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

alchemist33 wrote: »

I work in healthcare in the north. I could see the roads and streets getting emptier maybe a day or two after here. Even in our own service we were taking it more seriously than the central UK government seemed to. This was driven more by individuals than decision-making at the top. People were crying out for schools to be closed - and some schools took the decision themselves - while Arlene kept to the UK line.

I think exposure to southern media and people, especially in the border counties, led to NI being somewhere intermediate between the UK and Ireland in its reponse.

Half the population of the North look to Dublin for direction, watch RTE etc.
This led to many people taking action in line with the Republic.

GAA clubs cancelled matched and training when Leo said so, Churches cancelled weddings, funerals and masses in line with the Republic, some catholic schools decided to close before being instructed by the UK.

In General, being so close to Ireland the North moved in line with us more than with London.

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Stephen Powis was on sky news earlier saying the peak could be as much as 3 weeks away but they were still hopeful of keeping fatality figures below 20,000. How does he square that equation? Absolutely no idea.

This might help. You simply under-report Covid-19 deaths:

Care industry leaders and the Alzheimer’s Society say they believe the virus is now active in around half of care settings, which look after about 400,000 people in the UK. This is far higher than the estimate given by Prof Chris Whitty, the UK government’s chief medical officer, who said on Tuesday that just over 9% of care homes had cases of Covid-19.

And:

Jason Oke, a senior statistician at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences in Oxford, said the current figures were “obviously an underestimate of the severity of the pandemic”. “The worry is that we discover in six months that the numbers are way larger because no one was counting what was happening in care homes,” he said.

And:

The daily death toll published by the Department of Health and Social Care only relates to reported deaths in NHS England hospitals. This climbed to nearly 8,000 on Wednesday.

The ONS started publishing statistics for deaths in care homes in England and Wales this week, but the current figure – 20 deaths in the week to 27 March – are 12 days behind the daily hospital death rate and rely only on registered death certificates, which take an average of five days to process. That brings the time lag to around 17 days, and social care operators say this is too slow to grasp the scale of infection and fatalities.

theological wrote: »

At the risk of sounding like a broken record. These comparisons aren't meaningful as it doesn't take into account important factors like the first reported case in the UK being a month before the first reported case in Ireland.

So comparing it like comparing apples with oranges.

Goodness! Have you forgotten? I told you, I'm not going to respond to your posts.

theological wrote: »

At the risk of sounding like a broken record. These comparisons aren't meaningful as it doesn't take into account important factors like the first reported case in the UK being a month before the first reported case in Ireland.

So comparing it like comparing apples with oranges.

I agree that Ireland is at different stage. I think Ireland will reach a peak sooner than UK. It might make Ireland more vulnerable to the second outbreak but the first outbreak will be more severe in UK.

You blindly insist of taking into account different start date like that is the only criteria when it is absolutely clear that different measures lower the peak and turn the way disease spreads.

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

This might help. You simply under-report Covid-19 deaths:

Care industry leaders and the Alzheimer’s Society say they believe the virus is now active in around half of care settings, which look after about 400,000 people in the UK. This is far higher than the estimate given by Prof Chris Whitty, the UK government’s chief medical officer, who said on Tuesday that just over 9% of care homes had cases of Covid-19.

And:

Jason Oke, a senior statistician at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences in Oxford, said the current figures were “obviously an underestimate of the severity of the pandemic”. “The worry is that we discover in six months that the numbers are way larger because no one was counting what was happening in care homes,” he said.

And:

The daily death toll published by the Department of Health and Social Care only relates to reported deaths in NHS England hospitals. This climbed to nearly 8,000 on Wednesday.

The ONS started publishing statistics for deaths in care homes in England and Wales this week, but the current figure – 20 deaths in the week to 27 March – are 12 days behind the daily hospital death rate and rely only on registered death certificates, which take an average of five days to process. That brings the time lag to around 17 days, and social care operators say this is too slow to grasp the scale of infection and fatalities.

