> Is everyone in a high-risk group supposed to withdraw themselves from society for six months until they can emerge once the (so far entirely imaginary) second wave has been averted?
OK... but... isn't that what everyone is being advised to do right now? So maybe not a great example of something unrealistic to ask? Since in fact the UK would be asking it of fewer people than... many are saying it needs to be asked of -- although the US government isn't actually telling us to... yet? But that's the alternative those who who think the UK's plan is madness are suggesting, right? Asking everyone to withdraw from society for months?
I can see the desire: Wait, could we just ask high-risk people to withdraw themselves from society for months, instead of asking everyone to do that? Cause that'd be a lot less disruptive to our social and mental health maybe it'd be just as good? (There are real costs to mental health and social functioning of asking everyone to avoid all contact with everyone else; it might be the best option anyway, but it's definitely not without it's own health risks and consequences).
But I'm no expert. It kind of sounds like the experts are saying "not really, that isn't a good idea, everyone has got to do it". Sometimes what we are called upon to do is not easy or pleasant.
One of the frustrating and anxiety-producing things here is that we aren't getting very consistent messaging from the governmental authorities and experts. It seems like really a failure of the kind of consistent and pervasive public health educational messaging that would actually maximize compliance. Instead it's "everyone picks what forwarded chain letter on facebook makes sense to them" and we all know how well that works...
> OK... but... isn't that what everyone is being advised to do right now?
No. What everyone is advised to do right now is not to withdraw from society, it's to perform basic hygiene and social distancing in order to slow down the spread. Social distancing doesn't mean living like a recluse eating spam cooked on a gas burner, it's not getting into large crowds and trying to stay some distance from other people (outside spitting / coughing range). WaPo has an article with a "social distancing" simulator: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-si...
"Self quarantining" is closer to what you're talking about, but it's for people who are at risk or likely to have been infected, not the general public.
Of course the latter you start the more it's already spread and the harsher measures have to be. And the more you'll have to ramp them up as you realise your initial measures were not sufficient, or your citizens have decided "freedom or death" is a good choice and decide to just ignore it.
FWIW Taiwan's already reopened its schools and life has gone back to something not entirely dissimilar to normal (people do have to wear masks and get their temperature checked to step into public buildings or businesses but they can move around just fine).
If I noticed anything in the past months it is that it hardly matters if you are an expert. There never was punishment for being wrong for hypotheticals. People just don't know. The WHO when declaring emergency said: "We don't know the damage this virus can do". Even this week professors in statistics compare the Italy crisis to heart attacks and their models all fall apart within a week.
OK... but... isn't that what everyone is being advised to do right now?
Yes but that's expected to, uh, not work. It's only expected to slow the progression.
One of the frustrating and anxiety-producing things here is that we aren't getting very consistent messaging from the governmental authorities and experts.
The only sane course of action the extreme lockdown we are now seeing in many countries. But politicians, being gutless cowards, are coming up with other ideas until their hand forced ... I hope. The alternative of actually believe this stuff and sticking to it would horrific.
I mean, everyone should be definitely be isolating and doing everyone that they can to slow the infection. But we are going to need much stronger measures than individual action. This is a real war, not like drug or terrorism wars, OK.
>although the US government isn't actually telling us to... yet? But that's the alternative those who who think the UK's plan is madness are suggesting, right? Asking everyone to withdraw from society for months?
It doesn't take that much to contain something like this. In no particular order:
(1) Temperature checks outside all major gathering places. Shops, subways, offices, etc. If you're running a fever you don't get in.
(2) Hand sanitizer at the entrance/exit of all major gathering places. Clean your hands before you go in and clean them when you come out. Don't clean them you don't get in.
(3) Wear masks everywhere in major gathering places. No mask, no entry.
(4) Widespread testing and contact tracing for those who have tested positive.
I agree that the West in general is handling this as dumb as possible. Shutting everything down is pointless if you don't use the respite to enact public health measures.
To say the government opted 'to encourage the flames' is disingenuous. Presumably their statistical model indicated they won't be able to contain the spread which is why the current stated aim is to delay the spread[0]. Delay, not encourage.
The article's suggestions seem to be in line with the government's stance. The main difference is timing with Dr William Hanage saying measures should have been adopted weeks ago while the government claims their modelling tells them to adopt measures later.
The government should be challenged by questioning whether it truly is/was impossible to contain the epidemic and what the best time to introduce different measures is. This article, however, adds very little to that debate with hand-waving in place of evidence.
