Coronavirus outbreak

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AndyRM

XOXO
Location
North Shields
I am a fan, as you know, but leaving that aside I thought he appeared well briefed and on top of things.

Despite being a fan, I fully accept that to a degree he is a chancer and often seems to get away with 'winging it'.

Encouraging, at least for me, to see that he does have the capability to be a serious politician.

I for one welcome our new Corona Overlords and the unity they appear to have brought to CC.
 
This is where i'm heading for but don't tell anybody. :whistle:
Nucleur Bunker.jpg
 
If I didn't have to return 'home' to give support to my 88 yr old mother then I would have stayed in the caravan in the deepest of Dale's in N. Yorks for a couple of months and told work I either would or would t have a job to go back to, their choice, unfortunately no doubt I would have been arrested for abandonment.
 

fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
This crisis is likely to affect jobs of many of my family. Nephew is a chef at a top restaurant, SIL is a swimming Teacher, other SIL/BIL have own electrical shop, other nephew works for Old Trafford Cricket.

My sis has friends that are both pilots. One was with flybe. They have a huge mortgage and recon can only afford another month.
 

stowie

Legendary Member
I think there are some factual issues with your post - but having read some of your posts, I suspect you won't mind me saying what I think they are, and I am saying it here only because such fallacies are the very basis of the decisions made by our Government, tragically:

No problem!

o vaccine" does not logically follow that "any measures will only delay the spread of the virus". There is still no vaccine for SARS (or the more recent MERS and EBOLA), but SARS was declared contained by the WHO in 2003, one year after it broke out. It infected 8000 people killing nearly 10% of them. It was "starved" out by isolation, like what China is doing with COVID-19 - do you know that China only found 25 new cases today, while Italy found 3500? I appreciate many do not believe Chinese statistics, with or without good reason, but if you look, you will see Korea is going the same way as China. If Italy had not been complacent, and had learnt the lessons from China, the Italian number would likely have been close to zero today, just like Hongkong's. So no, it is not true that measures will only delay the spread of the virus - measures can eliminate virus quickly leading to relatively very few if any ever getting infected, without a vaccine, and for a long time.

I think SARS is slightly different. From what I read, although the mortality rate was much worse, the virus was only contagious once symptons were showing, and the symptons were generally so bad that the patient would be in hospital by that time. COVID-19 is more effective as a virus since it appears more transmissable (is that a word?) than SARS and the symptons can be light enough for people to continue with their activities thinking they have only a heavy cold. Ebola is way on the other end of the scale - not transmissable without physical contact and so deadly that it is actually counterproductive for the virus - patients just are critically ill and die too quickly for them to spread the virus.

But it is a series of unknowns.

You say "a big recession will harm people as well." That is patently true, however the question I would like you to consider, is whether an economy would be less damaged if only 5000 were infected, or 50,000 (the very minimum I wager Italy will end up with), or perhaps 40 millions (the minimum to achieve "herd immunity" in UK as our Chief Scientific Adviser has been suggesting)? Why would the former be a less preferred outcome, by earlier intervention, when it causes fewer deaths, allows earlier relaxation of intervention, less disruption etc.? How can that be inferior economically? We are only two weeks behind the bloodbath that is Italy - is that preferable economically?

Again, a real unknown. It is also won't help too much to be economically sound if the rest of the world is going through a deep recession. We won't be immune from the events in other countries - especially Europe. My comment was more a reflection on tweets I have seen berating the government for considering the economic implications. Well, of course they are - and it only moral to do so as deep recessions hurt people - generally those who can least afford it.

ou wrote "liberal democracies won't take to indeterminate lock-downs in the same way as possibly the Chinese system might. Lock down now and it is possible that when it is really required then people will have become complacent and unwilling to comply." I don't know what sort of period you are talking about that you think is required for "lockdown", but even in Hubei, they unblocked Qianjiang, a city of 1 million, two days ago. All Apple stores are now open in China apparently. In Hongkong, there was never even a lockdown per se, simply most people who could work from home did so, schools closed, mass gatherings stopped etc. What I do know, is that people in Hongkong are very glad they are not in Italy, or Britain. What makes you think Brits would think differently when they look across the pond towards USA in a few weeks' time? I hear people in Italy are angry that their directives from the Government came so late!

