The UK response to Covid-19 [MOD WARNING 1ST POST]

Joe_ Public

theological wrote: »

I think it will probably be that the restrictions will be eased at end of May (not removed entirely) precisely because the testing hasn't been scaled up yet. It is hard to conclude anything until the death numbers start to plateau and then come down.

He is right to say that there are lesser harms involved in being locked down long term, but it is the lesser of two evils right now. It does need to be solved and I think everyone is going to be watching the government closely to make sure that they stick to their word on what was said a few days ago.

It is going to be interesting to see what happens in the next few weeks on many counts.

Thats sensible. End of may is 7 weeks so thats a good time to review things and maybe a gradual loosening will be possible. I will be delightedly astonished if they manage to get on top of testing. There are those who say 100,000 isnt enough but they will do a great job just to get to that. Why aren't they shutting construction sites, though? Thats inexplicable to me. I wonder how many people on the tube are workers going to sites.

Joe_ Public

devnull wrote: »

They did 11k tests, but the number of people tested was under 7k.

Lately they've been quoting test numbers as well as number of people tested.

I bet the target is based on test numbers rather than people, which would partly explain how they can go from 25k target to 100k target if most people are getting tested more than once per day.

Thanks for clarification. Number of actual people tested would be key figure, I'd have thought. Though there is the possibility of false negatives, i guess.

A Dub in Glasgo

Here is the full text of the Times article. Worldometers has helpfully put an extra column in their tables showing tests per million of the population and the UK is sitting fairly low at 2,698 tests per million

Britain has “painted itself into a corner” with no clear exit strategy from the coronavirus epidemic and needs to reconsider herd immunity, according to a senior government adviser.

A prolonged lockdown risks causing more suffering than the virus itself, Graham Medley, the government’s chief pandemic modeller, has warned. He said that the country needed to face the trade-off between harming the young versus the old.

Professor Medley, a member of the key scientific body that is guiding the government’s response, told The Times that Britain must consider allowing people to catch the virus in the least deadly way possible rather than letting unemployment, domestic violence and mental ill health mount indefinitely.

His modelling showed that letting people return to work or reopening schools would allow the pandemic to take off again and no way had been found of easing the lockdown while controlling the virus. Only those working outside might be safe to go back to their jobs, he found.

An antibody test, which the government is hoping will prove a “game-changer”, could help but was not working and such a method had never previously been used to manage an epidemic, he said.

His warning came after 684 more people were confirmed yesterday to have died from the virus in Britain’s biggest daily rise, taking the total to 3,605.

In other developments:

• The Queen will address the nation tomorrow, only the fifth time that she has done so outside her Christmas broadcast.

• Britain’s service industry is collapsing at a “harrowing” pace, according to data pointing to a recession steeper than that of the 1930s.

• Premier League clubs are to ask players to take a 30 per cent pay cut to protect jobs at football clubs.

• The deputy chief medical officer said there was no evidence that the public wearing facemasks would slow the spread of the virus.

• Two nurses in their 30s died of coronavirus in the 24 hours up to last night.

• The Falklands Islands government has confirmed the territory’s first case of the coronavirus.

• The two cruise liners, the Zandaam and its sister ship the Rotterdam, embroiled in a bitter feud over coronavirus cases on board have let passengers disembark in Florida and the government is preparing to fly home the 200 Britons who were aboard.

Boris Johnson, who will continue to self-isolate with coronavirus symptoms including a temperature, used a video message to urge people to stick to the lockdown and not abandon social-distancing rules during what is expected to be a sunny weekend.

“Particularly if you’ve got kids in the household, everybody may be getting a bit stir-crazy, and there may be just a temptation to get out there, hang out and start to break the regulations. I just urge you not to do that,” the prime minister said, adding:

“Please, please stick with the guidance now.”

Professor Medley, professor of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage). He is chairman of SPI-M, the Sage committee overseeing mathematical models.

“This disease is so nasty that we had to suppress it completely,” he said. “Then we’ve kind of painted ourselves into a corner, because then the question will be what do we do now? We will have done three weeks of this lockdown so there’s a big decision coming up on April 13. In broad terms are we going to continue to harm children to protect vulnerable people, or not?”

It is understood that work is under way to quantify health harms caused by lockdown, although this has not yet reached ministers. They have said this trade-off has not featured in government decision-making and Downing Street is giving all its attention to social distancing and building NHS capacity.

While declining to comment on Sage discussions, Professor Medley said: “It’s certainly been a concern from the outset and something that is increasingly being considered.”

