Covid-19 and purity spirals

That is why lockdown will continue - until the numbers drop sufficiently low. I literally said that in my post.

Yes, they have to be able to do widespread testing ( I said that in a post on this thread yesterday) they also have to develop the app to allow tracing. Apparently Germany is also doing this.

And yes I know the numbers of infections are higher which is why I said best guess is 10%.

You’re hinging your hopes on a comprehensive testing, tracing and quarantine plan that hasn’t happened. Are there plans for it now?

From what I've been reading, yes they are planning for it which is why I think they are refusing to be drawn on exit plans in the press conference.

You are suggesting that the answer is herd immunity - how? How will they prevent the NHS from getting overwhelmed whilst we achieve herd immunity? By locking us down like this repeatedly? Spending billions and billions every few months? Really?

And a vaccine is years away. The quickest vaccine ever developed took four years from start to finish. Usually they are ten plus years so why do you all suddenly think this vaccine will be 12 - 18 months? Are you proposing mass vaccination with an untested vaccine? Where they don't know the efficacy or the safety but just vaccinate the entire population? So, like the Dengue fever vaccine where it turned out that children who had it actually got a far worse case of dengue fever rather than getting immunity. Or thalidomide where they didn't realise the devastating effects until it was too late.

The best hope is to quarantine the disease and to try and develop drugs to make it less serious. That will come before a vaccine.

The quicker we get the numbers down to a level where test, track and trace can be implemented the quicker lockdown can end. That isn't magical thinking. They aren't going to ease lockdown while potential for infection is still high.

You are disregarding how widespread the virus is in the U.K., and how woeful the testing is. Where are the tests? What is the plan?

Let’s look at the numbers. The official number of infected people in the U.K. is 78991 with deaths of 9875. But that gives a death rate of 12.5%, which is way too high.

Let’s look at South Korea. 214 died, number tested is 10512. This gives a death rate of 2% which is likely still an underestimate, but better than 12.5%.

Assuming that the U.K. death rate is actually about 2% that means that 78991 is a massive underestimate and the actual number of infected people is more like 493 693 (also likely an underestimate).

Broadly, social distancing helps, but the numbers are huge and given open borders, people still going out for shopping etc and people still at work they what you call the “potential for infection” will remain high till either most people get it or there’s a vaccine. It’s not going to go away unless everyone freezes in place for 3 weeks which is impossible.

You’re hinging your hopes on a comprehensive testing, tracing and quarantine plan that hasn’t happened. Are there plans for it now?

The problem isn’t people sunbathing in an empty park or children hunting for eggs.

I went to my local park yesterday. Surprisingly empty. People in the distance walking. No sunbathers, picnickers, teenagers kicking a ball about. Just walking for exercise and getting some sun and fresh air at the same time. I live in SW London. I am pleasantly surprised how well my area is complying with everything. I thought there would be more flouting of rules.

mpsw

Im happy to be told to google but do you have an idiots guide to the differences?

It's not magical thinking at all.

I completely understand that this isn't going away. I don't think that we will get a vaccine in the next 18 months. The fastest vaccine ever developed took four years. No reason to believe that this will be any faster. I am completely realistic about that.

I am also realistic ( when many of you aren't) that widespread infection cannot be the plan. Within two months of this virus arriving in the UK they have had to put us into lockdown. Close everything. Spend billions of pounds, lose millions of jobs in order to not overwhelm the NHS yet we still have 1000+ deaths per day now. Good estimates look like only 10% of the population has developed antibodies. No one knows how long those antibodies will remain.

So think about it. Coming out of lockdown 90% won't be immune to this but there will be more cases in the community than there were in January, so, within two months we will be back to the point of overwhelming the NHS again, if they do nothing else to control the spread. They cannot spend billions again putting the country into lockdown. So, what do you suggest?

Do you think it should be left to run unabated? Let it overwhelm the NHS? What will you do with the very sick people? Just leave them at home to die without medical help? Maybe employ euthanasia squads to go and end the suffering quickly? Seriously, what do you think will happen? What do you think would have happened if they hadn't locked us down? Because that is what will happen a couple of months after we come out of lockdown.

The best solution bthat I've heard is to follow South Korea. They have plateaued cases but, yes are vigilant for the second wave. No reason to suspect that the can't control the second wave in the same way they did the first. They certainly haven't tanked their economy to control this.

