Gobsmacked by UK response

[Aspoonfullofjam]

Stay at home for one week if you’ve a cold (even though all evidence is that incubation is two weeks)

People over 70 don’t go on cruises.

WHAT!!!

134 new cases in a day and no action. 13 EU countries have closed all schools, another 11 partial closures but apparently no action needed in Uk.

Jesus.

People are already limiting the spread. They are already flattening the curve. The government don’t need to close schools etc right now because people are actually already limiting it themselves. Folks are not going out as much. Sanitising their hands, cancelling trips etc. Many sporting events are being cancelled by the organisers. That in itself will limit the spread.

They also have stopped testing because it’s pointless, so many people don’t have symptoms. So for example they think up to ten thousand people already have it and not the four hundred odd confirmed, the test numbers tell us nothing.

And if someone is confirmed to have it, all they do is tell them to self isolate at home. If you tell everyone with symptoms to self isolate you remove the need to test them. Many will comply. Some will not. Whether you test or not.

If we close too soon then the risk is that people will start to react against the restrictions right at the time when you want maximum social distancing

This is the kind of patronising snobbery we get from our public-school educated government advisers, who disagree with international expert consensus opinion (calling for early aggressive action) because they think our peasant unwashed masses will get bored and start to break the rules if we go too early. Once we start getting ting hundreds of people dying per day of CV, I doubt you will get many people clamouring to be able to go out mixing in mass gatherings because they are bored.

There is concern that there will be a second spike in China
There will likely be a second spike. But that's the whole point. You want to spread it out over a longer period, to avoid overwhelming your health service's capability to care for the sick. Yes this means the outbreak lasts much longer than the "get coronavirus done" strategy, but it also leads to far fewer deaths.

The most-quoted example is the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak in the US. Different cities had different approaches. In Philadelphia which delayed social distancing such as school closures and bans on gatherings until two weeks after St Louis did, they had an earlier peak and the outbreak was done and dusted much earlier. St Louis had a significantly long duration of outbreak and a second peak of infection that was actually higher than the original one. But crucially, because not as many people were getting sick all at once, St Louis' death rate was half of Philadelphia. They saved literally thousands of lives.

@Grumpiestoldwoman I just don’t see how the advice and current reaction is going to balance transmission though?

I think Ireland took the approach they did as its St Patrick’s Weekend. If we had Uk advise of not stopping events and carrying on as normal then the pubs and streets would be full of people mixing and being in close quarters in inevitably leading to a spike in cases and more transmission. We would also have tons of tourists coming over. Now all tourist attractions are closed so it’s hoped Tourist numbers will drop right back. All events are cancelled and there are regulations on numbers so minimising people’s contact with others, plus the strong advice is please restrict social activity and I know that has changed A lot of peoples minds about going out this weekend plus pubs are looking at restricting numbers to the approved 100.

In general too while some people need to go to work taking thousands of workers out of the public transport system and from interacting with each other can only help and can also minimize the risk of infection and spreading for those who are out.

Some childcare facilities are aiming to still provide care to the children of health care and other front like staff and schools are making sure children who are disadvantaged are given games to take home and fun packs and are working with charities to ensure that these children are linked in food wise.

I can see clearly that this will hopefully reduce numbers or slow transmission before it gets out of control.

I don’t see What the Uk approach will achieve. If you’re on a constant trajectory now let’s see what it’s like in a few days after the weekend, more mass gatherings and st Patrick’s day parade in London.

Already we’re seeing threads with people who have a cough saying oh it’s definitely a cold I don’t have to isolate.

"Apart from making holes in the big bosses pockets"

And all the people employed by them on zero hours minimum wage and somewhere in between.

The events industry is incredibly vulnerable to a downturn. They'll just lay everyone off.

I love the idea that people are taking steps themselves. Unless there are rules set out by government most employers will not have people wfh. The tubes are still full today. If people are staying at home, it's not many.

@GrumpiestOldWoman, agree, lockdown only works if it is kept in place until there is a vaccine, so 12-18 months?

If it spreads slowly through the population the NHS can handle it better. If the vast majority get it we'll have herd immunity at a population level which is crucial to surging future strains.

This virus, like the flu is here to stay, it will be back every year, like the flu.

We are in this for the long haul and if we went into close down now people would protest as shortages hit, services start not happening
Protest at what? What are they going to do wave a few placards in a deserted town centre or outside supermarkets? Or perhaps people would just knuckle down and look after their families. Eat simple food for a couple of months. Kids doing work on computers while their parents watch TV. You know, like 1.4 billion did in China

You have a rather simplified view of life on the UK. The UK is not solely made up of nice little families with office jobs where mum and dad can work from home on one of their many computers whilst the kids okay board games between getting on with their school work.

