For the people who think they've been duped...

[mac12]

I'm not trying to start a bunfight but I'm just curious about this thought process. People who think they've been duped by coronavirus & think lockdowns were a hysterical over-reaction...

• what do you think is going on when countries like China haven't rolled back from their strong stance on this? Do you think it's just to save face? I mean would a country really take a wrecking ball to their economy to save face?
• why have countries like Israel or some US states, which did reopen, decide to start closing down again? Why wouldn't they just crack on and carry on with full reopening if it was so clear that they had been duped & it had all been an overreaction?
• why wouldn't all governments be taking the Sweden line? Our govt isn't averse to the odd U-turn, why wouldn't they do this if they genuinely thought it was safe and they had overreacted?

I'm just wondering why people think governments would persist with this if it was so obviously an overreaction?

Looking at different lockdowns across the world, there is no clear evidence that any of them made any real difference. The thing that bothers me is that you lock down for a period of time, denying people everything they need for a normal healthy existence - work, education, socialising, activity - creating enormous and ongoing problems before you ever even consider the massive impact on the economy - then you open up and then what? What's changed? There's still a virus going around, the difference is there's a virus going around in a completely damaged, exhausted society that has already lost so much. So instead of getting covid, people lose their jobs and get covid. How is that an improvement? I genuinely and honestly don't get it.

New Zealand is held up as a shining example of success, which utterly baffles me. How on earth do they propose to keep a virus at bay when that virus has spread through the entire world? Do they propose to keep their borders closed forever? Or wait for a vaccine, no matter how long that takes?

The idea that you can completely control or avoid a virus which spreads like wildfire, apparently mostly asymptomatically, is madness. How do you do that indefinitely? How do you ever really know who's infected and who's not? Do you just put your whole life on hold forever because nothing else matters besides avoiding a virus that for most people causes little or no illness?

The fact is, there is no evidence at all that things would have been worse without lockdown - covid was spreading for at least three months without any lockdown and no one was even aware of it, never mind it decimating hospitals.

In the early days of exponential growth it does look like there's not much happening. The whole problem with exponential growth is that you can take quite a long time to go from first noticing that something's happening to thinking "that's starting to look a bit worrying", but then it takes only a very short time then to get to "shit shit shit".

willslack.blogspot.com/2012/03/on-exponential-growth.html

We had exponential growth before lockdown; cases were doubling every few days.

@TheDailyCarbuncle but we are learning more about the virus and hopefully finding some medicines that can help, surely a lockdown gives you that briefing space to formulate plans etc. Admittedly our Government haven't been too great at that.

The thing that bothers me is that you lock down for a period of time, denying people everything they need for a normal healthy existence - work, education, socialising, activity

Again you are ignoring the fact that a new disease with a significant hospitalisation rate spreading like wildfire through the population will always also affect people's work, education, socialising and activity. There was never an option where we could just decide not to care and then those things would have carried on as normal.

Do you just put your whole life on hold forever because nothing else matters besides avoiding a virus that for most people causes little or no illness?

For most people as individuals the illness might be mild, but the effects on the functioning of society of lots of people getting the illness at the same time would still be severe. That's the problem.

@eeeyoresmiles

The fact is, there is no evidence at all that things would have been worse without lockdown - covid was spreading for at least three months without any lockdown and no one was even aware of it, never mind it decimating hospitals.

In the early days of exponential growth it does look like there's not much happening. The whole problem with exponential growth is that you can take quite a long time to go from first noticing that something's happening to thinking "that's starting to look a bit worrying", but then it takes only a very short time then to get to "shit shit shit".

willslack.blogspot.com/2012/03/on-exponential-growth.html

We had exponential growth before lockdown; cases were doubling every few days.

Actual examination of the real numbers shows that what appears to be exponential growth at first, then after only two weeks it starts to peter out: unherd.com/thepost/nobel-prize-winning-scientist-the-covid-19-epidemic-was-never-exponential/

The Imperial model has a lot to answer for IMO. It was based very little data (which was necessary as very little data was available) and made huge assumptions about how people behave, how the virus would spread etc etc. It was basically just an educated guess. All the evidence now available indicates that it way way overestimated the actual effect of the virus. It's usually better to over rather than underestimate but at some point it has to be admitted that the model is no longer accurate and a more realistic picture of how things are really happening needs to be developed, so people can stop going on and on about exponential growth that has no evidence at all to support it.

