Just read the opening book of “The Stand”. I may have mentioned this pages ago.

@Drac that meme is great.

TBH I’m more worried about my trip to Dartmoor in May being fecked up by travel restrictions than catching the bloody thing.

So since this thread is the “Where’s the coronavirus we’re all going to die conspiracy thread?” I’m going to wade in with one…

*utter baseless nonsense to follow *

So the reason we’re not following WHO advice is that the WHO say this is still containable and our lot don’t.

So far so obvious but…

It’s all about funding. Up until this year most people in the UK and I’d wager the West will have thought the WHO were an ageing rock band. This whole corona thing has brought them to the fore.
Institutions, government departments and NGOs are, if nothing else, wonderful at justifying their own existence.
Keeping this contained, on going and in the news indefinitely keeps the WHO relevant, pushes up their profile, ensures better and continued funding.
Once this goes endemic they have to wait for the next major pandemic to come along.
MERS, SARS and Ebola came and went, high mortality meant and effective measures were absolutely imperative so they put them in place and the WHO disappeared from our screens very quickly. Corona on the other hand is the perfect opportunity, infectious enough, mortality just high enough to be scary, low enough to not actually be civilisation ending.

Now this is global, if they can keep it controlled, they never get eclipsed again so it’s in their interests to see it continue indefinitely, flaring up here and there, killing a few tens of thousands every month or two to keep them in the news.

On the other side or own advisors think endemic is the way to go, possibly most effective but more importantly most likely to ensure their own prominence and therefore budgets in the future by keeping the WHO off screens and (directly) out of the ears of ministers, reducing it to the status of seasonal flu.

Government claims that there is an evidence base for its plan. Having seen its actions develop over the last week, I’m not convinced it is robust, and not simply being selectively applied.

When your actions are an outlier to pretty much every other country working with the same evidence, questions are inevitable.

The ‘short sharp shock’ to aim for herd immunity is most definitely not the way to go, unless the government has privately conceded that there is no way they can prepare the NHS even for a flattened curve.

The whole thing has the whiff of Cummings and ‘Get Coronavirus Done’ about it, and I can’t shake the suspicion, irrational or otherwise, that the longer-term desire not to deviate from Brexit policy is influencing our response.

Editor of The Lancet not holding back:

https://twitter.com/richardhorton1?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

The UK is on the edge of an avoidable calamity. In addition to deaths preventable by more aggressive government action, it will be health workers who absorb the brunt of government complacency. In Lombardy, 20% of health workers have become infected “and some have died.”

— richard horton (@richardhorton1) March 12, 2020

The whole thing has the whiff of Cummings and ‘Get Coronavirus Done’ about it, and I can’t shake the suspicion, irrational or otherwise, that the longer-term desire not to deviate from Brexit policy is influencing our response.

I was thinking that there was a strong element of Cummings, some probably misunderstood science (or actual pseudoscience) and a large amount of arse covering and blame shifting going on. Then I read this:

https://eand.co/why-britains-coronavirus-strategy-is-literally-one-of-the-most-insane-things-in-modern-history-45c755f1db2d

I’ve certainly tried to reconcile the concept of herd immunity through exposure with logic and reason, but, like the computer at the end of War Games, I can’t find a scenario using the government strategy which doesn’t end awfully.

Someone back there posted about lessons learned from the foot and mouth epidemic, and I jokingly hoped that mass culling wasn’t the lesson they’d picked up. Seems I may have to revisit that one.

Crazy legs.

I stopped reading when it tried to say Peston was a credible source of facts on the mater.

When your actions are an outlier to pretty much every other country working with the same evidence, questions are inevitable.

This.

The whole thing has the whiff of Cummings and ‘Get Coronavirus Done’ about it, and I can’t shake the suspicion, irrational or otherwise, that the longer-term desire not to deviate from Brexit policy is influencing our response.

Everything, and I mean everything must be subservient to Brexit.

a large amount of arse covering and blame shifting going on

And this.

I’ve come to realise the flattening the curve rhetoric has nothing to do with NHS capacity. It won’t make any difference. We’ll need 200K+ ICU beds to treat the numbers required to get the 60% immunity. The 1K free ICU beds we have won’t make any discernible difference.

