COVID-19 — Coronavirus

[George Hannah]

Pretty much.
It’s lockdown now, destroy the economy, loads of people die and get ill, with the risk that it all happens again once the lockdown ends.
Or... don’t fully lockdown yet, the economy is almost completely fucked, more people get ill and die initially but it might mean less do in the 2nd wave. When we eventually do fully lockdown, the economy is fucked.
That’s our two options.

There's always a third way - it's the distinctively British solution to all problems

 

[Ban-jani]

There's always a third way - it's the British solution to all problems

Have a cup of tea?

Donner kebab?

Bomb ze Germans?

 

[BobKowalski]

They haven't introduced new measures they weren't planning on doing before, they've only brought them forward.

Again, you clearly didn't pay attention last week when they said household isolation, banning mass gatherings and isolating over 70s was all likely to come in soon. You'll probably say they've changed strategy again when they close the schools, despite them saying it's likely to happen in the future.

Also you need to go and read the ICL study. If you do, you'll see that bringing everything in straight away is a) Not viable and b) doesn't actually have the best effect.

Yes they have. They have done this because the virus is not acting as per the modelling our strategy was based on. So we have adapted our strategy.

 

[domalino]

Yes they have. They have done this because the virus is not acting as per the modelling our strategy was based on. So we have adapted our strategy.

They have adapted the strategy by bringing them in sooner, not by bringing in measures unforseen previously.

 

[alexmcity]

Pretty much.

It’s lockdown now, destroy the economy, loads of people die and get ill, with the risk that it all happens again once the lockdown ends.

Or... don’t fully lockdown yet, the economy is almost completely fucked, more people get ill and die initially but it might mean less do in the 2nd wave. When we eventually do fully lockdown, the economy is fucked.

That’s our two options.

There are huge trade-offs and it's utterly difficult to balance between economy and human costs.

Nobody knows what will happen long-term.

This is why it is arguably better to apply the suppression strategy, buy time, learn more about the virus, increase the testing capacity and the IC capacity, and wait the warm wheather which, according to a scientific study from yesterday, is likely to slow down the spreading of the epidemic.

 

[MCFC1993]

Pretty much.

It’s lockdown now, destroy the economy, loads of people die and get ill, with the risk that it all happens again once the lockdown ends.

Or... don’t fully lockdown yet, the economy is almost completely fucked, more people get ill and die initially but it might mean less do in the 2nd wave. When we eventually do fully lockdown, the economy is fucked.

That’s our two options.

Feel like the economy is fucked no matter what we do because the global economy is on it's arse.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

Can we self isolate from Twitter in here ? It's getting beyond tedious now.

There's one tweet this morning that made me chuckle! In response to the classic Uefa move of DEMANDING that clubs pay £275m to cover the cancellation of Euro 2020 someone suggested why not just get PSG and CIty to pay! Uefa - attempting to profit from a pandemic. Doesn't that just about sum up those fuckin' charlatans.

 

[Uffa]

Dolphins swimming more freely in Cagliari's harbour now that there's no ferries and ships going around. Filmed by the Luna Rossa team, our sailing team for the America's cup.

One of the sailors says "Fuck it, I'm diving in and hugging it" lol

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

I found this a pretty good explanation of why what we are now doing is probably the best idea and why a ‘forced quarantine’ isn’t.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/

 

[True_Blue69]

Some positive news landed in my inbox this morning. An IT Service Provider that we use in China has resumed normal operations so it sounds as though they have emerged from the other side. They have been in lock down since the start of Feb. Hopefully an indication as to where we can be in a similar amount of time....

 

[George Hannah]

Yes they have. They have done this because the virus is not acting as per the modelling our strategy was based on. So we have adapted our strategy.

When the inputs change so do the outputs - the model is the same -and Mr Hancock says so as well. This virus seems to be a law unto itself.

 

[domalino]

*If we had 8x as many ICU beds than we currently have.

No. I don't know where you're getting that from.

It's if we had 8 ICU beds per 100k which is the current capacity.

 

[BobKowalski]

Pretty much.

It’s lockdown now, destroy the economy, loads of people die and get ill, with the risk that it all happens again once the lockdown ends.

