If you're wondering why the government can't see what seems obvious to you, you could try reading some of the SAGE documents which show why it's not as simple as that.
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What would you do about coronavirus in the UK if you were in charge?
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If you're wondering why the government can't see what seems obvious to you, you could try reading some of the SAGE documents which show why it's not as simple as that.
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Richard Scott
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If I'm honest I'm fed up with Witty, Sage, the Government etc. I'm not professing to be an all seeing all knowing expert but I can see that this is unsustainable and lives are being seriously affected while we mess about with this virus which has turned out to be not as bad as first feared. They allow shops and other things to open then put in place further restrictions and spread constant fear about second wave. I'm afraid many predictions from these people about first wave were wide of the mark so not inclined to trust them now. If they want compliance and understanding about measures then they need to be honest not doom merchants. They're getting like the boy who cried wolf.
What prediction was wide of the mark?
The number of deaths that would happen without a lockdown, that didn't happen because we had a lockdown?
You may recall the comment in March that having locked down, under 20 000 deaths would be a good result.
We got quite a few more than that.
Where was the doom mongering there?
So I have a few thoughts on the precautionary principle, it's really not suited to being combined. What may be a reasonable worst case scenario for one case, when combined across multiple domains, you end up with a nightmare scenario, that is actually incredibly unlikely.
(If any of you are interested in probability theory, it's based on the work on combination of experimental uncertainly [ KLINE, S.J. AND F. A. MCCLINTOCK, Describing uncertainties in single sample experiments, Mech. Eng., p.3 (1953). ], if you can find an article that uses Gaussian mixture copulas to illustrate it, then that's even better)
Richard Scott
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Original prediction was 250,000 with no intervention which does seem very wide of the mark. As you well know a lot of deaths attributed to COVID are not actually from it. I agreed with original lockdown as could see the sense and agree with what you've said they did say 20000 would be a good result but have very much lost our way since then, numbers are right down and all we get is doom mongering. If you're happy living like this good luck to you but I'm not.
I haven't seen anything in the SAGE documents to suggest they are incorrectly combining reasonable worst case scenarios.
My error analysis knowledge is somewhat rudimentary, but I have had times when I was required to add errors linearly not in quadrature to get a worst case value.
Wide of the mark why? Given that we didn't try not having a lockdown how do we know?
And yes it's not at all simple to decide how much Covid is responsible for deaths - how do you count someone with an underlying condition who might have died in a year or two but died earlier because of it?
But excess deaths give a good idea of what's going on and as a bonus include anyone who has died because the health service was busy dealing with Covid (or preparing to do so).
Richard Scott
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Ok let's agree to disagree as just going around in circles. You're happy with maintaining the status quo and I'm not, at least we can agree on that? Which do you think is the best for long term future of this country and its population?
PupCuff
Member
I would broadly try to keep things business as usual. However:
Shielding to be on a voluntary basis with government support
This would ensure that those people who have very understandable concerns about their own health if they were to catch Covid-19 are supported in avoiding the risk as much as possible.
I would legislate to allow workers who feel that their individual circumstances do not allow them to go to work safely and where their employer could not allow them to work from home to be able to have paid time off work (with appropriate government funding like the furlough scheme) to allow them to stay indoors. Additional funding would be provided to councils to set up support services (eg food parcel deliveries for those without friends or family support) and additional funding provided to local NHS primary care facilities to ensure that such people received the healthcare they needed via home visit. Where jobs have been left vacant by those voluntarily taking funded shielding, provide a facility for businesses to use (a bit like the jobcentre website or whatever it is these days) to advertise temporary vacancies to cover the roles, which may be popular with casual workers.
Encourage those who can work from home to do so
This will take pressure off public transport and the road network.
Working from home means that there is a broadly smaller geographic area in which an infected person could spread the virus and it prevents one infected person from closing down an entire business, or potentially, industry.
Provide a technology fund for small and medium businesses
This will ensure that small and medium businesses are able to play on a level playing field with larger organisations who tend to have more money to spend on tech tools.
Technology is essential in the 21st century, but many small businesses don't have the funds available to meet the changing needs of their customers. I was in an independent butchers in Manchester last week trying to support small businesses, and it turns out they didn't take card - so I had to go and buy my things from Aldi instead. This fund would allow shops like that to receive a grant to purchase things like chip & pin/contactless systems, buy a laptop so they can take enquiries via email, have websites built for them so they can sell their wares online to those who are voluntarily shielding, and potentially for restaurants and cafes to link up with third party delivery services to expand their market.
