Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[ICTJohnboy]

1 hour ago, Alert Mongoose said:

This could all be solved if they stopped announcing death rates like it’s some sort of replacement show for the national lottery.  I don’t think it’s helping anyone.

 

Bruce Forsyth could have done a great job on a show like that.

"How many deaths today then?"  "500, 1000, higher, lower?

[The OP]

6 hours ago, Todd_is_God said:

I'm not downplaying anything. I would prefer accurate figures achieved through greater, widespread testing. If they are higher than is currently being reported then it's important to know that, but not with estimates based on models or assumptions.

Is answering "I don't think that's true" by showing you a quote from an article you provided that it is irrelevant? I made a comment, you decided to point out it was incorrect. It's not.

You're picking and chosing which figures you want to fight about. Earlier a link was posted to an article which stated there were about 24,000 excess all causes deaths which were being presented as all being caused directly by covid-19. I suggested this was unlikely to be the case, and more likely to be indirectly caused by covid-19. Counting indirect deaths does not help track the progression or regression of an epidemic. Do you not agree?

Do I have an explanation for your example? Im this case Covid-19 is a fair assumption. 

I've said many times how I think we should proceed to reduce the number of deaths, whilst at the same time get the economy moving again. Shield those most likely to suffer serious or fatal infections for now, and allow young, healthy people to return to a sense of normality.

I think this is best summarised as, you are constantly nitpicking and downplaying in the face of prima facie evidence that this is bad and would get worse if we all start moving around again. You don't seem to have any relevant expertise in any relevant field to justify your disputation of more learned analyses suggesting the scale of the problem is being under (rather than over) played by the stats being given. You don't appear to have a clue what standard practice is in pathology and mortality record keeping and yet you take issue with the practice in this instance. It is strange to think that governments across the world are listening to scientific advice and then wilfully over-playing the crisis to tank their economies for some time to come. When you are expressing such odd opinions (either directly or by insinuation) the need for justification of your position is greater. 

[Aubrey Maturin]

We aren't that far away from the economy v lives balance tipping towards the economy.

They will start to try and get people back into the workplace, schools in the next few months.

They will argue that banning sporting events and pubs etc will show they're serious about tackling the virus until a vaccine is found.

People in this country do not have the resilience to maintain a lockdown for much longer and the authorities do not have the ability to enforce it. 

People are reporting how much busier it has been in the last week, footage of wallopers queuing outside B&Q for paint as they're bored shows the mental resilience of this pampered generation.

The government aren't going to sit and watch the economy completely tank long term, they're tories, they can't.

They will also be helped by the general public mood changing as frustration and boredom becomes too much.

[The OP]

1 hour ago, Alert Mongoose said:

This could all be solved if they stopped announcing death rates like it’s some sort of replacement show for the national lottery.  I don’t think it’s helping anyone.

I actually think it is quite helpful, given context. The trend at the moment, both deaths and cases wise, is promising. More promising in countries who went lockdown earlier than here too, which in itself is promising. The problem is if you just give the public the bare figure of 'Another 600 dead today' or whatever without also presenting them with the overall meaning of that figure in the context of previous figures. 

People not buying The Sun would be a good thing. 

[Jacksgranda]

1 minute ago, Tynierose said:

We aren't that far away from the economy v lives balance tipping towards the economy.

They will start to try and get people back into the workplace, schools in the next few months.

They will argue that banning sporting events and pubs etc will show they're serious about tackling the virus until a vaccine is found.

People in this country do not have the resilience to maintain a lockdown for much longer and the authorities do not have the ability to enforce it. 

People are reporting how much busier it has been in the last week, footage of wallopers queuing outside B&Q for paint as they're bored shows the mental resilience of this pampered generation.

The government aren't going to sit and watch the economy completely tank long term, they're tories, they can't.

They will also be helped by the general public mood changing as frustration and boredom becomes too much.

I don't think any government could.

But the clamour to "get going again" and criticism of the lockdown would be off the scale had Labour been in charge.