The flattening the curve will be to ensure there is enough military/police available to keep order when the public realise a cull of 5-10% of the population is being allowed to happen.

It is not being allowed to happen, it is going to happen regardless of what measures you take. They locked down China and within weeks it is in every country. This is the cold hard truth that most people can not accept.

The manner in which it happens in our country is controllable, to an extent. This isn’t about country to country spread, that was always inevitable given the nature of the virus, it is about how many people are going to die.

Martin, you do know Boris has praised the major in Jaws, yes?

“The real hero of Jaws is the mayor”.

“A gigantic fish is eating all your constituents and he decides to keep the beaches open.

“OK, in that instance he was actually wrong. But in principle, we need more politicians like the mayor– we are often the only obstacle against all the nonsense which is really a massive conspiracy against the taxpayer”.

Worth listening to Margaret Harris (WHO) on Today programme this morning (52 mins in). Specifically about protecting health workers, and scepticism about using herd immunity as a basis for policy when we don’t know enough about this virus yet to make that call.

It is not being allowed to happen, it is going to happen regardless of what measures you take. They locked down China and within weeks it is in every country. This is the cold hard truth that most people can not accept.

This really. There’s no good answers, no right scenarios. People are going to die from this, no matter what we do. Some may say less will die if we do xyz but no one really knows for sure.

It is not being allowed to happen, it is going to happen regardless of what measures you take. They locked down China and within weeks it is in every country. This is the cold hard truth that most people can not accept.

Yes but it is not binary. It is not a 1 or a zero and no other alternatives exist.

There is a range from 0.00000001 to 0.9999999 and our policies can influence where on the line we sit. It also has influences on WHEN we sit at those points. There is a LOT of difference that can be made the right or wrong policies.

That post is quite astoundingly daft and ‘give-uppy’ when you think about it.

How about this for plausible deniability.
We, the government told everyone to do this. You the public, ignored our advise and an extra 5000 oaps died because of it.
Its not our fault you lot didn’t listen to the experts we chose to believe, so it’s on you.
Now carry on being drone workers and paying us all the taxes thank you and goodnight

@mrlebowski

Not my fault if you can’t recognise a Matrix/Morpheus paraphrase when you see one. I think judging by some the responses over the past few pages, Sense of Humour has also got Corona and has self-isolated.

There’s no good answers

Probably true. But some are better than others.

no right scenarios

See above.

People are going to die from this, no matter what we do.

Someone will die in a RTA next week. We could ban road travel. We could lift all speed restrictions. Both would have an effect on the number.

no one really knows for sure

Taken to its logical conclusion no one ever knows anything for sure. Yellowstone might erupt tomorrow and then Coronavirus will not even make page 10.

But in the games of probability you should have some idea. If you are going to be an outlier (as we categorically are) then you’d better have some good explanations to hand and not be afraid of showing your workings.

The government may well be right and we might not be able to stop this.

But why the hell don’t be give it our best shot and throw kitchen sink at this and try to stop it. If we fail the people will still die, but we’ll have bought some extra time to increase ICU capacity, try new drugs etc. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Several Asian countries have got this under control, yes it might come back, but I’d much rather we keep this in check and pull out all the stops to get a vaccine approved.

I’ve certainly tried to reconcile the concept of herd immunity through exposure with logic and reason, but, like the computer at the end of War Games, I can’t find a scenario using the government strategy which doesn’t end awfully.

But can 6ou find a scenario where it doesn’t end awfully?

I really don’t think the UK strategy is based on not caring. Having read the comments of scientists many have put forward good arguments in favour of it.

As for ensuring that your mum/dad/gran/gramps isn’t one of the 60% – this is the exact point. Let the healthy and young gain immunity whilst keeping the vulnerable away from it, then the immune will act as a defence when the vulnerable can return to society.

If you try to prevent everyone from getting it then without a vaccine the virus will still be out there, so when you un-lockdown everyone they’ll all get sick again.

We could follow the World Health Organization’s advice and stop this now

No, we couldn’t.

There is lots we can do. We should be buying up any company that could be repurposed to make medical supplies and start building temporary hospitals.

There will be many restrictions soon, but the idea that you can sit locked up and wait it out is clearly not realistic.

