[COVID-19] General Discussion

[Kiwiwomble]

[
Hmmm odd she was on LBC and Radio5 just over 2 weeks ago before the government announced their plans....probably said nothing exciting or headline grabbing.

I think you'll find most people who are actually specialists don't have the time currently most are working almost flat out. Last week they were told to drop everything additional they had on thier plate (and they'd already been on this for over 6 weeks at that point as their main body of work). I'm not sure they have time to write a snottygram to the government.

That might be the case in the Uk where it is being left to spread, elsewere, where they are trying to limit the spread the specialists (as i noted above, immunisation specialists and infectious disease specialists) seem to be out and about trying to teach good habits and stop false news,

i imagine anyone in the health field will be very busy in places where the health system is going to be stretched. Thats not the case in Victoria and NZ at least where travel bans/limitations were implemented before it became socially communicable

You know her and trust her, fair play, but to the rest of us she is just the friend of someone on a rugby forum, yes i checked that link and she seems qualified...but no more than the others that have been mentioned, and so when given the choice between taking your word she is active and your word on what her stance is and taking the advice of those whom seem equally qualified but have actually been out there trying and succeeding in getting a message across, i'll pick the latter

to each their own

 

[ncurd]

Ask yourself, what did the countries that have experience with SARS and MERS do?

(and when was the last time Chris Whitty or Patrick Vallance dealt with an epidemic)

SARS had 8,098 cases total. MERS under 2000 (according to Wikipedia)

COVID-19 is currently standing at over 181,000. Ask yourself are we dealing with MERS or SARS?

 

[Amiga500]

SARS had 8,098 cases total. MERS under 2000 (according to Wikipedia)

COVID-19 is currently standing at over 181,000. Ask yourself are we dealing with MERS or SARS?

You dodge the question.

What did those infected countries do?

 

[ncurd]

You dodge the question.

What did those infected countries do?

Man you got me there! ******* hell something has 20x the amounts of people infected and you think the answer is simply do what you did before. Engage the brain a little. It might be the correct approach but let's not pretend this is same thing and direct comparisons can be drawn.

 

[Amiga500]

Man you got me there! ******* hell something has 20x the amounts of people infected and you think the answer is simply do what you did before. Engage the brain a little. It might be the correct approach but let's not pretend this is same thing and direct comparisons can be drawn.

Yes they can be drawn. Do you honestly think that the response of the likes of China (after central government found out about it) or Singapore was not shaped by SARS? Or South Korea's actions now not shaped by MERS?

You need to engage your brain a bit rather than take everything your told as beyond reproach.



In other news:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-51903319

22:14
Dire prediction sees shift in UK strategy

The UK's plan has shifted because the scientific modelling showed we were on course for a "catastrophic epidemic".

A strategy of just slowing the spread of the virus, but not trying to stop it, would have overwhelmed intensive care units.

The modelling by Imperial College London has been heavily informed by the experience in Italy and is influencing decisions at the heart of government.

Their calculations predicted 260,000 deaths in the UK.

No fukkin ****. Less than 5 minutes with excel should have "modelled" that for them 4 weeks ago. Who on earth are they employing as "modellers"?

 

[ncurd]

snip

That's cool I was merely pointing out they might not be considered experts and to take that into consideration. We then went down a massive rabbit hole.

I'm just trying to make sure people are dealing in well judged opinion and assessing it properly. Like I continually say I'm not convinced by the UK government approach (actually I'm not convinced by any government) in meeting their stated aims. But I do think there are people who are more concerned with sticking it in Johnson (grade A twat) than fairly assessing it.

 

[ncurd]

In other news:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-51903319




No fukkin ****. Less than 5 minutes with excel should have "modelled" that for them 4 weeks ago. Who on earth are they employing as "modellers"?

Media bullshit I'm afriad too busy to a headline and not actually read the data.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

Table 4 is where the magic is and a little more complex than the news article. For instance nowhere does it state 230,000 deaths, it actually states 410,000 to 550,000 over a two year period but that's on a do nothing approach, the 230,000 figure is max ICU beds required at capacity (bloke clearly can't read). Which we actually know the government had no intention of doing it's always been their stated aim to introduce more measure over time. We are currently on the second to leftmost column and like to move onto the third in coming week.

Interestingly school/university closure appears to have a massive impact but home quarentine barely has any.

 

[Reiser99]

My biggest issue is the complete lack of testing by the U.K. Britain is relying heavily on models and data, yet actually isn't doing the one thing to give them an accurate picture of how the virus is spreading. There is only so much you can do just testing people in hospitals or outbreaks at care/residential homes. The published numbers of newly people infected are increasing and that is only those who end up in hospital really. The government has said publicly that it estimates the real number to be between 5000-10,000 yet in reality they don't know. However they are estimating that it could start to double every 2-3 days. Over roughly a week that difference becomes 40,000-80,000 and so on. It's a big difference when you start doubling and the numbers get very high. They are apparently using a lot of data from Italy, yet they also admit that we are closer to Italy than expected by about a week. For me it's this lack of certainty and clarity which leads me not to trust them completely. They should be open and more honest about this data because we can't avoid what's coming, but trust in your leaders in absolutely important and I'm still worried they are spending too much time on spin to make themselves look good in the public than just getting on with the job.

 

[ncurd]

The only genuine screw up appears to amount of cases that require hospitalisation as Italy showed it was higher. The question then is when was original advice drawn up and did Italy have statistically relevent data back then. Hynesight and all that.

