Covid19 - no need to panic - still

[Logosone]

1 hour ago, chessman said:

The real mistake was not preparing for this the moment there was a potential of it happening. Many governments around the world were complacent. 
 

the UK would have tested more if it could have, but it didn’t have the tests or the infrastructure. Bad planning. It still isn’t testing as much as it wants now.

 

the lockdowns clearly don’t solve things overnight but they are working. The number of new cases and deaths are slowed. Experts said that lockdowns would reduce the RO number this would reduce the spread. They were correct, no?Mass testing and contact tracing may be the preferable option but a lot of countries lacked the tests and the infrastructure to do that. Hopefully, as economies begin to open up, they will be better prepared to do it.

Yes, it was a real mistake not preparing for a pandemic which was predicted by a lot of extremely high profile people from Bill Gates to the Robert Koch Institute. Our governments, all of them, failed us. They failed us terribly with terrible consequences and they should be held to account for this failure. 

 

That was not the only mistake. Another mistake was not to lockdown the country hard when it could still have made a difference, in the early stages of Wuhan. That was not a one day sudden event, it dragged out over many weeks. Another golden opportunity was lost by our governments to prevent this awful pandemic we all have to endure now.

 

Yes, it is true, the UK opted for extreme social distancing because it had no other option. It had no tests. No clinical supplies. So extreme social distancing was all it could do. And how well has that gone? Compare with Sweden that has minimal social distancing.

 

We simply do not know if social distancing even works. It was only chosen by the UK because the Chinese used it and eventually reduced transmissions. However, they also used mass testing and isolating the infected at the same time.

 

You can not say social distancing is working. The UK has massively ramped up its testing, even if it is not on German numbers, the UK has got the message that testing is the way to go, and it is increasing its testing regime greatly. If the UK does reduce transmissions effectively it will most likely be testing and isolating the infected that caused the success. There is no clear evidence social distancing has worked. 

[Odysseus123]

4 minutes ago, rumak said:

so i guess you feel better now ?   LOL    

 

 

Very much more confident in the fact that neither you nor I have any real input into what gov'ts are doing at present unless you have some form of massive influence over the Thai gov't?

 

Lol...I thought not..and very probably not dashing out there to put any Spencerian principles into action either..

Edited April 19, 2020 by Odysseus123

[chessman]

19 minutes ago, rumak said:

The only problem was it went in a different tangent and implied that i said things that i did not. 

If you don't think those things then good for you. Common sense is important but won't do much good mapping a genome. It's also good that the OPs opinion on this is evolving. A few weeks ago he was posting about how it was a scam. Now he is much more circumspect with his words and this is good. If you see my response you can see I broadly agree with him. The experts do disagree (somewhat) but this is due to the complexity of the situation. As more data comes in, more will become known and better decisions will be made. Experts will enable us to do this, not just common sense.

Edited April 19, 2020 by chessman
Spelling

[rumak]

Just now, Odysseus123 said:

Very much more confident in the fact that neither you nor I have any real input into what gov'ts are doing at present unless you have some form of massive influence over the Thai gov't?

 

No...I thought not..

Of course i have no input in what the govt will do.    

I am just exercising my freedom of speech   ????   

since i am not allowed to walk on the beach..............

[rumak]

Just now, chessman said:

If you don't think those things then good for you. Common sense is important but won't do much good mapping a genome. It's also good that the OPs opinion on this is evolving. A few weeks ago he was posting about how it was a scam. Now he is much more circumspect with his words and this is good. If you see my response you can see I broadly agree with him. The experts do disagree (sonewhat) but this is due to the complexity of the situation. As more data comes in, more will become known and better decisions will be made. Experts will enable us to do this, not just common sense.

I admire your optimism.  

My life experience  observing  the decisions of governments and "authorities"  that are supposed to exist  to "serve the people"  has made me into the cynical   realistic person that I am.

 

I will be right there rooting with you :    that in the future better decisions will be made .

    sounds nice 

 

 

 

[Logosone]

1 hour ago, johnnybangkok said:

The UK didn't 'choose' lockdown over testing, that's just nonsense. Their original choice if you recal was gradual herd immunity   https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/03/uk-backed-off-on-herd-immunity-to-beat-coronavirus-we-need-it/ but when the figures came back showing anything from 250k to 400k in deaths, they rightfully backed away from this plan.

