COVID19

[Banquo]

Big brains may have done the analysis but the decision has been made by (more accurately, forced on) Boris, after some considerable "dither and delay". So I have no confidence that this is the best solution.

Agreed, some parents will be removed from the frontline, but hopefully my suggestions would prevent the whole frontline from being infected by their kids.

A) ah, lobbyists, always a force for good,
C) hopefully people will do the most sensible thing within their control.

I’m not sure about this dither and delay line actually being true. The bloke who authored the paper from Kings College upon which the UK and US plans are based reckons the self-isolation clamp downs have come pretty much at the correct time. The fact is we are a few weeks behind the likes of Italy, France and Spain and so will be a few weeks behind them on social distancing measures. There is also plenty of evidence submitted by behavioural psychologists stating that people will put up with only so many weeks of self-isolation before rebelling. It’s not China where the state machine can clamp down or Japan where society is habitually compliant. In one of my early posts there is a link to all the scientific evidence in the hands of the govt. Have a look, there is some very interesting points made on the closure of schools. Of course, there is no complete consensus but, from what I’ve read, they seem to be getting most of it right. That said, I think all would admit the lack of testing was a mistake but there are reasons for this beyond just deciding not to do it to any great extent.

With regards point A), from what I know the NHS were one of the bodies lobbying for it to be one parent/carer. The plan seems to be all hands on deck until you’re symptomatic and that point you self-isolate. Having people sat at home just in case their kid might give it to them isn’t really an option. There’s also the point that most frontline staff will hardly be at home over the next few weeks and months. A friend up here runs a local A&E. He was at home more than usual this week before expecting/anticipating he’ll pretty much have to live at the hospital for the foreseeable.

Thanks, the Imperial College paper is very interesting. Some points:

1) The paper doesn't look at the idea of a partial school closure policy, or (therefore) the risks to keyworkers of their particular subset of the school population being excluded from the benefits of this policy. The paper certainly considers school closure to be a key weapon available to the government, and one necessary for suppression (as opposed to mitigation) of the epidemic. So would suppression be possible with a weakened school closure policy? It seems questionable, at least.

2) The conclusion of the paper is that suppression (as opposed to mitigation) until a vaccine or effective treatment is available should be the policy (simply because the number of deaths from a full epidemic would be so great - at least 250,000 even if full treatment was available for all, which is unlikely). And therefore the necessary policies need to be implemented "imminently" - clearly the earlier a suppression policy begins, the smaller is the infected group and so the smaller the group ultimately infected. So any delay by the government is detrimental to the outcome, or in other words, will cost lives.

3) I'm not sure why you say a keyworker would sit at home with their kid. My point is that school childminding should only be available to families where both parents are keyworkers. If only one is a keyworker, the non-keyworker can stay at home with the children.

assuming they can afford to, and if the non key worker is a higher earner I can't see your scenario happening.

[Digby]

The simplest answer is usually the correct one. It's the same virus everywhere. Capacity to deal with case load at any one time is the rate limiting factor in numbers of deaths.

Surely capacity can't be the only thing here, Germany has 50% more cases than France and only 10% of the deaths. Surely who is being tested and how deaths are being recorded speaks to this?

Look, this is kind of a pointless debate. Yes, who is being tested and how deaths are being recorded (although this would require some bizarre washing of the books to attribute a COVID death to something else) could influence it. However, if Germany has managed to do a South Korea and prioritized at risk individuals, then that is epidemiological data that the world could use right now.

It's your debate. And I don't imagine for one moment Germany is trying to avoid real disclosure, they may simply always record deaths attributable to underlying causes for all I know, it's not like Russia or the USA where they're not recording properly and not taking suitable steps

I'm only of the opinion it's unlikely German people are this much more resistant to dying at the hands of Covid-19 than those figures suggest, although if they are that would be interesting too.

