The big Coronavirus thread
Comments
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morstar said:
Developing world will be interesting statistically.
I posted much earlier in the outbreak how bad things could be in developing nations with poor healthcare.
It could potentially be the opposite with the elderly and frail being statistically far fewer in the developing world.
Just heard on the BBC News that there is concern over malaria-related deaths spiking this year because urgent supplies, such as mosquito nets, are in short supply as the factories manufacturing them are closed. Hadn’t thought of that being a consequence of the outbreak.0 -
Germany also had, going into this, a big big ICU buffer.mrb123 said:
I suppose to turn that round, why would the death rate be so wildly different between those countries?kingstonian said:mrb123 said:
The easiest answer is that the true number of cases in France and the UK is much higher than those numbers.kingstonian said:What I'm struggling to get to grips with is how Germany's numbers of deaths through this is so much lower. As of today, 151,000 confirmed cases compared to 159,000 in France and 138,000 in the UK, yet only 5,300 deaths compared to 21,300 in France and 18,700 in the UK (yes, I know there is debate regarding what is "in" and "out" of those death numbers, but that's separate).
Why would one country have so relatively few deaths? All 3 countries have solid healthcare systems. I don't believe any of the 3 countries have run out of ICU beds etc - they might have had to scramble to reconfigure wards, build new temporary hospitals etc, but they haven't run out to my knowledge. The medics are sharing treatment plans with each other, so it isn't as if Germany have discovered a cocktail of drugs which is way more successful.
Is it genetics, is it based on existing immunities, or something else? Really mystifying to me.
So you think the UK and France have had 4x the number of cases than Germany, so the death rate is in fact the same? That's a possibility, but why would 3 fairly similar countries have such wildly different infection rates?
I just don't get it.
We already know with a fair degree of certainty that Germany's testing regime has been much more thorough than ours so they'll have been picking up far more mild/moderate/asymptomatic cases than us, whereas we're pretty much only testing people who are hospitalised.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109066/coronavirus-testing-in-europe-by-country/
It’s not really had to do too much rationing.0 -
That & whatever social distancing methods it takes to keep the R number less than 1Stevo_666 said:
You think that will be the only thing we will do post lockdown?tailwindhome said:
It's the only show in town.Pross said:Some on here will no doubt be pleased to hear the emphasis now on test, track and trace and they are still claiming they'll hit that 100,000 a day target on time.
I posted this chart up thread and was surprised it didn't get more discussion
As I read it the 'lockdown' phase had less impact than the 'social distancing' phase but was required to get the R below 1
In order to remove the lockdown phase we need to replace it with something else.
As posted up thread the government will be looking at what's the combination of social distancing methods that has the greatest impact on the R with the least amount of other 'harms'
“New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!0 -
“New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!0
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Get the worse over and done with painful that it is.
Why prolong this? All this bull about vaccines unless someone gets lucky it’s a longtime off.
Try and protect the vulnerable and allow herd immunity.
The cure is worse than the disease in the long run.
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focuszing723 said:
Johnson made that abundantly clear on his first public address regarding Covid19.coopster_the_1st said:
Listen to the science as we already are. Change the messaging to the reality of the situation that a lot of people going to die.focuszing723 said:
Right you're PM. What's your plan, do we just carry on as normal and see what happens?coopster_the_1st said:
Old and people with underlying health issues die every day. Nearly 2000 of them every day.rick_chasey said:FFS, lots of people have 'underlying health issues'.
Some perspective on the reality of daily life may go some way to remove this current unwarranted panic.
