The big Coronavirus thread
Comments
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The lockdown wouldn't be working very well if they'd been able to create gridlock!coopster_the_1st said:
Seems there is more to this story.Pross said:
Might explain why Trump is so keen to lift restrictions.Pross said:
Lucky no-one in this country would get annoyed at being locked down.
Firstly the original protest was against the Michigan governor trying to put into law a additional 70 day lockdown. There were other restrictions on what could be purchased e.g. marijuana was allowed but you could not buy anything from a garden centre.
The original protest of 10k who wanted to deliberaterly cause gridlock as the protest was then hijacked by a few gun wielding idoits and abviously that became the new story.0 -
Yep. I think face masks should definitely be used on public transport and in supermarkets.TheBigBean said:Personally, I think testing is a red herring. I would go with mandatory face masks, some social distancing and an expectation that people will die whatever the approach that is taken. Some notional track and trace can be thrown on top.
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Not that, bit, the some social distancing and an expectation that people will die whatever the approach that is taken.TheBigBean said:
So best to not have face masks, full social contact and lots of tests?rick_chasey said:
The large variations in deaths and survival rates across Europe, let alone Asia suggests the way things are done has an effect, so I would suggest this is not a good strategy.TheBigBean said:Personally, I think testing is a red herring. I would go with mandatory face masks, some social distancing and an expectation that people will die whatever the approach that is taken. Some notional track and trace can be thrown on top.
I read that to mean "whatever" rather than digging into exactly what is causing the variations and copying the policies that result in fewer deaths.0 -
Can you see us getting enough face masks for the general population when they currently can't get enough for critical workers?TheBigBean said:
So best to not have face masks, full social contact and lots of tests?rick_chasey said:
The large variations in deaths and survival rates across Europe, let alone Asia suggests the way things are done has an effect, so I would suggest this is not a good strategy.TheBigBean said:Personally, I think testing is a red herring. I would go with mandatory face masks, some social distancing and an expectation that people will die whatever the approach that is taken. Some notional track and trace can be thrown on top.
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I'm sure that's why it hasn't already been policy for the general public to use them. Whereas in Asian countries it's in their culture already, so many have them.Pross said:
Can you see us getting enough face masks for the general population when they currently can't get enough for critical workers?TheBigBean said:
So best to not have face masks, full social contact and lots of tests?rick_chasey said:
The large variations in deaths and survival rates across Europe, let alone Asia suggests the way things are done has an effect, so I would suggest this is not a good strategy.TheBigBean said:Personally, I think testing is a red herring. I would go with mandatory face masks, some social distancing and an expectation that people will die whatever the approach that is taken. Some notional track and trace can be thrown on top.
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Pross said:
Wouldn't you rather wait a bit and have them come up with a coherent plan rather than be pressured into a knee jerk reaction? Not that I'm suggesting the plan when it does get announced will definitely be coherent or that it will go as expected! Rushing something out just because people are pressing you to be seen to do something is often a big mistake.
Why....would it be a rush?
We're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
- @ddraver0 -
This comes back to Surrey Commuter's point about planting trees. The best time to plant may have been 20 years ago, but the second best time is today. (They should really have started months ago when the ignorant like me suggested it, but I'm looking forwards). If UK industry can produce ventilators, then I would imagine they can produce masks and machines that make masks.Pross said:
Can you see us getting enough face masks for the general population when they currently can't get enough for critical workers?TheBigBean said:
So best to not have face masks, full social contact and lots of tests?rick_chasey said:
The large variations in deaths and survival rates across Europe, let alone Asia suggests the way things are done has an effect, so I would suggest this is not a good strategy.TheBigBean said:Personally, I think testing is a red herring. I would go with mandatory face masks, some social distancing and an expectation that people will die whatever the approach that is taken. Some notional track and trace can be thrown on top.
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Stand corrected. Aggressively targetted would be a better description.kingstongraham said:
Why do you say South Korea had an aggressive early lockdown?morstar said:
I posted a link a few posts earlier with someone with some expertise questioning the testing argument and highlighting some problems.kingstongraham said:
Nobody said there was an easy solution, but testing is the starting point of most of the difficult ones.morstar said:And you are totally ignoring the growing number of people who are through this (or not) who will start simply wanting to get on with life.
