Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[Cid]

I take a similar view - I've been involved in the military response and support to PHE and the NHS since the beginning of January, and as a general rule I tend the think the worst of politicians just to save time - HMG has been switched on to the dangers of this since the beginning, and has never shyed away from morally/ideologically difficult, terrifyingly expensive and bitter tasting decisions, but the communication and public education element of this has been utterly woeful, particularly of late. You've also had public bodies directly working against each other with absolutely no ministerial grip.

I've been pleasantly surprised (albeit from a somewhat low baseline) with Johnson's willingness to not be the populist moron that Trump has been - he has followed what the CMO, CSA and PHE were telling him, he hasn't flinched at taking decisions that could, given the uncertainties involved, come back to haunt him - but again the communication, and understanding how critical public education would be has been crap.

Sunak and Hancock have been the stand-out performers, both publicly and in government. Jon Ashworth has been Labours star - Hancock wants him appointed as his deputy at health if there's a COBR 'national government'- Corbyn has been dreadful, and surprisingly, McDonnell has only been marginally better.

He wanted to go the Trump line though. Just realised he had to flip... pressure from Europe, and from various parts of the scientific community. And populism here is very different than the US, sure he does have a libertarian base, but equally he has a lot of old school conservative and w/c voters that aren’t as attached to ideals of individual liberty.

 

[Athos]

I'm sorry Edie, but I'm genuinely bemused at how you (or anyone) can praise this government's response.

Ok, they bought in the 80% thing, but that was slow in coming, patchy in coverage, and unclear. Plus, let's not kid ourselves that they won't use it as cover for even more brutal austerity when this is all over.

And the fact is that we're now looking at a disaster as a result of the ridiculous 'herd immunity' strategy, and, wishy-washy measures after the u-turn. If they cared about us, the plam would've been prompt and widespread testing, tracing, and isolation, backed up with early imposition of significant measures to arrest the spread. But their instinctive reaction was to keep the economy going, and that lost lives were a price worth paying.

Worst of all, is the failure to protect NHS workers. It's been obvious that this is coming for months, with very little having to be done to provide essential PPE. To me, that's unforgivable.

Communication has been abysmal; frequently, advice has changed hourly, and ministers have given contradictory statements.

Also, I don't entirely buy the "following medical advice" line. We don't know what the advice was, or what pressure was exerted. And, ultimately, it's not just a medical issue; there's lots of real-world and political factors that are taken into account.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I take a similar view - I've been involved in the military response and support to PHE and the NHS since the beginning of January, and as a general rule I tend the think the worst of politicians just to save time - HMG has been switched on to the dangers of this since the beginning, and has never shyed away from morally/ideologically difficult, terrifyingly expensive and bitter tasting decisions, but the communication and public education element of this has been utterly woeful, particularly of late. You've also had public bodies directly working against each other with absolutely no ministerial grip.

I've been pleasantly surprised (albeit from a somewhat low baseline) with Johnson's willingness to not be the populist moron that Trump has been - he has followed what the CMO, CSA and PHE were telling him, he hasn't flinched at taking decisions that could, given the uncertainties involved, come back to haunt him - but again the communication, and understanding how critical public education would be has been crap.

Sunak and Hancock have been the stand-out performers, both publicly and in government. Jon Ashworth has been Labours star - Hancock wants him appointed as his deputy at health if there's a COBR 'national government'- Corbyn has been dreadful, and surprisingly, McDonnell has only been marginally better.

Genuine q. If they've been switched on from the beginning, how are they so much less well prepared than Germany? Where was the test and trace ?

Regarding Johnson, he has finally ditched the trumplike populism but he only did that a couple of weeks ago. Before that all his rhetoric was still about how great he and his govt were.

 

[Azrael]

Given that the Chief Scientist advocated enrolling the entire British population in a grotesque medical experiment to engineer "herd immunity" with a deadly virus, the CMO was reduced to a nodding dog before he was banished to his funk hole (I wish him a full recovery with lots of rest -- six months minimum), and his deputy thinks testing's only for loser countries, I'm not reassured by Johnson and co. deferring to their dubious expertise.

