Independent sage: circuit breaker lockdown needed now

[XmasGoose]

I see Independent Sage have said that an immediate circuit breaker lockdown is needed to protect the NHS.

This would involve a total ban on household mixing, all bars, restaurants and indoor venues closing and schools shutting early for Christmas.

Is this needed now to protect the NHS and save lives? Personally I wouldn’t comply with another lockdown.

twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1471160024005324804?s=21

@TheKeatingFive

Sweden decided from the start to only introduce measures that people could keep up for long periods of time. They never banned people from seeing their loved ones. I think that was very sensible.

Whereas the U.K. has a lockdown fatigued, burnt out population with not a lot left to give.

Sounds extremely sensible. Their schools didn't't shut down either I believe. Not for long in any case.

The way the UK government is handling things right now is very heavily influenced by the Sweden model.

Before you start suggesting we should have adopted the same strategy as Sweden early on, you might want to read up on that.

For those that don't bother with looking at actual evidence, here's a handy summary:

"UK mortality would have approximately doubled had Swedish policy been adopted, while Swedish mortality would have more than halved had Sweden adopted UK or Danish strategies."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-95699-9

Based on models, it should say could rather than would.

Pure guesswork which is wrong like the 100,000 a day in summer.

@Againstmachine

Based on models, it should say could rather than would.

Pure guesswork which is wrong like the 100,000 a day in summer.

They were less than one doubling away from being right.

If they are about one doubling out on this too then that's about 2500 a day isn't it?

I.e: Still grim.

They were still wrong about summer.

@Againstmachine

They were still wrong about summer.

A lot of people (including me and Sajid Javid) underestimated the effect our behaviour has on the spread of the virus in the summer.

Omicron is spreading slower than expected right now because of our behavioural changes.

@Againstmachine

They were still wrong about summer.

independent Sage over estimated cases following opening up in July, but they weren’t wrong to say cases would remain high. From August to December cases were between 30,000 up to late 40,000 and 700 to a 1000 deaths weekly. Meanwhile the rest of Europe until Dec were much lower on both measures.

A lot of people (including me and Sajid Javid) underestimated the effect our behaviour has on the spread of the virus in the summer.

Ah so figures are wrong its underr estimations right.

@Againstmachine

A lot of people (including me and Sajid Javid) underestimated the effect our behaviour has on the spread of the virus in the summer.

Ah so figures are wrong its underr estimations right.

They were right about October 2020, right about need for some fairly painless mitigations post July 2021.

They were right about October 2020, right about need for some fairly painless mitigations post July 2021.

So they are wrong in summer why trust them in October.

They were right about most things?

Predictions influence behaviour and that is itself affects numbers.

People who don't want lockdowns should be in favour of other mitigations (not what you always see on here)

2 week Circuit breaker will be announced tomorrow, it says all over the internet, Ds1 informs me.

@Oblomov21

2 week Circuit breaker will be announced tomorrow, it says all over the internet, Ds1 informs me.

I've seen similar, but I genuinely can't see the point of it.

Unless it goes on for longer than two weeks, which of course it will. Even then, I'm not sure what good it'd do, particularly as all the Christmas mixing and socialising will have been done by then.

(I've seen that it's due to start on the 27th)

Didn't Wales try a two week circuit breakers last year and it didn't work. Why would it work this time?

Dh says circuit breaker is too little too late, which I agree with. But it's better than nothing.

@Oblomov21

Dh says circuit breaker is too little too late, which I agree with. But it's better than nothing.

That sounds like a reasonable take on it.

@BarmyBrunhilde

Indie SAGE is very political. The were set up by Carole Cadwalldr and friends. I'm a bleeding heart lefty and voted Remain, but there is a curious overlap between the same sort of upper middle class People's Vote crowd, and those who are constantly calling for more lockdowns. Weird that it's become this sort of culture war.

I suspect we'll see some of those people who actually do see covid as some kind of political culture war that has "sides" suddenly coming around to the idea of a circuit breaker lockdown once it's the government that they support explaining why it's a good idea rather than Independent Sage.

@madisonbridges

Didn't Wales try a two week circuit breakers last year and it didn't work. Why would it work this time?

This time's the charm

And yes. 17 days firebreak failed completely. It's almost like 'the science' isn't infallible

I can't decide which expression I cringe at more.

"Firebreak" or 'circuit breaker'?

@Newnews

I wonder how many people commenting on this thread have lived in or experienced a country with a completely inadequate healthcare system. Eg. Your child has a seizure or gets hit by a car or your mum has a heart attack or sister goes into early labour. You ring an ambulance and you’re told there isn’t one. Sorry. No one can come and help you. So you drive them to the hospital and they say sorry, we’re full. There’s nowhere to put them. All our doctors are busy, we don’t have any more. People are literally queuing out in the street to access medical care for hours and hours. That is how people die.

This is what could happen if many people in this country become ill from Covid at the same time. Most people will be fine but our hospitals will be full because it is a numbers game. 0.5% of a big number is also a big number. You probably still don’t have to worry about Covid but you really don’t want to need any sort of medical help because there will be none. And it’s only then that people will start to get it, and understand why scientists who model data for a living to make predictions have called for a lockdown, but by then it will be too late.

It would be triaged at this point. There’s no way young fit healthy people/children would be left to die on the roads, whilst the staff are only looking after covid patients.

@IcedPurple

I can't decide which expression I cringe at more.

"Firebreak" or 'circuit breaker'?

Ha yeh it’s a toughie

I think that there probably is a place for targeted measures to reduce cases, at times in a pandemic.

There are a variety of reasons why you'd use them.

Given that we have a "major Incident" in London to do with the large number of omicron cases there, it does seem a bit late for a 2 week "circuitbreaker", as the circuits seem unlikely to be broken very effectively.

@IcedPurple

I can't decide which expression I cringe at more.

"Firebreak" or 'circuit breaker'?

I agree they should just call it lockdown and be done with it. Though I think circuit breaker makes it a softer pill to swallow for many who believed them when they said we wouldn’t be at this point again.

The reality as we know, will be much longer than 2 weeks.

Anyone recall 3 weeks to flatten the curve? 🙄