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I can only go by the shortages of reagents, swabs etc being widely reported in many countries although it does appear, in a UK context at least, that small labs were ready and willing to pitch in except PHE bureaucracy prevented them from doing so. At least we're agreed that now is not the...

No-one is sitting on their ass. On the other hand imagine this. Public/media pressure results in such political pressure that governments worldwide decide they have no alternative to go for mass population testing in some sort of numbers game where everyone tries to match or exceed what...

Not necessarily. There are negative consequences where you have a relatively small percentage of the population currently infected and a test with an approximate 10% error rate. Imagine quarantining 10% of healthcare workers due to false positives or conversersely releasing 10% of infected...

Mass testing as per the WHO guidelines may not be feasible for many european countries : https://euobserver.com/coronavirus/147830 and may not be currently desirable : Perhaps time for less emphasis on numbers and more on intelligent use of testing? ...

Yes. I'm not paranoid.

Given that he references government documents, now a matter public record, I'm more convinced by that version of events than those of outside commentators.

An excellent 'blow by blow' account of the UK response to date in the New Statesman that rather contradicts the prevalent narrative in some circles : https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2020/04/real-reason-uk-government-pursued-herd-immunity-and-why-it-was-abandoned

Coronavirus - decision making under radical uncertainty : https://www.eurointelligence.com/public.html Some fair points.

Some data was released on the Diamond Princess cruise ship which makes for interesting reading if the data quoted in this blog are legitimate (his conclusions are well off the mark as recent trends have shown!) : https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/16/diamond-princess-mysteries/

Evidence doesn't appear to be the main driver of public policy in many countries : https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-endgame/

Some may be correct : https://www.ft.com/content/859e9336-68db-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75

I suggest that everyone reads the Imperial College report in full and maybe then there will be a better appreciation that the arguments pro and con any particular strategy were and are finely balanced and subject to change as the available data changes ...

I assumed that using draconian measures would reduce the incidence of new infections over time and in combination with testing you might reach a stage where no new infections are being recorded in the general population at which stage you light think of relaxing the lockdown - but you would need...

As per the summary : Because I'm pretty sure the very serious downsides to this option are being underplayed when criticising the alternative approach originally taken by the UK. Perhaps it would be better to acknowledge that governments are likely to be trying to do what they believe is for...

Of course you would.

And this is the least risky option? As I asked previously - when are populations going to be told that lockdown is for 18 months minimum?

I did say immediate strategy. Herd immunity can only be a long term aspiration as it can only be a benefit if there are future waves.

I'd assumed you were referring to this notion of herd immunity which, despite misleading reports, was never part of the Govt's immediate strategy. I (or they) was referring to delaying lockdown to maintain healthcare capacity until such a stage that it's no longer tenable. As per this...

From today's conference and other sources I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the UK approach is one of the few intelligent approaches where politicians are actually listening to the experts rather than 'ooh parents want schools closed and there's an election coming up so ...knee-jerk...

Yeah I know which is why I said it was almost there. For individual samples I believe the turnaround time is 4 hours or so. About 20 years ago in an previous life me and my boss met the head of Randox and he talked us through the prototype of this technology. Good to see it up and running.