Reply With QuoteI think you had missed a huge amount! There are many threads here already that have followed this very closely.
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Hi everyone
Please go easy on me, I might simply be very stupid and have completely missed the obvious!
I've been wondering ever since this all blew up if I am simply not understanding the government plans, or is it that the plan is not actually anything like the one that we are being fed. Hopefully this thread will open up a little civil debate.
So my (uneducated) thought process is, that if we believe that one person flew into the country, for argument sake in December or January with the virus. That this person entering the country meant that within a couple of months we are in a nationwide lockdown, in order to get this apparently important 'R' figure down to 1. (Forget for the moment that the R1 figure only means that one person passes the virus to one other person, therefore that can only work if that one person is not seeing many people, ie we will all have to stay in lockdown indefinitely to keep that figure down to 1). If that is so, therefore if we come out of this lockdown at any point from now on, without everyone having received a vaccine, there will be millions of people in society carrying the virus, surely we will therefore need to go back into lockdown again, long before the sentence to come out of the first one has finished being announced? Even if the whole country has by some miracle cleared itself of the virus, two people might fly in with it this time!
Therefore if the above plan makes absolutely no sense. Is the actual plan, simply for everyone to get this virus, just as long as we do it slow enough not to overwhelm the NHS? If that is the case, we have to accept that it means everyone that is at risk of dying from the virus, will die, it's just a matter of when. Obviously the government could not/cannot come out and say this, as doing so would create far too much manic in society. Although if that is the plan, it's not going well if the Nightingale hospitals are empty or at best almost empty as is being reported. To make that plan work, we would want to get it through society as efficiently as possible, using the NHS capacity, which we are not doing, evident by the call this last weekend for people to please come into the hospital.
I'm maybe completely missing something?
I think you had missed a huge amount! There are many threads here already that have followed this very closely.
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Wait until you have enough posts to sample the delights of the bear pit and you'll find coronovirus threads galore there. Until then: "Unwind with a pint or two in our own virtual pub. Friendly banter and clean jokes please and no politics or religion"
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Last edited by Ruggertech; 29th April 2020 at 09:11.
Perhaps someone with a crystal ball will be along soon.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
surveillance on an unprecedented scale maybe!
I never thought the pop up hospitals were going to be used fully for the first wave, they’re still being built now and probably waiting for the second wave.
Essentially the policy is to spread out the infection rate over many months in order to allow the health service to cope.
So what you're saying is fundamentally correct: if only one person has the virus in, say September, then we will be in the same position we were back in January or whenever UK's patient zero arrived. But, by then, there will be a chance of some immunity developed and a vaccine. Antibody tests should be widely available by peak of summer.
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Interesting - Wasn't the avowed intent to have them in case the virus got out of hand, hence the London one being built initially for 500 beds, but capable of serving up to 4000 (I may be slightly off on the numbers, they're from memory)?Originally Posted by Franky Four Fingers
In this case, it was a good case of forward planning if we don't actually need them (or sensible, if we do).
If your theory is right, though, then they're looking at allowing the second wave to run its course, which may be the only practical thing to do if we want anything like an economy left next year.
One thing that bothers me about this is, presumably, these will be available 'widely' to people with symptoms, but it seems that there's a belief (not sure it's been proven, though) that asympomatic people can spread the virus, so it will only reduce the spread, at best, unless everyone is testing nearly all the time.
M
Last edited by snowman; 29th April 2020 at 11:22.
Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
A bit simply put but I don’t think you are too far off. The concern about coming out of the lockdown is very real.
One important bit you missed is that the disease is much more dangerous for the elderly and people with conditions like diabetes etc. So another part of the plan was/should have been to very actively protect them (which is a lot of people). For instance, 87% of the Covid deaths in w/e 17th April were people aged over 65, many with other existing health problems. Arguably we haven’t done that bit well.
As others have said, if you are interested it is worth catching up on all the debates and data.
Presumably if a vaccine is developed, these people will (like the flu vaccine) be getting it first.
Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
Lets assume we’re a month off a phased return to work and some form of normality ( whatever the time scale 1-2-3 months ) there’s unlikely to be a vaccine in that time and even if it were it’s unlikely to be available to the entire population, I can’t see how we can get back to normality without a second wave of some sorts.
If you were to take a dispassionate and cynical POV you might question the lack of support the care sector have seemingly received and whether it was a deliberate choice.
R
Last edited by ralphy; 29th April 2020 at 12:54. Reason: spelink
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
To my mind the nightingale hospitals will be utilised for the inevitable second wave and would make sense to keep covid patients in these locations to minimise the risk of cross infection in normal hospitals. Regular hospitals will be playing catch up with all the operations and outpatients appointments that are not currently happening, however this all hinges on staffing levels of course!!
It surprised me the other day that the families of those essential workers in the NHS who sadly died of COVID-19 will now receive a £60,000 payment.
Meanwhile essential workers in other fields who contracted COVID-19 and died helping the country to function through the lockdown will get nothing.
Surely this can’’t be right?
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Thank you for your valuable guidance. I have noticed that there are actually quite a few watch threads (insert many other subjects), yet people start threads looking at things from a different angle. Maybe we could condense it all down the one thread.... if you have a title suggestion I could start the thread for you
All strictly said with humour, no offence meant to you personally
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I don't think you're far off the mark (no-one is 100% on the mark after all as there are too many unknowns). The "development of immunity" is also an unknown at this point AFAIK.
Some may, perhaps this isn’t the right place to speculate. If there was a plan it hasn’t worked (neither has it in Sweden according to one of their senior scientists).
