COVID-19 — Coronavirus

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As soon as I saw the press conference where they didn’t suspend the PL, I thought the herd immunity strategy was an absolute nonsense and recklessly dangerous and I chose to adopt Social Distancing straight away in-line with WHO guidelines.

The next day the PL suspended itself.

The WHO and countless experts have since come out and said they think the herd immunity strategy flawed and reckless. A Professor from Harvard on Five Live this morning said it was “one of the most stupid things” he’d ever heard in his life.

The Dept of Health is now saying that herd immunity is not part of its plan.

Yet the Chief Scientist who did the press conference with Boris was on Sky News on Friday saying herd immunity was the strategy and that at least 60% would have to be infected for it to work.

250 scientists have now called on the government to reverse its strategy and promote Social Distancing immediately.

I’m not being alarmist, but I have absolutely no faith in the leadership decision making. They’re all very articulate and polished and sound very impressive. But they’re playing with people’s lives on an experiment and using the general public as guinea pigs.

I’d urge everyone to adopt Social Distancing as soon as possible, in-line with WHO and every other developed nation’s strategy to slow down the rate at which this is spread.

If the spread continues at its current rate we’re going to be in Italy’s position within days.
 
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The Light Was Yellow Sir said:
60 million people die every year and nobody gives two fucks most of the time. A lot of your ‘42 million’ would be in that number naturally. I know it’s not a good thing that’s going on currently but I do wish people would stop making out that nobody ever dies and then this virus comes along and kills everyone very unexpectedly.
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1) They’re not “my” numbers. This is a CDC model. You know, the world’s leading organisation at mapping this sort of thing.

2) You did however, make up the fact that “a lot of that 42m would have died anyway.

3) No one is saying that everyone is going to be killed.
 
SWP's back said:
1) They’re not “my” numbers. This is a CDC model. You know, the world’s leading organisation at mapping this sort of thing.

2) You did however, make up the fact that “a lot of that 42m would have died anyway.

3) No one is saying that everyone is going to be killed.
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Bravo for not just giving him a facepalm or some abuse!
 
bluethrunthru said:
Seems to me that as Johnson's hero is Churchill he has gambled it all on the advice he has been given rather than adopting other more herd like if you like approaches to combating the virus. If he is right then he is the Churchill of his dreams... if not he is a Churchill who just gave in to the Germans.......I just wonder if it is a gamble is it appropriate ?
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My stand on this was always that either him or scientists around him are up for the glory. I've got no other logical explanation why would they take this approach, completely opposite of whole global scientific community.
 
sir baconface said:
What a ridiculous statement. There's no copper-bottomed, proven blueprint. Do you seriously think government and scientific advisers are wilfully causing deaths?
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Even if they are not then there's a potential question about criminal negligence.

As I said, we are getting ahead of ourselves.
 
cleavers said:
More than possible ? Highly likely I'd say, it could easily be 2 noughts on the end of that and we'd never know, even if the chinese do. None of these official figures are anything like the extent in reality, look at the numbers for Turkey and Russia, no hiding of numbers there, right. Our own figures don't include anyone not tested so are hopelessly rubbish.

The true extent of this we are miles off knowing, and we will never know.
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I think we can VERY safely assume your upper estimates on the numbers of untested infectees are wrong, or else this would have mortality rates not much different to normal flu and the entire planet would not be gripped like it is.
 
Chippy_boy said:
Even if they are not then there's a potential question about criminal negligence.

As I said, we are getting ahead of ourselves.
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Sadly, you are the one getting ahead of himself. The numbers tested positive obviously give underestimates of the real infection rate. Death records are clearly more accurate but cannot simply be used as the WHO have done to produce reliable mortality rate stats. The UK is a leader in epidemiology and the gov is relying of their advice, followed by an increasing number of other countries.
 
domalino said:
I can't help but feel that stuff like this is what's really damaging us. Consensus within the scientific community is notoriously difficult to achieve but there seems to be no ranking by the BBC or other news agencies by who is saying what.

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So she knows the face of every single virologist in the country?

And PhD students are scientists who are Doctors in training. They achieved scientist status when they passed their degree.
 