Yeah, of course. We know fatalities are under reported, it's just the scale of it that's at issue and that's very concerning. Vallance made an interesting point during yesterday's press conference when answering a question about the different methods of counting fatalities. He said the DHSC figures - the under reported ones - were the ones they found most useful and guided their policy by. I'd have thought it quite useful to know what the actual death/infection numbers might be, but they give distinct impression once they can keep it off the official count, it's almost as if we can assume it didnt happen. I think this will become a major story throughout the coming weeks when enough journalists and opposition mps get around to scrutinising it.

Edit: should just add even by official daily totals the 20,000 figure isnt credible. 3 weeks away from peak, they themselves say. How can it be?

theological wrote: »

I don't think comparisons generally are massively meaningful at this stage, but what I am insisting is that if we are going to do them we should do them properly. I.E taking account factors such as the point in the spread, and taking into account that countries are further ahead than others. There are of course other factors such as population density at play.

I think there will be a lot of useful things that we can learn afterwards, but it does get a bit tedious when certain posters are just interested in point scoring on the basis of inaccurate comparisons.

Your insistence on first date is completely illogical. That tells us nothing. The important factor is weather first cases were isolated and spread limited which it was. The importance is what happened and what measures were taken when the virus started spreading in community. The data is clear that countries who acted early have the best success at the moment, although they might need to be more careful later because larger share of population didn't catch the disease.

Risteard81 wrote: »

Also Masses in the Six Counties did NOT end at the same time as Masses in the Free State.

They did because Catholic Churches are governed on an all Ireland basis.
Some archdioceses straddle the border.

Risteard81 wrote: »

The Six Counties aren't "close to Ireland". They are an integral part of Ireland (in spite of illegal hard border controls which Leo has erected in spite of his promises last week and his lies during the Brexit negotiations).

That is just ridiculous comment. The controls are to limit the spread of disease like you will get them on the roads out of Dublin. Comments like that are just disingenuous nationalist bull****.

Risteard81 wrote: »

The Six Counties aren't "close to Ireland". They are an integral part of Ireland (in spite of illegal hard border controls which Leo has erected in spite of his promises last week and his lies during the Brexit negotiations).

Also Masses in the Six Counties did NOT end at the same time as Masses in the Free State.

Won't somebody please think of the children Nordies?

theological wrote: »

I'm not disagreeing with you entirely. The measures will have an impact obviously. I'm just not convinced that the minor differences in the measures are going to be all that substantial in the end.

Minor differences especially in timing of measures will have huge impact in how the first wave is spreading. That is simple maths. The importance is well explained by the situation in Bergamo and the effect match between Atalanta and Valencia had.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-champions-league-match-a-biological-bomb-that-infected-bergamo-experts-say-11963905

Basically similar could prove to be the case for Celthenham, CL and rugby matches in UK. Especially Celthenham and possibly Atletico Liverpool match could affect numbers in Ireland.

theological wrote: »

I disagree that the measures were radically different. I explained this in this post. A large portion of people were distancing from March 9th. Working from home was officially encouraged on March 16th before being made legally mandatory on March 23rd.

Dude. You have been saying the same thing for weeks, apparently oblivious to the implicit contradictions.

You keep telling us that your company had you work from home from 9th March as if you know that this was a good thing. Yet you were telling us this before 16th March at the same time as telling us that Boris was correct not to tell, or even just encourage, people to work from home.

You company was on the ball. Boris wasn't.

Risteard81 wrote: »

Leo is a liar. His unelected regime must go. He is an affront to this country. No respect for him. Utter charlatan.

Who did you vote for in the last election? Do you even bother to vote in the "Free State" elections?

theological wrote: »

I disagree that the measures were radically different. I explained this in this post. A large portion of people were distancing from March 9th. Working from home was officially encouraged on March 16th before being made legally mandatory on March 23rd.

You do realize that some cases of people working from home and some practicing social distancing early doesn't mean it was widespread or policy? Did you not see the story of police in Greater Manchester having to break up 600 parties since the start of the lockdown? Do you think they got to all of the parties held?