I think we are going to need a temporary universal basic income in place. That way we could reverse a lot of the current spending as businesses are not going to put their employees first if they are having cash problems
Great, so you agree we need to contain the virus to protect the NHS and be able to cope with a variety of medical issues of all age ranges, along with Covid19.0 -
Why do you think they ignored extensive testing and tracing as part of that policy?morstar said:
I agree. Keeping under NHS capacity is what I believe to be the extent of UK government policy and I think that is the correct approach.Jeremy.89 said:
The economic effects of over running the NHS are not insignificant. Much of the lockdown was already informally occurring before it was made policy.morstar said:
I can't fault the logic of your position.coopster_the_1st said:
This is pretty much sums up my position however I would add the longer this goes on the more 'collateral damage' there will be. You can't just focus on the C19 deaths as you miss the bigger picture.kingstongraham said:
I think Coopster's position is misunderstood. It definitely isn't "let it rip" - I think it is very much more like the general consensus, but more fatalistic than me. A summary might be: Keep the vulnerable as safe as possible, keep the health service out of crisis, but don't think you can limit the spread long term.morstar said:So, here's the thing some people need to get their head round...
Even with perfect data and with dynamic responses to all feedback...
The government's role will continue to be one of balancing mortality against other factors. It will not automatically become to simply minimise mortality at all costs unless that is considered the optimal outcome.
If mortality were the only factor, speed limits would be 5mph and cars would be wrapped in foam. We all balance risks every single day.
Coopsters position is logical but extreme. Mine is probably fatalistically pragmatic and much less extreme but some seem to be arguing from emotional and naive positions. I think there is an element of collective denial.
The faster we have heard immunity the quicker the emotional side of relationships can return e.g. kids hugging their grandparents, etc
My position is not extreme, I just put it forward it without the emotion attached. It comes across as harsh because others are distracted by their emotion as @morstar points out.
I think the focus solely on the economic imperative in earlier posts is what made it extreme and harder to swallow for many. I think the justification is broader than that. But ultimately, it's semantics. Unless the confidence factor in an early vaccine is extremely high, like you, I think we do need to get through this sooner rather than later.
I think as a society there are parallels to grief and dealing with a severe diagnosis.
Denial, anger, desperation, despair etc.
One of my main points has been that people are judging the UK government against failure to deliver outcomes there is no evidence they are targeting.
Companies that have successfully managed to implement working from home are going to struggle to entice people back to the office. What does that mean for city centre coffee shops and restaurants that theoretically could open and maintain social distancing...
It's difficult to see any getting back to normal without a vaccine or a vast improvement in the treatment of this.0 -
Just shave it off and say it's for charity.bradsbeard said:Get the worse over and done with painful that it is.
Why prolong this? All this bull about vaccines unless someone gets lucky it’s a longtime off.
Try and protect the vulnerable and allow herd immunity.
The cure is worse than the disease in the long run.0 -
We're well past 3 weeks of lockdown and there are still over 500 dying *a day*. That's an fully loaded A340 crashing in the UK every day.bradsbeard said:Get the worse over and done with painful that it is.
Why prolong this? All this bull about vaccines unless someone gets lucky it’s a longtime off.
Try and protect the vulnerable and allow herd immunity.
The cure is worse than the disease in the long run.
Have you had it yet?0 -
Also, for all the 'brits won't stand for it much longer' chat, how come the rozzers are still telling people to lay off grassing up their neighbours unless it's *really* serious?0
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Yep had it 3 weeks ago.rick_chasey said:
We're well past 3 weeks of lockdown and there are still over 500 dying *a day*. That's an fully loaded A340 crashing in the UK every day.bradsbeard said:Get the worse over and done with painful that it is.
Why prolong this? All this bull about vaccines unless someone gets lucky it’s a longtime off.
Try and protect the vulnerable and allow herd immunity.
The cure is worse than the disease in the long run.
Have you had it yet?
Parents aged 70 had it.
I know 3 that have died of Covid.
Yes these numbers are high but they will be.
Up to 9 million people per year die of starvation and related diseases of starvation. Awful lot of airplanes that and can be cured.
Your point is?