The experts that I've heard have said that we had an opportunity on the way up to control it by testing, tracing and quarantine but we didn't. We have the same opportunity on the way down. That is the only way out. In order to do this though they have to reduce the number of infections to a low enough level for this to work. That is where my "follow the rules and this will end quicker" comes from. The quicker we get the numbers down to a level where test, track and trace can be implemented the quicker lockdown can end. That isn't magical thinking. They aren't going to ease lockdown while potential for infection is still high. How can they? They can't ease lockdown and then quickly get to the point where hospitals are in crisis and a thousand people a day are dying and do nothing about it can they? So the longer people bend the rules and go out for reasons that aren't allowed - Easter egg hunts, picnics, sunbathing, say in the park playing games with the kids because they don't like exercise, day long bike ride plus picnic, jogging with symptoms ( have seen all of these examples today of what people are planning to do on mn) then the longer lockdown continues simply because they can't ease lockdown and risk a thousand people buying every day only a few weeks later.

It is magical thinking. With a dash of god complex on top, thinking we can control nature.

hooves Just fyi re: track, trace and contain- Singapore are no longer as successful with that
www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-asia-52232147

Clearly you weren't on the AIBU thread that I was.

I've challenged that wherever I've seen it appear - and not just icw this crisis. The same misunderstanding was rife during the London riots.

It's simply that people confuse and conflate MACA/MAC-P (terms they've probably never heard) with martial law. When the difference is pointed out, they readilymagree they mean MACA

They aren't stupid, just unaware of the difference between the terms.

MACA is quite an important part of the pandemic (and other catastrophe) plans.

I'd like to hope that nobody is stupid enough to want actual martial law, but current evidence suggests otherwise.

I know some posters mentioned martial law, but they dis't man actual martial law, they meant an extension of MACA, especially into visible policing.

Which did happen a little already this weekend, with military assistance to police in checking revellers heading towards south coast resorts.

I don't think a well-developed sense of community, 'we're all in thus together' is magical thinking. People know the rules reduce the spread , they want the spread reduced, they follow the rules. It's pretty simple and very important right now.

Yes its totally shocking. And frightening.

AIBU is like The League of Gentlemen now

Did you see the thread where people were hoping that the army would be called in and martial law imposed? People have lost their shit (and in many cases just don't have the life experience to be able to imagine what that would be like in practice).

But but, those are The Rules. To be followed -To The Letter.

If it's not in The Rules, then I can do it.

I also reserve the right to interpret The Rules and shout at people for not following My Interpretation of The Rules.

I cannot be criticised as I am following The Rules. To The Letter.

DSup Ted Hastings

*Some people are exhibiting a form of magical thinking - not in the form that 4 year olds do but the adult form that’s closely clinked to OCD.^

Magical thinking is a perfect description, and then rage at those who they think are breaking the spell. In combination with not really understanding why the guidelines suggest the things that they do you end up with some downright irrational things being demanded, and then more rage when anyone tries to explain why they're not agreeing to the demands.

I agree that it's driven by fear in many cases, but honestly, figuring out ways to manage their own fear is something each individual needs to take responsibility for, rather than flailing and lashing out.

So we have people that look at the rules, or masks, or gloves, not as tools that work according to their nature to increase the time it takes the virus to spread, but more like magic talismans where if you have or do the right things, you will not get infected.

Exactly this.

Some people are exhibiting a form of magical thinking - not in the form that 4 year olds do but the adult form that’s closely clinked to OCD.

There’s this idea that if they do what the government does perfectly - including not spending an extra second plucking something from a supermarket shelf or sitting outside in their own garden - then everything will just be fine and this will all be over soon.

But it won’t be over soon in the U.K. They U.K. didn’t react like South Korea from the onset so they won’t have the same outcomes. Doing everything the government suggests in England won’t produce South Korean outcomes. Borders are open, community spread hasn’t been as well tracked, people are still moving within the community.

I understand that people are focusing on the factors that they can control, but taking this to extremes (not buying hair dye with a weekly shop because it adds seconds to the total time shopping) doesn’t mitigate the bigger factors, like people still entering the country and relative lack of testing. Tightening up one’s personal restrictions to the absolute micro level will just make the months and months of isolation harder.

Yes, it is a fear spiral, and a lot of it is fed by people not understanding the medical realities, or not understanding that there is actually a fair bit that is unknown and not easy to predict about the medical situation. Some people seem very unaware that some things are really risky and others are only minimally risky and may in fact not be worth the downsides that always come with them. A lot os people seem unaware that there is nothing like a clear agreement among scientists about the best thing to do, or what the models show.

Many people also don't seem to realise that guidelines for this kind of thing aren't absolute in many instances because often there is no good answer. If you are a single mom, do you take your child out with you to the shops where she likely will struggle to follow the rules, or leave them with someone from another household? There really isn't a right answer, you do what seems best.

I have no idea where this ideas is coming that we do not expect that most of the population will get it - that is still the assumption in the medical literature and by groups managing the crises. Some governments have stopped talking about it, I believe because they fear that people will not accept it politically, or maybe they think it will cause more panic. But there is no managing that, a vaccine is not likely to be available in time to prevent it.
Or this idea that people not following the rules means we will need to isolate longer? It's really the opposite, the more the curve is flattened, the longer it will take to get to a place where life can go back to normal, that should be clear to anyone who can read a graph.

