Corona Virus main thread

[Van wink 2,994]

1 hour ago, Mark .Y. said:

I think we will definitely be lifting restrictions soon T. The lockdown is beginning to crumble, in my opinion surely it is preferable to make it a Government led plan rather than see it fall apart anyway.

I'm not sure we need this extensive tracing regime in place, certainly the experts in Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, Denmark and Holland (at least) are not demanding it. Restrictions either being lifted, or already have been, in all those countries and no large scale tracing regime in place.

I guess time will obviously tell, but I struggle to believe they are all wrong to do this.

It’s a massive risk if we don’t have track and trace fully in place imo. What we are aiming for is a “circuit breaker” approach so that we can identify and try to isolate pockets of infection as they arise, to do that you need large track and trace resources, to set off and begin releasing lockdown without that properly in place will be less effective and risky. I suspect there will be a second wave at some point whatever we do, but we need to keep a lid on that as best we can. 

[Indy 3,304]

So let’s get back to thread, Aggy Monty, appreciate your stance, T I tend to see you’re very much up to speed with the German response and can understand that as I am in contact with my relatives in Czechia and Sweden, so get  realistic first hand account of what’s going on.

From what I see the figures are certainly going down on all fronts so for what ever reason, good thing all round.

The testing is there in large numbers I was a little concerned that all the pressure put testing that they reported around 25% who booked never turned up! Bad form in my book.

Lifting restrictions looking like there will be a very gradual set with hopefully a clear cut set of instructions for each working environment, good to see.

So how many of you will take up the tracking app? I certainly will.

Edited May 4, 2020 by Indy

[T 190]

1 hour ago, Mark .Y. said:

I think we will definitely be lifting restrictions soon T. The lockdown is beginning to crumble, in my opinion surely it is preferable to make it a Government led plan rather than see it fall apart anyway.

I'm not sure we need this extensive tracing regime in place, certainly the experts in Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, Denmark and Holland (at least) are not demanding it. Restrictions either being lifted, or already have been, in all those countries and no large scale tracing regime in place.

I guess time will obviously tell, but I struggle to believe they are all wrong to do this.

I’d agree that there is pressure for U.K. to open up. The UK announcement is 2 weeks after lifting started in other countries and it is just an announcement and not actual lifting so we don’t know when things will happen in practice. For me I support opening up but I think the UK really needs to get on top of PPE, get the testing bedded in and the tracing and app up and running. In particular I don’t feel uncomfortable about lifting restrictions while front line staff are exposed on PPE. 
 

i disagree with you on tracing as it helps to reduce R while allowing greater and sooner lifting of other broader. restrictions I don’t know what is happening on that in other European countries to be honest and I would be interested to know as I am curious to know what is happening in other countries and I only  happen to know about Germany because I speak German albeit badly. I just think logically it must help reduce R and it was a key factor in Germany and S Korea.  In any case the UK is following the German approach which has proved successful so I support it. Whatever countries do the experts agree you need to keep R below 1. How and when you do that is open to debate but everywhere is following the approach of gradually lifting the restrictions and monitoring R. 

[T 190]

16 minutes ago, Van wink said:

 

“Sorry VW I do accept it is complicated and we are still learning all the time but I presented a series of facts and you have responded with conjecture to try and desperately defend U.K. performance.“

 

I have responded with questions which you have answered in your own way, which is fine, what I wanted was proper research based evidence, that is clearly not available atm or I’m sure you would have provided it, but you have done your best which is fine.

 

As an aside, please stop stating that I am trying to defend the U.K. response, I have repeatedly told you I am not, I fully recognise we made mistakes. Also I am no more anti German than you are anti U.K., so if you could cut out those jibes as well it may well make for better engagement. 

VW it is exasperating when people seek to deny facts. I think you should also accept that if people are looking at local news and have language knowledge they are just naturally  going to know more. It would be very difficult for me to know what is happening in the UK if I couldn’t speak English  

 

I could spend ages providing you with lots of links to German news articles over the past few months but unless you have language knowledge it is not going to really help. Sometimes you just have to accept that some people will naturally have more knowledge and information on a particular subject.
 

