COVID-19 — Coronavirus

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Phoned the school to say my 2 kids won't be going in as I have copd and wasnt prepared to risk infection and they were perfectly fine and understanding, the woman said they have a authorised absence of 14 days isolation which takes them into the easter break by which time new information and guidelines will be in place. She said basically anyone who is worried and keeping their kids at home won't be fined and to be honest herself and the teachers don't want to be there.
 
Chippy_boy said:
I hear where your coming from mate but I think it's a bit different in fact.

The numbers of people who die is very strongly determined by the extent to which the NHS' ICU capacity is overloaded. Nearly everyone who needs ventilator support and who cannot get it, will die. What they have realised (and was obvious to many of us) is that had they carried on with Option 2, the NHS would be completely overwhelmed and the numbers of people dying would be off the scale. They talked about 250,000 *if* we had enough capacity, which of course we do not. So the numbers would be much higher than 250,000 - something in the region of half a million - with 14,500 people dying per day at the peak.

So Option1 becomes the only option. We have no choice. There are no circumstances where more people will die under Option1. This idea that Option2 might be better in the long run, has been shown to be wrong. It's SO bad in the short term, it cannot possibly be better.

And regards Option1, we may well have several "waves". After each wave is under control, we can ease off on measures and then if the numbers start to pick up again, we need to lock down again. We are going to have to get used to this for the next 18 months, because there is no alternative which does not leave half a million people dead.
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The impression I'm getting is that lockdown might not be that for off anyway. And aren't we in a lockdown of sorts now? Granted, not Spain/France levels of lockdown but requests to avoid all but essential travel, work from home where possible, stay out of pubs and restaurants, asking the elderly/vulnerable to stay indoors, etc. That's quite a comprehensive list.
 
BobKowalski said:
I didn’t say they were unforeseen. The Govt always had scenarios prepared for more restrictive measures. My point is that they had to bring them in sooner than planned as the strategy was switched from mitigation to suppression as our initial modelling was in error. This was evident over the weekend when the mantra of ‘herd immunity’ was suddenly ditched and why yesterday we were not fully on top of the economic impact of what we were asking people to do nor did we have measures to announce that would mitigate the economic impact.

I have specifically said we adapted our strategy. We adapted it to reflect new data which made our initial assumptions redundant. This is not a criticism. I expect people to change the strategy if the data demands it.

The criticism would be why was not actual data on the virus used in the first place? If we didn’t have access then why were countries and organisations privy to the actual data not heeded more? There could be good reasons for not doing so but that is a debate for later.
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Sturgeon admitted yesterday these measures had been accelerated. My disappointment is that they hadn't already a financial package plan ready to go. This is basic contingency planning and being on the front foot. They should be getting in someone from the private sector or military to direct their crisis management. It appears lacking at the moment.
 
davek1808 said:
Phoned the school to say my 2 kids won't be going in as I have copd and wasnt prepared to risk infection and they were perfectly fine and understanding, the woman said they have a authorised absence of 14 days isolation which takes them into the easter break by which time new information and guidelines will be in place. She said basically anyone who is worried and keeping their kids at home won't be fined and to be honest herself and the teachers don't want to be there.
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They were given this advice on Friday. Nice to see some schools are sensible enough to use what they’ve been told.
 
Oohvonkyvonky said:
That's a ridiculous approach from your boss and the training company! This is the recommendations from ACAS https://www.acas.org.uk/coronavirus
You could just say someone in your family has it - Then you wont be obliged to go?!
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That approach only works once. A case of crying wolf.

We've had a guy at work self isolating for a week now with what appears to be an unchanged cough he's had since October. If that changes he'll be on unpaid leave after 14 days unless he gets a sicknote I would expect.
 
M18CTID said:
The impression I'm getting is that lockdown might not be that for off anyway. And aren't we in a lockdown of sorts now? Granted, not Spain/France levels of lockdown but requests to avoid all but essential travel, work from home where possible, stay out of pubs and restaurants, asking the elderly/vulnerable to stay indoors, etc. That's quite a comprehensive list.
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Yes, I am classifying where we are today as effectively being in lockdown. We may not be entirely there but the big material changes are in place now. Thank God.
 
domalino said:
He's misunderstanding the ICL report, thinking the government was on the black line for the mitigation simulation - no measures taken at all - which it never was.
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I mentioned yesterday that releasing the methodology would lead to incorrect headlines. I only found the report from the BBC because they mentioned the UK had changed it's stance yesterday because the path we were on would lead to 1/4 million deaths, but a quick glance this morning, I've not had time to really look at it, seems to be that that figure would be the result if we were doing nothing, which wasn't the case. Is that right?

Here's the text from the BBC ...

The UK's plan has shifted because the scientific modelling showed we were on course for a "catastrophic epidemic".

A strategy of just slowing the spread of the virus, but not trying to stop it, would have overwhelmed intensive care units.

The modelling by Imperial College London has been heavily informed by the experience in Italy and is influencing decisions at the heart of government.

Its calculations predicted 260,000 deaths in the UK.
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EDIT: The report suggests 1/2M in a do-nothing scenario then mentions 1/4M in the text later but I haven't seen this on the charts, seems a bit odd. Need to look at it in greater detail, I think.
 
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domalino said:
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.
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1,100 and 4,900 includes school closures doesn’t it and it says that it remains in place (for two years?).

And still suggests up to 48,000 deaths (which, I grant, is considerably better than 250,000).
 
domalino said:
This report was compiled a few days ago, I don't know how long it would have taken them to get the data sorted and put into the model, but remember that as of a week ago there were only 21000 cases outside China.

The Netherlands and Sweden are both still following mitigation approaches. We'll see if they change now.
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As I said there could have been legitimate reasons and we certainly didn’t have the data from our own cases to utilise. Equally there were people pointing out the dangers of modelling and ignoring what countries experiencing the crisis were doing. Anyway it’s a debate for later. We have more pressing issues.
 
davek1808 said:
Phoned the school to say my 2 kids won't be going in as I have copd and wasnt prepared to risk infection and they were perfectly fine and understanding, the woman said they have a authorised absence of 14 days isolation which takes them into the easter break by which time new information and guidelines will be in place. She said basically anyone who is worried and keeping their kids at home won't be fined and to be honest herself and the teachers don't want to be there.
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Should simply close down the schools, no point in taking a risk
 
Chippy_boy said:
Yes, I am classifying where we are today as effectively being in lockdown. We may not be entirely there but the big material changes are in place now. Thank God.
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Should've been weeks ago mate. I do think other countries have been slow to enforce it though as well - the figures for Spain and France are way higher than ours are now and they've only gone into lockdown these past few days.
 
No difference today in work, no one allowed to work from home unless a family member in the same house has an illness that puts them at risk.
No wipes, no hand gels, no fcuking soap in the toilets ffs.
Luckily i've got my own
 
SWP's back said:
1,100 and 4,900 includes school closures doesn’t it and it says that it remains in place (for two years?).

And still suggests up to 48,000 deaths (which, I grant, is considerably better than 250,000).
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I said a week or so ago that I expected 100,000 (UK) deaths from this and was ridiculed by some. If we can keep it down to 48,000, that would be "marvellous" and I hope to God we can. I think we perhaps we can.

What is far from clear is just how the country will cope from the effect of all of the changes. We are a looking at 18 months now of changes to peoples ways of life not seen since WW2. This is going to have enormous knock on effects for all of us. I cannot even begin to imagine.
 
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