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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?

#421

Post by wyclif »

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…

This is a smart observation. The UK is now taking the conservative view because it's the long term view, that this will likely become a recurring seasonal virus (or a one-time virus that keeps knocking on your door until you get it), and therefore there's not much point in a national "lockdown" to "stop" the virus, because as soon as a nation relaxes its lockdown the virus will simply pick up right where it left off.

Herd immunity is the goal for the UK government; they are explicitly saying they want ~60% of the population to get the virus. The only concern for the UK government is to space out the rate of infection so as to avoid overloading hospitals. So they are banning large gatherings, but not doing a lockdown per se, if that makes sense. Slow the pace, but let it continue. (They may do a strategic lockdown later if necessary to flatten the curve, but right now is certainly NOT the time to do a lockdown, according to their strategy, because at this stage it would be motivated by an attempt to "stop" the virus rather than an attempt to flatten the curve.)

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

#422

Post by netsharc »

haunter wrote: post #133
mattmanser wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This clip of the political sitcom Yes Minister from the 1980s is making the rounds on our social media, as it explains that thought process succinctly, and hilariously: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qNjFIwRYEIo

What's the title of the show? :D

If you haven't heard of them, The Thick of It is basically a modern version of this show. By Armando Ianucci, the man who went on to make Veep (with Julia Louis Dreyfuss). Both series have been praised by insiders who say "The show is just like what happens in reality!".

He's also made the movies "In The Loop", set in the run up to the Iraq War, and "The Death of Stalin".

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

#423

Post by rumanator »

ajross wrote: post #415
rumanator wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not "nonsense". It's real. It works for almost every other virus out there (e You're failing to take in consideration that the virus incubation period is on average 1 to 2 weeks, and those who manage to recover from the disease take about 2 weeks from diagnosis to confirmed cure. This means that you're comparing 4 weeks of exponential growth with 2 weeks of constant recovery. Sure, those who survived the disea…

> But the thing you fail to understand No no, I understand that. But the thinking is, and it seems to be backed by data, that the health system will be able to cope with a full-population maximal pandemic, as long as it is limited to the much less vulnerable segments of the population . The ICUs in Italy and Hubei were filled, for the most part, with elderly patients. The math, such as it is, checks out. The risk man…

> No no, I understand that. But the thinking is, and it seems to be backed by data, that the health system will be able to cope with a full-population maximal pandemic, as long as it is limited to the much less vulnerable segments of the population.

It really doesn't seem that you're getting it, because the whole point of this exercise is that it's quite patently obvious that no health care service in the world is able to keep 10 to 15% of their population in intensive care, which so far is the expected incidence of cases that require medical care.

If that was the case then no one would be bothered with yet another flu-like viral infection.

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

#424

Post by calpaterson »

haunter wrote: post #54

I 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…

This doesn't make sense as the next general election here is in 2024 and however coronavirus is handled will be in the distance by then. Consider that the Labour government started a very unpopular war in 2003 and then won a landslide two years later in 2005 - and they were in the middle of fighting it.

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

#426

Post by bosie »

lozenge wrote: post #295
9HZZRfNlpR wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't all the Brits be banned from entering all the countries in the world for very very long if they have such a big change of carrying the virus?

If you get it, you're only highly infectious for 7 days, and infectious for 30-60 days. After that, you might have antibodies for (some variants of) the virus, but you won't have the actual virus.

where did you get the 30-60 days from? is that also true if you are asymptomatic?

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

#427

Post by bitL »

greedo wrote: post #82
vanniv wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Are we sure that you're immune once you've been infected?

No. There might be even opposite effect - antibodies might make subsequent reinfections easier. That happened with some previous coronavirus. As well as with some vaccinations that didn't generate sufficient amount of antibodies - some kids acquired some illness much faster than non-vaccinated ones because the vaccine wasn't strong enough.

Current coronavirus has already multiple distinct strains. Even if they don't mutate further, we would need multiple vaccines. They might also mutate to something more deadly, given the COVID-19 is a mutation of the original SARS with some characteristics of HIV and Ebola.

We are in uncharted territory.

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

#428

Post by dathinab »

OJFord wrote: post #388
foobarbazetc wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s already too late. They’re on the Italy path. This “herd immunity” thing is nonsense. So much so that doctors and scientists are warning against it: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/coronavirus-nh...

Some are against it, others (such as presumably a majority of those advising the government) are for it. That's just good debate. > It’s already too late. They’re on the Italy path. Well, that's pretty much the point of the policy. 'Already screwed this year, let's try to cope, and be less screwed next year'. I was very critical at first, but I'm more interested/satisfied with the response now, it does seem to be wel…

It's basically:

Throw 2 or 3 hounded thousand lives away to have less economical impact next year.

I.e. pure evil IMHO.

especially because there is a non small chance that it will be more like 1-1.5 Million more death then necessary.

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

#429

Post by easymodex »

I really can't believe how stupid this is, I was starting to feel positive about the whole thing, China got it under control, they are sending resources to Italy to help get it under control, cures and vaccines are being developed while people stay indoors and the number of cases drops. WE COULD ERRADICATE THE VIRUS JUST BY STAYING HOME FOR 1 FUCKING MONTH. Literally that's all it would take, a person isn't contagious after a month, if everyone cooperated for the greater good we could have this under control, it's not too late, it's the one and only chance to not make this virus "the norm" of our society, every day it's gonna get much harder... But then you hear a country with 60 million people just isn't gonna do anything about it, throwing in the towel before the fight even started and dooming the whole world with them. It's beyond insane.

I'm sorry but this is just too much, I was hoping we would have the common sense to do our best to contain the spread but seems we just have to travel, go to the gym, go for beers every night and hang out, even though it will kill a lot of people around you. Your fathers, mothers, grandparents, your friend's parents, your neighbour's family, they might as well all die because you can't stay home for a month. Really I expected too much from people and forgot how stupid the average person is. I expect global warming will also go great, kudos humanity.

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

#430

Post by bitL »

kgwgk wrote: post #241
bonzini wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 The risk is already not that low at 55-65. These are people that are working and thus very likely to catch it.

51% of patients requiring intensive care in Italy are in the 50-70 range. 12% are younger than 50.

The first ICU patient in Italy was a 38-year old man who ran two half marathons a week before hospitalization. Iranian 22-year old futsal national team member passed away as well. Many young people have damaged lugs for life after surviving on ICU. I am not sure why people downplay the potential of damage for younger and healthier people just because it predominantly targets old and sick people. The virus might also mutate to more deadly strains.
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