I  see lots of comments and claims regarding Germany which are just factually incorrect when you have see and read the original. The UK is not renowned for its language skills which are fundamental to really understanding and knowing what is going on in another country which partly explains the UKs attitude to the rest of the world. You can not really understand someone unless you can speak their language so the UK is not great at understanding what is happening elsewhere. 

[Van wink 2,994]

3 minutes ago, T said:

VW it is exasperating when people seek to deny facts. I think you should also accept that if people are looking at local news and have language knowledge they are just naturally  going to know more. It would be very difficult for me to know what is happening in the UK if I couldn’t speak English  

 

I could spend ages providing you with lots of links to German news articles over the past few months but unless you have language knowledge it is not going to really help. Sometimes you just have to accept that some people will naturally have more knowledge and information on a particular subject.
 

I  see lots of comments and claims regarding Germany which are just factually incorrect when you have see and read the original. The UK is not renowned for its language skills which are fundamental to really understanding and knowing what is going on in another country which partly explains the UKs attitude to the rest of the world. You can not really understand someone unless you can speak their language so the UK is not great at understanding what is happening elsewhere. 

I don’t doubt your knowledge of what is happening in Germany T. What I questioned was your evidence for your claim that Germany should have been worse affected than U.K. That evidence doesn’t exist. It was a straight forward question, I think we should leave it there.

[Mark .Y. 352]

32 minutes ago, Van wink said:

It’s a massive risk if we don’t have track and trace fully in place imo. What we are aiming for is a “circuit breaker” approach so that we can identify and try to isolate pockets of infection as they arise, to do that you need large track and trace resources, to set off and begin releasing lockdown without that properly in place will be less effective and risky. I suspect there will be a second wave at some point whatever we do, but we need to keep a lid on that as best we can. 

I'm all for giving us the best chance to succeed too.

I just find it strange that all those other countries have decided not be reliant on track and trace on any large scale.

[Van wink 2,994]

31 minutes ago, Indy said:

So let’s get back to thread, Aggy Monty, appreciate your stance, T I tend to see you’re very much up to speed with the German response and can understand that as I am in contact with my relatives in Czechia and Sweden, so get  realistic first hand account of what’s going on.

From what I see the figures are certainly going down on all fronts so for what ever reason, good thing all round.

The testing is there in large numbers I was a little concerned that all the pressure put testing that they reported around 25% who booked never turned up! Bad form in my book.

Lifting restrictions looking like there will be a very gradual set with hopefully a clear cut set of instructions for each working environment, good to see.

So how many of you will take up the tracking app? I certainly will.

I think I will use the app, if it works it will be a significant weapon in fighting the virus, especially here in the U.K. where I suspect we will be under resourced in terms of contact tracing for quite some time. I will be one of the first to delete it if I find out that the data is being used inappropriately.

[Van wink 2,994]

Just now, Mark .Y. said:

I'm all for giving us the best chance to succeed too.

I just find it strange that all those other countries have decided not be reliant on track and trace on any large scale.

There are different ways to do this, South Korea have been successful and we are trying to follow that model.

[Mark .Y. 352]

1 minute ago, Van wink said:

There are different ways to do this, South Korea have been successful and we are trying to follow that model.

I don't think we are going to follow South Koreas model VW.

I don't think there is any intention to check individuals credit card statements for a start.

[Yellow Fever 3,801]

3 minutes ago, Mark .Y. said:

I don't think we are going to follow South Koreas model VW.

I don't think there is any intention to check individuals credit card statements for a start.

Track and trace becomes a lot easier if we are still in a a quasi social-distancing / lock-down model - fewer 'contacts'. 

[Indy 3,304]

There’s going to have to be certain amounts of commonality between countries to allow things to start to get back to any semblance of normal, flying will no doubt be one area which there will be big step change, but one all need to do the same.

