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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

Was that model assuming the measures that Sweden did impose (which were rather closer to our "lockdown" than many people seem to think), or was it assuming no measures at all?
This isn't the link I remember but the graph in it is the same one. Upsala University modelled various scenario based on the Imperial Model:
 
Few more weeks and we'll get a bunch more tightenings. I predict that half arsed list won't make much difference. Masks in taxis, honestly, ffs.

I take your point but it will have a significant effect on my workplace. All our pupils arrive in taxis. Up to now I've seen one taxi driver wearing a mask. At least this will make them do so.

I also wear a mask all day at school. That's about 7 hours. It's not a hard thing to do once you get used to it. Certainly not hard enough to justify QAnon or LBJ getting pissed off with it destroying our freedoms.
 
Lockdown 2
Won't happen.
Unsustainable and unworkable politically, economically , socially-pick your adverb, but even with the mentioned threat of using the army..no

The prospect of a 6 month lock down, similar to or more severe than the earlier one doesn't bare thinking about TBH. And what happens at the end of it? Test and trace finally turned into something effective, a vaccine, the virus mutates into something no worse than a heavy cold. Other day dreams are available.
 
This isn't the link I remember but the graph in it is the same one. Upsala University modelled various scenario based on the Imperial Model:
American Institute for Economic Research is pretty conservative. Their president is of Austrian School of economics school of thought. I'd be wary of anything they published.

eta from wiki The institute describes its mission as educating Americans on "the value of personal freedom, free enterprise, property rights, limited government and sound money."
 
You haven't answered my question about face masks Mr Retro . Taiwan never did a lockdown besides closing schools for a few weeks in January and made masks a part of its strategy from the beginning. So what is the actual problem with them, given they are something countries have used to avoid a lockdown.
 
The prospect of a 6 month lock down, similar to or more severe than the earlier one doesn't bare thinking about TBH. And what happens at the end of it? Test and trace finally turned into something effective, a vaccine, the virus mutates into something no worse than a heavy cold. Other day dreams are available.
TBH, much as I don't want to think about it either, think that's pretty much where we are (or will be soon). :(
 
The prospect of a 6 month lock down, similar to or more severe than the earlier one doesn't bare thinking about TBH. And what happens at the end of it? Test and trace finally turned into something effective, a vaccine, the virus mutates into something no worse than a heavy cold. Other day dreams are available.

I dont think a continuous lockdown lasting that long is considered a viable option by governments anywhere.

So when we face a period where the pronounced risk period is expected to last around 6 months, I dont take that to mean a 6 month lockdown. Especially as we saw the first time how long it takes to significantly reduce transmission under a harder lockdown, the numbers should dwindle far quicker than that, even though they will bounce back after a period of easing.

So far more likely we will see measures ramped up and down over the period, with the most draconian lockdown bits done in shorter bursts.

Not that I have a really clear sense in my mind of how they will time that stuff, how bad it will actually be allowed to get at different stages, etc. I suppose I expect one of more intensely grim periods but I cannot say too much more about that until I see what happens next.

As for the end game, not convinced things will ever be quite the same again. Especially if some of the behaviours, lessons and economic implosions from this pandemic end up merging with stuff relating to other big issues of the century such as climate change and fossil fuel depletion.

No time to properly get into that last point now, but here are some clues via something from the last BP Statistical Review of World Energy, which puts the behavioural changes and disruption in this pandemic into that broader context:

The disruption to our everyday lives caused by the lockdowns has provided a glimpse of a cleaner, lower carbon world: air quality in many of the world’s most polluted cities has improved; skies have become clearer. The IEA (International Energy Agency) estimate that global CO2 emissions may fall by as much as 2.6 gigatonnes this year. That has come at considerable cost and as economies restart and our lives return to normal there is a risk that these gains will be lost.

But to get to net zero by 2050, the world requires similar-sized reductions in carbon emissions every other year for the next 25 years. This can be achieved only by a radical shift in all our behaviours.

 
Yes, I think that might be a strategy, albeit disruptive. But there are no great options from here.

