COVID19

[Mellsblue]

Absolutely. Business as usual needs to change.

Work from home should continue wherever possible. Distance between workers should be maximised. Teleconferencing should replace face-to-face meetings. Hand shaking should be discouraged. Government should encourage/assist businesses to make these changes.
New arrivals to the country should be checked for temperature and tested for the virus (when available).
Masks should be encouraged especially where close contact is unavoidable eg public transport.
Hand gel dispensers should be available on public transport.

Healthcare? Primary School Education? Secondary Education? Tertiary Education? Pubs? Restaurants? Gyms?Pro Sports?

Agree with SoM that those are sensible precautions where possible. Healthcare and Education are the problem areas for me; particularly education where children will carry the virus between them.

I have no idea of how we safely manage restaurants, pubs, gyms and sports stadia i the current situation, pending the arrival of a vaccine. Social distancing in all of those may be possible but very difficult to implement. However, if we can get some of the economy working again safely then we should, when safe to do so.

There is a growing body of evidence that children don’t spread the virus anywhere near as much as adults. Some studies have shown the risk of a child passing on the virus is negligible.

[Banquo]

Absolutely. Business as usual needs to change.

Work from home should continue wherever possible. Distance between workers should be maximised. Teleconferencing should replace face-to-face meetings. Hand shaking should be discouraged. Government should encourage/assist businesses to make these changes.
New arrivals to the country should be checked for temperature and tested for the virus (when available).
Masks should be encouraged especially where close contact is unavoidable eg public transport.
Hand gel dispensers should be available on public transport.

Healthcare? Primary School Education? Secondary Education? Tertiary Education? Pubs? Restaurants? Gyms?Pro Sports?

Agree with SoM that those are sensible precautions where possible. Healthcare and Education are the problem areas for me; particularly education where children will carry the virus between them.

I have no idea of how we safely manage restaurants, pubs, gyms and sports stadia i the current situation, pending the arrival of a vaccine. Social distancing in all of those may be possible but very difficult to implement. However, if we can get some of the economy working again safely then we should, when safe to do so.

The measures SOM mentioned are sensible but limited in impact imo, unless you close down life outside work- although, like the rest of us on here, no expert.

[Digby]

The way our society currently works allows for a field day when it comes to pandemics:

Mass transit used considerably
Open plan offices
High international and national travel
Population not used to containment

We have a good health service but unless we make serious changes to how we operate, back to normal exposes us to huge risk.

Absolutely. Business as usual needs to change.

Work from home should continue wherever possible. Distance between workers should be maximised. Teleconferencing should replace face-to-face meetings. Hand shaking should be discouraged. Government should encourage/assist businesses to make these changes.
New arrivals to the country should be checked for temperature and tested for the virus (when available).
Masks should be encouraged especially where close contact is unavoidable eg public transport.
Hand gel dispensers should be available on public transport.

Healthcare? Primary School Education? Secondary Education? Tertiary Education? Pubs? Restaurants? Gyms?Pro Sports?

Also who's supplying the PPE we're supposed to be wearing? Do individuals need to source their own, which is to say is it to be a tax on the poor, who along with chancers then wear inappropriate or expired equipment or fail to correctly observe in some other fashion?

If hand shaking is to be discouraged under what circumstances are newly met couples allowed to kiss or have sex? Does one need government approval? Or are glory holes the way forward? If existing couples meet other people outside a shared abode doe they have to quarantine before themselves having sex?

How does import/export work, how does domestic transit of goods work?

Do we have different rules for winter when things will likely be worse?

How do we cope with a drop in efficiency with people working from home? Without doubt you get more from a group that work in contact than from a distance. The economy is already going to be tanking left, right and centre so further hits aren't exactly helpful

[Son of Mathonwy]

Absolutely. Business as usual needs to change.