[Bairnardo]

We aren't that far away from the economy v lives balance tipping towards the economy.
They will start to try and get people back into the workplace, schools in the next few months.
They will argue that banning sporting events and pubs etc will show they're serious about tackling the virus until a vaccine is found.
People in this country do not have the resilience to maintain a lockdown for much longer and the authorities do not have the ability to enforce it. 
People are reporting how much busier it has been in the last week, footage of wallopers queuing outside B&Q for paint as they're bored shows the mental resilience of this pampered generation.
The government aren't going to sit and watch the economy completely tank long term, they're tories, they can't.
They will also be helped by the general public mood changing as frustration and boredom becomes too much.

Agree with all of this. The govt will be seeing the same as we are seeing. Creeping decay in discipline, and will respond with creeping reductions in restrictions to look like they are ahead of it, until they hit a backstop of things they can keep closed down with nothing the public can do about it, ie pubs and football like you say, and at that point they look like they are in charge again.

[mizfit]

The weather over the last few days has saw a huge increase in folk out and about.

If the lockdown conditions remain unchanged beyond May 11th, we are going to see widespread folk just fucking it off IMO, about which the Police will be able to do not very much.

Anyone else think they are seeing more self-loosening if conditions?

I went for a walk on Monday night after finishing work. I was needing milk and bread anyway so decided I’d swing by the nearby coop on my way home.

Compared to the day before I’d seen dozens more people out walking than previously. I can see a loosening on conditions being allowed, but only if the trends drops dramatically in the next week.

[Granny Danger]

52 minutes ago, bendan said:

But as has been said, this is a good way of capturing deaths related to the crisis, but not specifically the disease itself. Of course, I realise most will be the direct result, but any developed country would want to know more than just an overall excess deaths figure.

I don’t disagree, but when devising policy for the way ahead (yes I know) it is important to realise the full impact caused by the virus whether the deaths are a direct or indirect result of what has happened.

[Diamonds are Forever]

5 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

9 minutes ago, Tynierose said:

We aren't that far away from the economy v lives balance tipping towards the economy.
They will start to try and get people back into the workplace, schools in the next few months.
They will argue that banning sporting events and pubs etc will show they're serious about tackling the virus until a vaccine is found.
People in this country do not have the resilience to maintain a lockdown for much longer and the authorities do not have the ability to enforce it. 
People are reporting how much busier it has been in the last week, footage of wallopers queuing outside B&Q for paint as they're bored shows the mental resilience of this pampered generation.
The government aren't going to sit and watch the economy completely tank long term, they're tories, they can't.
They will also be helped by the general public mood changing as frustration and boredom becomes too much.

Agree with all of this. The govt will be seeing the same as we are seeing. Creeping decay in discipline, and will respond with creeping reductions in restrictions to look like they are ahead of it, until they hit a backstop of things they can keep closed down with nothing the public can do about it, ie pubs and football like you say, and at that point they look like they are in charge again.

 

And it will only get harder to keep people indoors with the summer approaching. I think their imminent and entirely predictable U-turn on face masks is more evidence that they are preparing for more focus on social distancing measures to limit the spread whilst pulling back on lockdown measures very soon.

If they are serious about maintaining a proper lockdown for much longer they will need to clamp down on people being outside. On the evidence I've seen - such as allowing people to stand outside B&Q waiting for paint - that isn't happening.

[Guest]

Strangely the virus is "out of sight out of mind" for many. Taking my work as an example we've now got over the initial worry, panic, depressed stage and after 4 weeks of working through the lockdown everyone is healthy and feeling good about things again.its not quite BAU but it's not that far from it.

We've not heard of anyone take ill or have any of the symptoms so we've actually started becoming subconsciously a little more relaxed with the social distancing with each other and have the mentality that the virus isn't an issue for us. 

I believe many will be feeling and acting similarly to ourselves until if and when it does hit someone close to us or someone we all know.

To put things in perspective, if it wasn't for the constant media coverage the virus would seem as much a threat to us now as it did back in January when we heard about it in China.

[bendan]

5 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

I don’t disagree, but when devising policy for the way ahead (yes I know) it is important to realise the full impact caused by the virus whether the deaths are a direct or indirect result of what has happened.