 

[Cid]

Oh I don't know, compared to other countries we've not got many. I mean, Italy has twice the amount we do per 100,000 people. (going by this image) Looks like something we've needed to increase for a long time. Did a bit after SARS but not enough. I think we increased the units that oxygenate the blood from 5 to 30. That's woeful.

Yes, but all those are low compared to what we anticipate. Of course we have as few as possible... but we’re talking about increases of 30,000, which - I think - is an additional 50 beds/100,000.

 

[Azrael]

Genuine q. If they've been switched on from the beginning, how are they so much less well prepared than Germany? Where was the test and trace ?

Regarding Johnson, he has finally ditched the trumplike populism but he only did that a couple of weeks ago. Before that all his rhetoric was still about how great he and his govt were.

He's succeeded in doing the seemingly impossible, and going one worse than the Don. Both were willing for Covid-19 to rip through their populations, but at least Trump wanted to try treating it with a cocktail of antimalarials and antibiotics that could show promise (it's in clinical trials and elements have already been added to some counties' treatment protocols). Johnson didn't even offer that, just Death without Binky.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I'm sorry Edie, but I'm genuinely bemused at how you (or anyone) can praise this government's response.

Ok, they bought in the 80% thing, but that was slow in coming, patchy in coverage, and unclear. Plus, let's not kid ourselves that they won't use it as cover for even more brutal austerity when this is all over.

And the fact is that we're now looking at a disaster as a result of the ridiculous 'herd immunity' strategy, and, wishy-washy measures after the u-turn. If they cared about us, the plam would've been prompt and widespread testing, tracing, and isolation, backed up with early imposition of significant measures to arrest the spread. But their instinctive reaction was to keep the economy going, and that lost lives were a price worth paying.

Worst of all, is the failure to protect NHS workers. It's been obvious that this is coming for months, with very little having to be done to provide essential PPE. To me, that's unforgivable.

Communication has been abysmal; frequently, advice has changed hourly, and ministers have given contradictory statements.

Also, I don't entirely buy the "following medical advice" line. We don't know what the advice was, or what pressure was exerted. And, ultimately, it's not just a medical issue; there's lots of real-world and political factors that are taken into account.

Yeah I can forgive mistakes made with good intentions (and who'd want to be in govt right now). What I can't forgive is mistakes made with ill intentions or out of callous disregard for people. And I see both of those in play here.

 

[Edie]

Even if I could buy the rest of what you say, which I don't, this is absolute fantasyland. You must be occupying some parallel reality to me. I literally don't understand how you can think this.

Because the press conferences that I’ve seen, with Boris and the advisors, I have been impressed by?

 

[SpineyNorman]

I don't understand how anyone can praise a government that was, until very recently, happy to just let the virus rip and kill 100s of thousands in the vain hope of "herd immunity", in the face of all the evidence from the far east, and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into pursuing a less sociopathic strategy (if you can call it that) at least 2 weeks too late.

Seriously, its beyond my comprehension and I'm wondering if some people are inhabiting a different reality from me.

 

[Azrael]

Yeah I can forgive mistakes made with good intentions (and who'd want to be in govt right now). What I can't forgive is mistakes made with ill intentions or out of callous disregard for people. And I see both of those in play here.

It's the callous disregard that gets me, and worst of all, from our top scientists and physicians. Medical ethics has collapsed with terrifying speed and ease.

 

[kabbes]

Compare and contrast with Germany. UK govt has been shit and now playing catchup. Not the only one . France Spain equally shit. Worth noting that many other European countries wouldn't need that 80% pay emergency legislation cos that's already their system. What are the chances of us keeping it when this ends?

Looks to me like Germany are on the exact same path as Italy, France and the UK, about 4-5 days behind the UK. It’s just that their better testing procedure allowed them to see the start and extent of the cases before other countries and more thoroughly. It doesn’t stop their deaths following the same trend though.

if anything, I find it interesting from the other angle — Germany gives us a flavour of how much more widespread incidences if the disease are likely to be than our records show, and a better feel for the true mortality rate.

