COVID-19 — Coronavirus

[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).