That is not a policy proposal by me, it is a simple fact. I am still trying to work out (like Wheelspinner) how I both engage with the world while trying to keep my family safe. I don't know the answer.
Anybody mentioned there isn't an easy solution? Stop pretending lots of testing is it. It f*cking well isn't unless we can do multiple hundreds of thousands per day and have a follow mechanism that uses that data to direct benefit.
Like the one you suggest.
You need to counter those arguments, not just say to do what no country is managing.
The figures are 2 weeks old.
S Korea 400K tests. It is an aggressive early lockdown.
Germany, only 4x UK testing, it was an early lockdown that delivered success.
Singapore, don’t have the numbers but ultimately their approach is being overrun.
They did close schools, and basically used their testing to isolate people. They did exploit the privacy of people to an extent that would not have been tolerated here though back in February and probably not now.
The key point is that testing in isolation was not the solution, it was being all over it from the off.
We missed that boat rightly or wrongly.0 -
Obviously not, but it is good to see the protest worked and the lockdown was only extented until the end of the month. Did get the impression that it was a state governor on a power trip. I sure more would have been made of the governors actions had they been a Repulican instead of a Deomocrat!Pross said:
The lockdown wouldn't be working very well if they'd been able to create gridlock!coopster_the_1st said:
Seems there is more to this story.Pross said:
Might explain why Trump is so keen to lift restrictions.Pross said:
Lucky no-one in this country would get annoyed at being locked down.
Firstly the original protest was against the Michigan governor trying to put into law a additional 70 day lockdown. There were other restrictions on what could be purchased e.g. marijuana was allowed but you could not buy anything from a garden centre.
The original protest of 10k who wanted to deliberaterly cause gridlock as the protest was then hijacked by a few gun wielding idoits and abviously that became the new story.0 -
What materially changes at 200k tests per day?rick_chasey said:
Don't put your mate and biggest political donor in charge of testing, get someone better in charge and make that a much bigger and critical focus than it is.Longshot said:rick_chasey said:I just don't know how any policy maker can be making decisions when the data on infections is almost non-existent and the data on deaths is weeks out of date.
So what do you suggest they do? Even doing nothing stems from a decision.
I would put a priority on counting deaths accurately and work hard to get rid of the blockages that are stopping that (for example, I still don't know how you register a covid death in a care home if they have not been tested) whilst lockdown is still going on. We need to know where we are across the whole nation with covid deaths (as that is the proxy we are using for infections whilst we have no widely available reliable tests).
Once you have good and accurate data you can start to test out and model various types of partial relief of the lockdown, which you can then trace and track really closely to check they are following the models.
You would hope that you would get testing up to around 200,000 per day by the end of the May, when the lockdown might want to be lifted, especially with someone competent in charge and not your mate. That would then allow you to try and track various lifts.That in tern can feed into more accurate models to give you a better idea of what else might happen if you do x or y.
In the meantime, if the tests really are proving a too difficult problem to solve (which may be the case, but I am sceptical) I would really try and use other models from other nations who have better data to get as close as you can to a model that can predict what will happen - throw the doors wide open and let everyone have a go - so at worst you approximate what will happen in various lockdown lifting scenarios.
Luckily some scandis are already doing that so they might be able to help.
With regard to messaging I would be more honest with the public and explain the plan and explain that the better and more closely to the rules that will be incoming, the easier the lockdown lift will be. (After all, more predictable linear behaviour from people is easier to model). The public are giving the govt a lot of slack so make the most of it.
Luckily the UK has managed to not overload the hospitals in the current lock down and the direction of the curve suggests that it won't happen this round, so that doesn't really need the same focus, as the lockdown is more or less managing that.
How's that for a plan?
Genuine question. Sounds like a big number but what is the scientific basis of that being the right number.
If we accept we can’t test 65M people daily, anything else is a compromise. So the question is what is optimum and how you leverage optimum capacity most effectively.
I don’t know how big that number is. We’re all just plucking numbers out of the air.0 -
Erm it's a moveble number - I'm not the expert but around a million a week seems to be helpful for say, a staggered removal of lockdown for parts of society, no?