 

[Azrael]

I don't understand how anyone can praise a government that was, until very recently, happy to just let the virus rip and kill 100s of thousands in the vain hope of "herd immunity", in the face of all the evidence from the far east, and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into pursuing a less sociopathic strategy (if you can call it that) at least 2 weeks too late.

Seriously, its beyond my comprehension and I'm wondering if some people are inhabiting a different reality from me.

I'm glad for anyone who dodges the worst of Covid-19, even Johnson, but now he's apparently escaped with the mildest of mild cases, fear he'll be even more Woosterish about taking it on the chin. Thankfully the public won't be in the mood to take lessons from someone preaching about what a breeze the celeb strain is.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Looks to me like Germany are on the exact same path as Italy, France and the UK, about 4-5 days behind the UK. It’s just that their better testing procedure allowed them to see the start and extent of the cases before other countries and more thoroughly. It doesn’t stop their deaths following the same trend though.

if anything, I find it interesting from the other angle — Germany gives us a flavour of how much more widespread incidences if the disease are likely to be than our records show, and a better feel for the true mortality rate.

TIme will tell on that. There are two crucial factors, aren't there. First the capacity of the health services and ability not to be overwhelmed, which we have seen in Italy causes deaths, and second when the exponential growth is arrested.

We have the example of S Korea where that growth was nipped in the bud right at the start. Germany hasn't done that, but they have been aggressively testing and tracing, and they've been in lockdown for more than a week now. So Germany's figures are much more encouraging than the UK's if lockdown is an effective measure, because they've been in lockdown longer than us and their death rate is still much lower.

ETA: Another encouraging stat from Germany is the number now reported to have recovered, which has risen to 8,000-odd. That's an indication of how long the thing has been around in Germany - they could be approaching their peak quite soon.

(Of course, events may prove me wrong on all of the above points.)

 

[elbows]

TIme will tell on that. There are two crucial factors, aren't there. First the capacity of the health services and ability not to be overwhelmed, which we have seen in Italy causes deaths, and second when the exponential growth is arrested.

We have the example of S Korea where that growth was nipped in the bud right at the start. Germany hasn't done that, but they have been aggressively testing and tracing, and they've been in lockdown for more than a week now. So Germany's figures are much more encouraging than the UK's if lockdown is an effective measure, because they've been in lockdown longer than us and their death rate is still much lower.

Infection control in hospitals and elsewhere is a third crucial factor.

I am not encouraged by Germanys figures at all. If, in 5 days time, they have way lower than 1000 deaths in total, then maybe I can start to be more optimistic about the way it will go there.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Infection control in hospitals and elsewhere is a third crucial factor.

Yes, this too. That's something the Koreans got very right.

 

[kabbes]

TIme will tell on that. There are two crucial factors, aren't there. First the capacity of the health services and ability not to be overwhelmed, which we have seen in Italy causes deaths, and second when the exponential growth is arrested.

We have the example of S Korea where that growth was nipped in the bud right at the start. Germany hasn't done that, but they have been aggressively testing and tracing, and they've been in lockdown for more than a week now. So Germany's figures are much more encouraging than the UK's if lockdown is an effective measure, because they've been in lockdown longer than us and their death rate is still much lower.

ETA: Another encouraging stat from Germany is the number now reported to have recovered, which has risen to 8,000-odd. That's an indication of how long the thing has been around in Germany - they could be approaching their peak quite soon.

(Of course, events may prove me wrong on all of the above points.)

Well right now, Germany’s death trend is a precise mirror of Italy’s. This is from the FT’s tracker:



the middle of the dark lines that have been picked out is Italy. And thanks to France being next to Germany alphabetically, I’ve been able to include its graph in the crop too so you can see it’s just the same.

(Top dark line is Spain, bottom one is South Korea).

More comparisons: UK is also in Italy’s trend, US is even more fucked though

 

[weltweit]

R4 Gove saying that they are now doing 10,000 tests a day.

 

[elbows]

By the way due to data reporting delays, UK figures for deaths released each day does not mean all those deaths actually happened during that period.

eg:

The data was collected from 5pm on Thursday to 5pm on Friday, but some of the actual deaths occurred as long ago as 18 March.