There'd be looting in my town centre if the shops and schools closed. Bored people indulge in anti- social behaviour. It's no small measure to impose a lock down on a country. We're a pretty rebellious population. We all think we know best. The government will be weighing up the costs to lives of coronavirus v the breakdown of social order.

I get the logic I really do. Let the fit people get it and make sure the vulnerable don't all get it at once to maximise capacity of NHS resources. It doesn't help though if you are one of the vulnerable. It's all such a gamble.

@Loppy10 - good post.

Every other country is taking action. 26 countries have closed schools. LSE has stopped face to face classes, our GP surgery is closed to appointments, only telephone now.

And our government does what? Announce people will die (no guff) warn wealthy over 70's not to go on cruises and tell people who are ill to stay at home.

Jeremy Hunt, not my favourite person, is concerned by the response. Dear God.

The tubes are full of people going to work. The limiting is coming in for leisure Activities. There is no doubt about that. Hotels, restaurants, cafes, everyone’s business is down. And substantially so.

@GinandGingerBeer, it's very difficult if you are one of the vulnerable people in this situation.

Unfortunately it's survival of the fittest as has been the case since life first evolved on the planet. Until we develop a vaccine to protect the weaker and vulnerable members of society.

I understand, though not sure I agree with it, the stance not to close schools. But I cannot for the life of me understand why mass gatherings are still going ahead. Take football for instance - I really can't see all people who should do self isolating if they have a non refundable non transferable £50+ ticket to a game. Let alone Cheltenham atm.

NHS is contradicting themselves they produce a new vaccine every year because you can’t get herd immunity.

@lilgreen that's a slight relief. Thank you.

The concern about football is if they play matches behind closed doors people go to the pub to watch with their mates instead of to the stadium. Transmission in the enclosed space of a crowded pub is likely to be higher than in an open air stadium.

You have to stop the matches otherwise all you do is displace the social gathering to a potentially worse location.

Dr Harries said there's very little point in cancelling outdoor events from an infection pov. The only reason to do that would be because of the strain large events put on public services but we're not there yet and the cost would be huge. People think football is all about rich people but it employs loads of people on minimum wage or close to it too.

I don't think anyone understands just how difficult a prolonged period of social isolation would be. All of a sudden we don't care about mental health? Civil unrest? Vulnerable children far away from all their safeguarding protection? Food banks empty? It's important to keep spirits up for as long as possible. Most people are seeing this as very black and white and only about infection control but there are so many other factors to consider, many of which will turn out to be much bigger issues imo.

Anyway, we're not at a point where we need to cancel outdoor events where risk of transmission is very low.

How do we know that the risk of transmission is “very low” at mass events? I assume there is special scientific evidence for this confident assertion?

Well the Deputy Chief Medical officer said so but we seem to have decided we all know better than the actual qualified scientists, who've been living and breathing this thing for months now.

Besides which, it's one of the reasons respiratory illness is less common in the warmer weather - we spend less time indoors.

Well the Deputy Chief Medical officer said so but we seem to have decided we all know better than the actual qualified scientists, who've been living and breathing this thing for months now.

Would this be the special secret British science that can’t be shown? As other countries have been cancelling mass gatherings, either they’re doing this again scientific evidence, or foreign scientific evidence is wrong?

They seem to have totally ruled out school closure though

i dont think thats true at all! I took it as a "dont close your schools yet"

tbh in reality most families cant cope with schools being closed for any period longer than 2 weeks unless they know about it well in advance (ie summer holidays)

then you take away childminders, holiday schemes and you have 1000s of families down to 1 wage minus the childcare fees theyve already paid (and likely wont get back)

thats sustainable for a couple of weeks, any more than that and kids are hungry and mortgages and rents arent getting paid

as much as its though of as "evil" to put the economy first, i think there has to be a balance.

You cant lock everyone at home for a month and say ah deal with it. Its not realistic.

I dont know how china have done it tbh

Whenever there is a thread about vaccinations virtually the whole of MN screams that they are safe because we must trust Science. But now the advice Scientists have given to the government doesn't suit many people on MN and suddenly we are hearing "the scientists are wrong, we can't trust them" and every one else knows better🙄

FGS we had the whole BREXIT thing because "we" could do things better than the rest of the world now we don't trust our own experts?

I did try to think of an name of a government dept that would abbreviated to clitoris

It's the Dept for Coastal and Littoral Research

If they’re going to close schools now is very early and for a long period

But now the advice Scientists have given to the government doesn't suit many people on MN and suddenly we are hearing "the scientists are wrong, we can't trust them" and every one else knows better

My concern is that the advice being given in the UK is so different to the advice being given in other countries. Why are other countries focusing on social-distancing and closing schools, cancelling public events, but only the UK is focussed on this idea of herd immunity?

How do you explain that?