COVID-19 — Coronavirus

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Marvin said:
Talk of a national lockdown, or circuit breaker, call it what you will, is completely ridiculous.

According to the Gov.uk site we have a testing capacity of 350,000 tests per day. We have a map of clusters all over the UK, and there are some regions which have detected virus levels at 700 per 100,000 whilst other areas have less than 70 per 100,000.

I am not against lockdowns per se when the spike is in your face but we should use our resources carefully and be smart about this. Politicians even now are incredibly opportunistic. In fact most of Western government has failed. Look at the US political system. Look at the WHO. Completely inept. They should be trialing the vaccines instead of leaving it to national states like Russia and China that we do not understand/trust.
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The problem with this theory is it extrapolates now to tomorrow which in a pandemic raging across a small crwded island is like saying I don;t need a fire extinguisher as the house on fire is two doors away.

Wigan was exempted from the GM lockdown for exactly these reasons in July. Stockport too. Both ended up back in because they shot up by virtue of being juicy targets to both the virus where it was being suppressed nearby and to all those frustrated people seeking a way to by pass the rules because they are too severe/stupid/repressive etc etc.

To truly get numbders down it has to be a tight ship, seal off the sources and stop anyone from exporting them. Which anyone can do even to a rural area. Exa ctly why Wales are banning people from the NW heading there.

Yes, you can go the route of some countries and enforce regional lockdowns as if Manchester or Liverpool are Eyam, Nobody in or out and lock them upo if they try. But that's not going to happen or be acceptable obviously.

So the only way to actually stop the virus from leaking because people will get round the rules as they did to turn Wigan into a basket case because it was left off due to being 'not in need of restrictions' is that circuoit breaker concept.

The reality is THAT will have to happen eventually unless this thiong fizzles out by running out of people to infect in coming weeks and months. I hope it does but its a gamble. And the longer we delay the longer it will have to be in existence because every week we delay results in 2/3 of the shallow downward curve before it is safe to release it.

Done now it might ha#ve been far better by Christmas and some feel good options available then. Leave it to November we will be stuffed through to February with an even worse economic catastrophy brought about by trying to avoud a smaller one by acting swiftly.

Northern Ireland have not hesitated. By the time we see if it has worked (and it may not as this is science and nobody can be sure) then its value to replicate in England will be much less as we saw in March - ending up with one of the longest lockdowns in the world by hesitating a couple of weeks.

I get why we are trying to be taking baby steps. But it is a massive gamble and I suspect we all know this is headed for a lockdown at some point barring an unexpecteddownmturn in the virus across the winter months. Especially given the mess that is oyr testing strategy - vital to localised lockdowns.

The truth is the faster we do this the less damaging it will become. NObody wants a lockdown in the lead up to and around Christmas. But we wait another 3/4 weeks and that may be what ends up happening.
 
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everythingchangesbutblue said:
So you are saying we should listen to unqualified people over the experts in the field employed by the government? Marvin area of expertise in in Astrophysics and Astronomy, bluejon is a data analyst. Should we believe them over the overwhelming majority of qualified scientists in the area of Epidemiology and Virology? ( and it is a overwhelming majority) If Chris Whitty said that "Pluto is sunny as fuck every Halloween" would you give it any credence?
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I'm not a data analyst, i'm a research scientist who specialises in medical data. I didn't come on here to give it the biggun though, i mistakenly thought that having input from someone who works with medical data might be of use to the thread. You know,a bit like asking a plumber if you need advice on plumbing, but i do also appreciate the power of a degree from Blue Moon University. I'm done anyway. I'll stick to the 90s tunes thread, they're much more fun over there.
 
Just out of interest and not to put a spanner in the works, has anyone seen that peer reviewed reviewed paper by the WHO has IFR lower than influenza for under 70s. Not sure how that relates to anything other than a case for protecting the more vulnerable and opening up the less so.

Tighter restrictions everywhere across much of Europe (bro in Switzerland has just confirmed the same over there).
 
Somapop I agree about the protecting of the vulnerable. It is the best strategy going forward. But we lost the chance by so many errors and months on most of them are now so fed up they are not listening and want their lives back.

And the message from government seems to be no need to shield this winter like you did before. Not sure why because it is true that not overwhelming the NHS - which will be mitigated best by preventing as many of the over 70s or those younger with co morbidities from catching it - and allowing the rest of choose their own risk - is the big reason we need to act in coming months.

So in effect greenlighting the most vulnerable to go out and catch it seems to almost guarantee the need for a lockdown if we are not targetting messages and resources into protecting the ones most likely to not just carch Covid but to overwhelm the hospitals after they do.

This is what I do not understand about current policy. It seems almost entirely driven by protecting the economy. Of course that is important. But ignoring the consequences will inevitably lead to a point where that becomes impossible if you do nothing to prevent the impact on the NHS becoming unstoppable.

That is the biggest difference between Spring and now. We KNOW the NHS will have far more patients for other reasons in coming weeks. THey are far more vulnerable to being swamped just by us reaching 50% of the patient numbers we had in April for that reason.

And we are right now over 25% of that number - so heading fast to that breaking point. You cannot just forget this reality because the nation will not if and when it happens.