Hospital deaths falling at fastest rate yet

Deaths from covid-19 in England's hospitals are declining at the fastest rate yet, as the whole South West region sees one death in seven days.

www.hsj.co.uk

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Well right now, Germany’s death trend is a precise mirror of Italy’s. This is from the FT’s tracker:

View attachment 203913

the middle of the dark lines that have been picked out is Italy. And thanks to France being next to Germany alphabetically, I’ve been able to include its graph in the crop too so you can see it’s just the same.

(Top dark line is Spain, bottom one is South Korea).

More comparisons: UK is also in Italy’s trend, US is even more fucked though

View attachment 203914

The exponential growth phase looks more or less the same everywhere. What that doesn't tell you is at what point along the line that phase will come to an end. Number of days since 10th death is a reasonable way to compare. But another way would be number of days since lockdown was imposed, assuming a general definition of lockdown as something akin to what the UK did on Monday, on the assumption that lockdown arrests exponential spread, bearing in mind that this shows up in the figures with a time lag of perhaps a week wrt new cases and two to three weeks wrt deaths.

For example, you can also say that Germany is currently more or less on China's line. But China has (if you believe the stats) ended up with just 3,000-odd deaths out of a population of more than 1 billion, compared to Italy with 10,000 and counting from a population of 60 million.

ETA: The figures from Italy do appear very tentatively as if they might bear out the idea that lockdown does end exponential growth. New cases has levelled out for the past week, and hopefully we are now seeing new deaths levelling out, too.

 

[xes]

By the way due to data reporting delays, UK figures for deaths released each day does not mean all those deaths actually happened during that period.

eg:

Hospital deaths falling at fastest rate yet

Deaths from covid-19 in England's hospitals are declining at the fastest rate yet, as the whole South West region sees one death in seven days.

www.hsj.co.uk

just to be helpful. /shakes head...
Or is it because they're testing people after they've died and they're playing catch up?

 

[brogdale]

Well right now, Germany’s death trend is a precise mirror of Italy’s. This is from the FT’s tracker:

View attachment 203913

the middle of the dark lines that have been picked out is Italy. And thanks to France being next to Germany alphabetically, I’ve been able to include its graph in the crop too so you can see it’s just the same.

(Top dark line is Spain, bottom one is South Korea).

More comparisons: UK is also in Italy’s trend, US is even more fucked though

View attachment 203914

Worth saying/repeating that the FT's Coronavirus tracker page, from which those graphics are taken, is free to access, without the usual paywall rigmarole.

Coronavirus tracked: the latest figures as the pandemic spreads | Free to read

 

[editor]

Cyclists! Don't be twats!

Warning that cycling could be banned if people don’t ride responsibly this weekend

‘Make sure bikes continue to be seen to be part of the solution to this crisis’ – Chris Boardman

road.cc

 

[xenon]

For anyone who just wants to see a number of cases in a given area.

Covid inquiry: The UK pandemic in numbers

Explore the data on how the coronavirus pandemic unfolded in the UK.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[elbows]

Has anyone found an official webpage where the daily NHS England deaths are listed (ie on a per hospital trust basis)? I keep seeing this data in local newspapers and health journals but I have yet to find the original source (it hasnt been on the NHS England website News section since about the 16th March).

 

[Athos]

Cyclists! Don't be twats!

Lol. Good luck with that.

 

[kabbes]

The exponential growth phase looks more or less the same everywhere. What that doesn't tell you is at what point along the line that phase will come to an end. Number of days since 10th death is a reasonable way to compare. But another way would be number of days since lockdown was imposed, assuming a general definition of lockdown as something akin to what the UK did on Monday, on the assumption that lockdown arrests exponential spread, bearing in mind that this shows up in the figures with a time lag of perhaps a week wrt new cases and two to three weeks wrt deaths.

For example, you can also say that Germany is currently more or less on China's line. But China has (if you believe the stats) ended up with just 3,000-odd deaths out of a population of more than 1 billion, compared to Italy with 10,000 and counting from a population of 60 million.