I wouldn't throw my entire strategy out on the basis of an arbitrary number I picked.0 -
Instructions on how to make one here:Pross said:
Can you see us getting enough face masks for the general population when they currently can't get enough for critical workers?TheBigBean said:
So best to not have face masks, full social contact and lots of tests?rick_chasey said:
The large variations in deaths and survival rates across Europe, let alone Asia suggests the way things are done has an effect, so I would suggest this is not a good strategy.TheBigBean said:Personally, I think testing is a red herring. I would go with mandatory face masks, some social distancing and an expectation that people will die whatever the approach that is taken. Some notional track and trace can be thrown on top.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html0 -
Looks like the Belgian care home deaths are catastrophic and a total disaster on part of the govt there0
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Edinburgh University are trialling anti-inflammatory drug to see if they get any joy. It sounds like another good avenue of investigation.0
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It’s not an assumption they got it wrong. This was established in that Reuters article which everyone complained told us what we already knew.morstar said:
What level of testing gives you that data?rick_chasey said:I just don't know how any policy maker can be making decisions when the data on infections is almost non-existent and the data on deaths is weeks out of date.
Germany is doing 4 x the testing. Not 10 or 100 x.
Stevo pointed out the population percentage this equates to. I.e. Totally negligible.
Maybe our testing has a solid scientific base and control group within it. I have no idea but am not assuming I know they have got it wrong unlike others.
Targeted testing at 25K per day could be far more effective than 100k per day in a scattergun approach. I am not saying Germany are doing scattergun but bigger does not explicitly mean better.
Had they got it right they would not be scrambling for 100,00 tests would they? They’d have said we don’t need tests.
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Some perspective on the challenges involved with the care/nursing home situation in the UK.
There are 480k people in the care/nursing home system across over 20k sites.
By their nature the system contains the most frail and vulnerable of society so assign your own survival rates from C19 to this but the death rate is a large number no matter what realistic figure you use.
Lots of people say it is impossible to create a sterile enviornment to play out the Premier League season with all the money available to make this happen so how can anyone seriously think we can maintain a safe environment across 20k care home sites. The only advantage they have is that they are widely spread across the country.0 -
I seem to remember one of the people on here has a background in statistics. Maybe they could shed light on what would be a big enough sample to tell you something useful about the population as a whole.morstar said:
What materially changes at 200k tests per day?rick_chasey said:
Don't put your mate and biggest political donor in charge of testing, get someone better in charge and make that a much bigger and critical focus than it is.Longshot said:rick_chasey said:I just don't know how any policy maker can be making decisions when the data on infections is almost non-existent and the data on deaths is weeks out of date.
So what do you suggest they do? Even doing nothing stems from a decision.
I would put a priority on counting deaths accurately and work hard to get rid of the blockages that are stopping that (for example, I still don't know how you register a covid death in a care home if they have not been tested) whilst lockdown is still going on. We need to know where we are across the whole nation with covid deaths (as that is the proxy we are using for infections whilst we have no widely available reliable tests).
Once you have good and accurate data you can start to test out and model various types of partial relief of the lockdown, which you can then trace and track really closely to check they are following the models.
You would hope that you would get testing up to around 200,000 per day by the end of the May, when the lockdown might want to be lifted, especially with someone competent in charge and not your mate. That would then allow you to try and track various lifts.That in tern can feed into more accurate models to give you a better idea of what else might happen if you do x or y.
In the meantime, if the tests really are proving a too difficult problem to solve (which may be the case, but I am sceptical) I would really try and use other models from other nations who have better data to get as close as you can to a model that can predict what will happen - throw the doors wide open and let everyone have a go - so at worst you approximate what will happen in various lockdown lifting scenarios.
Luckily some scandis are already doing that so they might be able to help.
With regard to messaging I would be more honest with the public and explain the plan and explain that the better and more closely to the rules that will be incoming, the easier the lockdown lift will be. (After all, more predictable linear behaviour from people is easier to model). The public are giving the govt a lot of slack so make the most of it.
Luckily the UK has managed to not overload the hospitals in the current lock down and the direction of the curve suggests that it won't happen this round, so that doesn't really need the same focus, as the lockdown is more or less managing that.