>> Presumably their statistical model indicated they won't be able to contain the spread which is why the current stated aim is to delay the spread[0].
What statistical model? They're talking of "careful modelling". In the article you link, they don't mention anything about statistics, or, say, a simulation etc. You're assuming too much when you're assuming a statistical model, or anything based on data, or any concrete sort of model at all. "Modelling" can just mean a bunch of officials sitting around having tea and brainstorming potential scenarios.
It’s not true, Italy had exactly the same deaths per day two weeks ago. They introduced the complete lockdown what will be tomorrow. They had 2 weeks of advantage compared to Italy, they already knew what the future was going to look like, and they squandered it all without doing anything.
Now uk is going to be in a much worse situation compared to Italy because of this. Just one day of delay in an exponential curve can mean possibly tens of thousands death. Here we are speaking about weeks or months of delay if they really want to infect 60% of the people.
The nazis probably caused less deaths in concentration camps than boris, but we’ll know for sure in a couple of months.
I'm posting this because of the narrative on this site that all experts agree with the UK's plan. To the extent that there is a consensus, it's a consensus against it.
I'm not sure there is a consensus against it. I've seen a few articles like this (which is worrying) but articles in favour of the status quo tend to not get so much prominence.
I really hope the government knows what it's doing. They have promised to publish their models, so hopefully that will give some more confidence.
As a counter to that, unless proven otherwise, you can assume a significant bias in any article on government policy coming from The Guardian, as in the OP here.
That obviously doesn't mean it's incorrect, but try to be aware of all biases, there are plenty on all sides.
Sir Patrick Vallance, England’s chief scientific adviser, said the government was looking “to build up some kind of herd immunity so more people are immune to this disease and we reduce the transmission.” [1]
Britain’s chief scientific adviser ... said that about 40m people in the UK could need to catch the coronavirus to build up “herd immunity” and prevent the disease coming back in the future. [2]
Sir Patrick told Sky News that experts estimated that about 60 per cent of the UK’s 66m population would have to contract coronavirus in order for society to build up immunity. [2]
for reference, at this moment there are 21,157 (according to john hopkins map) confirmed cases in Italy, which probably translates to anything between 50k-500k infections total. lombardy healthcare is near collapse and there's 1.5k people dead already. multiplying by 80-800 (best-worst case to get to 40M) left as an exercise to the reader. at that point the government might not only buy all ventilators on the market but also all diggers.
I spoke with one doctor neighbor from England who now lives in the US. He said he felt much more optimistic about the UK plan because the government was doing a better job of consulting experts. He seems to think the US plan is "satire." But let's not get too political.
The problem is the alternative is even less feasible. Containment is very unlikely to work, and slowing the epidemic too much leads to it happening in winter.
The only thing which they should have done is delayed a decision on this. They are a few weeks behind other countries, and could have observed effectiveness of social distancing in arresting spread. If it worked, it could be copied (ina modified form) and if it failed, it would be much easier to sell to the public. Currently it’s a brave (but likely correct) position it would seem.
But then again, what do I know. While I’m a doctor, I’m
No specialist so my opinion is of limited value, and experts seem to disagree with each other. This is what makes this so difficult, no one seems to know what is the best option this current data.
The problem is the alternative is even less feasible. Containment is very unlikely to work, and slowing the epidemic too much leads to it happening in winter.
Containment has worked in Wuhan. Containment is being attempted after-the-fact in Italy. Containment is possible, it's just a matter of how extreme gets. But even the most containment does not look the hundreds of thousands or millions dead that letting everyone be infected looks like.
Except in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, or (more arguably) Japan. And South Korea, while they had a rougher early outbreak, seems to have gotten a lid on the disease now.
That's not really correct. Containment certainly can work. Whether it will or not is still an open question. Right now no western country has been able to match that. Italy, Spain, France and Germany are probably out of time to try. But the UK is still relatively early on its curve.
So, for that matter, might the UK "infect the herd" trick. The science isn't unsound, though it's not nearly certain. So the risk management is just crazy and I can't understand it either. But... it really might work.
>While I’m a doctor, I’m No specialist so my opinion is of limited value, and experts seem to disagree with each other.
Given the state of modern politics, this is a time for people to very carefully consider their opinions, because the unpopularity of Trump and Boris is going to potentially sway decisions irrationally. This includes professionals and key decision makers.