 

With a shortage of test kits   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/03/uk-ministers-struggle-to-keep-promise-of-100k-coronavirus-tests-by-end-of-april, the UK's much vaunted target of 100,000 tests per day is way beyond their reach, with a current figure of 8,000 being the average   https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/05/coronavirus-testing-uk-how-many-done. The 100k tests per day would mean it would take nearly 2 years to test everyone, 8,000 per day means 18 years.

 

South Korea and other countries have shown the effectiveness of mass testing, identifying and isolating (and I think most people/governments now undertsnad this is the way forward) but when you simply don't have the capability to mass test, you have to look for other options. The UK is not alone in this but if you try and say lockdown was 'chosen' then it was certainly out of neccesity rather than any other insidiuos motive and whatever you may says is a better choice, lockdown was certainly better than letting it run rampant. 

 

And yes you have every right to blame governments for their lack of preparadeness and continue to berate them for not getting ahead of this epidemic but to try and imply that they are now choosing 'the societal and economic problems' we are beginning to see is disingenuous at best, badly informed at worse. No one in their right mind is choosing this, it's just currently them making the best out of a VERY bad situation as they don't have the choice.            

Yes, the UK did not have test kits. 

 

Guess what, Germany did not have test kits. It was only when the genome of the virus was published that it was possible to do test kits. A German company produced 1.4 million test kits in four weeks after the genome was published. Same in South Korea.

 

Germany and South Korea MADE their test kits. They were not magically blessed with them. Are you telling me with some of the leading pharmaceutical giants in the world, a history of medical research excellence, world class laboratories, the UK could not have made the tests? Like Germany and South Korea did? 

 

You are making excuses for government incompetence at every level. 

 

It is absolutely not necessary to have extreme social distancing and lockdowns, those are not cures for any virus pandemic, at best minor delay buttons. Look at Sweden, Germany, Austria, you can get this virus pandemic under control without the extreme and desperate lockdown overreactions we have seen in Italy, Spain and the UK. 

 

It is not necessary. 

 

And we should not make excuses for the awful incompetence we have witnessed, because at the first sign of another cluster of cases we will be hit with lockdowns yet again unless everyone understands that lockdowns achieve very little to nothing.

 

It is all about tests and isolating the infected, no the healthy. And clinical management for those affected. Social distancing only works in the very early stages of a pandemic. Not once the virus has spread.

 

 

[chessman]

34 minutes ago, Logosone said:

Yes, it is true, the UK opted for extreme social distancing because it had no other option. It had no tests. No clinical supplies. So extreme social distancing was all it could do. And how well has that gone? Compare with Sweden that has minimal social distancing.

 

We simply do not know if social distancing even works. It was only chosen by the UK because the Chinese used it and eventually reduced transmissions. However, they also used mass testing and isolating the infected at the same time.

 

You can not say social distancing is working. The UK has massively ramped up its testing, even if it is not on German numbers, the UK has got the message that testing is the way to go, and it is increasing its testing regime greatly. If the UK does reduce transmissions effectively it will most likely be testing and isolating the infected that caused the success. There is no clear evidence social distancing has worked. 

I'm not sure Sweden is the best comparison. The UK is much more densely populated and more international. It might be better to compare Sweden with Norway and Finland. Sweden has many more deaths than those countries combined

 

I'm not sure how you could produce evidence that the lockdown worked or didn't work. The percentage increases of new cases and deaths have certainly gone down since the lockdowns started and I'm not sure there is another sensible explanation (apart from the lockdown) as to why. Do you really think that more testing in the UK is fully responsible for that?

Edited April 19, 2020 by chessman
Spelling

[Odysseus123]

21 minutes ago, rumak said:

 

 

21 minutes ago, rumak said:

since i am not allowed to walk on the beach..............

Lol...quite..????

 

 

[chessman]

12 minutes ago, rumak said:

I will be right there rooting with you :    that in the future better decisions will be made .

    sounds nice 

Fair enough. Hopefully we get there in the end. Human beings seem to be pretty good at figuring out how infectious diseases spread and ways to mitigate their effect. I'm sure there will be some miss-steps along the way though.

