To wonder why the UK hasn't gone into lockdown yet?

[UnderReview]

Why doesn't the UK shut down now? Prevention better than (no) cure?

There's a doctor on Twitter (Dr Emma Hodcroft) who posted this...

Why are scientists alarmed when the first #COVID19 cases we hear of in a country are deaths? I thought it worth clarifying.

It's not because we worry the virus is "bad", "getting worse" or "changing". It's because #SARSCoV2 doesn't seem to lead to death very quickly
It seems like #SARSCoV2 infection takes about 3-4 weeks to overwhelm someone & lead to death - if it does, which for many it does not.

But this then implies that when we see deaths, those people have had the virus for weeks beforehand

And if no cases or only very few, well-tracable cases were detected during those weeks, #SARSCoV2 was circulating undetected.

And then only detected in some people who got ill enough to die. We know that's only a small fraction of the population

We don't know the answer to these questions exactly, but we don't need to in order to appreciate that seeing deaths first, or at time of diagnosis, is concerning to scientists & public health.

It's a sign that #SARSCoV2 is circulating more widely than we thought

This then marks a change in strategy, as we've seen in Italy, where it's very hard to retrace & take action, sometimes impossible. These efforts are still worthwhile, but harder than when detect #COVID19 cases earlier in the chain

We had isolation hospitals in Wales in our area, Abergele, Colwyn Bay, Anglesey, they were for tb. I remember cottage hospitals in England as a child. We shut them down for the new super hospitals huge and supposedly more efficient. It does seem odd now does it not?

Well no, not really justasking111 - unless you're suggesting that the UK should have kept a network of empty isolation hospitals open and ready staffed for 50 years waiting for this day.

2627 deaths
25277 recovered

51 825 currently officially infected with no outcome yet.

Hi Hasa doing the most basic maths on that gives you 79729 confirmed cases and a death rate of 3.29%

I think we should have restricted travel from China faster - I remember reading that something like 16 other countries have.

Watching the reaction in China, and now Italy is very sobering. The WHO doesn't worry about nothing so of course it's a concern. I'm not convinced our NHS could cope with a major outbreak at all.

The virus is easy to transmit, lasts quite a while on surfaces and we have no immunity to it. I've also read reports that it looks like the incubation period is longer than 2 weeks.Those of us who are asthmatic and have asthmatic children are of course worried.

DH's work is already cancelling events, and insisting on working from home for 2 weeks for employees who are returning from certain areas.

My son's off to Italy on Friday (not the north). We'll see if things have moved on so much in a week's time that he's quarantined when he gets back (he probably wouldn't mind being stuck in a room with an xbox for two weeks).

Hi Hasa doing the most basic maths on that gives you 79729 confirmed cases and a death rate of 3.29%

You can only work out the death rate once the confirmed cases are either recovered or dead. I.e. you have to know the outcome. It's no good saying the death rate is 3% if the following week you then have to ramp it up to 5% because you forgot that some people with it might die.

@UnderReview

Unless there is much that we are not being told the usual winter 'flu in the UK kills 17000 each year in the UK which perhaps puts the current situation into perspective?

2627 deaths
25277 recovered

51 825 currently officially infected with no outcome yet.

Hi Hasa doing the most basic maths on that gives you 79729 confirmed cases and a death rate of 3.29%

It may be basic maths, but it's flawed maths because you do not know the outcome of the 51,825 currently ill cases.

Read here if you want a full explanation of why deaths / confirmed cases doesn't work during an ongoing epidemic: www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/#correct

I’m pretty sure even if we did lock down now it’s too late looking at the amount of air travel going on right this minute .
No one seems to give a shit enough

The NHS can’t even cope with a Friday/Saturday night in my home town so how the govt can say they’re prepared I don’t know.

I’m not sure why this is a huge issue compared to “normal” flu, but I imagine that more people need intensive care, especially those with existing conditions, so a mass outbreak could leave us with places not available for those people, in an NHS that’s been underfunded for years.

I also suspect that it’s already in the UK but passed off as a bad virus. It’s scary.

Ha ha ha op. I’ll have your food ration, thanks. 😂😂

Whoever said we could use this as a dry run for Brexit has it about right....

