Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[Shevin Keedy]

Oh dear.

 

[Harryflashman]

Oh dear.

effectively exactly what a couple of us were saying in here yesterday

 

[Nymzee]

They've built a hospital in a week.

There could have been four built - one in London, one in Manchester, one Birmingham and one in Glasgow, for example. That would help capacity.

Stepped up the production of ventialators - which keep people alive. Stepped up the production of testing. Stepped up the production of vital PPE to ensure hundres of nurses and doctors aren't going to end up on their deathbeds.

Come on mate. There's plenty which could - and should - have been done.

And yes while 'lifestyle and complacency' may have played a part, the impact of that would have been mitigated had we been more prepared. I don't see how you can deny that?

I don’t think you understand what I’m getting at.

If we had say 500 deaths today and 100 of them were avoidable if we had more ventilators or more ICU beds or more nurses then yes we could have been more prepared. But we don’t know what % of daily deaths are avoidable to know. Right now we could be fully prepared for this virus but all the deaths so far were unavoidable.

 

[Tipp blue]

Not sure if its been covered but assuming there is some explanation to Frances daily new case numbers, some kind of historical backlog?

Yea they were only counting deaths in hospitals, and not nursing homes for example, all deaths outside hospitals were added in 1 go yesterday.

 

[Nymzee]

“The UK may need to reconsider a “herd immunity” strategy to defeat coronavirus, a senior adviser to the Prime Minister has warned.

Professor Graham Medley of Imperial College London, the government’s chief pandemic modeller, says the country has “painted itself into a corner” as it battles the deadly bug with no clear exit plan.


He said the UK needed to face the trade-off between harming the young versus the old.

Describing the stark choices facing the government, he says that long, indefinite periods of lockdown could cause more harm than the virus itself by leading to soaring unemployment, domestic violence, food poverty and mental illness.



Speaking to the Times, Professor Medley said: “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?

“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.”

Professor Medley has described the choice facing ministers as a trade-off between harming the young or the old


“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,” he continued.

The public health expert added that there is no way to relax lockdown rules, such as allowing people to return to work and schools to re-open, without a surge in infections.

He has therefore urged the government to reconsider allowing people to catch the flu-like virus and build up resistance in the population, following a controversial strategy known as “herd immunity”

What a nob.

 

[Walken]

“The UK may need to reconsider a “herd immunity” strategy to defeat coronavirus, a senior adviser to the Prime Minister has warned.

Professor Graham Medley of Imperial College London, the government’s chief pandemic modeller, says the country has “painted itself into a corner” as it battles the deadly bug with no clear exit plan.


He said the UK needed to face the trade-off between harming the young versus the old.

Describing the stark choices facing the government, he says that long, indefinite periods of lockdown could cause more harm than the virus itself by leading to soaring unemployment, domestic violence, food poverty and mental illness.



Speaking to the Times, Professor Medley said: “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?

“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.”

Professor Medley has described the choice facing ministers as a trade-off between harming the young or the old


“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,” he continued.

The public health expert added that there is no way to relax lockdown rules, such as allowing people to return to work and schools to re-open, without a surge in infections.

He has therefore urged the government to reconsider allowing people to catch the flu-like virus and build up resistance in the population, following a controversial strategy known as “herd immunity”

Wonderful to have such incoherent mixed messages coming out just before the warm weather this weekend, I'm sure this will keep us all on the same page

 

[Harryflashman]

What a nob.

I’m Aware I’m repeating myself and I’m not suggesting herd immunity is the way forward I am suggesting though that his premise that simple lockdown , without the large scale testing , isn’t a solution . If you read other experts he’s not alone in saying a lockdown just won’t solve this problem and many of them have been saying the same thing for weeks . Not that they’re advocating herd immunity obviously.

 

[Harryflashman]

Wonderful to have such incoherent mixed messages coming out just before the warm weather this weekend, I'm sure this will keep us all on the same page

exactly. You’ve got Hancock saying “staying in is an instruction not a request” and this , amongst many other inconsistencies. They’re all over the place

 

[Disgruntledgoat]

My boss is an optimist, like...

I'm unemployed since yesterday but he wants a costed plan to save an extra million Euros by tuesday.

Erm... no. You furloughed me. Do it yourself.

 

[PhilM]

What a nob.

I personally don't agree with what he is alluding to and it's certainly uncomfortable to hear, yet I do think its right that these are being discussed.

As such, I think it's a bit unfair what you're calling him if you can't ask him to expand further: is he simply stating a balance argument (of sorts) or is he just crass?

I personally took it as, 'The lock down is sensible and correct option now, but it can't last for ever without having other consequences.' They've got to be questioned.

 

[PhilM]

My boss is an optimist, like...

I'm unemployed since yesterday but he wants a costed plan to save an extra million Euros by tuesday.

Erm... no. You furloughed me. Do it yourself.

If he does ask you to do it and you actually do it, he can no longer claim he has furloughed you or the company.

 

[Nymzee]

I’m Aware I’m repeating myself and I’m not suggesting herd immunity is the way forward I am suggesting though that his premise that simple lockdown , without the large scale testing , isn’t a solution . If you read other experts he’s not alone in saying a lockdown just won’t solve this problem and many of them have been saying the same thing for weeks . Not that they’re advocating herd immunity obviously.

I wasn’t calling you a nob.

 

[SpongeBob brown shoes]

My boss is an optimist, like...

I'm unemployed since yesterday but he wants a costed plan to save an extra million Euros by tuesday.

Erm... no. You furloughed me. Do it yourself.

Your not unemployed if your furloughed are you? Your basically on stand by

But he's got a cheek expecting work to be done though, should say you'll do it but for 100% wages

 

[AUXLEN]

My understanding is the lockdown is to slow infection rates, protect the vulnerable from contracting the virus and to slow influx of cases to NHS only.
if say the lockdown is ended on April 14th or whenever there is a possibility that after a month there could be a surge of cases again and the lockdown would need to be repeated to ease the aforementioned problems.

Am I right?
I'm hearing so many conflicting theories...

 

[Nymzee]

I personally don't agree with what he is alluding to and it's certainly uncomfortable to hear, yet I do think its right that these are being discussed.

As such, I think it's a bit unfair what you're calling him if you can't ask him to expand further: is he simply stating a balance argument (of sorts) or is he just crass?

I personally took it as, 'The lock down is sensible and correct option now, but it can't last for ever without having other consequences.' They've got to be questioned.

To me it comes across like this: even though we’re giving the unemployed and self-employed 80% of their wage via the government, lots of kids still at schools due to frontline, most kids at home will have a parent/carer, this still isn’t enough for the less vulnerable to live their life and thus we should just let everyone get it and deal with the piles of dead old people on street corners.

I mean, how are children being harmed on lockdown? Does he not realise they get 6 weeks off for Summer every year?