PM Johnson warns Britons: more loved ones are going to die from coronavirus

[evadgib]

HMG Full Monty: 

 

Coronavirus (COVID-19): UK government response

[rickudon]

Sweden is also limiting tests to those in hospital also.....

 

Globally, 50% rise in cases in the last 2 weeks, and a 60% rise in deaths. 1,000 a week now dying, maybe 10,000 a week by end of April? Not 'Nonsense' by then. We also have a problem with countries giving up on accurate reporting (e.g. Iran?).

 

Actually it is worse ..... the global figures are skewed by the old chinese cases. France has had a 28 fold increase in cases in the last 2 weeks ...... if not contained, maybe a 100,000 cases in France alone by the end of March! That would see the French health system on the point of collapse. We do not have months to stop this pandemic spreading...... only days.

 

The UK have already surrendered - no serious restrictions, and the top government health advisor is expecting 500,000 deaths. I presume the government is looking forward to the 300 million a month they will save in state pension, that will replace the non-existent Brexit dividend.

 

[billd766]

4 hours ago, rhyddid said:

Sure , after NHS is limiting the covid19 test to all UK population, lots will be infected and not knowing to be a Covid19 infected person will pass it to their own family members and the old people and immune depressed one will be killed.

BS BJ shall be taken to court for manslaughter !

In your dream.

[melvinmelvin]

9 hours ago, Bruntoid said:

Doesn’t get more OTT than that ! 
 

Seems to be a rather large IF in there to set off your panic! If you hold much confidence in your chief scientific advisor, why is the rest of the world telling Bojo he should have been acting on this 6 weeks ago ? (Presumably on his ‘advisors’ advice?) 

 

If we have no immunity why are there no reports of fitness instructors et al dying ?

my take is that the entry you commented on is pretty much to the point

 

 

[englishoak]

7 hours ago, rhyddid said:

Sure , after NHS is limiting the covid19 test to all UK population, lots will be infected and not knowing to be a Covid19 infected person will pass it to their own family members and the old people and immune depressed one will be killed.

BS BJ shall be taken to court for manslaughter !

 

Don't be ridiculous, your health is ultimately your responsibility not the governments. Testing takes time, resources and staff. No country has the amount of testing kits to do even a tiny % of the population and the UK is no different. 

 

There just arnt the methods or resources to do tests on everyone plus theres a  2 week incubation where it dosnt show anyway. You cant test the entire population every day to see whos showing positive, on top of that there are also false positives. No system has the beds to cope with a rapid jump in cases.

 

Yes people are going to die and the health service, doctors, nurses and carers are going to make the terrible decision of who gets a ventilator and who dosnt.. no one should have to make that choice but all around the world that is happening and it will in the UK too.

 

There is no immunity in the human herd as yet, it will go through ALL large countries like a scythe simply because we are connected like never in history, on the good side we have medicine, communication and much better health now than in history.. so many who would  die without our modern progress will now not.

 

The choices are lock everyone up be draconian to the very extreme and drag infected away and pile them up in death centers, treating people like animals like China has done or delay and deal with it over a longer period with calm, some dignity and hopefully less panic or . the UK is choosing the latter 

 

You just sound scared and confused as to what this really is tbh .. its a pandemic and many are going to die no matter what .. get used to seeing the death counts rise.. this is the year of the rat and a plague it is by any other historical standard. 

 

Reality is sometimes hard to bare... some things we cant magic away and this is one.

[CartagenaWarlock]

16 hours ago, faraday said:

Are there any stats for deaths Vs age?

Yes there are. Western countries are pulling the greatest scam on earth by hiding their numbers. As I kept saying they simply cannot control it and hide the numbers by not testing every person they find in the contact tracing. 

[melvinmelvin]

20 minutes ago, englishoak said:

 

Don't be ridiculous, your health is ultimately your responsibility not the governments. Testing takes time, resources and staff. No country has the amount of testing kits to do even a tiny % of the population and the UK is no different. 

 

There just arnt the methods or resources to do tests on everyone plus theres a  2 week incubation where it dosnt show anyway. You cant test the entire population every day to see whos showing positive, on top of that there are also false positives. No system has the beds to cope with a rapid jump in cases.

 

Yes people are going to die and the health service, doctors, nurses and carers are going to make the terrible decision of who gets a ventilator and who dosnt.. no one should have to make that choice but all around the world that is happening and it will in the UK too.