If you shut down all the borders, tens of thousands of people would die and the economy would crater.

And when would you re-open them?

I guess one of the worries compared to flu is that those to whom the flu virus poses the greatest risk tend to be immunized annually to protect them against it (I know this is an imperfect science as there are different strains of flu and sometimes they vaccinate against the wrong one, but it still helps). But for this there is no vaccination so those most at risk remain vulnerable.

I don’t understand why when these things are first announced why all travel from that country is not banned, in this case China. Why are we allowing people to travel out and then have a worldwide panic when it’s spread around the globe? 🤷🏼‍♀️

Some countries did stop travel from China eg Australia only allowed entry to Australian citizens coming from China and those with permanent residency in Australia.

I have a friend in Alba and he's not panicking at all...

I live in Singapore. The governement here appear to be doing an admirable job of containing the virus at the moment but only time will tell. Given the massive amount of travel between China and Singapore, there have been 90 confirmed cases. 53 have been discharged and 7 remain in ICU. It is pretty much business as usual here. Since the CNY holidays at the end of January anyone who travelled to Wuhan (later extended to mainland China) within 14 days were told to self quarantinte. We had to fill in forms for school/nursey/gymnastic classes. Schools introduced temperature checking in order to enter school (our nursery/school did this every day previously anyway), this is also been done by workplaces and even some shops and banks. School have also been told to cancel large gatherings ie school assemblies and sports days. Anyone who presents with flu like symptoms are being tested. I went to the for with a throat infection and he told me he need to check for an upper respiratory tract issues. The government are undertaking active tracking of people who might have been in contact with those testing positive.

Get things into perspective please! FAR more people die from Flu currently (and we have flu inoculations).

The impact of a country 'lockdown' would be a great deal more disastrous. We would need to close our borders until the rest of the world was free of the virus, which could be months or even years. Do you have any idea what that impact would be??

Well no, not really justasking111 - unless you're suggesting that the UK should have kept a network of empty isolation hospitals open and ready staffed for 50 years waiting for this day.

Possibly (probably) a very dense question, but genuinely curious... apologies if I'm being a twat, it's honestly not intentional!

Husband and I are both self employed, if country went into lock down like China is currently, we couldn't work and wouldn't earn. We have savings and would manage, but I'm sure there's plenty of people in our work-situation who aren't as fortunate, who, if faced with lockdown for two months, would be in real trouble.

I'm pretty sure banks/loan companies/landlords aren't going to say 'ah, don't worry about mortgages/rent/car/loan repayments, you couldn't work - you were on lockdown!'

Where would that leave people? Virus free, but financially bollocksed? Appreciate you wouldn't be working if you had the virus either, but health insurance would possibly kick in then... would this be the case in a lock down scenario?

We shouldn’t be locking down, but what we should be doing NOW imo is stuff like:

• Avoiding unnecessary travel
• carrying out meetings by telecon instead of face to face
• Allowing more people to work from home who can
• More staggering of work start & finish times to ease crowding at rush hour

-Having more spaced out waiting areas in public places.

• anyone returning from an infected area should wear a mask, symptoms or not, and minimise contact with others as much as possible
• alcohol gel dispensers on public transport
• any other ideas?

@longcoffee
Same here
There is an awful lot of people in a similar situation in the UK and thus I think any "lockdown" here would be an absolute last resort. I can imagine the government closing off certain small communities if there was a significant cluster, like in Italy, but not a whole scale country in isolation situation.
May yet be proved wrong tho!

The one thing I do think we need to worry about is the NHS getting overwhelmed if there is a proper outbreak here. Not good news for anyone getting operations, cancer treatment, having a baby etc

Oh dear, I work in a holiday company where people are constantly either going abroad on holiday or for business travel. Some people fly once a week/fortnight.

This is going to be fun!

Isn't the test supposed to be flawed? which is why the numbers on that cruise ship in Japan keep going up.

Given that and that many with a mild version of the disease wouldn't go nr a GP surgery, much less have bloods done, its likely the UK has far more than 13 cases.
Who knows? but i don't trust govt's to tell us the truth, it wasn't very long ago they told everyone to hide behind a wooden door to keep us safe from Nuclear blast.