LondonBristolian

It would. I discussed this earlier up the thread but stats suggest the fatality rate for people with no underlying conditions is 0.9 out of every 100 cases (which is about 9 times more deaths than flu causes for all patients). This will include some people over 70, although a large number of people over 70 do have an underlying condition. I'd guess it could therefore be only 0.5 (so five times more deaths than flu causes for all patients) but that still would mean 1 out of every 200 cases for fit and healthy people ended in death. I can only find statistics for comparison in America but flu - which is thought to be less transmissable than Coronavirus - affects between 9.3 million and 45 million people in the US each year according to the CDC. If we assumed two thirds of those people were fit healthy and the 1 in 200 death rate was accurate, that would mean the same level of infection from coronavirus would cause 31, 000 to 150, 000 deaths in America amongst fit and healthy patients. Clearly this does not include hospitalisations. Stats are hard to find but 40% of US hospital admissions for coronavirus have been between 20 and 55. There is no data on whether they had underlying health conditions. Anecdotally, these seem to be plenty of doctors in Italy saying that there are a number of serious cases involving young people with no underlying health conditions but there is no data available on what that number is. Something like 20% of coronavirus cases in total require hospitalisation but again we don't know how many of these were under 70 and had no underlying conditions. There was one study reported this week which did put the fatality rate for people with no underlying conditions in Italy much lower - 0.05% - but this is not so far consistent with data across the rest of the world and is yet to be peer-reviewed so we do not know how sound the methodology is. It is also very unclear whether that includes people who did not know they had an underlying health condition before contracting the virus. The reality is that at least three of the underlying conditions that present a risk - heart conditions, high blood pressure and diabetes - are conditions where people with them can go a considerable amount of time before knowing there is a problem and seeking diagnosis. I definitely agree a lot more information is needed but I think it is a massive risk for anyone to assume the virus will not affected them badly because they are young and not in a vulnerable group because, whilst the majority of young and non-vulnerable people are having minimal symptoms, there is enough evidence to suggest a large minority are experiencing more serious effects. Incidentally there is another warning from a less serious case here, who still got hit a lot harder than he expected: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/mar/20/dont-take-it-lightly-charlie-austin-says-he-has-acute-coronavirus-symptoms On a final note, I had a Skype chat with a friend of mine who is self-isolating a couple of days ago. He would be considered a minor case but he was coughing so much that he was in agony, repeating things he'd told me two minutes earlier and, even as a minor case, not in a good shape.

Another warning for anyone who thinks this is only affecting elderly and vulnerable people and that, if that does not apply to you, you'll be fine. This woman is in her 30s, a regular gym goer and has no underlying health conditions:

The honest answer is that we will find out over the coming weeks and months whether anyone would do better. Other countries such as Germany and the Czech Republic put in social isolation and distancing measures before we did and ordered shutdowns of businesses and schools and for people to stay at a home at a time our government was arguing it was not necessary. Indeed our government and their advisors tacitly admitted on Monday they had been working to the wrong science and making the wrong assumptions about the virus. Even now, our measures are somewhat softer than France or Spain. I absolutely agree that we are in uncharted territory and I certainly do not envy the choices the government has had to make but there was a two week period where we were largely ignoring World Health Organisation advice and instead working from our own models, which we have now ditched, and even now we are not testing people - including frontline staff - even though the WHO believe this is essential in getting the virus under control. Of course nobody has known quite what to do but there is a real possibility we will find out over the coming weeks that not isolating sooner and not tracking cases will mean our fatality rate is higher than other comparable countries. If that does happen then of course the government’s decision making has to be questioned.

I apologise. I had not realised there was still nothing being offered to self employed people. That is appalling and needs sorting out.

A meaningless insult used by sex-starved teenage boys and sexually insecure grown men on the internet. It means nothing at all other than that the person using it is a bit desperate and lonely and wants to fit in with the gang.

Exactly. The only real option at this point.

I agree but I'm still glad they've got here now rather than delaying for longer and risking more lives. Giving credit where it is due for acting now in no means changes the fact I wish they had acted sooner.

To be fair, most of us who don't like him didn't expect society to reach a point where, within three months, he had no choice but to introduce the most socialist policies of any government in living memory. I'm not a fan but today him and Rishi Sunak have done what they need to do. Fair to play to them.

Yeah - this actually seems to be some leadership at last...