 

There is no immunity in the human herd as yet, it will go through ALL large countries like a scythe simply because we are connected like never in history, on the good side we have medicine, communication and much better health now than in history.. so many who would  die without our modern progress will now not.

 

The choices are lock everyone up be draconian to the very extreme and drag infected away and pile them up in death centers, treating people like animals like China has done or delay and deal with it over a longer period with calm, some dignity and hopefully less panic or . the UK is choosing the latter 

 

You just sound scared and confused as to what this really is tbh .. its a pandemic and many are going to die no matter what .. get used to seeing the death counts rise.. this is the year of the rat and a plague it is by any other historical standard. 

 

Reality is sometimes hard to bare... some things we cant magic away and this is one.

 

largely agree

further to the above, there is not really any point in testing the lot even if equipment was available

the capacity to treat them isn't there

 

what several countries now do is to take steps and invoke measures to reduce spreading, note; reduce

why? in order to spread the burden on the health service so fewer will perish

you might say that the steps taken in many countries will prolong the troubles but result in fewer deaths

 

[Chomper Higgot]

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is listening to and following the advice of health and disease experts, he’s right to do so, his words and actions have consequences.

 

So do the words of people trolling conspiracy garbage and spreading baseless mistrust in the government’s response and advice.

 

 

 

 

 

[StreetCowboy]

27 minutes ago, englishoak said:

 

Don't be ridiculous, your health is ultimately your responsibility not the governments. Testing takes time, resources and staff. No country has the amount of testing kits to do even a tiny % of the population and the UK is no different. 

 

There just arnt the methods or resources to do tests on everyone plus theres a  2 week incubation where it dosnt show anyway. You cant test the entire population every day to see whos showing positive, on top of that there are also false positives. No system has the beds to cope with a rapid jump in cases.

 

Yes people are going to die and the health service, doctors, nurses and carers are going to make the terrible decision of who gets a ventilator and who dosnt.. no one should have to make that choice but all around the world that is happening and it will in the UK too.

 

There is no immunity in the human herd as yet, it will go through ALL large countries like a scythe simply because we are connected like never in history, on the good side we have medicine, communication and much better health now than in history.. so many who would  die without our modern progress will now not.

 

The choices are lock everyone up be draconian to the very extreme and drag infected away and pile them up in death centers, treating people like animals like China has done or delay and deal with it over a longer period with calm, some dignity and hopefully less panic or . the UK is choosing the latter 

 

You just sound scared and confused as to what this really is tbh .. its a pandemic and many are going to die no matter what .. get used to seeing the death counts rise.. this is the year of the rat and a plague it is by any other historical standard. 

 

Reality is sometimes hard to bare... some things we cant magic away and this is one.

Exactly.  We have to accept draconian limitations on our freedoms in order to prevent this new disease becoming endemic.

 

Perhaps there may come a time when the world is separated into places where this disease is endemic, who were unsuccessful in their attempts to contain it, and places where it is rare, with strict quarantine; we did that with rabies.

[sanemax]

14 minutes ago, CartagenaWarlock said:

Yes there are. Western countries are pulling the greatest scam on earth by hiding their numbers. As I kept saying they simply cannot control it and hide the numbers by not testing every person they find in the contact tracing. 

Until theres a vaccine or cure, there is no point in testing people 

[StreetCowboy]

1 minute ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is listening to and following the advice of health and disease experts, he’s right to do so, his words and actions have consequences.

 

So do the words of people trolling conspiracy garbage and spreading baseless mistrust in the government’s response and advice.

 

 

 

 

 

If the intention is to slow the spread of the disease to a manageable level, while minimising the impact on society and the economy, we (meaning ‘they’) need to have a clear understanding of what is the tolerable level of infection, strain on the health services, and fatalities.

[StreetCowboy]

2 minutes ago, sanemax said:

Until theres a vaccine or cure, there is no point in testing people 

We can quarantine people who test positive.  

[Logosone]

16 hours ago, AlexRich said:

The death rate in Italy is currently running over 6% of cases.

 

Obviously it is not.

 

If you read the excellent advice of the UK chief medical advisor you will have spotted that he admitted that the UK had around 5000 to 10000 cases, and only around 500 were identified. In other countries the figures would be similar.

 

So clearly the number of cases in Italy is much higher. If you factor in that it is ten times higher obviously your supposed death rate of over 6% is wrong.