[CGW]

16 minutes ago, Logosone said:

Social distancing only works in the very early stages of a pandemic. Not once the virus has spread.

As do vaccines, yet so many seem to be pinning their "hopes" on Gates and mob being their saviours!

IMO the testing is too generic to give accurate results, its just going to inflate the numbers.

[chessman]

18 minutes ago, Logosone said:

Look at Sweden, Germany, Austria, you can get this virus pandemic under control without the extreme and desperate lockdown overreactions we have seen in Italy, Spain and the UK. 

Germany and Austria have stronger lockdown policies than the UK.

 

I agree with you completely about the complacency shown in January and February.

[totally thaied up]

7 hours ago, cornishcarlos said:

The old folk are gonna die at some point, or do you want everyone to just go on living and be a burden on future generations ??

My parents are in there 80's and are very healthy. Both my parents swim over a kilometer a day and go on long walks. They were excellent business people and made a great deal of money and now they are really enjoying themselves. My Grandmother lived to 99 and died because of a Flu. She was always fit and healthy. No one has the right to say who lives and dies.

 

I prefer my parents get a even shake of the stick - not just to die off now that they are old and useless or a 'burden' when they are not, to the young ones. 

[lamyai3]

4 hours ago, smutcakes said:

So which dates would you like to use to cover the period? I will let you use any you like from 0 cases to today.....

Reread my post. I already explained they were bound by a start date of zero deaths and the current date. Within those parameters they can choose intervals which create more or less impact for the reader, so 10 day intervals look more stark than weekly for instance. The information is also slightly off technically as 50 days ago is 1st March, when there was already 1 death. It'd have to go back 52 days for zero deaths which would make the chart a bit untidy. 

 

You're missing the main point I was making though - people are being bamboozled with big numbers, when rates are in fact slowing. To take Struyk's first tweet, it's clear that rates of death have eased substantially in the past month, but by focusing only on numbers it looks like the opposite is true and they were spiralling out of control. Certainly this is true in terms of social infrastructure, but not in rates of increase. Statistics from the tweet below, with factor of increase added in bold:

 

Feb 18: 15 cases 

Mar. 18: 8,736 cases (x580) 
Apr. 18: 734,552 cases (x85)

[lamyai3]

1 hour ago, Odysseus123 said:

The Spencerian philosophy "survival of the fittest" is,just that,a social model which is usually  propagated by the US far right and is in constant conflict with the Social Utilitarian philosophy of "the greatest good for the greatest number"

The response to the covid-19 pandemic has been more Frank Spencer than Herbert Spencer.

 

[Logosone]

43 minutes ago, chessman said:

I'm not sure Sweden is the best comparison. The UK is much more densely populated and more international. It might be better to compare Sweden with Norway and Finland. Sweden has many more deaths than those countries combined

 

I'm not sure how you could produce evidence that the lockdown worked or didn't work. The percentage increases of new cases and deaths have certainly gone down since the lockdowns started and I'm not sure there is another sensible explanation (apart from the lockdown) as to why. Do you really think that more testing in the UK is fully responsible for that?

 

People per area in Stockholm and London is actually not hugely different, because London is set on such a large area.

 

Yes, Norway and Finland have far fewer deaths than Sweden, because they have done far more testing than Sweden, and thus isolated the infected.

 

Their success is due to testing, not social lockdowns, which in Norway and Finland are still moderate compared to the UK.

 

Sweden has basically done a very hands-off herd immunity approach, which later included moderate social lockdown, but has also not tested very much. And still their numbers are exactly the same as the UK's.

 

So basically doing nothing is as good as the extreme social lockdown policy in the UK.

 

Indeed there is no evidence at all whether lockdowns work or don't work. 

 

It's a bit silly to ascribe the flattening of the curve solely to the lockdown when in fact the UK has been testing 50,000 a week now. It  rather looks exactly that as soon as testing and isolating the infected was done in earnest THAT was when the transmission was controlled. 

 

But we would really need proper academic studies to confirm that. Unfortunately that was done in China and because several measures like testing, lockdown, clinical management were all used at the same time, it was not possibly to fully assign a percentage reduction in transmission to each measure. 

