LondonBristolian

Sorry if someone has posted this already but Germany and Italy have evidence that the number of cases may be levelling off. If so, it will be proof that social distancing and the lockdowns do work over time. At the same time, it may lead to real questions for those countries that did not adopt these measures early on. There may be massive differences in loss of life between countries and that will lead to questions.

The news reporters really could do a much better job of leading by example...

I find this attitude utterly, utterly baffling. I presume what each and everyone of us wants to happen in this crisis is for as many lives to be saved as possible, as few people to be hospitalised as possible and for society to return to as normal as possible as quickly as possible to preserve lives, preserve people's businesses and minimise the harm from this outbreak. The government has essentially admitted that it made mistakes in the early handling of the crisis, pursued a policy of mitigation and flattening the curve and that this proved to be the wrong strategy. It responded to pressure and criticism by asking people not go to to pubs. We know that asking people not go to pubs did not work and the government responded to pressure and criticism by ordering pubs to be closed. We know that businesses were worried about jobs and the government responded to pressure and criticism by guaranteeing wages. We know it is likely over the few days the government will respond to pressure and criticism about the fact it has not gone as far as other countries by taking further steps over the next few days. All of this is because of pressure and criticism forcing the government to change position, each time saving more lives and preserving more livelihoods. Yet there seem to be some posters on here who see it as their job to try to stop pressure and criticism and seemingly place their political ideology over that need to save lives by continually defending the government and trying to shut down all criticism. Each time events have proven them wrong and yet they continue to say we should not criticise the government, even though that criticism has changed policy and saved lives. This situation is not about ideology and it is not about party politics. It is about the government doing the right things to keep people save and, where that is not happening, ensuring the government acts. Anyone who places a need to defend the government and "not make things political" as a priority over criticising the government in the areas where they may not be saving lives utterly, utterly baffles me.

I don't think nature is quite so self-aware as to cunningly and deliberately reset the balance but I certainly think this is a reminder that we and our current way of life are not invulnerable to change.

I agree but, at the same time, the world wars and, to an extent, the Spanish flu, were world changing events. Globally, societies looked very different afterwards. Arguably, after World War One, it ultimately changed for the worse and, after World War Two, it changed for the better. This is not going to be the end of "THE" world but it might well be the end of "A" world. Something this major is going to have a long-lasting impact in ways we can't yet conceive.

That is some extremely impressive work!

This is getting properly weird and slightly uncomfortable. I have explained several times what I meant. It was not what you think it was and that is the end of it. Deal with it. I know the pubs are shut and we are not meant to go outside but surely you can find at least one better thing to do on a Sunday afternoon than try to pick an Internet post I cobbled together in two minutes apart to try and claim I meant something that - very clearly from the context - I did not. This discussion has nowhere further to run. I did not mean what you have chosen to interpret me as having meant and that really is the end of it.

You thought I meant one thing. I did not mean that thing and have explained that several times. Yet, rather than accept that you misinterpreted what I meant, you seem to be detemined to tell me you know what I meant better than I did and are taking snippets out of context to try to pretend I said and meant things I very, very clear did not from the context of the post. If you read what I originally posted, it is very, very clear what I meant. Please stop erroneously telling me what I meant and please stop pretending you know what I meant better than I did. You interpreted what I meant differently to how I meant it. I'd be grateful if you would just accept that and stop trying to incorrectly pretend you know what I was really trying to say. It really is quite odd behaviour. I'm so bored I'm hoping you post photos of the results!

It was exactly who you read it because you chose to read it that way, not because of the wording I used. I did not state or even imply that in what I posted. You just chose to interpret it that way.

Perhaps so but again we are talking about the potential for significant numbers of deaths of people who would not have died without it this illness including the possibility of tens and thousands of people who are under 70 without health conditions. And we are talking about the potential for hundreds of thousands of hospitalisations, with the stats suggesting up to 40% of these will be under 70 without health conditions. As the government realised earlier after the Imperial college report I linked to in my reply to you earlier, the scale of threat makes any other choices impossible.