As I understand it, that report which you quote has not yet been peer-reviewed (i.e had its methodology checked and examined by other experts) so it may be way too early to draw conclusions from it. However, if we did, we'd say that 41, 000 people have been infected in Italy from a 60 million population. That is around 0.06% of the population. There is talk of 60% of people in the UK ultimately being infected - i.e. 1000 times the number infected so far in Italy. If Italy reach a point where they have 60% of the population infected and it is true that only 1% have no underlying medical conditions, you are still talking 34, 000 deaths of healthy young people. So far we have way less than that and hospitals are already underwhelmed. Even if that study is right, other studies show the rate of infection would still be significant enough for that 1% of healthy people to cause tens of thousands of extra deaths and hundreds of thousands of additional hospitalisations. Even the numbers you quote are way too overwhelming for @Red-Robbo's idea of letting the disease circulate amongst the healthy population to be a viable strategy without bringing the NHS to its knees. PS I agree the data is still raw and we cannot be clear on exact reasons but I think that is all the more reason why we need to be prudent and plan for the worst outcomes the data suggests rather than hoping for the best and finding ourselves with a crisis on our hands. We and the rest of Europe have done that much already.

I absolutely agree that the way we are operating is both failing to halt the spread and unworkable. And I agree we need to get the economy working again. I just don't think the idea you are suggesting is workable because of not only the implications but the number of people who are "healthy" and under 70 but still get hospitalised or die. The figure of 150, 000 was a ballpark one and an example based on an assumption of 30 million people getting infected (somewhere around 40% of the population so below the 60% or 80% others have talked about) and an estimate at 0.5% mortality rate for people with no underlying conditions. The 30 million isn't perfect as I don't have figures for what % of the populations stands to get infected with minimal social distancing (thus allowing the economy to function) but with over 70s and people with underlying conditions taken out. The 0.5% is an estimate because the stated mortality rate for people with no underlying conditions is 0.9% but this will include people over 70, who should be excluded.. But a substantial number of people over 70 will have an underlying condition so this will not shift the figure that much. Hence me going for 0.5%. The 150, 000 is not meant to be perfectly accurate - as you can see, I lack some of the figures needed to calculate - but more an illustration that, when we talk about allowing a mass infection to circulate around the healthy population and the rough mortality rate for the healthy population 1 in 200 or possibly worse, we are still talking way more deaths than hospitals can manage. The other thing of course is the number of people who won't know they have an underlying health condition. Figures in America suggest 40% of hospital admissions are amongst people from people aged 20 to 54. Figures are not available for how many of those had underlying conditions but it suggests the scale of the problem of just letting the virus circulate: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/health/coronavirus-young-people.html

The problem is twofold: 1) I am sceptical of how you can control infections in a way that the NHS is not overwhelmed. One firth of 20-44 year olds with the disease are being hospitalised and - whilst people who are otherwise healthy only have a mortality rate of something like 0.5% - 30 million cases with a mortality of 0.5 would see 150, 000 extra deaths - way more than we can cope with. Statistically you are a lot safer if you are under 70 with no underlying health conditions but millions of under-70s around the world without health conditions would still end up dead or hospitalised. So I just don't think @Red-Robbo's plan can possibly work. 2) It is easy to talk up a sacrifice you yourself don't expect to make but there are a lot of people with health conditions with jobs, families and young children and full-time jobs. Locking me and various other people up for our own good obviously isn't very desirable but I honestly don't think it is possible without making a load of people unemployed, taking children away from vulnerable parents and locking parents up if they have children with asthma or other conditions where they may be affected (6% of cases in children are serious). 3) Many of the most vulnerable people have care or support workers and many others will end up in hospitals for non-coronavirus related reasons. Unless the plan is to lock up a group of doctors, nurses and care and support workers then people are still gong to get infected. There is no doubt that this virus is not going to go away and we need to find a way to co-exist with the virus rather than shut down the economy. But what you, @Red-Robboand @Ronnie Sinclairare talking about is practically unenforceable and would still end up with around 150, 000 extra deaths of young, non-vulnerable patients, millions of ICU beds taken up by young, non-vulnerable patients, the NHS overwhelmed and a massive crisis, only with the added steps of children separated from parents and elderly and disabled people incarcerated in their own homes only to subsequently catch it in hospital. I think people really need to move past the idea this is only really a problem for people over 70 and with underlying health conditions because the facts don't bear that out. It affects those groups more, for sure, but still will severely affect a lot of people who are not in those categories - way, way, way too many for the NHS to cope with.

