It’s easy for me to say, for example, shut all hospitality, forgetting that another forum member will have spent decades building a business only to see it crumble in months. I apologise for that, it must appear pretty crass when you’re in that situation.
Well as has been discussed on the coronanomics thread, it's not a fait accompli. We can shut hospitality and protect the businesses and people who are affected by it. But we choose not to because we refuse to step outside of our established thinking on how economies and governments should work and act.
People will accept a lockdown as long as they know that it's part of a unified, collective effort, where everyone does their part and those affected are supported. Unfortunately though our government wants us to do the former without them doing the latter. We're approaching this from an individualist perspective, and as with other intractible problems like climate change and poverty, this can't be solved with individual action.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand why usually honest people would break the quarantine if you show no symptoms yourself and can and have to work to feed your family. £13 a day does not cut it when you’re already up against it financially
Yeah I was thinking about that
How much do the new cases overlap with regions with people that have no savings, or who's jobs can't be done from home?
Debt map of UK (obviously unpicking this from other poverty related issues re obesity & health etc not easy)
if you’re in government trying steer the least worst course you have to think in numbers
At the bluntest of levels , the reasonable worst case scenario allows planning against. Someone has to order the body bags. Yes it actually is that blunt I am afraid.
But I’m an optimist at heart and a rational scientist to the core. I think we will strike a reasonable balance. We will see influenza down due to reduced contacts and spread and truly efficacious treatments are about three months away. Protective treatments, be they a vaccine or antibodies, are also on their way.
Some combination of pubs, schools, unis, shops, work, travel... leads to the magic R = 1. We will get there and we will also protect the vulnerable by testing in doing so. I think that Germany is almost there and showing the way.
On a personal note, modesty forbids, but today is a significant day for me.
On a personal note, modesty forbids, but today is a significant day for me.
Are you Mary Berry?
😉
Do tell!!
Kelvin, if you’re in government trying steer the least worst course you have to think in numbers
Obviously. I was replying to someone saying that “we” shouldn’t share and listen to individual stories. I think as humans that’s the best way to see “the point” in the things we are asked to do and not to when it comes to preventing transmission. The numbers are vital to planning. The stories are vital when it comes to getting the public (us) to accept short term inconvenience and sacrifice if and when it is needed. Without the stories (here and elsewhere) I think some of us would have too abstract an understanding of the situation, and the possible impact of sitting back and saying “this is all getting to hard, let the vulnerable look after themselves, I want my life back before Xmas”… if that was even possible (it looks like fantasy to me).
For example, if there’s a shot at vaccination in 6 months to protect the most vulnerable, are we prepared as a society to sacrifice the freedoms (and lives) of some of us to avoid extra measures.
The number I heard was that this is approximately 15,000,000 people – slightly less than 20% of the population
Hopefully a vaccine may be available next spring, but it’s probably going to take a year to inoculate those 15,000,000 people.
And that assumes that everyone in that group will take up this offer.
How do you convince the population to live like this for another 18 months?
Well done Ti-Red. You are forgiven.
Round of applause for TiRed!
Can we shake you hand after all this, please?
Some combination of pubs, schools, unis, shops, work, travel… leads to the magic R = 1. We will get there and we will also protect the vulnerable by testing in doing so. I think that Germany is almost there and showing the way.
Unfortunately the only way to arrive at this combination is trial & error. I sometimes think more than a few forget this is a novel virus & expect the Gov to have all the answers already..
Ok if I must. TiRed OBE.
CHAPEAU!
Congratulations!
Next time my boss catches me out shirking on STW I shall point to the time you spend on here and the clear benefits it brings 😉
expect the Gov to have all the answers already
No. We expect them to do what they said they would, and to learn from experience.
Look at what they were saying we needed back in May. They haven’t delivered that.
Look at the mistakes made back in February. They haven’t learnt from that.
How do you convince the population to live like this for another 18 months?
Why should we be asking 15,000,000 and their careers, and families, to lock themselves down and live in a bubble for 18 months, because we can’t deal with the not going for a drink with our mates, or a holiday without a quarantine period afterwards? There’s the current political spilt… should we all suffer inconvenience, or should we leave the vulnerable to shut themselves off completely from society for the foreseeable? (even if that could work... it won’t... check out the report from Alternative Sage last week, it’s worth a skim read)
Well done TiRed!
truly efficacious treatments are about three months away
Can you expand on this point please? (Unless it's already covered in the previous discussion). Are you saying something is round the corner will massively reduce the death rate?