In terms of your first point, I would usually agree it was a reasonable point that we do not know if they actually have got it. However this is an unusual case as we know the illness is in high circulation and we know the Chief Science Advisor believes 55, 000 people were infected as of the middle of last week but we also know there are not sufficient testing kits and people with mild to moderate symptoms are not being tested. The government advice is that anyone with symptoms of a cough or fever should work from the assumption they do have COVID-19. An assumption is not to go on but, given it is impossible to actually test that assumption at this current time, it is not unreasonable to work from the premise that someone who thinks they have it probably does. We don’t know if people did get it there but, given the number of active cases and the possibility of transmission, we have to treat it as a real possibility. And it is not reasonable to expect proof of this when proof is impossible to acquire. And cases where proof is impossible to acquire, absence of proof should not indicate the infections did not happen. In terms of the second point, I think it is clear I am not explicitly saying that people definitely did acquire it there and spread it to communities but rather that there is a significant risk this might have happened.

No offence but you seem to have a bit of a habit of either deliberately or accidentally misinterpreting what other posters are saying in order to dismiss their arguments. I am not saying that. I am saying exactly what I said in my post. It was an unnecessary risk to take within the circumstances and clearly had the potential to both increase the number of infections and widen the geographic spread. That is not “utter nonsense” but basic epedemiology, hence why pubs, restaurant and clubs are now closed and events are not happening. Given how much policy has escalated since - and that was the week it was starting to ramp up -!it was a huge and avoidable risk to hold a major event just one week ago given other comparable countries were already on lockdown. I would massively appreciate it if you could try to respond to what I actually say - not your own speculations of what I might be trying to say in addition.

Like everything, it ups the risk and it was an unnecessary risk given how quickly events have escalated. Or course people who got it there might have got it elsewhere but it does not need that many people who did not previously have it to contract it there before it is being introduced to communities where it was not present before and thus further the spread. Controlling this infection is all about managing risk as effectively as possible and this is a risk that could have been managed but was not.

Another Tweet warning that younger, healthier people should not assume themselves to be immune to all this: Honestly not trying to frighten anyone but there are still far too many people who think they're guaranteed to be fine if they get it. Most people will be - including those in elderly or vulnerable groups - but a significant number across all age groups and with or without health conditions will not. All of us need to do everything we can to avoid the risk of transmission.

It turns out in, erm, hindsight that not cancelling the Cheltenham Festival might have been a bad idea: https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/uk-news/cheltenham-festival-2020-racegoers-coronavirus-17947651?fbclid=IwAR1HPl-TDFr8NR-UrrRTsrdsUi_bym5mIMnKXw09Oxa2XNGbAa4JF43ENOw Who knew?

A few points a) It's a bit erroneous to suggest that older people or people with health conditions are likely to have died in the next year or two in any case. There will be some crossover but most people over 70 and most people with conditions such as diabetes, heart conditions and high blood pressure would have a life expectancy of many years. Your argument is a convenient one, but not an accurate one. For reference, an initial study of 196 people hospitalised suggests that only 18 (9.1%) of those 196 had severe heath conditions. That suggests 92% of cases are not people who would otherwise have been likely to die. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/21/doctors-warn-coronavirus-could-overwhelm-nhs-intensive-care b) 37% of admission are under 60, along with 40% of admissions in the US being between 20 and 55 years old. This whole idea that only older and vulnerable are getting hospitalised is not really holding up well to facts at the moment. c) If 60% of people get it, the mortality rate for people without health conditions under 70 is estimated at somewhere between 0.5 and 0.9 (higher for people with underlying health conditions or older) so we are potentially talking significant numbers of deaths. Once you get millions infected, one out of every two hundred healthy cases still mounts up into tens and thousands of deaths. d) The reason why we have locked down is because studies show that our health service would be overwhelmed if we did what you suggest. Not only would that significantly up the deaths of both healthy and non-healthy people for coronavirus but also deaths of people in accidents or who needed A & E admissions for other reasons. Even treatable conditions become fatal if there are no intensive care beds. The best way to understand is this report from Imperial College, which the government has based its thinking on: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf It explains why the strategy you should is dangerous and would cause a significant number of deaths, many of them outside of elderly and vulnerable groups. You are right that we are panicking and ditching the usual logic but that is because the usual logic would get a lot of people killed. And these would mostly not be people who would have died anyway.

This attitude utterly baffles me. What the Hell do people think politics is if it isn't running the country and making the appropriate decisions in a national crisis. Of course it is going to be about politics. I agree other parties could have made similar errors but Boris Johnson has chosen to be leader of the Conservative party and wanted to be Prime Minister and being prime minister means being ultimately accountable for the timing and choice of decisions taken. Over the coming week, some people will lose people they love. Other people will be very ill in hospital. People may lose their businesses or their jobs or struggle for food and basic essentials. Other older and vulnerable people (myself included) are spending at least twelve weeks - probably longer - isolated at home whilst the government gets this under control. All of these people will be the people who ultimately will decide how political this gets. It will be the choice of the people who lose people or things that they cannot replace through this - not the choice of people on Internet forums who find criticism of the government for not following global health advice a trifle inconvenient.