Qioanjiang has been in lockdown since mid Jan, only just being released now. And the measures were tough. It is also not certain what will happen when these prvinces return back to normal - but China will no doubt lock them down again if COVID-19 cases increase. I don't wish to labour the point on "cultural differences" but it has to be considered - Chinese people are far more used to state intervention whilst we are not. My cousin lives in China and knows Chinese students in the UK are returning home because they are unhappy that our government isn't locking down everywhere. They appear to have an expectation of heavy state intervention which we simply aren't used to.

Us Brits do like to imagine we have a stoic attitude in the face of adversity with "The Blitz" being cited. And to some extent that might be true, but it is a cliche which hasn't needed to be tested for decades. The UK doesn't have major natural crises like other countries. On the other end of the cliche spectrum people were phoning 999 when KFC ran out of chicken, and are stockpiling bog roll now for reasons that seem rather elusive.

I think the government is hoping that a Hong Kong approach will work in the UK because I think we should have concerns over lockdown strategies.

Knowing the strategy is important, because what the government is doing, or more accurately not doing, is anything but flattening the curve - we can all see that without serious intervention the curve is growing exponentially. What can possibly be the benefit of that?

In my view nobody knows what the government's "position" is - if we knew we would have understood how on earth a delay in social distancing e.g., will delay the explosion of the number infected, when it obviously WILL lead to far more getting infected and die, taking the economy/society longer to recover. How can it possibly be beneficial socially and economically? Do you know?

If you don't know, why would you say "the government's position makes certain sense"?

The government's communications suck. Today it appears that they are using the old technique of off the record briefings which are deeply inappropriate for this time. Matt Hancock apparently was talking about engineering companies such as Rolls Royce repurposing for medical equipment. This is laughable.

But when the government medical experts talk, I think their strategy makes logical sense. It may turn out to be the wrong approach, who knows at the moment? But I understand the logic to it. My understanding is that they aim to take measures to try to slow the spread with plans in place to lockdown quickly when the spread starts to accelerate. The leaking around the elderly and vulnerable being encouraged to isolate seems to make sense to me as well - try to keep those worst affected away from the virus whilst hoping that those healthy will help contain the spread with developed immunity.

It is a big risk. We are still not 100% sure that those who have had the virus actually exhibit effective immunity. But everything is a risk. Lock down entire regions and the risk is that the virus starts spreading quickly again as soon as the lockdown is lifted.

In all cases, I think this virus will be with us for at least another 12 months.
 

RecordAceFromNew

Swinging Member
Location
West London
In what way is UK strategy looking inept?

Every western country is adopting a herd immunity strategy
in which a lot of people get infected and the immunity stops the spread. All that is differing is the methodology to achieve herd immunity

The present R0 is about 2.3 and this requires about 60% to become infected to stop it. This % is highly susceptible to the R0. Normal flu is 1.3 and that requires about 25% to stop it in its tracks.

Every western country is trying to reduce the R0.
Do you realise what 25% infected means? It would mean 25% x 60m x 3.4% or more will die, that is 510,000 souls. Fatality won't be 1%, because with 15m infected within a few months ICUs will be completely and utterly swamped. In fact with 25% infected, we will be lucky if fatality is not 5% for reasons explained in the article I recommended - have you read it?

3000 died in China. Today they only had 25 new cases. 100,000 got infected, which represents 0.17% of Hubei, or 0.007% of China. How on earth, as CMO or CSA, will you be able to stand up in front of the country/world with 510,000 dead under your leadership with your advice?