[Logosone]

8 hours ago, rickudon said:

Sweden is also limiting tests to those in hospital also.....

 

Globally, 50% rise in cases in the last 2 weeks, and a 60% rise in deaths. 1,000 a week now dying, maybe 10,000 a week by end of April? Not 'Nonsense' by then. We also have a problem with countries giving up on accurate reporting (e.g. Iran?).

 

Actually it is worse ..... the global figures are skewed by the old chinese cases. France has had a 28 fold increase in cases in the last 2 weeks ...... if not contained, maybe a 100,000 cases in France alone by the end of March! That would see the French health system on the point of collapse. We do not have months to stop this pandemic spreading...... only days.

 

The UK have already surrendered - no serious restrictions, and the top government health advisor is expecting 500,000 deaths. I presume the government is looking forward to the 300 million a month they will save in state pension, that will replace the non-existent Brexit dividend.

 

Yes, that was a bit of a faux-pas by Boris Johnson and his medical team, the part where they said to develop 'herd immunity' they expect 60% of the population of the UK will get the coronavirus.

 

So if 40 million Brits are to get coronavirus, that would mean deaths in the region of 400,000 to 1.2 million.

 

Quite a high price for 'herd immunity'. Not a strategy that fills you with confidence.

 

And football matches are postponed and cancelled but Cheltenham is on? What is the UK doing?

Edited March 13, 2020 by Logosone

[StreetCowboy]

38 minutes ago, Logosone said:

...

 

And football matches are postponed and cancelled but Cheltenham is on? What is the UK doing?

Maybe they expect less than 500.

 

My son's football matches are cancelled, and they're lucky to get 22.

[Jane Dough]

It is interesting to note that since the virus actually took hold in the UK the optimism that the authorities and the government were doing a good job has now evaporated. Many critics of the government and health service were on Sky today venting. Several said the response in China and Korea were models that the UK should follow - and the fact that they were not will come back to haunt them.

 

Rooster

[englishoak]

1 hour ago, StreetCowboy said:

Exactly.  We have to accept draconian limitations on our freedoms in order to prevent this new disease becoming endemic.

 

Perhaps there may come a time when the world is separated into places where this disease is endemic, who were unsuccessful in their attempts to contain it, and places where it is rare, with strict quarantine; we did that with rabies.

Its not possible to separate the world, only delay the spread and hopefully develop either a heard immunity or develop some for of vaccine... if lucky it might even burn out as it mutate and becomes less virulent or dangerous, but thats a hope and not looking likely atm. Unless its a bio weapon got out and tptb have methods to neutralise it somehow. 

 

It isnt containable like SARS and nothing like Rabies... its airborn, can live for a good time on surfaces and can survive as much as a week on hard, its not overly susceptible to cold and heat seems not to make much difference either, there is some ndication humidity levels make a difference and so far the badly hit regions are the upper northern hemisphere with a certain temp and humidity range, The world is so big that the pandemic is going to last all year are some regions succumb before others, like a ripple effect it will go around and return to places who have had it previously , it will like the 1918 flu have waves, we dont know the variation of the strains to come yet  but its likely to be with us without any treatment for at least a year maybe two or more...

 

Basically im saying given its already spread throughout the world and we are all connected its already become endemic and something the human race will have to now solve or live with. 

[Logosone]

56 minutes ago, StreetCowboy said:

Maybe they expect less than 500.

 

My son's football matches are cancelled, and they're lucky to get 22.

70,000 people flocked to Cheltenham.

 

But they cancel football matches.

 

So good to see it's all highly co-ordinated and organised. Makes total sense.

[sanemax]

2 hours ago, StreetCowboy said:

We can quarantine people who test positive.  

Anyone with flu like symptoms should stay at home anyway and not go out infecting everyone else 

[URMySunshine]

18 hours ago, AlexRich said:

Thank you previous posters ... the “it’s only the flu” gang.

 

Except it’s not only the flu, it’s a new virus and no one has immunity from it. The death rate in Italy is currently running over 6% of cases. In the USA the regular flu kills 0.1%, and a little more in a bad season.

 

The problem is that although 80% get through it okay, it appears that 20% require hospitalisation, and around 6% need to be attached to ventilators. So Lombardy had to deal with more patients requiring ventilation in a day, than they would normally in a month. So people who need to be ventilated, don’t get it, and the death rate soars. 
 

There are no virologists, epidemiologists, or recognised experts in this field who are calling this a hoax or “only the flu”. 
 

