Coronavirus

[AES]

MAYBE you're right - maybe! But the point about "controlled regimes" is certainly valid, AND there seems to my (completely untutored) eye that to a large extent, any country can do practically anything it thinks necessary and the virus will still spread exponentially.

 

[John Brown]

Exponentially is an abused word.
The money in my bank account grows exponentially, but at 0.01% or whatever it is right now, it's not alarming me.

 

[Just4Fun]

MAYBE you're right - maybe! But the point about "controlled regimes" is certainly valid, AND there seems to my (completely untutored) eye that to a large extent, any country can do practically anything it thinks necessary and the virus will still spread exponentially.

Sure, most countries have failed to restrict the spread but there are exceptions. Look at Singapore. They have been much more proactive about testing and preventative measures and the spread there has been more linear than exponential. Other countries could have learned from their example but few have.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Breaking news: [youtube]uhP7ua1igNg[/youtube]

 

[nev]

edited: before it degenerates.

 

[nev]

back on topic.

 

[Chris152]

MAYBE you're right - maybe! But the point about "controlled regimes" is certainly valid, AND there seems to my (completely untutored) eye that to a large extent, any country can do practically anything it thinks necessary and the virus will still spread exponentially.

Sure, most countries have failed to restrict the spread but there are exceptions. Look at Singapore. They have been much more proactive about testing and preventative measures and the spread there has been more linear than exponential. Other countries could have learned from their example but few have.

Peter Drobac (infectious disease specialist) on Politics Live just now described the UK's position (letting things run in a relatively uncontrolled manner) as being 'out on a limb' in relation to other developed countries and indicated how Singapore among others had been successful with immediate, strong measures being taken. Jeremy Hunt made exactly the same points last night. It's clear the scientific community isn't of 'one voice' on how things should be, but it's also clear our govt is taking the most laissez-faire approach possible while still being able to say its not doing nothing. What possible reason could there be for this?

ps Saying the govt is 'being led by science' doesn't add up to much. It's not like other governments are asking greengrocers what they should do.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

I went shopping this morning, and I bought:

20 tomato plants
20 cucumber plants
10 pepper plants
6 courgette plants
4 aubergine plants
2 sweet potatoes (to make sets)
Sweetcorn seeds
Carrot seeds
Probably bought some other stuff to plant too, but memory fails me. Luckily there were no queues, and no rationing. The lad who runs the shop was wearing a balaclava as some sort of virus protection, which is odd because he sells very good quality 3m masks for chemical spraying. I may have taken the Michael a little bit.

Does all this this make me a prepper, or a poor, pathetic person who panics? Or is it just time to plant the garden...?

(In other news, the Olympic torch procession has just been cancelled. It went through our village yesterday, but today it is far too dangerous. A reasonable assumption, as it would have been heading for the Greek version of Camborne, and no one wants that on their conscience, do they?)

 

[Just4Fun]

Does all this this make me a prepper, or a poor, pathetic person who panics? Or is it just time to plant the garden...?

Definitely not a prepper as you didn't get any rice. Preppers always seem to lust after huge quantities of rice. And beans. Why? Do they normally live on rice and beans? I use very little of either, but maybe I am just odd. I was in a shop the other day and saw rice for sale in 25kg bags. That would be a lifetime's supply for me.

 

[NickM]

I watched the press conference yesterday and I thought the UK approach makes complete sense. Every decision has a negative consequence so it's about trying to take the action which produces most gains with the most manageable downsides, and closing schools wouldn't, at the moment, have big enough gains to warrant the enormous downsides. Of course that might change at some point.

At one extreme, the most effective way to stop the spread of the virus would presumably be to order everyone not to leave their houses until further notice with no exceptions. Of course that wouldn't be workable and would rapidly bring the country to its knees. The puzzle is deciding where on the scale of possible actions to be at a particular point in time in order to get big gains in delaying the spread without too costly side effects.

The US banning flights from mainland Europe looks like a strong measure but likely won't have any significant impact in terms of virus spread so is probably a bad decision.

I've heard the government referred to as "timid", but I don't think simply following what others do is brave.

The other thing to keep in mind is that we actually need this virus to spread widely so that the population as a whole can become immune. Again, the aim is have a slower more controlled spread so that the more badly affected can be cared for.

Time will tell of course, but hopefully everyone will try to follow the government advice to give the strategy the best chance of success.

I hope that one silver cloud out of all of this is that people become a bit kinder and more considerate of others, although some of the shopping behaviour suggests that might be too much to hope for.

In the meantime, I'm going to panic buy some timber this weekend so I've got something to do when I can't go to work. Failing that, I can pulp it all and make my own bog roll...

 

[lurker]

The China lockdown (enforced with a gun) would not work here.
Appears to me that half the uk population have an inflated sense of entitlement, and think rules are fine....... but only for other people.

 

[lurker]

If Jeremy Unt says something, then I am fine with the exact opposite.

 

[Chris152]

'Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the medical journal The Lancet, has accused the prime minister of “playing roulette” with the lives of vulnerable citizens, while the former regional director of Public Health England, John Ashton, has said the country has “wasted a month” in tackling the epidemic'.
(The Independent, 'Coronavirus: Trump and Johnson response to outbreak like ‘watching horror film’, says Italian doctor...)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/heal ... 1584092511

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I did hear Lidl's response to the panic buying was to open the third till.

 

[Jake]

Exponentially is an abused word.
The money in my bank account grows exponentially, but at 0.01% or whatever it is right now, it's not alarming me.

That's compounded growth, not exponential growth. If your money grew exponentially, you'd be much richer than Bill Gates.

Look up grains of rice and chessboards!

 

[Chris152]

'Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the medical journal The Lancet, has accused the prime minister of “playing roulette” with the lives of vulnerable citizens, while the former regional director of Public Health England, John Ashton, has said the country has “wasted a month” in tackling the epidemic'.
(The Independent, 'Coronavirus: Trump and Johnson response to outbreak like ‘watching horror film’, says Italian doctor...)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/heal ... 1584092511

ps The important bit in the article is the plea for people to act responsibly in spite of our government's failure to do so.

 

[Bm101]

Two fellas I would take great pleasure in meeting with a roll of lead in each hand and 2 minutes each to introduce myself properly and explain my view of the world based on the way my father taught me to conduct myself.

 

[That would work]

Of course we are all experts.
However in my opinion what is being done to curb this situation does make sense. It's about timing coupled with the fact that a largeish proportion of the population needs to catch it in order to develop herd immunity. This has to be squared with the publics likely reaction to drastic measures which end up going on for too long... apathy. You then end up with a situation where people are off guard at the very height of the infection.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Just a thought - is anyone else convinced they are coming down with a cold/influenza/coronanvirus/cancer every morning?

Or is it just me?

 

[Chris152]

It's about timing coupled with the fact that a largeish proportion of the population needs to catch it in order to develop herd immunity.

Yep, heard about the herd thing yesterday when they started mentioning it - sounds ok, so long as it happens in a controlled fashion allowing the NHS to cope, not some ridiculous spike that could have been avoided if appropriate measures had been taken by the govt. And assuming we can generate immunity to it, and that the immunity lasts long enough to have an effect in future. Which is far from clear, apparently.