Nearly a million people have applied for benefits in the past two weeks and millions more have been furloughed.

Professor Medley said: “The measures to control [the disease] cause harm. The principal one is economic, and I don’t mean to the economy generally, I mean to the incomes of people who rely on a continuous stream of money and their children, particularly the school closure aspect . . . There will also be actual harms in terms of mental health, in terms of domestic violence and child abuse, and in terms of food poverty.”

He added: “If we carry on with lockdown it buys us more time, we can get more thought put into it, but it doesn’t resolve anything — it’s a placeholder.”

The introduction of the lockdown on March 23 is on course to avoid a catastrophic peak, but the virus will start spreading again once it is eased, it is believed. In the absence of a vaccine, viruses only stop spreading when enough people have been infected that they can no longer pass from person to person, a concept known as herd immunity.

Although never a government goal, this was tacitly accepted as inevitable by an initial strategy designed to manage a peak in the summer, when the NHS would be better able to cope. Headlines suggesting that ministers wanted 60 per cent of people to get the disease to protect the economy led to the idea being sidelined. Latest estimates suggest that almost 70 per cent of the population need to contract the virus to ensure herd immunity.

It comes as up to 4,000 prisoners in England and Wales are to be temporarily released from jail in an effort to try and control the spread of the virus.

The Ministry of Justice said the selected low-risk offenders will be electronically tagged and temporarily released on licence in stages, although they can be recalled at the first sign of concern.

It is seen as a way to avoid thousands of prisoners, many of whom share cells, from becoming infected.

So far 88 prisoners and 15 staff have tested positive for Covid-19.

The legislation for these measures to take place is set to be laid on Monday.

Meanwhile a member of the armed forces has become the first confirmed coronavirus case on the Falkland Islands.

Brigadier Nick Sawyer, Commander of British Forces South Atlantic Islands, said the patient, who has not been named, is in a stable condition in the remote archipelago’s hospital.

They became unwell at Mount Pleasant Complex, a Royal Air Force base on the British territory.

Brigadier Sawyer said: “The individual followed all the correct processes and self-isolated when they started to show symptoms. They were closely monitored and after a deterioration in their condition the individual was transferred to KMH (King Edward VII Memorial Hospital).

“Mount Pleasant Complex and Ascension Island continue to implement the same strict isolation and social distancing measures as the UK and these are also aligned with the Falkland Islands Government direction.

“This is a timely reminder that we must all continue to be self-disciplined with our personal health procedures and observe social distancing.”

The Falkland Islands Government said in a statement that the patient is not on a ventilator.

Donald Trump

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Thats sensible. End of may is 7 weeks so thats a good time to review things and maybe a gradual loosening will be possible. I will be delightedly astonished if they manage to get on top of testing. There are those who say 100,000 isnt enough but they will do a great job just to get to that. Why aren't they shutting construction sites, though? Thats inexplicable to me. I wonder how many people on the tube are workers going to sites.

Testing is good to allow them to contain the spread. That's only useful in conjunction with restrictions. It cannot be a substitute for restrictions.

Being able to do even a million tests a day wouldn't solve the underlying issue for the UK. Because I can test negative this week and not feel the best next week and then I have to go back again.
A millions tests a day might be ok in Ireland as we could test everyone once a week, but is that actually realistic?

Granted, in theory if they can test for people with antibodies, then those who have them could maybe go back to work. What are you going to be stuck with then? Half the people stuck at home on the dole while some of their buddies are back at work. It will drive some people to roll the dice and get an infection, as a form of DIY vaccine, thereby keeping it spreading.

Of course, doctors and nurses etc should be given regular testing.

Harry Palmr

Scotland + 46 (5.5m)
Wales + 13 (3m)
England + 637 (56m)
Northern Ireland + 8 (2m)

threeball

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Scotland + 46 (5.5m)
Wales + 13 (3m)
England + 637 (56m)
Northern Ireland + 8 (2m)

Deaths outside hospital are not being recorded according to the latest press conference

Joe_ Public

Donald Trump wrote: »

Testing is good to allow them to contain the spread. That's only useful in conjunction with restrictions. It cannot be a substitute for restrictions.

Being able to do even a million tests a day wouldn't solve the underlying issue for the UK. Because I can test negative this week and not feel the best next week and then I have to go back again.
A millions tests a day might be ok in Ireland as we could test everyone once a week, but is that actually realistic?

Granted, in theory if they can test for people with antibodies, then those who have them could maybe go back to work. What are you going to be stuck with then? Half the people stuck at home on the dole while some of their buddies are back at work. It will drive some people to roll the dice and get an infection, as a form of DIY vaccine, thereby keeping it spreading.

