Coronavirus may have infected half of UK population — Oxford study

[Lycidas]

‘New epidemiological model shows vast majority of people suffer little or no illness.’

www.ft.com/content/5ff6469a-6dd8-11ea-89df-41bea055720b

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email [email protected] to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at <a class="break-all" href="https://www.ft.com/tour" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.ft.com/tour</a>.
<a class="break-all" href="https://www.ft.com/content/5ff6469a-6dd8-11ea-89df-41bea055720b" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.ft.com/content/5ff6469a-6dd8-11ea-89df-41bea055720b</a>

“The research presents a very different view of the epidemic to the modelling at Imperial College London, which has strongly influenced government policy. “I am surprised that there has been such unqualified acceptance of the Imperial model,” said Prof Gupta.

However, she was reluctant to criticise the government for shutting down the country to suppress viral spread, because the accuracy of the Oxford model has not yet been confirmed and, even if it is correct, social distancing will reduce the number of people becoming seriously ill and relieve severe pressure on the NHS during the peak of the epidemic.”

A glimmer of hope. They’re gonna start with the antibody testing very soon.

The other person I care about is an elderly person I already volunteer for, and I stopped visiting as soon as all this kicked off. I care about them a lot but I still think lockdown is too extreme - we could have protected the vulnerable in other ways without also causing a lot more death/damage to economy and future generations.

It astonishes me that it could be considered churlish to question the wisdom of two billion people on lockdown, indefinitely. You, Marshabradyo and others might say 'it's not indefinite!' but this is exactly what it is until there is a clear debate about an exit strategy and how much economic/personal damage we're willing to accept.

I know it could be someone I know, it could be me, I accept this risk. I accept a two week lock down, obviously I've no option but to accept a three week lock down as that's the government order. I do not accept anything further and I doubt the majority of people would either as the reality of this becomes clearer.

You don’t know what I would say .

The government has clearly stated they doubt people’s staying power. It has been part of their considerations.

You would be in the upper left hand corner profiled under early abstainer.

I jest but what you are saying won’t be news.

for me it is as far removed as starving children/sweatshop workers are to other people. I love my parents and my husband

So you do see your parents and husband differently?

What people do now here has a direct consequence on number of deaths in three to four weeks. That kind of direct result is closer and it’s not hypocritical to change behaviour as a result.

So you do see your parents and husband differently?

Yes. But the difference being I would never expect in a million years that people should stop doing their jobs, seeing their friends and going about their life to save them. Maybe I just expect very little from people in general but I would not expect that, nor swear at strangers on the internet because their desire to live their life is bigger than their care about a person they've never met. I'm sort of of the thought that it's your responsibility to look after yourself - of course we should be nice to each other and as considerate as possible, and do volunteering if we can, but I would not expect the huge sacrifices to livelihoods being made by many today.

What people do now here has a direct consequence on number of deaths in three to four weeks.

This is always true.

Air quality is an obvious source of premature (and agonising) death that we accept in the UK as a tradeoff for movement and industry.

What people do now here has a direct consequence on number of deaths in three to four weeks.

This is also the case with foreign wars, like Yemen - yet no-one seems to be that bothered or making huge sacrifices to protest against it. Because it doesn't personally affect people.

Yes Marginal if you want to campaign our actions have consequences there are places to go and join to do it. People don’t always see it so push harder.

Just don’t try to use the above to undermine what changes people are making today due to CV19 that will have direct results.

Just don’t try to use the above to undermine what changes people are making today due to CV19 that will have direct results.

Exactly how have I done that?

And ditto Beijing pester people, join charities, change what you can but don’t use it as an excuse.

How have you not done that?

Fill your posts

I look forward to NHS volunteers doing more charity for Yemen.

But I’ve got to go now.

They trimmed their data to 6th March!!!

So, they looked at this graph, at the point I've marked it, and extrapolated from there? From march 6th?

Because it's now 19 days later and the graph subsequently demonstrates how utterly wrong they are.

Time itself is disproving many assumptions, theories and suppositions.

One only has to glance at Italy's graph to know that already, more than 1 in 1000 of the entire population are hospitalised and that number is still growing.