A structured, joined up, and consistent communications strategy
This will ensure that there is no wiggle room or opportunity for confusion or misinterpretation.
Currently, what Boris says, what the government website says, and what the law itself says are often three different things. This leads to, for instance, the Barnard Castle incident. Any laws will be written first of all, and then, the government website will be updated clearly stating each legal requirement and explaining it in simple terms. Any communication from the PM or government ministers must reflect the law and not include things like "we advise" or "you should" - it will be, "this is the law, and you must follow it".
Requirement to self-isolate if you have coronavirus symptoms
This will ensure that once a potential case has been identified there is reduced risk of it spreading.
Pretty much identical to the current UK Government requirements, those who are exhibiting symptoms consistent with coronavirus to self-isolate, with a legal right to time off work on full pay.
Things which would not feature - Covid-Secure Requirements (whilst social distancing guidance and advice would be provided, a business should be free to choose what measures it puts in place based on customer demand and staff views, the business which does this in the best way will naturally be the most commercially successful), Face Coverings (they cause more trouble than they are worth and businesses can provide alternative methods of separating their staff from customers, eg perspex screens, should they choose to do this, and those who feel they are not safe outside whilst people are not wearing them can get government support to stay inside, as above).
Shielding to be on a voluntary basis with government support
This would ensure that those people who have very understandable concerns about their own health if they were to catch Covid-19 are supported in avoiding the risk as much as possible.
I would legislate to allow workers who feel that their individual circumstances do not allow them to go to work safely and where their employer could not allow them to work from home to be able to have paid time off work (with appropriate government funding like the furlough scheme) to allow them to stay indoors. Additional funding would be provided to councils to set up support services (eg food parcel deliveries for those without friends or family support) and additional funding provided to local NHS primary care facilities to ensure that such people received the healthcare they needed via home visit. Where jobs have been left vacant by those voluntarily taking funded shielding, provide a facility for businesses to use (a bit like the jobcentre website or whatever it is these days) to advertise temporary vacancies to cover the roles, which may be popular with casual workers.
Encourage those who can work from home to do so
This will take pressure off public transport and the road network.
Working from home means that there is a broadly smaller geographic area in which an infected person could spread the virus and it prevents one infected person from closing down an entire business, or potentially, industry.
Provide a technology fund for small and medium businesses
This will ensure that small and medium businesses are able to play on a level playing field with larger organisations who tend to have more money to spend on tech tools.
Technology is essential in the 21st century, but many small businesses don't have the funds available to meet the changing needs of their customers. I was in an independent butchers in Manchester last week trying to support small businesses, and it turns out they didn't take card - so I had to go and buy my things from Aldi instead. This fund would allow shops like that to receive a grant to purchase things like chip & pin/contactless systems, buy a laptop so they can take enquiries via email, have websites built for them so they can sell their wares online to those who are voluntarily shielding, and potentially for restaurants and cafes to link up with third party delivery services to expand their market.
A structured, joined up, and consistent communications strategy
This will ensure that there is no wiggle room or opportunity for confusion or misinterpretation.
Currently, what Boris says, what the government website says, and what the law itself says are often three different things. This leads to, for instance, the Barnard Castle incident. Any laws will be written first of all, and then, the government website will be updated clearly stating each legal requirement and explaining it in simple terms. Any communication from the PM or government ministers must reflect the law and not include things like "we advise" or "you should" - it will be, "this is the law, and you must follow it".
Requirement to self-isolate if you have coronavirus symptoms
This will ensure that once a potential case has been identified there is reduced risk of it spreading.
Pretty much identical to the current UK Government requirements, those who are exhibiting symptoms consistent with coronavirus to self-isolate, with a legal right to time off work on full pay.
Things which would not feature - Covid-Secure Requirements (whilst social distancing guidance and advice would be provided, a business should be free to choose what measures it puts in place based on customer demand and staff views, the business which does this in the best way will naturally be the most commercially successful), Face Coverings (they cause more trouble than they are worth and businesses can provide alternative methods of separating their staff from customers, eg perspex screens, should they choose to do this, and those who feel they are not safe outside whilst people are not wearing them can get government support to stay inside, as above).
OK.
I don't like the status quo - there are a lot of very bad things about it. The question is whether there is anything better.
