COVID19

[Marky147]

This is highly concerning, looking forwards:

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1246135176461254657?s=21

Craig posted about that earlier in the thread, and he's in China.

Who is expecting things to go back to normal overnight?

It’s just a bit tempting, until there’s evidence to the contrary, to hope that things won’t be as bad as they appear. For sure it would take something highly improbable and unexpected or slightly less improbably a vaccine, to prevent multiple subsequent waves.

No danger of that with you in here, lol.

Ha, I’ll ease up on the negativity 👍.

Have a good weekend everyone!

We're not doing as well as some,  and we've done better than others.

I've been in isolation for a few years, so it's easier for me, lol. Have a good weekend, mate

[nirvana]

This is true in Spain, Italy, and France too. They like to jack boot around a bit more than we tend to in terms of enforcing petty stuff  but plenty of non essential businesses open and working under distancing guidelines. I speak to people every day in these countries and USA and India. The only one with a lock down like you describe is india

Mate of mine is stuck out in Spain at the moment and can't get back until the ferries start running and they're on lockdown over there.

Most of it shut and he's stuck in the gaff they're staying at. I know that because I'm getting about 900 memes/videos a day on messenger!

I'm probably a bit narrow in perspective working in a business to business environment which happens to be functioning.

Bummer for your mate

[Marky147]

This is true in Spain, Italy, and France too. They like to jack boot around a bit more than we tend to in terms of enforcing petty stuff  but plenty of non essential businesses open and working under distancing guidelines. I speak to people every day in these countries and USA and India. The only one with a lock down like you describe is india

Mate of mine is stuck out in Spain at the moment and can't get back until the ferries start running and they're on lockdown over there.

Most of it shut and he's stuck in the gaff they're staying at. I know that because I'm getting about 900 memes/videos a day on messenger!

I'm probably a bit narrow in perspective working in a business to business environment which happens to be functioning.

Bummer for your mate

He'd be ok, but he's out there with his mrs

[Jon MW]

...
On the end part, it very much started as a case of ‘should be doing it now’ (for a quite a long time and still to some extent now), rather than ‘should have done it sooner‘.

...

Like what?

I remember arguments about whether we should be in full lockdown - but that was on the way (it may have arrived sooner than the government anticipated in fact because less people than expected were voluntarily abiding by social distancing rules).
Also arguments about whether schools should be closed - but that was clearly and obviously on the way (I don't think anybody, at least in education were surprised at the timing of that announcement)
They kind of bypassed the idea of banning large assemblies as we went to full lockdown - but that was in line with the Imperial research which suggested that it was so insignificant without the other measures that it wasn't even worth graphing.
There's an ongoing disagreement about masks - and, even more than large assemblies, you might get opposing experts who don't agree with the governments advice, but you can see where the governement expert advice is.

There are some other measures that other countries have done, but they're primarily about enforcement rather than actual containment measures.


What do you think the measures they should be doing now are?

There is scope for a much more comprehensive lockdown, our lockdown is still significantly less than the countries that we accelerating past on the fatality growth rate charts. I accept this is really tough though, the problem we saw in Italy/France/Spain with a partial lockdown is holding your nerve when the fatality numbers get huge but you still don’t know how effective your existing lockdown has been. In the U.K. things like Football Associations/rugby authorities cancelling all fixtures was against the government advice. There was a wide consensus that Cheltenham would and should be cancelled. They talked about evidence based decisions for leaving schools open, what evidence did they have? Like many times when they’ve said evidence, what they actually mean is the projection of their model, in the absence of any actual evidence an earlier closure of the schools seemed prudent. They literally couldn’t have had meaningful data about the role of children in spreading it, so it’s strange to take the highest risk option.

At some stage it might be interesting to re-read this thread, which started on February 22nd to see the range of views. There was definitely a time where the discussion was about why we were waiting until a later point in the curve, as though we were trying to emulate Italy, when it seemed clear that what we had was an opportunity to act sooner, relatively speaking.

