Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[killer b]

Absolutely, as I said, anyone who's argued with anti-vaxers will be familiar with it. Not everyone has. From their comments at the time, it was clear that several journalists had never heard of it; and those laissez faire fundies who continue to tout it still haven't grasped its basics.

Most people who've had their child vaccinated in the last ten years or so is likely to have come across the concept IMO, not just people who argue with anti-vaxers.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Hard to know, of course, but I wouldn't 'medicalise' it without knowing more. Weird misogynists do vile things like this routinely i.e. assault women.

Neither would I. Best not to jump to either conclusion.

 

[Azrael]

Scottish government has published their framework now, including exit strategy:
https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/strategy-plan/2020/04/coronavirus-covid-19-framework-decision-making/documents/coronavirus-covid-19-framework-decision-making/coronavirus-covid-19-framework-decision-making/govscot:document/coronavirus-covid-19-framework-decision-making.pdf

Notable is the barely coded denunciation of "herd immunity" in all its cold, technocratic evil.

While it is obvious that government cannot guarantee that no-one will become infected with this virus in future, we are clear that an assumption that there is a proportion or section of the population that it is safe or acceptable to allow to be infected forms no part of the Scottish Government's policy or approach.

Every individual member of Scottish society matters and our entire strategy is focused on preventing every avoidable death. There is no such thing as a level of "acceptable loss". That is an approach which reflects our commitment to safeguarding human rights and upholding human dignity. It is the ethically correct approach to take. And it reflects the caring, compassionate and inclusive ethos of Scottish society.

The Scottish government allowed themselves to be dragged into the moral sewer by Whitehall and their advisors, but have, after weeks in the midden, pulled themselves out again. It's never too late to force change, and we must never allow nihilism to dim our outrage or hope for something better.

 

[Chilli.s]

Noticed a few aircraft today, looked like ordinary passenger planes. Are airports going to be open to travellers without some kind of screening or quarantine ?

 

[LDC]

Noticed a few aircraft today, looked like ordinary passenger planes. Are airports going to be open to travellers without some kind of screening or quarantine ?

Plenty of freight still flying. And I think there has been some passenger flights all this time too, albeit at much, much reduced levels.

 

[Azrael]

interesting paraphrase from the presser (I use the awful neologism to mock it: briefing gives the spin-fest way too much credit).

"Vallance says the scientists from the four nations all work together. It is a unified approach, he says."

Well, Scotland just unequivocally denounced "herd immunity" for the ethical horror it is, so either one of its foremost defenders has finally dropped it, or the approach isn't near as unified as Vallance thinks.

 

[weltweit]

Encouraging though the contact tracing recruitment - after a number of us have been banging on about it for a while I wonder if someone in government actually reads urban75

 

[Steel Icarus]

Noticed a few aircraft today, looked like ordinary passenger planes. Are airports going to be open to travellers without some kind of screening or quarantine ?

An online accquaintance was flown from London to two US cities the Canada then back to London just last week. He works in international banking in some capacity

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Encouraging though the contact tracing recruitment - after a number of us have been banging on about it for a while I wonder if someone in government actually reads urban75

Well if they do, there's certainly quite a time lag. Anything between a few days and a couple of months between being infected by urban and understanding of the words reaching their brains.

 

[Azrael]

Encouraging though the contact tracing recruitment - after a number of us have been banging on about it for a while I wonder if someone in government actually reads urban75

And we in turn read WHO advice and a century's worth of disease control 101. Like to think it's Urban wot swung it though!

Scuttlebutt's that Hancock's at war with Whitty over a suppression strategy, and has been from the start (he's the one who first denied that "herd immunity" was government policy after days of Whitty and Vallance flogging it to any hack they could collar). Notable that he hauled Vallance along today, separating the homicidal policy's Mad Men.

Whatever else Whitty is, he's no politician, and day by day, is being forced to watch while suppression via testing, tracing and isolating becomes a fait accompli. If it succeeds in driving down Covid infections, it'll become plain beyond doubt that tens of thousands died needlessly on his advice.

Embrace that nihilism, Whitty. You're gonna need it.

 

[weltweit]

And we in turn read WHO advice and a century's worth of disease control 101. Like to think it's Urban wot swung it though!
..