As I said at the start I don't know what I'd do, though there are things that I wouldn't - like dropping all the restrictions now to see what happens.
I can see four ways out in the long term:
1) A vaccine - no guarantees on this
2) A treatment that works in the vast majority of cases and which doesn't require hospitalisation - again no guaranetes
3) Getting infections low enough that we can deal with them via a proper trace, track and isolate system and as a last resort local lockdowns.
4) Herd immunity - if immunity lasts long enough for this to work.
I suppose the get-out answer is that if I had to choose I'd spend a lot of timing reading up on the situation and talking to experts before making a decision.
But if I had to choose a course based on what I know now, I think I'd carry on trying to keep infection levels level or slowly rising through the winter, because from what I have read I think that's the only way the health system is going to cope, and let us make some progress on dealing with all the non Covid treatment that has built up.
After that, I don't know, but we'll know more from other countries. If those who got down to lower infection levels before they opened up, and have a proper trace and track system going, are managing to keep a lid on things, then I think I'd want to work out what they're getting right and emulate.
If it turns out that nobody can keep on top of this, then all I can see is the herd immunity option with fingers crossed that actually works. But getting there while keeping the health system intact might not be easy, though either an imperfect vaccine or improved but treatments would help.
It might not be about being happy with the status quo, it might be more of guessing that it is less bad that the risk of a severe alternative. The status quo is bad but not as bad as having exponential growth of the virus again, plunging us into full lockdown again. Hence open things up slowly and see how the infection rates respond. It comes down managing risk and uncertainty. The problem is that by taking one measure, there is no way of knowing if the other measure would have been better or worse, so whichever one is taken, there is the potential for damnation if it all goes tits up and the armchair fortune tellers get their crystal balls out and tell us the other option would have been so much better, it must be true because they want it to be true.
HSTEd
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But exponential growth of the virus does not magically impose a lockdown by itself.
The virus does not impose a lockdown, the state does.
You are making an assumption that some people do not make, so it is difficult to fully comprehend those people's worldviews.
bramling
Veteran Member
I don’t really buy that, as it seems to be generally acknowledged that the most prevalent source of infection in this country was people coming back from holidays in places like Italy and Spain, hence why we saw C19 spread pretty quickly and evenly across the country. It doesn’t seem to be the case that we ever had an Italy situation where things were very heavily concentrated in one specific area.
bramling
Veteran Member
Well perhaps because people from outside of London travel too. Shocking I know, but it does happen...
Seriously though, it is now well believed that covid was doing the rounds up here in Baildon as far back as mid December. So checkpoints on the M25 probably would not have helped much.
There was certainly a tendency for people to blame it all on virus-laden urbanites. Of course, no one from rural areas took a holiday to Spain in January, February or March?!
birchesgreen
Established Member
What i would do? Depoliticise the response, devolve power to local health boards to handle it in a way suitable to local conditions with central government providing support where needed.
Freightmaster
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This x1000!
With something as emotive as Coronavirus, it's almost impossible even for 'proper' experts to completely avoid
personal prejudices interfering with objective analysis of the facts, so the keyboard warriors have no chance!
To be fair, so called 'confirmation bias' is hard wired into the human brain, so it is very hard to see past it
(scientists have to train themselves not to be distracted by it), and it leads to assertions like this:
1. three months from now with Masks mandated in shops, etc.
- if cases stay roughly level: "cases would have risen if masks hadn't been mandated"
- if cases rise: "cases would have risen even more if masks hadn't been mandated"
- if cases fall: "cases have fallen because masks have been mandated"
2. three months from now with Masks not mandated in shops, etc.
- if cases stay roughly level: "cases would have fallen by now if only masks had been mandated back in July"
- if cases rise: "cases would have stayed roughly level if only masks had been mandated back in July"
- if cases fall: "world peace would have broken out if only masks had been mandated back in July"
Hopefully the above highlights that being utterly convinced that something will have a particular effect
on the virus can lead to subconsciously misinterpreting data to back up a particular viewpoint.
MARK
You're right. And I'm making the assumption that it would lead to a lockdown because:
- It's pretty clear at the moment that this would be government policy
- All the evidence suggests that if we don't control exponential growth the health system won't be able to cope - particularly over the winter - and I find it very hard to imagine that the population would stand for that.
If it helps, I have trouble comprehending the world view of many people here.
