Sounds incredibly risky to me. I suppose if all countries end up crippled anyway then it would be good to be the first to recover.
Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
141–150 of 772 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#142It looks like to me just a comfort pill for the public. They basically acknowledged that they can't handle the crisis already. So what they gonna do? They want it to appear to be an advice from expert, to persuade the public, rationalize a forced decision. The uncomfortable truth is, the British government have weighted cost and benefit, and they have decided, the death of thousands or more is not worth the cost of n…
Death of thousands or more??? You are living in some pleasant fantasy! Back in reality, the UK wants to infect about a cool 40M people (for the herd immunity!). Last I heard they expect 50% (20M) to get it in a 3 week interval. Meanwhile they have about 4k ICU beds, which are at close to capacity already. Assuming cocooning works so great that only 3% of people need urgent care (rather than a more likely 5-10%) and o…
I guess we'll see, won't we. I mean for all the panic about Wuhan, fewer than 3.2K people died there so far, and when it all winds down, the death toll will likely be below 5K people. Probably fewer than died of flu complications in the same time frame. Given that the vast majority of the cases are not acute, probably most of their metro population was exposed to the virus, which is tens of millions of people.
I know that extreme measures were taken to stop the spread (and such actions are infeasible in the West), but they did contain it: there are very few new cases or deaths.
So no, there won't be "millions of deaths" or anything close to that, especially if older people are isolated.
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#143This strategy is not insane only if there is also a concerted effort to protect those who are vulnerable while the virus spreads. The problem is there isn't one. At all. None. Zip. Zero. Some care homes are, off their own back, banning visitors but apart from that the old and the vulnerable are not being asked to self isolate or engage in social distancing, only those who have symptoms themselves are being told to se…
See "COVID-19: residential care, supported living and home care guidance"[0].
[0] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-resident...
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#144I like tomp's comment from a few days ago, feels like the UK playing a game theory https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22555643 1) no pandemic, no action -> government was "right", avoided wasting money -> reelected 2) no pandemic, action -> government was "wrong", wasted a lot of money, damaged the economy, inconvenienced the lives of the population -> voted out 3) pandemic, no action -> government was "wrong", cau…
Since there's already a pandemic, I'll assume when you're saying "pandemic" you mean more specifically "epidemic in the UK". Even then, there's some fallacy in your list.
In the best case -- if action is taken and it contains the spread -- then there is no epidemic and it looks like overreaction. Even if it slows the spread allowing the health care system to keep up and keeps the fatality rate fairly low you'll get people claiming it wasn't as big a deal and that whatever action was taken was an overreaction.
This happened with Y2K [1], it happens with hurricane warnings when the storms fizzle out, and despite the glaring evidence of what happens with inaction (China, Italy) there should be little doubt people will be talking about 'overreactions' in any countries that do take action that turns out to be effective.
It's the same problem that nobody goes to a show and says "Wow, the sound technician did a great job, because nobody backstage had a hot mic while they were in the bathroom!"
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#145This strategy is not insane only if there is also a concerted effort to protect those who are vulnerable while the virus spreads. The problem is there isn't one. At all. None. Zip. Zero. Some care homes are, off their own back, banning visitors but apart from that the old and the vulnerable are not being asked to self isolate or engage in social distancing, only those who have symptoms themselves are being told to se…
In any case, the health services are not, and will not be, in a position to handle 40 million cases this year.
The curve must be flattened over years.
Scientists have written that much in a letter to the government today.
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#146This is utter, utter madness. Assuming UK has 66M people and 2/3 need to be infected, that's 44M people. Coronavirus has, depending on the quality, affordability and accessibility of the healthcare system, a fatality ratio somewhere along 0.7% in best case and 15% (at least!) in old and pre-conditioned people... which means that there is anything possible between 300k and 6.6M (!!) deaths.
tl;dr: absolutely fucking nuts to risk more people than the UK lost in WW2. If BoJo really tries to execute that plan, he has to be stopped.
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#147There are three things to consider:
1) Even if they contained it inside the UK, it will be imported every day by people returning from the continent/USA. Unlike the quick flu tests, its 2+days for a result in testing
2) Vaccination at scale is a year+ out (as in at least may 2021)
3) flu season is only 7 months away, which means doing this all again, but with a newer version of the virus. This virus might be more mellow, or not.
Look at the infection rates in spain, france, Nederlands and germany. They are in lock step. Containment has failed.
update THe last, possibly most important point is this: the voting base most at risk of this virus is Boris's. Its really not in his interest to let them all die. I find the man abhorrent and selfish, but I doubt he's stupid enough to let his vote base disappear.
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#148One region of Italy is close to their ICU beds limit, despite a full lockdown. And they have more beds per person than the UK. Without a full lockdown, won't they run out of beds very quickly, thus increasing the death rate a lot?
The average age of a fatal case is still north on 80 years. The UK plan is effectively to get as many people as possible that are young, and thus at a super low risk of needing hospitalization to get infected, so that they can recover and then be immune, thus making it hard for the virus to sweep through again. If 30% or more of the population were immune, it would be much harder to get a new outbreak started. With a…
How do you target young people exclusively? You can't.
The only thing that has worked is China/South Korea style careful tracking, rapid and extensive testing and strict quarantine measures. Nothing else so far is working.
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#149Here is a discussion on Channel 4 on the approach taken by the UK government. https://youtu.be/C98FmoZVbjs?t=590 Debating are: - John Edmunds: a professor in the Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine - Tomas Pueyo: his modelling of the pandemic has gone viral on the web: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop... During the debate,…
> there is something cold, clinical and unemotional about the UK's strategy to tackle this pandemic
I don't see that this is a criticism. This kind of decision-making should be based on expertise, not emotion.
It seems unlikely that they're unconcerned with the harm done. Minimising harm is the entire point of responding to the pandemic, after all.
> you can't "nudge" people to adopt certain behaviours in one country when the rest of the world is doing the opposite to what you advocate.
You've not shown that the nudge-based approach will be ineffective.
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
Death of thousands or more??? You are living in some pleasant fantasy! Back in reality, the UK wants to infect about a cool 40M people (for the herd immunity!). Last I heard they expect 50% (20M) to get it in a 3 week interval. Meanwhile they have about 4k ICU beds, which are at close to capacity already. Assuming cocooning works so great that only 3% of people need urgent care (rather than a more likely 5-10%) and o…
I guess we'll see, won't we. I mean for all the panic about Wuhan, fewer than 3.2K people died there so far, and when it all winds down, the death toll will likely be below 5K people. Probably fewer than died of flu complications in the same time frame. Given that the vast majority of the cases are not acute, probably most of their metro population was exposed to the virus, which is tens of millions of people. I know…
Of course the death toll in Wuhan/China has been relatively limited BECAUSE they took drastic measures.
When people start to say "all this panic for that..." it means that the measures taken have worked, not that they were unnecessary.