COVID19

[Jon MW]

...

 It seems, please correct me if I’m wrong, that you are attached to an idea that there is a big element of luck in how each country is being impacted.
...

Do you really think that there isn't?

The zoonotic jump to start wih comes from a random mutation that enabled the virus to leap species.

In the time before this new disease is identified there could be 0 people from your country in the affected area, or there could be a 1000.
There could be 0 or a 1000 travellers from somewhere else who then travel to your country shortly after.
At one time of the year there could be 0 or a 1000 in these categories so you get luck as to what time of year the virus first infects people; similarly it could change from year to year.

When it is identified the first thing countries do is test, track and trace arrivals from the affected area. But some will get through - that amount is essentially random. It might be 0% it might be 5% - it all makes a difference.

Outside of that test, track and trace program the virus is spreading anyway. The people infected might have a high number of people with natural immunity, it might have a high number of introverts or a high number of family orientated extroverts, it might have a high number of young fitness fanatics or a high number of obese pensioners (etc.)

There is nothing binary about these numbers it's a matter of weighting and probability - but more than anything else it's about randomness.

There are factors that come into play on top of that - like the size of your population, it's population density and the amount of international travel and entry points your country has - but all the numbers start with randomness.

And with exponential growth - random differences to the seed values make very large differences later.

Lots of randomness for sure. It would be difficult for a country that had no lockdown in place until there were 335 (the number was massively higher of course, on the lag) fatalities to cite the randomness and the unknown nature of early spread in its defence. The overwhelming correlations across all nations that are handling this well are comprehensive contact tracing (impossible for us) or comprehensive early lockdown, we are an international outlier amongst all comparable nations (US/Sweden/Belarus are obv a stretch in terms of being comparable) for choosing against the lockdown option.

How are we an outlier compared to France, Italy and Spain?

Awaits contortions of every possible fact and piece of data to show that the UK is the worst country in the world except the US of course

Or this:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-52103747

This still does the job, opportunity to act far earlier, acted significantly later, I think meets the criteria for 'outlier'. I'm happy to involve The Donald if we think comparisons are valid and reasonable.

Okay - so you were only talking about being an outlier in terms of when measures were taken. Not in the results.


EDIT: although that is only in lockdown measures. I haven't seen anywhere that compares travel restrictions and contact tracing like we were doing from January for a while (i.e. the other measures).

[kukushkin88]

It’s a little surprising this is dividing down political lines but since it has....

I think a good way to try and understand how slow and pathetic our governments response is, is to think what countries like Italy would do if they could wind back the clock and act decisively two weeks earlier. We have very few respirators relative to equivalent European nations *. How did we think we would be different? Catastrophic for Boris to come up against an enemy that can’t be influenced by his bullshit and rhetoric laden clown act. Certainly seems likely we’ll top the death totals at some stage.

* https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00134-012-2627-8/figures/1

A good time to revisit the excellent article Doobs linked:

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

When I was in for my kidney surgery at the beginning of December, there were already onco-urology wards so over stretched that the patients who’d been there the longest were looking after the newer patients, as well as having to provide guidance to agency nursing staff, it’s nearly impossible to overstate how badly this will go for the U.K and it’s decimated health service.

and this, I guess. We were able to overcome the hospital problem, by electing for people to die without hospital treatment, fans of the UK response might approve, at best it's unclear whether that was the best option.

Worth remembering as well, if we compare to Italy in number of deaths, that we have had approx. 14 fewer days since passing the critical thresholds in epidemic spread, certainly efficient but not likely to indicate that we have given people the best opportunity to survive.

[kukushkin88]

...

 It seems, please correct me if I’m wrong, that you are attached to an idea that there is a big element of luck in how each country is being impacted.
...

Do you really think that there isn't?

The zoonotic jump to start wih comes from a random mutation that enabled the virus to leap species.

In the time before this new disease is identified there could be 0 people from your country in the affected area, or there could be a 1000.
There could be 0 or a 1000 travellers from somewhere else who then travel to your country shortly after.
At one time of the year there could be 0 or a 1000 in these categories so you get luck as to what time of year the virus first infects people; similarly it could change from year to year.

When it is identified the first thing countries do is test, track and trace arrivals from the affected area. But some will get through - that amount is essentially random. It might be 0% it might be 5% - it all makes a difference.

Outside of that test, track and trace program the virus is spreading anyway. The people infected might have a high number of people with natural immunity, it might have a high number of introverts or a high number of family orientated extroverts, it might have a high number of young fitness fanatics or a high number of obese pensioners (etc.)

There is nothing binary about these numbers it's a matter of weighting and probability - but more than anything else it's about randomness.

There are factors that come into play on top of that - like the size of your population, it's population density and the amount of international travel and entry points your country has - but all the numbers start with randomness.

And with exponential growth - random differences to the seed values make very large differences later.