How's that for a plan?
Genuine question. Sounds like a big number but what is the scientific basis of that being the right number.
If we accept we can’t test 65M people daily, anything else is a compromise. So the question is what is optimum and how you leverage optimum capacity most effectively.
I don’t know how big that number is. We’re all just plucking numbers out of the air.1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Thankskingstongraham said:
Instructions on how to make one here:Pross said:
Can you see us getting enough face masks for the general population when they currently can't get enough for critical workers?TheBigBean said:
So best to not have face masks, full social contact and lots of tests?rick_chasey said:
The large variations in deaths and survival rates across Europe, let alone Asia suggests the way things are done has an effect, so I would suggest this is not a good strategy.TheBigBean said:Personally, I think testing is a red herring. I would go with mandatory face masks, some social distancing and an expectation that people will die whatever the approach that is taken. Some notional track and trace can be thrown on top.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html
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For those who want to flatten the curve too much or push this lockdown into next year (ie much fewer deaths) how are you going to deal with 20/21 Winter flu season? How are you going to perform the yearly flu vaccination program or are you just going to risk that we won't have a flu epidemic on top of the C19 pandemic?
Realitically, the deadline for C19 herd immunity is October, maybe early November or are you proposing another long lockdown over the winter months because of the risk of a double whammy of illness of the vulnerable/frail overwhelming the NHS?
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Actually, in large part what they need for policy decisions are self-consistent data. It doesn't matter so much if its accurate. Someone on here tried to point out the distinction between precision and accuracy on here once before...So far, while you call it "luck" taking the severe cases (i.e. hospitalisations) and the deaths from those seems to have been a sufficiently precise reflection of whatever the overall trends are.rick_chasey said:some stuff
... Moving forward, to tread the fine line we need to tread until there is a vaccine (which may never happen, incidentally), it is not clear to me whether this approach will suffice. The expert advice seems to be that it is not. But also there seems to be some inference that neither is large scale crappy testing.
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Watch and learn from others for a bit first maybe? After all we keep getting told how much better other countries are doing things and how we should have learned from them with lockdown so surely it makes sense to see what works best when trying to relax restrictions?ddraver said:Pross said:
Wouldn't you rather wait a bit and have them come up with a coherent plan rather than be pressured into a knee jerk reaction? Not that I'm suggesting the plan when it does get announced will definitely be coherent or that it will go as expected! Rushing something out just because people are pressing you to be seen to do something is often a big mistake.
Why....would it be a rush?0 -
By encouraging handwashing and universal use of PPE. Which relies on them having a good supply chain of PPE. Believe it or not care homes are set up to provide good care for frail people. It's the management of visitors, or high turnover of staff that present the real challenges.coopster_the_1st said:Some perspective on the challenges involved with the care/nursing home situation in the UK.
There are 480k people in the care/nursing home system across over 20k sites.
By their nature the system contains the most frail and vulnerable of society so assign your own survival rates from C19 to this but the death rate is a large number no matter what realistic figure you use.
Lots of people say it is impossible to create a sterile enviornment to play out the Premier League season with all the money available to make this happen so how can anyone seriously think we can maintain a safe environment across 20k care home sites. The only advantage they have is that they are widely spread across the country.
What isn't realistic at the moment is to expect the government to turnaround data from 20k sites within 24 hrs every day of the week, when the resources required could be better spent on maintaining infection control.1 -
Only if it's the same resources, and not money. If it's money, then do both.mrfpb said:
By encouraging handwashing and universal use of PPE. Which relies on them having a good supply chain of PPE. Believe it or not care homes are set up to provide good care for frail people. It's the management of visitors, or high turnover of staff that present the real challenges.coopster_the_1st said:Some perspective on the challenges involved with the care/nursing home situation in the UK.
There are 480k people in the care/nursing home system across over 20k sites.
By their nature the system contains the most frail and vulnerable of society so assign your own survival rates from C19 to this but the death rate is a large number no matter what realistic figure you use.
Lots of people say it is impossible to create a sterile enviornment to play out the Premier League season with all the money available to make this happen so how can anyone seriously think we can maintain a safe environment across 20k care home sites. The only advantage they have is that they are widely spread across the country.