This is not a value judgement regarding any world leaders. It's just a call to be very aware of bias and spitefulness can cloud judgement even in the most rational among us.
It's interesting to contrast the UK approach to -everyone else's approach.
Everyone else is asking _infected_ people to do the socially responsible thing
and self-isolate to protect those around them. The UK is asking (or will be
asking) the _vulnerable_ people to self-isolate to protect themselves.
It is very hard to avoid thinking of it this way but: what happens if a
vulnerable person fails to isolate, for whatever reason (stupidity, ignorance,
accident, etc)? Is the blame on them? They were told to protect themselves and
they failed, so it's their fault?
if I think of it this way it very much sounds like the UK government is
planning to just er, wash its hands of vulnerable people and refuse to take
any responsibility for their fate.
Well satire is a bit strong. But I think the plan seems unwise, due to unvalidated assumptions (especially that immunity will last during a second wave) and the nature of their health system. If an effective treatment emerges, they will also have made a mistake.
The main issue with the UK's approach is approximately 10% of young people need acute medical care (e.g., ventilator access). There aren't enough hospital beds in the NHS system to meet that demand.
I thought 10% of the general population required hospitalization. With a smaller number of people needing ventilators and a even smaller % of young people needing ventilators.
In the Netherlands there are between 40-50 covid-19 patients in ICU in critical condition. Over half of them are younger than 50. (Youngest is 16yo)
Mortality is much higher for the older group, but hospitalisation happens a lot in the younger age group as well. Obesity is a high-risk factor.
A comment in the reddit post[2] which discusses that article notes that in China the 15-49 age group made up 41% of severe/critical cases.
(The below 50 age group accounts for a bigger part of the population to be sure. I see no data for hospital admission rate as fraction of the age group.)
I’m anxiously waiting for the news that we will block travel from the UK to my country. If they are deliberately making their people into pathogen spreaders, we can’t let them visit us
There are a fair few restrictions already and I'm sure they'll ramp up over time. At the moment quite a few countries (eg Singa, OZ, Taiwan) require 14 day self isolation for arriving brits.
I think "herd immunity" is a euphemism for: This virus will see community spread of around 30% to 70% and it is long impossible to contain. The U.S. is preparing for 30%, The Netherlands for 50%, and Germany for 70%.
Herd immunity will be hard, since antibodies for coronaviruses last only about 4 months.
Even the strictest quarantines possible in the West don't compare to the mild quarantines in the East. The laws don't allow for contact tracing with GPS coordinates and credit card purchases, like they do in Singapore.
Quarantine methods put selective pressure on the strain types that are more infective and severe, since such mutations and recombinations are the only ones able to escape quarantines.
So the plan seems to be to turn this into a community virus, much like herpes or HIV. Then the selective pressure is for the mortality rate to drop and the disease becomes manageable. It would seem silly to damage your economy with heavy quarantine methods when local community cluster spread continues to pop up.
Of course, the UK government can not come out and straight up say this, but they seem one of the few governments that is realistic about facing this virus and its impossible to contain infection rate. I am guessing they ran the numbers from the Italy quarantines and based their decision on that.
Aren't masks and other stuff on short supply? At least Italy didn't have enough and France is restricting exports. Even if it is a good idea to restrict the economy as little as possible, how do they prepare for the moment when there are no masks and nurses will drop out en masse due to being infected?
In Norway we just slipped from the 2nd most infected per capita to the 3rd after government warnings. If your country has >= 1 infected, you should follow the advice at fhi.no/en.
> The UK should not be trying to create herd immunity, that will take care of itself.
That's a clear blatant lie.
UK is NOT trying to create a herd immunity. UK is trying to flatten the curve. And UK is admitting that 60% population will get invected. And then the UK will get herd immunity.
The Guardian is such a rag. Why does it still have readers? Finding academics who will criticise anything this conservative pro-Brexit government does is easy: Johnson could make any announcement at all and within 24 hours the Graun would have found a contemptuous academic to tell their readers why it's stupid and bad.
People can agree or disagree with the British government's logic. Only someone very biased would treat it as inherently absurd.
So let's look past the headline at what this guy is actually saying.
He starts this piece by asserting his authority as an expert. But he isn't revealing any new information or critical analysis that would change anyone's minds. In fact as you read further down you find he's actually agreeing with the government's policies.
