Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[zahir]

Twitter thread and new paper which tbh are probably beyond my level of understanding.

 

[elbows]

Wriggling, blame-shifting scum when the question of whether we could keep deaths below 20,000 came up:

One last post from Sunday's Downing St briefing: the UK's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance previously said it would be a "good outcome" for the UK if the number of deaths from the virus could be kept below 20,000.

The health secretary is asked whether it's still possible to achieve that "good outcome", given the death toll exceeded 10,000 today.

In response, Matt Hancock says: "The future path of this pandemic in this country is determined by how people act.

"That's why it's so important that people follow the social-distancing guidelines.

"Predictions are not possible, precisely because they depend on the behaviour of the British people."

Prof Yvonne Doyle from NHS England says she agrees with the health secretary, adding that at the moment the most important thing to do is continue social distancing and shielding the most vulnerable - which she says is an "absolutely crucial".

From BBC live updates page at 16:52 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52259683

 

[2hats]

Didn't watch it, but the Guardian reports the following about the app:

I'm familiar with some of the behind the scenes discussions regarding this app.

Let's just say I won't be installing it on my phone.

 

[planetgeli]

Wriggling, blame-shifting scum when the question of whether we could keep deaths below 20,000 came up:



From BBC live updates page at 16:52 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52259683

IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!!!

 

[weltweit]

elbows I am quizzical you are surprised Hancock didn't answer the question? UK politicians of all stripes are renowned for not answering questions, indeed I expect they are trained in doing this, so expert at it they become.

South Korea apparently made a point of being transparent and honest with their public in order to generate maximum co-operation in their efforts (so I read in an article at least) I don't think UKG is doing the same at all, rather they are trying to manage public knowledge and nudge reactions, talking only about immediate issues and what they want the public to do now rather than for example painting a picture as to how we might emerge from this outbreak further along in time etc etc ..

 

[Wilf]

IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!!!

Herd immunity? Lack of PPE? Lack of ventilators? Lack of testing?
- 'NO, YOU LET WENT IN THE PARK!

 

[ska invita]

I'm familiar with some of the behind the scenes discussions regarding this app.

Let's just say I won't be installing it on my phone.

can you say just a little? general area of problems?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

elbows I am quizzical you are surprised Hancock didn't answer the question? UK politicians of all stripes are renowned for not answering questions, indeed I expect they are trained in doing this, so expert at it they become.

South Korea apparently made a point of being transparent and honest with their public in order to generate maximum co-operation in their efforts (so I read in an article at least) I don't think UKG is doing the same at all, rather they are trying to manage public knowledge and nudge reactions, talking only about immediate issues and what they want the public to do now rather than for example painting a picture as to how we might emerge from this outbreak further along in time etc etc ..

And why might that be, do you think? It's surely because they really are as clueless as they appear to be. Been saying for weeks that real leadership in a crisis like this involves showing a huge degree of honesty, even where that makes you look bad, especially where that makes you look bad. They don't get that, and probably never will.

Instead, the persist with insulting lies. The majority of people who die from this thing in the next month will have caught it before today, so it is demonstrably wrong that 'our behaviour' determines whether or not we stay under that arbitrary 20,000 figure.

 

[elbows]

I did not say I was surprised, I was just adding it to the record of shit.

 

[2hats]

can you say just a little? general area of problems?

'fraid not.

 

[elbows]

Twitter thread and new paper which tbh are probably beyond my level of understanding.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, I dont find enough time these days to spot all these studies.

I wouldnt worry too much about the technical details of the modelling, only the emerging reality will tell us how good any of the models are anyway.

In terms of the conclusions, the standout bits so far are that maximum 20% of the UK might be immune by the end of the first wave, and cumulative deaths could be almost 50,000.

 

[Cid]

Surely it would make more sense for the app to tell you who has developed symptoms for it, so you can work out who you've seen since your contact with that person and what action you need to take? This would especially be true for people who still work in big workplaces (like callcentres) where one person getting symptoms might generate alerts to everyone else and make them all think they needed to self isolate.