 

[ncurd]

My biggest issue is the complete lack of testing by the U.K.

This I can quote on or at least an endorsed retweet. It's a resources thing essentially we don't actually the capability to do that much testing.

https://twitter.com/invadingpirate/status/1239612734100168708?s=19

 

[ncurd]

For me it's this lack of certainty and clarity which leads me not to trust them completely. They should be open and more honest about this data because we can't avoid what's coming, but trust in your leaders in absolutely important

This I agree with entirely, we are being asked to trust a government that has completely broken it. You'll notice this is what most opposition politicians are saying, they actually the government on policy just they want them to be more open with the data being shared with them. Oh yeah and more gatuntees for protections to those whose incomes can't support the restrictions coming in.


But that lack of trust is why everyone jumped down on the Imperial College report before looking at the figures properly.

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

WHO says test test test, but several countries are doing the opposite. It is virtually impossible to get tested in many EU states unless you demonstrate you are symptomatic AND high risk (pregnant, over 65 yo, pre-existing respiratory problems, etc.)

The dutch pm just went on public tv (kindly note no PM in the NL had done this since the 70s) and basically said "toughen up boys and girls, this might take a while. Oh, and btw, most of you will get the virus. Chau".

 

[Bada-Bing!]

Moment the virus was unleashed.

 

[Reiser99]

This I can quote on or at least an endorsed retweet. It's a resources thing essentially we don't actually the capability to do that much testing.

https://twitter.com/invadingpirate/status/1239612734100168708?s=19

I can understand that to an extent, but when South Korea can test close to 20,000 a day and we've barely done around 40,000-50,000 in total then surely you have to ask why? Yes we might not get to 20,000 a day levels, but not being able to test even half those levels a day suggests a lack of preparation.

 

[ncurd]

I can understand that to an extent, but when South Korea can test close to 20,000 a day and we've barely done around 40,000-50,000 in total then surely you have to ask why? Yes we might not get to 20,000 a day levels, but not being able to test even half those levels a day suggests a lack of preparation.

China are barely managing tests per capita @50% compare to South Korea (https://twitter.com/Public_Citizen/status/1238503313823404032), in the grand scheme of things we are actually doing quite well, compared to other nations.

Anyway from my understanding its not a lack of preparation as such, people have working on something like this coming for years. But you can't just magic up the resources if you don't have them. There will need to be a comprehensive review to why we didn't, I think the answer lies is the the question 'why can't this country cope with snow when we get it'. The answer is this extremely rarely happens in the UK you have to go back to Asian/Hong Kong flu's for a real outbreak of this scale in transmission (which I can't find figures of for the UK) and reality is as the Imperial College report says its likely to be on scale we've not seen since the Spanish Flu (thankfully nowhere near as deadly).

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Guardian on the impact on Australian rugby.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2...in-as-financial-impact-of-coronavirus-is-felt

 

[McTallshort]

What is the point in testing now? If you have the symptoms stay at home. If if becomes life threatening get to hospital.

I really don't understand why we should use up precious healthcare resources testing for something we cannot stop.

 

[Yoshimitsu]

So plan A of "herd immunity" via "mitigation" has been abandoned on what day 3 since it was floated and now we're back to "suppress" which is what the WHO said should have been happening? However, the opportunity to "suppress" has been fundamentally undermined by the delay in introducing measures to do just that?

Whilst some of the elements of mitigate and suppress are common they are fundamentally different as are their effects (as the report makes clear). Mitigate is predicated on the capability of the health service to deal with the load placed upon in in such circumstances. Suppress appears to be reliant on a vaccine being developed and is an even longer haul....

The report says this

"Perhaps our most significant conclusion is that mitigation is unlikely to be feasible without emergency surge capacity limits of the UK and US healthcare systems being exceeded many times over. In the most effective mitigation strategy examined, which leads to a single, relatively short epidemic (case isolation, household quarantine and social distancing of the elderly), the surge limits for both general ward and ICU beds would be exceeded by at least 8-fold under the more optimistic scenario for critical care requirements that we examined. In addition, even if all patients were able to be treated, we predict there would still be in the order of 250,000 deaths in GB, and 1.1-1.2 million in the US."

Now 20/20 hindsight is wonderfully easy and I don't doubt for a second that people making decisions are trying desperately hard to make the "right" ones. But remember when people find themselves in positions of power they become accountable.

Anyway, I'm out from here and I wish you all the best. At this point your trust in authority or otherwise will be largely irrelevant to the outcome. This is an unprecedented threat (in modern times). We have built a global world with little redundant capability, lots of single points of failure and supply chains that are vulnerable to this kind of shock. We must now play the cards we are dealt.

Good luck all. For all the young and fit here, remember those that are not. Even small acts of community support might make a difference.

 

[Reiser99]

What is the point in testing now? If you have the symptoms stay at home. If if becomes life threatening get to hospital.

I really don't understand why we should use up precious healthcare resources testing for something we cannot stop.

Because the government is making decisions based on modelling to do with the spread of the virus. The problem is they don't actually know how far it has spread and are estimating based on numbers in hospital. For me if your decision relies heavily on modelling and data you need the most up to date accurate data possible and they don't have it. This is why they have sped up the plans and why we are closer to Italy by a week than they thought previously.

 

[Gavin]

Claims that Boris Johnson joked during a call to manufactures of ventilators that the production of them should be called 'Operation Last Gasp'