Work from home should continue wherever possible. Distance between workers should be maximised. Teleconferencing should replace face-to-face meetings. Hand shaking should be discouraged. Government should encourage/assist businesses to make these changes.
New arrivals to the country should be checked for temperature and tested for the virus (when available).
Masks should be encouraged especially where close contact is unavoidable eg public transport.
Hand gel dispensers should be available on public transport.

Healthcare? Primary School Education? Secondary Education? Tertiary Education? Pubs? Restaurants? Gyms?Pro Sports?

Agree with SoM that those are sensible precautions where possible. Healthcare and Education are the problem areas for me; particularly education where children will carry the virus between them.

I have no idea of how we safely manage restaurants, pubs, gyms and sports stadia i the current situation, pending the arrival of a vaccine. Social distancing in all of those may be possible but very difficult to implement. However, if we can get some of the economy working again safely then we should, when safe to do so.

Healthcare - much of the above applies. For masks read PPE. Teleconferencing and phone consultations should be the norm.

Education - all staff and pupils should have their temperatures checked on arrival. Pupils with symptoms who cannot be sent home immediately should be quarantined until they can be.
Hand gel dispensers (or hand washing facilities) should be everywhere and used regularly (at least on entry to each new lesson).
Masks should be part of the new school uniform between lessons.
Ultimately, class sizes should be reduced.

Pubs & restaurants & gyms - masks for all staff. Gloves for food preparation. Big hygene changes, all wash hands on entry. Space people out more. Staff all tested for temperatures on arrival. I'm tempted to say test all punters' temperatures on arrival too... tricky one though.

Pro Sports - this is a bit different, since there are relatively few professional sportspeople. Regular testing and daily symptom checking for the pros. Concentrate on televising sport. Crowd numbers must be drastically lower. Hygene, hand washing etc mandatory.

[Digby]

Healthcare - much of the above applies. For masks read PPE. Teleconferencing and phone consultations should be the norm.

Education - all staff and pupils should have their temperatures checked on arrival. Pupils with symptoms who cannot be sent home immediately should be quarantined until they can be.
Hand gel dispensers (or hand washing facilities) should be everywhere and used regularly (at least on entry to each new lesson).
Masks should be part of the new school uniform between lessons.
Ultimately, class sizes should be reduced.

Pubs & restaurants & gyms - masks for all staff. Gloves for food preparation. Big hygene changes, all wash hands on entry. Space people out more. Staff all tested for temperatures on arrival. I'm tempted to say test all punters on arrival too... tricky one though.

Pro Sports - this is a bit different, since there are relatively few professional sportspeople. Regular testing and daily symptom checking for the pros. Concentrate on televising sport. Crowd numbers must be drastically lower. Hygene, hand washing etc mandatory.

So you're damaging the economy with lower takings in tax almost certain to result, which is fine if you consider that the way things need to go. But you can't then just say you need space to quarantine (even for a day or some hours) an unknown umber of pupils, that you need to reduce class sizes and so on as that costs a lot more, and that's before we need a way to pay down the simply vast amounts of debt we're taking on. You need to think more in terms of severe/stark austerity, not any sort of largesse

[Son of Mathonwy]

add Sweden to the list of what?

The list of where an alternative approach has been taken. For comparison, albeit with a big caveat that its a very different country.

well yes, its an alternative, but hardly a success and yet to play out. Its relatively better than us, but much worse than its scandi neighbours.

Agreed. Sweden has at least 6 times more deaths per capita than Norway or Finland, so it would be difficult to single it out for praise.

[Donny osmond]

Absolutely. Business as usual needs to change.

Work from home should continue wherever possible. Distance between workers should be maximised. Teleconferencing should replace face-to-face meetings. Hand shaking should be discouraged. Government should encourage/assist businesses to make these changes.
New arrivals to the country should be checked for temperature and tested for the virus (when available).
Masks should be encouraged especially where close contact is unavoidable eg public transport.
Hand gel dispensers should be available on public transport.

Healthcare? Primary School Education? Secondary Education? Tertiary Education? Pubs? Restaurants? Gyms?Pro Sports?

