Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

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Michiel Tack said:




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On the weekend Matt Hancock said that the govt plan did not include herd immunity. Which was odd as the govt had been bangin on about exactly that for days. It looked out of place and Hancock appeared to be wrong, but in light of this new information it looks like they had sight of this data several days ago, and decided to abandon the idea quietly so as not to have to say "turns out too many people would die as the NHS cannot possible cope, we probably were wrong to take such a massive risk in the first place." which is why Hancock said what he did in the way he did. Govt have known about this and sat on it for days and even today did not come clean that they were changing strategy, but presented it as if the plan had not changed.
 
Sasha said:
So do you think that they're now aiming to terminate the virus? The BBC health correspondent was still talking about it being to reduce the infection rate so that the NHS could cope (suggesting the previous 'flatten the curve' strategy).

They're still leaving the schools open to cross-infect all the parents so I don't have the impression that they're yet going for a 'terminate the virus' approach.
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Yes. Schools are not just full of young people, they are also large workplaces. Most schools have at least 1 adult employed for every child/young person, including teachers, support and admin staff - all working in a very close proximity (much closer than in an average office). Then there's also the cleaners and caterers on top of this! How many parents are in the vulnerable category (including having underlying health conditions, being pregnant, being a carer etc)? Many young people in the UK are also 'young carers', looking after either parents or siblings. Then of course, there are lots of children with disabilities and underlying health conditions in mainstream as well as special schools - so far no guidance has been given to this group.

https://www.itv.com/news/utv/2020-0...al-review-over-decision-to-keep-schools-open/
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
What hits me starkly about today's press conference is that although the impression is given that we are catching up with other countries in the UK we are still unique (maybe with the US although I am not sure there is a plan there) in assuming that the epidemic will play out and infect most of the population. As indicated earlier the maths doesn't;t work. to stay within the capacity limits of the NHS you would need to string out the epidemic for at least 4years, more likely 10 and maybe 20.
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A 4 year period of semi isolation doesn't sound attractive until you think of the alternative --- people dying prematurely. I think we should buy time and hope that a treatment or vaccine can be delivered.

Around the end of February I heard a veterinary scientist from Dublin being interviewed on the radio (RTE) I think he referred to "small molecules" which inhibit viral replication (used in AIDS)? Anyone came across anything regarding the use/potential use of anti-virals?
 
Joel said:
On the weekend Matt Hancock said that the govt plan did not include herd immunity. Which was odd as the govt had been bangin on about exactly that for days. It looked out of place and Hancock appeared to be wrong, but in light of this new information it looks like they had sight of this data several days ago, and decided to abandon the idea quietly so as not to have to say "turns out too many people would die as the NHS cannot possible cope, we probably were wrong to take such a massive risk in the first place." which is why Hancock said what he did in the way he did. Govt have known about this and sat on it for days and even today did not come clean that they were changing strategy, but presented it as if the plan had not changed.
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I know, from the press conference it was as if the numbers were higher than they expected and that’s why they just intervened earlier than usual. But still sticking to the same herd immunity plan. But actually it seems now that’s not the case. So much lack of transparency, even now. Not to mention the huge amount of anxiety, stress and panic it would have caused to people in this country.
 
lunarainbows said:
“The UK Only Realised "In The Last Few Days" That Its Coronavirus Strategy Would "Likely Result In Hundreds of Thousands of Deaths"
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Very hard math is involved in this. Like multiplying 66 million (UK population) by 0.8% (South Korea's death rate). That's about half a million people and might be an optimistic minimum estimate. With an overburdened healthcare system it could be much worse. You don't need any more sophisticated analysis to see that letting it spread is not a good idea.

A look at Bergamo which was late with quarantine would also give you a glimpse of what that would have looked like, but in most of the UK instead of one city.
 
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Jonathan Edwards said:
It seems they are admitting they modelled it wrong. But to realise that you would break the ITU system you just need to do some trivial mental arithmetic. You do not need any professional modelling. It is no harder than working out how much rice you need if you have six people to dinner. It was so obvious it hit me that it made no sense before I even did the sums.

