FYP
Ivanka and Bill, please don’t worry about anything! This is just a democrat hoax.
https://mobile.twitter.com/blakehounshell/status/1238393731818164224
In our brave new world saying you’re going to a concert on “Thursday” is like saying you’re going to a concert in 5 years.
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Not sure if this was already known here but they tracked the first confirmed case in China to Nov 17th.
So here’s the combined logic of the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Advisor in the UK:
It is inevitable that around 60% of the population will get it. It is inevitable that many people will die. There is nothing that can be done to stop that happening. The only thing we can do is mitigate when and how this occurs. This requires precise timing. The most effective policy is to precisely time shutdowns and social distancing measures so as to keep peak cases as near to the NHS coping capacity as possible. To do so now would be counterproductive since the current and projected near future caseload is still manageable.
Furthermore since the virus cannot be stopped the end of a lockdown inevitably leads to further spread. This would necessitate further lockdowns. A population and its economy can only bear isolation measures of a certain length and number. Each subsequent lockdown would be less welcomed and adhered to. Instituting too great a number for too long would lead to unnecessary anguish without appreciably helping the cause.
It is therefore wise to keep our powder dry for use when it will be most keenly felt. The reason we are not following the decisions of other countries is because they are further advanced on their individual timelines.
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That’s the idea anyway, but it sure feels scary when the guy fronting the policy is Boris (Bejeezus) Johnson and the current publicly facing efforts at prevention add up to the best part of sod all. Basically - we need more of you to get sick so that hopefully fewer of you will die.
edit: Sorry Jman - I had no idea I’d clicked to reply to your post.
Ok but I don’t think they are right, China is pretty compelling evidence.
Honestly it sounds logical. Who knows which approach is better. I guess only History will tell. There is a problem with the fact that we are all shutting down for a few weeks bu there is no way the world can keep that up for very long and when we lift the shutdowns this shit starts all over again. We could be in endless cycles of shutdowns and reopenings until a vaccine is developed.
I lean more toward them not being right too but our timescale is too short to know right now. In two months China could be going into lockdown all over again.
Dispatches from the frontlines of Parisian panic buying.
Well, first up, not certain anyone is doing it outside of handgel, hand sanitiser and masks. The latter two were gone but the former was still available, though I had to make do with ‘vegan’ anti-bacterial stuff. I was able to buy as much gluten free pasta as I liked, the shelves seemed fine and our local street market was still on and seemingly fully stocked.
I was stocking up on everyday medicines in the pharmacy and behind two old ladies filling prescriptions. They were chatting with the pharmacist, obviously all this came up and he told them to be vigilant, stay inside, wash hands etc. Then, as so much of an afterthought he had started serving me, one of them came back to say that actually her husband had had a dry cough for the last 3 days. Shit’s about to get real, I thought, stepping away from her, but no. She was offered a cough syrup but told that unless it was bothering him at night that it was better to just cough. And with that they were on their way.
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Yeah and it’s been widely praised for it. That said has the lockdown in Wuhan been lifted yet?
Edit: It’s also worth noting that the scale of infection in Wuhan was many times current UK figures before the Chinese took such drastic action.
That’s their point I suppose. I guess we look to the aftermath of China’s lockdown to see what happens.
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I have a friend with a cough, super congested, and sore throat. No fever though. But I saw this friend like a week ago. Kinda shook.
Also this friend is going back to work with those symptoms because they can’t afford to miss work. I don’t know what to tell them, like going back to work is obviously super fucking stupid but she has bills to pay.
China is pretty compelling evidence that shutting everything down for a month or so controls infection rates, but a la @suzzer99 we don’t know what happens when the shutdowns are cancelled.
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I think we’re seeing an area where totalitarian regimes have a clear advantage over western style democracies. Has there been any news out of North Korea? I had heard second hand but I can’t find it in the news that there was some evidence that they were just executing people who tested positive.
Not really. There are at least two factors with opposite effects on that number. One, yes, Korea did a lot of preparation. Two, their testing, extensive as it has been, has still been a small and non-random selection. The true mortality in SK is below 0.6.
Seems to me like the bias in testing is a bigger factor, but shrug.
Agreed, and it’s not the only area that uncontested central planning has a massive advantage.
These numbers are all super questionable. If they aren’t testing widely or randomly, the denominator is just about meaningless.
With regard to the mortality rate I think it’s pretty clear that it’s significantly worse than the flu, even without knowing the exact number. @anon38180840 I wouldn’t try to calculate them yourself from the reported number of deaths and infections.
If this is really true, then he won’t understand the reference.
Ok. Tell that to Cuse.