Also who's supplying the PPE we're supposed to be wearing? Do individuals need to source their own, which is to say is it to be a tax on the poor, who along with chancers then wear inappropriate or expired equipment or fail to correctly observe in some other fashion?

If hand shaking is to be discouraged under what circumstances are newly met couples allowed to kiss or have sex? Does one need government approval? Or are glory holes the way forward? If existing couples meet other people outside a shared abode doe they have to quarantine before themselves having sex?

How does import/export work, how does domestic transit of goods work?

Do we have different rules for winter when things will likely be worse?

How do we cope with a drop in efficiency with people working from home? Without doubt you get more from a group that work in contact than from a distance. The economy is already going to be tanking left, right and centre so further hits aren't exactly helpful

I love how glory holes is the 2nd thing you've thought about in making a list about coming out of lockdown

Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

[Banquo]

Healthcare? Primary School Education? Secondary Education? Tertiary Education? Pubs? Restaurants? Gyms?Pro Sports?

Agree with SoM that those are sensible precautions where possible. Healthcare and Education are the problem areas for me; particularly education where children will carry the virus between them.

I have no idea of how we safely manage restaurants, pubs, gyms and sports stadia i the current situation, pending the arrival of a vaccine. Social distancing in all of those may be possible but very difficult to implement. However, if we can get some of the economy working again safely then we should, when safe to do so.

Healthcare - much of the above applies. For masks read PPE. Teleconferencing and phone consultations should be the norm.

Education - all staff and pupils should have their temperatures checked on arrival. Pupils with symptoms who cannot be sent home immediately should be quarantined until they can be.
Hand gel dispensers (or hand washing facilities) should be everywhere and used regularly (at least on entry to each new lesson).
Masks should be part of the new school uniform between lessons.
Ultimately, class sizes should be reduced.

Pubs & restaurants & gyms - masks for all staff. Gloves for food preparation. Big hygene changes, all wash hands on entry. Space people out more. Staff all tested for temperatures on arrival. I'm tempted to say test all punters on arrival too... tricky one though.

Pro Sports - this is a bit different, since there are relatively few professional sportspeople. Regular testing and daily symptom checking for the pros. Concentrate on televising sport. Crowd numbers must be drastically lower. Hygene, hand washing etc mandatory.

Sounds simple

Healthcare- you will see outcomes plummet in healthcare for things like physiotherapy and rehab. PPE costs would be c £2m extra pa in my line, and the CCG's would definitely want to pay less if not F2F, yet we'd still likely need the same staff (judging by todays evidence, literally). Teleconf etc might work for GPs and consultants initially, but not in actual treatment in hospitals, so mass PPE it is. It'd make todays supply chain issues look trivial.
Education- all the things you suggest are possible, but would drive large costs and infrastructure changes. Most schools would need many more classrooms and teachers to keep distances. Universities, esp science courses would likely not be able to cope without huge investments- though I suppose all the arts students could just stay at home as they do now (:))
Pubs/Restaurants/Gyms- massive logistical problems, and could they survive with hugely lessened footfall and all the extra cost suggested?
Pro sports- it obviously isn't about the players, but about the revenues and (lack of) crowds.

So its a wholescale re-engineering of ..... nearly everything. Which might be an opportunity, but its really tough and not short term. By the way, I'm not trying to be critical, this is exactly the debate that needs airing, with the pros and cons researched, aired and understood.

[Digby]

I love how glory holes is the 2nd thing you've thought about in making a list about coming out of lockdown

Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

I was of course asking for a friend

[Donny osmond]

I love how glory holes is the 2nd thing you've thought about in making a list about coming out of lockdown

Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

I was of course asking for a friend

I'm not judging, 6 weeks is a hella long time

Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

[Banquo]

Healthcare? Primary School Education? Secondary Education? Tertiary Education? Pubs? Restaurants? Gyms?Pro Sports?