Or... don’t fully lockdown yet, the economy is almost completely fucked, more people get ill and die initially but it might mean less do in the 2nd wave. When we eventually do fully lockdown, the economy is fucked.

That’s our two options.

China, Singapore etc do seem to be returning to a degree of normality. There are reports that reinfection is low. A second wave is apparently less likely as this is not influenza. If we bring in measures like France etc we can support businesses and people. Basically treat this as a one off ‘war’ cost, focus on suppression and be vigilant once we come out of the other side and see where we are with vaccines etc.

I’m not saying this will be over in a few months as it is likely we will have to modify and adapt our behaviour for a long while yet but it is possible to combat this and use the Far East countries as a model as much as we can given the cultural differences.

 

[SWP's back]

No. I don't know where you're getting that from.

I’ve deleted the post whilst I re-read the report.

edit: it says at peak, we’d still need 8x as many ICU beds as we currently have. Which isn’t the same as my original post that I’ve deleted.

“In combination, this intervention strategy is predicted to reduce peak critical care demand by two-thirds and halve the number of deaths. However, this “optimal” mitigation scenario would still result in an 8-fold higher peak demand on critical care beds over and above the available surge capacity in both GB and the US”

Doesn’t that mean 125,000 deaths?

 

[George Hannah]

I found this a pretty good explanation of why what we are now doing is probably the best idea and why a ‘forced quarantine’ isn’t.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/

this simulitis is a tricky cove!

 

[domalino]

I’ve deleted the post whilst I re-read the report.

edit: it says at peak, we’d still need 8x as many ICU beds as we currently have. Which isn’t the same as my original post that I’ve deleted.

No it doesn't! You need to look at page 13 of the document.

All of the modelling is using the current capacity of 5000 beds/ 8 per 100k.

With social distancing, household isolation, over 70s the peak ICU beds needed is between 1100 and 4900 at r2.2 and r2.4 depending on when every measure is brought in.

“In combination, this intervention strategy is predicted to reduce peak critical care demand by two-thirds and halve the number of deaths. However, this “optimal” mitigation scenario would still result in an 8-fold higher peak demand on critical care beds over and above the available surge capacity in both GB and the US”

Doesn’t that mean 125,000 deaths?

This is based on the old mitigation strategy. Not the current suppression strategy.

 

[Marvin]

A big hole that the Government needs to close is testing.

frontline staff in the NHS need testing and they are focusing on priority-testing but they need to move the testing outside the NHS to private labs and use the emergency services, students and other people outside the NHS to get the resources they need. Testing is the way you find asymptomatic people who are spreading it, and you catch the transmission chain earlier. The WHO are highlighting this. No one outside of South Korea seems to be doing this work but it should be the key. I expect the NHS feels it doesn't have the resources to do it but society does. That's a government job to re-allocate.

 

[Ban-jani]

Feel like the economy is fucked no matter what we do because the global economy is on it's arse.

Yeah you’re not wrong.

Grim times ahead mate.

 

[BobKowalski]

When the inputs change so do the outputs - the model is the same -and Mr Hancock says so as well. This virus seems to be a law unto itself.

Well you are getting there. The obvious question then is why did we not use the data from the virus ‘which seems to be a law unto itself’ to begin with? It didn’t start here. We saw the response in China and elsewhere. Their response was based on the actual properties of the virus. We rejected their response as flawed because our modelling based on a generic virus told us it was flawed.

Our ignorance of the actual virus allied to our arrogance that we were right and knew better than those currently experiencing the problem is probably a debate for less pressing times.

 

[alexmcity]

China, Singapore etc do seem to be returning to a degree of normality. There are reports that reinfection is low. A second wave is apparently less likely as this is not influenza. If we bring in measures like France etc we can support businesses and people. Basically treat this as a one off ‘war’ cost, focus on suppression and be vigilant once we come out of the other side and see where we are with vaccines etc.

I’m not saying this will be over in a few months as it is likely we will have to modify and adapt our behaviour for a long while yet but it is possible to combat this and use the Far East countries as a model as much as we can given the cultural differences.

China is difficult to follow but SK is politically and economically very close to what most liberal Western societies are like. SK should provide a guidance: test, test, test. As WHO recommends, too. More testing, less drastic measures wrt social distancing required (according to Nate Silver anyway).