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the ramp up of the let everyone out to save the Economy rhetoric seems to be starting again.
I don't think it's rhetoric. It's a discussion that needs to be had. It's a fact that a depression worse than that in the 1930s will lead to more deaths and more hardship than this particular virus. The question is, how do you respond to that?
g again.
S.Korea seems to have shown that this can be managed without sacrificing the sick and elderly which seems to be the desire of a few.
South Korea had the good fortune foresight of starting from a better base, they were more prepared for this in terms of contact tracing, PPE and healthcare.
Hmm only 2 weeks of lockdown and the ramp up of the let everyone out to save the Economy rhetoric seems to be starting again.
I wondered whether this is being put about to encourage people to stay at home this weekend, by telling them that there is an end in sight, and not too far (relatively speaking) away.
If China is reopening/returning to work, then they must have a viable exit strategy, other than allowing everyone to catch the virus?
Using testing as a way out is looking increasingly unlikely.
It’s a fact that a depression worse than that in the 1930s will lead to more deaths and more hardship than this particular virus
Evidence please.
Also loving the "we're in lockdown, and less people are dying. Why are we in lockdown?" takes.
In the meantime, here is some reading on "economy vs lives":
https://twitter.com/julianHjessop/status/1246026143486095360
Which we will have to do.(tracing testing etc)
The naive complacency that these things happen to others and not us is er gone, these virus things do have a habit of coming back.
It’s a fact that a depression worse than that in the 1930s will lead to more deaths and more hardship than this particular virus
You might not actually be able to avoid the depression. Letting it rip through the population will do damage. I don't really think we should be taking that gamble.
For example: it would be fair to assume part of the price for let it burn is going to included a lot of health care professionals. Never mind selling the Granny are we ready to sacrifice the people who keep us fit and well for a bit of profit?
Queen being wheeled out to lock us down further?
I don't think the monarch would be used in this way. It's for government to make (and announce) policy. It'll probably be a "stiff upper lip, do your bit for the country" sort of thing.
I'm pinning my hopes on science coming up with some kind of treatment to mitigate the effects of infection as I'm not convinced a vacine will be forthcoming.
Hopefully in next month or 2 someone will stumble across some cocktail of existing drugs that massively reduces the impact it has on people.
Wishful thinking perhaps but it's comforting to know that the world's best minds are working 24/7 to find a solution
the more cases you have to deal with at any one time the more health workers you need and the more you will expose
This.
Wishful thinking perhaps but it’s comforting to know that the world’s best minds are working 24/7 to find a solution
I think we've all had enough of experts.
When this is done and dusted I think Gove, Boris, and co should crawl in sackcloth from Westminster to UCL, on to Oxford, back to Cambridge and all the other places to thank those 'experts' for digging them out.
Lot's of talk and China and South Korea having cracked it.
Have they?
Not everyone trust China numbers and we know they've outright lied about flu deaths for decades. Even if we do trust their numbers according to R4 Today the Chinese 'end of lockdown' means they are allowed out for 2 hours a day to do shopping. That's a pretty loose definition of end of lockdown. Again by definition very few people in China now have any resistance to CV. So where to they go next? Isolate themselves from the world until a vaccine is found?
South Korea: We do trust their figures and they don't even have a lockdown. But what is their next step? I've no idea what flights are allowed into South Korea but they have substantial US military bases and significant trade? Are they really able to antigen test everyone who enters the country? ...and if they do for how long, there's a world shortage of anti-gen tests so testing every entry to the country can't be practical. Or are they banning incoming travel until an antibody test comes along? Google isn't helping me with South Korea's exit strategy, anyone point me to a credible link to it?
Hopefully in next month or 2 someone will stumble across some cocktail of existing drugs that massively reduces the impact it has on people.
It's pretty clear an antibody test will be the first thing to arrive and will start to free people up to function normally. No doubt treatment will improve over time too. Also we'll learn more about the virus itself. I suspect the exit strategy for everywhere - (including South Korea and China) will be a gradual improvement of every aspect rather than a single silver bullet.
The world *will* end up with herd immunity.
@raybanwomble - have you read Nate Silver, "The Signal and the Noise"?
I've not read it, it has been gathering dust on my desk for several years but I may open it later as it has a section on pandemic flu
Guardian also reporting that Neil Ferguson is suggesting we could be out of lockdown in weeks if we can behave ourselves this weekend
He said this, end of may is another 6 weeks.
That moves us to a slightly more pessimistic scenario.
We still think things will plateau but we’ll be at quite high levels of infection for weeks and weeks rather than seeing quite a rapid decline as the type seen in China.
We want to move to a situation where at least by the end of May that we’re able to substitute some less intensive measures, more based on technology and testing, for the complete lockdown we have now.
Yup, he also said:
in a few weeks' time we will be able to move to a regime which will not be normal life, let me emphasise that, but will be somewhat more relaxed in terms of social distancing and the economy
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-uk-lockdown-lifted-within-weeks-a4407041.html
I don’t think the monarch would be used in this way. It’s for government to make (and announce) policy. It’ll probably be a “stiff upper lip, do your bit for the country” sort of thing.