I very much like watching the WHO press conferences. They are calm and reasoned and logical and I find them reassuring. After Trump's hissy fit and stopping of funding, the DG made the point that WHO only works with the co-operation of member countries, the WHO can't force any country to do anything.

 

[miss direct]

There are still flights from Turkey, but not regular flights. Special ones to repatriate.

 

[mauvais]

Whatever else Whitty is, he's no politician, and day by day, is being forced to watch while suppression via testing, tracing and isolating becomes a fait accompli. If it succeeds in driving down Covid infections, it'll become plain beyond doubt that tens of thousands died needlessly on his advice.

Embrace that nihilism, Whitty. You're gonna need it.

I haven't followed Whitty closely enough to have formed an enormously strong opinion, whereas you clearly have formed one.

What I will say is that history is littered with intelligent, educated characters with very high levels of expertise in their field who are then unable to handle a situation that significantly diverges from their training. You see this in military history, air accidents, industrial disasters, etc etc. - HBO's Chernobyl in a recent pop culture example. People who got a kind of target fixation on conformity to their expected model despite evidence to the contrary. These are smart people but at some point they might as well be on rails. I can see why it's a human behaviour you can easily fall into for a wide variety of reasons.

I wonder if that's what we're looking at with people like Whitty - the inescapable gravitational field of planned-for flu pandemics.

 

[agricola]

I haven't followed Whitty closely enough to have formed an enormously strong opinion, whereas you clearly have formed one.

What I will say is that history is littered with intelligent, educated characters with very high levels of expertise in their field who are then unable to handle a situation that significantly diverges from their training. You see this in military history, air accidents, industrial disasters, etc etc. - HBO's Chernobyl in a recent pop culture example. People who got a kind of target fixation on conformity to their expected model despite evidence to the contrary. These are smart people but at some point they might as well be on rails. I can see why it's a human behaviour you can easily fall into for a wide variety of reasons.

I wonder if that's what we're looking at with people like Whitty - the inescapable gravitational field of planned-for flu pandemics.

TBF explaining that such behaviours exist, why they exist, how they are exploited and getting people to experience themselves doing it is something that really should be taught to people - probably not at school (as it is much more of an adult behaviour) but at least by the age of 25.

I'd almost describe it as the defining human behaviour, given that in addition to fuckups like this it is at a wider level also the driving force behind almost every horrific act that you can think of.

 

[Azrael]

I haven't followed Whitty closely enough to have formed an enormously strong opinion, whereas you clearly have formed one.

What I will say is that history is littered with intelligent, educated characters with very high levels of expertise in their field who are then unable to handle a situation that significantly diverges from their training. You see this in military history, air accidents, industrial disasters, etc etc. - HBO's Chernobyl in a recent pop culture example. People who got a kind of target fixation on conformity to their expected model despite evidence to the contrary. These are smart people but at some point they might as well be on rails. I can see why it's a human behaviour you can easily fall into for a wide variety of reasons.

I wonder if that's what we're looking at with people like Whitty - the inescapable gravitational field of planned-for flu pandemics.

Pretty much sums it up. The only pandemic plan they had was for influenza, so they stubbornly tried to fit the disease to the plan, and treated Covid-19 like the flu, instead of like what it was, a deadly SARS virus that had to be suppressed as rapidly and aggressively as resources allow.

I understand why they did it. They must now be held to account for doing it.

 

[elbows]

I wonder if that's what we're looking at with people like Whitty - the inescapable gravitational field of planned-for flu pandemics.

Yes, most of the 'developed' world was stuck on those rails for far too long. Combine this desire to keep following a mitigation approach rather than a suppression approach with 'suppression is the old fashioned way that is a poor fit with neoliberal bollocks' and we ended up will all this death and suppression measures that have to last for longer than they would have done if we had used a genuine containment approach in the first place.

I used the word orthodox a hell of a lot when I was trying to describe what had probably happened in March. The governments communication strategy since then has made it more difficult to see quite how much of the suppression (and related things like test, track, trace) had actually been adopted properly, but this week we have more clarity on the testing & tracing plan and the old orthodox approach is indeed dead, and has been for longer than we could be sure of at the time.

 

[Supine]

I understand why they did it. They must now be held to account for doing it.