Ok if I must. TiRed OBE.
Services to Informing Internet Cockwombles?
Congratulations. Massively deserved.
truly efficacious treatments are about three months away
Lilly and Regeneron have both now posted very positive data for their antibodies. A well-known patient has endorsed one of them. Both companies are filing Emergency Use Authorisations as I type. These are properly antiviral. Unlike remdesivir, which barely tickles the virus. The scale up for manufacture may be the limiting factor. I work on another such antibody.
None have reported on mortality in the sickest patients, but there are other treatments coming for the severe COVID. The mABs if given early enough should reduce hospitalisations.
A well-known patient has endorsed one of them.
You are the master of understatement sometimes!
Is any of this likely to be available at scale to the NHS soon? I presume that they are one of many reasons to keep the demand low for the NHS this winter… more chance of hospital admission (in small enough numbers) next summer resulting in a good recovery. People complaint that social distancing measures are can kicking… as if that was a bad thing… buying us time is the entire point, isn’t it?
No. We expect them to do what they said they would, and to learn from experience.
Look at what they were saying we needed back in May. They haven’t delivered that.
Look at the mistakes made back in February. They haven’t learnt from that.
Who has though? From what I can tell nobody has. Certainly nobody in Central Europe from what I can tell. Happy to be proved wrong..
BTW I’d like to thank you all for this thread. I find it very informative of people’s experiences and feelings about a pretty grim situation.
Name change to Sir Tiredalot? 😉
Congrats!
Why should we be asking 15,000,000 and their careers, and families, to lock themselves down and live in a bubble for 18 months, because we can’t deal with the not going for a drink with our mates, or a holiday without a quarantine period afterwards? There’s the current political spilt… should we all suffer inconvenience
It’s not just the ‘inconvenience’ of the lack of a pint or a holiday though is it?
It’s the jobs lost, the lives lost, the untold mental health cost to all ages & sexes. The damage to society, whatever choice is made, is going to be grave.
This is not a black & white choice - it’s shades of very dark & depressing grey...
Congratulations TiRed, fantastic news. Thank you for your posts on this thread, it's helped me make some sense of the situation.
Certainly nobody in Central Europe from what I can tell.
Well, learning from the mistakes made in other parts of Europe, as both growth periods started there before here, is one of things I expect from our politicians. I can list things that are being done well in other countries, but that wasn’t my point. Our government hasn’t delivered what it said it would as we came out of the more restrictive measures earlier this year. They have failed to deliver what they said they would… they have failed their own targets, never mind fallen short of what might be going on elsewhere. And February/March’s mistake of using a “wait and see” policy, when the data suggests prompt action is required, is being repeated. It will result not only in more lives damaged by the virus, but also in control measures having to be in place longer than they would have been if introduced earlier, and all the human and economic damage that will entail. It’s a simple lesson, and politicians of courage and integrity would have learned from it, and communicated it clearly to the rest of us and acted on it.
Congratulations TiRed. I've found your contributions to this thread really interesting, though the technical stuff is beyond me. Well done for the OBE too.
Congratulations TiRed, it has been helpful to have your well presented input on here. Same to all the others on the thread who've taken the time to give informed views.
If I have to guess about availability, I’d say three months time. Approval will be rapid, manufacture is always rate-limiting. The Regeneron antibody cocktail is being dosed in the NHS Recovery trial in severe patients in the U.K. If you have a sick one in dire need, hope they get that treatment (with dexamethasone). I would want it, personally.
Studies of antibodies for prophylaxis in care settings are also kicking off. They will most likely buy up to six months protection per dose if given high enough. As I said, I’m optimistic. But we will need a little more short-term pain.
Well, learning from their mistakes
Personally, I think there’s a deliberate fudge going on. The repeated mistakes smack not of ineptitude but something potentially more Machiavellian. Did someone say ‘herd immunity’?...
It’s the jobs lost, the lives lost, the untold mental health cost to all ages & sexes. The damage to society, whatever choice is made, is going to be grave.
Absolutely true. And minimising that damage is vital. It is the false hope/logic of those suggesting that the damage will be avoided/reduced by lax/late/lesser restrictions now and into this winter that worries me… that idea seems to be gaining more and more support. Delay in the spring cost us dearly in all the ways you say. And it reduced the options and flexibility of the government for the rest of the year. Delays now could make this winter worse in all the ways you say as well, and back the government into a corner. Lack of action is going to be expensive and limit what the government can do… but the government know that much of the public will blame them for the damage directly attributable to restrictions they put in place, but not for the greater damage of not doing so… well, that’s the only explanation I can come to do their current approach.