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I saw that and a similar graph was in the link to the study posted a few days back. Yes, worthy of debate. It does seem to be a catch 22 - appears we can only release limited aspects without the R0 going above 1.tailwindhome said:
That & whatever social distancing methods it takes to keep the R number less than 1Stevo_666 said:
You think that will be the only thing we will do post lockdown?tailwindhome said:
It's the only show in town.Pross said:Some on here will no doubt be pleased to hear the emphasis now on test, track and trace and they are still claiming they'll hit that 100,000 a day target on time.
I posted this chart up thread and was surprised it didn't get more discussion
As I read it the 'lockdown' phase had less impact than the 'social distancing' phase but was required to get the R below 1
In order to remove the lockdown phase we need to replace it with something else.
As posted up thread the government will be looking at what's the combination of social distancing methods that has the greatest impact on the R with the least amount of other 'harms'"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
My point is it's a terrible amount of people to die as it is, and that is happening when social distancing is working.bradsbeard said:
Yep had it 3 weeks ago.rick_chasey said:
We're well past 3 weeks of lockdown and there are still over 500 dying *a day*. That's an fully loaded A340 crashing in the UK every day.bradsbeard said:Get the worse over and done with painful that it is.
Why prolong this? All this bull about vaccines unless someone gets lucky it’s a longtime off.
Try and protect the vulnerable and allow herd immunity.
The cure is worse than the disease in the long run.
Have you had it yet?
Parents aged 70 had it.
I know 3 that have died of Covid.
Yes these numbers are high but they will be.
Up to 9 million people per year die of starvation and related diseases of starvation. Awful lot of airplanes that and can be cured.
Your point is?
To remove lockdown tomorrow means you will get hundreds of thousands of deaths in very short order, including a shed load of people who would otherwise be saved but would not have access to the required healthcare as they would be overloaded.
Most epidemiologist believe, and it makes sense, that the amount of people dying of corona vastly outnumbers the people dying as a result of lockdown.
Generally, as a rule, nations, cities and towns with higher death rates have historically recovered much more slowly from pandemics than those who have lower death rates.0 -
The source is the same, it's from the Imperial College modelling.Stevo_666 said:I saw that and a similar graph was in the link to the study posted a few days back.
They have made their model public and it's being updated using daily data by others including @AlistairHaimes on twitter.
“New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!0 -
Has anybody tried to quantify what level of deaths and economic performance they are happy with?
Text book approach is to look at zero deaths and how much you would pay ie 10% reduction in GDP. Likewise take GDP growth back to 1% and how many deaths per day would you accept ie 1,000.
Then you can pick your numbers in the middle that you are happy with.
Please don’t bother pointing out that life is not that simple.0 -
They didn't ignore it. They were doing it and stopped. Therefore it was an informed decision as they knew what it was all about.surrey_commuter said:
Why do you think they ignored extensive testing and tracing as part of that policy?morstar said:
I agree. Keeping under NHS capacity is what I believe to be the extent of UK government policy and I think that is the correct approach.Jeremy.89 said:
The economic effects of over running the NHS are not insignificant. Much of the lockdown was already informally occurring before it was made policy.morstar said:
I can't fault the logic of your position.coopster_the_1st said:
This is pretty much sums up my position however I would add the longer this goes on the more 'collateral damage' there will be. You can't just focus on the C19 deaths as you miss the bigger picture.kingstongraham said:
I think Coopster's position is misunderstood. It definitely isn't "let it rip" - I think it is very much more like the general consensus, but more fatalistic than me. A summary might be: Keep the vulnerable as safe as possible, keep the health service out of crisis, but don't think you can limit the spread long term.morstar said:So, here's the thing some people need to get their head round...
Even with perfect data and with dynamic responses to all feedback...
The government's role will continue to be one of balancing mortality against other factors. It will not automatically become to simply minimise mortality at all costs unless that is considered the optimal outcome.
If mortality were the only factor, speed limits would be 5mph and cars would be wrapped in foam. We all balance risks every single day.
