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.

I think a lot of people probably secretly love an authoritarian crisis like this because they finally get to come out and tell people what to do, but instead of something like "If you don't wash your bedding every day you're gross", they can now say "If you set foot outside you're killing someone's grandma". A grandma that may well have been about to pop off next week from a heart attack.

I think the reaction to this virus is horrific. And MN has been the worst place by far. Talk about rabid frothing at the mouth.

We face losing our business and leaving 8 staff without employment over this.

I hope people are happy with this lockdown when the crashing recession hits after this and we take years to recover from it.

I agree with PPs who have suggested that the fallout from the current course of action could mean more harm than good
How is the NHS going to be funded in the future when the economy is broken? And as a result, how many excess deaths from illnesses such as heart disease and cancer will be the result?

This is why the new antibody test will be so important. At first it will rightly be reserved for healthcare workers, but eventually they can test a sample of the population to estimate how many people have had the virus, and therefore how strict restrictions need to be.

Interesting.

I have a 40 year old friend who’s just been diagnosed with breast cancer. She’s being put on drugs to try to stop it spreading whilst she waits FOUR MONTHS for surgery 😔😔😔. She was told that in a normal world, surgery would’ve been scheduled for 30 March.

Antibody testing will be a big leap

Weird that a certain faction of MN is (was) so quick to say (back when we talked about other things) that austerity caused something like several hundred thousand deaths according to some extremely dodgy socialist 'study', but on the whole it's happy to blithely march into the next Great Depression.

It was mentioned in the news yesterday that 13 doctors in Italy had died from CV. I would love to think you are right but how can this be explained?

Has anyone managed to find a link to the study?

It's in the article (I have FT sub through work).

www.dropbox.com/s/oxmu2rwsnhi9j9c/Draft-COVID-19-Model%20%2813%29.pdf?dl=0

@JaneEyre7, I also totally agree. People will lose businesses and livelihoods and there will be suicides from this. Kids could grow up in poverty and people may end up homeless. The country could have a Zimbabwe-style financial crisis from all the money printing going on to try and bail out struggling businesses, and violent hungry hordes of people roaming the streets will be a lot worse than pneumonia.

I think people think this country is immune from a total economic collapse but nowhere is. UK is up to it's eyeballs in debt and the fallout of all the measures could be massive.

JaneEyre I'm sorry to hear that. Us too. And we're having conversations with others in the same boat.

Pretty sure I had it last year - ended at Christmas. I had a dry hacking cough for twelve weeks, fever, rigours, and "consolidations" in my lungs. I was in intensive care twice and have never been so ill in my life.

JaneEyre that is hard but are you not concerned about NHS overburdened to the point of no care for people who need it?

And to everyone who said "well we need to save lives, who cares about the economy" - the economy IS lives! You are the economy!

I've found my people

Thanks! @TheReelSlimShady

How is the NHS going to be funded in the future when the economy is broken? And as a result, how many excess deaths from illnesses such as heart disease and cancer will be the result?

Exactly - when we have 10 more years of austerity to try and pay back some of our 2 trillion pounds of debt, I look forward to the same people that were begging for lockdown lecturing us all about "evil Tories" and the 100's of thousands of deaths of elderly/vulnerable/poor people.

IT WON'T BE JUST THE ELDERLY WHO DIE.
If the NHS is overwhelmed ADULTS, TEENS and KIDS will die from their own conditions, where they wouldn't have before.

Either way a recession is inevitable. It's shit, but lockdown or not that recession would come because of the Global impact on health.

Suddenly loads of posters on this thread are fine with people dying but Drs are very clear that actions today will have terrible effects that they will see at their work. I’d take their viewpoint.

Adults, kids and teens will also die in the oncoming recession when the country has no more money and you have to wait 10 hours in A&E. It's a balancing act and destroying the economy may not have been the right side of the balance.

Bizarre what people are asking to happen.

Exactly - when we have 10 more years of austerity to try and pay back some of our 2 trillion pounds of debt, I look forward to the same people that were begging for lockdown lecturing us all about "evil Tories" and the 100's of thousands of deaths of elderly/vulnerable/poor people.

On another thread people were speculating that this chapter was going to make us a nicer, more socialist country like France or Italy. Wot? We are going to be broke and the big fellas will be picking up all the small businesses on life support for nada and consolidating.

I am sceptical.
Italy have been overwhelmed as were China. There are much more deaths than they are used to.
WHO have been sounding the alarm about this, Are we saying a relatively simplistic study is right and WHO are wrong?

And to everyone who said "well we need to save lives, who cares about the economy" - the economy IS lives! You are the economy!

Weird, cause people like me weren't 'the economy" when MN was preaching on the need for austerity.
People like me were just sick and working.

Interesting, but SIR/SEIR models are VERY simplistic.

The model being reported as suggesting that half the country is already immune uses a transmission value of 2.25 people and a serious symptom rate of just 0.1%. There is perhaps reason to be sceptical of this:

1. South Korea were testing everyone in the outbreak area. They have a very young, healthy population and still got a death rate of 0.7%.

1. Most of Italy's deaths are in one region, indeed in a few cities. If (as this model supposes) this is because of smog in northern Italy you would not expect to see such geographic concentration.

1. Surely a similar SIR might get the same results by using the transition rates and death rates around those the WHO and most other studies think likely? The paper shows other models with higher serious illness rates would also fit, but I can't see that they've tested the idea that previous studies are wrong.

I am not a medic, the above is supposition. I'm happy to be corrected by those with better expertise.