RugbyRebels

Son of Mathonwy wrote:

Mellsblue wrote:

Son of Mathonwy wrote: 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.

morepork wrote:

Digby wrote:

morepork wrote: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.

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

morepork wrote:Want to bet some toilet paper on it?

Puja wrote:

morepork wrote: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

morepork wrote:

Puja wrote:

morepork wrote: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.

morepork wrote: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.

Son of Mathonwy wrote: Keep it tight, keep it strong.

Digby wrote:

morepork wrote:

Puja wrote:
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

Digby wrote:

Son of Mathonwy wrote: Keep it tight, keep it strong.

Also works as advice on managing the use of loo roll

Banquo wrote:

Son of Mathonwy wrote:

Banquo wrote: 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.

Son of Mathonwy wrote:

Banquo wrote:

Son of Mathonwy wrote: 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 wrote:

Son of Mathonwy wrote:

Banquo wrote: 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 wrote:

Banquo wrote:

Son of Mathonwy wrote: 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 wrote: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 wrote:

Banquo wrote: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.

Banquo wrote: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!