Just spoke to a friend in Italy...

[letsjog]

And I'm really concerned that people are saying England will follow suit.

I know a lot of people already know but it's hard to hear it from the horses mouth so to speak.

She's not allowed to leave her house and must have a permit to go shopping/walk the dog etc. They are not allowed to socialise with anyone outside her only company is her neighbour in her apartment block. She can't even visit her elderly parents in the next province over at a risk of 3 months in jail if she attempts to.
The doctors are having to basically make decisions who lives and who dies due to lack of hospital beds and supplies and are mainly prioritising the young, leaving the elderly unaided. She's saying it's like a war without the weapons.

People in England are saying this will blow over but when and at what cost?
I still hear people spouting percentages how the healthy/young/fit are most likely to be fine and they're just going about their day and even trying to book holidays.

Can someone realistically give me a best case/worst case scenario we are facing here?

DP is trying to convince me to keep the DCs off school even though our schools are open and trying to say we shouldn't see our parents for now too.

The 16 week thing came from the chief medical officer hwo said for the virus to stop spreading schols would have to close for 16 weeks which isnt feasible-2 weeks is pointless

If we are talking about the UK, there was some chief science advisor (can't remember specific name) on Sky news this morning who said very clearly that the UK government is not aiming for herd immunity, that is not their policy.

So why aren’t they locking us down as other European countries are doing? What’s the point of letting the virus run unchecked?

My mate couldn't get her babies nappies this week. You can't get a bottle of Calpol anywhere and you pretty much can't get any toilet roll or pasta or tinned food anymore. Sanitary towels are also becoming difficult to find.

Bar pasta, everything else you mention was on the shelves yesterday and today in 2 supermarkets I went to.

Can you not even go for a walk to a rural area like a field or woodland? We live in a very rural area anyway, but I’m worried about my one year old being stuck in with nowhere outside to go, we don’t have much of a garden, only a tiny yard.

She's not allowed to leave her house and must have a permit to go shopping/walk the dog etc. They are not allowed to socialise with anyone outside her only company is her neighbour

I'm a lone parent, this is how I've lived for years now. Finding it strange so many people so scared of isolation when they are describing my life on a permanent basis

You need a permit to go shopping or walk the dog/ Because you're a lone parent?
Weird I've never heard of this when you say you've been living like this for years.
surprised there haven't been a few complaints about this too

So why aren’t they locking us down as other European countries are doing? What’s the point of letting the virus run unchecked?

I posted the link above for the entire interview and there were some interesting points about this.

From what I can gather, isolating or shutting down too early is not as beneficial as people think it is.

The example given in the interview was if you cut the oxygen source off a fire it will go out, but if you have any embers left, the minute that oxygen is turned on again you're prime for another outbreak. Trying to smooth the curve rather taking extreme measures too soon and risking a further outbreak in the future.

Either way I don't think it's a simple decision like people think it is.

@Nellodee, how do you make 3 million into 80% of the population?

@cathyandheathcliff
Lock down in denmark there are no restrictions so far to walk outside. Just don't get into contact (we are told everything from 1-3m from others).

I think we will do much the same: we will prioritise those with more years ahead of them than behind them. Sad, but ultimately if you have to make the choice, that is how it should be. I would prioritise my children over myself, and I would expect society to do similar as a whole.

If we are talking about the UK, there was some chief science advisor (can't remember specific name) on Sky news this morning who said very clearly that the UK government is not aiming for herd immunity, that is not their policy.

The UK government strategy is increasingly baffling. It's becoming clearer that allowing the virus to run rampant around most of the population to try to achieve this mythical herd immunity can surely not be the government objective. Did anyone hear Matt Hancock on Sky News earlier. He was literally begging any facility that could produce a ventilator to produce one, they will pay any amount. Apparently we only have 5000 in the country. We also have low numbers of critical care beds compared to other similar countries (see here www.statista.com/chart/21105/number-of-critical-care-beds-per-100000-inhabitants/. And those statistics are the most recent available but taken from 2012. Undoubtedly after years of austerity, ours are even lower since then. A quick peak with most of the population falling ill at once would be the worst thing that could happen here, but they have been so tardy at implementing any policies that could help to slow the spread.