The key points of the article are:
• Herd immunity will happen anyway and shouldn't be a goal.
• A second wave may or may not happen, it shouldn't drive policy.
• Be like South Korea and close everything for an unspecified period of time.
• Close the schools! But keep children away from Nana and Grandpa.
The entire article says nothing that hasn't been said elsewhere; the only benefit this guy's epidemiology experience seems to add is credentialism.
But there are also major logic problems in the argument.
Let's start with his last point about children and schools. He obviously realises children shouldn't come into contact with grandparents, but fails to apply the common sense knowledge that many parents can't stop working to take care of them e.g. because they work in the healthcare system, or logistics, or grocery retail, or pharmaceuticals, or government, etc. So those children will all go to their grandparents, assuming they have some: the one place you don't want them to be. This is a point the scientific advisors to the government made in their announcement press conference but he fails to address it. Children need to be kept away from grandparents and in the presence of young, fit, healthy adults. These conditions can be found in schools.
He says:
Second waves are real things, and we have seen them in flu pandemics. This is not a flu pandemic. Flu rules do not apply. There might well be a second wave, I honestly don’t know. But vulnerable people should not be exposed to a virus right now in the service of a hypothetical future.
The belief a second wave is likely has nothing to do with how flu-like the virus is. Saying flu rules don't apply is a non-sequitur. Second wave is a simple observation based on the fact that stopping infected people coming in and out of the country isn't possible, nor will it be possible going forward. International travel isn't going to remain shut down for long, which means even if the government could somehow wipe out COVID-19 purely via social control policies, it would come back the moment those measures ended and normal life returned. The only way to stop it permanently is if most people are immune so it can't spread.
Also, just saying "this might or might not happen, who knows" is a poor basis for policy making. This guy is an expert, where's the probabilities?
He says:
The UK should not be trying to create herd immunity, that will take care of itself
But the UK isn't "trying" to create herd immunity. What would that involve, actually? Encouraging chicken pox style virus parties? It's not doing anything like this.
Believing that requires an especially bad-faith reading of a (perhaps poorly phrased) statement by a fellow scientist. The goverment understands that herd immunity is going to happen sooner or later, it's the only way to end this, and that's why reaching it with as few fatalities as possible is the stated aim.
Finally, his recommendations are useless. He just recommends social distancing and shutdowns without any time frames attached. Does he believe people can self isolate and schools can remain shut indefinitely? If not, if he believes these measures don't last for long, then there is a question of when the optimal time to deploy them is. And trying to answer that question is how the government arrived at its current policy.
I have to say, reading this makes me glad the government has better scientists than this guy advising it. Maybe Dominic Cummings is onto something after all.
That was an extremely long post to avoid addressing the actual concern - that there aren’t enough hospital beds to support a country that doesn’t aggressively and ruthlessly implement social distancing and contract tracing right now.
I think the UK plan is based on some sobering truths that others are just not prepared to acknowledge (yet):
1. You can't shut down the economy indefinitely. At least not if your goal is to minimize fatalities. And if you don't do that, your "quarantine" is not going to be effective
2. You can't maintain quarantine for more than a month or two, after which your epidemic simply re-starts, and you don't get to re-impose the quarantine then because the first quarantine "failed".
3. Vaccine is over a year out in the best case, assuming it works at all. If it's anything like the flu vaccine, chances of it working reliably on mutated strains are approximately nil.
4. Younger people tolerate the disease much better, and if they build up immunity to it while the senior population self-isolates, the overall number of deaths could be minimized.
5. Due to how widespread and virulent this is, it will just become the "new flu", and it will come back with mutations every year. We can't do what we're doing now every year, at least not if the goal is to minimize deaths.
[+] [-] jrochkind1|6 years ago|reply
OK... but... isn't that what everyone is being advised to do right now? So maybe not a great example of something unrealistic to ask? Since in fact the UK would be asking it of fewer people than... many are saying it needs to be asked of -- although the US government isn't actually telling us to... yet? But that's the alternative those who who think the UK's plan is madness are suggesting, right? Asking everyone to withdraw from society for months?
I can see the desire: Wait, could we just ask high-risk people to withdraw themselves from society for months, instead of asking everyone to do that? Cause that'd be a lot less disruptive to our social and mental health maybe it'd be just as good? (There are real costs to mental health and social functioning of asking everyone to avoid all contact with everyone else; it might be the best option anyway, but it's definitely not without it's own health risks and consequences).