With all the infections you list, luck was on our side. AIDS only spreads via body fluids so could be contained by safe sex and care taken in medical procedures. It has not gone away though. SARS was lethal but was detected early and was not as infectious as some other diseases so it could be contained. Bird Flu was contained with a hell a lot of work. Mad Cow Disease luckily did not infect as many as initially feared and changes to food practices stamped out the possibility of catching it. This is less deadly (for most people) than some of those diseases but spreads a lot easier. And the reality is that a whole load of countries - including us - were way too complacent about the risk and failed to put the steps in place that would have kept us safe. (I'm not necessarily blaming the government for that btw - Someone else - I think @Harry - made the point earlier those steps would have been unpalatable at the time. The reality is all of us were way too complacent in our belief it could not and would not happen here. SARS, AIDs, Bird flu and BSE are irrelevant in terms of past experience as this is so far beyond the scale of risk from those epidemics. The reality is that a significant proportion of the country are now, if they follow official advice, trapped in their homes without social contact in order to avoid this infection. The whole events and tourism industry is on its knees and many other industries are likely to follow. People will lose businesses they have worked on for years and lose jobs. People are going to have their investments wiped out by the stock market. As it stands, people are struggling to find enough food in the shops to eat. A vaccine is 14 months away, if that works. There have been medical trials for treatments but so far no cure - just as no cure has been found for AIDS, bird flu, SARS or vCJD - literally all the examples you mention - or indeed the common cold. A year carrying on as things are now will completely shift the fabric of the country and indeed the world. Barring a miracle, the consequences of this will be far reaching and long lasting. Doubtless some will go back to "normal". Others will have lost jobs, businesses, homes or loved ones and the economy is going to take a long time to pick up. @Maesknoll Redis simply stating the obvious in my view and it is terrifying that so many people still don't seem to realise we're already way past a point where things can easily return back to normal without consequences and we're only two weeks into an epidemic that will certainly last for three months and will likely last well into 2021 - IF we find a vaccine then. I note @underhanded's point about being responsible in what we say but I think we need to be honest that this is not something that will pass in three months and all will be fine.

I think it is. And a friend made the point to me the other day that she had various friends on her Facebook page who had spent years sharing memes around poppies and talking up the blitz spirit and that those friends were the exact same people who were both panic buying and insisting on going out to pub, cafes and restaurants cos "the government isn't going to tell me what to do". This is the chance these people keep saying they have been waiting for to do their patriotic duty for their country. And it turns out that,the time has come and their patriotic duty involves no more than a) staying at home to protect the elderly and the vulnerable b) refraining from buying from everything in the shop so that elderly people, vulnerable people and key workers have a chance of getting key provisions too and even that is beyond them. Maybe the community spirit and stoic calm of the blitz is a mirage and a fairytale created after the event and people were just as panicked and self-interested now as they were then. Or maybe our society now just lacks the resolve to do what is needed.

I am now back near Bristol and living with my Mum for the next twelve weeks as she and I have underlying health conditions and need to avoid social contact, and there was no way I could shut myself away successfully living in London. Hoping I won't be here too long as BristolBristolian is a rubbish username. I am quite frustrated at being stuck home without seeing anyone for the next twelve weeks but, being blunt, I am in many ways relieved to have a health condition and - for now at least- to be able to shut myself off from the wold. It is becoming very clear in Italy and Spain that, for many people including some without health conditions, this is something far worse than a bit of flu. People are on ventilators, hospitals are stretched and people are dying. Businesses are going under and people are struggling to get food and basic resources. I know some people still don't want politics brought into it but that is the same kind of thinking that would have balked at any suggestion of removing Neville Chamberlain after the disastrous start to the Second World War. You can just imagine those posters pointing out Chamberlain was being advised by his experts and we needed to trust his decision making even as we saw country after country fall into disaster across Europe. The reality is there are lessons we can learn from Italy and Spain, where things are going badly, and from countries that have got this more under control. We are not doing enough. We need to be at a point where people are only leaving the house when it is essential and all non-essential contact is avoided and the government need to be making sure this is happening. At the moment the government are worrying too much about being liked, lacking the resolve to make decisions with anywhere near the strength of France and Germany and people may and probably will die as a result. NHS staff need to be being tested, every single case needs to be being logged and tracked and there need to be firm laws preventing people spreading this virus. And nobody should have to be making the decision between going to work to make a living or keeping themselves and the rest of society safe. Politics is not a parlour game. It is the key question of how our country is governed and how decisions are made, especially during a crisis. When we leave politics out of this, we leave out everything that matters in terms of protecting people's financial wellbeing and, more importantly, their lives

There’s some massively disturbing, wrong and misleading assumptions there. One in six people have some form of impairment or health condition and that includes one in two people over 80. That does not mean they are about to drop dead, or explain the number of intensive care admissions and most of their “questions” are not valid questions at all. There is literally no basis for the assertion the health condition rather than the COVID-19 is the cause of death nor any qualification or criteria given for why the author feels more qualified to comment than the many doctors working on the frontline in China, Italy, the UK and other countries who have been very clear about the scale of the crisis. To be honest, what that article really reads like is “don’t panic because it is only disabled people dying so it doesn’t matter”, which is deeply disturbing, especially as the author has no reason at all for believing they would have died without the virus.