Huge privacy issues if it did that. And people not reporting symptoms for fear of community shame etc.

 

[teqniq]

Worth a read.

Professor mocked as 'ranting lefty' is right on coronavirus

Professor John Ashton was written off by many, but his words and warnings appear to have been on the money so far

www.liverpoolecho.co.uk

 

[agricola]

Huge privacy issues if it did that. And people not reporting symptoms for fear of community shame etc.

It would be a breach of privacy, albeit one that would have to take place for the system to work and one that had really good reasons why it should be breached. Given how the system would know who to actually alert there are probably pretty major breaches of privacy already going on with it anyway.

 

[Cid]

It would be a breach of privacy, albeit one that would have to take place for the system to work and one that had really good reasons why it should be breached. Given how the system would know who to actually alert there are probably pretty major breaches of privacy already going on with it anyway.

Just to check, do you mean that you think the app should explicitly name someone who has the disease and that you might have come into contact with? To me that is a huge step up from e.g how the Korean app works - I believe that allows you to see travel history of someone who had the disease, and alerts you if you're within 100m. It is still a major intrusion on privacy of course, but actually naming just seems a step beyond that.

 

[SpookyFrank]

If people who are known to be sick are properly quarrantined then what's the percentage in telling everyone else about it?

 

[agricola]

Just to check, do you mean that you think the app should explicitly name someone who has the disease and that you might have come into contact with? To me that is a huge step up from e.g how the Korean app works - I believe that allows you to see travel history of someone who had the disease, and alerts you if you're within 100m. It is still a major intrusion on privacy of course, but actually naming just seems a step beyond that.

I think to be effective its either got to tell you a name and/or when and where (and how often) your contact with them was, either of which would be enough to work someones identity out quite a lot of the time. Just getting an alert would be useless, especially somewhere like London where people could get multiple alerts every day from tube, train, bus, office, supermarket queue encounters etc a few days previously .

The system is going to know who you've been in contact with anyway, I'd have thought, so it should really tell you as well.

 

[weltweit]

And why might that be, do you think? It's surely because they really are as clueless as they appear to be.

It certainly isn't a cabinet of intellectual giants, nor of polished public speakers.

Been saying for weeks that real leadership in a crisis like this involves showing a huge degree of honesty, even where that makes you look bad, especially where that makes you look bad. They don't get that, and probably never will.

Politics and honesty (certainly in the UK) are not phrases that rub together very often.

Instead, the persist with insulting lies. The majority of people who die from this thing in the next month will have caught it before today, so it is demonstrably wrong that 'our behaviour' determines whether or not we stay under that arbitrary 20,000 figure.

I am not sure I understand you, people getting infected today could still make up a larger death toll.

 

[2hats]

Twitter thread and new paper which tbh are probably beyond my level of understanding.

Interesting. Little difference between the two key models used (Markov and ODE) other than in subsequent post wave overall population susceptibility estimates (which then feeds through to number of waves required to reach herd immunity); though not a huge disparity.

They agree on:

1. ~50K dead at the end of the first wave of infection (UK),
2. that it will take several such waves to reach herd immunity (the golden 60%) - anything up to 12 waves for the UK,
3. that most countries are near the peak case rate (France about now, Ireland within the next 2 weeks, the UK within the next 3 weeks, all others in this study already past their peaks),
4. herd immunity at the end of the first wave across all countries considered anticipated to be around 6%; at best 20% for the UK.

Other comments - likely it will need somewhere between 8-12 cycles of lockdown for the UK to achieve herd immunity. Alternatively, if we want to try to test extensively in order to protect the vulnerable, quarantine the infected and facilitate the well&recovered going back to work then we are probably looking at >600,000 tests per day (cf the government's current goal of 100,000 tests per day by the end of the month). Outcomes of the modelling presented obviously will vary with the degree of immunity that infected people go on to develop (not yet clear).

Numbers broadly chime with those coming out of Imperial and LSHTM models.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I am not sure I understand you, people getting infected today could still make up a larger death toll.