Of course, doctors and nurses etc should be given regular testing.

Mass testing needed to really begin once the suppression stage started. Thats the example set by south korea above all, where they didnt even implement a full lockdown. That's the uk's problem, and even ours too to a lesser extent.

The antigen test will only start to be useful once they're coming off the peak. The swab testing needs to be the focus now.

fly_agaric

theological wrote: »

It simply buys time for other solutions to be thought through on.

It's a bit more than just "thinking through"...I think most countries just don't have the capabilities at present to control/combat this virus & also allow a (somewhat) normal life to go on while doing so. UK realised that eventually, and then abandoned their initial strategy.

Don't have a big enough health service (or wider public sector in general) to call on to meet the challenge (been told to do more with less everywhere in the Wealthy West for years if not decades now).
Don't have sufficient industrial capacity to manufacture the needed equipment (testing, healthcare related).

So they have to "lockdown" (hate that word) to try and avoid destruction of their health services under the pressure, massive amounts of excess deaths + potential resultant societal chaos (not to mention ruin of the economy anyway).

I mean even the amoral CCP decided to shut down large sectors of the Chinese economy and they are IMO no strangers to putting the needs of the economy over the health & lives of citizens.

RobMc59

threeball wrote: »

Deaths outside hospital are not being recorded according to the latest press conference

According to this article thats the situation everywhere.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-europe-52147861

Harry Palmr

threeball wrote: »

Deaths outside hospital are not being recorded according to the latest press conference

Oh I know, the final tally of dead will only be known much later (and even then open to question)

from guardian blog

Stephen Powis said it is clear deaths happen in the community.

The figures reported by the NHS are those in hospitals, the ONS figures reflect those in the community.

He expects deaths will be higher but it will only be in the days and weeks ahead that as that data comes through the ONS it will become clear how much higher

Bushmaster64

Does anyone know during influenza season if deaths from influenza outside of the hospital are counted? I have a feeling they're not.

Donald Trump

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Mass testing needed to really begin once the suppression stage started. Thats the example set by south korea above all, where they didnt even implement a full lockdown. That's the uk's problem, and even ours too to a lesser extent.

The antigen test will only start to be useful once they're coming off the peak. The swab testing needs to be the focus now.

My point is that even with a 100k a day testing capability, they won't really be able to lift restrictions. They need the 100k a day plus all the restrictions

Joe_ Public

Donald Trump wrote: »

My point is that even with a 100k a day testing capability, they won't really be able to lift restrictions. They need the 100k a day plus all the restrictions

Yeah sure, i wasnt disagreeing. People hate comparisons here, but i was struck about the germans chief medical officers who are telling the government that 70k daily testing isnt enough, they need to get it to 200k urgently and they think the have the capacity to do it. I mean, that's the standard. 70k tests and they're not clapping themselves on the back for it.

RobMc59

RobMc59 wrote: »

According to this article thats the situation everywhere.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-europe-52147861

Not Italy, I thought (part of why their figure was so high)

Christy42

Deleted User wrote: »

Not Italy, I thought (part of why their figure was so high)

France as well but they only recently put those numbers jn and are catching up on the backlog of them.

Even then that sort of thing is probably much harder to track. What do you do with someone who was probably Corona vurus positive but tests are needed for others?

badabing106

British public approval of the British Government is sky rocketing since the corona virus. Biggest approval rating in 10 years

Professor Moriarty

RobMc59 wrote: »

According to this article thats the situation everywhere.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-europe-52147861

In Ireland, deaths in nursing homes are included in official Covid-19 mortality figures.

A Dub in Glasgo

badabing106 wrote: »

British public approval of the British Government is sky rocketing since the corona virus. Biggest approval rating in 10 years

This is the crisis bounce and almost every ruling party or government gets a bounce during a crisis.

From yougov

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/04/02/first-time-nearly-decade-britain-approves-its-gove

An increase in popularity for governing parties during times of crisis is nothing new. We have seen it happen on numerous previous occasions, for example we also recorded a bounce for Gordon Brown in the early days of the financial crash.

There are two theories as to what causes this phenomenon, sometimes called the “rally round the flag effect”. Firstly, in times of crisis the public believe that national unity is important, and the government and its leaders are the embodiment of that. Secondly, opposition parties and the media feel the need to stand by the government in hard times; therefore, they tend to see less criticism.

However, these rallies don’t always last in the long run. The bounce for Brown at the start of the financial crisis had evaporated within a year, as the praise he got for his tough decisions turned to criticism of overspending.

