So instead of a two week lockdown

Too late, it's happened.

 

Ok. Why do kids in the UK start school at 4? In countries with better educational attainments, they start school later and have to complete less school. Finland is ranked among the best education systems in the world - kids start at 7 and have 9 compulsory years.

https://www.edsys.in/best-education-system-in-the-world/

Number 2 is Japan, who start at 6. South Korea is 3rd at 7. Denmark 6.

We could have redesigned our education system for the 21st century instead of using the same one from the 19th - I know teaching methods and tools have improved but is it really the best way for kids to learn?

We are paying for generations for the credit crunch. We were paying for generations for WW1, for WW2, for centuries to compensate slave owners and the Napoleonic Wars. Is Covid not equally worthy? With the high number of taxpayers, and a long time the government can recoup any amount of money over as long as it wants. If the UK went to war tomorrow, would we just surrender because it might cost our kids a little tax.

National Debt is around 100% of GDP. Historically, it has been much higher - 2.5x higher in 1945 and 2x higher in the early 1800s. It isn't a household budget, we don't have to balance the books immediately. We have a demand-side issue where customers are not allowed to spend money on pubs, clubs, concerts, sports, etc. If we allow the companies in those sectors to fall, where do people spend their money when confidence recovers? You can't just go to the pub with your mates, because the pubs are shut. You can't go to see a film, watch a band, enjoy football or rugby, because the providers were allowed to go to the wall. Demand is there and will return when the situation is better. Remove the supply and demand can't return.

 

The current lockdown is based on Sage predictions of 4000 deaths a day.

Currently testing is discovering around 24k of new cases a day.

Sage has the IFR at 0.6% which is about 140 deaths a day on average.

Id love to see how theyve calculated that.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...uses-to-rule-out-extended-lockdown-in-england

It is going to be three weeks to flatten the curve part 2. We should expect an extension from the current month. The rate won't go down quick enough with so many superspreader places still open.

 

Well for a start there are around 400 deaths per day at the moment so your figure can't be that accurate.

And it's not a straightforward extrapolation is it? As soon as hospital ICUs are at capacity, less can get treatment, the more dangerous it is.

Continue without further measures, 24k a day soon becomes 100k. Death rates increase.

You have to conceptualise this thing in terms of growth, not linear calculations.

 

It will take some reaching 4000 deaths a day when no country in the world as got anywhere near that amount when they are far more heavily populated and have less restrictions.

 

Does it increase exponentially though? Surely the curve has to flatten out at some point. (Before you ask I'm neither Pro nor Anti Lockdown's - I haven't seen enough evidence either way to convince me one way or the other)

 

I was thinking the same the other day. Eventually whoever is going to get it will get get it with the measures in place and the numbers will inevitably drop. When the measures are lifted it will go up again because more people will be exposed again.

 

Just kicking the thing further down the road. The Lock downs have been to flatten the curve of deaths. The people that are dying though are people we saved in spring. The people that we save now will be killed off next summer etc. It isn't saving lives. It's just not having them all die at the same time. It's politely saying they don't give a **** in a discreet way that the doo gooders can't latch onto.

 

There isnt '400 deaths a day' for a starters. That would equate to 2800 a week.

The last two weeks havent had that many between them.

They would need to almost double this week to hit that figure.

If you want to look at growth. Cases at first glance appear to be growing by around 10% week on week.

Even if you double the IFR to 1.2% youll still need upwards of 500k cases a day to get close to 4k a day deaths.

Twenty times their current volumes.

For something that infection wise is starting to slow up.

 

Yes. If the R rate is above one which it currently is.

I have it and pass it to two people on the bus. They then pass it to two people each at work. They then pass it to two people each in their families.

One infected person very quickly results in 15.

 

Growth in the number of cases and the increased number of cases are different things.

Plus per week growth doesnr mean people who tested positive a previous week suddenly recover. They still have it.

10% of 100 people, not a cause for concern. 10% of 24,000, plus the hundreds of thousands already positive, and you just keep growing and growing until the NHS cannot cope.

Can you not get that the IFR rate doesn't stay the same if medical capacity is hindered?

 

Four days ago, the R rate across England was estimated to be 1.6. That means on average, every one infection leads to at least one more.

Some infected people will pass it to no one. Some may pass it to 10 others.

In London, 2.83.

 

I know but then at some point more than 50% of the population has it so can't pass it on to 2 people etc.etc. so the curve flattens out as more people contract it. I'm not saying that's the correct approach, just statistically the curve can't keep going up exponentially

 

That's the point of all this clearly, that hopefully acting now and changing things significantly will prevent things ever getting as bad as 4k per day.

I'm personally willing to listen to the evidence and advice of those who've devoted their careees to this kind of modelling. They said 5 weeks ago we should have a circuit-breaker to avoid this now imperative month long intervention.

 

It absolutely can unless as you say, everyone has it or measures are implemented. The latter is what alters the curve in recent examples.

 

I don't blame people, I blame the dishonesty from the government.
Unless there is a seismic technological advance, this virus is with us for the rest of human history. And although we are trying to develop a vaccine there is no guarantee a working vaccine will ever be produced. There is no vaccine for any other of the coronavirus family we have previously encountered.
Policies should be made on reality not fantasy and the public should be informed of that reality. Our current reality is the virus is here and here to stay, we do not have a vaccine, we may never have a vaccine. Any policy implemented that dies not account for this reality, everything implemented so far, is not fit for purpose.

 

https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m3588
“We confirm that adding school and university closures to case isolation, household quarantine, and social distancing of over 70s would lead to more deaths”