You really need to tone down your anger squire. This is a developing situation and you would not have done a better job yourself would you. Whitty knows a fuck ton more about epidemics than you.

 

[William of Walworth]

The Times write up of the plan for how

An army of thousands of coronavirus contact tracers is to be trained within weeks to help Britain to exit lockdown.

Army of thousands to help trace coronavirus victims - Times (paywalled)
Archived version here [as in free to access]

Council staff and civil servants are among those who will be drafted in as part of a three-tier system to ensure that every infected person is isolated before they pass the virus on to others.

The aim would be to track more than 80 per cent of people with whom an infected person had been in contact within 24 hours of diagnosis. Infected people and those they had contact with would be quarantined until the risk that they could get the illness had passed.

They acknowledge that it will require a huge workforce and that setting one up is crucial. A Cabinet Office official said that the plan was to have the scheme running before May 7, when ministers must review the lockdown. “We cannot announce any easing of the lockdown until we know that testing and contact tracing is working effectively,” they said.

To what extent this is about creating mechanisms for actual tracking and tracing, as distinct from having a strategy in place to justify easing the lockdown, we shall no doubt see. Well most of us will.

Just quoting this to remind people that with this new plan detailed in The Times, a workforce is already available. Council staff and civil servants -- a very large proportion of people in both groups are either WFH, or currently not working.
Not working meaning they're either on a CS thing called "special leave" (paid), as in my case and a lot of others.
Or furloughed, as in some other categories of civil servant -- generally not PCS-unionised I gather!

So watch this space, because in my part of the CS, we're at the moment being updated weekly - usually on Fridays.
I've already been hearing unofficial rumours that we (or at least some of us) will be brought back in to do Covid-related work.
Rumour only for now, but my prediction was that I and colleagues could well be redeployed pretty soon .... we'll see!
I'm now predicting this a fair bit more, but who knows how soon .....

 

[Azrael]

As for that original influenza pandemic plan, it also assumed a horrific death toll, and was riddled with the defeatism that led to containment being reduced to a mere "phase", instead of a vital safeguard that must be maintained, and if lost, rapidly reacquired.

I hope that SARS-CoV-2 is ground into the history books alongside its predecessor, but regardless, we must root out this sub-Medieval fatalism once and for all.

 

[Orang Utan]

Just quoting this to remind people that with this new plan detailed in The Times, a workforce is already available. Council staff and civil servants -- a very large proportion of people in both groups are either WFH, or currently not working.
Not working meaning they're either on a CS thing called "special leave" (paid), as in my case and a lot of others.
Or furloughed, as in some other categories of civil servant -- generally not PCS-unionised I gather!

So watch this space, because in my part of the CS, we're at the moment being updated weekly - usually on Fridays.
I've already been hearing unofficial rumours that we (or at least some of us) will be brought back in to do Covid-related work.
Rumour only for now, but my prediction is that I and colleagues could well be redeployed pretty soon .... we'll see!

Fuck, that’s scared the shit out of me

 

[mauvais]

TBF explaining that such behaviours exist, why they exist, how they are exploited and getting people to experience themselves doing it is something that really should be taught to people - probably not at school (as it is much more of an adult behaviour) but at least by the age of 25.

Yeah. It's something (well, not just a single thing) that they go out of their way to teach some disciplines like pilots now. For example Crew Resource Management (CRM) training has you speak up when you think something is wrong but where the human environment - e.g someone with more seniority proceeding as normal - seems not to support your opinion being valid. Similarly I believe you get it drilled into you to do things like cross-check sources of information and be aware that usual human yardsticks for 'this seems fine' may provide completely useless information. But even these are sort of 'set piece' behaviours to apply either regularly or when a particular concern emerges, where safety is established through a coherent set of little procedural actions, and not necessarily a tool to sanity check an entire strategy.

I imagine it must be very difficult to spend vast amounts of your life planning for one enormous thing in particular and then be presented with something very similar but which doesn't actually fit. However it's one thing to unilaterally make irrational confirmation-bias-driven decisions when you must act on your own; it's another to do so in the face of highly visible alternative strategies elsewhere. When the average person seems to have a more realistic handle on things than the supposedly scientifically-led government, it's hard to have a great deal of sympathy for the 'experts'.