Also who's supplying the PPE we're supposed to be wearing? Do individuals need to source their own, which is to say is it to be a tax on the poor, who along with chancers then wear inappropriate or expired equipment or fail to correctly observe in some other fashion?

If hand shaking is to be discouraged under what circumstances are newly met couples allowed to kiss or have sex? Does one need government approval? Or are glory holes the way forward? If existing couples meet other people outside a shared abode doe they have to quarantine before themselves having sex?

How does import/export work, how does domestic transit of goods work?

Do we have different rules for winter when things will likely be worse?

How do we cope with a drop in efficiency with people working from home? Without doubt you get more from a group that work in contact than from a distance. The economy is already going to be tanking left, right and centre so further hits aren't exactly helpful

I love how glory holes is the 2nd thing you've thought about in making a list about coming out of lockdown

Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

suspect it wasn't 2nd....

[Sandydragon]

Agree with SoM that those are sensible precautions where possible. Healthcare and Education are the problem areas for me; particularly education where children will carry the virus between them.

I have no idea of how we safely manage restaurants, pubs, gyms and sports stadia i the current situation, pending the arrival of a vaccine. Social distancing in all of those may be possible but very difficult to implement. However, if we can get some of the economy working again safely then we should, when safe to do so.

Healthcare - much of the above applies. For masks read PPE. Teleconferencing and phone consultations should be the norm.

Education - all staff and pupils should have their temperatures checked on arrival. Pupils with symptoms who cannot be sent home immediately should be quarantined until they can be.
Hand gel dispensers (or hand washing facilities) should be everywhere and used regularly (at least on entry to each new lesson).
Masks should be part of the new school uniform between lessons.
Ultimately, class sizes should be reduced.

Pubs & restaurants & gyms - masks for all staff. Gloves for food preparation. Big hygene changes, all wash hands on entry. Space people out more. Staff all tested for temperatures on arrival. I'm tempted to say test all punters on arrival too... tricky one though.

Pro Sports - this is a bit different, since there are relatively few professional sportspeople. Regular testing and daily symptom checking for the pros. Concentrate on televising sport. Crowd numbers must be drastically lower. Hygene, hand washing etc mandatory.

Sounds simple

Healthcare- you will see outcomes plummet in healthcare for things like physiotherapy and rehab. PPE costs would be c £2m extra pa in my line, and the CCG's would definitely want to pay less if not F2F, yet we'd still likely need the same staff (judging by todays evidence, literally). Teleconf etc might work for GPs and consultants initially, but not in actual treatment in hospitals, so mass PPE it is. It'd make todays supply chain issues look trivial.
Education- all the things you suggest are possible, but would drive large costs and infrastructure changes. Most schools would need many more classrooms and teachers to keep distances. Universities, esp science courses would likely not be able to cope with huge investments- though I suppose all the arts students could just stay at home as they do now (:))
Pubs/Restaurants/Gyms- massive logistical problems, and could they survive with hugely lessened footfall and all the extra cost suggested?
Pro sports- it obviously isn't about the players, but about the revenues and (lack of) crowds.

So its a wholescale re-engineering of ..... nearly everything. Which might be an opportunity, but its really tough and not short term. By the way, I'm not trying to be critical, this is exactly the debate that needs airing, with the pros and cons researched, aired and understood.

Which is why I'm not suggesting that I have the answer

I will say that for many, education is the key concern. How do you get the country back to work (not with standing protective measures in any workplace) if workers are skill looking after children? This won't be simple and probably harder to implement then the initial lockdown.

We obviously need a plan, but its going to take a lot of common sense and Im already groaning at the thought of all the media articles about how any policy doesn't work for x or y.

[Sandydragon]

The list of where an alternative approach has been taken. For comparison, albeit with a big caveat that its a very different country.

well yes, its an alternative, but hardly a success and yet to play out. Its relatively better than us, but much worse than its scandi neighbours.

Agreed. Sweden has at least 6 times more deaths per capita than Norway or Finland, so it would be difficult to single it out for praise.

