60-80% will contract this disease

[Alialialiali]

I am currently in self-isolation and in all likelihood have this. My area is a hotspot and in the beginning I was asked to come into the hospital which now has the most cases in the country so if i didnt have it then i may well have picked it up there.

Next year there'll be another virus... then another.... then another. What are we going to do? Shut down the entire nation every time? This is not as simple as the flu but it's not EBOLA either.

The government strategy is to flatten the curve. It's not eradication. Regardless of whatever lockdown you think is coming we are still expecting 60-80% of the population to become infected. And we're looking for that to happen within 12 weeks. That is my reading of the strategy. I feel like a lot of you don't really understand that and are holding out hope for a vaccine.

Anyway, I already know where the voting's going to go on this one. My intention is to let you guys know that outside of your bubble a large proportion of the country thinks like me and even if they don't right now, reality will soon set in after 2 weeks of what we're calling a lockdown. You can't expect 20/30 somethings to stop life and sit in a home they don't own, for a year. And I'm aware that we're saying it's really dangerous for them as 20% of cases that end up on a respirator but survive are under 50... but the probability is low enough for a huge section of society to just not care enough.

Anyway, it's not a question of if but how unreasonable do you think i'm being?

Patrick Vallance explaining strategy:
parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/cced67ec-c445-4698-a21b-7d9ff8a01354

Chris Whitty explaining that they are not holding out for a vaccine and that eradication is not the strategy.. ie. we're all going to get it

[AnyOldSpartabix]

Next year there'll be another virus... then another.... then another.

I’m in my 50s. There has not been a pandemic of this scale in my lifetime.

Medics will shortly be telling those over 55 that they will have to die at home without healthcare as they cannot cope with the huge surge in patients.

Anyone being selfish at this time, getting infected when they didn’t need to be, might be responsible for the deaths of many others.

[iismum]

There’s no reason to think new virus are going to come again and again. Why do you think that? The last time this happened was 1918. That’s scaremongering.

The plan is not for 60-80% of the population to get it in 12 weeks. That’s why we are moving towards isolation - to stop that happening. The 12 week line is just political posturing to make people feel better, it’s not what we’re aiming for.

If young people decide their social life has to be prioritised, a lot of people will die. I hope they won’t.

[iismum]

Also, a vaccine or finding medication that can effectively treat it are the only long term solutions. A vaccine will not be a available in less than a year because of the need for long term testing. Finding a cure could happen at any time but is highly speculative and may not happen for a long time. Until one of those comes along we will have to control population movement to some extent, though most likely it will not be in the intense phase all the time. Or the third possibility is that a lot of people just refuse to abide by the restrictions and the government don’t use force to ensure it and we end up with herd immunity. That is the quickest and easiest route, but it will mean tens or hundreds of people who could have survived dying horrible, so I hope we don’t go down that route.

[nellodee]

Chris Whitty is either incompetent or evil.

We MUST keep this virus under control until we can get a vaccine.

Let's come at it from the opposite viewpoint.

We have approximately 4000 critical care beds in the uk.

Let's imagine that we can get this number up to 20,000 (optimistic)

Each person using critical care typically needs it for 2-3 weeks. Let's be optimistic and say 2 weeks. So each bed can treat 26 people per year.

26 x 20,000 is 520,000. Call it half a million.

Critical cases account for 5% of all infections. So, multiply this very optimistic figure by 20, and that is how many cases of Covid-19 we can afford to get in a year.

10 million.

We can MAYBE cope with 10 million getting this, spread out, over the course of a year. That's an incredibly optimistic, even unrealistic, figure.

Even 60% of the population is 40,000,000.

That's 30,000,000 more than we can cope with. 1.5 million of these will need critical care. They won't get it. That's not even starting to factor in the much larger proportion of serious cases, that would be fine with oxygen. That they won't get.

We don't need to slow this down.

We need to stop it, hunker down, and deal with the aftermath when it comes.

