Did UK introduce restrictions too early?

[Makeitgoaway]

Hear me out!

I don't think they planned to close schools when they did. I think the Welsh and Scotish governments forced their hand and they themselves were influenced by public opinion more than the science.

When I first heard "the plan" it sounded like there were terrible things to come but it made sense to me, as a way of controlling things as much as possible.

The public didn't like it and there was outrage that we didn't "lockdown" to protect ourselves, although "the public" also didn't behave in any sort of sensible manner to protect themselves as we saw last weekend.

So, measures were in force earlier than planned. The more restrictions there are and the earlier they are in place, the longer this thing will last. The restrictions don't protect "us", they protect the NHS. Most people will need to get it before this is over. Lockdown won't make it go away, just slow the rate of infection, meaning it takes longer to play out. While the NHS is coping, was there any need for the restrictions?

In Italy, it has taken 3 weeks for signs of social unrest to emerge. If that happens here we won't be even close to the peak at that stage. What happens then?

As the OP said, just when things are really getting seriously bad for the NHS people will have exhausted their tolerance of the lockdown the nhs frontline workers were screaming for lockdown before it happened. I haven't found any scientists supporting what you are saying in the rest of your post. If you google it is all explained really clearly by numerous scientists - the exponential, the curve, the R0 value. And frontline testimony from the doctors all over the world.

@MarshaBradyo i just googled for the Germany link. They are saying that they do not think they have hit their peak and it is still a huge unknown, but that up to now two key differences with UK:

• testing 500K per week and analysing
• very prepared health care system

This is a short news cast

They accounted for the ages of the passengers bool - read the link, methodology is included.

While looking for the Germany link, I found this 60 minutes coverage of the wet markets in Wuhan explaining the crossover and it has interviews through it with Prof Gabriel Leung who led the fight against SARS. It is really interesting. NB it was released in early March well before we took action. For people who want to know what is happening at a high level with research, it is worth looking at Prof Gabriel Leung's twitter. Warning - the footage of the wet markets is grim.

Lweji exactly. And those figures from Singapore and Germany still won’t be picking up everyone that has it. So 0.1% is a fair estimate.

No.
Because the number of deaths are behind the number of cases, as they are detected before symptoms in many cases.

Singapore will be unusually low because of relatively small numbers.

The overall mortality rate is more likely closer to 1% than 0.1%.

@Dontwanttobeyourmonkeywench referred to Professor Kim Woo Joo in Korea being interviewedand I think this is it - very interesting and comprehensive

The overall mortality rate is more likely closer to 1% than 0.1%

Professor Neil Ferguson on R4 this morning says around 2 to 3% of the UK have had CV19 already, @ 2% thats 1.3m, with 1200 deaths, thats around 0.1% mortality rate.

If we treble the deaths because we aren't testing in the community and its still remarkably low @ 0.3% even lower if 3% - 2m people have CV19.

But a huge number of that 2-3% will be at a very early stage in the infection. Many of them will die in the next month or so. Using today’s death toll against today’s infection numbers is not how you work out death toll. Even if from today nobody new contracted Covid19, the death toll would continue to rise for the next month or so as the people already infected either die or recover.

Professor Neil Ferguson on R4 this morning says around 2 to 3% of the UK have had CV19 already
Nobody knows for sure. He may include people who've just been infected and may develop serious disease and die in the next few weeks.

What we can calculate is case mortality rate. It's the same for flu. It's not possible to know, only estimate, people who never developed symptoms or had very mild or atypical disease.
We'll only have a better idea when antibody tests are widely used.
Flu, is at about 0.1%. Covid is at about 1%, or higher, in most countries.

2-3 per cent?! Last week someone else speculated it was 50 per cent!

Are they doing random community testing?

The best estimate so far is probably in North Korea, where they seem to be almost over a peak, and tested intensively, which means they will have picked up most asymptomatic cases because they will have tested most contacts of anyone infected.
But that will be a lower estimate.
Remember that mortality rises as health systems fail to cope.

Last week someone else speculated it was 50 per cent!

I'd not pay much attention to wild speculation. That sort of calculation supports not doing nothing because everybody is already infected, and it's not quite the case.

Prof Neil Ferguson in the Guardian:

"Ferguson, whose modelling informed the government’s decision to impose a lockdown, said the data was showing signs that social distancing measures were beginning to work although it has not yet had an effect on the number of daily reported deaths.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “In the UK, we can see some early signs of slowing in some indicators. Less so in deaths because deaths are lagged by long time from when the measures come into force.