What isn't realistic at the moment is to expect the government to turnaround data from 20k sites within 24 hrs every day of the week, when the resources required could be better spent on maintaining infection control.0 -
Isn't there still quite a bit of debate about whether they help at all though? I thought the WHO advice was that they aren't much use.kingstongraham said:
Instructions on how to make one here:Pross said:
Can you see us getting enough face masks for the general population when they currently can't get enough for critical workers?TheBigBean said:
So best to not have face masks, full social contact and lots of tests?rick_chasey said:
The large variations in deaths and survival rates across Europe, let alone Asia suggests the way things are done has an effect, so I would suggest this is not a good strategy.TheBigBean said:Personally, I think testing is a red herring. I would go with mandatory face masks, some social distancing and an expectation that people will die whatever the approach that is taken. Some notional track and trace can be thrown on top.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html0 -
They might stop you infecting someone else if you have it.Pross said:
Isn't there still quite a bit of debate about whether they help at all though? I thought the WHO advice was that they aren't much use.kingstongraham said:
Instructions on how to make one here:Pross said:
Can you see us getting enough face masks for the general population when they currently can't get enough for critical workers?TheBigBean said:
So best to not have face masks, full social contact and lots of tests?rick_chasey said:
The large variations in deaths and survival rates across Europe, let alone Asia suggests the way things are done has an effect, so I would suggest this is not a good strategy.TheBigBean said:Personally, I think testing is a red herring. I would go with mandatory face masks, some social distancing and an expectation that people will die whatever the approach that is taken. Some notional track and trace can be thrown on top.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html0 -
They also act as barrier to stop people touching their mouth and nose (dirty sods).0
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I've read the rest but it is off the back of this which I just can't agree with.First.Aspect said:
Actually, in large part what they need for policy decisions are self-consistent data. It doesn't matter so much if its accurate.rick_chasey said:some stuff
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The Q&A I heard with the virologist bloke the other day on the BBC suggested that they really aren't that effective at doing so and become less so the more moist they get. It did make me wonder why surgical staff wear them routinely if that was the case though.kingstongraham said:
They might stop you infecting someone else if you have it.Pross said:
Isn't there still quite a bit of debate about whether they help at all though? I thought the WHO advice was that they aren't much use.kingstongraham said:
Instructions on how to make one here:Pross said:
Can you see us getting enough face masks for the general population when they currently can't get enough for critical workers?TheBigBean said:
So best to not have face masks, full social contact and lots of tests?rick_chasey said:
The large variations in deaths and survival rates across Europe, let alone Asia suggests the way things are done has an effect, so I would suggest this is not a good strategy.TheBigBean said:Personally, I think testing is a red herring. I would go with mandatory face masks, some social distancing and an expectation that people will die whatever the approach that is taken. Some notional track and trace can be thrown on top.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html
I did have the dust mask I was given as a joke at the fell race I did just before things really kicked off but that's disappeared so I'd probably just use a buff.0 -
https://www.economist.com/britain/2020/04/18/why-britain-has-so-many-covid-19-deaths
Freely available if you register.
"Why does Britain have so many Covid 19 deaths?"On most social, political and economic issues, Europe divides into north and south, and Britain sits comfortably among the more orderly, prosperous and efficient northern states. But on covid-19, that’s not how it looks. Britain appears closer to badly hit southern European countries. Indeed, Sir Jeremy Farrar, a member of the government’s scientific advisory council, has said that Britain is on track to be among the worst—if not the worst—affected country in Europe.
...Instead, the problems appear to have started earlier. The British government gave up quickly on the sort of test-and-isolate strategy common in countries that have kept deaths down. Its aim became simply to protect the vulnerable and the health service, accepting the virus would spread among the population, which would at least build herd immunity.
It goes on about testing, but apparently worrying about testing fanciful and pointless so I won't share that.0 -
I thought early on they were suggesting that Ibuprofen shouldn't be used by anyone thinking they had the virus and that it was something to do with it being an anti-inflammatory. I may have imagined the second part though.focuszing723 said:Edinburgh University are trialling anti-inflammatory drug to see if they get any joy. It sounds like another good avenue of investigation.
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