We’ve also allowed basically all non-essential work to continue, both situations where employees are apparently being forced to and situations where employers/employees have just carried on, notably in construction. We’ve no meaningful control over incoming international flights, including those from the worst afflicted places in the world. You’ll have some insight on the school closures, most teachers I know say 25/30% of kids are still coming in and basically all teachers who aren’t subject to quarantining guidelines are in as well.

The closing non-essential work is pretty much the only lever left to pull in terms of restrictions - almost everything else is, like I said, about enforcement.

The fact that all the European countries are issuing thousands and thousands and thousands of fines for people not complying with the rules gives an indication that you really have to look at just how effective ramping up enforcement measures actually are.

The closing non-essential work is a bit trickier, if we don't go over the ICU capacity then it definitely wasn't needed and if we do go over the ICU capacity there's a chance it would have made a difference.

Similarly with banning incoming flights - flights are down by 80-90% on their normal levels, how much difference would a  complete ban make?

As things stand there doesn't seem to be much evidence pointing towards us needing to increase either enforcement or restrictions though.

...
They talked about evidence based decisions for leaving schools open, what evidence did they have? Like many times when they’ve said evidence, what they actually mean is the projection of their model, in the absence of any actual evidence an earlier closure of the schools seemed prudent. They literally couldn’t have had meaningful data about the role of children in spreading it, so it’s strange to take the highest risk option.
...

That is just wrong.

They had a lot of data from the existing spread of the disease, particularly China. That showed that very few children were diagnosed with it.

This is very relevant - in a 'normal' flu epidemic children are basically super spreaders. This showed that at worst they had the same chance spreading it as adults. The modelling they based their decisions on showed that there was likely to be a significant benefit from closing schools - but it was nowhere near the same level as a normal flu epidemic would be; and carried a large level of uncertainty of how this would affect NHS capacity.

When they did close the schools they had the bold move of cancelling exams and keeping schools open for essential staff - getting the best of both worlds. But to suggest they didn't have any evidence to keep them open is just wrong.

Curious what you said about teachers. Do you know many of them? Are they primary school teachers?

My wife's school has a normal roll of 2000; when the schools closed they started with 2 teachers and 30 pupils coming in and a few pupils have since stopped doing so and are working from home.

Higher numbers would suggest primary school, but as I alluded to before, if they're higher it's because their parents are needed. Or definitely should be, schools aren't meant to be making any exceptions. If schools are allowing pupils who's parents aren't in essential work then they're causing part of the problem.

It would be quite interesting to see a graph or two on the national picture in one of the daily briefings to shed some light on it.

[Woodsey]

This is highly concerning, looking forwards:

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1246135176461254657?s=21

Craig posted about that earlier in the thread, and he's in China.

Who is expecting things to go back to normal overnight?

It’s just a bit tempting, until there’s evidence to the contrary, to hope that things won’t be as bad as they appear. For sure it would take something highly improbable and unexpected or slightly less improbably a vaccine, to prevent multiple subsequent waves.

No danger of that with you in here, lol.

Ha, I’ll ease up on the negativity 👍.

Have a good weekend everyone!

No chance you can do it!

[kukushkin88]

...
On the end part, it very much started as a case of ‘should be doing it now’ (for a quite a long time and still to some extent now), rather than ‘should have done it sooner‘.

...

Like what?

I remember arguments about whether we should be in full lockdown - but that was on the way (it may have arrived sooner than the government anticipated in fact because less people than expected were voluntarily abiding by social distancing rules).
Also arguments about whether schools should be closed - but that was clearly and obviously on the way (I don't think anybody, at least in education were surprised at the timing of that announcement)
They kind of bypassed the idea of banning large assemblies as we went to full lockdown - but that was in line with the Imperial research which suggested that it was so insignificant without the other measures that it wasn't even worth graphing.
There's an ongoing disagreement about masks - and, even more than large assemblies, you might get opposing experts who don't agree with the governments advice, but you can see where the governement expert advice is.

There are some other measures that other countries have done, but they're primarily about enforcement rather than actual containment measures.