 

[Azrael]

You really need to tone down your anger squire. This is a developing situation and you would not have done a better job yourself would you. Whitty knows a fuck ton more about epidemics than you.

And, apparently, the WHO, the global epidemiological and public health communities, and the Asian countries that first fought and contained the pandemic.

I'll disregard this tone policing, but in the infinitesimall unlikely case that Whitty and Vallance were right that SARS-CoV-2 can't be suppressed and must be allowed to move through the population to generate "herd immunity", will offer both an apology.

Think I'll ever have to offer it?

 

[William of Walworth]

Fuck, that’s scared the shit out of me

Really? I can never tell when you're taking the piss
But if you are, fair fucks
And if not, do me a bloody favour -- there's been a number of people on Urban showing me disrespect, man, and it can be a tad annoying.
I actually want to go back to work to do something to help.
Anyway, there's a fair chance (in the bit of the CS where I am) that we'd just be doing data processing (??), or communications relating to tracing could be another possibility (??).
I have no idea yet though -- we'll see.

ETA : for safe distancing in our offices -- we're a big employer -- we'd almost certainly have to have fewer people in at any one time, maybe a quarter (or third?) of us at a time.
So logically, even more part-time than my usual hours?? I'm guessing though

 

[elbows]

Scuttlebutt's that Hancock's at war with Whitty over a suppression strategy, and has been from the start (he's the one who first denied that "herd immunity" was government policy after days of Whitty and Vallance flogging it to any hack they could collar). Notable that he hauled Vallance along today, separating the homicidal policy's Mad Men.

Such a misreading of the situation, as usual. I dont know what you will really learn from all this if you insist on not making a distinction between public rhetoric from any particular official at moments in time and the actual behind the scenes opinions and plans.

Scientific advisors and politicians combined to come up with the original approach, the original communication, the replacement approach and the replacement communication. There is much at fault with how it all worked out. Its a failure of the entire establishment. Individuals should be singled out when various evidence is available, not just what we read into comments from one person on one particular day. Especially as some of the measures the government eventually implemented were planned for a while before they actually triggered them, and before we got any real sense they were actually going to happen.

By all means criticise what happened and the timing of it and specific things people said. But please understand that it is difficult for us to genuinely judge what individual experts beliefs were, as opposed to them doing the part of their job that involves towing a particular line in public to fit the agreed approach and comms strategy of the moment. There are faults with this side of the system too, more to be included in the post-mortem of the establishment in this country that in some key ways is every bit as crap as it was before the alleged death of derence many decades ago. Absurd and broken Britain, more than a day late and more than a pound short, as ever. Shit priorities, crap management cultures, too much energy put into pride and established wisdoms of the modern age that have now been found wanting.

Honestly, if you care so much about the narrow orthodox thinking on these issues and the effect its had in terms of death, may I strongly advise not limiting yourself to this pandemic. Even on the infectious respiratory disease front there is much else of related note that can be studied and condemned. Have a look at excess winter mortality figures every year, especially in years where H3N2 influenza is getting nasty. Tens of thousands of excess deaths every winter. How many of those could be prevented if established thoughts and processes and resources and attitudes towards testing and infection control and all manner of other things combined into a better approach? And not just from those experts in their field who have to deal with this stuff directly, also the economics and the numbers games on various other levels, certain other professional and management attitudes and what are deemed to be the priorities of a nation. Public health in this country needs a lot of work, and a lot of the top down control-freakery and long-established attitudes and beliefs are part of the problem.

 

[Orang Utan]

Really? I can never tell when you're taking the piss
But if you are, fair fucks
And if not, do me a bloody favour -- there's been a number of people on Urban showing me disrespect, man, and it can be a tad annoying.
I actually want to go back to work to do something to help.
Anyway, there's a fair chance (in the bit of the CS where I am) that we'd just be doing data processing (??), or communications relating to tracing could be another possibility (??).
I have no idea yet though -- we'll see.

of course, does it not scare you?

 

[zahir]

The UK response as seen from the US

The government’s influential Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies — known by its soothing acronym, SAGE — operates as a virtual black box. Its list of members is secret, its meetings are closed, its recommendations are private and the minutes of its deliberations are published much later, if at all.