Possibly not, but exactly that message would nicely soften us up for a tightening of restrictions Monday or Tuesday...
Hopefully in next month or 2 someone will stumble across some cocktail of existing drugs that massively reduces the impact it has on people.
My day job. I’m doing that too. And I’m hopeful for hydroxychloroquine (it works but is not yet approved). I’d take it. The others I am less hopeful for. They were not screened to work against this virus, so guess what? You will need a lot of them to offset this lack of potency. Whether enough can be dosed will be the question.
HCQ turns down replication by working on the cell apparatus not the virus.
Cheers ElShalimo, I have not read it - I will order the book now!
I see these two like to have bun fights on the internet as well, so it should make for an entertaining read.
My day job
If you manage to find the cure for cornonavirus I think it's fair to say that everyone on the forum will chip in and by you a new bike of your choice..deal? 🙂
Daft question as I have no idea about these things, but I'm assuming drugs get administered at point someone clearly needs them, ie they are already in hospital
Why can't we administer drugs as soon as anyone gets symptoms and before their condition deteriorates? Is it because there just arent enough of them, or is it that drugs don't work like that?
If you believe China’s National Health Commission then 4/5ths of CV cases are asymptomatic. Caveats all over the place but we all need some good news.
Tom Jefferson, an epidemiologist and honorary research fellow at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, said the findings were “very, very important.” He told The BMJ, “The sample is small, and more data will become available. Also, it’s not clear exactly how these cases were identified. But let’s just say they are generalisable. And even if they are 10% out, then this suggests the virus is everywhere.
Jefferson said that it was quite likely that the virus had been circulating for longer than generally believed and that large swathes of the population had already been exposed.
https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1375
That's called cherry-picking. The science isn't settled and there is a variety of opinions and case studies with massive caveats and limitation attached to them. Consequently, us laypeople pick up one study which says something we want to believe and after ignoring the "if and if and if" reach an unwarranted conclusion.
If it's everywhere then why have such a small percentage of tests been positive (appreciate that they don't pick up on cured cases)
Likewise the only sizable contained population we saw was on that cruise ship, and the asymptomatic rate was around 50% no?
Oxford uni came out with something similar last week, about how it had already spread through 50% of the population. It was a theory that was flawed on so many levels..
A cruise ship is probably a much older population than society.
Guardian also reporting that Neil Ferguson is suggesting we could be out of lockdown in weeks if we can behave ourselves this weekend
The very clever actuaries at my work reckon that based on the imperial college updates they're getting, best case scenario we're going to be under some kind of lockdown for at least a year, worst case it will be 18 months😭
<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">lockdown for a year isn't going to happen due to all of the issues discussed to date.</span>
Actuaries are often doom-sayers, it's their job whether they be in pensions or insurance
Those same actuaries are probably foaming at the mouth as the do-nothing and let people die scenario would probably cost the economy £50Bn. As it is we're in for a £1+Tn hit on the economy. I'd rather be poorer and live in a society where people are cared for and not abandoned to die alone.
If it’s everywhere then why have such a small percentage of tests been positive (appreciate that they don’t pick up on cured cases)
Likewise the only sizable contained population we saw was on that cruise ship, and the asymptomatic rate was around 50% no?
Well I'm not saying it's everywhere... [1]
...but if you're asking me why so few tests are positive it's because the only test available is the antigen test and that picks up CV for the vanishingly short period of time while the virus is live in the body.
Mind you, I also regard the 50/50 ratio on the ship and the 10-90 ratio in the study of the Italian town as good news as well.
So the evidence you cite, along with this study offer us some small hope that we might have a pleasant surprise and find more of the hard yards have been done than we realized. But yes, probably not everywhere probably and not everyone.
[1] Clearly we haven't all had it - there can't be *that* many asymptomatic cases or there would be far more symptomatic.
Watford General closed it's doors to all emergencies as running out of oxygen
The very clever actuaries at my work reckon that based on the imperial college updates they’re getting, best case scenario we’re going to be under some kind of lockdown for at least a year, worst case it will be 18 months
Personally I think that's wrong for some (most/all?) European Democracies because there will be widespread civil disobedience long before 18 months. Plus IMHO nobody in the world can lend Europe and the USA enough money to park our economies for 18 months.
...but they they know more than me....
Managed to watch a couple of minutes of Michael Gove on the Government's live update thing now before I had to turn it off.
I could never get tired of punching that imbecile.
Edukator:
Whether SARS-CoV-2 is aerosolized in everyday settings is still unknown and up for debate. Some experts, such as Dr. Allen, believe that it could be happening. Others are more skeptical of the idea given that infected people only infect two to three other people on average. If each COVID-19 patient were creating infectious clouds of SARS-CoV-2 wherever they went, some experts would expect the patients would infect far more people on average. Measles, for instance, has been associated with airborne transmission for decades and each measles patient, on average, may infect 12 to 18 people—or more. There’s even evidence the measles virus can disperse through ventilation systems.
sauce ( with additional links )
Looks like it's running rampant through South Wales and the Valleys.
