I genuinely don’t get it?!

[Rapphue]

Hopeful for balanced and sincere posts here rather than the assumption that I’m ‘playing ignorance’ or some other accusation because my question undermines the government narrative.

FWIW I’m educated and well read, albeit I don’t have huge in depth knowledge politics, nor do I claim to!

But I don’t understand why we are having restrictions imposed for a virus that is no worse than other illnesses. Even if I accept that it is harmless to the NHS should it escalate fast and make many ill at the same time (so far no hospitals have been maxed out with corona - my SIL works as a hospital doctor in intense care and has said there hasn’t been even 50% corona patients in any ward at one time. She works in a busy London hospital)...even if I accept it could escalate and we don’t want that, then:

1. Why is there suddenly a lack of concern about public health in general? People are dying because they are having treatment postponed due to Coronavirus. Hospitals are not busy and certainly not full of corona patients. It seems crazy to me that anyone who may fall ill non corona related is now at the back of the queue. Tough shit if that ends in your death.

1. Pubs open until 10pm. I use this as one example of many arbitrary rules. Why does the virus suddenly operate after 10pm? Is it a vampire? Surely you can infect just as many people at 9:59pm as you can at 10pm. Is it just to reduce risk overall? If so then I think someone needs to read a gcse science textbook... the risk has already been taken if the pub is open full stop.

1. Cashless society...erm. Why?

I’m not trying to incite some sort of dramatic post. I hope there are honest reasons for operating as we have the last few months. I hope I am wrong to feel cynical. I hope - and suspect - I’m not knowledgeable enough to understand why this is happening how it is.

As far as I can tell this is very much about controlling people’s lives to their detriment. If it was about health why on Earth are we letting people get sick and delaying treatment because of a virus?

Is there something in the London protests yesterday? Am I missing something medical, political or scientific here?

[quote CoffeeandCroissant]@Ophelia2020 Have you read the relevant papers or are you copying and pasting from lockdown sceptics or similar?

Because, you are doing some very selective cherry picking and providing numbers out of context - for example "on BSE, he gave a figure of 50 to 50,000 deaths by 2080. His lower bound was 40 deaths and his upper bound was ~7,000 deaths for cumulative deaths by 2020."

He emphasised that the worst-case scenarios were far less likely than other scenarios and the paper suggests that the best estimate is 100 deaths to 1,000 deaths.
See: www.nature.com/articles/nature709/ and www.nature.com/news/2002/020107/full/news020107-7.html

Models are not predictions but provide a variety of scenarios from best case to worst case, with confidence intervals and also a most likely scenario/best estimate, again with confidence intervals.
However, you only quote the top of the upper bound figures, for which there were huge confidence intervals. Worst case scenarios are also the least likely and with hindsight and without context sometimes will look rather ridiculous. Models are only as good as the data used which is likely to improve as more is known.

"Only released code last week"

Okay, clearly copy and pasted from somewhere, as he released it months ago. [/quote]
Thanks for this, C&C.

@Forgone90

I think it's crazy the amount of people that die due to smoking related illnesses and the countless that are admitted to hospital because of it aswell, yet we don't ban smoking!!

Another ridiculous analogy. Smoking and the diseases it causes an individual are not highly contagious.

Your sil experience can't be extrapolated across all hospitals.

10pm is arbitrary but people are more likely to be increasingly pissed and less likely to social distance the later it gets. Especially true for late nigh bars. Say open to 3am.

Cashless society isn't really a thing. But less places are accepting cash as it is a surface multiple people touch and can be a surface the virus spreads on. Research into the spread on surfaces is ongoing so I think for now it's a precaution until we know if the virus spreads on money.

People are going without treatments but actually now lots of ongoing treatment has been re started. Including the surgery department I'm under at a specialist hospital.
It's redic to say no regard has been given to this CCGs, NHS endland and individual trusts are thinking about this all of the time. It's a balance between the ill effects of one thing vs the other.

I'm also not sure you can say covid is no more harmful than other stuff. The overall death rate looks low but this doesn't take into account the long term effects which we just don't know about yet. The death rate recording and case recording across the world is also not massively accurate.

I actually don't think it that hard for a well educated person to get this and think outside of immediate reactions. Seems to me you're being purposefully obtuse.

I think the 10pm closing time is because from the back of 9/10 o'clock onwards is generally when people are getting more and more drunk, obviously due to the fact that as the night goes on and the more they drink, the more drunk they get. And the more drunk they get, the more social distancing goes out the window. Obviously there will be people who have counter arguments to this (and everything, there always is) ie people will just go to the pub earlier and so make up their drinking time at the start of the evening, making these measures pointless. Yes, some may, but not all. So it at least cuts down on the amount of people out of their tree in the pubs.

That's just my thought anyway.

[quote CoffeeandCroissant]This thread from a doctor, might help you "get it".
mobile.twitter.com/tristan_cope/status/1310162805241401346[/quote]
Thank you for this. This doctor explains the issues clearly and why measures such as masks, social distancing and restrictions are unavoidable in the coming months and the ‘cure is not worse than the disease’.

Why is it that so many people on MN believe that most people who go to the pub get absolutely pissed off their heads

Where do you get that from @AlecTrevelyan006?

Some people do get off their heads.

