Is Johnson doing the right thing?

[jasjas1973]

Is he? i've changed my view on this recently.
Do we just have to accept some very harsh truths?
Getting some very clever people to advise him and judging by how successful partial lockdowns in other European countries have gone, these don't seem to work.

We haven't got an NHS that is anything like as well equipped/staffed as say an Italy, France even Spain and they are not coping, maybe he is just (for once) being honest?

Our response is disgusting.

I'm even impressed by trump!.
I'm much preferring his press conference its warmer. They admitted they got things wrong.

I also trust that smaller guy on this, that you cant predict... He's not reffering to maths models!!

He's obviously looked at models and figures... He's not spouting out maths models.

He's taking active measures, to stop their curve they said a few weeks.

Stop what's coming in, causing more fires. Then deal with what yiu have!!

He is not doing the right thing. He is sacrificing the poor, the vulnerable and the old.

Realistically what can be done differently now?

Just posted this somewhere else, but have you read this? www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/boris-callous-mayor-from-jaws-is-my-hero-491526

It’s in various newspapers from 2012. It’s reallu worrying that his role model is Larry Vaughn. Basically, we’re screwed.

Bearbehind- we could allow isolation and enforce schools and employers to pay/ not to fine. At the minute, everything said is lip service- because the message is contradictory. Self isolate! But employers will only allow that if tested! But the government won't test! Can't you see the problem here?! I can only isolate if I'm paid and they won't pay me without diagnosis and the government have just said they won't diagnose.

We could consider our vulnerable and lockdown as the who advises

These are the odds of catching the virus month by month without measures.

we could allow isolation

People can chose to do that now

and enforce schools and employers to pay/ not to fine

If we lock down now it will be for months - how is that sustainable?

You can only choose it if you can afford it!!!!!!! I'm / my family is in immediate danger due to being immunosuppressed and knowing that we have had contact with someone who potentially has it!! Having been in Milan in the last three weeks.

I can not isolate because my employer won't pay me unless I or a family member is diagnosed. But the government won't test! (They won't even tear the girl who was in Milan!) What part of this horrible circle don't you understand?! It's part of the usual poverty circle that many don't get.

I'm beginning to think that this is the plan, don't enforce but allow those that are able to slow the spread.

E.g. don't ban mass gatherings - the gatherings themselves will cancel (football, rugby etc)

Don't ban working/travelling on public transport - many employers will (have already) encourage people to wfh so the numbers in cities/on transport are reduced.

Maybe this is the halfway house? Slow the spread, reduce the pressure.

Why can’t they just call it SARS?

Agree!! the Govt should provide a reasonable amount of sick pay to all those whose employers won't or can't provide it, perhaps in the £300 per week region for up to 2 weeks unless hospitalised and then its for the duration, extend this to zero hrs workers and self employed.

SSP is to all intent and purposes a complete waste of time.

waiting what can the government do to change any of that?

They can’t pay everyone indefinitely

It’s absolutely shite but it’s the situation we are in

They can TEST people. My employer will pay me if me or my family have it. The school will deep clean IF someone is diagnosed. But that's bollocks whilst they won't test isn't it?!

The government can stop fining for non attendance should families in danger choose to isolate? I appreciate that testing costs money, but let's pretend that I could afford to stay off without testing- I still couldn't keep dc off without financial penalty! They're literally sending us down the river

Also- please re read my posts. I don't want the government to pay me. I want my employer to pay me. They (major multi billion corporation that i made 9million for last year) have pledged to pay full pay to Virus victims and families- but only if diagnosed. My industry is full of these empty promises that are made because they are guaranteed not to be fulfilled.

Agree they should be testing. The horrible limbo of not knowing, people like waiting who need to be able to claim, people who really need to assess risk of going shopping for food in their area, but who have no idea how many cases there are.
We have a reasonably well stocked pantry now, but we certainly can’t hole up for three months, we will need to shop. As will my 84 year old Mil who we are avoiding seeing because we have dc in school and don’t want to risk passing on the virus.

I hadn't seen that YouAreTheEggManIAmTheWalrus, but it broadly makes sense. The graph on yesterday had the peak around late april/early may with no intervention and they consider the current isolate if you cough guidance to reduce it by 25% and presumably push it out so max infection risk in june sort of ties in.

re the ssp...a more clear read of the government's "we'll cover it for small businesses" says they will sort out the reclaim method "over the next few months"...by the time they do it, it will be too late.

