Coronavirus - Overall
-
so why is Russia's mortality rates so much lower?
Reporting massive numbers of infections, yet death numbers remain reasonably low...is it an anomoly that will correct itself in time, or is there something else?
-
@Victor-Meldrew said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@dogmeat said in Coronavirus - Overall:
The article suggests things were much different in the UK. Looking from afar with hindsight it does seem like the UK wasted the little time it had to get its shit together
There's been a raft of stories on this. Much of it simply wrong.
E.g. the Sunday Times ran a story 3-4 weeks ago trying to make the point that the government had sat on its hands for weeks. The story proved to be bollocks after the government published a detailed timetable of the actions they took from mid-January - meeting dates, attendees etc. See link.
That said, it's fair to say that wrong decisions were made and the advisors have said that they got some of the advice they gave to the government wrong.
While that press release certainly lays bare some of the errors in the ST article, I get two main things from it. First, it consistently heaps praise on Boris like a campaign piece (which makes you feel that facts are being tailored to suit a narrative, just as the ST article itself). Secondly they refer a lot to meetings and discussions as claims of 'action'.
I agree that it isn't fair to claim that they were dismissing a threat but if you look at a chart of the 'R' rate in the UK, it was over 4 for a couple of weeks before lockdown. This is what caused the hurt. A length of time with a high transmission rate is the common factor in all countries with deep problems that are hard to shake off.
Speed of firm action is not what was shown by the UK Govt. They may have done lots of planning and talking but weren't decisive when it counted. -
@dogmeat there was certainly some shit communication but right leaning govt was never going to shut down everything the way NZ did. By nature most of their voters are business and they can’t just order people to stop.
Maybe that would have been a better response - time will tell, but they could never do it.
Reality is that with the airport hubs, demographics and London, the UK never stood a chance. Never. I think we would have needed to lock down mid Jan to get NZ results. The virus was already here snd in the public domain without question by Feb. I strongly believe in the COBR meetings at end of Jan, the scientists were saying it’s already here and in the people. All you can do is try to contain it.
-
This is obviously all said with the experience of hindsight but have a look at this..
Estimates of the R rate at that date was between 3 and 4.
Potential for exponential growth throughout the country without immediate isolating action. Lockdown didn't start for another 11 days. That is 11 days of spread at a rate over 3
-
@Crucial said in Coronavirus - Overall:
it consistently heaps praise on Boris
The ultimate sin....
Secondly they refer a lot to meetings and discussions as claims of 'action'.
What do you expect them to do? Not have meetings and simply rush into action without discussions? Ignore the (then) advice from experts - inc critics like Horton - not to rush to take action as it wasn't a big problem?
I agree that it isn't fair to claim that they were dismissing a threat but if you look at a chart of the 'R' rate in the UK, it was over 4 for a couple of weeks before lockdown.
Can you post a link to the chart? I thought I heard Chris Whitty, in response to a question on the R rate before lock-down, that there was no useable data on this
They may have done lots of planning and talking but weren't decisive when it counted.
Even if "decisive" action was against scientific advice? There has been criticism that sports events like Cheltenham should have been stopped, but the scientific advice at the time was to let it continue.
-
@MajorRage said in Coronavirus - Overall:
The virus was already here snd in the public domain without question by Feb.
Evidence from France is that it was circulating for 4-6 weeks before the first case was detected. The bit in bold is the interesting bit.
"A patient treated in a hospital near Paris on 27 December for suspected pneumonia actually had the coronavirus, his doctor has said.
This means the virus may have arrived in Europe almost a month earlier than previously thought.
The patient, who has since recovered, said he had no idea where he caught the virus as he had not travelled abroad."
-
@Billy-Tell do you think that is ... significant?
-
@Victor-Meldrew said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Crucial said in Coronavirus - Overall:
it consistently heaps praise on Boris
The ultimate sin....
Secondly they refer a lot to meetings and discussions as claims of 'action'.