[Taddda]

@iismum going down that route doesn't mean 10's or hundreds of people will die, it means 100's of thousands- there's also not a certainty of herd immunity (which has only ever been known to work through vaccine, not infection).

Its risky guesswork- we just don't know enough about the virus yet to assume we only get it once, whether it will mutate (speculative 'second wave').....and so on.

One thing for sure is the more they keep banging on about the economy the less people are going to be thinking of this as a health pandemic and more of a social inconvenience- hense the amount of people currently arranging 'home parties' now the pubs have shut!

We need clearer and stronger leadership-

[crispysausagerolls]

www.technologyreview.com/s/615370/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing-18-months/

Great article from MIT using imperial uni data re the statistics of COVID. People seem to think if we shut in for 2 weeks or 3 months the virus will die. It won’t. It will just spike again once everyone returns to normal. Which is why it’s more likely this ebb and flow scenario will occur. So says the article anyway.

[Taddda]

Chris Whitty (The man who looks like he sweats through his eyes at every question) has disappeared....probably due to the fact he was constantly contradicting himself infront of the press. He knows the science, and the (stealth) government plan and has been told what he can disclose and what he can't.....he's obviously uncomfortable and not as well versed in deflection as Boris.....

[dreamingbohemian]

People keep 'banging on about the economy' because if it totally collapses, that will also kill thousands of people.

Think about the entire food supply chain from the seasonal workers in the field to the vets and equipment repair and animal feed people, everyone in the processing industries, the delivery drivers, the supermarket workers that alone is a huge number of people who have to keep working. You can't shut it down completely or we'll all starve. But yes, that means the virus will continue to spread.

What will be really helpful is the test that will show if you have ever had it, which they think they will have soon. Then those of us who are hopefully immune can keep the economy going and others can stay home.

But you can't just say screw the economy until this is over, it's about finding a balance that will slow the spread but not lead to us all starving.

[Hazelnutlatteplease]

You're an idiot. 80% of the population get it millions die.

I think most people can give up sociallising

[Helpmechangemymindsetplease]

A complete lock down like the one in China would be shorter than these half measures that might have to go on for months. Shorter and prevent more deaths.

[Isthistrueor]

Next year there'll be another virus... then another.... then another.

Don’t be silly. The last pandemic I recall was swine flu 11 years ago.

[crispysausagerolls]

@helpmechangemymindsetplease

We have no idea what will happen when the lockdown ends in China. Will the virus just spike again?

[Justanotherworkingmom]

The amount of stupidity on this thread and failure to understand relatively simple scientific concepts is mind blowing.

Leave the thinking to experts, particularly if you’re not the most scientifically literate of people. Do what the experts tell you to do. Simple.

[dreamingbohemian]

Do people realise that the lockdown in China included locking people up in their homes and leaving them to die? They essentially sacrificed a whole region to save the rest of the country.

In one instance they built a new isolation ward, when it was full they locked everyone inside with no medical care and just left them. These are just a few things we know about because of the strict censorship they imposed.

Now they monitor restrictions by tracking everyone's mobile phones.

Are we really willing to go to these lengths? Let's talk more about South Korea, which has done well by testing everyone and being able to put more targeted restrictions in place. We should all be pressuring governments to do mass testing.

[userabcname]

What I think people are failing to realise is the strain this will put on the NHS (which they are trying to manage with isolation/distancing). All these healthy people parading around not worried about coronavirus - sure, maybe it will be mild for you and that's great. But what if you get ill with something else? How will you go to the GP when there are no appointments? How will you get hospital treatment when hospitals are closing their doors because they are overwhelmed? Being healthy doesn't mean you'll never ever get ill or injured ever again. It's terrifying - I genuinely think a lot of people will die from other issues, purely because there aren't enough doctors/nurses, beds and resources to treat them.

[iismum]

@Taddda - yes, absolutely - that's what I was meaning to say but didn't read my post through carefully enough. Tens or hundreds of thousands of people will die if we don't take this seriously. We should be taking this seriously!