Guessing it's due to the geography of the place meaning people travel up and down busy corridors, basically 6 lines, and all it takes is one carrier to cross from one valley to the next then it runs up and down that valley's population. Add in that a lot of valleys only have one shopping centre then you have a pretty large population in a small are all going to the same place. Lots of elderly and ill people there too, legacy of the mines etc. Makes for a grim future for them.
I’d rather be poorer and live in a society where people are cared for and not abandoned to die alone.
Trouble is that making society poorer creates a situation where the poorest people are abandoned and die anyway. 17,000 due to fuel poverty related illnesses according to https://www.e3g.org/news/media-room/17000-people-in-the-uk-died-last-winter-due-to-cold-housing
There is no good answer, only least worst. Fortunately I don't have to make the decisions. Unfortunately....have you seen who is?
^ true, that's what I had come in to ask/wonder about.
Now, I do not have the answers to this and am not suggesting any actions, but is there a sense that the cure will be worse?
The economic damage isn't just to people's savings or not going out for dinner as often - this lockdown will kill people who are on society's margins.
But will it kill more people than it saves? Will it save people who would die anyway and kill people with a longer life in front of them (!!!!ETHICAL DANGER ZONE ALERT!!!!)
Will the reduction in economic activity save lives (lower air pollution, more people exercising, less stress)????
I have no clue.
Decent look at it in this article, though obviously no conclusions:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654
Headlice drug might be a good treatment? ivermectin
https://www.google.com/amp/s/en.as.com/en/2020/04/04/other_sports/1585963017_478782.amp.html
From the article:
What about the impact of the lockdown?
The lockdown, itself, however could cost lives.Prof Robert Dinwall, from Nottingham Trent University, says "the collateral damage to society and the economy" could include:
mental health problems and suicides linked to self-isolation
heart problems from lack of activity
the impact on health from increased unemployment and reduced living standards
Others have also pointed to the health cost from steps such as delaying routine operations and cancer screening.Meanwhile, University of Bristol researchers say the benefit of a long-term lockdown in reducing premature deaths could be outweighed by the lost life expectancy from a prolonged economic dip.
And the tipping point, they say, is a 6.4% decline in the size of the economy - on a par with what happened following the 2008 financial crash.
It would see a loss of three months of life on average across the population because of factors from declining living standards to poorer health care.
this lockdown will kill people who are on society’s margins
And you think that letting this virus let rip through society will would spare the people on its margins? The homeless, people with poor health… they are exactly the kind of people who would be hit hardest if we refused to stay at home at this time due to worries about our own financial situations.
ivermectin
Sounds promising...kind of answer a my earlier question about when it's most effective..Sounds like ideally you wouldn't wait till a visit to hospital to take it.
On another note..is it just my street or anyone else's neighbours out on mass in the street. Mine seem to be having some kind of party, albeit sitting about 5 meters apart on chairs and shouting at each other whilst drinking wine.
this lockdown will kill people who are on society’s margins.How?
People who live paycheck to paycheck, gig economy, people reliant on services like mental health or Universal Credit. Lonely folk who have been deprived of their one "social interaction" a week at the bingo hall or the pub quiz. People with ongoing medical needs who can no longer access doctor or hospital for anything but the most urgent life-threatening cases.
In the aftermath of this there's going to be a lot of folk looking at the shattered ruins of their lives, the massive overdraft/credit card bill, the mental health issues, possibly physical issues from lack of mobility or lack of decent food (and that includes kids who at least got one decent meal a day at school). Businesses that have failed...
If a no-deal Brexit falls at the door in 9 months time, it'll be catastrophic.
Watford General closed it’s doors to all emergencies as running out of oxygen
BBC article says the decision was taken as a "result of a technical issue with our hospital's oxygen equipment". Doesn't say running out of oxygen.
The BBC have updated, as earlier it was saying "Running out".
Some of the quotes attributed to Professors need to be taken with a pinch of salt. Not every Prof is a leader in their field, not all of them are stable individuals and some of them are just crackpots. Academia does have some very strange individuals.
There are good and bad ones just like bricklayers, doctors and teachers.
Academia does have some very strange individuals.
There are good and bad ones just like bricklayers, doctors and teachers.
Or they just have opposing theories. Some aren't too grounded in practicalities. Which depending on the subject area is or is not a major issue.
less stress
This is not working out for me at least, stressed to ****!
this lockdown will...
Bleakly I don't see a way where significant numbers of people aren't loosing out either way. It could be the difference between the % of people suffering undue hardship either way is similar. May not be exactly the same people under both situations although there may be some who have it bad under either.
I guess this is what they are looking at when thinking about lifting restrictions - having the minimum negative impact for either solution. That's not to say even the minimum is going to be massive. Even when we are out, the rest of the world may or may not be, it's not suddenly going to be all back to normal.
Another 2 weeks' extension in Spain, til the 26th. My 6yo has not left the house for 3 weeks now ( small city centre flat, no garden, no dog to walk ) which is starting to worry me a bit.