It's not right, some Unions are already calling on Govt to include other frontliners e.g. Bus drivers.
Much was said some weeks ago about 'shielding' those in care homes but tragically not much was done, but I'll say no more.
What suprises me is that there is no Death in Service Benefit (if in fact there isnt...). I thought most larger employers would have or offer that scheme???
V good point. I would also have assumed this would be included in all decent pension schemes.
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Polly ticks in the G&D???
______
Jim.
And none taken! It's been an informative thread too.Thank you for your valuable guidance. I have noticed that there are actually quite a few watch threads (insert many other subjects), yet people start threads looking at things from a different angle. Maybe we could condense it all down the one thread.... if you have a title suggestion I could start the thread for you
All strictly said with humour, no offence meant to you personally
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There is as part of the pension scheme, but not everyone is in the pension.
Cheers
Foggy
Good man
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Oh I think the VAST majority of NHS workers will be in the pension scheme.
I don’t doubt that, but I said not everyone. In the 25 years service I did, I knew a fair few who weren’t, particularly in the lower paid jobs - Healthcare Assistants etc.
Foggy
What happens if catching Covid 19 gives you limited immunity from catching it again? There doesn’t seem to be many facts around immunity coming out of China, Italy, Spain or France.
Levels of immunity could be key to what the future plans might be.
There don't seem to be many FACTs full stop.
That isn't a political issue, it's a scientific one, everyone is still playing catch up with this.
M
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Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
I know, but still not sure why 60k is being paid in addition to DIS for those that are in the scheme. Seems very unfair - particularly if you were the family of one of the several bus drivers to die for example
I don’t disagree.
Cheers
Foggy
I don’t think you are missing something. I’ve teased with the very same problem for the same length of time. It seems fairly clear that the strategy can’t be “wait for a vaccine”. Neither, in a humanitarian sense, can it be “let it rip and wait for herd immunity”.
We clearly had to do something but among the many measures available including closing the borders, compulsory 14 day isolation for any arrivals, extend ICU capability, strict stay at home policy, procure relevant equipment, ppe and ventilators etc, for reasons unknown yet only a subset of those were enacted with dubious diligence and potentially with sub-optimal timing. This isn’t just being wise after the event although there is a flavour of that, I accept. Neither is it government bashing for the sake of it, I can’t see a political party of any colour having much more success. It was, and still is, a very challenging situation.
We’re here because there was no other choice, granted. Now how do we get out of it? That’s the sixty four thousand dollar question. It’s about what happens, and when.
What, is that the economy starts up again in a measured way. Some people on here will not like it, but it is happening now. B&Q and Homebase spring to mind. A local craft shop was open today for the first time near me. Hopefully the physical distancing measures keep the infection rate low enough to cope with. Testing seems to be ramping up in capacity which should give us a clearer picture of the real situation.
The centre of London was dead on the 12th and 13th of March when I was there, over a week before lockdown. Lockdown was pre-empted in some quarters and I think the reopening of the economy will be too.
Between now and the autumn, life will approach a new normal. Schools will reopen before the summer with specific transition year groups starting back first. Many will have lost friends, colleagues and family, and quite a number will have lost their job or even their business. Come the autumn and we may well see a second wave. By then treatments will be better understood and available and if we don’t yet have a vaccine I don’t think it will be far away. I think large scale spectator sport and air travel will be hard hit.
Then again, I was sure there’d be a second referendum so what do I know!
I know nothing about the science but I think it would be logical to test samples of blood taken from people who have had the virus to see what sort or level of antibodies it has. Given China had cases from early 2020, there has been some time to do this.
The level of immunity must be important if herd immunity is ever to be considered. If there is a low level of immunity, then we would have to rely on social distancing until a vaccine is available.
Thankfully the scientists are massively more intelligent than me, so they will crack it eventually, hopefully.
There is a random testing program which so far has tested over 8,000 people for the virus and antibodies but still
don't think the antibody test is reliable, believe the aim is to test 20,000 to give an overview for the whole country but it may only give an idea of how many asymptomatic cases there are if they can’t get a reliable antibody test.
from today........https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...er-severe.html
R is still in the 0.6 to 0.9 region. Our current lockdown is not stopping the spread, just very gradually lowering the number of new daily infections.
The lockdown will be lifted gradually, to keep R below 1. Relax the restrictions a little, wait a week to ten days see the effect on hospital admissions and adjust the restrictions. They could do that now.
But if they did it now, and aimed to keep R at or just below 1, we'd continue to lose 700 ish people per day.
And so they have to wait until the number dying per day reaches an 'acceptable' number. Then they relax the restrictions and keep R as close as they can to one. People keep dying, the economy restarts.
What number of deaths can be considered acceptable and how do you balance that against the damage to the economy? It's a lose lose decision, bloody glad I don't have to make it.
It's not about keeping this going until we get to herd immunity. We have to contain the disease well below that rate of infection for three reasons.
Firstly, do the maths, 80% need to catch and recover from the disease for herd immunity to stop it, but 3% of those who catch it will die. 67 million * 0.8 *0.03 = a hell of a lot.
Secondly, no one is sure that you do get immunity, or how long that immunity lasts.
And thirdly, given that many people the virus will mutate, potentially making your immunity or any drugs ineffective.
What really worries me is Africa & the third world in general. I can't believe that they have the infrastructure to lock down like we in the west are able to. And that's a hell of a lot of people for the virus to kill and mutate it's way through.
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