How is this going to pan out without a firebreak?

[Starlight101]

I’ve just listening to a sage scientist on the radio. He spoke a lot of sense. He basically said that even if every part of the country went into Tier 3 now then that wouldn’t bring the R rate below one. It might get it to one but it’s more likely to remain above one. So in 2-3 weeks we can expect 300-400 deaths a day due to the current amount of infection in the population. If the R rate remains at 1 then this will continue for months. In 10 days that’s 3000-4000 deaths, in 100 days (about 3 months) that’s 30000-40000 deaths.

A circuit breaker would likely half the infection levels thus halving all those numbers above. He agreed it’s also easier for track and trace to do their thing with smaller numbers involved.

How on Earth is this going to pan out without a circuit breaker. The numbers are shocking

I can't make sense of the situation. What is really working & what is OTT. Outside of South America (where things are indeed awful) it's not clear to me that there is health care provision meltdown in all the places where the controls are only 'Guidance' and the case numbers are very high. I'm thinking of all my relatives in the USA. Their lives are affected. Some are miserable from social isolation & financially depending on each other. Others are keeping to small gatherings. Case counts are indeed high in many places. But they don't have tight controls like most of Europe and every kind of medical care is still happening, ICUs are under lots of strain but there isn't complete meltdown of their health care. The economy is struggling but they don't have the huge financial penalties for non-mask wearers etc. or big govt bailouts that UK is discussing. And then there's Sweden of course, to show what another path might have looked like...

All kinds of patterns in Europe.
Outside of South America, just where has the health care system collapsed compared to what it could deliver before?

The numbers of people in hospital persist being relatively low in my Tier1 area. We shouldn't be put into Tier3 rules. Not right now, anyway.

@toxtethOgradyUSA

OP if you and others like you want to go hide under the stairs, feel free. The rest of us have got jobs to do, families to feed and roofs to keep over our heads.

Staying at home and doing those three things need not be mutually exclusive (for OP).

The number of people in hospital with covid is doubling every two weeks. We are a month away from having more people in hospital with covid than in the peak of the crisis.

I can see mass postponements of elective surgeries (with a subsequent outcry). There are a few options: by early December a panicked national lockdown, or rollout of some kind of emergency shielding scheme.

If lockdown doesn't work to bring the R number below 1 than how do they explain that it did work for China and New zealand?

There's some critical thinking missing here.

Lockdown does work, it worked last time.

It’s the only thing that works in the absence of TTI plus compliance but it harms in other ways.

Isn't it odd how it's always about what's going to happen in the future? It's all predictions and dire warnings, never about what's actually happening now. Why is that?

@TheDailyCarbuncle

Isn't it odd how it's always about what's going to happen in the future? It's all predictions and dire warnings, never about what's actually happening now. Why is that?

Well it’s all about the future isn’t it? Infections that happen now translate to deaths in 2-3 weeks and they are following a pretty stable curve so that’s an obvious prediction. It’s a pretty big risk to rely on Tier 3 working when we have to wait 3 weeks to reliably see that, when most scientists are saying it won’t be enough.

@TheDailyCarbuncle

Isn't it odd how it's always about what's going to happen in the future? It's all predictions and dire warnings, never about what's actually happening now. Why is that?

Not really odd at all. The facts are that the virus is being transmitted and more people are becoming ill enough to require hospital beds and a percentage will go on to require ICU. There is a finite number of beds available. We can carry on until beds run out and/or there are no beds available for the other usual reasons for people needing emergency care or we take steps before reaching that point.

A short fire break really won't do much long term though. Its taken over 100 days of strict lock down for our numbers to get really low in Melbourne.

Yes except it never actually happens does it? So we're always working on the basis of what could or might happen, never what is actually proven to happen. Livelihoods are lost and mental health is destroyed for predictions, not for actual situations.

Someone could just as easily predict that without restrictions, in three weeks, everything would stabilise and the danger would pass entirely. There's no reason to believe it wouldn't - there's no data either way to say what's likely and what's not. So why do we only believe the worst?

We (the nations) have to look forward. The only way to deal with Covid is to look forward because people are being infected now whose illness affects future policy.

But the government looks at now, prevaricates, pretends it’s doing something (too late), the moment passes, and numbers go up.

No-one should think that a vaccine is going to sort this out in the short-medium term. Even if a vaccine was found this side of Christmas, can you imagine the sheer logistics of getting anyone must a few very vulnerable people vaccinated. It would take months, if not years. GP surgeries could do nothing but vaccinate people and it would still take a very long time.
I don't know what the answer is, btw, but some areas do seem to be coming down now (university areas).

See this is what I don't understand. Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people have already had the virus. But they are not 'immune' because it can strike twice
So how will a vaccine work then? If you are not immune from your own body building antibodies, then a vaccine will not make you immune either (as that is exactly what a vaccine does - make your body make antibodies.)

I think those who've had it, should have exemption form all these restrictions - they are the safest people, and you should be able to hug them, the should not have to wear masks, they are immune and can't catch it or spread it.

How will the vaccine actually make it better? Will vaccinated people have no restrictions/masks??? How do you think we will get out of this?