You'd be amazed how many people are holding it up as a good example.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Couple of very interesting graphs from twitter on that very subject SoM...

From Ed Conway, Sky news editor who is usually good about checking his stuff, I don't know where he gets his figures, he just says they're from something called EuroMomo and there are replies saying the data on the UK govt site shows a different picture.

Here's our ones straight from the ONS figures, as I;'ve done for the last couple of weeks:
For the sake of comparison (or those who prefer the stats as a bar graph of whole numbers, going down to 0) for week 16 (ending 17 Apr) the average death rate is 10,497 - so that's 213% of the average for the week.

ETA: I'm having a play with Euromomo - Conway has smoothed those graphs (obviously) I'll see if I can extract the same data as I have for ourselves from there - when I have time. Worth pointing out that Euromomo is comparing "Z-score" rather than simple number of deaths in a week compared to the average for that week. I haven't got my head around how it calculates the "Z-score" yet.

ETA2: Z-score seems to be the number of deaths compared to the standard deviation of the number of deaths - both figures look to have been tinkered with and weighted for population size. There's simply no way I can marry their figures for England & Wales to the ONS figures. Basically, the stats they use are too complicated for me and they don't provide any raw data

Snap. I had a look at their website and its informative but not easily comparable. It also doesn't help that different countries will record data in different ways so the source data will be different. Denmark seem to have very high figures (so too Belgium) for periods of time.

The z-score is (actual deaths - mean deaths)/(standard deviation of deaths)

Dividing by the standard deviation effectively removes population size from the number, making the figures more comparable.
However, what you get is difference between the current deaths and the average, measured in standard deviations (eg England apparently being 49 SDs from the mean). But the SD used is, of course, that of the country in question, so what you are doing is comparing current deaths with a measure of their volatility in that country. This makes z-score good for comparing the country with itself in previous years, a little less good at comparing with other countries which have a different history (eg if a country has a rubbish healthcare system and normally has highly volatile mortality, its SD will be high, which will make its z-score relatively low for a given mortality level).

A calculation of excess per capita deaths, ie (actual deaths - mean deaths)/(population of country) will be better for comparisons with other countries, but obviously tells you nothing about performance compared with previous years. Anyway, they're different measures, they both have their place.

On top of this, we don't know (or at least I haven't found details of) how they calculate their means and standard deviations. I assume thay use data for the same week going back a certain number of years. But how many?

Maths aside, for those who don't know:
mean is the arithmetic average: the sum of a set of items / the number of items
Standard deviation is: square root of [for all items, the sum of (item - mean)^2]

[Digby]

well yes, its an alternative, but hardly a success and yet to play out. Its relatively better than us, but much worse than its scandi neighbours.

Agreed. Sweden has at least 6 times more deaths per capita than Norway or Finland, so it would be difficult to single it out for praise.

You'd be amazed how many people are holding it up as a good example.

How does one tell either way?

[Son of Mathonwy]

well yes, its an alternative, but hardly a success and yet to play out. Its relatively better than us, but much worse than its scandi neighbours.

Agreed. Sweden has at least 6 times more deaths per capita than Norway or Finland, so it would be difficult to single it out for praise.

You'd be amazed how many people are holding it up as a good example.

But have they actually looked at the numbers?

Per capita, and ignoring tiny territories, it has the 8th worst Covid-19 deaths in the world. Worse than America.

Perhaps they don't realise how small it is - just 10m population. When they lose 100 people it's like us losing 700.

[Banquo]

Healthcare - much of the above applies. For masks read PPE. Teleconferencing and phone consultations should be the norm.

Education - all staff and pupils should have their temperatures checked on arrival. Pupils with symptoms who cannot be sent home immediately should be quarantined until they can be.
Hand gel dispensers (or hand washing facilities) should be everywhere and used regularly (at least on entry to each new lesson).
Masks should be part of the new school uniform between lessons.
Ultimately, class sizes should be reduced.

