Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

The problem is that to keep things 'manageable' you need to keep the current infection rate down such that it will take about ten years for everyone to be infected. Higher than that and there will be masses of unnecessary deaths. And it will be impossible to balance the infection rate to order. As far as I can see the only credible policy is what other countries are doing - try to get the infection rate down to nothing. There is actually absolutely no reason why this could not be achieved. The financial pain in the shop term will be acute but much less than 10 years of war footing.

In other words the government plan cannot actually work.

 

Stockholm and some other parts of Sweden have now changed their routines for testing. They have stopped testing people with suspected infection. Beginning today, Stockholm will only be testing people who are hospitalized or considered to be in a risk group. Beginning next week or so, the rest on the country will do the same change.

So, from today onwards, the numbers from Sweden will not reflect reality

Source

 

What I’ve found on social media for people supporting this herd immunity plan:

1. The government are saying so, they’re following the science, do you think you’re cleverer than the advisers?
Or
2. We are all going to get this illness, once everyone is out of isolation it’s all going to hit us again, what then? So we need herd immunity, none of the other countries are providing that and it’s the other countries that are wrong.

People are finding reasons for supporting a plan that is deliberately allowing a serious infectious disease to pass through the population including elderly and sick, many of which would die.

 

It is no longer important to know how many people in Sweden are infected with the corona virus, says the Public Health Authority.
The public health authority's new guidelines mean that it will no longer be possible to follow the spread in the same way as before. Now the focus will be on something else.

- We will no longer discuss whether we have 458 or 562 cases. But instead how large parts of Sweden are affected and how severely hit they are, says Tegnell.

According to him, they will instead be looking at the healthcare situation and how many cases that are arriving there. But also to look at which groups in society appear to be the sickest.

- These are the kind of questions that will be important to answer. Now it is no longer important to know exactly how many people are infected in Sweden.

I have just had a conversation with Al Edwards and also the journalist Oliver Newlan, explaining why this is wrong. We desperately need to know of as many infected cases as possible. That is the only way we will be able to build up a team of known recovered people who will be running the country in a few months time - looking after the at risk population without risk and so on.

Governments do not appear to understand that the situation is very similar to a world war. It will last about four years and during that time normal economic life will cease. On the other hand it ought to be possible for most people to live comfortably and survive.

 

they are doing the same thing here Jonathan Edwards - no longer testing or counting cases unless you end up in hospital very sick.

 

Yes, and for good reason. I know one of the advisers

 

Yes. I am hoping that some of the reasons why they shouldn't be doing this will filter through to the science teams involved (at least I got through to nephew Al who is working on these viruses) and the media (Newlan is BBC). The key reason revolves around the difficulty getting a serological test running within months that can show people have had the infection.

 

Which one...?
I saw an interview with prof John Ashton (I think it was) who said, he knew one of them, and that they come from a very narrow scientific background. He said but the PM should be taking into account the full range of all the science and expertise available to him, like the WHO, which he isn’t.

 

Patrick Vallance was our head of department of medicine at UCL about fifteen years ago.

 

Yes, I've been thinking exactly this. It also struck me today that the 'strategy' of herd immunity might have a lot to do with the demographic of those affected. To paraphrase a certain journalist (although I know he's issued a mealy-mouthed retraction of sorts) a 'cull' of the elderly and disabled isn't seen as economically important. If this disease affected younger people like the Spanish flu, or targeted children then I think the proposed strategies might be very different.

I know many don't agree with this approach but it's still upsetting to see how seriously it is being considered by some.

 

I suspect the people in the UK government that are advocating for such an approach are sowing the seeds of their own destruction. Things will not turn out the way they're hoping. A purely economical analysis is flawed because it ignores important aspects. Values such as solidarity, being able to trust the government and so on, national unity and so on are very important especially in crises. Humanity matters.

 

An interesting thing is that a far higher number of high profile politicians, actors and sportspeople seem to have been affected than expected by chance. I have a strong suspicion that airports are a major venue for spread. Maybe the penny will drop.

 

That could also be because they have access to testing. I would like to be tested but there is currently no way that I know of to do so. I think the virus might be far more widespread than currently believed and the people who have easy access to tests will appear to be getting infected at unusually high rates.

 

If anyone has read it, this is reminding me of the Redeker Plan in the book World War Z which is very different to the film.

The architect of that had to go into hiding after because so many people hated what he had done.

Yes, it's fiction and yes, it's about zombies but it still feels relevant.

 

I don't know if this answers your questions but Dr John Campbell is summarizing/explaining the UK approach here.

He too says containment phase has passed, it's about delaying the peak now.

The WHO though said that those measures (contain & delay) should not be seen as a dichotomy in their latest meeting. Our CDC today too said they're still doing both. Question is, for how long..local health departments can only trace so many people.

Edit: clarification

 

Not airplanes?

 

This is an interview with Jeremy Hunt.
I don't think it has been posted here yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rmMh2pLKAc

 

Thanks. But I’m sorry I’m very disappointed in the video. He essentially just read out the governments plan for “herd immunity”, saying how they won’t be counting numbers anymore as they don’t need to for clinical reasons anymore, it would only be for academic reasons.. and just telling us the max % of people who would get infected is 80%. I don’t see any critical or scientific or frankly the dire moral and ethnical discussions that need to be had.

So I’m looking for more of that. Similar perhaps to other accounts like Nicholas who Cheshire posted above, I remember also Trevor Bedford who did modelling of the numbers in America.

 

This was a good interview.
See also Rory Stewart

https://twitter.com/user/status/1238410809065291788