@eeeyoresmiles

The thing that bothers me is that you lock down for a period of time, denying people everything they need for a normal healthy existence - work, education, socialising, activity

Again you are ignoring the fact that a new disease with a significant hospitalisation rate spreading like wildfire through the population will always also affect people's work, education, socialising and activity. There was never an option where we could just decide not to care and then those things would have carried on as normal.

Do you just put your whole life on hold forever because nothing else matters besides avoiding a virus that for most people causes little or no illness?

For most people as individuals the illness might be mild, but the effects on the functioning of society of lots of people getting the illness at the same time would still be severe. That's the problem.

There's a difference between slowing an illness down, as Sweden has done, by introducing sensible measures like improved hygiene and reducing large events, and not allowing people to see their own families or leave their house. I agree that some measure to slow the rate of infection is necessary, but I do not accept for one second that not allowing an elderly person to see their own children for months is a sensible way to deal with anything.

Sorry that first sentence is really unclear! It should say there is a difference between slowing an illness down and preventing people from seeing their own families.

But hasn't Sweden suffered more than the other Scandinavian countries?

Or is it assumed that Sweden has had the hit early and the others will catch up later

I've read that before and it is not convincing in my view. The idea that lockdown and social distancing did nothing because CH believes probably people in certain countries didn't do social distancing that well seems particularly weak.

I want the stuff about a natural brake on the growth due to some kind of unknown and subtle herd immunity due to asymptomatic cases to be right (who doesn't!), in fact I daydream about it, but that doesn't meant that aiming for herd immunity (which may not even last more than a few months) with this new disease would ever have been anything other than a huge and potentially deadly gamble.

Even a couple of weeks more would have utterly overwhelmed hospitals at the rate things were going right in front of our eyes in this country. Allowing that to happen because someone had a theory that perhaps a few weeks after that things would have slowed down enough by themselves - well that would be nice thing to try out in a simulation but it was never (and should never be) an option for a government in real life in this situation.

@ineedaholidaynow

Or is it assumed that Sweden has had the hit early and the others will catch up later

The whole thing about who has had greater or fewer deaths doesn't make sense to me. Unless the other nordic countries are planning to lockdown indefinitely, chances are their numbers will catch up with Sweden's over time - they haven't prevented the deaths, they've just delayed them. As has everyone else. The difference is, a population that has had something close to a normal life for the past few months, with kids in school, businesses continuing, is in a much better position to weather a bad winter than a country that's on its knees from months of misery. How is delaying the inevitable until cold and flu season arrives a good thing?

@eeeyoresmiles

I've read that before and it is not convincing in my view. The idea that lockdown and social distancing did nothing because CH believes probably people in certain countries didn't do social distancing that well seems particularly weak.

I want the stuff about a natural brake on the growth due to some kind of unknown and subtle herd immunity due to asymptomatic cases to be right (who doesn't!), in fact I daydream about it, but that doesn't meant that aiming for herd immunity (which may not even last more than a few months) with this new disease would ever have been anything other than a huge and potentially deadly gamble.

Even a couple of weeks more would have utterly overwhelmed hospitals at the rate things were going right in front of our eyes in this country. Allowing that to happen because someone had a theory that perhaps a few weeks after that things would have slowed down enough by themselves - well that would be nice thing to try out in a simulation but it was never (and should never be) an option for a government in real life in this situation.

Which raises the question as to why Stockholm's hospitals weren't overwhelmed at any point? I mention Stockholm because no one can claim it's somehow special or different like they do with the rest of Sweden - it's a typical city, like all the other cities of Europe and there's nothing special or different about how people live there. They never closed schools (for under 16s) and never had a situation in which a person couldn't visit their own brother and yet their hospitals were not overwhelmed.

Penalising and controlling healthy people to the extent where they can't even leave their own house, treating them like they're ill when they're not, not for weeks but for months, is beyond madness.

Do you just put your whole life on hold forever because nothing else matters besides avoiding a virus that for most people causes little or no illness?

I'm not a fan of lockdown but the above isn't necessarily true, growing body of evidence is showing that people with non hospitalised versions of CV are causing long term health issues.

I think the mistake govts have made isn't the lockdown but how they have come out of it.
We cannot simply go back to our normal lives until there is a vaccine and/or treatments so countries opening nightclubs, unlimited travel inc international, perhaps we need a lockdown lite?
Our govt seems to have just relaxed restrictions without seeing what the previous easing has caused.

growing body of evidence is showing that people with non hospitalised versions of CV are causing long term health issues.

This may be true (too early to say, IMO) but it's also true of many other viruses. But we don't bother to monitor them.
I mean chicken pox, for instance, gives you a lifetime one in 3 risk of debilitating shingles. But we don't vaccinate against that (although a vaccine IS available)

Flu also leaves some unlucky patients with clotting issues, post viral fatigue and syndromes.