So whatever anyone says now about no lockdown to save the economy they will be saying we have to save the NHS at any cost if we do too little now.
 
roubaixtuesday said:
You just don't like being called out for posting nonsense. Stop whining and face reality.
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Not really mate, I posted articles last night which showed your figures are the very worst case scenario and you still can't accept it. People believe what they want to and that's fine, some people thrive on doom and gloom and that's their choice.
 
somapop said:
Are we expecting political fireworks now GM has gone into Tier 3 or will be it be any 'deals' (if any) are kept in the background.
I guess this puts the kibosh on any plans to start dating again....not doing zoom dates that's for sure.
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From what I can tell, unless I'm reading it wrong, the rules for tier 3 are barely indistinguishable from tier 2. The outside settings are reduced to just parks. It's just beer gardens/private gardens that are now disallowed which I can't imagine impacting people that much given winter is kicking in now.
 
everythingchangesbutblue said:
So you are saying we should listen to unqualified people over the experts in the field employed by the government? Marvin area of expertise in in Astrophysics and Astronomy, bluejon is a data analyst. Should we believe them over the overwhelming majority of qualified scientists in the area of Epidemiology and Virology? ( and it is a overwhelming majority) If Chris Whitty said that "Pluto is sunny as fuck every Halloween" would you give it any credence?
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No, but you and your little group of un-merry men will only ever listen to one side of the argument and that it the one which predicts impending doom. The same happened earlier in the year and then they all crawled back under their stones to reappear as soon as cases started increasing. You dismiss anything which isn't bad news and write real scientists off saying they are politically motivated. What if it's the ones you believe that are politically motivated and the others are right?
 
Mon Autre said:
From what I can tell, unless I'm reading it wrong, the rules for tier 3 are barely indistinguishable from tier 2. The outside settings are reduced to just parks. It's just beer gardens/private gardens that are now disallowed which I can't imagine impacting people that much given winter is kicking in now.
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Gyms, casinos and salons as well but that is up to the local council to decide and not a forced decision.
 
Mon Autre said:
From what I can tell, unless I'm reading it wrong, the rules for tier 3 are barely indistinguishable from tier 2. The outside settings are reduced to just parks. It's just beer gardens/private gardens that are now disallowed which I can't imagine impacting people that much given winter is kicking in now.
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Some bellends will be sat in a garden and say "fuck it,it's too cold,lets go inside"....IMO.
 
Healdplace said:
Somapop I agree about the protecting of the vulnerable. It is the best strategy going forward. But we lost the chance by so many errors and months on most of them are now so fed up they are not listening and want their lives back.

And the message from government seems to be no need to shield this winter like you did before. Not sure why because it is true that not overwhelming the NHS - which will be mitigated best by preventing as many of the over 70s or those younger with co morbidities from catching it - and allowing the rest of choose their own risk - is the big reason we need to act in coming months.

So in effect greenlighting the most vulnerable to go out and catch it seems to almost guarantee the need for a lockdown if we are not targetting messages and resources into protecting the ones most likely to not just carch Covid but to overwhelm the hospitals after they do.

This is what I do not understand about current policy. It seems almost entirely driven by protecting the economy. Of course that is important. But ignoring the consequences will inevitably lead to a point where that becomes impossible if you do nothing to prevent the impact on the NHS becoming unstoppable.

That is the biggest difference between Spring and now. We KNOW the NHS will have far more patients for other reasons in coming weeks. THey are far more vulnerable to being swamped just by us reaching 50% of the patient numbers we had in April for that reason.

And we are right now over 25% of that number - so heading fast to that breaking point. You cannot just forget this reality because the nation will not if and when it happens.

So whatever anyone says now about no lockdown to save the economy they will be saying we have to save the NHS at any cost if we do too little now.
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Unless they are very confident of a vaccine pretty soon it might turn out that what they thought was protecting the economy was infact false economy.
 
Mon Autre said:
From what I can tell, unless I'm reading it wrong, the rules for tier 3 are barely indistinguishable from tier 2. The outside settings are reduced to just parks. It's just beer gardens/private gardens that are now disallowed which I can't imagine impacting people that much given winter is kicking in now.
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You say that, but I have promised my kids I will build them a replica of the Christmas markets in our garden and their grandparents will be coming to Xmas dinner - sat outside with our coats on in a huge gazebo with fairy lights.

Questions - do hairdressers have to now shut again?

My lad plays junior Sunday football and have always found it the height of hypocrisy that teams comprising of kids from multiple schools can continue to play throughout the last few months in Trafford.

Not to mention, the hundreds of parents driving them to various parks and locations and standing by the side of pitches cheering them on?

Utterly bizarre - especially so, when the clubs are saying they are taking their guidance from the FA!!
 
True_Blue69 said:
Not really mate, I posted articles last night which showed your figures are the very worst case scenario
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No, you didn't. You cherrypicked two studies, one of which was near as dammit in the range I quoted (what I actually said was most studies were in the range 0.5%-1%).

The ONS study is certainly the most extensive I'm aware of for the UK and gave a centrepoint estimate of 0.9%. How is this a "very worst case scenario"? Sure there are studies that give lower numbers - there are also higher estimates available.

You're still just whining about being called out again. You can't face reality, and instead look for comforting stories and ignore anything inconvenient to you.
 
Russia just approved a second vaccine after ignoring phase three trials. It will be a while before we know if they have missed side effects by cutting corners but less time before we know if they are curbing the virus. If they do seem to work there is going to be pressure on the western vaccine trials.
 
Sounds like Graham Brady (Alty & Sale West) is leading the charge of MPs against this. Not good for the gov when he's the 1922 committee chairman.
 
Anyone know the rules on travel in Tier 3 ?
My son is due to come home from Uni to MCr next weekend but ive not seen any clear guidance on travel.
 
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