[lljkk]

"most people can give up sociallising"

I'm glad the pp put "most"
For some folk, zero socialising will destroy their mental health.

South Korea model is looking wildly better than here.
In SK, People will still die, people will still get it & have annoying illness.
But they didn't have to be overwhelmed or destroy their economy to get thru this or have folk die merely coz critical care staff were unavailable.

[Alialialiali]

@nellodee
@60-80% infection rate they're planning for 5 million people passing through the nhs

Again, we can all do our own maths but I believe not only have Whitty and Vallance set up teams to do this, there has been independent analysis conducted for example by neil ferguson

www.imperial.ac.uk/news/196234/covid19-imperial-researchers-model-likely-impact/

I mean, there's a lot of stuff to go through. The government have even published data they're using to support their conclusions/strategy

www.gov.uk/government/news/coronavirus-covid-19-scientific-evidence-supporting-the-uk-government-response

It can take a lot of time to go through. We can follow them blindly or we can write them off as fools without going through the evidence.

Fact is, like it or not, there is a plan. The plan is not driven by a single person but teams of teams and it's supported by data. They've even stated where they're using papers that haven't been peer reviewed because the process of peer reviewing the findings takes months... time they don't have.

[Aryaneedle]

I am on Day 4 of this disease. I’m 40, I am a full time social worker, less than two weeks ago I did an 11 mile hike over Wasdale Screes and climbed over a boulder field. I can not stand up now without becoming breathless and my temperature has gone up by 1.5 degrees every day. Yesterday 111 said I should phone 999 but I was too scared to go to hospital.

Whether you want to be blasé and write this down as just another epidemic is your call BUT it isn’t something to take lightly. We have to follow what epidemic specialists say because if I gave this to my 86 year old gran who has a heart defect or my 62 year dad who has cancer and asthma they’d die. Behaviour changes might be intolerable to some but most people will accept it when the reality of the deaths and illness this disease causes hit.

[Taddda]

If we stop talking about the virus, people will stop thinking about it, therefore ignoring the health advice. Simple.

Have you seen how many pubs are now advertising 'home party' deliveries right now online?

As for 'let the scientists do the talking' they are, just not directly to the public, it's all being drip fed...so discussions are going to happen based on the information we've slowlt been given.....or should everyone just blindly listen to Boris?

Who knew discussion would happen on a discussion forum.....dick.

[Singinghollybob]

That sounds terrible for you @Aryaneedle
Where did you get tested? Please do seek further medical attention if you need it

[Alialialiali]

@taddda
As for 'let the scientists do the talking' they are, just not directly to the public, it's all being drip fed...so discussions are going to happen based on the information we've slowlt been given.....or should everyone just blindly listen to Boris?

Who knew discussion would happen on a discussion forum.....dick.

I'm not saying don't discuss but at least read what they've said and offer insight as to where you think they're wrong.
They're answering critical questions on a daily basis. You're just not going to be invited because the best criticism you have to offer is to call them a bunch of dicks. lol

[PlomBear]

This is a good infographic:
informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/covid-19-coronavirus-infographic-datapack/

There have always been epidemics and things trying to kill us.

Asian Flu 1958-59, 1.5 million dead.
Hong Kong Flu 1968-69, 1 million dead
Russian Flu, 1977-78, primarily attacked individuals under age 26.
2009 Flu Pandemic, up to 575,000 dead
Typical seasonal flu - 250,000 - 650,000 deaths

[Whatsreallugoingon]

They are lying about testing. They are still not testing sick people in hospital.

[Namechangervaver]

Chris Whitty (The man who looks like he sweats through his eyes at every question) has disappeared....probably due to the fact he was constantly contradicting himself infront of the press. He knows the science, and the (stealth) government plan and has been told what he can disclose and what he can't.....he's obviously uncomfortable and not as well versed in deflection as Boris.....
I wondered where he'd gone.