Lots of randomness for sure. It would be difficult for a country that had no lockdown in place until there were 335 (the number was massively higher of course, on the lag) fatalities to cite the randomness and the unknown nature of early spread in its defence. The overwhelming correlations across all nations that are handling this well are comprehensive contact tracing (impossible for us) or comprehensive early lockdown, we are an international outlier amongst all comparable nations (US/Sweden/Belarus are obv a stretch in terms of being comparable) for choosing against the lockdown option.

How are we an outlier compared to France, Italy and Spain?

Awaits contortions of every possible fact and piece of data to show that the UK is the worst country in the world except the US of course

Or this:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-52103747

This still does the job, opportunity to act far earlier, acted significantly later, I think meets the criteria for 'outlier'. I'm happy to involve The Donald if we think comparisons are valid and reasonable.

Okay - so you were only talking about being an outlier in terms of when measures were taken. Not in the results.


EDIT: although that is only in lockdown measures. I haven't seen anywhere that compares travel restrictions and contact tracing like we were doing from January for a while (i.e. the other measures).

This is good, I'm having trouble fully interrogating it but it seems to have most things covered. Our hands were tied by lack of capacity for nearly everything we might have done effectively but whose fault do we reckon that was?

https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/research/research-projects/coronavirus-government-response-tracker

Let's give Boris, Trump and Bolsonaro a really generous interpretation of how unlucky they were at the start, then let's see if we can identify any commonalities in flawed response that mean they end up doing badly on all measures. Let's also give them (assuming they are still in power) economic growth until the end of 2022 as an extra measure to see how it plays out.

1. Total excess deaths as % increase of 5 year average all cause mortality in Europe + agreed reasonably comparable nations
2. % economic contraction in 2020 in G20.
3. % economic growth for US and Brazil by end 2022, % +- for the UK by end 2022, should be impossible wreck the economy that hard but I don't think it is for Boris.

[EvilPie]

I really don't understand what was confusing about the message. Did people expect every single exact scenario to be covered in a 10 minute speech?

My main concern as a business owner is getting people back to work and that was covered perfectly.

From today, people in England who "can't work from home" will be "actively encouraged to go to work". I understand that this in itself is vague but it's just the headline. Boris said that guidance notes will follow with assistance on how Companies are to do this.

Seriously where's the problem?

People saying that everything's confusing; have you read any of the papers on the gov.uk website? There's a load of information regarding working on construction sites for example that's now on revision 3 outlining safe procedures.

Most people whinging about construction sites are people who've never been near one but just love to voice an opinion. I dare say it's the same about most industries they are sticking their noses in to.

A quick browse through the website would cover pretty much everything that people are banging on about. It's really not that confusing if you look at the readily available information.

Bit of a rant there.... As you were.....

[arbboy]

I really don't understand what was confusing about the message. Did people expect every single exact scenario to be covered in a 10 minute speech?

My main concern as a business owner is getting people back to work and that was covered perfectly.

From today, people in England who "can't work from home" will be "actively encouraged to go to work". I understand that this in itself is vague but it's just the headline. Boris said that guidance notes will follow with assistance on how Companies are to do this.

Seriously where's the problem?

People saying that everything's confusing; have you read any of the papers on the gov.uk website? There's a load of information regarding working on construction sites for example that's now on revision 3 outlining safe procedures.

Most people whinging about construction sites are people who've never been near one but just love to voice an opinion. I dare say it's the same about most industries they are sticking their noses in to.

A quick browse through the website would cover pretty much everything that people are banging on about. It's really not that confusing if you look at the readily available information.

Bit of a rant there.... As you were.....

I kinda agree with you Matt.   I think a better line than 'stay alert' would be 'use your common sense' which so many people in this world clearly have very little.   So many people love to have a fall back to blame like the government when after 7 weeks of this 99% of people who know the vast majority of things which need doing moving forward.  It's not rocket science.   So many people nowadays want to be heroes or make a name for themselves on social media. 

[Karabiner]

I really don't understand what was confusing about the message. Did people expect every single exact scenario to be covered in a 10 minute speech?

My main concern as a business owner is getting people back to work and that was covered perfectly.

From today, people in England who "can't work from home" will be "actively encouraged to go to work". I understand that this in itself is vague but it's just the headline. Boris said that guidance notes will follow with assistance on how Companies are to do this.

Seriously where's the problem?

People saying that everything's confusing; have you read any of the papers on the gov.uk website? There's a load of information regarding working on construction sites for example that's now on revision 3 outlining safe procedures.

Most people whinging about construction sites are people who've never been near one but just love to voice an opinion. I dare say it's the same about most industries they are sticking their noses in to.

A quick browse through the website would cover pretty much everything that people are banging on about. It's really not that confusing if you look at the readily available information.

Bit of a rant there.... As you were.....

