I've lost all confidence in our leaders. **Title edited by MNHQ**

[Ofthread]

I'm freaking out. Why isn't our country doing more? I've lost all confidence in their abilities to lead. Did anyone see the government advisor guy with the dead eyes on the Channel 4 special this evening? He explained quite calmly that the measures would be enough and that they would 'flatten the curve'. Another guy was practically jumping up and down screaming 'You have to do something NOW, these measures won't flatten the curve'.

The OP is not being ridiculous. It is not scaremongering to extrapolate curves intelligently.

What is far more scary is the (deliberate?) lack of a scale on the graph shown by Boris Johnson (any GCSE student could say that the Y axis was unlabelled without a scale).

However, we do know that Boris wants the area under the curve (total infections) to be around 40 million cases. The peak looks like about 10% of the area over about 2 weeks, so 4 million cases in 14 days or about 150,000 cases per day, of which around 15,000 will need a hospital bed. Of those, one in 5 need intensive care (some estimates are higher). That means 3,000 intensive care beds (additionally) every day as I believe the average stay is 2 weeks.

The above, of course, is playing fantasy hospital with facilities we won’t have. Hopefully we will have field hospitals with basic support for most and intensive care for the lucky few, which someone will have to choose (age, education, money ???).

Given the above i suspect the fatality rate will be worse than the WHO estimate of 3.4%, or millions.

We do need to get ahead of this and stop the chicken pox party.

I wonder if the behavioural scientists cunning plan is to stoke fear as much as possible in the UK (hence boris's rather depressing speech) so that when measures are introduced in a week or so compliance is really high becuase everyone is terrified. From threads such as these it does seem to be working whereas in Italy measures introduced were just ignored.

Actually, checking my post, 4 million /14 is closer to 300,000, so twice as bad.

Unfortunately I don't think it would work in the UK to directly copy the signapore/hong kong route. The population there already has lived through SARS and was already semi prepared to take the neceaary measues to reduce case numbers very early on.

It’s amazing how many people on the internet are suddenly expert virologists and epidemiologists. I mean it takes most specialists a good 15 years of dedicated study, research and practice, but mumsnetters manage to achieve the same level of expertise in about a week. Remarkable!

I don’t understand why people think measures should be voluntary. It is like a war, a state of emergency.

Measures are enforced by police and army. It will happen, just a question of when.

There no silver bullet and if you go to extreme with measures people will not conform.
It's going to have to run it's cousre people won't conform and are selfish nowadays and think they can't be told what to do .
number of examples here

1)Friend works in a school cancelled trip parents ringing saying they should go because they have already paid.

2 )threads on here
son with dad he's suspected CV mum told dad to bring him back as she wants him home she has 2 other kids one being a new born

dads turn to have him this weekend mums says he's coughing fits criteria for CV dad says self isolate mum insist he should take him

3. at work we have to ask if suspected CV before we go into peoples houses 3 customers said blatantly they would lie as it would mean they would have no internet as we would not go into there houses.

4. dickheads panic buying morrisons was RAMMED busier than christmas eve

Singpore's approach worked because individuals had a high level of trust in the government. How would you rate UK citizens level of trust in the government?
amp.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3050039/coronavirus-why-did-singapore-have-more-cases-hong

We do not know how people have had or have covid 19.

We do not know how many have recovered or will recover.

All we know for definite is the number of deaths that have occurred from it.

It's the only stat we will ever have that is accurate or as near to accurate as you can get.

I don’t understand why people think measures should be voluntary. It is like a war, a state of emergency.

Bur it is a very difficult and complex situation and the answers are not that simple. You’re not going to close everything down, so what do you choose? And how do you enforce it? Italy closed shops but didn’t close manufacturing plants “except for non-essential departments”. That created a very odd situation and in the North there have been many strikes with workers saying they didn’t understand why they were working when shop-workers and other departments weren’t.

Exactly. And as doubtless many more have had it than have been tested/diagnosed, the death rate is probably a lot lower.

Jilly,

That is where experts come in. We need to maintain as much functionality as possible whilst getting the infectivity rate below one. It is not simple at all, but it is very doable.

I could kind of get Boris’s approach were it the late 20th century but progress in antivirals (due to HIV) and speed of vaccine development have increased exponentially.

There is already a proposed vaccine and at least one antiviral that some believe will be effective, maybe even as a prophylactic.