I understand re your employer Waitingforadulthood, clearly not a struggling small firm!

I think he's trying to keep a balance between reducing/slowing down the spread of the virus and keeping the economy afloat. I don't envy him.

Some people are callimg for schools to be closed but I have the feeling that this might have the effect of spreading the disease faster, if families go out and about to shopping centres, cinemas and restaurants. So, maybe if/when schools shut, those places should all shut too, because that's where many teenagers will congregate.

Also, maybe MacDonalds and other fast food restaurants should close their indoor faciltities and just offer drive through options - that would greatly reduce close contact. They might also consider a walk-thru service, for those who don't drive.

I wonder what will happen when China and other countries come out of lock down? Surely they will have a second wave of infections then? It isn't possible to lock down the whole world for weeks/months, until a vaccine is invented, so I think our government is being realistic in its approach, although it could do more, and hopefully will do so, as time goes on.

I have no idea why they think we have that long. Our curve is is tracking italy about a fortnight behind.....

They're not testing because there aren't enough testing kits. Everyone is running out of them. They're made in China and the US, neither of which are currently exporting them to other countries.

Fuck knows. Sure hope he is. We'll never really find out, because depending on your politics it's either all his fault or we were a bit fucked from the start. Germany has taken v similar approach until this week and it worked well for a while. School closures thing they were making exactly the same observations about it not being backed up by science and could displace kids to more places. Now it's not working, so they're shutting more down. Everyone is making this up as they go along, because there are few knowns.

Also, re testing, this is going to be relevant if volunteers are needed to help shore up essential services next winter, because it will be important for volunteers to know whether they have already developed immunity during the first wave. The knowledge that someone has immunity may make them feel more confident to volunteer in hospital and care home environments, during staff shortages when the second wave of infection strikes.

They're not testing because there aren't enough testing kits

They are not testing because not testing keeps the numbers down.

Italy currently has 17,660 confirmed cases. Yesterday they estimated that we probably have between 5 and 10k cases vs an official number of 590. Lets, for ease, say that it's 10 times the reported numbers which is within that bracket, and let's assume Italy is the same. Big assumptions I know but gotta start somewhere.

That would suggest 176,600 cases in Italy, vs a population of 60.48 million. Giving an infection rate of roughly 1 in 342. Using the figures posted by the actuary in the pic above the number of cases is projected to increase by about 32 times from April to May and the May to June rate is similar. So, assuming then a fairly constant growth multiplier across that period of just under 2.4 x per week then that would get us from 1/4600 to 1/335 in 3 weeks from whenever that 1/4600 March number is. Assuming it's about now then we're not exactly far off that 2 week behind Italy estimate with his figures.

The other thing it suggests is that if those rates were to apply Italy is nowhere near done as 1/342 is nowhere close to the projected peak infection rate.

What I will say though is that weekly growth rate of 2.4x in number of cases that these projections seem to imply is about half of what we've actually seen in the official numbers. Whether that is due to anticipated slowdown (isolation measures), or whether they estimate that the true growth rate is lower than the rate shown by the tests, I have no way of knowing. If there was some change in testing policy over the period then they could get an articially high (or low) growth rate so that's possible. At some point they did switch to doing at least some testing based on symptoms rather than geographic exposure although obviously that's now changing again.

Disclaimer; it's Friday night and this is quick maths. His projections will have been run on a more robust model!

Hazelnut could you link me to an article/videoabout the 20% best case scenario please? I'm running some calculations and if I use that as a base case it throws up some scary figures, so I would like somewhere to cite!

Figure source source was the chris Whippy speech to parliment Wednesday before last. That gave the 1/5 or 20% infection figure. I struggling to find a clip of the whole speech not behind a paywall. 60-80% is the figure thrown around for herd immunity

The 3% death rate is taken from China's stats. Remembering that because they widely tested so picked up assymptomatic transmission cases as well.

The 15% needing oxugen i think was from who or that Chris whippy speech. Either way that was also Chinas figure. I thnk italy is possibly coming out higher on that front

4000 ICU beds came from BBC on thd same day as the whippy speech although ive seen it elsewhere as well

Nhs video of the interview not behind a pay wall

whitty not whippy!