They obviously didn’t study at the University of Thai Visa?

The it's only the flu brigade are self-declared idiots now and best ignored. They know nothing and are proud to display their ignorance. Pathetic.

[Chomper Higgot]

4 hours ago, sanemax said:

Anyone with flu like symptoms should stay at home anyway and not go out infecting everyone else 

Sorry for this shocking revelation but, not everyone can afford to take time off work and millions of people live with other people.

[Chomper Higgot]

6 hours ago, Logosone said:

 

Obviously it is not.

 

If you read the excellent advice of the UK chief medical advisor you will have spotted that he admitted that the UK had around 5000 to 10000 cases, and only around 500 were identified. In other countries the figures would be similar.

 

So clearly the number of cases in Italy is much higher. If you factor in that it is ten times higher obviously your supposed death rate of over 6% is wrong.

Your logic is flawed.

 

The UK and Italy have some significantly different cultural and social norms than the U.K.

 

Tactile greeting is one example but also it is extremely common in Italy for multigenerational families to live together.

 

Such social and cultural differences unquestionably impact the spread of the disease and place older people at a higher risk of contracting the disease than in the U.K. where large numbers of the old are socially isolated.

[faraday]

16 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Your logic is flawed.

 

The UK and Italy have some significantly different cultural and social norms than the U.K.

 

Tactile greeting is one example but also it is extremely common in Italy for multigenerational families to live together.

 

Such social and cultural differences unquestionably impact the spread of the disease and place older people at a higher risk of contracting the disease than in the U.K. where large numbers of the old are socially isolated.

Gosh Chomps, you're really smart, I'll look at your posts from now on, in a different light.

 

*Laugh emoji*

 

Sarcasm aside, it's quite true about Italians. 

 

 

[bannork]

26 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Your logic is flawed.

 

The UK and Italy have some significantly different cultural and social norms than the U.K.

 

Tactile greeting is one example but also it is extremely common in Italy for multigenerational families to live together.

 

Such social and cultural differences unquestionably impact the spread of the disease and place older people at a higher risk of contracting the disease than in the U.K. where large numbers of the old are socially isolated.

Old and lonely in the UK so less likely to get the virus than the gregarious Italians. Poor souls.

[Logosone]

2 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Your logic is flawed.

 

The UK and Italy have some significantly different cultural and social norms than the U.K.

 

Tactile greeting is one example but also it is extremely common in Italy for multigenerational families to live together.

 

Such social and cultural differences unquestionably impact the spread of the disease and place older people at a higher risk of contracting the disease than in the U.K. where large numbers of the old are socially isolated.

 

By all accounts the patient zero in Germany merely attended a work conference where a Chinese work colleague was present. I can assure you there is no tradition of tactile greeting in Germany and mulitgenerational families living together is rare. And yet covid19 still spread. It does not need touch or tactile greeting to spread. It does not need multigenerational living together to spread. Covid19 surives on plastics, glass and wood for many days. It can enter via the eyes on the street if a person has joust coughed.

 

I am absolutely confident that the UK's chief medical advisor's warning is correct, that other countries will have similar real number of cases, ie ten or twenty times higher than the identified number of cases. That was always going to be the case, and the academics who analysed mortality at the very start of the pandemic already said that.

 

You can therefore rest assured that your logic is flawed, my logic is correct, and Italy will have case numbers significantly higher than the numbers it has identified, just like in the UK and everywhere else. As per the UK's chief medical advisor you can estimate the figure at ten to twenty times higher. So Italy now has a case number somewhere between 176000 and 373000. This gives a true mortality rate of somewhere between 0.3 and 0.7 per cent, in line with previous flu epidemics. 

 

Covid19 does not have a scary mortality rate, it merely spreads fast because we don't have immunity to it yet. But the mortality rate in Italy is certainly not 6 per cent or anything close to that. Anyone who calculates with just officially identified number of cases obviously has the flawed logic.

[geriatrickid]

21 hours ago, faraday said:

Oh come off it, that's the absolute worst case scenario.

If a patient has breathing issues, being mechanically ventilated, is a way along the treatment protocol.

Really Moderators, please address some of these alarmist posts.

 

@geriatrickid

Apparently, you are not current with the Italian  experience.

The requirement for respiratory assistance can progress quite quickly. It is dependent upon the lung inflammation and the lung function.

