Coronavirus

[Anon]

@G STAR RAM I can't understand bold text, so I'm struggling to comprehend your posts. Now, I know you're likely going to claim that it's incredibly easy to differentiate between bold text and normal text, so easy that even a small child or a Leeds fan would be able to do it, but that's not enough for me. I will require you to source and post at least three peer reviewed studies from universities of my choice showing that there is a clear and marked difference between bold text and regular text. Your undoubted failure to do this will prove once and for all that I am correct about everything all the time ever.

[Norman]

22 minutes ago, Anon said:

@G STAR RAM I can't understand bold text, so I'm struggling to comprehend your posts. Now, I know you're likely going to claim that it's incredibly easy to differentiate between bold text and normal text, so easy that even a small child or a Leeds fan would be able to do it, but that's not enough for me. I will require you to source and post at least three peer reviewed studies from universities of my choice showing that there is a clear and marked difference between bold text and regular text. Your undoubted failure to do this will prove once and for all that I am correct about everything all the time ever.

That's a moot point. 

In my opinion. Oh no, I mean in my fact. 

[Albert]

27 minutes ago, Anon said:

@G STAR RAM I can't understand bold text, so I'm struggling to comprehend your posts. Now, I know you're likely going to claim that it's incredibly easy to differentiate between bold text and normal text, so easy that even a small child or a Leeds fan would be able to do it, but that's not enough for me. I will require you to source and post at least three peer reviewed studies from universities of my choice showing that there is a clear and marked difference between bold text and regular text. Your undoubted failure to do this will prove once and for all that I am correct about everything all the time ever.

It's not that it's hard to understand, it's about it being basic competency. Text written in crayon is perfectly understandable, but when someone hands you a resume written in crayon you'd probably have second thoughts.

Sorry that this is challenging for you to understand. 

[WhiteHorseRam]

….     Hand bags at 12 paces ? …….

[Ghost of Clough]

1 hour ago, Albert said:

we do know that the virus is controllable

We do know the virus is controllable... before the numbers are out of control. You've repeatedly said the UK was close to getting it under control as we were down to 600 cases a day. Then you also say the UK hasn't been doing enough testing so the official number of cases is drastically under represented. During wave 1, we didn't get much higher than 5,000 cases a day, yet there are estimates of the true figure being 100,000. Assuming the same proportions, the 600 were actually 12,000 - still significantly higher than the daily high for any country which has controlled the virus.

[ariotofmyown]

Thought this was a good article about all those people desperate to see another lockdown...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/20/britain-pro-lockdown-lobby-blame-government-covid-19

[maxjam]

Sums up a lot of this thread really - the health policy and the economic policy are at massive odds with each other.

 

 

 

[G STAR RAM]

1 hour ago, Albert said:

I know the issue, but I don't get how anyone has managed to get into their heads that it's the restrictions causing this. The only places where such is going on as normal as the ones that have controlled the virus. Health services are not capable of doing such when they're inundated by new cases. Such medicine is usually for the vulnerable anyhow, so while the hospitals are full of the sick, it would generate higher risks in any case. 

They didn't come close as they shut down the elective and preventative medicine in most areas to increase capacity. Bad flu seasons can push the limits of the NHS usually, and this has been a lot worse. This is a huge part of the issue behind the issue we just discussed a paragraph earlier.

If it's not the pandemic hammering the economy, then why are places that haven't gone with lockdowns just as impacted, if not more impacted, economically? It's all well and good to sing as a mantra to yourself that 'it's just the lockdowns', but we have the data to show it's not. 

Also, you really need to learn to quote with basic levels of competency. 

And you need to learn how to stop being so condescending to people who have an opposing view to you  because basically you come across a prat...which you're clearly not.

[Stive Pesley]

26 minutes ago, ariotofmyown said:

Thought this was a good article about all those people desperate to see another lockdown...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/20/britain-pro-lockdown-lobby-blame-government-covid-19

I'm wondering what the reaction will be when we see start small businesses go bust because their entire staff have to isolate for 14 days because they caught the virus from customers who refused to wear masks

Or when the cancer operations start getting cancelled because the NHS staff are all isolating because their kids have brought so much of the virus home from school

I mean - no one wants small businesses to go bust, and no one wants cancer operations cancelled, but people need to start seeing the need for balance between lockdowns and not lockdowns.

It feels like yet another black and white "take a side" issue being forced on us by the media, when it's far from that clear-cut

[Albert]

43 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

We do know the virus is controllable... before the numbers are out of control. You've repeatedly said the UK was close to getting it under control as we were down to 600 cases a day. Then you also say the UK hasn't been doing enough testing so the official number of cases is drastically under represented. During wave 1, we didn't get much higher than 5,000 cases a day, yet there are estimates of the true figure being 100,000. Assuming the same proportions, the 600 were actually 12,000 - still significantly higher than the daily high for any country which has controlled the virus.