The exponential growth phase doesn’t look more or less the same everywhere though — that’s the point of those graphs. It just looks more or less the same across Europe with the exception of Spain, which is notably worse. Europe looks quite different to Asia though, and different again to the US.

I think the good thing about measuring from the point of 10 deaths is that it gives you a baseline it which point the disease is established for long enough to be causing a noticeable number of deaths. From that point onwards, its growth will depends on the lag elbows always talks about, regarding what measures were taken three weeks previously. Whilst “lockdown“ can be officially put in place at different points on the graph, in truth, the populations across Europe all reacted similarly during their early phases. France officially locked down relatively early, for example, but my uncle in Paris tells me loads of people were still out in cafes etc during the first week, so it wasn’t in reality much different to our week of “social distancing but not a lockdown”.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The exponential growth phase doesn’t look more or less the same everywhere though — that’s the point of those graphs. It just looks more or less the same across Europe with the exception of Spain, which is notably worse. Europe looks quite different to Asia though, and different again to the US.

I disagree with your interpretation of the graphs. Remember that in the first few days the numbers are so low that natural variation will put the lines in quite different places. As the numbers ramp up, the lines adopt a remarkably similar straight line behaviour while unchecked exponential growth is taking place. For instance, move Italy back a couple of days and it sits right on top of Spain for a good deal of its trajectory (Spain a bit worse if anything than Italy, now). But Spain and Italy are now curving, indicating that exponential growth is finally being tackled. (And the '10 deaths' marker has the big disadvantage that we're not comparing like with like - Italy is bigger than Spain: 10 deaths in Spain means something more serious than 10 deaths in Italy, so we are justified in moving Italy back a couple of days in order to compare them.)

 

[agricola]

I take a similar view - I've been involved in the military response and support to PHE and the NHS since the beginning of January, and as a general rule I tend the think the worst of politicians just to save time - HMG has been switched on to the dangers of this since the beginning, and has never shyed away from morally/ideologically difficult, terrifyingly expensive and bitter tasting decisions, but the communication and public education element of this has been utterly woeful, particularly of late. You've also had public bodies directly working against each other with absolutely no ministerial grip.

I've been pleasantly surprised (albeit from a somewhat low baseline) with Johnson's willingness to not be the populist moron that Trump has been - he has followed what the CMO, CSA and PHE were telling him, he hasn't flinched at taking decisions that could, given the uncertainties involved, come back to haunt him - but again the communication, and understanding how critical public education would be has been crap.

Sunak and Hancock have been the stand-out performers, both publicly and in government. Jon Ashworth has been Labours star - Hancock wants him appointed as his deputy at health if there's a COBR 'national government'- Corbyn has been dreadful, and surprisingly, McDonnell has only been marginally better.

TBF though I think its important to distinguish between the different bits of HMG.

The organizations (armed forces, emergency services, local authorities and the wider NHS to a lesser extent) regularly test major incidents and other things more like this, so they and their staff had a better idea of what works and what doesn't, what their capabilities are and have a good chance of catching problems before they happen for real. Lots of them (especially down here) have recent experience of major events, terrorist attacks and other disasters as well, and they also have clearly defined roles that are their sole focus right now. This is why the response from all them has been, so far at least, relatively good.

The top of the Government on the other hand isn't as experienced, isn't as regularly tested, often has a sense of importance based on their apparent seniority and most importantly has to make decisions knowing that someone is going to be blamed for this greatest disaster of the last fifty years. That is why the direction of the response was wrong initially (which mostly impacted the NHS as it was them who needed the most help ramping up), why they've panicked ever since that changed and why we've seen such a radical difference in the performance of ministers - the bad ones werent identified and retrained / reassigned when it became clear they needed help (edit: which exercises would probably have identified).

 

[Edie]

Yeah I can forgive mistakes made with good intentions (and who'd want to be in govt right now). What I can't forgive is mistakes made with ill intentions or out of callous disregard for people. And I see both of those in play here.

Really?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Really?

Yes. The mistakes made up to about a week ago, absolutely. Totally callous disregard for life. That they are now doing better doesn't undo those mistakes.