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

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“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.

Gupta’s group are theoretical epidemiologists. They chose two data sets and trimmed them, to examine, though modelling, whether there is a need for expedited antibody testing. They found that there is, and begin that testing this week.

The fault lies with the sensationalist reporting.

Everyone arguing that changing behaviour to save lives is too drastic is utterly missing the point. Parts of the NHS are already swamped, and one thing there is disagreement on is that this thing is very contagious. If we don’t lower the number of covid-19 admissions urgently, then when you have a heart attack, break your leg, or go into labour there will be no ambulance arriving, no staff to look after you, no pharmacist to prescribe; if they’re not looking after patients in ICU they will all be off sick (or on a ventilator) with Covid-19.
The deaths, in every age-group and from a multitude of conditions, would be huge.

Even if the best-case scenario in the Gupta model was wholly correct, those numbers hospitalised would overfill the NHS’s capabilities and have a serious knock-on effect on emergency and essential care for the rest of the population. So stay the fuck at home everyone.

You should tell Dr. Gupta immediately

Tell her what?
That 0.1% of 60 million < 69,176?

I mean, I could, but I imagine she's the owner of a calculator, albeit one she forgot to use before giving this quote:

"If the results are confirmed, they imply that fewer than one in a thousand of those infected with COVID-19 become ill enough to need hospital treatment",
said Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology, who led the study.

*no disagreement on

This is such an interesting thread.

And has improved my mood a million times over. I just that the government would be more honest with us.

If they said 'look we are going to face a series of extreme social distancing over the next 18 months. This is what will happen, 4 weeks on, 4 weeks off. These people will be expected to work. These will work from home. These shops and businesses will close and reopen if possible. We have crunched the numbers available and based on that strategy we expect X number of people to die. The alternative is total lockdown until we find a vaccine. X number of people will die which is significantly less than the above figure BUT we then expect Y number of people to die from other causes linked to longterm lockdown. So a rolling lockdown is the option that saves more lives'.

Personally the uncertainty over what is going to happen has been worse than worry about Covid. I have done all in my power to keep me and mine safe. We just have to accept some element of risk moving forwards but the chances still are for the majority that the disease will be minor for the majority of us. Those that it won't be minor for we need to sheild. We all need to play a part in controlling the spread to protect the NHS. The NHS was already at crisis point. One positive that comes from this is the general population might not be turning up to A and E with a sprained ankle, or an insect bite, or because they work all week and can't get a GP appointment. I just hope that moving forward once this is over, that the NHS is actually stronger.

Barracker your assumption that all Italians who have tested positive for covid19 are also hospitalised can be disproven with a quick google search.

Everyone arguing that changing behaviour to save lives is too drastic is utterly missing the point. Parts of the NHS are already swamped, and one thing there is disagreement on is that this thing is very contagious. If we don’t lower the number of covid-19 admissions urgently, then when you have a heart attack, break your leg, or go into labour there will be no ambulance arriving, no staff to look after you, no pharmacist to prescribe; if they’re not looking after patients in ICU they will all be off sick (or on a ventilator) with Covid-19.

Why do you think they (I) am missing the point?

I accept that preserving the viability of the NHS is of value to all of us, I haven't seen anyone say otherwise. Rather, we are questioning what we are willing to give up to achieve this goal and how counterproductive those measures might be in the long-term.

I read the first few pages of this thread and was like 'what the fuck'? Thank god some voice of reason came in!

The problem is not the severity of the virus itself. We know that it's not 'going to kill us all'. Its that the health are system will be completely and utterly overwhelmed if we let this novel virus rip through the population, and people will die totally unnecessarily (and not just of Covid 19) unless we take steps to try and ease the rate at which it spreads. Without a vaccine, the only way to do this is by keeping people apart as much as possible.

This is not hard to understand is it?!

Without a vaccine, the only way to do this is by keeping people apart as much as possible.

What you say is true of course and we have a duty to each other to be willing to put ourselves out for the greater good - to an extreme degree if needed. However, it's also not hard to understand that people will die as a result of these measures too. We need to model that too if we want to make the best decisions we can right now.