Daryn, many congratulations and thank you again for you contributions here. Well deserved for your stalwart efforts and calmness amongst - at least speaking for myself - us bunch of flaky reprobates here!
Its lifts me to see you recognised for your work.
Hopefully a vaccine may be available next spring, but it’s probably going to take a year to inoculate those 15,000,000 people.
And that assumes that everyone in that group will take up this offer.How do you convince the population to live like this for another 18 months?
I don't think 15m will count as vulnerable. The clinical assessment was 2.2M people, I'd expect those people to be prioritised. So you might be asking for a lockdown over winter, then maybe another one in late spring/early summer. Even so, a lot of people are going to take some convincing for that. In my circle, there's a couple ready to open back up now but most are preparing for another lockdown (by stocking up on toilet paper and gin).
The repeated mistakes smack not of ineptitude but something potentially more Machiavellian.
The mistakes and incompetence originate from an inability to depart from their rigid free market ideology and individualist beliefs. Covid has forced an ideological right wing conservative government to enact the most leftwing policies since 1945 and they hate every bit of it, and are resisting it at every turn. The result is a complete lack of strategy and forward thinking and confusion and division among the public.
Lack of action is going to be expensive… but he government know that much of the public will blame them for the damage of restrictions they put in place, but not for the greater damage of not doing so… well, that’s the only explanation I can come to do their current approach.
It is the sh1tiest of choices..
I don’t think 15m will count as vulnerable. The clinical assessment was 2.2M people
Check that alternative Sage report. Those at risk who would need to cut themselves off, if the rest of us dropped all restrictions, is a much wider group than those assessed and receiving letters/help earlier this year.
Even so, a lot of people are going to take some convincing for that.
It is the sh1tiest of choices..
It is. It takes a special politician to take the one best for the country, rather than the most popular… and a very rare one to communicate why that is needed, and earn the trust and cooperation of the public need to make it work.
Congratulations, your posts on here, have been the only sane information I’ve found to keep me sane. Keep up the good work !
. It takes a special politician to take the one best for the country, rather than the most popular
This. Sums it up for me. I think Merkel has been that politician. I don’t really do politics and I don’t do the media stuff. But there are no good choices here (cough - Brexit). What is the least bad option? How does one balance the economy and lives? Control not eradication is the aim. Keeping schools open - what else needs to be done to maintain that goal?
Shutting pubs at 10 is very unlikely to be the solution. The science is struggling to say what is.
60000 dead is horrific, it’s higher the US deaths in Vietnam. But it has to be contrasted withe the number of indirect deaths policy us causing now and in the future.
Worth remembering that it's 60,000 with measures in place. Without those measures we were talking 250,000+.
Great news TiRed 👏👏 Not just personally, but for all the people involved with your work as well.
Congrats on the obe daryn.
Do you think regeneron are going to have big enough capacity for manufacturing to provide large enough dose levels?
I suspect other Contract manufacturers will be scaling up, and anyone with a SARS-COV2 antibody will jumpy to the front of the queue. There are huge capacity issues worldwide for bioreactors. Vaccines use the individual as the bioreactor!
Dose is about 2 grams per person.
Amazing news TiRed, most deserved. Now we just need you back on the bike.
Without those measures we were talking 250,000+
Is that the probable direct COVID deaths? If we’d asked our hospitals to deal with that in one big unrestricted wave… the additional deaths for non COVID reasons would also have been much higher.
How is our World Beating Vaccine Manufacturing centre going? Wasn't that announced in Apr/May?
Seems to be progressing well. I think I saw that they gave got preliminary mhra approval.
I know they are recruiting like hell (according to my LinkedIn)
I so want these antibody treatments to work, but if they do that means Trump will get better, and possibly worse 'be proved right' (whether true or not, in the eyes of him / his followers / the wavering voter....)
Aaargghhh, so conflicted!
I assumed the US would buy up all the regeneron for its own citizens, in the same altruistic way they snapped up all the remdesivir
Can other countries produce it independently of the US?
If you have the cell line and some flasks, you can make it in your garage -it’s brewing after all. I’m joking. Sort of. it’s biotechnology not chemistry. There is a fixed supply of global approved bioreactors that make all sorts of clinical antibodies. This will be a big order.
