Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion
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Azrael
circling Airstrip One
The half-million death toll is, surely, now avoidable. I fear tens of thousands of deaths, but haven't given up hope that antivirals can be rushed into use to significantly reduce it. There's been some promising reports from Asia -- South Korea already has an antiviral protocol in use, and has kept deaths massively lower than Italy, but correlation isnt, of course, causation -- but we'll have to see.
8ball
Decolonise colons!
You're probably right, but I'm trying to kick against fatalism at the moment.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Well I quickly got completely overloaded trying to look at posts from the past, so I am mostly abandoning that idea and just have one quote which I took from a 2009 review into the UKs handling of the 2009 swine flu pandemic.
https://assets.publishing.service.g...ile/61252/the2009influenzapandemic-review.pdf
Oh dear, I just found another post while writing this one. I wrote this on Feb 24th in response to a Guardian article.
#1,848
(in response to this Guardian article Government to shut schools in event of UK coronavirus outbreak )
Oh and some tweets I quoted on Feb 24th, just to reiterate what message started coming loudly from WHO China mission on that date.
OK I'm done with this revisiting of recent history, thanks for bearing with me while I got that out of my system.
https://assets.publishing.service.g...ile/61252/the2009influenzapandemic-review.pdf
Oh dear, I just found another post while writing this one. I wrote this on Feb 24th in response to a Guardian article.
#1,848
(in response to this Guardian article Government to shut schools in event of UK coronavirus outbreak )
Oh and some tweets I quoted on Feb 24th, just to reiterate what message started coming loudly from WHO China mission on that date.
OK I'm done with this revisiting of recent history, thanks for bearing with me while I got that out of my system.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Just looking at the raw figures at the moment, S Korea is the gold standard here. Whatever it is they're doing, everyone else needs to be learning - and asking for help, and showing humility...
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
100%.*
* At least for an outbreak: the absolute gold standard must be Taiwan, Singapore and (via popular demand) Hong Kong, who stopped Covid-19 from ever gaining a foothold. South Korea appeared to have the same plan until the chaos with the cult, and can't praise them enough for reversing an outbreak on the fly.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Sure, but that baby's bolted.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Effective detection and quarantine, basically: they rapidly take carriers of the virus outa circulation via mass testing and contact tracing, and with the infection chains severed, Covid-19 runs out of hosts.
When it comes to stopping an outbreak, therapeutic measures are, ultimately, far less important than public health measures and vaccines, although of course essential to patients who succumb. I just fear that, thanks to our catastrophic failure to isolate and suppress Covid-19, Britain's only hope of preventing the NHS from being swamped is drugs to keep people outa intensive care.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Yup, though once she's starved Covid-19 of hosts, expect South Korea will be in the same place, relying heavily on border security to keep her people safe.
Until there's a vaccine, international travel as we know it's simply over. That in itself is barely fathomable, but vastly better than the alternatives.
prunus
Tick tock.
I wonder if the point at which UK deaths exceed China deaths will be the one where people start asking aggressive questions of our government's response? A month or more too late of course, but I think it will be important psychological turning point of why could they stop it and we couldn't.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
On the international thread, I mentioned that East Asia has had these scares before, while we haven't, and the previous scares have largely missed us by pure luck really. But yes, clearly massive lessons are being learned daily!
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Given the shock at Italy overtaking China, this is surely inevitable, and must happen if we've any hope of avoiding a repeat of this atrocity.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Absolutely. As I noted up-thread, there's a powerful folk memory of SARS and MERS in Asia. Moment they heard the news from Wuhan, they didn't mess around, and in future, we won't either.
elbows
Well-Known Member
I wont try to predict the mood, it could go in several directions, maybe it wont even resemble what we have seen in these threads in the last week.
I decided to augment my brief 24th Feb history lesson with something much more recent:
www.chroniclelive.co.uk
That was just over a week ago!
I decided to augment my brief 24th Feb history lesson with something much more recent:
The UK's four-stage coronavirus plan and what they mean
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to approve a plan to escalate the UK's coronavirus strategy to stage 2 - 'delay' - here's what it means
That was just over a week ago!
elbows
Well-Known Member
It will be interesting to see if Canada also retained the lessons learnt from SARS. They had quite a lot of SARS cases, including a notable hospital cluster.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Well I will certainly include myself in the group of people who didn't react to this early enough. I only really started taking it seriously last week, maybe a few days ahead of Johnson, but only a few days. We're not good at properly comprehending the true meaning of exponential growth, even if we can do the maths easily enough.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
If nothing else, we'll surely see a resurgence of the late-Victorian, early 20th Century obsession with hygiene that was prominent in the decades between the advent of Germ Theory and the discovery of effective antibacterial drugs in the '30s.
Sulfonamides and then antibiotics have of course been a blessing without equal in the history of medicine, but they've sowed a lethal complacency that's now blown up in our faces.
The ancient impluse achieve quarantine is gonna be back with a vengeance.
Sulfonamides and then antibiotics have of course been a blessing without equal in the history of medicine, but they've sowed a lethal complacency that's now blown up in our faces.
The ancient impluse achieve quarantine is gonna be back with a vengeance.