Pubs & restaurants & gyms - masks for all staff. Gloves for food preparation. Big hygene changes, all wash hands on entry. Space people out more. Staff all tested for temperatures on arrival. I'm tempted to say test all punters on arrival too... tricky one though.

Pro Sports - this is a bit different, since there are relatively few professional sportspeople. Regular testing and daily symptom checking for the pros. Concentrate on televising sport. Crowd numbers must be drastically lower. Hygene, hand washing etc mandatory.

Sounds simple

Healthcare- you will see outcomes plummet in healthcare for things like physiotherapy and rehab. PPE costs would be c £2m extra pa in my line, and the CCG's would definitely want to pay less if not F2F, yet we'd still likely need the same staff (judging by todays evidence, literally). Teleconf etc might work for GPs and consultants initially, but not in actual treatment in hospitals, so mass PPE it is. It'd make todays supply chain issues look trivial.
Education- all the things you suggest are possible, but would drive large costs and infrastructure changes. Most schools would need many more classrooms and teachers to keep distances. Universities, esp science courses would likely not be able to cope with huge investments- though I suppose all the arts students could just stay at home as they do now (:))
Pubs/Restaurants/Gyms- massive logistical problems, and could they survive with hugely lessened footfall and all the extra cost suggested?
Pro sports- it obviously isn't about the players, but about the revenues and (lack of) crowds.

So its a wholescale re-engineering of ..... nearly everything. Which might be an opportunity, but its really tough and not short term. By the way, I'm not trying to be critical, this is exactly the debate that needs airing, with the pros and cons researched, aired and understood.

Which is why I'm not suggesting that I have the answer

I will say that for many, education is the key concern. How do you get the country back to work (not with standing protective measures in any workplace) if workers are skill looking after children? This won't be simple and probably harder to implement then the initial lockdown.

We obviously need a plan, but its going to take a lot of common sense and Im already groaning at the thought of all the media articles about how any policy doesn't work for x or y.

I wasn't replying to you .
Its a lot more than common sense tbh.

[Banquo]

Agreed. Sweden has at least 6 times more deaths per capita than Norway or Finland, so it would be difficult to single it out for praise.

You'd be amazed how many people are holding it up as a good example.

But have they actually looked at the numbers?

Per capita, and ignoring tiny territories, it has the 8th worst Covid-19 deaths in the world. Worse than America.

Perhaps they don't realise how small it is - just 10m population. When they lose 100 people it's like us losing 700.

See Belgium. and indeed Ireland, who are roughly the same per capita as Sweden.

[Son of Mathonwy]

You'd be amazed how many people are holding it up as a good example.

But have they actually looked at the numbers?

Per capita, and ignoring tiny territories, it has the 8th worst Covid-19 deaths in the world. Worse than America.

Perhaps they don't realise how small it is - just 10m population. When they lose 100 people it's like us losing 700.

See Belgium. and indeed Ireland, who are roughly the same per capita as Sweden.

But you wouldn't hold either of them up as countries that are doing well. Ireland is doing a bit better than us, but is still 7th worst. And Belgium top of the list (ignoring San Marino et al).

[morepork]

Here's our ones straight from the ONS figures, as I;'ve done for the last couple of weeks:
For the sake of comparison (or those who prefer the stats as a bar graph of whole numbers, going down to 0) for week 16 (ending 17 Apr) the average death rate is 10,497 - so that's 213% of the average for the week.

ETA: I'm having a play with Euromomo - Conway has smoothed those graphs (obviously) I'll see if I can extract the same data as I have for ourselves from there - when I have time. Worth pointing out that Euromomo is comparing "Z-score" rather than simple number of deaths in a week compared to the average for that week. I haven't got my head around how it calculates the "Z-score" yet.