Yeah - I understand why people would not trust the Chinese government but I understand the WHO have confirmed what the government are reporting and, given factories are opening and the specialist hospitals are closing, I struggle to see how they can be getting away with it if they are not telling the truth.

The problem is that you are meant to test vaccines and monitor for 14 months to ensure no side effects. Vaccines are being developed and tested but, unless health regulations change (which carries its own risk) it is still going to be May next year at the earliest that a vaccine has been sufficiently tested. It is also possible the initial vaccines will not work quite as hoped and will need to be refined. And then there is the fact you need to manufacture and distribute enough for the world (if the countries around world can afford to pay for it).

What I don't understand is that this week the government and their advisers have - and this is entirely to their credit - accepted that they got it wrong, that mitigation was not going to work and we need to suppress the outbreak in the ways that other countries are doing. Hence we have very suddenly moved from "stay in for seven days if you have a cough" to "avoid pubs, restaurants and all non-essential social contact". Whilst we have not yet forcibly locked this down, we are now moving away from the tactics we were pursuing and moving towards the ones recommended by the WHO. So why are people still saying the government have got this right when even the government admit that this is not the case and that they have needed to change direction?

Regarding the third point, my understanding - which could be wrong - is now the aim is to try to prevent those 60% becoming infected. I think the 60% figure was if the mitigation model was used, which was the plan until last week when it was realised that it would mean intensive care beds getting overwhelmed and around 230, 000 deaths. We're now aiming for less than 20, 000 deaths which, based on a 1% fatality rate, makes me think we are trying to keep it down to only 2 million infections - which is under 3% of the population. To achieve that is surely going to take prolonged social isolation and exclusion and, as a result, nothing approaching herd immunity, thus increasing how vulnerable we are to the virus if it is not eradicated entirely.

I hate to be gloomy but I'm starting to worry this is all a lot more serious still than many of us appreciate. This is the report the government is basing its modelling on. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf It is not an easy read but there is a reasonable but gloomy summary here: https://twitter.com/jeremycyoung/status/1239975682643357696 Essentially the conclusion is a) this can only be stopped by suppression - i.e. isolation, social distancing, closures of work, businesses and schools etc. b) It is likely that, when suppression stops, the virus will return. Therefore we may need to continue the suppression tactics countries are using now for 12 - 18 months until there is a virus or a treatment. There has been a review of it questioning whether the virus will return and suggesting it could be managed if so but I think the reality is we could be in for the long haul...

Fair enough - sorry for grumpily dragging you and @PHILINFRANCE into an argument with another poster. I obviously only know what the bars and venues I know have told me they believe to be true. I obviously haven't read the actual insurance docs themselves so cannot be certain who is right.

Local to where I live, there have also been reports of corner shops buying up supermarket toilet paper so they can charge double for it in their own shops. It is really depressing how much of the supposed panic buying is actually opportunism to create a shortage...

I agree with much of this. My big worry - and this isn't a criticism of any particular government but the general approach - is that there doesn't seem to be much of a long-term plan beyond hoping we get a vaccine. I have an underlying health condition and am now going to be moving back to Bristol with my Mum for twelve weeks because of the difficulty in cutting down social contact in shared accommodation. It is going to have a massive psychological effect on me and various other people. I have a full time job, which luckily I can do from home, but it is still a massive ask to do a job that involves a lot of networking without doing any networking whilst living with your Mum. But, after those twelve weeks? What then? My guess is it will be extended but, if it isn't, then the virus might come back. Maybe then it is possible to identify, track and shut down a second outbreak before it escalates but, if not, we're straight back to square one again. And there are few small businesses in the hospitality or entertainment industries that could survive a three month shutdown, let alone a year one if it comes to that. We are doing a massive amount of damage to society at the moment and, whilst we may not have a choice, the world is going to look very different when we come out of the other side.

I can only talk about grassroots live music, entertainment and arts venues, which including pubs that put events on and I can promise you they will be affected by this. They have taken the professional advice and they know they are affected and that they would have been covered by insurance if closure had been ordered, which is why I find it so odd that people who have not seen their insurance documents, nor spoken to their insurers are adamant the professional advice they have been given is wrong.