But I'm no expert. It kind of sounds like the experts are saying "not really, that isn't a good idea, everyone has got to do it". Sometimes what we are called upon to do is not easy or pleasant.
One of the frustrating and anxiety-producing things here is that we aren't getting very consistent messaging from the governmental authorities and experts. It seems like really a failure of the kind of consistent and pervasive public health educational messaging that would actually maximize compliance. Instead it's "everyone picks what forwarded chain letter on facebook makes sense to them" and we all know how well that works...
[+] [-] masklinn|6 years ago|reply
No. What everyone is advised to do right now is not to withdraw from society, it's to perform basic hygiene and social distancing in order to slow down the spread. Social distancing doesn't mean living like a recluse eating spam cooked on a gas burner, it's not getting into large crowds and trying to stay some distance from other people (outside spitting / coughing range). WaPo has an article with a "social distancing" simulator: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-si...
"Self quarantining" is closer to what you're talking about, but it's for people who are at risk or likely to have been infected, not the general public.
Of course the latter you start the more it's already spread and the harsher measures have to be. And the more you'll have to ramp them up as you realise your initial measures were not sufficient, or your citizens have decided "freedom or death" is a good choice and decide to just ignore it.
FWIW Taiwan's already reopened its schools and life has gone back to something not entirely dissimilar to normal (people do have to wear masks and get their temperature checked to step into public buildings or businesses but they can move around just fine).
[+] [-] walshemj|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] confeit|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joe_the_user|6 years ago|reply
Yes but that's expected to, uh, not work. It's only expected to slow the progression.
One of the frustrating and anxiety-producing things here is that we aren't getting very consistent messaging from the governmental authorities and experts.
The only sane course of action the extreme lockdown we are now seeing in many countries. But politicians, being gutless cowards, are coming up with other ideas until their hand forced ... I hope. The alternative of actually believe this stuff and sticking to it would horrific.
I mean, everyone should be definitely be isolating and doing everyone that they can to slow the infection. But we are going to need much stronger measures than individual action. This is a real war, not like drug or terrorism wars, OK.
[+] [-] treis|6 years ago|reply
It doesn't take that much to contain something like this. In no particular order:
(1) Temperature checks outside all major gathering places. Shops, subways, offices, etc. If you're running a fever you don't get in.
(2) Hand sanitizer at the entrance/exit of all major gathering places. Clean your hands before you go in and clean them when you come out. Don't clean them you don't get in.
(3) Wear masks everywhere in major gathering places. No mask, no entry.
(4) Widespread testing and contact tracing for those who have tested positive.
I agree that the West in general is handling this as dumb as possible. Shutting everything down is pointless if you don't use the respite to enact public health measures.
[+] [-] GrantZvolsky|6 years ago|reply
The article's suggestions seem to be in line with the government's stance. The main difference is timing with Dr William Hanage saying measures should have been adopted weeks ago while the government claims their modelling tells them to adopt measures later.
The government should be challenged by questioning whether it truly is/was impossible to contain the epidemic and what the best time to introduce different measures is. This article, however, adds very little to that debate with hand-waving in place of evidence.
[0]: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/covid-19-government-annou...
[+] [-] YeGoblynQueenne|6 years ago|reply
What statistical model? They're talking of "careful modelling". In the article you link, they don't mention anything about statistics, or, say, a simulation etc. You're assuming too much when you're assuming a statistical model, or anything based on data, or any concrete sort of model at all. "Modelling" can just mean a bunch of officials sitting around having tea and brainstorming potential scenarios.
[+] [-] rawTruthHurts|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tigershark|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] knzhou|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chimprich|6 years ago|reply
I really hope the government knows what it's doing. They have promised to publish their models, so hopefully that will give some more confidence.
[+] [-] watwut|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mellosouls|6 years ago|reply
That obviously doesn't mean it's incorrect, but try to be aware of all biases, there are plenty on all sides.
[+] [-] petilon|6 years ago|reply
Britain’s chief scientific adviser ... said that about 40m people in the UK could need to catch the coronavirus to build up “herd immunity” and prevent the disease coming back in the future. [2]
Sir Patrick told Sky News that experts estimated that about 60 per cent of the UK’s 66m population would have to contract coronavirus in order for society to build up immunity. [2]
Read more:
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/world/europe/coronavirus-...
[2] https://www.ft.com/content/38a81588-6508-11ea-b3f3-fe4680ea6...