A staggered series of shorter lockdowns. The virus will still spread but the aim again would be to not overwhelm health services. At the end of 6 months You have 1 or some of the following as far as I can see.

1. enough immunity in the population to stifle mortality rates amongst the most vulnrible. Risks of longcovid long term symptoms. Caviets about long lasting immunity accepted.

2. A vaccine to achieve the same as above. It won't protect 100% of the population.

3. Improved drug treatments, mitigating against the most damaging effects of Covid19 for the majority of those unfortunate enough to be hospitilised by it. (Better than now, current progresss accepted.)

4. An actual effective technical test, track and trace solution, properly implemented, staffed by decently paid, trained and motivated people and backed up with widespread public support.

5. Most of the vulnrible have already succumbed to the virus or are in effective indefinite isolation. The general risk remains much as now, with varying local levels of infection.
 
But in seriousness regarding Christmas its a bit soon for me to make predictions. In theory it would be possible to act in a way and with the timing that 'room' is made in the infection picture for various bits of Christmas to be preserved. But they dont have total control of the timing, and their priorities will no doubt be on show. They could prioritise retail, or education, or family life, or bits of the economy. And the experts told them months ago that the needed to make 'room' for the schools reopening by getting infection rates right down before the schools reopened, and the timing and policy didnt end up working like that at all.

Also in normal times Christmas->New Year is often the time of maximum death, its probably one of the reasons humans felt the need to cheer themselves up at that time of year via rituals in the first place. That might not be the picture at all this year because of the various mitigation measures which should work against other respiratory viruses as well as Covid.

We dont know what the weather will be like either, and so with all these things combined the normal seasonal NHS strain picture which would need to be merged with the pandemic picture is all rather murky to me, especially in terms of timing and sheer scale.
 
I dont think a continuous lockdown lasting that long is considered a viable option by governments anywhere.

So when we face a period where the pronounced risk period is expected to last around 6 months, I dont take that to mean a 6 month lockdown. Especially as we saw the first time how long it takes to significantly reduce transmission under a harder lockdown, the numbers should dwindle far quicker than that, even though they will bounce back after a period of easing.

So far more likely we will see measures ramped up and down over the period, with the most draconian lockdown bits done in shorter bursts.

Not that I have a really clear sense in my mind of how they will time that stuff, how bad it will actually be allowed to get at different stages, etc. I suppose I expect one of more intensely grim periods but I cannot say too much more about that until I see what happens next.

As for the end game, not convinced things will ever be quite the same again. Especially if some of the behaviours, lessons and economic implosions from this pandemic end up merging with stuff relating to other big issues of the century such as climate change and fossil fuel depletion.

No time to properly get into that last point now, but here are some clues via something from the last BP Statistical Review of World Energy, which puts the behavioural changes and disruption in this pandemic into that broader context:



I think the lockdowns are nothing compared to what's coming and what's already happening in some parts of the world due to climate change. I don't think things are going to get back to 'normal' any time soon tbh.
 
He just claimed transmission in schools is much lower than in the rest of the population. Wtf?

Uh oh. I would take that to mean the situation is much worse than they thought it would be. If that man told me it was night time I'd be so sure it was day I wouldn't need to check.
Shit for supermarket and shop staff. Masks on all day. :( Any actual evidence to back up making them do that?

The vast majority of supermarket workers in my area seem to manage it fine. I'd say well over 95% of visible shop floor workers wear them and the other 5% can easily be explained as being those who are unable to wear one. I don't see any reason why that can't be replicated across the country. :confused:
 
Universities have been trapped in the pretence that there will be safe campus teaching, trapped by central government and their own perception of what students want. All that has meant we still continue with the pretence, but fully expect it will fall apart when campus cases rise. With Johnson rejoicing today that universities will stay open, it means they will have to endure even more cases and put more people at risk than was the case before his statement. :facepalm:

As I've said before University staff have relatively protected so far, certainly as opposed to front line workers. But even so, for most university courses they simply don't need to take place on campus. It's just about the easiest sector to reduce risk, but Johnson has fucked that.
 
