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Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?

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Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?

#321

Post by egr »

Neil44 wrote: post #189
simonh wrote: post #31

I’m going to try and lay out the case in as neutral terms as I can, although to be clear I think they are probably right. They’re going to take an awful lot of stick for it though, and indeed already are. They believe that there are basically two mitigation strategies. One is to have a very drastic early lockdown that shuts down the virus before it spreads widely. The problem with that is, once you lift the lockdown…

I believe the current UK Gov’s huge majority and long remaining term allow them to make decisions that many other countries would not be able to make at this time. I think they’re right, not that this makes things any easier, both my parents are in their mid 70’s and have health problems.

As far as I know, they did not communicate an overall strategy or comprehensive action plan. The basis of this thread are a series of tweets making assumptions about what the government strategy could be (given a lack of measures taken as a basis).

I do not understand how not communicating a comprehensive action plan is meant to be the harder choice ("a decision many other countries [...] not able to make") when contrasted with messures such as declaring national emergencies and widespread lockdowns of public life.

Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?

#323

Post by mnl »

alkonaut wrote: post #55
mnl wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it does, you don't wait a week to put out a fire, it gets worse. China has essentially contained it already. Maybe alternating lockdowns and releases we might be able to keep it manageable until there's a vaccine. This is not hard to model once there are a few cases in a population, again IMO.

> you don't wait a week to put out a fire, it gets worse I don't think putting out a fire has any major adverse effects, so perhaps not the best comparison.

There's always side effects to everything you do, but if we're being picky about the fire analogy (maybe I'd rather go to the beach than putting out a fire right now), I'd agree I should have used a gangrene one.

Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?

#324

Post by wideasleep1 »

eyko wrote: post #256
sgt101 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at chart 7 of Pueyos article. He uses this chart to underpin his argument that the lockdown in Wuhan is the way to approach controlling the virus. But note, on that chart it shows that testing only became available to the Chinese authorities 9 days before the lockdown. In all other outbreaks (even the US one) there has been widespread testing - it's just not reasonable to make inferences from that situation to a…

> In all other outbreaks (even the US one) there has been widespread testing Can you back up that claim? From what I've read, the opposite seemed to be the case, especially in the USA.

Until late Feb, it was mainly CDC, but in March many more states came into the picture:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/test...

Depending on one's view of 'widespread' testing, we have currently about 20K tested, and around 2.4K positively diagnosed.

Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?

#325

Post by wyiske »

I think they’re taking more or less the right approach. I do think they could have gone further and banned big events and told anyone with cold or flu to stay at home for 7 days (instead of with specific symptoms).

It’s already too late to ban travelers, and will do more damage than benefit. Well it’s possible to score political points by closing borders, the damage it will do the economy is not necessary.

Countries like New Zealand and Israel are so isolated from their neighbors they may benefit from closed borders, but tbh it feels like more short term planning when what we need is long term thinking. What happens in 2 weeks when the crisis is still unfolding?

I wouldn’t be surprised if more cases pop up in China in new locations because of the nature of this virus (delayed feedback system)

Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?

#326

Post by ThePhysicist »

cirrus-clouds wrote: post #135

Here 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,…

Wow, Tomas Pueyo is a self proclaimed „growth hacker“ with no experience in epidemiology. I would prefer to have people weigh in on the issue that actually have more than two weeks experience in this. Everyone can have good ideas but giving people like Pueyo a platform for their self marketing must be an insult for all real experts that work on these issues.

Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?

#327

Post by dijksterhuis »

rusk wrote: post #223
phpnode wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to go with the guy who was awarded an OBE for his work in infectious disease control: https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2016/leading_infecti...

OBE is a political honour, not a scientific one.

I’ll take the guy who has dedicated a significant amount of his life to being an expert in the relevant area.

Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?

#328

Post by brrrrr1 »

lozenge wrote: post #282
edouard-harris wrote: post #239

Here is a rule of thumb that will be familiar to many who manage risk in a professional capacity: The time to get creative is when you face a capped downside on the one hand, and an uncapped upside on the other. The time to get conservative is when you face the opposite condition. The reason for this rule is that creative policies almost never work; but when they work, they have a much higher chance of working extrao…

(warning: conspiracy theory, but at least an original one) I'm thinking this only makes sense in the context of Brexit. Brexit will be a massive hit to the competitiveness of British businesses... somebody in government is hoping to counteract this by taking an approach different to the rest of Europe. If the UK's approach works, it will end up economically ahead of all the other European countries, something like th…

may be a conspiracy theory, but as the uk gov is injecting only 30 bil in the economy while germany is injecting 600 billion shows the uk is financially in a weak position. if the country stops working the economy is bust. the uk _needs_ to be ahead of europe to stay afloat, so that these measures as a state of war, in which economic sovereignty can be lost unless some people die on the battle front.

Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?

#329

Post by brrrrr1 »

tenpies wrote: post #309
lozenge wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(warning: conspiracy theory, but at least an original one) I'm thinking this only makes sense in the context of Brexit. Brexit will be a massive hit to the competitiveness of British businesses... somebody in government is hoping to counteract this by taking an approach different to the rest of Europe. If the UK's approach works, it will end up economically ahead of all the other European countries, something like th…

Counter-point: is Brexit Britain actually going to be worst off than post-pandemic EU or what's left of the EU? I don't think the risk of this pandemic approach is worthwhile, especially given how poorly the EU is doing in general. Terrible economy, catastrophic pandemic response, and the symbolism of countries closing borders on fellow EU states are all quite telling. By contrast Britain almost seems like it dodged…

the uk is bust - germany is injecting 600 billion in the economy, while the uk a mere 30. the uk NEEDS people to work so they keep the country afloat.

Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?

#330

Post by roenxi »

milansm wrote: post #313
edouard-harris wrote: post #239

Here is a rule of thumb that will be familiar to many who manage risk in a professional capacity: The time to get creative is when you face a capped downside on the one hand, and an uncapped upside on the other. The time to get conservative is when you face the opposite condition. The reason for this rule is that creative policies almost never work; but when they work, they have a much higher chance of working extrao…

But how can anybody be sure that conservative policy (lockdown, I assume) would work for UK (or any other nation beside China)? They probably have to factor in the chance of success. They can fail in implementing conservative option (which might not be so conservative after all), and ruin the economy as a side effect. I imagine this as a choice between these: - long struggle with uncertain outcome in terms of life lo…

The economy is a tool to get people goods and services. It is less important than life & death on a mass scale. 0.1% to 1% of the population unexpectedly dying is huge.

If the government was implementing a plan that they had considered and prepared over a number of years, carefully assessed the evidence and weighed the options? Costs and benefits have been weighed and it is hard to ask for more.

Government has no idea what is happening and it decides to go in and see how bad it is? Not a great time to prioritise the non-essential parts of the economy.

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