I agree, but the policy directions are very different depending on the breakdown. If some deaths are the result of the lockdown, we need to think about how we reduce fear of using health services. If all deaths were directly due to the disease, we might need a tighter lockdown and greater fear.

[coprolite]

50 minutes ago, 101 said:

The problem with testing as I understand it is that you have to be tested at exactly the right time otherwise you get false testing which will give you blind faith that you're "ok". We need the anti body test asap and need to know reliabilily if you can catch it twice. Sending ever care home worker for a test sadly won't do much, if anything it may lead to complacency.

I'm struggling with this. 

How do you know when the right time to be tested is?  

If this is the case then it is a shit test and almost not worth having. 

I'd be interested to see a good source. 

[pandarilla]

We aren't that far away from the economy v lives balance tipping towards the economy.
They will start to try and get people back into the workplace, schools in the next few months.
They will argue that banning sporting events and pubs etc will show they're serious about tackling the virus until a vaccine is found.
People in this country do not have the resilience to maintain a lockdown for much longer and the authorities do not have the ability to enforce it. 
People are reporting how much busier it has been in the last week, footage of wallopers queuing outside B&Q for paint as they're bored shows the mental resilience of this pampered generation.
The government aren't going to sit and watch the economy completely tank long term, they're tories, they can't.
They will also be helped by the general public mood changing as frustration and boredom becomes too much.

I think your underpaying how difficult this situation is. You're talking like it's a piece of piss and it's not, for many reasons.

I agree with you that we're not far off easing restrictions - but i think the need for that is genuine.

[Guest JTS98]

35 minutes ago, Tynierose said:

People in this country do not have the resilience to maintain a lockdown

This is the one thing that's coming out of the UK loud and clear.

It's a very strange reaction. Nobody ever said this would be an easy thing to do. In fact, it has repeatedly been reinforced by various bodies, politicians, medical experts, etc that this is a difficult thing to do, but that it is necessary. People are being asked to show a bit of patience and do something difficult. Nobody ever said it was easy or pleasant.

Yet, still the message coming from the UK population seems to be that this is too difficult to do.

While, of course, people want to get back outside, I don't see online or hear from people I know the same conversations here in Malaysia about this being something that people can't keep up, and we have a far stricter lockdown than the UK. People just accept that it's for the best and are generally getting on with it. Clearer messaging from the government has helped, but people don't seem to be doubting their ability to stay the course in the same way.

We're nearly six weeks in and we have an announcement in about 4 hours where I expect it will either be extended or relaxed to a degree. There's certainly not the level of public moaning about it that there seems to be in the UK though.

[Sergeant Wilson]

2 minutes ago, pandarilla said:

I think your underpaying how difficult this situation is. You're talking like it's a piece of piss and it's not, for many reasons.

I agree with you that we're not far off easing restrictions - but i think the need for that is genuine.

He's  not underplaying it. There is a significant minority who seem to lack the capacity, despite being functioning adults, to simply reduce their social contact and go to the shops a bit less.

[Alert Mongoose]

48 minutes ago, The OP said:

I actually think it is quite helpful, given context. The trend at the moment, both deaths and cases wise, is promising. More promising in countries who went lockdown earlier than here too, which in itself is promising. The problem is if you just give the public the bare figure of 'Another 600 dead today' or whatever without also presenting them with the overall meaning of that figure in the context of previous figures. 

People not buying The Sun would be a good thing. 

The problem is the vast majority of the public are not aware of the nuances or able to interpret the information correctly.  Every single politician’s time would be better spent sorting out testing and tracing.

[Paco]

There’s no point looking at what countries like Germany or New Zealand are doing with their easing of lockdown because they’ve dealt with things exponentially better than this country. They’ll get to a stage of normality, assuming all goes well, that we’ll probably never reach until a vaccine is found.