What I would like to see is some indication of how air quality plays into this, it's a respiratory disease, we're told things like smoking are thus a factor and yet there's no discussion about air quality, perhaps because we've already got enough idiots fleeing to the countryside

[morepork]

My debate? Lost me there you weirdo. You seem to be sort of stating the obvious. The money shot is that the more at risk people get infected at once, the quicker the facilities will be overwhelmed. Including people with respiratory issues that are aggravated by poor air quality.

[Digby]

it was your observation about Germans not congregating in public, I'm just failing to see how that speaks across the board to them have a much lower death rate from a much larger positive tests for those infected vs France

[morepork]

Wasn't an observation Sherlock, just positing the possibility of that being a factor.

[Digby]

Wasn't an observation Sherlock, just positing the possibility of that being a factor.

I'm sticking with number of tests, who is being tested and how deaths are recorded as being more significant.

[morepork]

Want to bet some toilet paper on it?

[Puja]

Want to bet some toilet paper on it?

Whoah, whoah, guys calm down. Let's not go gambling things we can't afford to lose.

Puja

[Galfon]

Just get fuelled up before the eejits descend.. on a positive note, seen 3 bumble-bees the size of walnuts in last few days, and fell over a hedge-pig the size of a rugby ball this evening, lurking by the back door.must be the clean air. 'Lympics are off -( mind you the logo seems a bit inappropriate.)

[Donny osmond]

I'm lead to believe Germany has a shed load more ICU beds than UK does. Dunno about France.

I don't "know" about anything, I heard it thru the grapevine.

Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

[morepork]

Want to bet some toilet paper on it?

Whoah, whoah, guys calm down. Let's not go gambling things we can't afford to lose.

Puja

Shit just got real.

[Digby]

Want to bet some toilet paper on it?

Whoah, whoah, guys calm down. Let's not go gambling things we can't afford to lose.

Puja

Shit just got real.

We will have a lot of toilet roll, not a reaction to this latest, just it's seldom removed from an Ocado order so in practice the cupboard that was the airing cupboard that used to house the immersion boiler (if that's what they were called) has many packets each with 9 or 12 of the blighters. That said whilst it looks a lot to me the girls do use it at an alarming rate

[Son of Mathonwy]

Hang tight my brothers. Be safe, be strong. My mother in law in Italy has come down with it. Powerless to do anything about it.

Big aroha to all.

Keep it tight, keep it strong. All the best to all you guys.

[Digby]

Keep it tight, keep it strong.

Also works as advice on managing the use of loo roll

[Puja]

Whoah, whoah, guys calm down. Let's not go gambling things we can't afford to lose.

Puja

Shit just got real.

We will have a lot of toilet roll, not a reaction to this latest, just it's seldom removed from an Ocado order so in practice the cupboard that was the airing cupboard that used to house the immersion boiler (if that's what they were called) has many packets each with 9 or 12 of the blighters. That said whilst it looks a lot to me the girls do use it at an alarming rate

This I empathise with. We have a reasonable bit, but it's disappearing at a worrying rate due to two small children. Question of which will run out first - our quarantine after symptoms or or the toilet roll!

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

Keep it tight, keep it strong.

Also works as advice on managing the use of loo roll

Everything is connected.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Given you have no idea of the environment or indeed locality I work in, and given that you've just ignored that this is in addition to the folks already off (10% for up to three months) I'm not sure how you can be so definitive. Staff are vitally needed now (I see Mells has made and expanded on that point to save me saying it)

Is there something particular to your environment or locality that means your team is more or less susceptible to your whole lot going down with the virus? I haven't mentioned those already missing from your team because they'll be missing in any event, whatever the schools policy. The point is, you will lose a few more to a stricter schools policy, but you are much less likely to lose the whole team.

They are distributed across the community rather than centrally located. Its all very different now as we are redeploying into the broader NHS. The schools are also unilaterally turning pupils away as THEY decide who is a critical worker.

Fair enough, your team is less likely to spread it amongst themselves. I was thinking about a hospital based team. They might spread it to the community though.