Best practices are still being learned and that’s why I’m happy to cut this government the slack it deserves, this isn’t something which we knew how to respond to, it’s not a new threat it was known about but it certainly hit the world hard.

[Mark .Y. 352]

2 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Track and trace becomes a lot easier if we are still in a a quasi social-distancing / lock-down model - fewer 'contacts'. 

Yes, I agree, but don't we want it to work as we are coming out of that model ?

I wonder whether it is far more useful at the stage where infections are relatively low but increasing and maybe not as useful on the downward slope - if you see what I mean.

[Yellow Fever 3,801]

2 minutes ago, Indy said:

There’s going to have to be certain amounts of commonality between countries to allow things to start to get back to any semblance of normal, flying will no doubt be one area which there will be big step change, but one all need to do the same.

Best practices are still being learned and that’s why I’m happy to cut this government the slack it deserves, this isn’t something which we knew how to respond to, it’s not a new threat it was known about but it certainly hit the world hard.

Yes I need a day trip (or 1 day overnight to Germany). Business. Tricky at present on all sorts of fronts.

[Yellow Fever 3,801]

2 minutes ago, Mark .Y. said:

Yes, I agree, but don't we want it to work as we are coming out of that model ?

I wonder whether it is far more useful at the stage where infections are relatively low but increasing and maybe not as useful on the downward slope - if you see what I mean.

I think the virus is 'direction blind'. All it want is fresh meat. Every day is a new opportunty for it! 

[ricardo 7,395]

20 minutes ago, Van wink said:

I think I will use the app, if it works it will be a significant weapon in fighting the virus, especially here in the U.K. where I suspect we will be under resourced in terms of contact tracing for quite some time. I will be one of the first to delete it if I find out that the data is being used inappropriately.

All they will know from me is whether I am upstairs or downstairs.

[It's Character Forming 1,161]

Mentioned on BBC Breakfast this morning that current R estimate is 0.7 (can't remember who was cited as the source).  I think this explains why the infection curve flattens out slowly :

eg. if you have 10,000 cases in an area, at 0.7 that becomes 7,000 cases then 4,900 then 3,430, then 2,400... so it's a long time to really get on top of it.

 

Whereas the other way the growth is exponential eg at 2.5, 10,000 becomes 25,000 then 62,500 then 156,250, then 390,000.

 

So the message is, it's a lot harder to rein it back in than it is to allow it to expand when controls are released.  I think we are doing well but a relaxation needs to be gradual and very carefully done.

 

Other thing they mentioned is that in Singapore they have a second spike that has hit hard after controlling it well initially, which apparently has mainly taken hold via the dormitory accommodation for migrant workers that they have.

[T 190]

13 minutes ago, Van wink said:

I don’t doubt your knowledge of what is happening in Germany T. What I questioned was your evidence for your claim that Germany should have been worse affected than U.K. That evidence doesn’t exist. It was a straight forward question, I think we should leave it there.

VW I do accept that I don’t have one nice combined report that shows this but everything I stated is based on facts so it is a lot more than speculation. Circumstances do play a part as Germany freely acknowledge that the initial young age of the outbreak helped but there is little doubt that Germany had greater exposure not least just because of basic Geography and clearly U.K. isbehind the wave as an island. That is clear in every chart you see so it is entirely reasonable to assume that the UK had a lot less exposure at the start unless you are suggesting that the UK has significantly understated its number of cases but the UK was doing testing at the start before it was overwhelmed so I don’t think that is the case  

When I say Germany is better prepared because it is more risk adverse and loves planning to the extent that drives me nuts that is just an opinion based on experience rather than facts although I guess someone somewhere will have done a study. 
 

So there is difference between factual statement and opinion. The first is based on evidence and the second is based on perception but when you get calls from Germany first thing in the morning to discuss things that might just happen but probably won’t all the time it is a reasonable perception. In the UK its let’s not bother as probably won’t happen and we will just deal with it if it happens in my business experience which is very much how the UK appears to have approached the pandemic. 

