Hypotheses - Rate of infection is too high. A second wave is inevitable.? I don't want a bun fight. Is it possible to discuss this constructively?,

[bumblingbovine49]

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/28/coronavirus-infection-rate-too-high-second-wave]

This article summarises how I think things will go. The article suggests that track and trace on its own will.only stop about 15% of cases because our numbers are still so high.

I wanted to ask people who are really keen for things to go back to normal as quickly as possible ( which I completely understand , I am desperate for that too), would you be happy to have the things they are saying here such as compulsory PPE.for some workers , face coverings track and trace, self isolation if ill, restrictions on travel to other areas or.abroad etc ?

Does normal for you mean none of these things. Just literally go back.to what it was like before or do you think some of these things are necessary. Which if any would you comply with ? Should any of them be compulsory?

I really don't know the answer but I am worried that our excess death rate at the end of the year is going to.be phenomenal, we already have close to 60,000 excess deaths for this time.of year. That is one on a thousand EXTRA deaths in about 4 months . That seems a lot to.me.

Of course there will be a massive second wave

Numbers of new cases are now higher than when we started lockdown and this is a disease that grows exponentially.

In 1918-19, the numbers of deaths in the second wave of the flu epidemic were about 5 times as high as those in the first wave. I fear we may see the same here, at least in those countries that have refused to learn from experience, where there is no proper test and trace system, insufficient PPE, no compulsory mask wearing.

Local reactive lockdown will be ineffective to deal with this as deaths always lag infections by about 18 days on average, and reporting of those deaths can lag by up to another month or more. So we won't actually be clearly able to see the picture of where the problems are until it us much too late and out of control.

This is obvious to most scientists, it is also frankly obvious to most people with common sense and a small knowledge of history and basic competence in maths.

It will be worth revisiting this thread in a month to 6 weeks.

I suspect all those claiming there would be no second wave will be strangely absent then.

Apt user name effingterrified!

Redolent yes Spain still have some stricter controls than us (face masks etc)... they also have some looser ones. SIL in Spain had a (permitted) hot tub party last week with 6 of her friends. SIL, BIL and PIL’s went for Sunday lunch at the golf club together last weekend, no face masks as outdoors. MIL met her very elderly neighbour with many health conditions for coffee and cake at a cafe yesterday. Family are allowed to visit each other’s houses, not just gardens.

Numbers of new cases are now higher than when we started lockdown and this is a disease that grows exponentially

We have absolutely no way of knowing that, I’m fact it’s highly likely to be untrue. At the start of lockdown we were testing 1000 people per day, now we’re testing 100000 people per day.

ITonyah, you are very active on here and so it would be great to get your view. What do you think the situation will be in England by Christmas 2020 and how do you think the country should go about it best? When should swimming pools and ice rinks open?

@effingterrified

Numbers of new cases are not higher now than when we locked down. When we locked down we were testing almost no one. I would expect there were 10s if not 100s of thousands of cases everyday of which we picked up a few thousand because those people were in hospital.

We are testing far more people now and doing random sampling so the data is more reliable.

rhubarbfizzy I charge for that kind of information

it is also frankly obvious to most people with common sense and a small knowledge of history and basic competence in maths

Well tell that to the WHO Dr who says a second wave is looking unlikely. I have no idea if she’s correct obviously, but I suspect she has a ‘small knowledge of history and basic competence in maths’.

History is in fact largely irrelevant here, for many reasons.

1. this is a different virus. People are so quick to shout ‘this isn’t flu!!’ at people, but are equally quick to compare it to the Spanish flu pandemic
2. medical knowledge has increased dramatically since then. When Spanish flu appeared, experts didn’t even know it was a virus. They didn’t have microscopes strong enough to identify it.
3. the second wave of Spanish flu is largely thought to be down to the fact than many young people who had been displaced by the war were migrating back to their home countries, taking the virus with them.
4. Spanish flu hit a war ravaged, malnourished, exhausted generation of people. Hospitals were already completely overwhelmed with war wounded.

How is it comparable?

Also Spanish flu was a different virus...

@Drivingdownthe101

Redolent yes Spain still have some stricter controls than us (face masks etc)... they also have some looser ones. SIL in Spain had a (permitted) hot tub party last week with 6 of her friends. SIL, BIL and PIL’s went for Sunday lunch at the golf club together last weekend, no face masks as outdoors. MIL met her very elderly neighbour with many health conditions for coffee and cake at a cafe yesterday. Family are allowed to visit each other’s houses, not just gardens.

Interesting...thanks for sharing this.

Yes thanks for the information about Spain. I know lockdown is tougher in some areas, but it's easy to read MN and get the idea that everyone else is super locked-down and super-compliant apart from the lax, disobedient and dissolute Brits.

cathy there's definitely that attitude on here. I've read plenty of stories about Spanish and Italians having gatherings and parties, breaking the rules.

Spain can relax lockdown rules as they have an out door culture. Most evidence suggests it doesn’t spread easily outdoors. Which is why people shouldn’t get too hysterical about those visiting the beach. Spain has to end lock down before peak tourist season otherwise the economy will be hammered.

Spain can relax lockdown rules as they have an out door culture. Most evidence suggests it doesn’t spread easily outdoors

And yet they locked up childen in their apartments for weeks on end.

I don’t know why Spain locked up their children for so many weeks. It was totally unnecessary and cruel.

The areas of Spain I know involve people living very very densely in apartments often with three generations and shopping daily for food without infrastructure for bigger “weekly shops”. Kids play in small public playparks. In those areas going out at all While maintaining distance from other people would be impossible.
You could argue there are parts of our biggest cities like that but they’re not where most British live.

I lived in central Madrid for years museumum. Yes it’s fairly densely packed but there were still lots of quiet places to go for walks within a very short distance.

@Drivingdownthe101

We have absolutely no way of knowing that, I’m fact it’s highly likely to be untrue. At the start of lockdown we were testing 1000 people per day, now we’re testing 100000 people per day

I know its quite basic, but a way to look at it is the positive tests proportionate to the amount of tests. Using this we can see that actually infection rates are falling.

Thanks Livin, good graph.
I suppose another way to look at infection rates is to track back from actual deaths and hospital admissions. Which also suggests infection rates were far higher before lockdown than they are now.

Are we sure that what we are going through now isn’t the 2nd wave.

And the first wave was in December which judging by graphs of previous pandemics was the less fatal wave.

I’m another one who believes there will be a second wave and from the way things are going, it will be worse.

Actually sorry that's not the most up to date one

I don’t know why Spain locked up their children for so many weeks. It was totally unnecessary and cruel

Very cruel and hard to see how any justification for it. Yet you had posters here going on about how much 'better' Spain's lockdown was.

Very cruel and hard to see how any justification for it. Yet you had posters here going on about how much 'better' Spain's lockdown was

Some posters on here don't have a good word to say about the UK and England in particular.