The early closing was an attempt to lessen that.

Okay, clearly copy and pasted from somewhere, as he released it months ago. grin

It was copied and pasted. Whats your point?

I suggest it's you that's cherry picking. The fact is this crackpots whacky predictions influenced policy. And it shouldn't have.You think it's funny that countless animals were slaughtered for nothing and people were led to believe they were going to die from eating a burger?

What did that cost do you think?

Nello that article is nearly 20 years old. And after the event.

Not exactly reliable.

But less places are accepting cash as it is a surface multiple people touch and can be a surface the virus spreads on
it's true that fewer places are accepting cash but also true that places with automatic check outs have no need to avoid cash because it's all handled by the machine!

The forecast case numbers in the report Ferguson did in March seem to track quite well with what has happened. He predicted at the stage the U.K. was at by then 500,000 deaths within two years if no measures were taken, which would never happen, about 250,000 deaths if limited measures were taken and up to depending on r rate etc 48,000 deaths with more comprehensive measures.

The cash issue is nothing to do with covid. Its been in the pipeline for a long time.

It's happening now because the world economic forum has launched The Great Reset.

www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/now-is-the-time-for-a-great-reset/

I need my life back, my mental health is really fragile, enough is enough, it's been six months we can't live like this for ever!!

I cant see a cashless society, how would the drug dealers manage to do business?
Oh wait, dont they all use bitcoin now anyway?
Seriously, imo too many people benefit from the anonymity of cash for it to be done away with.

The forecast case numbers in the report Ferguson did in March seem to track quite well with what has happened. He predicted at the stage the U.K. was at by then 500,000 deaths within two years if no measures were taken, which would never happen, about 250,000 deaths if limited measures were taken

Its impossible to prove something that didn't happen.

Some countries didn't lock down at all and they do not have those sort of figures. There are other experts apart from this bozo. I don't know why we haven't considered other experts opinions also.

Theres a thread on here by NHS staff.

Have a look at it and ask them!!!!!!!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4026357-nhsers-how-are-we-doing-feeling-calm-before-the-storm

@Orphelia2020

I think my analogy stands....

I have no particular affinity to Prof Fergusson, and have no interest or desire either to support or criticise his work. Moreover, I don’t have the time. However, even suppose you had a point regarding his previous modelling (and you stated what his forecasts stated what “could” not “is likely to” happen), it doesn’t automatically follow that his forecast for Covid was incorrect. As I have stated, it seems to have stood the test of time so far.

If my daughter got a few times-tables questions wrong: 6x9= 56 x; 7x7=47 x; 4x6=28 x; but then answered 8x9=72, would I say “no, sorry, that’s incorrect. It’s bound to be wrong, even though the sum matches my understanding of multiplication, you are wrong. You have to be you see. You got your previous questions wrong!” It’s the same nonsense argument you’re using with Ferguson’s forecast.

Its impossible to prove something that didn't happen.

Yet with his model in the March report he predicted up to 48,000 deaths with the measures our govt did take tracking quite well with what happened.

@Ophelia2020

The forecast case numbers in the report Ferguson did in March seem to track quite well with what has happened. He predicted at the stage the U.K. was at by then 500,000 deaths within two years if no measures were taken, which would never happen, about 250,000 deaths if limited measures were taken

Its impossible to prove something that didn't happen.

Some countries didn't lock down at all and they do not have those sort of figures. There are other experts apart from this bozo. I don't know why we haven't considered other experts opinions also.

what countries would they be?

There are many well qualified experts who had serious concerns about his figures. Do you think that they also have a nonsense argument?

I think it's really quite simple. Several countries did not have a lockdown. Did they have the figures he predicted?

@Nellodee

Neil Ferguson gets a very hard time for his models, made at the beginning of outbreaks. A model is only as good as the data fed into it and in the early stages of pandemics, the data is all over the place. We still need those early models and realistically, we need the worst case models far more than the best case ones, but it is the nature of the beast that they are more likely to be wrong than to be right.

I agree! The data is still all over the place months later! It cannot be anything but inaccurate and inconsistent when our methods of data capture have created big gaps in the dataset due to testing not being sufficiently widespread or consistent - some people reporting quick test and quick results, while others are being told "the only test centre available to you is the Isle of Wight" (50 miles from the person's home postcode, as the crow flies - right I'll drive to Southampton get on a ferry, get the test done and go home while I'm suffering from coronavirus ummm doh!). So all those who are not being tested, aren't being included in the data.

That said, I don't think we need to stick rigidly to exact numbers, they don't matter, indicative numbers tell us everything we need to know -

• Lockdown 1 reduced the spread significantly - to be expected albeit a very extreme measure.

• since August when all the schools started going back, Eat Out to Help was in full swing, lockdown easing considerably with gyms and beauty salons reopening, Unis back now, suddenly the infection rates are increasing exponentially in many hotspots round the U.K.

That tells us that the suggested "Hands Face Space" measures recommended by the scientists and epidemiologists, not the Government, need to be adopted by everyone, all the time. That's the bottom line.

We have to learn to live with the virus as best we can...

Tajikistan, Sweden and Korea did not impose lockdowns.

Sweden appears to have under 6,000 deaths.

It’s not just cashless - the encourage it stop communal handling on money. No biggie.