Coopsters position is logical but extreme. Mine is probably fatalistically pragmatic and much less extreme but some seem to be arguing from emotional and naive positions. I think there is an element of collective denial.
The faster we have heard immunity the quicker the emotional side of relationships can return e.g. kids hugging their grandparents, etc
My position is not extreme, I just put it forward it without the emotion attached. It comes across as harsh because others are distracted by their emotion as @morstar points out.
I think the focus solely on the economic imperative in earlier posts is what made it extreme and harder to swallow for many. I think the justification is broader than that. But ultimately, it's semantics. Unless the confidence factor in an early vaccine is extremely high, like you, I think we do need to get through this sooner rather than later.
I think as a society there are parallels to grief and dealing with a severe diagnosis.
Denial, anger, desperation, despair etc.
One of my main points has been that people are judging the UK government against failure to deliver outcomes there is no evidence they are targeting.
Companies that have successfully managed to implement working from home are going to struggle to entice people back to the office. What does that mean for city centre coffee shops and restaurants that theoretically could open and maintain social distancing...
It's difficult to see any getting back to normal without a vaccine or a vast improvement in the treatment of this.
I can hazard guesses as to their reasons but don't profess to know.
The interview Rick posted explained how we were on the same testing and tracing track as Germany in the early days and actually knowledge sharing with them. Different policy decisions were then taken.0 -
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And then quite soon afterwards, the lockdown will become a priority again, when the hospitals are full of coronavirus patients. It's dangerous stuff to say "end the lockdown" as if it's so simple.coopster_the_1st said:0 -
I think the following needs doing:surrey_commuter said:Has anybody tried to quantify what level of deaths and economic performance they are happy with?
Text book approach is to look at zero deaths and how much you would pay ie 10% reduction in GDP. Likewise take GDP growth back to 1% and how many deaths per day would you accept ie 1,000.
Then you can pick your numbers in the middle that you are happy with.
Please don’t bother pointing out that life is not that simple.
Start off with an 'acceptable' death rate assuming a vaccine comes along in 12 months. Then look at what restrictions are necessary to achieve that, and what gdp you can get.
Then, flip the issue on its head, what is the minimum GDP the country can get away with, and still have a semi functioning society, and step forwards through the problem until you get a number of deaths.
Hopefully the two approaches yield similar numbers.
What I personally feel is frustrating is that for the past three years, we have heard that all that was needed to get over brexit was a bit of imagination. We now have a far more open ended problem, but a government that seems devoid of any big ideas.
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Why do people think the economy will suddenly recover with the removal of a lockdown if the virus is still there?
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Am I missing something or have you just reiterated what I said.Jeremy.89 said:
I think the following needs doing:surrey_commuter said:Has anybody tried to quantify what level of deaths and economic performance they are happy with?
Text book approach is to look at zero deaths and how much you would pay ie 10% reduction in GDP. Likewise take GDP growth back to 1% and how many deaths per day would you accept ie 1,000.
Then you can pick your numbers in the middle that you are happy with.
Please don’t bother pointing out that life is not that simple.
Start off with an 'acceptable' death rate assuming a vaccine comes along in 12 months. Then look at what restrictions are necessary to achieve that, and what gdp you can get.
Then, flip the issue on its head, what is the minimum GDP the country can get away with, and still have a semi functioning society, and step forwards through the problem until you get a number of deaths.
Hopefully the two approaches yield similar numbers.
What I personally feel is frustrating is that for the past three years, we have heard that all that was needed to get over brexit was a bit of imagination. We now have a far more open ended problem, but a government that seems devoid of any big ideas.