[It's Character Forming 1,161]

13 minutes ago, Mark .Y. said:

Yes, I agree, but don't we want it to work as we are coming out of that model ?

I wonder whether it is far more useful at the stage where infections are relatively low but increasing and maybe not as useful on the downward slope - if you see what I mean.

Mark, I think the point about track & trace is that it hopefully lets you reduce the R number, because you track the contacts of someone who's infected and get those contacts to self-isolate, thus reducing the number of people they infect.

 

So it's essential when we're going to relax the lockdown which will push up the R number - it will allow us to relax restrictions more than we would otherwise, because tracking and tracing gives an offsetting reduction in the R number.

[T 190]

14 minutes ago, Indy said:

There’s going to have to be certain amounts of commonality between countries to allow things to start to get back to any semblance of normal, flying will no doubt be one area which there will be big step change, but one all need to do the same.

Best practices are still being learned and that’s why I’m happy to cut this government the slack it deserves, this isn’t something which we knew how to respond to, it’s not a new threat it was known about but it certainly hit the world hard.

I agree to some extent but diseases outbreaks and pandemics are not new. They are an integral part of human history so to just say it is new is a cop out. It doesn’t explain why some countries have done better than others. You are never going to get this completely right and the UK is trying to do the right things and follow the science but the UK has performed poorly because it was poorly prepared and failed to follow expert advice for which the government is responsible. For preparation it has been a fail. For subsequent response I would say mixed but the intentions have been correct and they have been trying to do the right things with mixed results as a result of poor preparation but I would cut them some slack on subsequent response

[Mark .Y. 352]

16 minutes ago, It's Character Forming said:

Mark, I think the point about track & trace is that it hopefully lets you reduce the R number, because you track the contacts of someone who's infected and get those contacts to self-isolate, thus reducing the number of people they infect.

 

So it's essential when we're going to relax the lockdown which will push up the R number - it will allow us to relax restrictions more than we would otherwise, because tracking and tracing gives an offsetting reduction in the R number.

Oh, I do absolutely get it ICF, and am all for it, I will download the app also, as I'm for anything that might help.

What nobody seems to be able to explain to me is whether, and if so why, the governments of Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, Denmark etc are risking a second spike and more deaths of their people because they don't have in place a massive test and trace scheme. 

There are so many opinions, even amongst the world experts (for example over something as simple as it is best to wear face masks) that I don't think we can really be sure who is correct at the moment. An example I've raised countless times is the Dutch lockdown where their children were allowed, actually they were encouraged, to use the parks and playgrounds. That doesn't seem to have had an adverse effect on their case/death figures which (adjusted for population) are pretty close to ours. I do understand that it could be argued that they would have had less if they hadn't taken that route but that would be only conjecture.

I genuinely find it very hard to believe that the governments of those large European countries are going against the advice of their own medical experts and risking the lives of their people.      

[It's Character Forming 1,161]

35 minutes ago, Mark .Y. said:

Oh, I do absolutely get it ICF, and am all for it, I will download the app also, as I'm for anything that might help.

What nobody seems to be able to explain to me is whether, and if so why, the governments of Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, Denmark etc are risking a second spike and more deaths of their people because they don't have in place a massive test and trace scheme. 

There are so many opinions, even amongst the world experts (for example over something as simple as it is best to wear face masks) that I don't think we can really be sure who is correct at the moment. An example I've raised countless times is the Dutch lockdown where their children were allowed, actually they were encouraged, to use the parks and playgrounds. That doesn't seem to have had an adverse effect on their case/death figures which (adjusted for population) are pretty close to ours. I do understand that it could be argued that they would have had less if they hadn't taken that route but that would be only conjecture.

I genuinely find it very hard to believe that the governments of those large European countries are going against the advice of their own medical experts and risking the lives of their people.      