@TCIB, @SebastianBlue here's my take on it:

There have been 900 cases and 2 death in Sweden so far. The last five days have seen 100, 100, 200, 150, 150 new cases. So 700 of 900 in the last 5 days. The second death is worrying. I heard on the radio that even though the patient was 80+ there were no underlying problems.

I don't think Sweden have had the same "herd immunity" policy as the UK until now, though. They started tracing contacts with known cases but at the end of this last week decided that this was no longer practical as the virus had spread into the wider community, at least in Stockholm. Now the focus has changed to protecting the vunerable as the virus spreads. I wouldn't say that this was necessarily plan "A" like in the UK but it's the only viable option now. It waw half term in Stockholm a couple of weeks ago and too many people came home from Italy and Iran for them to keep a lid on it. Where I work there were 8 of 120 people who had to self-isolate for two weeks afterwards.

The planning seems to be beter in Sweden than the UK.

People who self-isolate get pay or sick pay. A lot of standard surgeries have been cancelled. gatherings of more than 500 people have been banned and most sporting events have been postponed. Prison visits have been cancelled and walk-in surgeries have stopped - you have to call for an appointment now. Schools are generally staying open mostly because closing them will take people out of the work force to look after healthy children. They close if there are suspected or confirmed cases. But children and teachers aren't generally in the high risk groups, either. Most of these rules have come in over the last few days. They aren't ruling out lock downs, either.

There is a principle in Sweden called the "responsibility principle" that says: if you are responsible for something under normal circumstances, then you are responsible for it during a crisis too. So a lot is happening at local and company level. A lot of companies are asking people to work from home, banning travel, on-site visitors etc. The Employers organisations and Unions have agreed a plan to reduce working hours from 1 May across the board if necessay upto a 20% reuction in working hours. The governmnet have allowed for a 40% reduction in hours but a maximum 20% reduction in pay. They have introduced a rule for companies so tax can be delayed for up to a year.

There seems to be more planning ahead in Sweden than the UK, even though the plan has changed in the last few days. And there seems to be more coherence between what the government is saying and what they are doing, than in the UK. And there is more information about what the next step in the process will be. Of course everyone is being told that their government has the best plan, nobody is saying "Oh, the Koreans have a better plan, but we're not doing that."

We should have gone skiing yesterday, but we decided not to go. Today the Foreign Office have advised against all foreign travel. Holiday companies have cancelled all flights out are saying they will send out empty planes to fly people home. I imagine they will be asked to self-isolate when they get home. I posted earlier that the thing that we can controll is the "actual" R0 - how much we spread the disease to others. Sweden seems to be implementing policies that will flatten the curve more than the UK is.
 
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Qatar’s ministry of health have just cancelled all elective surgeries and all non urgent appointments.

There’s been no deaths as of yet but the above suggests to me that they’re expecting something relatively large to be in the pipeline.
 
Stortz said:
Why are the names of the dead not being released on the news no interviews with the families? All very strange this
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*ring ring ring ring*
”Ahoyhoy!”
“Hi, it’s Dan from BBC Breakfast.”
“Hello...”
“Yes, we believe your Dad croaked it from Hong Kong fluey?”
“Yeah”
“Well we were wondering if you’d like to come on the sofa tomorrow and tell us all about it?”
“Yeah I’ll pointlessly come on tele and make a tit of myself, crying in front of the nation, tell everyone what a great Dad and Grandad he was”
“Great, get down to Salford for 5:30 am tomorrow, bye!”
“Good bye!”
 
George Hannah said:
Sadly, you are the one getting ahead of himself. The numbers tested positive obviously give underestimates of the real infection rate. Death records are clearly more accurate but cannot simply be used as the WHO have done to produce reliable mortality rate stats. The UK is a leader in epidemiology and the gov is relying of their advice, followed by an increasing number of other countries.
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And what of the opinions of the 200 or so British scientists who have written to the government saying the course of action we are taking is wrong?