Exactly. We were warned of this and ignored it. That isn't anything to do with hindsight. It is simply arrogance that, despite all evidence to the threat posed, our country was an exception.

If he continues to ignore medical advice and trust in his wife's visions of God to look after his company, I fear he may be a divorced atheist within a year...

A potential 230, 000 deaths was the figure in the Imperial College report that the government based its decision to ask people to avoid pubs, clubs etc on. Up until Friday 13th, they were following a mitigation strategy but the report suggested that could lead to 230, 000 deaths, hence subsequent moves toward the suppression strategy adopted by other countries. Also worth mentioning in early March, Chris Whittey (Chief Medical Officer) talked of 350, 00 potential deaths and an aim to reduce that by 20% to 30%. This was before the Imperial College Report said the deaths could be cut to 20, 000 with a suppression strategy. The government are now talking about the figures you mention but both Chris Whittey and the reports the government is following have both mentioned the figures @Roger Red Hat talks about. They are worst case scenario figures but also possible with a high enough rate of infections - if 40 million people (a bit under 60% of the population) were infected and the mortality rate was 0.5 per 100 cases then that would be 200, 000 deaths. Both 60% infections rates and a 0.5 mortality rate are figures that have been suggested by a number of epidemiologists so these are not implausible figures. However they should not happen if we do follow the government advice and, if people do not, the government takes the more draconian steps that other countries have.

Two points: 1) the general consensus amongst scientists and medical experts seems to be the 60% would not necessarily happen with social distancing. The 60% figure was the expectation of initial mitigation strategies - which have been abandoned due to point 2) below - but governments across the world, including the UK are desperate to prevent that happening. 2) the Wuhan death rate dropped considerably both because they had the knowledge and space to quickly build hospitals and find extra beds. One of the likely Italy has a very high death rate is because intensive care beds are overwhelmed so people who could otherwise have been saved are not being saved. The 0.5% figure could be accurate but only if people get the care they need. If the hospitals get swamped by huge numbers of figures at the same time then the figures would go up, as would deaths from accidents and other non-Corona virus related health conditions due to that same lack of beds.

It is interesting but I’d want to know how much that figure fluctuates from year to year. If it is higher than 2019 but comparable to previous years then it may mean nothing but if January 2020 was significantly higher than other recent years then it could be significant.

Last time I had one of those calls I went quiet for a moment and then softly said "it wasn't an accident". They got a bit confused and scared and rang off.

See my post above - the 99% figure is drawn from one study in Italy and is yet to be checked in terms of its methodology. It puts the risk to younger people and without health conditions as much lower than some other studies - it gives a fatality rate of 0.05 deaths per 100 people who are young and healthy where as the fatality rate is estimated to be between 0.5 and 0.9 deaths per 100 people in other studies - but, in any case, I definitely agree that people are ignoring the fact that the are unlikely to die does not mean that: a) they won't contract the disease b) there is not a real risk of hospitalistion c) there is not a real risk of scarring on the lungs or other permanent damage d) things will get a lot more serious if you need hospitalisation and so many people are hospitalised there are not adequate beds. You are definitely right that the evidence seems to be that younger people, including children, do catch and transmit the virus but have a lower mortality rate and hospitalisation rate than older people, people with underlying health conditions or young babies. They are more likely to recover but how likely to recover with minimal symptoms, is still up for debate. As I mention in my post above, 40% of US hospital admissions are younger patients for example. It's quite right that people over 70 or with underlying health conditions have been warned they are more at risk and to take additional precautions to avoid the risk of catching the infection BUT I think this has led to a mistaken belief it does not matter if younger people get it. The reality is that, up until the end of last week the government was pursuing a herd immunity strategy where older and more vulnerable people were effectively cut off from society to prevent infection and the virus was left free to circulate amongst everyone else so that enough people would gain immunity, and there was a willingness to allow 60% of the UK population to get it. The reason why that strategy was abandoned seems to have been that data which emerged on Monday showed that, even if you took older and more vulnerable people out of the equation, the number of young or healthy people hospitalised or dying would overwhelm the NHS and still be a disaster. I think it is a major worry that a lot of younger people without underlying health conditions don't appreciate how serious this might get.

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.