What do you expect them to do? Not have meetings and simply rush into action without discussions? Ignore the (then) advice from experts - inc critics like Horton - not to rush to take action as it wasn't a big problem?
I agree that it isn't fair to claim that they were dismissing a threat but if you look at a chart of the 'R' rate in the UK, it was over 4 for a couple of weeks before lockdown.
Can you post a link to the chart? I thought I heard Chris Whitty, in response to a question on the R rate before lock-down, that there was no useable data on this
They may have done lots of planning and talking but weren't decisive when it counted.
Even if "decisive" action was against scientific advice? There has been criticism that sports events like Cheltenham should have been stopped, but the scientific advice at the time was to let it continue.
Comparisons with NZ suffer fatally from the inherently different circumstances.
The international flow of visitors/proximity to major outbreaks/reliance on mass transit/differences in urban population density are just a few.
From what I can gather there were a number of asymptomatic [super] spreaders in the UK for quite a while below the radar. The problem that causes is that once a sufficient number of infections is in such a system it's too late for the NZ style approach to be particularly effective.
Another slightly behavioural factor, is that the European governments were all getting up to speed around the same time. Italy went into national lockdown on 10 March. I very doubt there would have been buy in in the UK for a lockdown before then. So whilst hindsighted scientists might say they argued for more in February, at WORST UK was in practical terms two weeks late, and more objectively probably only a week, being when France went.
NZ had the luxury of low levels of infection, and even whilst locking down after Western Europe it was much earlier in the spreading phase, so test and trace was still a viable strategy.
As I said earlier, in the round I think UK Government went OK.
-
@pakman said in Coronavirus - Overall:
As I said earlier, in the round I think UK Government went OK.
Time will tell.
We don't know how many lives have been saved by the scheme to isolate 1m vulnerable people. There's also the need to balance out the health risks resulting from lock-down as the Three Wise Men & Jenny keep telling us.
-
@Victor-Meldrew said in Coronavirus - Overall:
Even if "decisive" action was against scientific advice? There has been criticism that sports events like Cheltenham should have been stopped, but the scientific advice at the time was to let it continue.
One of the real challenges is that there's lots of different scientific advice, and it often conflicts. FFS, we can't even agree if mask wearing is a good thing or not.
-
@Victor-Meldrew said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Crucial said in Coronavirus - Overall:
it consistently heaps praise on Boris
The ultimate sin....
Not my point. The point was that by doing so the release set out with 'protective' and partisan intent which colours the facts.
Secondly they refer a lot to meetings and discussions as claims of 'action'.
What do you expect them to do? Not have meetings and simply rush into action without discussions? Ignore the (then) advice from experts - inc critics like Horton - not to rush to take action as it wasn't a big problem?
I didn't say that at all. The release refutes the premise that the govt didn't take decisive action with a counter that they were still deciding.
I agree that it isn't fair to claim that they were dismissing a threat but if you look at a chart of the 'R' rate in the UK, it was over 4 for a couple of weeks before lockdown.
Can you post a link to the chart? I thought I heard Chris Whitty, in response to a question on the R rate before lock-down, that there was no useable data on this
I think it was in the FT. The chart was of estimations though and the range was between 3 and 4, dropping to under 1 after lockdown. I did say that my comment was with the benefit of hindsight.
They may have done lots of planning and talking but weren't decisive when it counted.
Even if "decisive" action was against scientific advice? There has been criticism that sports events like Cheltenham should have been stopped, but the scientific advice at the time was to let it continue.
Scientific advice adds to the information provided to assess risk. It was up to the govt to decide the risks that they would take. By March 12 it was also well known that spread was fast and that the current numbers were likely the tip of the iceberg. That isn't the scientific evidence, that is the factual evidence.
In case you are reading this with the tone of criticism, that isn't my intent. It is more to explain the consequence of delay in decisive action which can now be clearly seen.
I do think that the evidence points to indecision. It may have been done under poor advice, it may have been done from a different risk weigh up of virus vs society/economy. There are likely explainable reasons, but the result was a delay that assisted the spread.
