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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

LynnDoyleCooper said:
See what I wrote in the NHS workers thread this morning. We're pretty much already at capacity, so I'm not convinced a smaller peak in a few weeks will seem much less bad given the state of things already.
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Yes, on paper and in the statistics for sure, just not convinced it will feel that different in the healthcare system.
 
kebabking said:
It's the difference between a train crash this morning that kills 50, and a train crash in 2 months that kills 200.

Both are bad things, but one is worse than the other.

If it peaks in April instead of May we will be less ready - but we'll also have less patients presenting with serious symptoms, and therefore fewer deaths.
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I think i'm still not really getting it. In the train crash metaphor.. the 50 people killed this morning how does that prevent the 200 in two months? (I mean unless lockdown goes on indefinitely).
 
Anyway clearly if a reduced spike, or peak, is possible by introducing strict social distancing measures then obviously a loosening of those measures could result in a subsequent spike. Isn't the whole point of social distancing about this deferment instead of overwhelming health infrastructure
 
bimble said:
Yeah but how will you know when it’s peaked?
If lockdown is lifted in say May, why would we not peak again and higher? Sorry I may be being thick.
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I suppose it depends on your definition of peak. But measures to slow the spread to a level with which the NHS can cope will need to continue until either there's sufficient community immunity, or there's a vaccine. Those could be less restrictive than currently if, for instance, the antigen tests shows that lots of people have had it and can go out again, or if NHS capacity can be increased further.
 
Athos said:
If it peaks at 50, then, by definition, it can't grow to 200.
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Peaks are things you can only identify retrospectively. We will only know where 'the' peak was months or years after the fact. Anyone waiting for the death rate to tail off slightly on the basis that this would mark the point at which it's all over would be wise to do a little expectation management.

The information we'd need to make longer-term predictions simply doesn't exist yet. The range of confidence about how much of the population has already been exposed to the virus is vast, and without an idea of that we don't know if we're likely to see one peak, two or a dozen before this fucking thing finally starts to ease up.
 
Ok I think I do get it then. This doesn’t really mean that this mornings train crash prevents a worse one next month though does it?
It continues unless we had a perfect system of absolutely everybody staying home the whole time for some weeks and then the virus would just die in the dead ends of everyone’s home unit. But that’s not a possibility.
 
SpookyFrank said:
Peaks are things you can only identify retrospectively. We will only know where 'the' peak was months or years after the fact. Anyone waiting for the death rate to tail off slightly on the basis that this would mark the point at which it's all over would be wise to do a little expectation management.
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Quite. I'm certainly not proposing that.
 
bimble said:
Ok I think I do get it then. This doesn’t really mean that this mornings train crash prevents a worse one next month though does it?
It continues unless we had a perfect system of absolutely everybody staying home the whole time for some weeks and then the virus would just die in the dead ends of everyone’s home unit. But that’s not a possibility.
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It doesn't need to die, just tail off to a point where it can be kept below a level with which the NHS can cope with the minimal measures in place.
 
SpookyFrank said:
No I didn't think you were. A lot of people are though. This idea that the death rate is basically guaranteed to climb for the next ten days at least is hard to put across, not least because of how grim a notion that is on so many levels.
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Yeah, especially with current rates meaning that's doubling three times i.e. x 8.
 
Athos said:
That's true if an peak is unmitigated. But a low early peak i.e. it peaks lower than it would have, because of really effective measures to prevent transmission, is a bit different.
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do... do you think those really effective measures are in place..?
 
killer b said:
do... do you think those really effective measures are in place..?
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Not sure. Too early to judge their effects. But, if it'd been up to me, I'd have carried out more testing, contact tracing and isolation, and put stricter measures in place, sooner, on the basis that it's easier to gradually loosen them than it is to put the genie back in the bottle.
 
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bimble said:
I think i'm still not really getting it. In the train crash metaphor.. the 50 people killed this morning how does that prevent the 200 in two months? (I mean unless lockdown goes on indefinitely).
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I don't know whether it's the point kebabking was making, but we need to bear in mind that the two peaks could both happen, much as seems to have happened in Italy. It would be a very foolish government that went, "ah, there we go, peak passed, relax all restrictions" and ended up with a bounce.
 
killer b said:
do... do you think those really effective measures are in place..?
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I don't think we have fully effective measures in place now, but we certainly have better measures now than we did, say, two weeks ago.

And if the measures we have now had been put in place two weeks earlier, we'd be in a significantly better position than we are.

From both points of view, lessening the extent to which the nhs is overwhelmed, and reducing the rate of spread and therefore the number of deaths overall, the earlier the measures had been introduced and the more restrictive they are/were, the better.

But realistically it's about the best measures we can achieve, rather than perfect measures, and it's about reducing the speed of transmission rather than being able to stop it altogether.
 
The government will on Saturday begin the delivery emergency food parcels to thousands of the 1.5 million people it has identified as particularly vulnerable.

The boxes will contain basic essentials such as pasta, toilet roll, cans of soup and beans, teabags and custard cream biscuits.

I look forward to my parcel. I love a good parcel.
 
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