The rumoured emergency laws to force schools to stay open are just crazy. If the guidance is that anyone with a cough or fever has to stay home for 7 days (or has to stay home to care for a child that has symptoms) then the likelihood is some schools, especially smaller primary schools, are going to be unable to have safe numbers of staff:pupil ratios. What are they supposed to do then?

By the sound of it the infertility in men will be noticed as it requires testicle swelling to occur. Has anyone with it mentioned that symptom.

The Economist said there are 4054 ICU beds in England, 80% of which are occupied at any given time. That leaves just over 160 beds available for c19.
Given that the government seems to have no plan to stop immediate widespread infection, they seem to have no clue.

If the closed schools surely they could direct teachers (surely some would be willing) to provide childcare

Out of my three teacher friends, 2 have been completely honest and are hoping for a closure so they can get a break (which will be, it seems be on full pay). The third made a brief muttering about not wanting to close because of the inconvenience to parents, but at the same time was quite looking forward to an extra long summer.

I doubt you will have teachers queuing up offering childcare for the greater good of the population tbh.

Any teachers on here willing to take up an offer of running childcare while schools are off?

Just to clear up with some PPs I didn't make any suggestions myself in my OP. I am simply asking questions and wondering why our country isn't following suit with the majority of the world. And I'm obviously concerned about the current situation.

To posters saying that it's an obvious choice between a baby and a grandma or whatever ....

Just because some choices might be obvious or logical doesn't make them any easier on the person.
I imagine it might be horrific for a doctor to have to make multiple decisions on who they try to save and who they let die and it will stay with them for a long time.
I was purely trying to point out how bad this is.

@DippyAvocado
Did anyone hear Matt Hancock on Sky News earlier. He was literally begging any facility that could produce a ventilator to produce one, they will pay any amount

Do you mean the Sophy Ridge interview?
It's about 5 mins in

He didn't say they will pay any amount. The way I understood it was that he was referring to the number of ventilators - not the amount of money. I could be wrong - but that was my impression.

She asked him, "how many ventilators do we have and how many do we need?"

He replied, "we start with around 5000 ventilators and we need many times more than that. We are saying that if you produce a ventilator we will buy it. No number is too high.

And just adding that I agree the emergency laws keeping schools open is crazy with bells on. My DD is a teacher and she is fuming and scared in equal measures.

I (and many others) saw the writing on the wall with this in early January as the news came out of China. I haven’t had to shop in the past couple of weeks as we prepared extensively for Coronavirus to reach the U.K.

How THE FUCK are we in a situation where the government has Only just realised we don’t have enough kit?

I have three children of my own. I have no intention of staying in school to babysit if schools are closed. If they're closed, it's because the fears of corona spreading are a serious concern. Why should i be more at risk with my children?

Italy reports 3,590 new cases and 368 new deaths, raising total to 24,747 cases and 1,809 dead

Why would you want staff staying in schools to babysit? Surely if they’re closed they’re closed for a reason. They need to stay open if they’re just going to have hoards of kids and staff in the same buildings. What is the point of closing?

@Footle, the 3 million isn't the 80%. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

I was using the worst case figure of 80% being infected, and a worst case death rate of 5.8%, which is what the World Health Organisation said the death rate was in Wuhan at the point at which their healthcare became overrun.

So then 66,440,000 x 80/100 x 5.8/100 = 3,082,816

People are quoting a death rate of 7% in Italy right now, so that's not quite worst case, but once you get up into those kinds of figures, a difference of a few hundred thousand doesn't even sink into the brain.

These figures are absolutely worst case. If we don't swamp our health system, we can hope to keep the death rate under 1%. And if we do clamp down and use extreme social distancing, there is no guarantee there will be a second wave.

But the path we're on... I don't want to think about it, really. I have a little blockade in my head most of the time that stops me trying to visualise what those numbers actually mean.

Here's my usual us v Italy for today. We're the lower line. As you can see, we're rising just as steeply as they are, if not more so. I really want to see Italy's line start moving to be more horizontal soon. There's maybe a hint of their line starting to curve?

I didn't point out the logarithmic scale... that means each gridline is 10x more than the one before.

Oops, sorry, wrong thread for the graphs.

Nellodee,

I did Avery similar log graph with a line of best fit and worked out that we are 26 days from 1 million cases.