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
I've had a lingering dread since the first reports from China, but until the infamous herd immunity presser, it was checked by the false belief that containment was being achieved, and outbreaks could be suppressed. Discovering that was all a lie is what did it for me.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I flipped later than I should have done. I'd read well-reasoned stuff from plenty of scientists saying the UK's response was scientific nonsense, and I knew I ought to have been following them. It only really dawned on me that what has now just happened was only a matter of time at the start of last week. And even then, I was ahead of a lot of people - when I suggested a drink in the pub last Friday to people cos it might be our last chance, I was met with some strange looks.
elbows
Well-Known Member
It wasnt even the herd immunity stuff at that press conference that blew my mind, it was the 4 weeks behind Italy thing. By that point their pronouncements about timing had already sounded a bit off for a while, but that 4 weeks thing really scared me because it was 2 weeks out of whack with the estimates and assumptions we'd been talking about on this forum.
And to be honest the herd thing didnt stick out to me because the orthodox approach had already been well discussed in the media before then. I dont even know how much Vallances choice of language, or the failure of his presentation slides to work, would have done to explode the situation if it had not been for other aspects of the timing and context that were in play by that stage of last week. Italy had locked down, most other countries were busily closing schools a day after that press conference.
I would be surprised if I couldnt find quotes from people like Whitty from well before that date that meant nobody should be have been expecting that containment to avoid an epidemic here was still considered feasible. It sounds like that wasnt too well understood, so no wonder the press conference had additional explosive effects. Let me go search for some quotes on this matter.
And to be honest the herd thing didnt stick out to me because the orthodox approach had already been well discussed in the media before then. I dont even know how much Vallances choice of language, or the failure of his presentation slides to work, would have done to explode the situation if it had not been for other aspects of the timing and context that were in play by that stage of last week. Italy had locked down, most other countries were busily closing schools a day after that press conference.
I would be surprised if I couldnt find quotes from people like Whitty from well before that date that meant nobody should be have been expecting that containment to avoid an epidemic here was still considered feasible. It sounds like that wasnt too well understood, so no wonder the press conference had additional explosive effects. Let me go search for some quotes on this matter.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
What we have, with testing focussing on hospitals and NHS staff is an admission of widescale community transmission. The shutdown orders from government will only have a delayed impact because people with the virus in the community have to get ill enough to reach hospital and that could take up to 14 days (longer) . But spread could still occur within households, assuming social distancing has worked and stranger to stranger transmission does stop. That still means perhaps 4-8 weeks (or more) before we are likely to see any reduction in the numbers of new infections.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Oops, before I do that, I got distracted by other stuff about herd immunity that started getting mentioned on March 11th, which I believe is the date Italy did a 'full' lockdown of the whole country, and that Johnson made his comments about how other countries may have overreacted.
From the end of How the UK’s political machine has shifted to fight coronavirus
From the end of How the UK’s political machine has shifted to fight coronavirus
Azrael
circling Airstrip One
Shutting down inter-family transmission's gonna be the next fight. China set up fever accomodation and hauled anyone with a temperature from their homes. Can't see that going down well here, to put it mildly, but perhaps setting either the infected or their healthy flat- and housemates up in hotels will be viable.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Partly I wonder how much they've been basically lying because they weren't ready to do the shut-down immediately. It was painfully obvious that schools would close this week, for instance.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Some of the dodgy stuff had such a short shelf-life though, the 4 weeks claim was never going to stand up to even a week or twos passage of time. They had to change it themselves, I think it lasted about 4 days before they changed it to '3 weeks plus London a bit ahead', which was probably their way of changing it to 2 weeks without saying so.
Oh well, may as well stick in a few more things from the period. Peston during the vanishingly brief period when the herd immunity strategy was the idea to be sold to everyone:
www.itv.com
Oh well, may as well stick in a few more things from the period. Peston during the vanishingly brief period when the herd immunity strategy was the idea to be sold to everyone:
British government wants UK to acquire Covid-19 'herd immunity' | ITV News
The Government’s experts – the chief medical officer and the chief scientific advisor – have made two big judgements. | ITV National News
www.itv.com
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Bonkers, innit. As they were saying that, epidemiologists around the world were screaming at them that it was nonsense, that herd immunity is something that will happen eventually, but is not something you ever plan for. I was complacent as well, I admit, but I'm not government.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Like I've said before, if you take away the stupid references to herd immunity then the UK approach at that point was no different to EU stuff, all those graphs with the curve being pushed down were in the EU docs too, it wasnt a purely UK orthodox approach. When it became a UK thing was when Johnson & Co attempted to stick with and promote the orthodox approach and vague nudge unit stuff at the very moment others were departing from that approach. It was the orthodoxies last stand, and also the last stand for Johnson trying to play Jaws mayor keeping the beaches open. I am very pleased with all the people who spoke up and said the right things or asked the right questions in the few days that followed, so that the whole thing blew up in record time.
Now then, I have my Whitty quote that demonstrates that people were given warning at least a week before the messy March 11th-16th 'herd immunity' period that we had gone beyond the phase labelled containment.
www.standard.co.uk
That was March 5th. There may be earlier examples, I ran out of energy to check.
Now then, I have my Whitty quote that demonstrates that people were given warning at least a week before the messy March 11th-16th 'herd immunity' period that we had gone beyond the phase labelled containment.
Virus war enters next phase as switch is made to delaying outbreak
Follow our live coronavirus updates HERE
www.standard.co.uk
That was March 5th. There may be earlier examples, I ran out of energy to check.
keybored
Well done. You remember cat good.
GPS accuracy is around 4m, giving a margin of error that would make pinning some kind of "Breach of social distancing" charge on any individual unlikely. Cell tower triangulation accuracy is 150m at best.
I suppose you could argue that it could be used to track and stop people moving between urban areas, but you have to wonder who is going to process all this information during times like this.
Where do you hear this stuff, I'd love to subscribe for the comedy value.
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