 

10 hours ago, sanemax said:

Until theres a vaccine or cure, there is no point in testing people 

The testing is used to identify clusters of infection and to support a containment strategy.

 

9 hours ago, Logosone said:

 

Obviously it is not.

 

If you read the excellent advice of the UK chief medical advisor you will have spotted that he admitted that the UK had around 5000 to 10000 cases, and only around 500 were identified. In other countries the figures would be similar.

 

So clearly the number of cases in Italy is much higher. If you factor in that it is ten times higher obviously your supposed death rate of over 6% is wrong.

Unfortunately, miss the big picture. I shall quote from the Lancet's article of today;

The percentage of patients in intensive care reported daily in Italy between March 1 and March 11, 2020, has consistently been between 9% and 11% of patients who are actively infected. The number of patients infected since Feb 21 in Italy closely follows an exponential trend. If this trend continues for 1 more week, there will be 30 000 infected patients. Intensive care units will then be at maximum capacity; up to 4000 hospital beds will be needed by mid-April, 2020.

 

Italy does not have the resources for this. What do you think happens when a patient cannot access an ICU bed.

 

3 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Sorry for this shocking revelation but, not everyone can afford to take time off work and millions of people live with other people.

Some countries will provide financial assistance for this. Now up to Trump to take care of the working poor.

 

14 minutes ago, Logosone said:

Covid19 does not have a scary mortality rate, it merely spreads fast because we don't have immunity to it yet. But the mortality rate in Italy is certainly not 6 per cent or anything close to that. Anyone who calculates with just officially identified number of cases obviously has the flawed logic.

Your statement is your personal opinion. An illness is not  considered in respect to the  immediate direct mortality. Impact is also taken into consideration. People occupying the ICU can delay or prevent  appropriate medical care being delivered to others. Note that there is a considerable time period between onset of the illness and death. Patients have been in ICU for 30-60 days. This is why they do not show up in the death tally right away. 

Due to the high volume and the infectious disease characteristic, full post mortems are not being done. Some deaths are not necessarily being assigned to the infection. Every hospital is a madhouse now. medical care personnel have open wounds on their faces from their clothing, and many are exhausted. Errors will be made.

 

[spiekerjozef]

On 3/13/2020 at 4:57 AM, webfact said:

PM Johnson warns Britons: more loved ones are going to die from coronavirus

If you do nothing as you do now, yes many will die

[Logosone]

1 hour ago, geriatrickid said:

Unfortunately, miss the big picture. I shall quote from the Lancet's article of today;

The percentage of patients in intensive care reported daily in Italy between March 1 and March 11, 2020, has consistently been between 9% and 11% of patients who are actively infected. The number of patients infected since Feb 21 in Italy closely follows an exponential trend. If this trend continues for 1 more week, there will be 30 000 infected patients. Intensive care units will then be at maximum capacity; up to 4000 hospital beds will be needed by mid-April, 2020.

 

Italy does not have the resources for this. What do you think happens when a patient cannot access an ICU bed.

 

If you're going to quote the Lancet article on Italy quote this part as well: "If the Italian outbreak follows a similar trend to that in China, we can suggest that the number of newly infected patients might start to decrease within 3–4 days from March 11. Similarly, we can foresee that the cumulative curve of patients who are infected will peak 30 days later, with the maximum load for clinical facilities for the treatment of these patients foreseen for that period.""

 

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30627-9/fulltext

 

Of course to look at the big picture is to extrapolate the worst case scenario figures for Italy, which according to the Chief Medical advisor in the UK means a ten to twenty multiple of recorded cases. So 176,000 actual cases for Italy. What the Lancet author has done is to look at the total of hospitalised patients and of those 9% and 11% are intensive care patients. However, if the UK Chief Medical Advisor is correct then most Covid19 cases will not even be identified, let alone hospitalised.

 

Whilst it is certain that the Italian hospitals will be under strain, it does not mean most, or even 6 or 11 percent of carriers will die.

 

So I have in no way missed the big picture, the big picture is still that Italy has between 176,000 to 352,000 cases. Mortality rate in Italy is betwen 0.3 and 0.8 per cent, perfectly in line with previous flu epidemics. You're not looking at the big picture because you're only looking at intensive care patient figures as a percentage of patients. However, you have to look at the bigger picture, like you say, namely that in Italy most likely 176,000 to 352,000 people are infected.

 

And this bigger picture would also include the Lancet author's other prediction, that the number of newly infected will start to decrease in the next few days. 

