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Ok, so watching the newsnight interview (thx whoever suggested watching it) and it seems we are taking the approach of wanting the population to develop immunity.
A few thoughts / questions.
Is this actually our policy or was it just an opinion from an informed advisor?
If CV could kill you, why does it matter if you get it now or in say the autumn?
If there is an overall benefit from herd immunity, why are we emcouraging people of wash hands etc. We should surely be solely nessaging to isolate the vulnerable and encouraging preventative measures for those in contact with the vulnerable? (If we want herd immunity)
So close the schools? Or are children acting as virus transmitters towards herd immunity?
So again the thing with closing schools is what do you do with all the children for the next few months?
Few options: 1) The Government pays all the parents for the time they need to look after their children. 2) People take out loans, and still stay with their children. 3) People go to work and hand off their children to people who are likely to be older and retried.
I believe also that quite a large amount of people with children work in the health service. They need to be at work, so option 1 and 2 there are off the table basically.
Children will act towards herd immunity. They do get the virus but nowhere near as badly.
The problem is we have been asking politicians and especially Boris to listen to experts for years and when he finally listens to his experts we still moan and say we should be doing something else.
I actually think it's probably impossible to level the peak like they want, exponential growth doesn't work that way but I'm not a epidemic modeller. However if I had known such a job existed 20 years ago it would have been very tempting - it's incredibly interesting and in situations like this incredibly important.
SB
There was one expert on QT last night who clearly hasn't been listened to.
"They break our legs and tell us to be grateful when they offer us crutches."
I used Foxpro in my first job to model the profitability of every free trade pub for Bass Brewers. Also pulled together a database of every on trade (pub or club not shop) licence in the uk. 92k at the time :-)
You can still pick and choose which experts to listen to. I'm sure other countries are listening to experts and are taking a very different approach. We'll see how things pan out, but it seems to me like we're sitting on our hands too much.
I agree it seems that way as well - I expected all sports to be off, Cheltenham cancelled and I even thought they would be close to closing schools.
Just think we would be moaning if the government assigned experts came on TV and said they were being ignored. Not sure Boris or any other MP should be picking and choosing advice - they aren't intelligent enough.
I used Foxpro in my first job to model the profitability of every free trade pub for Bass Brewers. Also pulled together a database of every on trade (pub or club not shop) licence in the uk. 92k at the time :-)
Haven't heard people talk about FoxPro in a long time!
Think you can get paid some very good money for looking after old Fortran and COBOL applications, even if it is an absolutely miserable job.
So again the thing with closing schools is what do you do with all the children for the next few months?
Few options: 1) The Government pays all the parents for the time they need to look after their children. 2) People take out loans, and still stay with their children. 3) People go to work and hand off their children to people who are likely to be older and retried.
I believe also that quite a large amount of people with children work in the health service. They need to be at work, so option 1 and 2 there are off the table basically.
Children will act towards herd immunity. They do get the virus but nowhere near as badly.
Another point is that a lot of people won't be able to look after them so the children will be sent to the grandparents who are the most vulnerable group.
There is clearly a benefit from herd immunity - it's how vaccines work and why people were getting annoyed at others not having measles jabs.
If they achieve herd immunity then that would prevent vulnerable people getting it because it's not circulating in the population.
Washing hands is still better though because that stops the virus being passed on. Herd immunity means someone has to have had the virus, it's own body has to then learn how to kill it and if it gets it again it kills it off before it can be passed on. That's not as good as not getting it in the first place but possibly better for the long term if it's with us for years and a vaccine takes a while.
I don't think it's a zero sum game at the moment and the UK experts do seem to have a differing school of thought to some others around the world.
SB
Challenge Stokie is whether we know enough about CV-19 to confirm this is a viable tactic?
We don't have enough bed space to cope with a regular winter due to years of underfunding. It won't take much for the NHS to reach breaking point. Stop using the pandemic to shut down legitimate criticism of the government.
This is the key thing. It's a bit late now to try and ramp up to a state where the NHS isn't constantly just at capacity.
So again the thing with closing schools is what do you do with all the children for the next few months?
Few options: 1) The Government pays all the parents for the time they need to look after their children. 2) People take out loans, and still stay with their children. 3) People go to work and hand off their children to people who are likely to be older and retried.
I believe also that quite a large amount of people with children work in the health service. They need to be at work, so option 1 and 2 there are off the table basically.
Children will act towards herd immunity. They do get the virus but nowhere near as badly.
Or you go with partial closures, so kids whose parents work in essential services can still go in. There are nuanced ways to try and deal with it, I think presenting it as all or nothing helps to justify the decision to more or less do nothing.
Challenge Stokie is whether we know enough about CV-19 to confirm this is a viable tactic?
Indeed. Herd immunity through exposure has not eradicated the common cold (also a Coronavirus). Tho it might mean that only the mildest strains have survived to become widespread.
Or you go with partial closures, so kids whose parents work in essential services can still go in. There are nuanced ways to try and deal with it, I think presenting it as all or nothing helps to justify the decision to more or less do nothing.