This might keep some busy for a while

www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30232-2/fulltext

Rather, we are questioning what we are willing to give up to achieve this goal and how counterproductive those measures might be in the long-term.

The goal is staying alive. You’re not sure what you’re prepared to sacrifice to stay alive?

As mathanxiety said upthread, The only thing worse than living through a recession is missing it because you died.

I agree that we should stop our NHS crumbling and the mass civil unrest/chaos/deaths if thousands of suffocating people piled up in hospital car parks.

However, the aftermath of this could results in hundreds of thousands of deaths from even more underfunding to pay back debts, and from many months of cancelled operations and cancer treatments. It's a delicate balance and we will only find out years later if we were on the right side of it.

The goal is staying alive. You’re not sure what you’re prepared to sacrifice to stay alive?

But this could be said for anything. You have a very small chance of dying if you're young and healthy. You also have a small chance of dying in a car crash. Are you prepared to sacrifice driving in order to never die of a car crash? People accept different amounts of risk.

But this could be said for anything. You have a very small chance of dying if you're young and healthy.
The majority of the population is not young and healthy.
But that’s beside the point, because the context of that statement is how infectious Covid-19 is. If we don’t isolate and it runs rampant through society then it will run rampant through NHS staff and there will be no treatment for any condition or accident or infection. (And through lorry drivers importing food, etc etc.) People could die even of things that antibiotics can cure.

I say again - look at the paper under discussion; the NHS will be utterly swamped, according to their model, even assuming the most positive parameters; so other measures such as mass isolation remain necessary.

Beijing I don’t go along with the line often said on here ‘economy before lives’ as the economy is people’s livelihoods. And until this point many had seen the economy as an abstract thing that doesn’t affect them which isn’t true.

But at this point the measures into place are unavoidable unless people are ok with NHS collapsing.

I think the U.K. govt are very aware of the balance hence waiting longer than other countries and talking about the idea that we might have limited ability to lock down.

Barracker your assumption that all Italians who have tested positive for covid19 are also hospitalised can be disproven with a quick google search.

I think you'll see I've already suggested that even if 10% are NOT hospitalised cases the theory is disproven.

I've already invited anyone who has more accurate hospitalisation figures to provide them, as I'd much rather use accurate figures.

You're not 'disproving my assumptions' because I've already posted clearly that I understand some small proportion of cases are not hospitalised.

I'd prefer it if you didn't misrepresent me please.

We know that since February Italian testing strategy has been only hospitalised patients. This constitutes the overwhelming majority of cases.
If you have more accurate figures about hospitalisations do please provide them.

But bad form on the misrepresentation of what I've said. I clearly acknowledge in more than one post that a proportion of cases are not hospitalised. I've already posted using a worked calculation using 10% of confirmed cases being inhospitablised - which I feel is generous.
I mentioned a total of 66 cases in Vo.
And I acknowledged that in early February, prior to the testing strategy change, not all cases were hospitalised.

This has been an interesting thread, but it's fast moving, and I wouldn't want readers to miss the posts where I've already acknowledged that cases don't exactly tally with hospitalisations (but are not hugely different).

If you have any data on what proportion of confirmed cases are NOT hospitalised we can do another calculation.
Other than the 66 cases in Vo, (66/69,176 = 0.1% of all confirmed cases) how many more cases do you think fall into this category?

"We don't suggest half the UK has been infected. The model does not project nor predict. It only demonstrates the relation of rho with herd immunity. Both unknown at the moment. Likely to be solved with sero studies."
mobile.twitter.com/LourencoJML/status/1242590985705701377

@LambriniSocialist

This is not hard to understand is it?!

Apparently it is 😩

Is there anyway of reading that article without having to pay?

Sorry I've found it now - just googled rather than use the link

Surely what we need is a test for antibodies to the virus?

@DGRossetti We've been discussing that paper and the new Scientist article mentioned by a PP on the viral load thread, if you want to join.

Thanks for the reply @Somerville. I hope you are all fully recovered now. I just wondered if you had been tested, as a close relative has the symptoms at the moment and unless he gets really ill (obviously this is something I’m afraid of) then we will never know whether that’s what he’s got.
Thanks also for your very well-argued and articulate contributions to this thread.