It's a good point and I wish we'd hear more on the news about actions other countries are actually taking.  E.g. when I see news about Spain relaxing their restrictions by letting people go outside, they seemed to still be more restricted than us because different age groups can only go out at set times of day so older people will be the only ones out at a given time.

[T 190]

There just isn’t evidence on exactly what you should do on restrictions at the moment just ideas which will be come clearer as you monitor the impact of lifting restrictions. However it is so complicated that you never will have exact answers as circumstances are different and different restrictions aren’t being tested separately. . So there is no right or wrong on restrictions at the moment just general agreement on keeping R below 1 so it doesn’t get out of control. So it will be entirely correct to do different things in different places and different times depending on local circumstances and preferences providing you keep the infection rate down. I don’t think there are any absolute rights or wrongs on the how of restrictions along as you meet the objectives. 

[Crafty Canary 497]

The true judgement of performance will be excess deaths over the period of the pandemic in each country. This will not become apparent until sometime after the pandemic is over. Comparison of mortality rates and totals between countries is pointless unless each country reports deaths in the same way which they don’t.

I am happy to wait for this analysis rather than read through pages of inexpert ‘expert’ opinion on here which largely reflects the political and/or Brexit bias of posters.

[T 190]

3 minutes ago, Crafty Canary said:

The true judgement of performance will be excess deaths over the period of the pandemic in each country. This will not become apparent until sometime after the pandemic is over. Comparison of mortality rates and totals between countries is pointless unless each country reports deaths in the same way which they don’t.

I am happy to wait for this analysis rather than read through pages of inexpert ‘expert’ opinion on here which largely reflects the political and/or Brexit bias of posters.

That argument is based on your political bias though 😉  The poor preparation isn’t going to change. The people that have died aren’t going to come back to life. That argument is a tacit admission of the UK failure to plan as it really does not look good now. Doesn’t mean U.K. is alone in failing to prepare as France admits or that it isn’t trying to do the right things now. 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

Christ on a bike reading through the last six pages has been beyond hard work.

I'm with you on that one Tilly. Digesting raw data from other nations is far removed from my life in Cornwall. Mrs KG and I broke the lockdown rules by walking 7.5 miles this morning. But if I said we saw 6 people until we got near home I could be exaggerating.

I think if there is easing of lockdown and the message is still "we are in this together" then we might as well all pack up and go and live in London. Sometimes when they do maps on TV, west Cornwall doesn't even appear.

[ricardo 7,395]

17 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

Christ on a bike reading through the last six pages has been beyond hard work.

I'm with you on that one Tilly. Digesting raw data from other nations is far removed from my life in Cornwall. Mrs KG and I broke the lockdown rules by walking 7.5 miles this morning. But if I said we saw 6 people until we got near home I could be exaggerating.

I think if there is easing of lockdown and the message is still "we are in this together" then we might as well all pack up and go and live in London. Sometimes when they do maps on TV, west Cornwall doesn't even appear.

I went for a walk this morning to the recycle bins, thats about 50yds. Never saw a soul.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

I went for a walk this morning to the recycle bins, thats about 50yds. Never saw a soul.

And I had you down as a Don Thompson

[Mark .Y. 352]

2 hours ago, Yellow Fever said:

I think the virus is 'direction blind'. All it want is fresh meat. Every day is a new opportunty for it! 

Ha, I know what you mean............ but what if it mutates and becomes weaker after a while ?

I mean, don't all pandemics end at some stage, even if a vaccine hasn't been found ??

 

[T 190]

Today Austria estimating 5pc infection rate based on a random sample. Germany estimating 2pc based on extensive testing of a hot spot. I think you can forget natural herd immunity and also suggests track and trace has a dramatic effect. UK estimated 5pc last I saw but think that was based on modelling rather than testing. 

[BigFish 1,988]

Seems like "the Science" that the government have been "following" had finally had enough of SAGE giving air cover to the inept and medacious Coronavirus response and have set up an independent advisory group. Marvellous piece of public service that will make the apologists apopletic.