There are a lot of people feeling a huge amount of pressure to be seen to be doing something, anything – this explains a lot of extreme measures we see in other countries.

The government may well be right and we might not be able to stop this.

But why the hell don’t be give it our best shot and throw kitchen sink at this and try to stop it. If we fail the people will still die, but we’ll have bought some extra time to increase ICU capacity, try new drugs etc. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Several Asian countries have got this under control, yes it might come back, but I’d much rather we keep this in check and pull out all the stops to get a vaccine approved.

It does rather beg the question of why we aren’t.

In my opinion the government don’t really want to try because it will expose all sorts of contradictions, nonsense, incompetence and self interest in lots of areas.

Remember, these are the plucky heroes who ‘Got Brexit Done’ against all the odds.

Here’s another one. If we locked the whole country down straight away, a large number of people would simply refuse, cos most people have zero respect for the government (see this thread).

Maybe the behavioural psychologists are letting this simmer whilst they can so that when drastic measures really are required people will get on board and comply.

I think we will see measures introduced gradually, by the government, many of which will be pre-empted by commercial organisations; see the number of events already cancelled. People are coming around to the idea, so they will expect it or even demand it when it happens.

If there’s one thing this govt is undeniably good at it’s manipulating people, isn’t it?

Remember that different countries have completely different relationships with their governments.

As for ensuring that your mum/dad/gran/gramps isn’t one of the 60% – this is the exact point. Let the healthy and young gain immunity whilst keeping the vulnerable away from it, then the immune will act as a defence when the vulnerable can return to society.

Not sure that would work as well as you think. For herd immunity to be effective it has to be equally distributed in society, the idea is to take away hosts that the virus can transmit through and get the R0<1. There will still be isolated infections but it won’t spread.

If all the young healthy people are immune but you have a nursing home with 100 old folks in, with no immunity then a sporadic infection would rip through them.

If there’s one thing this govt is undeniably good at it’s manipulating people, isn’t it?

You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time but you can’t…….

I’m very disconcerted to see that David Halpern’s ‘nudge unit’ and his ‘Institute for Government’ seems to be having a big influence here. Met him, read his egocentric book where he tries to (unsuccessfully) establish a ‘Halpern’s Law’, wouldn’t trust him further than I could kick him. It’s all about achieving behavioural change in the context of austerity ie don’t throw money at it, throw money at me. If that’s the best source of advice the Johnson government can come up with then plan to do the reverse.

If all the young healthy people are immune but you have a nursing home with 100 old folks in, with no immunity then a sporadic infection would rip through them.

But aside from quarantining all old people, what do you do? A large proportion of vulnerable people are in more easily controllable situations. You could screen people coming in to hospitals and old folks’ homes and enforce hygiene measures for a long time.

Not sure that would work as well as you think.

Hey, I’m not saying I think it will work. How could I know? I’m not an epidemiologist, just like everyone else on this thread. Just trying to offer a possible justification, much as I hate this government I’m not going to slate everything they do just because.

Cummings is also an egocentric scumbag but again, good at manipulating people as we’ve seen.

Just because someone is a scumbag doesn’t mean that everything they do is always the worst thing. Sometimes their aims and ours align.

But can 6ou find a scenario where it doesn’t end awfully?

Yes, but there’s awful, and AWFUL.

Have we forgotten already that the government has declared open hostilities on civil servants who don’t display ‘sufficient revolutionary vigour’.

Are we to assume that these bods are ‘on-side’? Therefore their pronouncements cannot be unquestioned, sorry, but we can no longer assume that it is infact the best available advice.

And whatever else herd immunity is delivered by vaccination (otherwise measles wouldn’t be the problem it is despite it previously having been ‘eradicated’), not by pseudoscience.

Also looking forward to never having flu again (or multiple times in the last 40-odd years)…

Is it right Spain has said “turn planes away, go back to origin”?

What will Gammon do now for anollidai?

We had a referendum to keep people out of this country, leave em’ there IMO.

panic over,

“For many, it is nothing more than a bad cold, really.”

One of the first people in Scotland to contract Covid-19 has told the BBC about his recovery from the disease.