What do you think the measures they should be doing now are?

There is scope for a much more comprehensive lockdown, our lockdown is still significantly less than the countries that we accelerating past on the fatality growth rate charts. I accept this is really tough though, the problem we saw in Italy/France/Spain with a partial lockdown is holding your nerve when the fatality numbers get huge but you still don’t know how effective your existing lockdown has been. In the U.K. things like Football Associations/rugby authorities cancelling all fixtures was against the government advice. There was a wide consensus that Cheltenham would and should be cancelled. They talked about evidence based decisions for leaving schools open, what evidence did they have? Like many times when they’ve said evidence, what they actually mean is the projection of their model, in the absence of any actual evidence an earlier closure of the schools seemed prudent. They literally couldn’t have had meaningful data about the role of children in spreading it, so it’s strange to take the highest risk option.

At some stage it might be interesting to re-read this thread, which started on February 22nd to see the range of views. There was definitely a time where the discussion was about why we were waiting until a later point in the curve, as though we were trying to emulate Italy, when it seemed clear that what we had was an opportunity to act sooner, relatively speaking.

We’ve also allowed basically all non-essential work to continue, both situations where employees are apparently being forced to and situations where employers/employees have just carried on, notably in construction. We’ve no meaningful control over incoming international flights, including those from the worst afflicted places in the world. You’ll have some insight on the school closures, most teachers I know say 25/30% of kids are still coming in and basically all teachers who aren’t subject to quarantining guidelines are in as well.

The closing non-essential work is pretty much the only lever left to pull in terms of restrictions - almost everything else is, like I said, about enforcement.

The fact that all the European countries are issuing thousands and thousands and thousands of fines for people not complying with the rules gives an indication that you really have to look at just how effective ramping up enforcement measures actually are.

The closing non-essential work is a bit trickier, if we don't go over the ICU capacity then it definitely wasn't needed and if we do go over the ICU capacity there's a chance it would have made a difference.

Similarly with banning incoming flights - flights are down by 80-90% on their normal levels, how much difference would a  complete ban make?

As things stand there doesn't seem to be much evidence pointing towards us needing to increase either enforcement or restrictions though.

...
They talked about evidence based decisions for leaving schools open, what evidence did they have? Like many times when they’ve said evidence, what they actually mean is the projection of their model, in the absence of any actual evidence an earlier closure of the schools seemed prudent. They literally couldn’t have had meaningful data about the role of children in spreading it, so it’s strange to take the highest risk option.
...

That is just wrong.

They had a lot of data from the existing spread of the disease, particularly China. That showed that very few children were diagnosed with it.

This is very relevant - in a 'normal' flu epidemic children are basically super spreaders. This showed that at worst they had the same chance spreading it as adults. The modelling they based their decisions on showed that there was likely to be a significant benefit from closing schools - but it was nowhere near the same level as a normal flu epidemic would be; and carried a large level of uncertainty of how this would affect NHS capacity.

When they did close the schools they had the bold move of cancelling exams and keeping schools open for essential staff - getting the best of both worlds. But to suggest they didn't have any evidence to keep them open is just wrong.

Curious what you said about teachers. Do you know many of them? Are they primary school teachers?

My wife's school has a normal roll of 2000; when the schools closed they started with 2 teachers and 30 pupils coming in and a few pupils have since stopped doing so and are working from home.

Higher numbers would suggest primary school, but as I alluded to before, if they're higher it's because their parents are needed. Or definitely should be, schools aren't meant to be making any exceptions. If schools are allowing pupils who's parents aren't in essential work then they're causing part of the problem.

It would be quite interesting to see a graph or two on the national picture in one of the daily briefings to shed some light on it.

Thanks for the comprehensive reply.

Yes, it is primary school teachers, in north Herts and Leicester/Loughborough. It’s the sort of data John Burn-Murdoch will probably get hold of at some stage the way he is going.