Have you been reading the news about France and Spain? Both countries implemented lockdown like Italy yesterday. Of course every country is trying to reduce R0, but they are NOT trying to get to herd immunity for the reason of fatalities above - China, Hongkong, Singapore and now South Korea are showing it does not take herd immunity to kill it. It just takes isolation, i.e. to ensure R0 is less than 1. That happened to SARS.
 

nickyboy

Norven Mankey
I watched the PMs press conference last week, with the health and science advisors present and I thought the approach they were presenting to be very sensible and reasonable. The exponential growth of this thing though has me thinking that maybe we’re not doing nearly enough. the only thing that seems to combat this thing anything like effectively is complete lockdown- look at the China figures in that paper up thread.
I just heard the health secretary on the radio saying he felt that asking people to self isolate at this stage for 4 weeks would be too much, that they’d get bored, and I do agree it sounds like hell, but better bored than dead.
Two issues with the China comparison

1) No western country would be able, politically, to do what PRC did. None are, not even Italy
2) China remains extremely vulnerable to a second wave. 99% of their population has no immunity and there will be no vaccine until 2021.

To reiterate, every western country is taking the herd immunity strategy. The only difference really is how aggressive the steps are to bring the R0 number down

I expect pubs and restaurants in UK to be closed soon. This is a measure to reduce the R0. It doesn't "stop the virus". The reason HK managed to stop the virus was because the population knew what to do to get the R0 down to less than 1. We are learning.

I think we all need to accept the fact that a lot of people are going to get infected (Germany estimates 60% of its population). The key is how to reduce the % (by getting the R0 down) and shielding the most vulnerable from infection whilst this happens
 

Buck

Guru
Location
Yorkshire
I don't know even know what the strategy is ??

It's like with the football - the decision was handed to the footballing authorities.

I know someone who is stranded in the canaries - the guidance quite robustly - is that you must stay indoors.

Here in the UK - half of us don't know if we should go to work tommorow. I work for a hospital and asked HR about home working - they didn't know.....

I saw a doctor being interviewed about bringing retired doctors into service and fast tracking junior doctors - he said he hadn't heard a thing....

a general comment to all of this is why do we all need to know everything about the strategy? To an extent this is a PR exercise in that we need to keep people informed but this should be drip fed based on current assessments.
Too many people feel they need to know everything but to what aim?

Ref work, then until you are told differently then I would go in. I too work in the NHS and I am expecting that tomorrow my role may well be different in that I could be supporting the front line teams in their roles? Not sure what your job is in the hospital but it could be the same for you?
 

nickyboy

Norven Mankey
Do you realise what 25% infected means? It would mean 25% x 60m x 3.4% or more will die, that is 510,000 souls. Fatality won't be 1%, because with 15m infected within a few months ICUs will be completely and utterly swamped. In fact with 25% infected, we will be lucky if fatality is not 5% for reasons explained in the article I recommended - have you read it?

3000 died in China. Today they only had 25 new cases. 100,000 got infected, which represents 0.17% of Hubei, or 0.007% of China. How on earth, as CMO or CSA, will you be able to stand up in front of the country/world with 510,000 dead under your leadership with your advice?

Have you been reading the news about France and Spain? Both countries implemented lockdown like Italy yesterday. Of course every country is trying to reduce R0, but they are NOT trying to get to herd immunity for the reason of fatalities above - China, Hongkong, Singapore and now South Korea are showing it does not take herd immunity to kill it. It just takes isolation, i.e. to ensure R0 is less than 1. That happened to SARS.
France hasn't implemented lockdown. It's closed bars and restaurants, just as I expect UK will do soon. The only countries to adopt lockdown are Italy and Spain. Every other European country has broadly the same approach as UK

Maybe UK lockdown will come, who knows? We are certainly going to lock down the elderly who are the ones who would swamp ICU.

It seems we are only disagreeing on the extent of a lockdown. Italy and Spain have gone for all people. UK will lockdown the elderly. Every other country hasn't announced anything
 
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