It's too early to say if coronavirus causes uniquely devastating and long lived problems relative to other viruses.

@jasjas1973 so many people seem to be ignoring the potential long term health impacts of this virus and only focussing on the deaths. The heath impacts seem to hit healthy young people not just the old and vulnerable

@jasjas1973

Do you just put your whole life on hold forever because nothing else matters besides avoiding a virus that for most people causes little or no illness?

I'm not a fan of lockdown but the above isn't necessarily true, growing body of evidence is showing that people with non hospitalised versions of CV are causing long term health issues.

I think the mistake govts have made isn't the lockdown but how they have come out of it.
We cannot simply go back to our normal lives until there is a vaccine and/or treatments so countries opening nightclubs, unlimited travel inc international, perhaps we need a lockdown lite?
Our govt seems to have just relaxed restrictions without seeing what the previous easing has caused.

Well that's a good point I suppose. It doesn't matter if it causes little or no illness or long term illness, the fact is, whether there's a lockdown or not, you might still get it, if not now then next year or in five years time.

I don't agree that we 'simply can't go back to our normal lives' - there may never be a vaccine or a reliable treatment, so how long are people suppose to waste their lives waiting? What's the point in being alive if you live it as a prisoner?

True and thats my point, too early to just say "CV is very mild in most people"

Any viral illness can trigger other issues, more time is needed, time we haven't really got.

imho we need to be planning on how we can live with CV, some restrictions, more investment in healthcare, especially early intervention and not leaving people to stay at home until they are seriously ill.
As Johnson himself should know, early intervention saves lives and limits complications.

[quote ineedaholidaynow]@jasjas1973 so many people seem to be ignoring the potential long term health impacts of this virus and only focussing on the deaths. The heath impacts seem to hit healthy young people not just the old and vulnerable[/quote]
There may certainly be long term health impacts - it's very very common for viruses to have long term effects. Measles causes heart and brain problems, mumps can cause infertility, meningitis can lead to various brain and nerve issues, any infection, bacterial or viral, can cause sepsis, which when it doesn't kill you (and it kills a lot of people) can leave you with severe organ damage. Long term health impacts from illness are not a new thing.

It's worth pointing out here again that lockdown has nothing to do with preventing you from getting covid - it's still out there and you can still get it. So the health effects are pretty much irrelevant unless you're planning on locking yourself away in the house until there's a vaccine, which could potentially be years (or never).

@TheDailyCarbuncle Of course not, i don't want to live in a prison until a vaccine is found.

But its unrealistic to expect to be able to go to a mass sporting event or a nightclub.

Economies will not function if people are fearful of a virus that they could pass on to a much loved vulnerable person that could hospitalise them.

But @TheDailyCarbuncle we are finding out more about the virus and hopefully making headway so hopefully when people get the virus going forward there is more that can be done for them

It's worth pointing out here again that lockdown has nothing to do with preventing you from getting covid - it's still out there and you can still get it. So the health effects are pretty much irrelevant

Its about the numbers, if you can limit infection to the vulnerable in society (and thats not just the elderly) then as you say, the majority will doubtless get a mild version but the trick is how can you stop them infecting the vulnerable without locking them away?

@ineedaholidaynow

But *@TheDailyCarbuncle* we are finding out more about the virus and hopefully making headway so hopefully when people get the virus going forward there is more that can be done for them

That's true, although it's worth pointing out that the flu has been around for a very long time, we've had a vaccine since the 1930s and it still kills anything up to 685,000 people every year. So any expectation that we'll get to a point where you can just completely avoid this illness or protect people indefinitely seems unrealistic. My worry is that in waiting for that point to come, we create so many other problems that the benefit of achieving that goal is totally negated by the damage done.

[quote jasjas1973]@TheDailyCarbuncle Of course not, i don't want to live in a prison until a vaccine is found.

But its unrealistic to expect to be able to go to a mass sporting event or a nightclub.

Economies will not function if people are fearful of a virus that they could pass on to a much loved vulnerable person that could hospitalise them.[/quote]
Economies will also not function if children can't go to school and businesses can't open. I'm confused by the idea that the virus will cause problems when the main cause of economic destruction is lockdown. It doesn't make sense to me to say 'the house may go on fire, so to prevent that we're going to burn it down first.'

But Sweden’s economy has taken a hit too hasn’t it

@TheDailyCarbuncle thanks for your common sense approach to this shitshow.