I kinda agree with you Matt.   I think a better line than 'stay alert' would be 'use your common sense' which so many people in this world clearly have very little.   So many people love to have a fall back to blame like the government when after 7 weeks of this 99% of people who know the vast majority of things which need doing moving forward.  It's not rocket science.   So many people nowadays want to be heroes or make a name for themselves on social media. 

Agreed.

"Stay Alert" might have been better put as "don't become complacent" but I don't think you need to be Einstein to figure that out.

[RickBFA]

This is completely anecdotal but I've just been to the supermarket. Same time, same day that I do every week. It was much busier. No queue outside everyone just allowed in. Social distancing out of the window.

One point there was a group of 8 people (2 to a trolley so only 1 allowed in seems to be gone) stood at the edges of 4 aisles talking to each other about how hard it is to social distance in a supermarket whilst people are having to walk past them. No awareness whatsoever.

What with the magic Monday headlines, the Government's lack of talking back hard against them before the bank holiday, the Government's new confused messaging, it's hard to see how this doesn't explode again. So lockdown for longer, more deaths, and more long term damage to the economy.

This is the danger, a large percentage of population have no common sense and don't give a fuck about the consequences of their actions.

You see it in supermarkets or out for a walk, 2 metres distancing is ignored constantly. I've experienced it regularly (I know its anecdotal but its still happening)

Whilst if you have any degree of reasonable intelligence, the new rules will be easy enough to understand (as someone said, this isnt rocket science), a significant minority will just take the piss and push/break the rules - and the numbers doing it will only increase.

I said before, I would have waited another couple of weeks, largely because of the clueless that will just not play by the rules. At least it would give more time for the lockdown to have its intended effect. 

[kukushkin88]

Agreed they shouldn’t be treating folk like imbeciles: 

https://twitter.com/marinahyde/status/1259834793241559040?s=21

[TightEnd]

ballpark figure...

given an R of 0.7-0.9 now and human nature being what it is (a proportion of the population will be out a lot more, more people will be returning to work even if behaving prudently)..what do you think is the likelihood of rowing back on lifting lockdown in a month or so, a so called second wave?

more likely than not? very likely? not likely?

[EvilPie]

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/staying-alert-and-safe-social-distancing/staying-alert-and-safe-social-distancing

Latest guidelines. Have a read and if it's still confusing please whinge away.

EDIT: Warning, if you whinge please prepare to be mocked if the answer to your whinge is available on the gov.uk website

[EvilPie]

ballpark figure...

given an R of 0.7-0.9 now and human nature being what it is (a proportion of the population will be out a lot more, more people will be returning to work even if behaving prudently)..what do you think is the likelihood of rowing back on lifting lockdown in a month or so, a so called second wave?

more likely than not? very likely? not likely?

Cast iron certainty

They've staggered things quite nicely though so they'll be able to remove a few things such as schools re-opening with them ever actually happening.

[TightEnd]

i have read that

it says

"You can exercise outside as often as you wish and from Wednesday 13 May, you can also sit and rest outside – exercise or recreation can be alone, with members of your household, or with one other person from outside your household, while keeping two metres apart at all times."

and

"It is still not permitted to leave your house to visit friends and family in their home. The government is looking at how to facilitate greater contact with close family or friends, and will explain how this can be done safely in the coming weeks."

From Wednesday I am allowed (thinking in my case as a non resident parent) to visit one member of another household in a park. If in that setting I socially distance from them, sitting or standing two metres away, why not two or three members of another but in the same household?

[Cf]

i have read that

it says

"You can exercise outside as often as you wish and from Wednesday 13 May, you can also sit and rest outside – exercise or recreation can be alone, with members of your household, or with one other person from outside your household, while keeping two metres apart at all times."

and

"It is still not permitted to leave your house to visit friends and family in their home. The government is looking at how to facilitate greater contact with close family or friends, and will explain how this can be done safely in the coming weeks."

From Wednesday I am allowed (thinking in my case as a non resident parent) to visit one member of another household in a park. If in that setting I socially distance from them, sitting or standing two metres away, why not two or three members of another but in the same household?

It's a weird one.

Presumably you're allowed to sit 2 metres away from strangers?

[TightEnd]

i think so

or employ my now young adult kids to clean my house, or to do repair and maintenance. Then the guidance allows them in

I am reasonably bright, trying to do the right thing, and must admit to some contortions in trying to comply. Doubt i am alone

[kukushkin88]

ballpark figure...

given an R of 0.7-0.9 now and human nature being what it is (a proportion of the population will be out a lot more, more people will be returning to work even if behaving prudently)..what do you think is the likelihood of rowing back on lifting lockdown in a month or so, a so called second wave?

more likely than not? very likely? not likely?

Barring something that can’t reasonably be foreseen, there’ll need to be a second, probably more strict lockdown. It will be framed that it is the fault of people not following the rules, if you like Boris, you’ll agree that is where the blame should lie. It will be hard to objectively assess why it was actually needed because the data will be kept secret.