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It's about changing the narrative. There is overwhelming support for the lockdown because all they see is the death number. When they are exposed to the bigger picture we will get a more honest and better conversation on this as a country.kingstongraham said:
And then quite soon afterwards, the lockdown will become a priority again, when the hospitals are full of coronavirus patients. It's dangerous stuff to say "end the lockdown" as if it's so simple.coopster_the_1st said:
We, as cyclists, rightly moan about how accident and death stats are presented by the media because they give an incorrect view of cycling as a mode of transport. This is no different.1 -
Trying to include dates in the graph makes it a bit noisy and harder to view.tailwindhome said:
That & whatever social distancing methods it takes to keep the R number less than 1Stevo_666 said:
You think that will be the only thing we will do post lockdown?tailwindhome said:
It's the only show in town.Pross said:Some on here will no doubt be pleased to hear the emphasis now on test, track and trace and they are still claiming they'll hit that 100,000 a day target on time.
I posted this chart up thread and was surprised it didn't get more discussion
As I read it the 'lockdown' phase had less impact than the 'social distancing' phase but was required to get the R below 1
In order to remove the lockdown phase we need to replace it with something else.
As posted up thread the government will be looking at what's the combination of social distancing methods that has the greatest impact on the R with the least amount of other 'harms'
The government didn't think that closing schools would make much difference, but I think a teacher shortage forced their hand.
I'd be a bit sceptical about the numbers as well given that no one really knows how many people have been infected to date.0 -
rick_chasey said:
Why do people think the economy will suddenly recover with the removal of a lockdown if the virus is still there?
Nobody thinks lockdown will be removed, there will be a series of incremental easements. It is assumed each of those will improve the economic outlook.
Does that mean you would keep the status quo and wait for a vaccine0 -
No but I think the cost of lifting the lockdown too soon is higher than the cost of lifting too late.surrey_commuter said:rick_chasey said:Why do people think the economy will suddenly recover with the removal of a lockdown if the virus is still there?
Nobody thinks lockdown will be removed, there will be a series of incremental easements. It is assumed each of those will improve the economic outlook.
Does that mean you would keep the status quo and wait for a vaccine0 -
I think you have no option from here on in but to try to measure R0 by testing, which means at least being able to test randomly to some degree. They are approaching 2 weeks into the three weeks they had to get their act together on this.Stevo_666 said:
I saw that and a similar graph was in the link to the study posted a few days back. Yes, worthy of debate. It does seem to be a catch 22 - appears we can only release limited aspects without the R0 going above 1.tailwindhome said:
That & whatever social distancing methods it takes to keep the R number less than 1Stevo_666 said:
You think that will be the only thing we will do post lockdown?tailwindhome said:
It's the only show in town.Pross said:Some on here will no doubt be pleased to hear the emphasis now on test, track and trace and they are still claiming they'll hit that 100,000 a day target on time.
I posted this chart up thread and was surprised it didn't get more discussion
As I read it the 'lockdown' phase had less impact than the 'social distancing' phase but was required to get the R below 1
In order to remove the lockdown phase we need to replace it with something else.
As posted up thread the government will be looking at what's the combination of social distancing methods that has the greatest impact on the R with the least amount of other 'harms'
"Social distancing" certainly made a surprisingly big difference at the outset, given that at that stage the UK was still in something of a denial phase. Having come through the other side of the first wave, it is possible that people will take it somewhat more seriously and it will be concomitantly more effective now.
Interesting how little difference closing the schools had, no? I made that point and it was roundly rejected by the "but think of the children brigade". Actually, over 99.99% of children under 10 (estimates based on Chinese data make the number 99.998%, and 99.96% for 10-19 s) will be fine and I'm guessing that the mortality risk of going to and from school, or using a trampoline, is much higher.
Teachers, different story.0 -
rick_chasey said:
My point is it's a terrible amount of people to die as it is, and that is happening when social distancing is working.bradsbeard said:
Yep had it 3 weeks ago.rick_chasey said:
We're well past 3 weeks of lockdown and there are still over 500 dying *a day*. That's an fully loaded A340 crashing in the UK every day.bradsbeard said:Get the worse over and done with painful that it is.