Across 66 million people, 600 cases a day is getting to a controllable level. I agree broadly agree though, the UK really didn't ever have it under control in the sense I've discussed before. I should have been more careful with my language, as I've used controlled to mean effectively eliminated, which the UK is most certainly never got close to. 

As to true number of cases in the first wave, it's true that it's likely a vast underestimate, but assuming uniform underestimates over time seems naive in this instance. We have the death figures to compare to, which while it would be equally naive to assume that deaths will perfectly track with cases, it should be a better fit than just the testing early on. We can already see this second wave is being more effectively tracked. It would be an interesting question to ask. 

600 cases a day though was a position which managed properly, the UK could have gotten things properly under control. The issue was that there was no real exit strategy apart from bowing to pressure to open as fast as possible. The long term damage done to the economy by those choices may well be felt for generations, as discussed by others such as @maxjam. 

33 minutes ago, ariotofmyown said:

Thought this was a good article about all those people desperate to see another lockdown...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/20/britain-pro-lockdown-lobby-blame-government-covid-19

This is the thing, the treatment hurts, but the disease will be so much worse without it. That said, I still think there are potentially better mid term strategies than lockdowns. There are no magic bullets though, and the key at this point is that the UK develop some kind of coherent plan, with clear exit strategies.

There's been plenty of criticism of even the best responses to Covid-19, and rightly so in some cases, but the key thing that they all share was long term coherence in the plan, and listening to their expects at each step. 

Kicking the can down the road and hoping for a kind fate simply hasn't worked, and if another lockdown comes with the same level of planning and forethought, it's just going to be kicking the country while down, with no plan to help it up. What's worse, if the government doesn't wrest control of this situation, it is possible that public faith in the response as a whole will collapse, and with it any hope of being able to implement a coherent plan that is anything but harsh lockdowns enforced by police. 

Lockdowns may be the best move, but it has to be backed with that plan. 

14 minutes ago, maxjam said:

Sums up a lot of this thread really - the health policy and the economic policy are at massive odds with each other.

 

 

 

This is the big one, they really shouldn't be. The best result from a health perspective is the best result from a economic one too. It getting to this point speaks volumes of how poorly the UK's overall response has gone. There surely must be a vast rethink of the strategy going forward. 

[Andicis]

6 minutes ago, Albert said:

This is the big one, they really shouldn't be. The best result from a health perspective is the best result from a economic one too. It getting to this point speaks volumes of how poorly the UK's overall response has gone. There surely must be a vast rethink of the strategy going forward.

Except by the time we get to covid being eliminated (may never happen) our entire economy will be dead. Might not be a problem for you in Australia, but it concerns me greatly. 

[maxjam]

26 minutes ago, SchtivePesley said:

Or when the cancer operations start getting cancelled because the NHS staff are all isolating because their kids have brought so much of the virus home from school

Well on the bright side, people have stopped going to the Doctors as they are scared of catching covid and we've cancelled cancer screenings so this is a non issue ?

 

26 minutes ago, SchtivePesley said:

It feels like yet another black and white "take a side" issue being forced on us by the media, when it's far from that clear-cut

I'd never really been interested in politics up until a few years ago.  I was part of the silent majority that just got on with things - nothing really changed that much regardless of who was in power.  Then something changed, social media become increasingly divisive and the legacy media followed suit - its pushing people to the extremes over every issue single, including covid. 

There's very little discussion or compromise anymore, you're either in 100% agreement or you're cancelled, which makes reaching balanced conclusions on anything impossible.  Our response to everything is continually being driven by the vocal extremes - which I guess is one of my 'multitude of factors' as to why some countries response to covid was always going to be worse than others.

[Norman]

5 minutes ago, Albert said:

Across 66 million people, 600 cases a day is getting to a controllable level. I agree broadly agree though, the UK really didn't ever have it under control in the sense I've discussed before. I should have been more careful with my language, as I've used controlled to mean effectively eliminated, which the UK is most certainly never got close to. 

As to true number of cases in the first wave, it's true that it's likely a vast underestimate, but assuming uniform underestimates over time seems naive in this instance. We have the death figures to compare to, which while it would be equally naive to assume that deaths will perfectly track with cases, it should be a better fit than just the testing early on. We can already see this second wave is being more effectively tracked. It would be an interesting question to ask. 

@maxjam

How is assuming vast underestimates naive? 

And isn't using death figures naive if you're comparing to infection numbers you don't have the answer to? Plus the obvious problems with the death rate falling from over 6 percent to between 0. 5 and 1 percent in the same time period? And the fact that the death rate is continuing to fall? 

[Ghost of Clough]

4 minutes ago, Albert said:

Across 66 million people, 600 cases a day is getting to a controllable level. I agree broadly agree though, the UK really didn't ever have it under control in the sense I've discussed before. I should have been more careful with my language, as I've used controlled to mean effectively eliminated, which the UK is most certainly never got close to. 

As to true number of cases in the first wave, it's true that it's likely a vast underestimate, but assuming uniform underestimates over time seems naive in this instance. We have the death figures to compare to, which while it would be equally naive to assume that deaths will perfectly track with cases, it should be a better fit than just the testing early on. We can already see this second wave is being more effectively tracked. It would be an interesting question to ask. 

600 cases a day though was a position which managed properly, the UK could have gotten things properly under control.

I agree, 600 a day should be easily manageable, but there is zero chance we were even that close.

During the 14-day period from 8 June to 21 June, there were an estimated 4 new COVID-19 infections for every 10,000 individuals per week in the community population in England, equating to an estimated 22,000 new cases per week (95% confidence interval: 10,000 to 49,000).

The ONS estimate 3,000 cases a day (95% confidence of 1,400-7,000) around the time 600 was the official figure. That upper figure (during our 'best' spell in this pandemic) was still considerably above the worst single day figure for China (5090)!

[Comrade 86]

1 hour ago, Albert said:

It's not that it's hard to understand, it's about it being basic competency. Text written in crayon is perfectly understandable, but when someone hands you a resume written in crayon you'd probably have second thoughts.

How do you feel about pastels?

[maxjam]

I've just worked out why some people want another lockdown...

I wonder if they were wearing a mask as well?  Perverts.

[Albert]

11 minutes ago, Andicis said:

Except by the time we get to covid being eliminated (may never happen) our entire economy will be dead. Might not be a problem for you in Australia, but it concerns me greatly. 

The issue is that if that isn't the strategy going forward, the problem just keeps getting kicked down the road. Whether it's the government, or the virus, shutting things down, the impact will ultimately be the same. At least when the government does so it's in a controlled fashion, that can be adjusted with circumstances, rather than a forced collapse of the system, which is what the threat is as it stands. 

7 minutes ago, Norman said:

How is assuming vast underestimates naive? 

And isn't using death figures naive if you're comparing to infection numbers you don't have the answer to? Plus the obvious problems with the death rate falling from over 6 percent to between 0. 5 and 1 percent in the same time period? And the fact that the death rate is continuing to fall? 

Assuming uniform underestimates is naive, as we have no reason to believe it is the case, and later data suggests that a larger fraction of cases are being caught. This wouldn't have started happening overnight.

The death rate never 'fell', what you're confusing in the infection and case fatality ratios. Early estimates of the infection fatality ratio was below 1%, and at this point it seems that just above 0.50% is a good estimate for European populations. This tends to be lower for younger populations. 

[Andicis]

Just now, Albert said:

The issue is that if that isn't the strategy going forward, the problem just keeps getting kicked down the road. Whether it's the government, or the virus, shutting things down, the impact will ultimately be the same. At least when the government does so it's in a controlled fashion, that can be adjusted with circumstances, rather than a forced collapse of the system, which is what the threat is as it stands. 

There won't be many things left to open if they keep shutting things down. People can't afford repeated lockdowns, it's not an answer. It ruins peoples lives. We did a 4 month lockdown, we're back to square one but a lot poorer. 

[Albert]

11 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

I agree, 600 a day should be easily manageable, but there is zero chance we were even that close.

During the 14-day period from 8 June to 21 June, there were an estimated 4 new COVID-19 infections for every 10,000 individuals per week in the community population in England, equating to an estimated 22,000 new cases per week (95% confidence interval: 10,000 to 49,000).

The ONS estimate 3,000 cases a day (95% confidence of 1,400-7,000) around the time 600 was the official figure. That upper figure (during our 'best' spell in this pandemic) was still considerably above the worst single day figure for China (5090)!

Completely agree that it was never actually as low as 600, but the fact remained that the cases per day were stable, and the testing protocols wouldn't have changed so drastically day to day as to render that signal meaningless. When the rate of growth of case numbers is stable, it means you do have some control over the situation, as opposed to now which is again showing exponential growth.

Given those figures though, it makes the decision to open up so soon seem even sillier. The idea that they'd stop when the growth of cases was dropping like that, only for this to happen, may go down as one of the biggest blunders in the modern history of the UK. So many lives, jobs and futures sacrificed for that early opening. 

[Albert]

2 minutes ago, Andicis said:

There won't be many things left to open if they keep shutting things down. People can't afford repeated lockdowns, it's not an answer. It ruins peoples lives. We did a 4 month lockdown, we're back to square one but a lot poorer. 

Completely agree, no country can afford to keep kicking the can down the road. The issue is that just letting this burn will have the same result as a lockdown, but with more lives lost, and no control of the situation. I daren't think of the long term impacts of such a gruesome decision.