It looks as if they are admitting that they have absolutely no idea of reality - a bit like the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool that allows you to fudge trials however you like.

At least now it seems that they see the mistake. Boris Johnson gave no hint as far as I could see that there was a change in strategy of this sort - just progressing as planned. He can pretend to save face if he wants. I doubt anyone cares. But hopefully the whole plan has now been turned on its head.
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Being able to bull s--t relies on "information asymmetry"; however, when folks like you explained the problem with this strategy (not enough ICU beds/respirators) then they may have had to quietly drop it! Thank you for the insight.

South Korea moved to mass testing and contact tracing i.e. to break transmission; does anyone know why the UK has not started mass testing? Is cost/availability of test kits the problem?
 
Adrian said:
On newsnight they are saying one of the advisory panel (Neil Ferguson from imperial) had done some modelling and was predicting >250000 deaths so the government had to listen and change direction.
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But he was involved in the original modelling too, wasn’t he?
From the report, it seemed to me that the same team was involved in the original herd immunity strategy, as well as the new one. How could they have got it so wrong.

Report: (I haven’t read it) https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
 
Barry said:
Mainly because those who are supposed lead, and to either understand or listen to those who understand what exponential increase really means ... have not. Instead it's been dithering and mumbling procrastination, and now we are told the time is right to start clamping down when ... no ... the time is wrong, it should have been done well before now, before the runaway got going. Later they will say "Well, nobody could have known" ... cr@p, plenty of people have known, if only they had listened. They wait until they know for certain the fire has taken hold, and then when they realise it has ... oh my goodness me ... we can't put it out!
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We really do need a quick response, hard and fast. I found the endless 'consulting experts' a few weeks ago caused me great anxiety. We only needed to see what was happening in China to make a swift decision to stop all visitors to our countries and only allow fellow countrymen to come home and provide a place of isolation for them.

I don't know how some countries are placed though regarding supplies that are needed from other countries and how to work around that.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
It seems they are admitting they modelled it wrong. But to realise that you would break the ITU system you just need to do some trivial mental arithmetic. You do not need any professional modelling. It is no harder than working out how much rice you need if you have six people to dinner. It was so obvious it hit me that it made no sense before I even did the sums.

It looks as if they are admitting that they have absolutely no idea of reality - a bit like the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool that allows you to fudge trials however you like.

At least now it seems that they see the mistake. Boris Johnson gave no hint as far as I could see that there was a change in strategy of this sort - just progressing as planned. He can pretend to save face if he wants. I doubt anyone cares. But hopefully the whole plan has now been turned on its head.
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I wonder if they were simply listening to the wrong people. We've seen how many senior people in health in this country don't seem capable of coherent thinking and will go out of their way to cover for other academics. Perhaps we are suffering from the effect of 'experts' who don't have a clue.
 
Adrian said:
I wonder if they were simply listening to the wrong people. We've seen how many senior people in health in this country don't seem capable of coherent thinking and will go out of their way to cover for other academics. Perhaps we are suffering from the effect of 'experts' who don't have a clue.
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Can't help thinking they choose advisers that tell them what they want to hear.
 
The (revised) model is here: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

Their previous model was relying on COVID-19 being exactly like influenza in terms of number of severe cases hospitalised or needing ICU for viral pneumonia, which obviously meant they massively underestimated the potential demand.

Tom Whipple has tweeted that 30-50k people are now thought to be infected in the UK (sounds like it was mentioned at the Imperial modelling press conference).
 
lunarainbows said:
I know, from the press conference it was as if the numbers were higher than they expected and that’s why they just intervened earlier than usual. But still sticking to the same herd immunity plan. But actually it seems now that’s not the case. So much lack of transparency, even now. Not to mention the huge amount of anxiety, stress and panic it would have caused to people in this country.
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It's hard to know what the govt is really doing. But the paper reccomends suppression as the right strategy because the mortality numbers are really bad otherwise, even if you protect the vulnerable.
 
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