Why prolong this? All this bull about vaccines unless someone gets lucky it’s a longtime off.
Try and protect the vulnerable and allow herd immunity.
The cure is worse than the disease in the long run.
Have you had it yet?
Parents aged 70 had it.
I know 3 that have died of Covid.
Yes these numbers are high but they will be.
Up to 9 million people per year die of starvation and related diseases of starvation. Awful lot of airplanes that and can be cured.
Your point is?
To remove lockdown tomorrow means you will get hundreds of thousands of deaths in very short order, including a shed load of people who would otherwise be saved but would not have access to the required healthcare as they would be overloaded.
Most epidemiologist believe, and it makes sense, that the amount of people dying of corona vastly outnumbers the people dying as a result of lockdown.
Generally, as a rule, nations, cities and towns with higher death rates have historically recovered much more slowly from pandemics than those who have lower death rates.
Your focus is totally mortality.rick_chasey said:
My point is it's a terrible amount of people to die as it is, and that is happening when social distancing is working.bradsbeard said:
Yep had it 3 weeks ago.rick_chasey said:
We're well past 3 weeks of lockdown and there are still over 500 dying *a day*. That's an fully loaded A340 crashing in the UK every day.bradsbeard said:Get the worse over and done with painful that it is.
Why prolong this? All this bull about vaccines unless someone gets lucky it’s a longtime off.
Try and protect the vulnerable and allow herd immunity.
The cure is worse than the disease in the long run.
Have you had it yet?
Parents aged 70 had it.
I know 3 that have died of Covid.
Yes these numbers are high but they will be.
Up to 9 million people per year die of starvation and related diseases of starvation. Awful lot of airplanes that and can be cured.
Your point is?
To remove lockdown tomorrow means you will get hundreds of thousands of deaths in very short order, including a shed load of people who would otherwise be saved but would not have access to the required healthcare as they would be overloaded.
Most epidemiologist believe, and it makes sense, that the amount of people dying of corona vastly outnumbers the people dying as a result of lockdown.
Generally, as a rule, nations, cities and towns with higher death rates have historically recovered much more slowly from pandemics than those who have lower death rates.
Lockdown or no lockdown these people will succumb to this illness regardless.
We have large temporary hospitals hardly being used. Although staffing them is the issue.
We’re prepared to completely destroy our economy and the livelihood of millions for a death rate that a drop in the ocean compared to to UK and world population.
Nature has given a big kick in the balls and for once our science has no answer so scientists panic.
My statement earlIre stands true. As humans in the developed world we allow millions to die of starvation as it’s not on our doorstep.4 -
There are about 65 million people in the UK and probably less than 1% have phone the cops to grass up their neighbour. You do get how a democracy works dont you.rick_chasey said:Also, for all the 'brits won't stand for it much longer' chat, how come the rozzers are still telling people to lay off grassing up their neighbours unless it's *really* serious?
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Not a helpful metric. Better comparison would be an average rate of about 125 a day from heart attaches and strokes, or 450 a day for cancer.rick_chasey said:
We're well past 3 weeks of lockdown and there are still over 500 dying *a day*. That's an fully loaded A340 crashing in the UK every day.bradsbeard said:Get the worse over and done with painful that it is.
Why prolong this? All this bull about vaccines unless someone gets lucky it’s a longtime off.
Try and protect the vulnerable and allow herd immunity.
The cure is worse than the disease in the long run.
Have you had it yet?
I read an intersting ish article this morning, albeit in the Hate Mail which means it was probably sensationalised, quoting an oncologist estimating 50k additional cancer deaths over the next year. Quite possibly and "estimated.. as many as..." statoid to be taken with a bucket of salt, but still does show that there is increasing concern about where the cross over between Covid and collateral deaths will fall. Clearly, somewhere between long term "social distancing" and "lockdown" - closer to "social distancing" I'd guess.1