Edited April 19, 2020 by Logosone

[cornishcarlos]

33 minutes ago, totally thaied up said:

My parents are in there 80's and are very healthy. Both my parents swim over a kilometer a day and go on long walks. They were excellent business people and made a great deal of money and now they are really enjoying themselves. My Grandmother lived to 99 and died because of a Flu. She was always fit and healthy. No one has the right to say who lives and dies.

 

I prefer my parents get a even shake of the stick - not just to die off now that they are old and useless or a 'burden' when they are not, to the young ones. 

 

If they are fit and healthy then that's great.. I wish them many more years to come.. My Mum also, in her 70s and loving life.. 

They won't just die off for sure...

 

Others will and that's just life... 

 

Should the young, fit (elderly too) be forced into prolonged lock down though ?? 

Edited April 19, 2020 by cornishcarlos

[Logosone]

33 minutes ago, chessman said:

Germany and Austria have stronger lockdown policies than the UK.

 

No, they don't.

 

In Germany you only have to be 1.5 metres apart, 2 metres in the UK.

 

In Germany it is okay for more than 2 people to go out at the same time if they are from the same household.

 

In Germany harvest people from abroad are allowed in the country to work.

 

The UK's lockdown policies are more servere.

[Logosone]

38 minutes ago, CGW said:

As do vaccines, yet so many seem to be pinning their "hopes" on Gates and mob being their saviours!

IMO the testing is too generic to give accurate results, its just going to inflate the numbers.

 

We have seen with the swine flu, where the vaccine is only effective 50% of the time, and earlier unsuccessful attempts to produce a SARS vaccine, which actually caused patients to get more sick from the virus, that indeed the hope of a miracle vaccine may not be fulfilled.

 

So lockdown is doomed to failure in any event. It can only be a temporary measure. It does very little to end a pandemic, and can in fact make it worse.

 

People point to Sweden's higher death figure now. However, in the long term this figure may compare very favourably with Denmark et all where immunity could be weaker due to greater lockdown requirements. So subsequent waves could be worse for Sweden's neighbours, but less so for Swedes.

 

We will see.

[johnnybangkok]

12 minutes ago, Logosone said:

 

We have seen with the swine flu, where the vaccine is only effective 50% of the time, and earlier unsuccessful attempts to produce a SARS vaccine, which actually caused patients to get more sick from the virus, that indeed the hope of a miracle vaccine may not be fulfilled.

 

So lockdown is doomed to failure in any event. It can only be a temporary measure. It does very little to end a pandemic, and can in fact make it worse.

 

People point to Sweden's higher death figure now. However, in the long term this figure may compare very favourably with Denmark et all where immunity could be weaker due to greater lockdown requirements. So subsequent waves could be worse for Sweden's neighbours, but less so for Swedes.

 

We will see.

Yes we will see because there is not nearly enough stats to say that your much heralded 'Sweden system' works any better than everyone elses social distancing. You simply cannot say this is a better approach with absolutley no stats to prove the point.

But preliminary studies in the UK though do say self-isolation and social distancing HAS slowed down the spread in the UK https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-spread/preliminary-study-finds-uk-lockdown-is-slowing-spread-of-covid-19-idUSKBN21J56W and common sense says if you take away the main ways of spreading a virus (close proximity and isolating the infected), the virus itsel;f has nowhere to go.

I sincerely hope that Sweden is proven correct in its method but if their Covid cases suddenly increase and people start dying are you going to be the first on here to say they (and you) got it wrong?   

 

Edited April 19, 2020 by johnnybangkok

[Odysseus123]

34 minutes ago, lamyai3 said:

The response to the covid-19 pandemic has been more Frank Spencer than Herbert Spencer.

 

Good old Frank...

 

The response from the US right wing and the "conspiracists" has been pure Herbert Spencer-as has been many responses on the 1,573 threads started on the Big Corona on this site-not to mention a million others elsewhere..

 

The US has embraced Spencer's philosophy for well over a 100 years-which accounts for its ramshackle social security and medical systems and the absurdly "presidential" style of it's current decision making.

 

I think that they are implying that the world needs a good culling (or are at least comfortable with that notion) in line with their favourite intellectual entertainment which just happens to be repeat seasons of 'The Walking Dead'

 

Edited April 19, 2020 by Odysseus123

[AussieBob18]

2 hours ago, simple1 said:

To quote from your OP...