We are potentially already starting to see that happen, with tougher questions being asked about why the government is not doing more to increase coronavirus testing capacity. Our latest polling shows that two thirds (67%) think the government has handled this badly, compared to just a quarter (25%) who think they have handled it well.

So how things will look coming out of this crisis are yet to be seen. But for now at least, the British public are rallying behind their government.

Joe_ Public

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

This is the crisis bounce and almost every ruling party or government gets a bounce during a crisis.

From yougov

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/04/02/first-time-nearly-decade-britain-approves-its-gove

Trump was getting it too i think, up to 49% approval at one point but last i checked, the flag effect was already wearing off. I think people give their approval, not on any evidence based front, but simply because the idea the government might not actually be in control is just too much to confront.

RobMc59

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

In Ireland, deaths in nursing homes are included in official Covid-19 mortality figures.

Ireland,along with Germany have set the bar as examples of how to deal with the virus.

Professor Moriarty

RobMc59 wrote: »

Ireland,along with Germany have set the bar as examples of how to deal with the virus.

So far. There's a lot of dopes in Ireland who will flout the containment measures given half a chance. From what I read, South Korea is the poster boy for dealing with the virus. But then again, places like South Korea and Japan have a different and more collaborative mindset.

devnull

Worrying times for the Midlands, look at that one day spike.

Icepick

^^ need to correlate it with testing because that is the only reliable measure at this stage

Melanchthon

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

In Ireland, deaths in nursing homes are included in official Covid-19 mortality figures.

I thought the UK was lumping the non-hospital deaths into a weekly figure not ignoring them completely.
Germany hasn't officially stated their post-mortem testing policy so might be under reporting deaths.

devnull

Melanchthon wrote: »

I thought the UK was lumping the non-hospital deaths into a weekly figure not ignoring them completely.
Germany hasn't officially stated their post-mortem testing policy so might be under reporting deaths.

The UK official figures released by the Department of Health and Social Care are not including any deaths that have not taken place inside hospitals - this is clear in the tweets like below.

As of 5pm on 3 April, of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 4,313 have sadly died.

threeball

devnull wrote: »

The UK official figures released by the Department of Health and Social Care are not including any deaths that have not taken place inside hospitals - this is clear in the tweets like below.

As of 5pm on 3 April, of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 4,313 have sadly died.

You could probably add another 1000 to that figure. Saw one report where 6 died in one nursing home in one day.

robinph

devnull wrote: »

Worrying times for the Midlands, look at that one day spike.

Somebody misplaced a decimal point for the day before by the looks of it.

Melanchthon

devnull wrote: »

The UK official figures released by the Department of Health and Social Care are not including any deaths that have not taken place inside hospitals - this is clear in the tweets like below.

As of 5pm on 3 April, of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 4,313 have sadly died.

They aren't trying to hide it, it's as I said.

In addition to our data, the Office for National Statistics are now publishing weekly counts of deaths in which COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate. This publication is to be issued every Tuesday, starting on 31st March. It will include cases outside hospital and will also include some cases where COVID-19 is suspected, but no formal diagnostic test has taken place

https://www.england.nhs.uk/2020/04/total-number-of-covid-19-deaths-in-england-by-date-of-death/

CrabRevolution

An interesting look at the situation from Private Eye. They present both the conventional "Drastic measures are needed and justified" and Devil's advocate "The cure carries terrible consequences" angles.

One line that really stands out though is:

The big flaw in the herd immunity plan came from the ridiculous idea that 60-70 percent of the UK population are fit and healthy. Many young and middle-aged people have a full house of chronic disease. They were never going to get Covid-19 “mildly” and would die with octogenarians in an overwhelmed NHS, alongside exhausted frontline staff.

https://www.private-eye.co.uk/news

(I've a feeling this URL will soon be obsolete as it's very generic and has no specific reference to the article itself. For future reference it's the article titled "Do or die... Issue 1519")

Joe_ Public

One very obvious flaw in the herd immunity notion is the casual assumption that you were only putting a certain cohort - the unfortunate pensioners - at risk. When we know that younger people are dying too, a 13 year old in the uk, an eight year old elsewhere. They dont acknowledge that when they advance it as a strategy.

There was a good piece done on this i read somewhere. Cummings was writing about herd immunity back in 2013. One of his biggest influences was a guy called Richard A Epstein who is close to trump. Back in February, Epstein was advising Trump that the way to deal with the virus was do nothing, let auto immunity take care of things and a mere 500 Americans would die.

These are very dangerous people.