[+] [-] baq|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boshomi|6 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/13/world/asia/co...
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Leary|6 years ago|reply
Also UK: People won't react negatively when hundreds of thousands of people die. Keep Calm and Carry On.
[+] [-] xhkkffbf|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Engineering-MD|6 years ago|reply
The only thing which they should have done is delayed a decision on this. They are a few weeks behind other countries, and could have observed effectiveness of social distancing in arresting spread. If it worked, it could be copied (ina modified form) and if it failed, it would be much easier to sell to the public. Currently it’s a brave (but likely correct) position it would seem.
But then again, what do I know. While I’m a doctor, I’m No specialist so my opinion is of limited value, and experts seem to disagree with each other. This is what makes this so difficult, no one seems to know what is the best option this current data.
[+] [-] joe_the_user|6 years ago|reply
Containment has worked in Wuhan. Containment is being attempted after-the-fact in Italy. Containment is possible, it's just a matter of how extreme gets. But even the most containment does not look the hundreds of thousands or millions dead that letting everyone be infected looks like.
[+] [-] ajross|6 years ago|reply
Except in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, or (more arguably) Japan. And South Korea, while they had a rougher early outbreak, seems to have gotten a lid on the disease now.
That's not really correct. Containment certainly can work. Whether it will or not is still an open question. Right now no western country has been able to match that. Italy, Spain, France and Germany are probably out of time to try. But the UK is still relatively early on its curve.
So, for that matter, might the UK "infect the herd" trick. The science isn't unsound, though it's not nearly certain. So the risk management is just crazy and I can't understand it either. But... it really might work.
[+] [-] dforrestwilson|6 years ago|reply
Time is vital.
[+] [-] allovernow|6 years ago|reply
Given the state of modern politics, this is a time for people to very carefully consider their opinions, because the unpopularity of Trump and Boris is going to potentially sway decisions irrationally. This includes professionals and key decision makers.
This is not a value judgement regarding any world leaders. It's just a call to be very aware of bias and spitefulness can cloud judgement even in the most rational among us.
[+] [-] YeGoblynQueenne|6 years ago|reply
It is very hard to avoid thinking of it this way but: what happens if a vulnerable person fails to isolate, for whatever reason (stupidity, ignorance, accident, etc)? Is the blame on them? They were told to protect themselves and they failed, so it's their fault?
if I think of it this way it very much sounds like the UK government is planning to just er, wash its hands of vulnerable people and refuse to take any responsibility for their fate.
[+] [-] Gatsky|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Donald|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JamesBarney|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notanote|6 years ago|reply
In the Netherlands there are between 40-50 covid-19 patients in ICU in critical condition. Over half of them are younger than 50. (Youngest is 16yo)
Mortality is much higher for the older group, but hospitalisation happens a lot in the younger age group as well. Obesity is a high-risk factor.
A comment in the reddit post[2] which discusses that article notes that in China the 15-49 age group made up 41% of severe/critical cases.
(The below 50 age group accounts for a bigger part of the population to be sure. I see no data for hospital admission rate as fraction of the age group.)
[1] http://www.ad.nl/dossier-coronavirus/40-a-50-nederlandse-cor...
[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fj1owh/over_ha...
[+] [-] soccerdave|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gentleman11|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tim333|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lightgreen|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] confeit|6 years ago|reply
Herd immunity will be hard, since antibodies for coronaviruses last only about 4 months.
Even the strictest quarantines possible in the West don't compare to the mild quarantines in the East. The laws don't allow for contact tracing with GPS coordinates and credit card purchases, like they do in Singapore.
Quarantine methods put selective pressure on the strain types that are more infective and severe, since such mutations and recombinations are the only ones able to escape quarantines.
So the plan seems to be to turn this into a community virus, much like herpes or HIV. Then the selective pressure is for the mortality rate to drop and the disease becomes manageable. It would seem silly to damage your economy with heavy quarantine methods when local community cluster spread continues to pop up.
Of course, the UK government can not come out and straight up say this, but they seem one of the few governments that is realistic about facing this virus and its impossible to contain infection rate. I am guessing they ran the numbers from the Italy quarantines and based their decision on that.
[+] [-] toohotatopic|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adrianhel|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dirtydroog|6 years ago|reply
(LOL in Norwegian)
[+] [-] lightgreen|6 years ago|reply
Quoting the article:
> The UK should not be trying to create herd immunity, that will take care of itself.