 

 

Your statement is your personal opinion. An illness is not  considered in respect to the  immediate direct mortality. Impact is also taken into consideration. People occupying the ICU can delay or prevent  appropriate medical care being delivered to others. Note that there is a considerable time period between onset of the illness and death. Patients have been in ICU for 30-60 days. This is why they do not show up in the death tally right away. 

Due to the high volume and the infectious disease characteristic, full post mortems are not being done. Some deaths are not necessarily being assigned to the infection. Every hospital is a madhouse now. medical care personnel have open wounds on their faces from their clothing, and many are exhausted. Errors will be made.

 

Okay, so you accept then that the mortality rate in Italy is much less than 6%, excellent. Your statement that there will be an ICU delay and patients will not get proper medical care is your opinion, it may or may not turn out to be correct. Your suspicion that errors will be made or that post mortems are not being done when they should be is just that, your personal opinion for which you have no clear evidence. Even if that were the case it would not invalidate the crucial point, that Italy has ten to twenty times the case figures it has identified, and that therefore mortality of Covid19 is 0.3 to 0.8, substantially in line with previous flu epidemics, which we have survived quite well.

 

 

 

Edited March 14, 2020 by Logosone

[billd766]

13 hours ago, CartagenaWarlock said:

Yes there are. Western countries are pulling the greatest scam on earth by hiding their numbers. As I kept saying they simply cannot control it and hide the numbers by not testing every person they find in the contact tracing. 

And just how do you know that western countries are hiding their numbers?

 

Do you have any links, posts reports etc talking about this, or are you simply putting out fake news with nothing to back it up? Fake news or scaremongering?

 

I tend to take far more notice of the countries Ministry of Health, news reports and interviews by professional medical staff, rather than a rant on a website by an anonymous poster who cannot even post a link to anything he says.

[Canuck1966]

Just been reading about Professor Ian Donald's thoughts on the UK policy

 

The govt strategy on Coronavirus is more refined than those used in other countries and potentially very effective. But it is also riskier and based on a number of assumptions. They need to be correct, and the measures they introduce need to work when they are supposed to.

A UK starting assumption is that a high number of the population will inevitably get infected whatever is done – up to 80%. As you can’t stop it, so it is best to manage it.

There are limited health resources so the aim is to manage the flow of the seriously ill to these.

The Italian model the aims to stop infection. The UKs wants infection BUT of particular categories of people. The aim of the UK is to have as many lower risk people.

 

That's herd immunity. Based on this idea, at the moment the govt wants people to get infected, up until hospitals begin to reach capacity. At that they want to reduce, but not stop infection rate. Ideally they balance it so the numbers entering hospital = the number leaving.

That balance is the big risk. All the time people are being treated, other mildly ill people are recovering and the population grows a higher percent of immune people who can’t infect. They can also return to work and keep things going normally - and go to the pubs.

The risk is being able to accurately manage infection flow relative to health case resources. Data on infection rates needs to be accurate, the measures they introduce need to work and at the time they want them to and to the degree they want, or the system is overwhelmed.

Schools: Kids generally won’t get very ill, so the govt can use them as a tool to infect others when you want to increase infection. When you need to slow infection, that tap can be turned off – at that point they close the schools. Politically risky for them to say this.

The same for large scale events - stop them when you want to slow infection rates; turn another tap off. This means schools etc are closed for a shorter period and disruption generally is therefore for a shorter period, AND with a growing immune population. This is sustainable

After a while most of the population is immune, the seriously ill have all received treatment and the country is resistant. The more vulnerable are then less at risk. This is the end state the govt is aiming for and could achieve.

BUT a key issue during this process is protection of those for whom the virus is fatal. It's not clear the full measures there are to protect those people. It assumes they can measure infection, that their behavioural expectations are met - people do what they think they will

The Italian (and others) strategy is to stop as much infection as possible - or all infection. This is appealing, but then what? The restrictions are not sustainable for months. So the will need to be relaxed. But that will lead to reemergence of infections.

Then rates will then start to climb again. So they will have to reintroduce the restrictions each time infection rates rise. That is not a sustainable model and takes much longer to achieve the goal of a largely immune population with low risk of infection of the vulnerable.

This is probably the best strategy, but they should explain it more clearly. It relies on a lot of assumptions, so it would be good to know what they are - especially behavioural. 

 

Looks like this could drag on for a long time.... and we are all going to get a dose eventually!