receive the best information I can, and I'm not sure it would help all that much in persuading people not to look elsewhere for advice. If HMG were to head in the direction of an information drought, no doubt that cause all kind of misinformation to propagate from other sources, but that's a risk they're well aware of.
Having said what an advantage it was to be able to watch how other nations dealt with it, we just became a massive trial for the rest of the world to watch.
16 year old
A 16-year-old boy from Breda is infected with the coronavirus and is currently in the intensive care unit of the Erasmus MC-Sophia Children's Hospital. His family calls on the whole of the Netherlands: "Wake up and take this virus seriously."
The IC specialist also says that admissions to intensive care because of the Covid-19 virus can take weeks. ,, In Erasmus there are two patients who have been on respiration for three weeks now. All other patients on the intensive care unit are shorter. "
Dutch doctors have also been informed about patients from Lombardy, Italy, who confirm data that young and relatively healthy people are also affected by the corona virus. ,, The youngest intubated Covid-19 patient is a girl of 16 years old. Two children with Covid-19 were admitted to the pediatric IC for observation but did not require additional therapy, "the information circulated among Dutch physicians states. The first patient to be ventilated in that Italian region was ventilated for eighteen days, while he was relatively healthy. "It was a 38-year-old, otherwise very healthy man, who ran marathons for this."
Main risk factor for obesity
The average age of all covid-19 ic patients in Lombardy, Italy, was 70 years, according to which "the main risk factor for ic uptake is obesity". According to that information, the transfer of corona from mother to unborn children does not seem to take place. ,, This is based on three positively tested mothers (all incidentally complaint-free) who gave birth to a child which tested negative for covid-19. The same was observed in China, "according to the information distributed to Dutch specialists based on the Italian region.
forward to another time another place
1. See how it spread not through poorer country’s but the richer ones who zip about on aeroplanes. Air travel not shut down quickly enough. For all the criticism of President Trump Senior in his first term, he reacted bravest on air travel. Yet still too slow, that horse had bolted.
2. Capitalism ruled earth at this point, capitalist governments plan was to protect the workers at the expense of all those who take and do not contribute.
3. It was start of what became known as the yellow cloud period, when humans struggled to control a sequence of pandemics and pollution related health issues. The worse being a form avian flu dubbed raptures, where from seemingly well to death was less than 24 hours in majority of cases.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51892402
Prof van Schaik noted that the UK is the only country in Europe that is following what he described as its "laissez-faire attitude to the virus".
But a Department of Health and Social care spokesperson said that Sir Patrick's comments had been misinterpreted.
"Herd immunity is not part of our action plan, but is a natural by-product of an epidemic. Our aims are to save lives, protect the most vulnerable, and relieve pressure on our NHS," he said.
"We have now moved out of the contain phase and into delay, and we have experts working round the clock. Every measure that we have or will introduce will be based on the best scientific evidence.
"Our awareness of the likely levels of immunity in the country over the coming months will ensure our planning and response is as accurate and effective as possible."
Which might come as news to those staunchly defending the herd immunity strategy over the last couple of days...
https://twitter.com/Biomaven/status/1239007297277485057
Then the messaging will presumably revert back to the 'flattening the curve' mantra, that is mostly applied on the continent and elsewhere.
School closures will be called for before the next week is over.
The long-term strategy may remain fluid for a while. One can only hope for the sake of everyone that the underlying groundwork is as coherent as can be.
If he's successfully repealed Obamacare, he would be doomed.
If he'd managed to kick people off food stamps in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic, he would be doomed.
I think.
Importantly we don't know whether the Italian measures will work, if they do then contain becomes a potential option.
Then: pray to any deity that when the second wave hits towards the winter there are enough people with some level of immunity to reduce the R0 to quite near one.
https://twitter.com/Yamiche/status/1238969365128777729
https://twitter.com/actufrparis/status/1238811544290504705?s=20
Facebook in meltdown as the penny finally drops for all the muppets who voted for him.
I have no intention of participating in Boris Johnson's mass cull experiment if I can possibly help it.
Don't care if a few voices on here attempt to shout me down. No one I know thinks this is an even remotely good idea.
And just remember, the top scientists tried to convince us for years that it was impossible to contract CJD through BSE beef.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/oct/29/bse.focus1
"how government really works - and not always work in the public's interest."
https://twitter.com/LaylaMoran/status/1238834823667556353?s=20
It's so pathetic. Brexit is partly to blame, of course. The quaint old notion that Britain is actually still a superpower.
We're not. And we're making a laughing stock of ourselves.
The talk about nudge units and herd immunity just sounds idiotic
1. Pushing it into Northern hemisphere summer when, we hope, the virus' hold will diminish this in turn buys us time for
2a. improving and perfecting treatments
2b. building better facilities and supplies
2c. buying time for vaccine development
Johnson's mass cull is driven by economics. But it's also massively flawed. Flu viruses mutate and this one is particularly pernicious. No one knows that you can't be re-infected. Indeed, a recent case in Japan seems to suggest that you can indeed be. Which would mean 'herd immunity' is like herding the population into the gas chambers.
https://twitter.com/Lowkey0nline/status/1238982122712465414?s=20
2. Hope
3. Hope
4. Hope
Also, that was proved to be fake news.
The reality is that you can't keep asking democratic countries to go I to lockdown every 3 months for a month at a time. It might work in China, but after the second time there would be a revolution in Europe.
Duh.
p.s. and your 'hope' answer is the weakest response I think I've ever seen on this forum.
These measures are not dependent on eradication. They do not rely on everyone being cured. If you slow the spread so that the average infected person passes it on to less than one person, you'll keep getting clusters but they'll fizzle out rather than growing until everyone is infected.
They've done this to prevent widespread infection from happening in the first place, but it's not obvious that they wouldn't also work phased in emerging from a lockdown.
This is before you do all the things that could slow transmission given time to organize them, like China's pipeline of temperature reading -> dedicated fever clinic -> tests of escalating cost -> quarantine hospital.
It's true that it's not *certain* that this will work, but it's ridiculous to act as if there's no plausible alternative to the British approach, whatever that it.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-13/china-japan-korea-coronavirus-reinfection-test-positive
This is a really pernicious virus which is highly contagious. Playing with people's lives through an experiment in herd immunity is a disgrace. I know plenty of right-leaning friends who think the same.
Anyway, as I say, once the bodies begin piling up people won't happily herd.
I find it gobsmacking that we can be so flaming arrogant as to think Britain knows best. It's evident that we should be taking our lead from China, Japan, South Korea whose efforts to get on top of this are outstanding.
I also get the impression that half of British Twitter in 1942 would have been supporting the Nazis, and the BBC would have made sure their view was represented on the news every night.
It's still worth trying, though.
If the government starts from a position of lacking credibility with a lot of the public, its supporters might usefully reflect that is a product of its extreme majoritarianism.
What is giving the impression that a lot of the public are concerned is that a lot of the twitterati and the media are piling in on the government.
What concerns me a little bit is the talk that legislation is needed to put in place some of the more extreme measures. Has that happened elsewhere in the world? Or is democracy at times of crisis another example of British exceptionalism?
Poor decisions can emerge from any system of judicial oversight. The government’s real objection is that it is being overseen.
https://twitter.com/yougov/status/1238516889195708416?s=21
https://twitter.com/johnrentoul/status/1238892743210012674?s=21
The views of that substantial minority should be heard.