"It was right to lockdown the world when it appeared that between 50 million and 200 million would die.
But it is not right to continue the lockdown when it appears that only 1 million or 2 million will die.\".

 

if the above is not arguing lock downs shouldn't currently continue what are you trying to articulate? Plus to repeat, how many deaths would there be w/w p.a. if Covid-19 mitigation strategies are not kept in place until a vaccine becomes generally available.

You obviously didnt read all of the OP - like many other lefties didnt I ams sure judging by their ignore rubbish

To quote from my own OP

"Lets start to gradually and sensibly open up the world again – the number of deaths will clearly not be as high as they said initially.
Lets protect those over 65/70 and keep them socially isolated as much as possible – keep the grandkids away.
Lets get back to work and look after the economic garden before we end up with something far worse than a few million deaths.
Let the people decide what precautions they should take going forward with regards to social distancing."

 

Please refrain from deliberate trolling and cutting and pasting a section of my post out of context.

[TheDark]

2 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

Apparently society is already in big trouble for trusting the experts.

Not the society. A fraction, a loud fraction of the societies are yelling loudly how they don't trust the experts.

 

I guess, with the help of pandemic, that problem is eventually going away. 

[AussieBob18]

31 minutes ago, johnnybangkok said:

Yes we will see because there is not nearly enough stats to say that your much heralded 'Sweden system' works any better than everyone elses social distancing. You simply cannot say this is a better approach with absolutley no stats to prove the point.

But preliminary studies in the UK though do say self-isolation and social distancing HAS slowed down the spread in the UK https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-spread/preliminary-study-finds-uk-lockdown-is-slowing-spread-of-covid-19-idUSKBN21J56W and common sense says if you take away the main ways of spreading a virus (close proximity and isolating the infected), the virus itsel;f has nowhere to go.

I sincerely hope that Sweden is proven correct in its method but if their Covid cases suddenly increase and people start dying are you going to be the first on here to say they (and you) got it wrong?   

 

Try this weblink for stats - if that is what you and others are looking for:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/top-israeli-prof-claims-simple-stats-show-virus-plays-itself-out-after-70-days/

 

But the truth is that the real stats will not be seen this year - like all official stats about seasonal influenza infection and death rates they are best guess estimates based on long and laborious research.

[rumak]

38 minutes ago, cornishcarlos said:

Should the young, fit (elderly too) be forced into prolonged lock down though ?? 

Actually it has just been announced that to level the playing field  all persons that take

care of their health and are in good shape will be forced to eat a Happy Meal from one 

of three accredited fast food outlets.  This will be a Daily  requirement and monitoring will

be done to be sure that nobody is leaving any fries on the plate .   

In six months studies will be done to evaluate whether one happy meal daily was sufficient to

accomplish the objective.  Six months later another study will be done to see if indeed the 

once healthy subjects are now dying at an acceptable level ( equal to the LOF  that make 

up the majority of the population) 

Though there are a few dissenting quacks,  governments insist these measures are without a 

doubt necessary to ensure an equal and fair society. 

[Logosone]

39 minutes ago, johnnybangkok said:

Yes we will see because there is not nearly enough stats to say that your much heralded 'Sweden system' works any better than everyone elses social distancing. You simply cannot say this is a better approach with absolutley no stats to prove the point.

But preliminary studies in the UK though do say self-isolation and social distancing HAS slowed down the spread in the UK https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-spread/preliminary-study-finds-uk-lockdown-is-slowing-spread-of-covid-19-idUSKBN21J56W and common sense says if you take away the main ways of spreading a virus (close proximity and isolating the infected), the virus itsel;f has nowhere to go.

I sincerely hope that Sweden is proven correct in its method but if their Covid cases suddenly increase and people start dying are you going to be the first on here to say they (and you) got it wrong?   

 

The reason why I mention Sweden is that they are the example of a country that has basically done very little. Insignificant testing and only late and half-hearted and very limited social distancing.

 

So you can use that example to compare against a country like Austria which has done a whole lot of testing and the UK which has done less testing (per capita) but has been strong on social distancing.