We don’t need to fear next winter and ‘get it over with’. We need to minimise the impact now and have a global Manhattan style project in treatment protocol and vaccine development. Then, next winter, we will be ready.

In addition, I think we are being relaxed about the fatality rate and the age profile. What if it mutated worse or to more efficiently attack children and young adults? It should go the other way, but doesn’t always happen and a billion infected globally with other viruses sharing DNA/RNA... who knows?

If the fatality rate were 50% (or even 10% including the young), we would be doing it. I do get the feeling that we feel the old are somewhat disposable.

The only countries that are dealing with it well are those that remember SARS. And that meant immediate mass action before you could even see it anywhere while the numbers were tiny.

No one wise knows how to control it once it gets uncontained. I’m not sure everyone shutting schools now will avoid better what is coming than if ours shut in a week.

They probably didn’t think about Italians rushing to the south pre lockdown (granted an apparent leak) spreading it, taking it to poorer healthcare. Murcia in Spain now seeing uplift since schools shut.

No one knows

I do think that a extensive long period of isolation would also put vulnerable people at risk. I volunteer helping isolated elderly people, we are already trying to put into action a way of supporting these people if schools close and the volunteers no longer have the ability to travel. We are in most cases their only human interaction. This is also connected to a food bank and isolation will reduce donations for those in most need who cannot stockpile. People have also stockpiled the cheapest basic brands which reduces donations and our ability to buy with cash donations as well. We had a surge and stock for clients is ok but time limited, but again most of the volunteers rely on schools being open or are in the most risk category themselves.

The rate you quote if the %age of infected people, please see @HappyTeacher75 post. There are also other factors, an important one being Italy's population has a much higher average ago than many countries.

My Irish GP here in the Middle East told me that the reason for the high number of deaths in Northern Italy is because of the number of older men who have smoked all of their lives, which renders them more susceptible to respiratory illness. She doesn't subscribe to my theory that practising Catholics were spreading the disease at Mass and that is how it spread so fast in N. Italy.

Yep, blame it on the catholics. - or any other single group of people and see where this gets you - knowing human nature?!

Now is not the time for blaming anyone; and I really hate to say it, because I am a person that always questions authority, but that includes our leader too.

I think Hong Kong know what they are doing and we don't. But I'm not going to blame anyone for not always knowing the right course of action to take. It is a very, very difficult situation to get right and manage.

7.2% of tested, confirmed infections.
???

The really significant number is the number of ICU beds. How many are available in Italy vs the UK?
link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00134-012-2627-8/figures/1
Italy: 12.5 ICU beds per 100,000 population.
UK: 6.6 ICU beds per 100,000 population.

Even still, Italy will need 4000 more ICU beds over the next month just to keep up with acute cases.

The UK is about to be overwhelmed.

The government U turn on large gatherings is a strong indication that it is pulling its response straight out of its arse.

Italy has more ICU beds than the UK but they are running out.

Italy has 23% smokers
UK has 16%

I haven't seen scaremongering on these threads. I've seen anecdotes (the southern Italians living together one above for example- as I said, sure some very poor families all live under the same roof, but it's very much a minority)

The comment about immigrants is, at best simply an ignorant or wilful show of lack of geography and current affairs, at worse a typical Britain First comment. Try looking up how many immigrants arrive on the Italian coasts cf how many swim across from Calais.

The scientists think Italy's rate is so high because of the original north west hotspot being the second or third (can't remember) most concentratedly industrial area in Europe. Import/export, foreign delegations, etc.

Don't forget Italy's patient zero turned out to be a German. But a month ago, the ordinary Italian was looking at this like the average Brit was maybe this week. A handful of people got this flu thing, of which some sadly died.

Nobody is saying that now.
Anywhere in Europe apart from Britain.

It's a current death rate of 7.2% of documented cases in Italy. Those are facts. That is the truth.

Why did you choose Italy though rather than South Korea who have clearly tested a lot more people? The truth then is slightly different.

I was also thinking are they implementing change by creating fear, getting people to want something different to what is being propsed, then give it to them, hoping for better compliance.

The government U turn on large gatherings is a strong indication that it is pulling its response straight out of its arse.

It's not a u turn. In the press conference yesterday they said they were still discussing banning large gatherings and there would be an announcement very soon. My impression at the time was that they just hadn't set a date yet.

It’s not a u turn.