[Banquo]

Is there something particular to your environment or locality that means your team is more or less susceptible to your whole lot going down with the virus? I haven't mentioned those already missing from your team because they'll be missing in any event, whatever the schools policy. The point is, you will lose a few more to a stricter schools policy, but you are much less likely to lose the whole team.

They are distributed across the community rather than centrally located. Its all very different now as we are redeploying into the broader NHS. The schools are also unilaterally turning pupils away as THEY decide who is a critical worker.

Fair enough, your team is less likely to spread it amongst themselves. I was thinking about a hospital based team. They might spread it to the community though.

You can't keep people off the front line just in case- self isolation and social distancing are sky rocketing; our staff are more likely to get it from the community patients (with no symptoms) than from kids who are currently in tiny classes at the schools. We are having to deploy staff into respitory now, so they are at high risk. Its a balance, but the NHS is about to get a tsunami.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Regards Germany. Hopefully an expert (ie not one of us) is able to give an hour's thought into why their mortality rate is apparently so good right now.

I imagine their rate will come more into line with everyone else's as time passes, but if they're doing something effective we could apply here, we should know about it asap.

[Son of Mathonwy]

They are distributed across the community rather than centrally located. Its all very different now as we are redeploying into the broader NHS. The schools are also unilaterally turning pupils away as THEY decide who is a critical worker.

Fair enough, your team is less likely to spread it amongst themselves. I was thinking about a hospital based team. They might spread it to the community though.

You can't keep people off the front line just in case- self isolation and social distancing are sky rocketing; our staff are more likely to get it from the community patients (with no symptoms) than from kids who are currently in tiny classes at the schools. We are having to deploy staff into respitory now, so they are at high risk. Its a balance, but the NHS is about to get a tsunami.

Well hopefully the school classes are tiny so the risk is relatively small, in which case I agree with you.

[Banquo]

Fair enough, your team is less likely to spread it amongst themselves. I was thinking about a hospital based team. They might spread it to the community though.

You can't keep people off the front line just in case- self isolation and social distancing are sky rocketing; our staff are more likely to get it from the community patients (with no symptoms) than from kids who are currently in tiny classes at the schools. We are having to deploy staff into respitory now, so they are at high risk. Its a balance, but the NHS is about to get a tsunami.

Well hopefully the school classes are tiny so the risk is relatively small, in which case I agree with you.

only a couple of anecdotes, but one of my staff's schools has 3 per class, and 3 teachers! Not sure some of the schools are covering themselves in glory frankly. That said, and I can't see anyway round it, the 5 o'clock (and then 830 last night) instructions give no time to prepare staff for the next day, so every morning for us has been a tad mad, just got to roll with the punches.

[Banquo]

In other news, my car broke yesterday, apparently known fault and should have been recalled. Limped to garage this am, they are closing today post lockdown and can't fix it. And they can't put me in another car, despite it being manufacturing fault. Yay! First world problems abound!

[Mellsblue]

In other news, my car broke yesterday, apparently known fault and should have been recalled. Limped to garage this am, they are closing today post lockdown and can't fix it. And they can't put me in another car, despite it being manufacturing fault. Yay! First world problems abound!

I’d always assumed Aston Martin’s customer service would be better than this.

[Digby]

In other news, my car broke yesterday, apparently known fault and should have been recalled. Limped to garage this am, they are closing today post lockdown and can't fix it. And they can't put me in another car, despite it being manufacturing fault. Yay! First world problems abound!

I’d always assumed Aston Martin’s customer service would be better than this.

Not one of those wooden Morgans?

[Son of Mathonwy]

In other news, my car broke yesterday, apparently known fault and should have been recalled. Limped to garage this am, they are closing today post lockdown and can't fix it. And they can't put me in another car, despite it being manufacturing fault. Yay! First world problems abound!

Luckily I got my MOT done a month back... they're still a requirement apparently, although for how long, who knows. I guess the risk of transmission (I'm sure there's a joke there) is fairly low.