Yet officials invoke SAGE’s name endlessly without ever explaining how it comes up with its advice — or even who these scientists are.

The Secretive Group Guiding the U.K. on Coronavirus

The British government frequently says it’s “guided by the science,” but the members of its scientific advisory group, SAGE, are a secret.

www.nytimes.com

 

[William of Walworth]

of course, does it not scare you?

Not especially, if safe distancing in the offices is carefully enforced.
I should have emphasised that proviso more though.
I also imagine that relevant staff would really have to be tested themselves.
I want and need to find out details!

 

[Supine]

I'll disregard this tone policing, but in the infinitesimall unlikely case that Whitty and Vallance were right that SARS-CoV-2 can't be suppressed and must be allowed to move through the population to generate "herd immunity", will offer both an apology.

How about you provide some evidence that Whitty or Vallance said that “covid must be allowed to move through the population”.

The UK experts may have lots to learn from this pandemic, but that discussion will be appropriate in a few years time, when we can stand back and analyse how things worked out based on each countries actions and timings. IMHO no conclusions can be currently drawn - so talking about people having deaths on their hands is totally out of order.

 

[Azrael]

Such a misreading of the situation, as usual. I dont know what you will really learn from all this if you insist on not making a distinction between public rhetoric from any particular official at moments in time and the actual behind the scenes opinions and plans.

Scientific advisors and politicians combined to come up with the original approach, the original communication, the replacement approach and the replacement communication. There is much at fault with how it all worked out. Its a failure of the entire establishment. Individuals should be singled out when various evidence is available, not just what we read into comments from one person on one particular day. Especially as some of the measures the government eventually implemented were planned for a while before they actually triggered them, and before we got any real sense they were actually going to happen.

By all means criticise what happened and the timing of it and specific things people said. But please understand that it is difficult for us to genuinely judge what individual experts beliefs were, as opposed to them doing the part of their job that involves towing a particular line in public to fit the agreed approach and comms strategy of the moment. There are faults with this side of the system too, more to be included in the post-mortem of the establishment in this country that in some key ways is every bit as crap as it was before the alleged death of derence many decades ago. Absurd and broken Britain, more than a day late and more than a pound short, as ever. Shit priorities, crap management cultures, too much energy put into pride and established wisdoms of the modern age that have now been found wanting.

Honestly, if you care so much about the narrow orthodox thinking on these issues and the effect its had in terms of death, may I strongly advise not limiting yourself to this pandemic. Even on the infectious respiratory disease front there is much else of related note that can be studied and condemned. Have a look at excess winter mortality figures every year, especially in years where H3N2 influenza is getting nasty. Tens of thousands of excess deaths every winter. How many of those could be prevented if established thoughts and processes and resources and attitudes towards testing and infection control and all manner of other things combined into a better approach? And not just from those experts in their field who have to deal with this stuff directly, also the economics and the numbers games on various other levels, certain other professional and management attitudes and what are deemed to be the priorities of a nation. Public health in this country needs a lot of work, and a lot of the top down control-freakery and long-established attitudes and beliefs are part of the problem.

This 'Guardian' report has the exact same "misreading". As have a string of reports released since the 'Times' expose of the government's initial response. In recent days, there's been a clear pattern of advisors attempting to undermine ministers. I posted a detailed thread from Anthony Costello, formerly of the W.H.O., outlining the splits, and who's been driving policy, which fits with what I've long suspected. If this interests you I can only suggest you read it. Here it is:-



As for influenza, I said weeks ago we as a society have been too lax about this, a failing I certainly apply to myself. I've also said weeks ago that the collapse of local public health (and local government in general) as been a major contributing factor to this disaster. Beyond the policial analysis, we don't appear to disagree that much.

 

[Azrael]

How about you provide some evidence that Whitty or Vallance said that “covid must be allowed to move through the population”.

The UK experts may have lots to learn from this pandemic, but that discussion will be appropriate in a few years time, when we can stand back and analyse how things worked out based on each countries actions and timings. IMHO no conclusions can be currently drawn - so talking about people having deaths on their hands is totally out of order.

You really want me to go and dredge up their interviews from the days after the "containment" phase was dropped?

I will if you won't stipulate, but it's hard to see how anyone following this is detail could doubt this in good faith.