Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are we sure that you're immune once you've been infected?
We only know that you are likely to be immune for six month. Whether you will have life time immunity is anyone’s guess.
Citation needed.
Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
341–350 of 772 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#342Here 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,…
That's almost a BBC level of "debate". An expert, plus some dude who disagrees and makes good television. Could they not find an actual qualified person with a different opinion instead of a "SV Tech Executive"?
Reminds me of a stand-up routine by Dara O'Briain, "for the sake of balance, we must now turn to Barry who believes the sky is a carpet painted by God".
Obviously an exaggeration in this case - but here one guy is a recognized epidemiologist and the other is a SV tech guy.
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stop it. This is bigger than Brexit.
> "Stop it. This is bigger than Brexit." Well, Brexit won't kill anybody (hopefully). But on the other hand, a year from now, the pandemic will be largely forgotten. Brexit will still be going on.
Given the damage this pandemic has already dealt to the world economy, it's going to be remembered for a long time. It'll join black death and the Spanish flu. Brexit, in comparison, will likely end up as a footnote.
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#344Here 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…
Great point - but - shutting down the economy is not a 'conservative' policy, it's up there with 'extreme risk'.
Many sectors will crumble, it will ripple through the economy like dominos, credit dries up, investment halts, you get into an economic death spiral. There's very real possibility existential meltdown which will indirectly cause a lot of pain and death.
So 'lockdown' is 'conservative' from the viral perspective, from any other perspective, it's 'very risky'.
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#345This 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…
^^^ 2000% this, a large proportion can't change their ways, is not paying attention or simply doesn't care. It's shocking to still tonight walk past a packed pub on a Saturday night
I’m not shocked at all that Brit’s still want to get wasted at the weekend regardless of anything. Disclosure: expat Brit!
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 id…
I agree with what you just wrote. But, the premise is wrong, I think; We don’t know if lockdown now vs lockdown later (in UK’s case) will result with 0.1% vs 1% of life lost, respectively.
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#347Here 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.
With statements like "the markets are up", and the hyperbole of "so we're saying 'we want to kill 200,000 people'" and "killing everybody", which even the anchor has to reign him in on, Mr Pueyo seems like such a douchebag. he comes of as incredibly unlikeable (at least to me). especially compared to Mr Edmunds, who goes through how herd immunity is a good end-game in a measured and calm manner. to which he seems to offer no counterpoint. they even both agree on lowering the peak, just not on how to do that/when to do it.
edit: it seems reasonable to me to suggest not impose quarantine measures too early, to not drag those measures on for longer than necessary - that just makes it more likely people will disobey it. indeed, because a vaccine is so far off, herd immunity seems like the only plan for now.
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#348Earlier 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…
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.
You're confusing two different measures.
The UK government has increased spending by £30B, £12B to be spent on tackling COVID 19.
The Bank of England has suggested lending £190B to businesses in need.
The roughly equivalent numbers appear to be 12B and 600B (Euros) for Germany.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/11/budget-2020-...
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/2020/march/boe-measures...
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/coronavirus-germa...
https://www.pionline.com/markets/germany-lines-600-billion-v...
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#349Their reasoning is that if the only things you can do are China-style lockdown or nothing, then the disease will just resume exponentially growing the second lockdown ends, so it's pointless to do it at all. While that may be technically right (under some optimistic, unverified assumptions, e.g. no reinfection), it's a false dichotomy. Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea aren't under lockdown, they're stopping the…
The problem with this reasoning is that your measure is not a direct measure of infection rates. For South Korea, they tested a large number initially, and now fewer. We don’t know if it’s actually under control without more systematic testing and therefore data on infection rates. The other issue is that of getting the leak at the wrong time. If the UK manages to partly control it, but then realises containment will…
> We don’t know if it’s actually under control without more systematic testing and therefore data on infection rates.
Death and Active cases are a good measure. Both of these are under control in SK vs. still growing in Italy/Spain.
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
Again, if you don't come into contact with the vulnerable (or anyone else who does) then you aren't putting anyone at risk and you are developing herd immunity which will in time likely end the virus.
The problem is that while you may not deal with old people, the same is not true of all of the people that you deal with. Remember that it takes an average of no more than 6 steps in your social network to get from any person in the USA to any other person in the USA.
Mr. arcticbull has replied elsewhere that then it's the responsibility of that person (whom he might deal with, and would deal with the vulnerable as well) to quarantine themselves.
To extrapolate, presumably he wouldn't feel any guilt if that vulnerable person died and he was a vector that got the virus to said person.
I wonder what a valid response to this logic is. Maybe: "not all people will be responsible, so it's your duty to be responsible". I guess he'd respond with, "But why should those people be free to enjoy themselves while I'm stuck at home?".
In any case, it's interesting how the sense of community has died.