That's a clear blatant lie.
UK is NOT trying to create a herd immunity. UK is trying to flatten the curve. And UK is admitting that 60% population will get invected. And then the UK will get herd immunity.
For example, it is explained (again) in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XRc389TvG8
Feel free to downvote, that's a popular sport here on HN.
[+] [-] DanBC|6 years ago|reply
They've pulled back a bit from it because they've seen the vehement public reaction to it.
Cummings may well be evil, but he's not stupid.
[+] [-] adrianhel|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elorant|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thu2111|6 years ago|reply
People can agree or disagree with the British government's logic. Only someone very biased would treat it as inherently absurd.
So let's look past the headline at what this guy is actually saying.
He starts this piece by asserting his authority as an expert. But he isn't revealing any new information or critical analysis that would change anyone's minds. In fact as you read further down you find he's actually agreeing with the government's policies.
The key points of the article are:
• Herd immunity will happen anyway and shouldn't be a goal.
• A second wave may or may not happen, it shouldn't drive policy.
• Be like South Korea and close everything for an unspecified period of time.
• Close the schools! But keep children away from Nana and Grandpa.
The entire article says nothing that hasn't been said elsewhere; the only benefit this guy's epidemiology experience seems to add is credentialism. But there are also major logic problems in the argument.
Let's start with his last point about children and schools. He obviously realises children shouldn't come into contact with grandparents, but fails to apply the common sense knowledge that many parents can't stop working to take care of them e.g. because they work in the healthcare system, or logistics, or grocery retail, or pharmaceuticals, or government, etc. So those children will all go to their grandparents, assuming they have some: the one place you don't want them to be. This is a point the scientific advisors to the government made in their announcement press conference but he fails to address it. Children need to be kept away from grandparents and in the presence of young, fit, healthy adults. These conditions can be found in schools.
He says:
Second waves are real things, and we have seen them in flu pandemics. This is not a flu pandemic. Flu rules do not apply. There might well be a second wave, I honestly don’t know. But vulnerable people should not be exposed to a virus right now in the service of a hypothetical future.
The belief a second wave is likely has nothing to do with how flu-like the virus is. Saying flu rules don't apply is a non-sequitur. Second wave is a simple observation based on the fact that stopping infected people coming in and out of the country isn't possible, nor will it be possible going forward. International travel isn't going to remain shut down for long, which means even if the government could somehow wipe out COVID-19 purely via social control policies, it would come back the moment those measures ended and normal life returned. The only way to stop it permanently is if most people are immune so it can't spread.
Also, just saying "this might or might not happen, who knows" is a poor basis for policy making. This guy is an expert, where's the probabilities?
He says:
The UK should not be trying to create herd immunity, that will take care of itself
But the UK isn't "trying" to create herd immunity. What would that involve, actually? Encouraging chicken pox style virus parties? It's not doing anything like this.
Believing that requires an especially bad-faith reading of a (perhaps poorly phrased) statement by a fellow scientist. The goverment understands that herd immunity is going to happen sooner or later, it's the only way to end this, and that's why reaching it with as few fatalities as possible is the stated aim.
Finally, his recommendations are useless. He just recommends social distancing and shutdowns without any time frames attached. Does he believe people can self isolate and schools can remain shut indefinitely? If not, if he believes these measures don't last for long, then there is a question of when the optimal time to deploy them is. And trying to answer that question is how the government arrived at its current policy.
I have to say, reading this makes me glad the government has better scientists than this guy advising it. Maybe Dominic Cummings is onto something after all.
[+] [-] CraigJPerry|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] m0zg|6 years ago|reply
1. You can't shut down the economy indefinitely. At least not if your goal is to minimize fatalities. And if you don't do that, your "quarantine" is not going to be effective
2. You can't maintain quarantine for more than a month or two, after which your epidemic simply re-starts, and you don't get to re-impose the quarantine then because the first quarantine "failed".
3. Vaccine is over a year out in the best case, assuming it works at all. If it's anything like the flu vaccine, chances of it working reliably on mutated strains are approximately nil.
4. Younger people tolerate the disease much better, and if they build up immunity to it while the senior population self-isolates, the overall number of deaths could be minimized.
5. Due to how widespread and virulent this is, it will just become the "new flu", and it will come back with mutations every year. We can't do what we're doing now every year, at least not if the goal is to minimize deaths.