ETA2: Z-score seems to be the number of deaths compared to the standard deviation of the number of deaths - both figures look to have been tinkered with and weighted for population size. There's simply no way I can marry their figures for England & Wales to the ONS figures. Basically, the stats they use are too complicated for me and they don't provide any raw data

Snap. I had a look at their website and its informative but not easily comparable. It also doesn't help that different countries will record data in different ways so the source data will be different. Denmark seem to have very high figures (so too Belgium) for periods of time.

The z-score is (actual deaths - mean deaths)/(standard deviation of deaths)

Dividing by the standard deviation effectively removes population size from the number, making the figures more comparable.
However, what you get is difference between the current deaths and the average, measured in standard deviations (eg England apparently being 49 SDs from the mean). But the SD used is, of course, that of the country in question, so what you are doing is comparing current deaths with a measure of their volatility in that country. This makes z-score good for comparing the country with itself in previous years, a little less good at comparing with other countries which have a different history (eg if a country has a rubbish healthcare system and normally has highly volatile mortality, its SD will be high, which will make its z-score relatively low for a given mortality level).

A calculation of excess per capita deaths, ie (actual deaths - mean deaths)/(population of country) will be better for comparisons with other countries, but obviously tells you nothing about performance compared with previous years. Anyway, they're different measures, they both have their place.

On top of this, we don't know (or at least I haven't found details of) how they calculate their means and standard deviations. I assume thay use data for the same week going back a certain number of years. But how many?

Maths aside, for those who don't know:
mean is the arithmetic average: the sum of a set of items / the number of items
Standard deviation is: square root of [for all items, the sum of (item - mean)^2]

The Z-score is a measure of the variance of individual data points from the population mean in a normally distributed data set. It is used in place of the t-test when unknown parameters , such as social distancing, give different scales in different populations. The Z-score standardized these different parameters for comparison of the different data sets. It will tell you what percentage of the normal distribution is occupied by individual values greater or lower than the mean. It is part of analyzing statistical power that tells you how many samples are needed to see a true biological difference in population means.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Sounds simple

Healthcare- you will see outcomes plummet in healthcare for things like physiotherapy and rehab. PPE costs would be c £2m extra pa in my line, and the CCG's would definitely want to pay less if not F2F, yet we'd still likely need the same staff (judging by todays evidence, literally). Teleconf etc might work for GPs and consultants initially, but not in actual treatment in hospitals, so mass PPE it is. It'd make todays supply chain issues look trivial.
Education- all the things you suggest are possible, but would drive large costs and infrastructure changes. Most schools would need many more classrooms and teachers to keep distances. Universities, esp science courses would likely not be able to cope with huge investments- though I suppose all the arts students could just stay at home as they do now (:))
Pubs/Restaurants/Gyms- massive logistical problems, and could they survive with hugely lessened footfall and all the extra cost suggested?
Pro sports- it obviously isn't about the players, but about the revenues and (lack of) crowds.

So its a wholescale re-engineering of ..... nearly everything. Which might be an opportunity, but its really tough and not short term. By the way, I'm not trying to be critical, this is exactly the debate that needs airing, with the pros and cons researched, aired and understood.

Which is why I'm not suggesting that I have the answer

I will say that for many, education is the key concern. How do you get the country back to work (not with standing protective measures in any workplace) if workers are skill looking after children? This won't be simple and probably harder to implement then the initial lockdown.

We obviously need a plan, but its going to take a lot of common sense and Im already groaning at the thought of all the media articles about how any policy doesn't work for x or y.

I wasn't replying to you .
Its a lot more than common sense tbh.

It's going to take change, and some of it is not superficial. The government needs to get that into its head.

For health and education, some of these changes will make it less effective. And they will cost money.

For businesses such as pubs & restaurants (and even more so, nightclubs), help is needed. They may not be commercially viable without government help. So if the government enforces policies which restrict profits, they need to subsidise the industry. That is going to cost, but if the alternative is that (say) most pubs go out of business, then it has to be done.