If you dismiss the judgement of the scientists from pretty much every other country on the basis that "we know best", on what basis do you dismiss the above? Are the leading epidemiologists only the ones who agree with you?
 
blueish swede said:
@TCIB, @SebastianBlue here's my take on it:

There have been 900 cases and 2 death in Sweden so far. The last five days have seen 100, 100, 200, 150, 150 new cases. So 700 of 900 in the last 5 days. The second death is worrying. I heard on the radio that even though the patient was 80+ there were no underlying problems.

I don't think Sweden have had the same "herd immunity" policy as the UK until now, though. They started tracing contacts with known cases but at the end of this last week decided that this was no longer practical as the virus had spread into the wider community, at least in Stockholm. Now the focus has changed to protecting the vunerable as the virus spreads. I wouldn't say that this was necessarily plan "A" like in the UK but it's the only viable option now. It waw half term in Stockholm a couple of weeks ago and too many people came home from Italy and Iran for them to keep a lid on it. Where I work there were 8 of 120 people who had to self-isolate for two weeks afterwards.

The planning seems to be beter in Sweden than the UK.

People who self-isolate get pay or sick pay. A lot of standard surgeries have been cancelled. gatherings of more than 500 people have been banned and most sporting events have been postponed. Prison visits have been cancelled and walk-in surgeries have stopped - you have to call for an appointment now. Schools are generally staying open mostly because closing them will take people out of the work force to look after healthy children. They close if there are suspected or confirmed cases. But children and teachers aren't generally in the high risk groups, either. Most of these rules have come in over the last few days. They aren't ruling out lock downs, either.

There is a principle in Sweden called the "responsibility principle" that says: if you are responsible for something under normal circumstances, then you are responsible for it during a crisis too. So a lot is happening at local and company level. A lot of companies are asking people to work from home, banning travel, on-site visitors etc. The Employers organisations and Unions have agreed a plan to reduce working hours from 1 May across the board if necessay upto a 20% reuction in working hours. The governmnet have allowed for a 40% reduction in hours but a maximum 20% reduction in pay. They have introduced a rule for companies so tax can be delayed for up to a year.

There seems to be more planning ahead in Sweden than the UK, even though the plan has changed in the last few days. And there seems to be more coherence between what the government is saying and what they are doing, than in the UK. And there is more information about what the next step in the process will be. Of course everyon eis being told thta their governmen has the best plan, nobody is saying "Oh, the Koreans have a better plan, but we're not doing that."

We should have gone skiing yesterday, but we decided not to go. Today the Foreign Office have advised against all foreign travel. Holiday companies have cancelled all flights out are saying they will send out empty planes to fly people home. I imagine they will be asked to self-isolate when they get home. I posted earlier that the thing that we can controll is the "actual" R0 - how much we spread the disease to others. Sweden seems to be implementing policies that will flatten the curve more than the UK is.
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Thank you for that boss, very informative. I think we are about to stop large gatherings like yourself today from what i can gather, well the papers are saying the gov is going to make that call. Whatever decisions are made i hope we can look back and say "that was as good as we could have done given the circumstances".

"Ministers are working with the chief scientific adviser and chief medical officer on our plan to stop various types of public events, including mass gatherings, beginning next week," a government source said.

https://www.wionews.com/world/uk-to-ban-mass-gatherings-from-next-week-to-curb-coronavirus-286354

Thanks again for such a detailed response and all the best to you and yours, stay safe boss.
 
George Hannah said:
Sadly, you are the one getting ahead of himself. The numbers tested positive obviously give underestimates of the real infection rate. Death records are clearly more accurate but cannot simply be used as the WHO have done to produce reliable mortality rate stats. The UK is a leader in epidemiology and the gov is relying of their advice, followed by an increasing number of other countries.
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Increasing? You are ill-informed.

There are huge question marks over the UK strategy. It might work but if it doesn't the outcome will be tragic. Arguably the best strategy is to flatten the curve in order to learn as much about the virus as possible.

I read today that in France half of the infected people in a critical condition are under 50 y.o. The conjecture that only old or vulnerable people are at risk might be wrong.

It's very unfortunate for the UK and the USA that their leaders are loonies. This might cost them a lot.
 
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