This isn't the link I remember but the graph in it is the same one. Upsala University modelled various scenario based on the Imperial Model:
You fucking clown. so Imperial never modelled sweden, but some red-toothed neoliberal think tank pretended you could just feed some figures into what code they'd released and call it equivalent? :D
 
I may impose temporary restrictions on myself bothering to respond to clowns. But this rule of pricks will not last 6 months. Its not like I need to respond to them because they are heavily outnumbered by all the people who have a good understanding of the pandemic here on this forum. Wish me luck with adhering to these restrictions, and thanks again for making this place a place that is safe for sensible pandemic thoughts to prosper.
 
RE thinking about this in relation to climate change.

As appalling as all this is, it has at least forced leaders to face up to international disasters. Forced them to make and justify their decisions in the open. At least in the West. Discussions, options that weren't being considered in the mainstream all that much. Furlough, big govt intervention. They can and will fuck things up but the ability to hide from the public gaze, handwave stuff away isn't really an serious option any more. Even many hardcore republicans can see what's happening. The billionares might fuck off to their secure bunkers but the millionares will be down here with the rest of us.
 
What happened to 'save are christmas' , maybe they are planning to get infection rates low enough by midwinter to delight the nation by announcing a loosening of whatver rules are in place by then just in time for the big shop.

That needs to be parked big time. The whole save our summer holidays got things well on the way to being fucked up and Christmas is always a time for spreading far more disease than joy. It could be a disaster this year.
 
As well as the immense implications of climate change itself, climate change is also asked to act as a proxy for all the energy issues that our market-based system cant actually have a sensible conversation about and response to without melting.

The behavioural and structural changes required to deal with both those things are immense and involve the end of an entire way of 'normal modern life' that was only achievable by exploiting thousands of years of ex-life, crushed into handy fuels over a very long period of time.

In my book this was always going to be the story of the century, and things like pandemics can act as further catalysts for change, and at the very least they cause demand destruction that alters the energy demand picture for the next decade. Many things should never be allowed to return to pre-pandemic levels of activity, but I will save most of that discussion till the nasty pandemic waves are out of the way.
 
I havent been keeping up with Scotlands public health messaging compared to Englands, but I see they are going to put more emphasis on their FACTS thing (which they presumably use instead of hands face space).

Media and social media campaign will stress importance of FACTS.

Here's a quick reminder of FACTS:
  • Face coverings in enclosed spaces
  • Avoid crowded places
  • Clean hands and surfaces regularly
  • Two metre distancing; and
  • Self-isolate and book a test if you have symptoms.

From the BBC Scotland live reporting page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-scotland-54234910
 
You fucking clown. so Imperial never modelled sweden, but some red-toothed neoliberal think tank pretended you could just feed some figures into what code they'd released and call it equivalent? :D
Is Upsala university a red-tooted neoliberal think tank?
 
I havent been keeping up with Scotlands public health messaging compared to Englands, but I see they are going to put more emphasis on their FACTS thing (which they presumably use instead of hands face space).





From the BBC Scotland live reporting page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-scotland-54234910
We've also now got no indoors household visiting across the country and discouraging car sharing, as well as pubs closing at 10. Everything else that Boris announced we were already doing here.
 
We've also now got no indoors household visiting across the country and discouraging car sharing, as well as pubs closing at 10. Everything else that Boris announced we were already doing here.

I saw that. I was a bit surprised that wasn't announced for England as well. I'm guessing that it would have looked a bit silly so soon after he announced this rule of 6 stuff. I anticipate this will happen in England as well within a few weeks as it seems like a sensible thing to do though it is difficult and isolating.
 
I saw that. I was a bit surprised that wasn't announced for England as well. I'm guessing that it would have looked a bit silly so soon after he announced this rule of 6 stuff. I anticipate this will happen in England as well within a few weeks as it seems like a sensible thing to do though it is difficult and isolating.
Have all the England restrictions been announced? Or is he saving details for his Eejit at Eight address?
 
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