The only relatively valid comparisons we have are Spain and Italy, and given what their ‘loosening’ actually looks like I’ll be surprised if we see much change of any note until at least June. Spain for example are hitting headlines for ‘easing restrictions’ today - their measures include letting children out of the house (which hasn’t been allowed since March) and construction workers back to work (ours have never been made to stop). Italy have opened small shops/factories/offices under severe social distancing procedures, with a view to more by the end of the month - no specifics that I can see yet. And it’s worth bearing in mind that much of Italy hasn’t been too bad, half of their deaths have been in Lombardy (for context, 25% of England’s deaths have been in London, the undoubted UK epicentre). The Lazio region covering Rome has a bigger population than Scotland, but nearly half the deaths of Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

There’s all sorts of charts flying around studying the correlation of population, population density, per capita deaths etc but the biggest and clearest indicator of a better outcome is an early lockdown. We were far too slow, everyone knew at the time it was two weeks too late but it could’ve been as much as a five or six. So unfortunately, we went in too late so we should come out slower.

There will likely be small gains by June but not much more than that. Schools definitely won’t be back, especially when it would be for three or four weeks before the summer holiday. Media speculation like that is not helpful. We made a mess and we have to sort it out.

[pandarilla]

He's  not underplaying it. There is a significant minority who seem to lack the capacity, despite being functioning adults, to simply reduce their social contact and go to the shops a bit less.

There's a lot of people living in unhappy households, and even more that have mental health issues of all kinds.

 

Our society has been much more open about this in the last two decades and that's surely a good thing? But it makes something like this much harder.

 

I agree with jts that Asian countries are definitely more disciplined. I think i read that it connected to their confucioun origins (yon big philosopher dude). He was all about putting the collective ahead of the individual.

 

The west has done the opposite in the last 50 years. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but you can't expect it not to be a big societal factor.

 

It's why a lot of older people moan about young folk being snowflakes. I think they're wrong for a couple of reasons but they also have a tiny bit of a point.

 

Older generations in this country would've coped better - but exactly the same will be the case for Asian countries too. Life back then was shit compared to now and so folk had to be more resilient.

 

[Aubrey Maturin]

24 minutes ago, pandarilla said:

I think your underpaying how difficult this situation is. You're talking like it's a piece of piss and it's not, for many reasons.

I agree with you that we're not far off easing restrictions - but i think the need for that is genuine.

I'm fully aware of how difficult the situation is, however that doesn't excuse the fact that the great british public do not have the ability or fortitude to cope with a fairly lenient lockdown.

There is no chance they could cope with the level of lockdown in Spain, Asia etc.  

We're too arrogant a nation for that, too soft, too pampered.  It's embarrassing the amount of entitled arseholes with house parties etc because they don't have the brain power or determination to abide by the rules.   

Queuing as a couple  to buy paint for christ sake.  Really, we live in a world with so much technology that can  keep us in touch and keep us occupied.  Read a book, listen to music, learn a language, do your exercise.  I hate to agree with Piers Morgan but by f**k he was right, we aren't sending people over the top at the Somme, we aren't rationing food, we aren't hanging power outages, we are asking people to observe a lenient lockdown.  Nobody said it's easy but it's entirely doable.

Unfortunately there are a lot of people  that are either so thick or so selfish that they won't even adhere to a lockdown for the benefit of everyone.

We are a tin pot joke of a nation from central government downwards.  The only thing we lead on is hubris.

Edited April 23, 2020 by Tynierose

[Melanius Mullarkey]

1 minute ago, Tynierose said:

I'm fully aware of how difficult the situation is, however that doesn't excuse the fact that the great british public do not have the ability or fortitude to cope with a fairly lenient lockdown.

There is no chance they could cope with the level of lockdown in Spain, Asia etc.  

We're too arrogant a nation for that, too soft, too pampered.  It's embarrassing the amount of entitled arseholes with house parties etc because they don't have the brain power or determination to abide by the rules.   

Queuing as a couple  to buy paint for christ sake.  Really, we live in a world with so much technology that can  keep us in touch and keep us occupied.  Read a book, listen to music, learn a language, do your exercise.  I hate to agree with Piers Morgan but by f**k he was right, we aren't sending people over the top at the Somme, we aren't rationing food, we aren't hanging power outages, we are asking people to observe a lenient lockdown.  Nobody said it's easy but it's entirely doable.

Unfortunately there are a lot of people  that are either so thick or so selfish that they won't even adhere to a lockdown for the benefit of everyone.

We are a tin pot joke of a nation.