Of course they could. But they are utterly irrelevant to the UK's prospects of avoiding 20,000.

Let's be super-optimistic here and say that the real total today is around 12,000. Conservatively add a quarter for the care home and sundry other deaths that have yet to be factored in and you have 15,000 dead today from C19. Let's continue with the super-optimism and say that we have, without detecting it yet, reached peak death right now, and that the measures introduced three weeks ago were super-effective, meaning that deaths over the next two weeks will decline from current rates to perhaps half of where they are now.

Even a super-optimist would calculate that total deaths will pass 20,000 long before anybody contracting c19 today has been added to the statistics.

It's a tactic called deflection. Don't look at that, consider this instead. And shame on the scientist stood next to him who went along with it.

 

[weltweit]

Ok, I see you are saying - we are already going to get to 20,000 - yes you are probably right.

 

[2hats]

Ok, I see you are saying - we are already going to get to 20,000 - yes you are probably right.

Various models suggest almost 50,000 in the first wave (see recent posts).

 

[weltweit]

Various models suggest almost 50,000 in the first wave (see recent posts).

Grim

 

[elbows]

~50K dead at the end of the first wave of infection,

1. that it will take several such waves to reach herd immunity (the golden 60%) - anything up to 12 waves for the UK,
2. that most countries are near the peak case rate (France about now, Ireland within the next 2 weeks, the UK within the next 3 weeks, all others in this study already past their peaks),
3. herd immunity at the end of the first wave across all countries considered anticipated to be around 6%; at best 20% for the UK.

Other comments - likely it will need somewhere between 8-12 cycles of lockdown for the UK to achieve herd immunity.

Regarding point 2, the summary was unhelpful with the language used to describe peak dates, because it didnt indicate what date the author wrote it on. But later in the main body of the work, it says:

For the UK, the peak case rate predictions were estimated at April 11th for the HMM and April 17th for the ODE model.

As for point 1, I will wait to see whether the ODE model or the MDP model turns out to be more accurate, since there are big variations in estimates for population infected after the first wave (5% or 20%), and their number of waves thing seems to just be another way of describing this level. When they spoke about this, they chose to highlight as few as 3 waves possible for UK (since they are trying to get to 60% and 3 x 20% would do that) and as many as 12 for Germany because of the low estimates for infection there.

Also, relating to my last point and your point 3, I dont think I would not quite say 20% is their best case scenario for the UK because I think one of the graphs has red error bars and they cover rather a large range for the ODE model that the 20% comes from.

 

[planetgeli]

Grim

Not just grim but those words 'first wave' just don't seem to be being understood by a lot of people.

"When's lockdown finishing bruv?"

"Any time now surely?"

"And that's it then right? All over with that?"

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Grim

Well we had no firm idea how bad things were three weeks ago when they were touting 20,000 (but we were tracking Italy - the clues were that it was bad). The truth about the state we were in then is only emerging now with the current death rates. Truth is that we were doomed to reach 20,000 dead from infections pre-lockdown alone. It never was a realistic target, however people behaved in the last three weeks, let alone however people behave from today onwards. And that's just too bad a truth for this govt to admit to.

 

[Mr.Bishie]

I take it that Italy, Spain, France, like the U.K. haven’t tallied figures from deaths outside of hospital?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I take it that Italy, Spain, France, like the U.K. haven’t tallied figures from deaths outside of hospital?

France has started doing so from care homes. I believe that Italy hasn't. Don't know about Spain.

Another potential discrepancy comes from comorbidities. The UK and I believe many others are counting anyone dying with c19, regardless of the comorbidities. I did read somewhere that Germany and Austria may not be doing that, but I didn't see firm evidence presented.

 

[elbows]

I take it that Italy, Spain, France, like the U.K. haven’t tallied figures from deaths outside of hospital?

France started including theirs recently.

So their totals as of numbers released today are 14393 deaths, of which 9253 were hospital deaths.

 

[teqniq]

Has Piers Morgan had a road to Damascus moment? This is just one example of him taking the government to task: