The Lemon Fool

redsturgeon wrote:
The graphs I am looking at show what happened in Italy and where the UK is on the curve...it is not pretty. Every day we delay looks like it will be costly in terms of lives lost.

John

Hi John,

Do you have any evidence that slowing the spread will save lives? From what I see the only thing that locking down does is slow the spread, not reduce it. Admittedly falling sick a week or 2 later might mean you avoid the wordt of the pressure on the NHS and have more access to equipment and a better chance of survival, but the effect on deaths might not be much at all.

However I can't see why big sporting/social events are continuing. Particularly top league games where ticket sales are a small part of income compared to TV income (and if games are behind closed door then viewings willl go up). I suspect there are far more people out there unaware they are carriers, and these large events will increase the spread.

Where schools are closed local communities are setting up 'creches' for each village, meaning the childcare is pooled and the segregation isn't happening as expected. It is slightly contained, but the parents (and grandparents!) are having increased contact with the community. Damned if you do....

Paul

DrFfybes wrote:

redsturgeon wrote:
The graphs I am looking at show what happened in Italy and where the UK is on the curve...it is not pretty. Every day we delay looks like it will be costly in terms of lives lost.

John

Hi John,

Do you have any evidence that slowing the spread will save lives? From what I see the only thing that locking down does is slow the spread, not reduce it. Admittedly falling sick a week or 2 later might mean you avoid the wordt of the pressure on the NHS and have more access to equipment and a better chance of survival, but the effect on deaths might not be much at all.

However I can't see why big sporting/social events are continuing. Particularly top league games where ticket sales are a small part of income compared to TV income (and if games are behind closed door then viewings willl go up). I suspect there are far more people out there unaware they are carriers, and these large events will increase the spread.

Where schools are closed local communities are setting up 'creches' for each village, meaning the childcare is pooled and the segregation isn't happening as expected. It is slightly contained, but the parents (and grandparents!) are having increased contact with the community. Damned if you do....

Paul

See https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/f ... cle/208354

Yes, measures to control infection rate lead in turn to better outcomes. And such measures can be implemented in materially effective ways, if a society chooses.

regards, dspp

I live in a rural area with few neighbours, what few there are are elderly, at 65 I'm one of the youngest.

My wife and I are semi self isolating. We are well stocked with everything we need so there's no immediate need for shopping. If we get short we will try for a Tesco delivery but that may stop working at some stage. The delivery can be left outside and it may be infected so we will do our best to take precautions.

I've promised to help a friend with a job, his wife works at a school so that will be high risk. The weekly visit to the pub will be sorely missed, it normally is a high point as we have a lot of friends in there.

My big worry is if one of the elderly neighbours gets ill. They are good friends and I would have to do what I can to assist. One couplei down the road build their lives round pub dart and domino leagues. It's not that they are big drinkers they are just very social people. They are in pubs every night mid week with some league match or other. Both are in high risk groups due to age and health problems. I can't see how they will avoid catching it.

As I said earlier I'm 65 but I do have asthma and high blood pressure which isn't well controlled at present. I don't know where that leaves me on the risk profile but I'd rather not take chances.

redsturgeon wrote:This is interesting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKhPbVN_Rbw

The late show with Stephen Colbert airs every night in the US and I usually watch it . It is taped in front of a live theatre audience. Except last night it wasn't. They were due to stop having audiences at these type of shows in New York from next week but they brought it forward. All Broadway shows have been cancelled. The NBA basketball season is cancelled.

We are behind the curve in the UK, we need to look at stopping large gatherings now. I assume West End shows are still going on, they need to be cancelled. I think the time for putting the economy ahead of public safety is over.

The graphs I am looking at show what happened in Italy and where the UK is on the curve...it is not pretty. Every day we delay looks like it will be costly in terms of lives lost.

John

I watched Some 'Government expert' explaining the strategy they are using. His point was that the normal graph of an epidemic was like a mountan and the aim was to stop it part way up the slope and create a plateau at a level where the NHS could cope.

Reading between the lines they positively do want people infected, just not all at once. By stretching the plateau out they will create a body of people with immunuty when they recover. These people can keep the country going while others are infected and recover in their turn. This will mean next winter there will be some 'herd immunity' rather than a major peak.

I can see the point but it is hard luck on the families who will lose their loved ones before their time.

redsturgeon wrote:I agree that schools may be a special case due to the issue of parental care needed...and many of those parents would be healthcare workers. But sporting events, theatre, concerts, exhibitions etc should be cancelled now, what's the downside apart from loss of revenue.

John

Downside? How about loss of humanity?

How many more lives could we save (and not just from a violent death) by banning the motorcar?

UncleEbenezer wrote:

redsturgeon wrote:I agree that schools may be a special case due to the issue of parental care needed...and many of those parents would be healthcare workers. But sporting events, theatre, concerts, exhibitions etc should be cancelled now, what's the downside apart from loss of revenue.

John

Downside? How about loss of humanity?

How many more lives could we save (and not just from a violent death) by banning the motorcar?

If cars were able to silently infect you so that you might die two weeks later and in the interim infect anyone else you came in to contact with the same outcome... Yeah I'd ban them

-sd

Today I went shopping. We needed some pasta and some rice, staples that we usually eat most days of the week, we are running low. I went to our local Sainsburys where a usually shop. No dried pasta at all and no normal packets of rice at all. I had to buy fresh pasta (good for a month) and packets of microwave rice! Why are people buying stuff they would not normally buy?

I then went to Waitrose which was little better but I managed to find some dried spaghetti.

John

redsturgeon wrote:Today I went shopping. We needed some pasta and some rice, staples that we usually eat most days of the week, we are running low. I went to our local Sainsburys where a usually shop. No dried pasta at all and no normal packets of rice at all. I had to buy fresh pasta (good for a month) and packets of microwave rice! Why are people buying stuff they would not normally buy?

I then went to Waitrose which was little better but I managed to find some dried spaghetti.

John

Did the usual weekly shop this morning. At Asda in a pretty high-end neighbourhood, it looked like they had been burgled overnight. Zero soap and other hand-cleaning products, very little pasta, biscuits, greatly-reduced stock of cereals. Loo-rolls and kitchen rolls virtually non-existent. Loads of completely empty shelves. Called in Sainsbury's on the way home, in a rather low-end neighbourhood and most items were in much better supply.

Maybe there is something in the suggestion that poorer people don't have the space or the money to stockpile. (Or maybe Sainsbury's are better at stock control)

--kiloran

sg31 wrote:
I watched Some 'Government expert' explaining the strategy they are using. His point was that the normal graph of an epidemic was like a mountan and the aim was to stop it part way up the slope and create a plateau at a level where the NHS could cope.

Reading between the lines they positively do want people infected, just not all at once. By stretching the plateau out they will create a body of people with immunuty when they recover. These people can keep the country going while others are infected and recover in their turn. This will mean next winter there will be some 'herd immunity' rather than a major peak.

I can see the point but it is hard luck on the families who will lose their loved ones before their time.

The UK is adopting a very different approach to most other countries in the world - which may be right or wrong, but the big point for me is that it's too early to know the best way to deal with a new virus, and with every day there's more information becoming available, so "extreme" measures (such as lockdown) buy extra time to better understand the spread and effects on Western populations, and also to find out how effective (or not) the more "extreme" measures are. It may be that all countries decide in a month's time to adopt the UK model, but they'd still have the option to switch strategies. The UK is going "all in" for its strategy, and if in a month's time, it turns out that immediate "extreme" measures are more effective, there's no way for the UK to change strategies.

People in the UK are already adopting "social distancing" measures, which weren't mentioned at all in yesterday's PM & Experts conference, and care homes are making up their own policies on the hoof about restricting/banning visitors, or what safety measures to use. (From an analytical/modelling point of view, it will be quite useful to have a lot of different policies, which are in effect simultaneous testing of different approaches, so the best approach can then be rolled out by the Government.

The UK Government is putting an awful lot of store on "behavioural modelling" but this really is not an exact science, and an area of modelling that can be very easily "tweaked" by non-analytical people. Obviously I don't know the current UK assumptions, but they will be along the lines of - 95% of people will follow guidance for first 4 weeks, then it'll reduce by 10% per week until virtually everyone ignores it in 2 months time. The assumption also seems to be that if you give guidance too soon, you won't be able to reinforce it later. But nobody really knows - these are assumptions. It could be 85% of people initially following guidance, maybe it'll be 5 months before everyone ignores it, maybe 50% of people will continue to follow the advice for years (e.g. coughing/sneezing in public, handwashing for 20 seconds). We've never had anything quite like this in the UK since the 1919 Spanish flu pandemic, so there is no hard evidence about current UK's population to a pandemic that a scientist can insist is the truth.

Chief Medical Officer has said they're expecting future epidemic in future years, and if that's the case, the UK approach may eventually turn out to be the best option, particularly if Covid-19 mutates into a more dangerous form, but people who caught the current virus become less suspectible ro future viruses.

With the professional football leagues taking the decision to stop playing now it seems that individuals in this country are deciding they know better than the government...interesting.

As I have said elsewhere, our own company has decided to stop face to face meeting and training events. It just seems like the right thing to do.

A bit more of a lead from government would be better though IMHO.

As zico says above, the government argument that people will get fed up with social distancing measures if applied to early seems a bit vague and weak scientifically.

John

zico wrote:The UK Government is putting an awful lot of store on "behavioural modelling"

The UK does have experience as recently as 2001 of enforcing draconian rules against a highly infectious virus. At huge cost both to the victims and society at large, and purely for the economic interests of a small group. Lots of behavioural data.

Foot and mouth. When vaccination could have much better served the interests of both people and animals.

If people could be bullied into accepting such fundamentally bad restrictions when they weren't even themselves at risk, what does that tell us?

redsturgeon wrote:With the professional football leagues taking the decision to stop playing now it seems that individuals in this country are deciding they know better than the government...interesting.

As I have said elsewhere, our own company has decided to stop face to face meeting and training events. It just seems like the right thing to do.

A bit more of a lead from government would be better though IMHO.

As zico says above, the government argument that people will get fed up with social distancing measures if applied to early seems a bit vague and weak scientifically.

John

Inevitably the UK government will very soon face questions about their official views on all these various ad-hoc measures along the lines of -
- are the ad-hoc measures being implemented too soon, against UK government guidance, will they be counterproductive, and should they stop;
- or are they good measures which should be adopted by more individuals/companies/organisations;
- or don't they make any difference and the UK government has no opinion? In effect, do whatever you like, we don't care.

Will be very interesting to see the response. For all the possible replies, the follow-up question is likely to be
"so why haven't you made an immediate statement on them rather than waiting for the media to raise the questions?"

zico wrote:"so why haven't you made an immediate statement on them rather than waiting for the media to raise the questions?"

That one's easy.

They want to give themselves as long as possible to gauge likely public reactions before saying or doing anything.

The foot and mouth response was an interesting one, as it turned out that the damage to rural communities due to the lost of tourist income was greater than the loss to the farming community. There are often unforseen consequences, or foreseen consequences that are ignored because Something Must Be Done.

I'm also reminded of the BSE crisis ("Mad Cow disease") - interesting extract below from an European Environment Agency publication, making the point about how there's no such thing as "pure scientific advice" in a situation where everyone is still learning about a new situation. This isn't necessarily a criticism of the UK Government stance, just showing how real-life decisions have to take account of various factors, not all of which are known.


The UK Government has made risk management decisions based on the scientific consensus at the time. Ultimately, the decisions were made within a framework that considered the implications for the UK beef industry and farmers' interests. Scientific disagreement over the extent of the BSE infection, transmission routes of BSE infection and the reality of the threat to human health fuelled the controversy in the media.

The crisis came to a head when the EU banned the importation of British beef in response to evidence of a possible link between BSE and CJD. Action in the UK was based on the scientific advisory group's advice at that stage, based on the scientific evidence and the crisis in consumer confidence. This included a ban on the sale of cattle over 30 months old and a slaughter programme.

The UK Government characterised the European decision as being taken on non-scientific grounds. The lack of scientific certainty and "proof" have coloured public perception of risk. The BSE crisis in the UK demonstrates that whether experts and policy makers believe that the public have an irrational view of risk, irrational or not, it cannot be ignored. The consuming public had taken a view on the BSE issue. Beef sales in the UK and Europe fell dramatically. The case of BSE highlights the immense difficulties in attempting to make public policy decisions using immature scientific data. Such decisions still have to be made, however, in the absence of hard evidence, and at that point it is the translation of science, policy and perceived risk into public statements that need careful consideration.

https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/ ... 8ex1h.html

redsturgeon wrote:
As zico says above, the government argument that people will get fed up with social distancing measures if applied to early seems a bit vague and weak scientifically.

And you say that as a "scientist", presumably?

dealtn wrote:And you say that as a "scientist", presumably?

It's okay, that well known scientist Jeremy Hunt is "concerned".

Staggering to think that the first reported case of Coronavirus was only back on 17th November 2019 in Wuhan.

Just 16 weeks later it's a global pandemic with around 140,000 confirmed cases, and rising all the time...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Hi all,

Went to Tesco on Monday with OH's list shopping list. Includes pack of 9 own brand toilet rolls which were £3.50 or 2 for £6. All Andrex had gone.

Said at checkout why not have 1 at £3 if toilet rolls are short? He said you can have up to 5 packs. I said that would be almost as stupid as my just buying the one pack I required! Don't think he understood.

They were out of dried pasta and hand cleaner.

Outside Bank, heard a women say to her friend she had just bought anti-bacterial hand cleaner. Her friend said that wasn't anti virus - reply came that "you can't be too safe"

Anyway my pre-budget panic buying of beer, wine and whisky was almost a waste of time!

The worlds gone even madder than ever. Think I'll have a few drams tonight.

Make Wuz Great Again!

What is the big attraction of pasta and rice? Neither are ever on my shopping list.

I could see the attraction of ready meals, if you had room in your fridge for them, which we do not.

Maybe I shall have to rely on cereals and maybe use the milkman for more than just milk, if need be.

TJH