Scathing attack on government Covid-19 response

Alvez_48 said:
Ok fair enough.. you may be right but it doesn't change the point that there is also a risk to locking down something that needs to be acknowledged.
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There is risk whatever we do simply because we don't know what we are dealing with and our NHS is going to be overwhelmed I guess in all scenarios. If the government comes out and explains in full why we are adopting a different approach based on the science then great, I'm all ears. But from the limited expertise and knowledge I have I can't see why we are adopting such a different approach to elsewhere. It makes little sense to me, especially given that we don't seem to be testing in anything like a reasonable number and we don't seem to know whether infection results in an immunity.
 
At the current rate, the total number of UK cases of this virus is doubling approx every 2.5 days. If the Chief Scientific Adviser was correct (4 days ago) that we likely had up to 10,000 cases in the UK, then by tomorrow we might have up to 40,000. Ten days after that we could have 640,000!

There will be a clear time lag between introducing any social distancing measures and their having any impact on the rate of infection. Therefore, if the strategy really is to slow the spread of the virus to a manageable pace, the Government needs to get ahead of events rather than continually reacting to them.

However, the relative inaction of the Government (plus various comments from politicians and advisers) would suggest that the actual strategy is to let the virus run its course in the hope this achieves ‘herd immunity’ and prevents a second wave later in the year. That may (or may not) be the correct approach, but they should be honest and transparent with us about what they’re actually doing.
 
Awaiting an announcement from Macron at 8pm, but it will almost certainly be to say that France is joining those other countries on lockdown. I think this should have been done some time ago, but better late than never.

On a personal note, my grandson has been showing strong symptoms for a while. He was met last night by a team at York hospital in full protective gear and given a HD X-ray and blood test which confirmed he had a viral infection. My daughter asked why he wasn't being tested for coronovirus and was told that they would only test if he was in need of a ventilator or intensive care. Sent home and told to isolate. So does he have the virus? Well we don't know, but it seems likely, but one thing is certain - he'll not be part of any official statistics.
 
Hope your Grandson is ok PQ and starts to feel better soon, the point of not having accurate figures is one that needs raising in the treatment of this virus, I get we should err on the side of caution but what’s the official line of self isolation if you have come into contact with someone who later develops symptoms ?
 
pierrequiroule said:
Awaiting an announcement from Macron at 8pm, but it will almost certainly be to say that France is joining those other countries on lockdown. I think this should have been done some time ago, but better late than never.

On a personal note, my grandson has been showing strong symptoms for a while. He was met last night by a team at York hospital in full protective gear and given a HD X-ray and blood test which confirmed he had a viral infection. My daughter asked why he wasn't being tested for coronovirus and was told that they would only test if he was in need of a ventilator or intensive care. Sent home and told to isolate. So does he have the virus? Well we don't know, but it seems likely, but one thing is certain - he'll not be part of any official statistics.
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Hope he is ok.
 
The incubation period averages 5 days. Because this is a new virus they propose 14 days isolation (MERS incubation could extend to 14 days). Once the majority of the population start implementing distancing and other measures to avoid infection, the numbers should moderate though for some reason that's not the case in Italy.

And they're probably not testing people because if they did, they'd run out of tests as probably happened in the US and is happening in Canada.

For what it's worth there are experts elsewhere who agree with the UK position. They say the virus spreads so fast it's not worth taking draconian measures, and that the best policy is identifying the vulnerable and protecting them from infection. After learning more about the way this spreads they may well be right.

You need complete lock down for several weeks to completely stop spread (isn't working for Italy yet) and after that travel will need to be suspended or constrained until a vaccine is developed.
 
It is that simple. Isolate and fewer tests will be needed. 1.5 million tests being made available. More being produced.
 
Simulations show that social distancing can "flatten the curve" but as the WHO head has just pointed out - and as the experiences of Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan have shown, extensive, aggressive and assiduous testing is key. If you don't test, you're working blind. Advice for people with symptoms to self-isolate is fine but may be wasted effort if the symptoms are not from the coronavirus and doesn't help with those people who are asymptomatic but spreading the virus anyway.

In the countries mentioned, the spread of the virus had been slower than almost anywhere else because they were able to identify people who had the virus, carry out contact tracing and get to exactly those people who needed to be isolated.

Taking a scatter-gun approach of just isolating bunches of people with symptoms without knowing that they actually have the virus while missing others who do, is not nearly as effective as isolating (and conducting contact tracing for) those who you actually know have the virus.

And the only way to know who has it, is by - testing, testing and more testing.
 
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Here's the graph I posted earlier, showing the how much lower the rate of spread had been in Singapore and Japan (Hong Kong is not shown) where widespread early testing was done, combined with assiduous contact tracing - as opposed to countries where this was not done, such as Iran and Italy.
IMG_20200315_111015.png
Remember, Singapore and Japan were two of the very first countries to report cases - partly because they were testing for it from the very outset. Then they took effective measures to contain it through contact tracing. Other countries didn't start testing until people started showing up in hospital in serious condition by which time it was too late - the virus was already widespread in the community.

South Korea does present as a slight anomaly according to the graph but that seems to be because they've been testing much, much more widely than any other country (so far, 1 in 200 of the population has been tested) and are turning up correspondingly larger numbers of people with either mild or no symptoms. However, probably because of that, the fatality rate in South Korea is one of the lowest in the world at 0.7% as opposed to the global average of 3.4%.
 
Liamo said:
Here's the graph I posted earlier, showing the how much lower the rate of spread had been in Singapore and Japan (Hong Kong is not shown) where widespread early testing was done, combined with assiduous contact tracing - as opposed to countries where this was not done, such as Iran and Italy.
View attachment 951
Remember, Singapore and Japan were two of the very first countries to report cases - partly because they were testing for it from the very outset. Then they took effective measures to contain it through contact tracing. Other countries didn't start testing until people started showing up in hospital in serious condition by which time it was too late - the virus was already widespread in the community.

South Korea does present as a slight anomaly according to the graph but that seems to be because they've been testing much, much more widely than any other country (so far, 1 in 200 of the population has been tested) and are turning up correspondingly larger numbers of people with either mild or no symptoms. However, probably because of that, the fatality rate in South Korea is one of the lowest in the world at 0.7% as opposed to the global average of 3.4%.
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South Korea isn’t an anomaly imo, they again did widespread testing that’s why they show so many cases. They reason they have so many cases is because of the church breakout, but they’ve proved even with a significant breakout you can control it and The line is starting to flatten
 
Change course or a quarter of a million people will die in a "catastrophic epidemic" of coronavirus - warnings do not come much starker than that.

The message came from researchers modelling how the disease will spread, how the NHS would be overwhelmed and how many would die.

The situation has shifted dramatically and as a result we are now facing the most profound changes to our daily lives in peacetime.

This realisation has happened only in the past few days.

However, it is long after other scientists and the World Health Organization had warned of the risks of not going all-out to stop the virus.
The crucial piece of evidence came from the scientists at Imperial College London who first realised the scale of the problem in China and whose advice is heavily influential in government.





Those PhD students, eh?
 
Just read today that Italy wasn't using ventilators on anyone over 65. Saving them for the younger people. The ones who they tell us will only get minor symptoms anyway. So that's obviously not the case. Luckily we don't have many anyway. In 2017, there were an estimated 1,920 hospitals in the United Kingdom (UK) and we have 5000 ventilators in total. So three per hospital if they are spread evenly across the country. Which I am sure they are(not).
 
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