 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109066/coronavirus-testing-in-europe-by-country/

 

We do have stats and numbers, but we do not have serious, strong studies that would prove, say in the UK, it was when testing was ramped up that it was testing and isolating the infected and not social distancing that helped the UK to reduce the number of cases.

 

What I see is that whenever a country has succeeded in keeping the mortality low, like Germany, South Korea it was mass testing that was key. Not social distancing.

 

If Sweden, who did neither, has the same numbers as the UK, but worse numbers than a country like Germany that did mass testing on a great scale, that would support the argument that mass testing, not social distancing, was the key. But yes, we need hard studies to confirm this.

 

Personally I don't think people will start dying in Sweden in greater numbers, on the contrary, as they ramp up testing their case numbers will go up drastically but their deaths probably won't. So their mortality figure will get better.

 

I had a look at the study you posted. It looks very poor and not peer reviewed. I was thinking more of studies that evaluate data from centres for disesase control, not online surveys.

Edited April 19, 2020 by Logosone

[mauGR1]

1 minute ago, TheDark said:

Not the society. A fraction, a loud fraction of the societies are yelling loudly how they don't trust the experts.

 

I guess, with the help of pandemic, that problem is eventually going away. 

Sorry, i am not sure in which planet you live, but there must be right now hundreds of millions out of job, counting their last coins to buy some food.

You haven't seen nothing yet.

[rumak]

Just now, Odysseus123 said:

I guess that you don't really meed experts when you've got a gun, a good hunting dog and 5 cousins addicted to duelling with banjos..

hey,  leave my family outa this !

[AussieBob18]

9 minutes ago, Logosone said:

The reason why I mention Sweden is that they are the example of a country that has basically done very little. Insignificant testing and only late and half-hearted and very limited social distancing.

So you can use that example to compare against a country like Austria which has done a whole lot of testing and the UK which has done less testing (per capita) but has been strong on social distancing.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109066/coronavirus-testing-in-europe-by-country/

We do have stats and numbers, but we do not have serious, strong studies that would prove, say in the UK, it was when testing was ramped up that it was testing and isolating the infected and not social distancing that helped the UK to reduce the number of cases.

What I see is that whenever a country has succeeded in keeping the mortality low, like Germany, South Korea it was mass testing that was key. Not social distancing.

If Sweden, who did neither, has the same numbers as the UK, but worse numbers than a country like Germany that did mass testing on a great scale, that would support the argument that mass testing, not social distancing, was the key. But yes, we need hard studies to confirm this.

Personally I don't think people will start dying in Sweden in greater numbers, on the contrary, as they ramp up testing their case numbers will go up drastically but their deaths probably won't. So their mortality figure will get better.

I am in close contact with a friend in Sweden and he is astounded. Being of a similar political ilk as myself (right) he is astounded that the Swedish leaders didnt follow blindly the dogma of locking down the poluation.  Over 70s have been asked to isolate themselves for their own saefty as it is clear that this virus affects the elderly far more than the under 70s (like all flu viruses) and has requested the remainder practice social distancing as much as possible, but keep things going as much as possible - and their borders are closed to most incoming.

 

Your point:  'it was testing and isolating the infected and not social distancing that helped the UK to reduce the number of cases' is exactly correct. And that is why Sweden has decided to follow the Germany model and ramp up the testing - keep things as they are, but test as many as possible and get anyone testing positive to self-isolate as much as possible.  Sensible.  Astonishing. 

Edited April 19, 2020 by AussieBob18

[Odysseus123]

4 minutes ago, rumak said:

hey,  leave my family outa this !

Rumak..fer gawd's sake..I swear I didn't know!

 

Err..where they fer or agin Jeff Davis?

[AussieBob18]

1 hour ago, Logosone said:

No, they don't.

In Germany you only have to be 1.5 metres apart, 2 metres in the UK.

In Germany it is okay for more than 2 people to go out at the same time if they are from the same household.

In Germany harvest people from abroad are allowed in the country to work.

The UK's lockdown policies are more servere.

My contact in Sweden confirms - UK far harsher than Countries around him, and as he and we all see, the UK police are far harsher in their enforcements - arrests/fins for being in front yard of house? As usual facts evade the lefties so easily.