@TheDailyCarbuncle

Yes except it never actually happens does it? So we're always working on the basis of what could or might happen, never what is actually proven to happen. Livelihoods are lost and mental health is destroyed for predictions, not for actual situations.

Someone could just as easily predict that without restrictions, in three weeks, everything would stabilise and the danger would pass entirely. There's no reason to believe it wouldn't - there's no data either way to say what's likely and what's not. So why do we only believe the worst?

would you be willing to take that gamble? What chaos would you be prepared to accept? Why do you think the virus will just level off on it's own? We have over 50 million still yet to be infected. Do you think the virus will just fizzle out?

They are talking about rolling vaccinations (like they do with flu).

It’s never going to be a magic bullet. 66million of us once a year (or twice, I read somewhere). It will be years. We can’t manage the admin for a start, that is clear.

The best thing to have done would have been to have some planned lockdowns. One before the schools went back instead of the ridiculous Eat out to Help Out which is looking likely to have increased the R a lot, then another for 2 weeks over half term, then another extra 2 weeks before Xmas so families could be together with less risk. This would have allowed people to plan, schools to plan learning, people to sort childcare and would have allowed us to limp along until hopefully a vaccine. But as usual there’s no planning and will be chaos instead.

@Cookerhood

No-one should think that a vaccine is going to sort this out in the short-medium term. Even if a vaccine was found this side of Christmas, can you imagine the sheer logistics of getting anyone must a few very vulnerable people vaccinated. It would take months, if not years. GP surgeries could do nothing but vaccinate people and it would still take a very long time. I don't know what the answer is, btw, but some areas do seem to be coming down now (university areas).

We already did this with the mexican flu vaccine. It didn't take years. It did take several months but they vaccinated health care professionals first and then the vulnerable. It needed two doses at least tgree weeks apart as well.

So if we could do it back then, then why would it suddenly take years now?

@ptumbi You really needs an immunologist to explain, I’m not one and I think they’re all busy 😂 There are different types of immune response that can be triggered and some are more protective, or protective for longer, than others.

In the beginning the hope was that a natural infection would trigger a long-lasting and complete immunity but it (apparently) doesn’t seem to. Vaccine research is currently trying to improve upon nature.

@ptumbi

See this is what I don't understand. Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people have already had the virus. But they are not 'immune' because it can strike twice So how will a vaccine work then? If you are not immune from your own body building antibodies, then a vaccine will not make you immune either (as that is exactly what a vaccine does - make your body make antibodies.)

I think those who've had it, should have exemption form all these restrictions - they are the safest people, and you should be able to hug them, the should not have to wear masks, they are immune and can't catch it or spread it.

How will the vaccine actually make it better? Will vaccinated people have no restrictions/masks??? How do you think we will get out of this?

I think it’s pretty much proven that it’s rare to be infected for a second time, just like it’s rare to get chicken pox twice etc. It’s more common with mild cases I believe and a vaccine should invoke a strong immune response.

I’m pretty sure it would be fine to let people who had had it socialise as normal. But it’s impossible to police that. How would you prove you had had it? Antibodies don’t stay in the system for long. People would be getting themselves infected on purpose so they could have their life back. It wouldn’t work. Therefore the ‘you could get reinfected’ line has to keep being trotted out.

Patrick Valance said vaccine likely Spring 2021 but for some groups this December.

I agree they lifted lockdown far too much too soon and I said so at the time. If they wanted schools open, they should not have opened up pubs, hairdressers, etc, the Eat out to help out was just absolutely foolish, I have not used it, cannot see how it could have possibly been safe being around other people with a new airborne virus in the loose.

I think we just have to hunker down with another lockdown NOW until the vaccine is ready, the results so far look promising. We have start to re-build the economy after that and start paying the massive debt back. Its the only way forward.

The NHS manages the flu vaccine every winter. This is no different. It will not take years 🙄🙄

And to whoever said it upthread re differences between tier 2 and 3...you can still see friends/family in tier 3 just not inside or in a garden. Go for a walk!

the sustainable approach with schools and circuit breakers

Right. Yes continued stop / start closures of the economy and schools is the answer, across the board

That makes no sense. Sorry.

@ClaryFairchild

A short fire break really won't do much long term though. Its taken over 100 days of strict lock down for our numbers to get really low in Melbourne.

This is what we should all be looking at. 100 DAYS. The simple question is, can we afford this as a country? The simple answer is: no. We would go bankrupt. On that basis, all bets are off and there's absolutely no point in farting around with short 'circuit breakers' which won't do anything except lead a few more of us down the road to financial ruin. It's for people to stop being such a bunch of negative moaning minnies and get on with life until the vaccine comes. It won't be long.

I am in tier 3, unfortunately my adult children live in other counties and I am vulnerable group so looks like for the first Xmas ever, I will not be seeing them. Its shit, shit and shit
but hoping it is just this one year out of many

There’s a lot of work going into the (multiple) cases of reinfection that have come up. It’s simply not true that they aren’t important. They might turn out to be statistically insignificant but I don’t see any of the experts putting their name to that for a virus that’s only nearly a year old.