The man, in his 50s, was diagnosed almost two weeks ago following a trip to Italy. He returned home on 25 February, a Tuesday.

“I felt no symptoms. I was completely fine and went to work on the Wednesday and Thursday. Later on the Thursday evening, I started to feel a bit of a flu coming on. I had a mild fever, I felt shivery – but the biggest symptom was aches and pains, particularly in my legs.

“I was feverish. That continued through Thursday night and I didn’t sleep too well.”

On 1 March, he was diagnosed and hospitalised. But from this point on, he said his symptoms did not develop any further.

“By the time I went to hospital, I was feeling fine. The mild flu symptoms quickly dissipated, I had no leg pain, no fever, no cough and no shortness of breath.”

He said he wanted to tell his story to the BBC so that people did not panic about exposure to the disease.

said the shepherd Cummins Covid Camp guard :/

Is it right Spain has said “turn planes away, go back to origin”?

Press release from jet 2 suggests it was jet2s call rather than Spain’s.

Insurance companies sure are getting their excuses ready judging by the what are my rights article on bbc

Is it right Spain has said “turn planes away, go back to origin”?

Flightrader shows all Jet2 flights turning back, their website says they’ve suspended all flights to and from Spain, Canary Islands & Balearic Islands.

Don’t know about other airlines yet.

The government may well be right and we might not be able to stop this.

But why the hell don’t be give it our best shot and throw kitchen sink at this and try to stop it. If we fail the people will still die, but we’ll have bought some extra time to increase ICU capacity, try new drugs etc. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Several Asian countries have got this under control, yes it might come back, but I’d much rather we keep this in check and pull out all the stops to get a vaccine approved.

Just to add, it is basically down to us as a population whether it can be stopped. If CV19 has a mortality of 90% I’m pretty sure it would be gone in 4-5 weeks as people would go into hard isolation. The virus needs human interaction to spread and stay alive. Cut the transmission and the virus dies out.

While there are enough “I’m alright jack” types “it’s just a bad cold“ muppets it will continue to spread

5000 oaps

Now that would be a problem

It’s maybe worth pointing out that the UK response has been agreed by the devolved governments too (though Nicola Sturgeon went further with the advice on large gatherings). Cummins et al may be manipulating things and, of course, it’s difficult for the devolved governments to act alone, but I think we’d be more aware of disagreement if there were any.

Alternatively, Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland CMO etc are all “in on it” and are secretly supporting Boris Johnsons hidden plans.

https://naturemicrobiologycommunity.nature.com/users/17778-ben-johnson/posts/61686-uk-policy-towards-covid-19-assumes-that-the-virus-is-here-to-stay?fbclid=IwAR08-gTz_6QmwPNUtXNKZZqT2cXqJD0Zq_r2Qkc0MnFBJ4_bw9Sa1R0GqrI

Logically reasoning rather than knee-jerk journalists and Jo public scaremongering

Yes its bad but posts like your mudmuncher really do not help anyone. With your solution it’ll be back within a couple of weeks . We need herd immunity to tide us over till a vaccine is availible. – if you really want to help they are offering you 3500 quid to be a guinea pig.

For once I agree with molgrips.

Of course, the WHO say the opposite… try to contain… if you fail, at least you are slowing the spread and allowing health services to cope. If you assume from the outset that containing is impossible, and even brief the public that a wide spread is desirable in order to obtain a herd immunity via exposure (without any evidence that this is how this virus works)… you obviously have no chance of containing it, and worse than that you risk over extending the health service and costing extra lives. Imagine the international condemnation China would have received if it had taken this approach.

Yes its bad but posts like your mudmuncher really do not help anyone. With your solution it’ll be back within a couple of weeks . We need herd immunity to tide us over till a vaccine is availible. – if you really want to help they are offering you 3500 quid to be a guinea pig.

There is a lot more we don’t know about this virus than we know. The models are predictions on how we will behave, whether CV19 will be weaker in the summer, whether it will mutate, whether we can get herd immunity etc., none of these things are really known even by the experts.

Better to stall it as aggressively as possible to prepare and learn about it. 40M infections in the next 6 months will be carnage. If we can clear it we might have to lock the borders down (with infected countries) for a year until we have a vaccine, but I see that as the lesser of 2 evils.