For Pro Sports, clearly it will vary to some extent from sport to sport. For less commercially successful sports the government will need to subsidise them (more). For the big, prize-based sports such as tennis and golf, quite simply, the prizes must be reduced substantially (in a progressive way). For football and rugby etc players are largely paid by salary, so salaries need to be reduced. I suggest this would be done systematically, possibly led by government (internationally if possible), and in a formula-based and progressive way, so that those paid the most lose the greatest % of their contracted amounts. Obviously this is a complex legal area, but if each club is left to attempt to do this with each individual player it's going to be carnage.

Overall, this is going to cost. But the alternative is economic devastation.

[Digby]

For businesses such as pubs & restaurants (and even more so, nightclubs), help is needed. They may not be commercially viable without government help. So if the government enforces policies which restrict profits, they need to subsidise the industry. That is going to cost, but if the alternative is that (say) most pubs go out of business, then it has to be done.

If in future they're bad business models then no we don't need to subsidise them, they're businesses not charities. Again you're just assuming there's a central pot to dip into, there isn't, rather we're already deep in the shit and we're going to take a long time about climbing out of it. I don't bemoan the action taken to smooth this first run at a lockdown, but the money being splurged now isn't something that can be done ad infinitum

[Son of Mathonwy]

Snap. I had a look at their website and its informative but not easily comparable. It also doesn't help that different countries will record data in different ways so the source data will be different. Denmark seem to have very high figures (so too Belgium) for periods of time.

The z-score is (actual deaths - mean deaths)/(standard deviation of deaths)

Dividing by the standard deviation effectively removes population size from the number, making the figures more comparable.
However, what you get is difference between the current deaths and the average, measured in standard deviations (eg England apparently being 49 SDs from the mean). But the SD used is, of course, that of the country in question, so what you are doing is comparing current deaths with a measure of their volatility in that country. This makes z-score good for comparing the country with itself in previous years, a little less good at comparing with other countries which have a different history (eg if a country has a rubbish healthcare system and normally has highly volatile mortality, its SD will be high, which will make its z-score relatively low for a given mortality level).

A calculation of excess per capita deaths, ie (actual deaths - mean deaths)/(population of country) will be better for comparisons with other countries, but obviously tells you nothing about performance compared with previous years. Anyway, they're different measures, they both have their place.

On top of this, we don't know (or at least I haven't found details of) how they calculate their means and standard deviations. I assume thay use data for the same week going back a certain number of years. But how many?

Maths aside, for those who don't know:
mean is the arithmetic average: the sum of a set of items / the number of items
Standard deviation is: square root of [for all items, the sum of (item - mean)^2]

The Z-score is a measure of the variance of individual data points from the population mean in a normally distributed data set. It is used in place of the t-test when unknown parameters , such as social distancing, give different scales in different populations. The Z-score standardized these different parameters for comparison of the different data sets. It will tell you what percentage of the normal distribution is occupied by individual values greater or lower than the mean. It is part of analyzing statistical power that tells you how many samples are needed to see a true biological difference in population means.

I would suggest though, that "black swan" events such as we are seeing now show that mortality figures are not normally distributed. As in economics, events which would be vanishingly unlikely in a normal distribution happen too often.

[Banquo]

But have they actually looked at the numbers?

Per capita, and ignoring tiny territories, it has the 8th worst Covid-19 deaths in the world. Worse than America.

Perhaps they don't realise how small it is - just 10m population. When they lose 100 people it's like us losing 700.

See Belgium. and indeed Ireland, who are roughly the same per capita as Sweden.

But you wouldn't hold either of them up as countries that are doing well. Ireland is doing a bit better than us, but is still 7th worst. And Belgium top of the list (ignoring San Marino et al).

correct, that was my point!! None are good examples- though there was an article in the Guardian written by a doc in Ireland a couple of weeks ago shaming the UK system- and then it kicked off over there, so its sometimes daft to claim victory.

[canta_brian]

Saw this line on the beeb. Amazing really.

With more than 58,000 deaths, more Americans have died with Covid-19 than died in the Vietnam War.