-
@nzzp said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Victor-Meldrew said in Coronavirus - Overall:
Even if "decisive" action was against scientific advice? There has been criticism that sports events like Cheltenham should have been stopped, but the scientific advice at the time was to let it continue.
One of the real challenges is that there's lots of different scientific advice, and it often conflicts. FFS, we can't even agree if mask wearing is a good thing or not.
Economic advice too.
There's a big correlation between high death rates and economic problems which needs to be squared against lock-downs.
-
-
-
-
@Victor-Meldrew said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@pakman said in Coronavirus - Overall:
As I said earlier, in the round I think UK Government went OK.
Time will tell.
We don't know how many lives have been saved by the scheme to isolate 1m vulnerable people. There's also the need to balance out the health risks resulting from lock-down as the Three Wise Men & Jenny keep telling us.
For me they need to get military on care homes, and then go Swedish.
-
They may have done lots of planning and talking but weren't decisive when it counted.
Even if "decisive" action was against scientific advice? There has been criticism that sports events like Cheltenham should have been stopped, but the scientific advice at the time was to let it continue.
Scientific advice adds to the information provided to assess risk. It was up to the govt to decide the risks that they would take. By March 12 it was also well known that spread was fast and that the current numbers were likely the tip of the iceberg. That isn't the scientific evidence, that is the factual evidence.
In case you are reading this with the tone of criticism, that isn't my intent. It is more to explain the consequence of delay in decisive action which can now be clearly seen.
I do think that the evidence points to indecision. It may have been done under poor advice, it may have been done from a different risk weigh up of virus vs society/economy. There are likely explainable reasons, but the result was a delay that assisted the spread.
I'm not sure the evidence points to indecision. For whatever reason it WAS decided NOT to lockdown in the week of the 10th March.
I personally am unaware of the UK having locked down in peacetime during the last century. It certainly didn't during the Hong Kong flu in 1968, which BTW killed 80,000.
A big question they would have faced was whether or not the populace would comply. As you say, at that stage only the tip of the iceberg was present. They were also concerned that a hard lockdown could only be sustained for so long, and wanted to do it when most effective.
There were also trying to make track and trace work as late as that week. It appears the scientists by the Friday were still equivocal about lockdown, whist Dominic Cummings had become convinced that trace and trace wouldn't cut it.
By the time they went a fortnight later people had read about Italy, Spain and France and were ready to accept the measure.
All that said, I thought Cheltenham/continued football was a mistake at the time, and still do.
But all said and done, there were no easy answers.
-
@nzzp said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Victor-Meldrew said in Coronavirus - Overall:
Even if "decisive" action was against scientific advice? There has been criticism that sports events like Cheltenham should have been stopped, but the scientific advice at the time was to let it continue.
One of the real challenges is that there's lots of different scientific advice, and it often conflicts. FFS, we can't even agree if mask wearing is a good thing or not.
For the public mask wearing won't stop ingestion of CV particles in the air around one. Face covering can limit the 'spray' of coughs, and thereby limit spread.
I think what UK is struggling with is how the public would respond to the message that wearing a mask won't protect the wearer, it's only to protect the others.
-
@pakman said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@nzzp said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Victor-Meldrew said in Coronavirus - Overall:
Even if "decisive" action was against scientific advice? There has been criticism that sports events like Cheltenham should have been stopped, but the scientific advice at the time was to let it continue.
One of the real challenges is that there's lots of different scientific advice, and it often conflicts. FFS, we can't even agree if mask wearing is a good thing or not.
For the public mask wearing won't stop ingestion of CV particles in the air around one. Face covering can limit the 'spray' of coughs, and thereby limit spread.
I think what UK is struggling with is how the public would respond to the message that wearing a mask won't protect the wearer, it's only to protect the others.
The Asian angle (Taiwan and China for example) was that the population felt safer with the masks on, which was seen as a benefit