I probably was overstating my understanding of the role of children as spreaders, whilst not displaying symptoms (thanks for the extra info), I was aware that children had been displaying in the main only mild symptoms, I wasn’t aware of evidence on how this would translate to their capacity to spread infection.

[kukushkin88]

This is highly concerning, looking forwards:

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1246135176461254657?s=21

Craig posted about that earlier in the thread, and he's in China.

Who is expecting things to go back to normal overnight?

It’s just a bit tempting, until there’s evidence to the contrary, to hope that things won’t be as bad as they appear. For sure it would take something highly improbable and unexpected or slightly less improbably a vaccine, to prevent multiple subsequent waves.

No danger of that with you in here, lol.

Ha, I’ll ease up on the negativity 👍.

Have a good weekend everyone!

No chance you can do it!

Thanks for the vote of confidence!

I hope you and your family stay well through all of this. I’m thinking/hoping next years six nations might be a sensible timescale for normality retuning.

[RickBFA]

My next door but one neighbour is a doctor at Sheffield Children’s Hospital. She was telling me that she has learnt this week that kids don’t have the same receptors in their cells to pick up the virus.

Don’t really understand this but as an example, my wife’s friend and her husband (a GP) have been diagnosed but their three kids have been totally unaffected.

[kukushkin88]

My next door but one neighbour is a doctor at Sheffield Children’s Hospital. She was telling me that she has learnt this week that kids don’t have the same receptors in their cells to pick up the virus.

Don’t really understand this but as an example, my wife’s friend and her husband (a GP) have been diagnosed but their three kids have been totally unaffected.

Good morning all,

Big edit on my comment on the first part. Just spoke to my brother in law who is a Professor of Pharmacology, he says the idea is possible but there’s no knowledge of such a thing in the wide (including international) scientific community.

In the second paragraph, it is extremely likely that the children have the disease asymptomatically. Do you know if the parents have actually been tested?

[RickBFA]

My next door but one neighbour is a doctor at Sheffield Children’s Hospital. She was telling me that she has learnt this week that kids don’t have the same receptors in their cells to pick up the virus.

Don’t really understand this but as an example, my wife’s friend and her husband (a GP) have been diagnosed but their three kids have been totally unaffected.

Good morning all,

Big edit on my comment on the first part. Just spoke to my brother in law who is a Professor of Pharmacology, he says the idea is possible but there’s no knowledge of such a thing in the wide (including international) scientific community.

In the second paragraph, it is extremely likely that the children have the disease asymptomatically. Do you know if the parents have actually been tested?

On the first part, not saying it’s 100% accurate, just what I was told. She is likely to  have picked up the information/theory from a medical source given her position.

On the second, the father was definitely tested as he is a GP and was confirmed positive. His wife wasn’t but has same symptoms.

You could be right, the kids could have it but were unaffected.

[Doobs]

My next door but one neighbour is a doctor at Sheffield Children’s Hospital. She was telling me that she has learnt this week that kids don’t have the same receptors in their cells to pick up the virus.

Don’t really understand this but as an example, my wife’s friend and her husband (a GP) have been diagnosed but their three kids have been totally unaffected.

Good morning all,

Big edit on my comment on the first part. Just spoke to my brother in law who is a Professor of Pharmacology, he says the idea is possible but there’s no knowledge of such a thing in the wide (including international) scientific community.

In the second paragraph, it is extremely likely that the children have the disease asymptomatically. Do you know if the parents have actually been tested?

It seems like it is one of the theories been thrown about

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/possible-biological-explanations-for-kids-escape-from-covid-19-67273

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200330-coronavirus-are-children-immune-to-covid-19

[Chompy]

Lovely day out there. Anyone up for a spot of 5G mast burning?

[TightEnd]

the anti-vaxx truthers have to move onto something, i suppose. Fairly crowded venn diagram intersection i would think.

[Marky147]

[kukushkin88]

It is a massively long read but really does have lots of good insight. Hopefully helpful on the idea China are just making their numbers up as well.

https://twitter.com/atatimelikethis/status/1246392991524229123?s=21