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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

Given that the UK is where Italy was two weeks ago, this is a bit worrying.

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Hopefully there are a lot of unreported or untested cases but a 5% death rate is much higher than has been reported in other countries.
 
Unfortunately the death rate can spike rather high if your intensive care capacity is overwhelmed. Italy is close enough to that point that the idea of prioritisation of intensive care gets a mention in their press, and I've seen at least one story about ICU patients being moved to somewhere less overloaded. Wuhans case fatality rate was very bad at a particular stage of the outbreak there.

Not that any of the resulting impact of that stuff has necessarily shown up in the numbers from Italy much yet, maybe it is just starting to show in recent days, maybe too soon still. An alternative explanation is that the number of detected cases is miles off the actual number of people who should be cases, and this is skewing the case fatality rate.
 
Oh and I should have said that such skewing can be rather pronounced. Because if you are seeing a lot of seriously ill people coming in, you are likely going to prioritise testing them before you test milder cases. This is only a big factor if you are close to testing capacity, but there are plenty of other reasons why milder cases are more likely to be missed too.
 
Another potential cause of skew is that outbreaks within institutions such as hospitals and care homes can lead to a lot of cases that are at increased risk of death, and often quite rapid death. And institutional outbreaks will be spotted and counted as clusters once those deaths start to happen, they may act as early signs of what is happening less visibly in other areas of society. Washington States detected outbreak has provided the most obvious example of this recently. There will no doubt be UK examples soon enough :( And they will make the early stage numbers leap up, quite notably if the broader picture isnt yet being recorded properly.
 
Just finishing off that previous point, I suppose I should say that in a perfect world, where most cases were detected, and detected as soon as they got sick, then the skew would be in the other direction, the deaths would always be lagging behind the cases because it takes time to die or recover. But we are nowhere close to that simple picture, and indeed Italy mostly got a handle on the existence of their locally spreading outbreak only once deaths started happening. When its the deaths that lead you to the discovery of clusters, some statistical relationships and lag issues sort of go into reverse. Hope this makes sense.
 
MrSki said:
From here. Coronavirus (COVID-19): number of cases in England
Only goes by health areas. For some reason Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole is not part of the Dorset figures.
Click to expand...

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole is a Unitary Council area now, so doesn't come under Dorset County Council any longer, just like Brighton & Hove City doesn't come under East Sussex CC nowadays.
 
Looks like you won't have to wait much longer to get an official answer ska invita

Coronavirus: Boris Johnson to hold emergency Cobra meeting
The Prime Minister will chair an emergency Cobra meeting later to decide whether to bring in measures to delay the spread of coronavirus in the UK. The meeting is expected to consider whether "social distancing" measures should now be introduced . These could include banning of big events, closing schools and encouraging home working.
Click to expand...
 
Expecting work to madate working from home shortly - which would make sense as the tube is far and away the likeliest place for me to catch Covid, we're all quite well spaced apart in the office.
 
I don't think they're going to drop any lockdown today... I'm expecting nonsense like standing 2m away from people, and that thing about 70 year olds maybe staying home more. I think they'll crescendo up to martial andrex law over a couple of weeks yet

Meanwhile todayIMG-20200309-WA0000.jpgIMG-20200309-WA0001.jpg
 
elbows said:
As for the whole 'we are not the same as Italy' thing, as far as I'm concerned people who want to cling to that thought need to suggest some actual reasons why they think our fate is going to be any different. It certainly wont be down to stringent measures because we havent had any. Although that last point is looking to the past, its always possible we will act more decisively and strongly than Italy at some key stage, but most signs so far is that we are going to wait till the first epidemic wave is clearly kicking off before we do the heavy stuff.
Click to expand...
Then again we have eugenicists in Downing Street. I can imagine them being quite keen to bump off some more economically underproductive citizen-consumers
 
ska invita said:
I don't think they're going to drop any lockdown today... I'm expecting nonsense like standing 2m away from people, and that thing about 70 year olds maybe staying home more. I think they'll crescendo up to martial andrex law over a couple of weeks yet

Meanwhile todayView attachment 201075View attachment 201076
Click to expand...
marshal andrecks was a dutch army officer in the french revolutionary period
 
Very importantly, if you have symptoms that suggest you might have Covid, you absolutely must not be in contact with others. You are trying to reduce the spread. Then you look at large events. But it is not just the big events. I want to stress it is also gatherings in community halls, in religious spaces and services, and also in pubs and the like. It will be that sort of gathering that the government will look at, as well as of course the big events.
Click to expand...

53m ago 10:10
 
ska invita said:
Then again we have eugenicists in Downing Street. I can imagine them being quite keen to bump off some more economically underproductive citizen-consumers
Click to expand...
Looking at the most at-risk groups, I'd think they might be quite worried about their vote demographic. The 70+ age bracket is the baby boomer generation - a 15% mortality rate will have a big effect on Tory votes.
 
Buddy Bradley said:
Looking at the most at-risk groups, I'd think they might be quite worried about their vote demographic. The 70+ age bracket is the baby boomer generation - a 15% mortality rate will have a big effect on Tory votes.
Click to expand...
Same age bracket as Corbyn and Saunders
 
killer b said:
I'm interested in the way the chief medical officer Chris Whitty has been in receipt of ludicrously overblown puff pieces across the press today - one sample here, but there's more elsewhere. I'm sure Whitty is a capable physician and a calm and reassuring presence, but that reads like full on wartime propaganda.
Click to expand...

And now the USA edition of bigging up the trusted voice / expert:

www.nytimes.com

Not His First Epidemic: Dr. Anthony Fauci Sticks to the Facts (Published 2020)

Where politicians fumble and other government health officials step back, he steps up to explain.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
 
A European Union expert said the UK had only a "few days" to implement measures to prevent an outbreak like Italy's, which is the worst outside China with 7,375 confirmed cases and 366 deaths.

Sergio Brusin from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme: "The UK is in the same situation Italy was two weeks ago."
Click to expand...

www.bbc.co.uk

Coronavirus: UK to remain in 'containment' phase of response

Measures such as school closures will not yet be introduced, as the UK's fourth virus death is confirmed.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
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