If you gamble a theory based on data that stops on March 6th? Then by March 24th, when you have irrefutable data that shows you are wrong, you don't press release to the international press your two week old theory about 1/1000, because anyone with basic maths ability can point out you've duffed it up.

• If anyone has any actual hospitalisation figures I'll be happy to substitute them for the number of cases. I looked at the widespread testing in Vo, and 66 cases were found. At the moment it's reasonable to assume that almost all cases are also hospitalised patients since that has been Italy's testing strategy for some time.

www.propublica.org/article/a-medical-worker-describes--terrifying-lung-failure-from-covid19-even-in-his-young-patients

We need to isolate. Please read

Beijing, your points are so true.
Added to that, we do not have a culture in the UK of looking after our elderly, and as to the vulnerable generally, we consistently vote Conservative and against tax rises.
By our behaviours we support the gig economy run by big business off the back of poverty wages, child labour and environmental destruction (and the consequent effects of that on humanity). But those people are not our families and so the reality is most people don't care about them enough to stop buying the needless products that they make.
So it is interesting to see the outpouring of care for the old and vulnerable, and I hope that it makes people think about the many millions that they don't usually care for and whose lives are damaged and cut short as a direct result of our behaviours.

Beijing yes crazy to save just your parents but this is to stop NHS crumbling and the consequences of that.

Ok done! Dc rowdy

One only has to glance at Italy's graph to know that already, more than 1 in 1000 of the entire population are hospitalised and that number is still growing

The entire population of what? Infected people? The point is we don't know.

Did you see the New Scientist article I posted upthread?

Somerville were you tested? You definitely had it?
HopeClearwater
One of my children tested positive - she’s highly vulnerable so they tested her for an array of things when she got a high temperature. As it is, she coped okay thankfully, and came out of hospital within 48 hours. I got unwell at the same time, having caught it from same source (a nurse who came to our house after a ski trip we believe) and rest of family showed symptoms 4-5 days later having caught it from me/DD2.
I completely accept that the research on Diamond Princess etc... shows that there are some who are asymptomatic. I just wonder how they’re defining “asymptomatic” because our experience was a wider range of symptoms than those being looked for at the time. Eg my pre-schooler didn’t get cough or fever, but he slept 16 hours a day for 4 days, had D&V for so long that he lost weight, and now still has a painful earache which could be secondary infection.
In at least one of the papers I’ve looked at, “asymptomatic” = no temperature or cough.

If you gamble a theory based on data that stops on March 6th? Then by March 24th, when you have irrefutable data that shows you are wrong, you don't press release to the international press your two week old theory about 1/1000, because anyone with basic maths ability can point out you've duffed it up.

You should tell Dr. Gupta immediately

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunetra_Gupta

The entire population of what? Infected people?

No, the entire population of the country!
Italy's population is 60,485,322
Therefore
0.1% of Italy's entire population = 60,485
(The maximum number of theorised seriously ill, even if 100% were infected, according to the authors)
There are already 69,176 confirmed cases in Italy.
Italy's strategy since February has been 'only the hospitalised get tested'
Even if you assume, too generously, that say 10% of the total cases predate the change in testing strategy and are not-hospitalised cases, that still leaves 62k hospitalised cases.

Which is already more than one in a thousand of the population.

The one in a thousand claim is obviously bunkum. Provably so.

So we really need more testing on a mass scale to pick up the asympomatic cases as well as those who get sick. Without this how can we state that a certain percentage die or need hospitalisation..

No doubt Covid 19 is incredibly contagious but it may not be as deadly, percentage wise we previously thought.

It’s good to see some critical thought on here and not agreeing with a lockdown with no end date and no clear plan to try and get back to normal place.

Just to add that it's pretty immaterial and irrelevant how many people may (or may not) have had C-19 if it turns out you can get it again, and again, and again (possibly getting worse each time)

The science isn't even wet on the page on this one.

Bluetongue that is what the CMO and govt are aiming for. Actually with antibody testing. You post as if they’re not and only you can see it. Bizarre superiority on this thread.

In the meantime we need to do as instructed to stop NHS going under. It’s not that difficult to get.