That's a fair point, but then if the point is to avoid spreading the virus via the children, at that point you'd be spreading the virus literally between all the care workers.
I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just that what they are suggesting is not insane. And neither of us will really know if it was the right choice for another few months at least.
So again the thing with closing schools is what do you do with all the children for the next few months?
Few options: 1) The Government pays all the parents for the time they need to look after their children. 2) People take out loans, and still stay with their children. 3) People go to work and hand off their children to people who are likely to be older and retried.
I believe also that quite a large amount of people with children work in the health service. They need to be at work, so option 1 and 2 there are off the table basically.
Children will act towards herd immunity. They do get the virus but nowhere near as badly.
Maybe 1......we could call it QE for people!
"They break our legs and tell us to be grateful when they offer us crutches."
I agree it seems that way as well - I expected all sports to be off, Cheltenham cancelled and I even thought they would be close to closing schools.
Just think we would be moaning if the government assigned experts came on TV and said they were being ignored. Not sure Boris or any other MP should be picking and choosing advice - they aren't intelligent enough.
SB
You're assuming that they'd let experts who are being ignored in front of a camera. Ultimately these decisions are political as much as anything else so I'm skeptical about this view it's a straightforward case of expert advice being followed.
But there are 60 million people in this country you would never have enough ICU capacity if 50% of the population required them irrelevant of which party had been in power for the last 20 years Yes you can argue there should be more, but how many more? Stop making political arguments out of a rare unique situation.
Oh please. I'm not making a political argument. I'm qualifying my praise for Johnson's statement.
Indeed. Herd immunity through exposure has not eradicated the common cold (also a Coronavirus). Tho it might mean that only the mildest strains have survived to become widespread.
The common cold can be a strain of coronavirus but I believe it's way more likely to be a rhinovirus.
We don't have enough bed space to cope with a regular winter due to years of underfunding. It won't take much for the NHS to reach breaking point. Stop using the pandemic to shut down legitimate criticism of the government.
The distinction being that we are, from what someone said a few days ago, about 20% down on capacity for a normal bad winter, whereas a situation like this will possibly require at least a quadrupling of the available number of beds. Even well-funded normal capacity would be nowhere near enough.
This will probably need conversion of ordinary wards into makeshift ICU ones, with concomitant priority balancing between C-19 and other severe cases.
The common cold can be a strain of coronavirus but I believe it's way more likely to be a rhinovirus.
Given there are reports of possible reinfection*, my point still stands.
* Tho there is also some evidence the supposed reinfections may be down to patients recording a "false negative" during a lull in the progress of their illness. In which case HI might work.
I actually studied / did some disease modelling at Uni 30 odd years ago. We went to Eyam and modelled the black plague, we even went round a graveyard to get the death rates each year.
Am guessing the principles are largely unchanged, albeit the computer power will be a bit more advanced than our simulations. Cant remember the statistical software we used, but I do remember we programmed using Fortran77.
Edit. Found it, this was what we used. Was pretty rubbish, or that may just have been our mainframes couldnt cope with all the data crunching. Twtd.
Given there are reports of possible reinfection*, my point still stands.
* Tho there is also some evidence the supposed reinfections may be down to patients recording a "false negative" during a lull in the progress of their illness. In which case HI might work.
Indeed, that could be down to testing not being 100% accurate.
Once your body has developed an immunity to a strain of a virus, as far as I'm aware, you cannot be reinfected with that same strain.
Now with the cold there can be dozens going around at one time, mutating year on year. So you could catch that same strain the next year if it has mutated far enough.
Most concerning thing for me right now is that they currently think this could be seasonal.
Indeed, that could be down to testing not being 100% accurate.
Once your body has developed an immunity to a strain of a virus, as far as I'm aware, you cannot be reinfected with that same strain.
Now with the cold there can be dozens going around at one time, mutating year on year. So you could catch that same strain the next year if it has mutated far enough.
Most concerning thing for me right now is that they currently think this could be seasonal.
And there are already known to be multiple strains in existence (between two and four minimum).
You're assuming that they'd let experts who are being ignored in front of a camera. Ultimately these decisions are political as much as anything else so I'm skeptical about this view it's a straightforward case of expert advice being followed.
Dissenting voices would be all over the media - they already are.
Think a lot of people have difficulty with the names given to the phases. Delay and contain, they work well with those who know but not with the general public.
We seem to be several weeks behind Italy but you would expect that as Italy were the first country in Europe to lose control of it, you would have expected Spain, France, Holland and Germany to , at this point, be in much the same position as we are but looking at the numbers we are further behind on the curve, So perhaps it has worked for us, We seemed to have kept a track on things longer.
We have now moved on more and more cases are going to arise where there is no traceable link to other cases.
Keeping people who may be infected containers in self imposed isolation has to be better in the long run. Probably in the majority of cases it will just be flu, or a common cold, but it is the best way forward.
Schools are going to close, not as a precaution, but because the number of staff in isolation makes closure necessary.
Getting on with containment rather than making grand gestures, although that will come.
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