Yes I would agree with that, except I wouldn't say I'm "guessing", I'd say it's my considered opinion after having read papers and SAGE briefing materials on the topic and using my scientific judgement.
Decentralising execution of policy sounds like a good plan to me. Going from four different policies in the UK on how to handle this to many many more doesn't sound like such a good idea, unless we isolate each health board area from all the others.
Finally...if anyone thinks I'm being a bit hypocritical by asking people what their plans are while admitting myself to not knowing what I'd do, I'd point out that I started this thread because some people do seem to have a strong vision for what they'd do and are sure of what would happen if they did.
You keep going on about exponential growth overwhelming the health service, when:
- that didn't happen the first time
- R was already under 1 at the time of lockdown, so we were already at peak NHS usage
- we have had five months of people getting immunity to covid who didn't have it before
- we have had five months of research that is screaming out that large percentages of the population cannot get covid, which will naturally stop the exponential growth you fear
- that didn't happen the first time
- R was already under 1 at the time of lockdown, so we were already at peak NHS usage
- we have had five months of people getting immunity to covid who didn't have it before
- we have had five months of research that is screaming out that large percentages of the population cannot get covid, which will naturally stop the exponential growth you fear
OK.
1) No, but the first time we had a lockdown.
2) The probabiity of that is very low
3) Yes but probably nowhere near enough to give us herd immunity
4) Plenty of evidence to the contrary.
I'm sure we can both find evidence to support our views, though I think mine are the consensus ones.
But let's put that aside and look at it another way.
We now have R~1 in the UK (probably a bit higher and growth has already started).
If R goes above one exponential growth starts.
We have a lot of restrictions in place.
So if removing them doesn't lead to exponential growth, the only explanation can be that none of them are actually doing any good.
So in effect you're saying that none of the restrictions we have now are actually achieving much.
Or is there something wrong with my logic?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
So, explain why exponential growth has restarted in a number of European countries who took similar measures to us, then?
And ones which mostly have a health service somewhat less pared to the bone.
Because they've slowed down th spread, meaning that it wil last loinger - and yes, that could very well apply here too.
I see that in Australia they are busy trying to stop the tide coming in. Let's hope we don't get similiarly over the top measures here (they are worse than anything seen here so far).
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
They have reimposed lockdown. The curfew is presumably a blunt instrument to stop house parties.
Scotrail12
Member
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Just seen this on Twitter. The youth apparently should shield. Thoughts? Do you believe that this is a good idea to tackle the virus?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
No, but I do think there is a need for more and stricter enforcement of distancing, as this is causing a problem. I have not, for weeks if not months, seen any groups of lads ensuring they are 2m apart, and that demographic is the most likely to refuse to wear a mask when not exempt, too.
I am starting to think the Welsh had it right by mandating 2m in law, particularly in workplaces where it is being ignored.
If the existing measures were fully complied to and not given lip service, I'm very sure it would be on the wane quite quickly.
Examples?
And don't just list bad figures like Spain, where they've started to include antibody counts, which is irrelevant to figures now. I've literally just read from the CEBM that there is, in fact, no increase in cases in England, and that it is all explained by increased testing.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I was going to use Spain, but also Belgium.
More stupid ideas. As it is, kids and young people are getting a very bad deal out of all this - and I have no doubt that many of them would treat any stipulation along these lines with them contempt it deserves.
Is any European government apart from Sweden ever going to realise that this virus cannot be eliminated by trying to suppress it, and attempts to do so will just cause ever increasing health, social and economic problems the longer it is allowed to drag on?
The last time I looked, we don't indeed have good evidence that cases are rising. Looking at raw test results doesn't give a good picture because of course the more tests you do, the more results you may get (depending on who you are testing).
But there are better ways to do it - allow for changing test numbers and criteria, or use a random sample of the population. These both have considerable uncertainty, and I don't think so far show clear evidence of a rise. But it's also pretty clear that - even with all the restrictions - we're not seeing infections drop away significantly. SO if you reduce restrictions, there's only one way they are likely to go, and that's up.
Read through that and the replies, which indicate similar patterns in Ireland, Germany etc and revisit points 1 and 2, then ask yourself again - if the virus was already in decline before lockdown happened, and the NHS was not overwhelmed at that stage, why do you think we are going to have a second wave that is larger than the first? Or has that whole flatten the curve theory been conveniently forgotten?
Note also this is based off deaths. There is no point in looking at cases when 95%+ of them will not impact the NHS at all.
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