So we have people that look at the rules, or masks, or gloves, not as tools that work according to their nature to increase the time it takes the virus to spread, but more like magic talismans where if you have or do the right things, you will not get infected.

But there is clearly a part of human nature that many people thought had somehow been conquered, or was just a weird aberration, that has come out very strongly here. I think this kind of social policing has actually been on the increase over the past 10 years, but right now it's out in full force.

Here we though having a Do Not Resuscitate order was enough to appease those who are willing to sacrifice other people's grandparents.
Criminy!

Well that kind of thinking has been around for a while now- Some have decided anyone who smokes, is overweight, drinks alcohol etc isn’t “deserving” of medical treatment (unless they pay). I feel that’s tied in with the idea that it’s ok to privatise the NHS (not a view I agree with but it’s out there) but the whole purity spiral thing may apply there too. People who claim to take nothing from the state so why should they pay for others etc.

Sorry for detail.

And for the record, after a 70 hour a week or so on the frontline I am partial to a small glass of wine! Everyone needs something to look forward to.

for you, Mamello! Thank you so much for what you're doing, and for trying to explain how all of this is meant to work.

Also, WhatKatySaid, and this too.

I really dislike the whole 'would you be willing to forego treatment?' line of thought

Is that really the kind of society any of us want to live in? If so, how far does that extend? Are we going to deny treatment to smokers? People whose diabetes was the result of their own decisions? People who get into accidents as a result of reckless driving, or extreme sports? It's one of the aspect of the public response to the pandemic that's bothered me most, along with the comments that old people will die soon anyway so people if the virus hits them hardest then people don't care that much. It's revealing a really dog eat dog underlying psychology that I'm finding disturbing to watch.

wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0885_article

The transmission distance of the virus seems to be greater than thought, 13ft or 4m.

I've already said. By doing what South Korea and Singapore and China are doing - testing everyone, tracking movement, contact tracing and quarantine. They are doing it now. They've contained the spread and aren't in lockdown and aren't having exponential spread.

Their public health approach was different to that of the UK’s though which partially explains the different outcomes. South Korea has tested twice as much as the U.K. In Wuhan people were welded into their homes to prevent them leaving.

I live in Australia where the testing rate is better than the UK’s and the public health response is robust. Plus, it’s an island! Some borders between states are closed, no one who isn’t from Australia can enter the country and those coming home have to quarantine in a hotel for two weeks and are monitored closely whilst doing so. In most states cases are linked to those from overseas, community spread is minimal. There have been 56 deaths.

Even then, when things open up again, it is known that cases will increase. It’s unrealistic to think that U.K.’s social distancing, even with people doing it perfectly, will eliminate the virus given that people still need to shop, work and live with other humans. It’s highly infective and easily transmissible and there are a whole heap of other factors that screw up modelling predictions, like viral load, individual susceptibility. It WILL continue to move through the population and will do so until a vaccine is found. They’ll be a greater spike in the U.K. cf South Korea when restrictions are relaxed because in the UK community spread is greater. The U.K. death rate (deaths per those infected) is higher than other countries, suggesting woeful under testing.

Realistically, if you’re vulnerable and looking at months and months (there will not be low community levels after a few more weeks of lock down) of self-isolation then personally I wouldn’t add layers of self-deprivation on top of it. You’re in for the long haul.

I think that you're doing the best you can, and I realise it must be a very stressful, lonely and worrying time for you both and also your wider family. I hope we find a resolution soon for all of us, and have personal reasons why this situation is particularly difficult for me too (as do many other people), and am certainly not wanting it to be prolonged any more than necessary.

Ideally as very vulnerable you should probably be in a separate room at all times, but obviously that's not practical or very nice for you.

We do as much as is practicable. We sleep in separate rooms, eat separately, spend all day separately. It's one of the reasons why my DD stayed at uni - we just cannot have three adults here and live separately unless I stay in the bedroom at all times and then my dh would have to sleep on the sofa.

I agree, two metres isn't guaranteed safety which is why he gets undressed in the porch, showers immediately, washes his clothes as soon as he comes in, we don't answer the front door, I don't go in the garden. The only extra thing we could do would be for him to live elsewhere ( not sure where though). The guidelines for shielded people is very detailed and I'm trusting that they are enough.

Two metres is a reasonable guideline where people are in contact for whatever reason. It's not a guarantee of safety, Hooves. Ideally as very vulnerable you should probably be in a separate room at all times, but obviously that's not practical or very nice for you. And people living in a studio flat or who are caring for others won't necessarily be able to isolate at all.