At what point did the government gain their complete information? Or have they been making decisions based on incomplete information throughout?
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A lot of the people against lockdown seem to parrot the idea that this is no worse than flu. Firstly it is worse than flu, even flu in a bad year would struggle to kill this many. Factor in on top that we are at the back end of flu season, so many of the very weakest would have succumbed to flu over the last 5 months. Coronavirus is literally killing thousands of people that have survived the flu season.
Although to be blunt and heartless, the death rate alone from coronavirus probably is just about low enough that governments would try to push through it. But looking at the deaths alone isnt taking into account the 10/15 people in critical care for weeks/months for every death recorded. The pressure on hospitals is also leading to virtually all other operations being cancelled, this will also lead to potentially hundreds/thousands more deaths. The 'experts' dont really have a scooby about this virus, that much is obvious. So our only option is a lockdown(along with increasing testing), it's the only way we have of trying to slow the spread and take the pressure off the healthcare system. For people to argue against it is crazy. Without a lockdown the numbers would continue to increase for weeks and weeks. Aswell as the thousands of coronavirus victims what would happen to all the poor people whose cancer or other life saving ops were cancelled. A belief in rolling back the lockdown is verging on a eugenics arguement in my opinion. Its arguing that all who are ill should be left out for sacrifice, so that the strongest can have a good economy. Its a sick belief, and thankfully one that only a minority seem to hold
I think actually the truth is probably half way between mine and your statements. There will be a lot of scientists out there with very strong theories on this virus, but there's not a huge amount that's certain yet. Studies around transmission especially are evolving quite quickly. As for the stats guys doing the modelling, you can find vast differences between their respective models. Personally I think It needs strong public health figures and politicians to err on the side of caution while these theories are given time to be tested. Unfortunately we had Patrick Vallance and Boris Johnson, 2 quite weak individuals who seemed to be very reluctant to take this seriously
The gloomier ones with no axe to grind.
[QUOTE=chrisp_1927;5061059]I think actually the truth is probably half way between mine and your statements. There will be a lot of scientists out there with very strong theories on this virus, but there's not a huge amount that's certain yet. Studies around transmission especially are evolving quite quickly. As for the stats guys doing the modelling, you can find vast differences between their respective models. Personally I think It needs strong public health figures and politicians to err on the side of caution while these theories are given time to be tested. Unfortunately we had Patrick Vallance and Boris Johnson, 2 quite weak individuals who seemed to be very reluctant to take this seriously[/QUOTE
"Caution" as in a longer, more restrictive lockdown or more allowance for personal freedom?
Totally agree. What really annoyed me was the way that the public health guys were talking about it being an open air event and that Corona doesn't particularly like the outdoors. Were they that daft that they didn't take into account the beer tents, the packed public transport and the full to the rafters pubs that most definitely are transmission dangers. They seemed to think it was equivalent to the Chelsea flower show with everyone wandering around in pairs and no one really getting close to each other 😂
[QUOTE=az city;5061062]Personally I think we need caution in terms of keeping people safe. So a longer lockdown to be sure.
Although I think that the caution Johnson and Vallance had was a caution of action. they were scared to respond. Although to be fair, they did do the right thing quite quickly after
:hehe:
Government elected on "Get Brexit done" and "Anyone but Corbyn" while running away from scrutiny and seeking to misinform rather than provide detail just now identified by media: The Times is calling it "chaos", the Mail calling it "Shocking", the Telegraph calling it "Questions without answers".Quote:
Mr Gove’s answer on ventilators very vague. He talked about the START of thousands more this weekend. So maybe hundreds. And produced or delivered/installed? I don’t underestimate the difficulties. I just think we deserve some clarity.
I was right to be suspicious. Turns out the exact number of new ventilators we can expect this weekend is 30. That’s right 30. Not 3,000 or even 300. But 30. Mr Gove’s exact words Tuesday were “the first of thousands of new ventilator devices will roll off the production line”.
It was a circumlocution — rarely has ‘of’ carried so much weight — which masked fact it was not 1000s. But 30. Of course more will come in the weeks ahead. But with only 8,000 ventilators in the NHS and now 10,000 hospitalised with the virus, we are clearly running out of time.
Andrew Neil: https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1245510705438220293
DO I think there's accurate reporting? Not generally, no.
Peston is the biggest example I can give. Back in the day, yes some journos wpuld become high profile but they never forgot the story was the main selling point, not them. Everything Peston says, does, is aimed at promoting Peston the brand. Come out with stuff quickly disproven? The apology / retraction receives only a fraction of the publicity / retweets of the original claim.
When the deputy CMO utterly destroys a Peston claim, he immediately turns it to him, how he "was slightly taken aback at the ferocity of the Deputy Chief Medical Officer’s response. My view has always been that we should respect experts but not assume they are always correct. And that matters more than ever when so many lives are at stake."
It's sensationalism.
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The UK government didn't really take any action until March 12th/13th and from then on increasingly ramped up firstly weekly and then day-by-day to where we are now. The rough suggestion being that starting one week earlier could have massively improved our circumstances.Quote:
a simplistic analysis of the (imperfect and insufficient) data available: With caution, given the uncertainty in diagnosed cases, the epidemic appears to have grown at ~17% per day in the UK (similar to Italy 14 days before) the week before the lockdown, despite the calls for social distancing. This suggests that a lockdown was very important. It also suggests that a lockdown one week earlier could have led to an epidemic ~3 times smaller (likely translating into many thousands fewer deaths and the need for a shorter and less disruptive lockdown).
Cases offer a distorted picture due to limited testing.
https://twitter.com/imartincorena/st...96648040374272