“But we look at the numbers of new hospital admissions today, for instance, that does seem to be slowing down a little bit now. It’s not yet plateaued as the numbers are increasing each day but the rate of that increase has slowed.

“We see similar patterns in a number of European countries.”

If this is right it is very very good news, and motivating for everyone in relation to lockdown.

It will be clarified over the next 6 weeks inevitably... except only that groups of people rebelling against it gratuitously will be a problem - if in the future there is reinfection on a large scale because large numbers are not isolating now then govmt action would be required again.

Too late I think, but twats will be twats no matter how long it goes on. There's another thread on here about how this is 'taking away our human rights, boohoo' , another one referring to 'torture' - really, if you have more than two brain cells then you should see the need for this. Some are acting as if they're being made to do something , when it is actually just having to stay at home WITH YOUR OWN FAMILY. (I do of course realise that some in abusive situations are indeed having a hard time, but that does not apply to the majority of whingers).

Bool

@catscatscatseverywhere agree. And also Ireland.

X

Yes, I think Ireland went on lockdown when Poland did. I don’t know how they are going to cope, people will start losing their jobs soon.

I do have a morbid fascination with how Belarus will come out of this long term, given they have imposed no restrictions whatsoever (other than advising vodka!) - maybe they'll have enough herd immunity to rise as a world force this winter while everyone else enters there fifth period of lockdown....😱

*their

The 50% was the survival rate of those who end up on a ventilator. Not of all those who are infected. The number who require a ventilator is a very small % of those infected. I’ve never seen anyone suggest that overall mortality is anywhere near 50%.

I do have a morbid fascination with how Belarus will come out of this long term, given they have imposed no restrictions whatsoever (other than advising vodka!) - maybe they'll have enough herd immunity to rise as a world force this winter while everyone else enters there fifth period of lockdown....

They may well not like the first wave at all. But when they realise it, it might be too late to avoid a catastrophe.

As long as Belarus shield their vulnerable - over 65s and health vulnerable. This was the uk original strategy and now we have this wishy washy mish mash and more will die because of it. This is an ageist virus.

It’s interesting the shielding the vulnerable which could have been a good way to go. What collapsed it? We couldn’t get staff on schools, and school children were taking it back to the families possibly vulnerable (although generally not GPs, keep separate).

We were told to avoid pubs etc but not closed which was silly so close them anyway. SD meant we couldn’t go.

Brain dump - but if we all carried on as normal and shielded vulnerable would we have a better result?

It feels a riskier path to take, was it the IC report which stopped it?

What a timeline this is going to be when this is over

Yes. One big problem is how to shield the vulnerable.
Testing and isolating all that are in contact with them?
Putting them all in, ahem, camps or institutions?

And not forgetting that non-vulnerable also die. And in significant numbers when enough people are infected, and health services are stretched.

It's a nice idea, but a cop out.

Today 11:37 Bool

As long as Belarus shield their vulnerable - over 65s and health vulnerable. This was the uk original strategy and now we have this wishy washy mish mash and more will die because of it. This is an ageist virus.

X
Right? That’s exactly what I think. It makes me furious that they locked us, young and healthy, at home, putting our jobs at risk! There should be complete isolation for elderly, ill and pregnant women. This would work much better. Now it’s just one big chaos. Elderly are allowed to leave houses, putting themselves at risk. They should have food and meds delivered to their door. I don’t even want to think what are we going to eat and how are we going to pay our bills during 6 months lockdown. They should issue antibodies tests asap and let people work.

How would you isolate all of the vulnerable without isolating all of the carers, medical professionals and delivery people who interact with them? How would you stop them catching it whilst it spreads through hospitals? Shielding the vulnerable is not possible whilst the virus spreads totally unchecked in the wider population. As soon as a care home worker catches it on the bus she has to catch to get to work, the whole strategy crumbles. There’s a reason no country has used this strategy without also putting in measures to reduce the spread in the wider community. It wouldn’t work.

Professor Neil Ferguson on R4 this morning says around 2 to 3% of the UK have had CV19 already, @ 2% thats 1.3m, with 1200 deaths, thats around 0.1% mortality rate.

See, I don't understand that. We know (I think we know) they are using a 1% mortality rate, aren't they? And he has, I am told, gone on the record and said it is possible that we might get away with just 20,000 deaths? If you pretend we have stopped it all entirely, and nobody else who doesn't already have it will catch it, then 20,000 deaths = 2 million cases (and 300,000 serious cases in the next 3 weeks).

The figures just don't make sense.