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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?

#451

Post by justinclift »

thefounder wrote: post #318
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…

Yeah, it will make Britain Great Again as it gets rid of the old population and increases its competitiveness. It almost feels natural that after getting rid of the migrants it's time to get rid of some less desired locals as well.

In a very dark-humour fashion, it sounds like this would change the balance of brexiters-vs-remainers fairly drastically too. No longer ~50/50. ;)

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

#452

Post by reverend_gonzo »

nico_h wrote: post #370
roenxi wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COVID-19 is rapidly becoming the centre of attention for the entire global medical community and every government on the planet. It threatens the wealth of billionaires and the power of the powerful. I have a remarkable amount of faith that progress on treatments and medical practices will be swift and impressive. Delaying the pain by a month or two could well be an extremely good move.

You're betting on 1) a therapy being found in that interval, 2) that therapy being highly effective (no significant side effects), 3) easily available 4) affordable 5) you still have medical personnel with which to apply it. I wouldn't take those odds.

One more, by the way: that the virus doesn’t mutate.

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

#454

Post by necovek »

ajross wrote: post #372
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...

It's not "nonsense". It's real. It works for almost every other virus out there (even colds and flu, even though it's imperfect: new seasonal cold and flu strains don't become pandemics, because many people have some immunity from previous infections). If you let a large enough fraction of the UK contract and recover from COVID-19, we have every reason to suspect that the society will develop good enough herd immunit…

3. the immunity gained through an infection holds for a long enough time (how long would need to be checked with the infection rate), which we do not know yet

Additionally, we know nothing of the long term effects even for the "young and healthy". Mortality rates for people 10-39 is 0.2%, 40-49 it's at 0.4%, 50-59 1.3%, 60-69 at 3.6%. Serious conditions develop in a bigger proportion of cases, so you are looking at 4-10% of under 60 population in ICU with unknown long term effects.

Translation: good luck!

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

#455

Post by dathinab »

iateanapple wrote: post #308
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…

> I'm thinking this only makes sense in the context of Brexit. Brexit will be a massive hit to the competitiveness of British businesses Bad theory. This virus could have been used as an excuse to lock down borders while the rest of Europe got economically destroyed by the virus.

No it already spread to the UK so it was to listen for that

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

#456

Post by tim333 »

More insane than genius.

The government expert on TV was basically saying most people are going to get it eventually so why bother making huge efforts to delay but that kind of ignores that if we delay we may get better treatments or a vaccine. Just fine tuning some of the existing treatments could make a big difference.

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

#457

Post by CPLX »

roenxi wrote: post #330
milansm wrote: post #313

Earlier 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…

> The economy is a tool to get people goods and services. It is less important than life & death on a mass scale.

This just isn’t true. The definition of an economy is a system to determine the production and allocation of scarce resources.

To the extent that those resources include food, shelter, and other elements required to stay alive then the economy literally is the determinant of life and death.

Furthermore, significant contractions of economic activity cause death in measurable predictable ways.

All of this closing down of the economy is — literally — killing people as we speak.

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

#458

Post by golem14 »

simonh wrote: post #290
egr wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lockdown as implemented by Italy and France aims at slowing down the spreading of the virus. It is not meant as a strategy to overcome the virus. It is meant to flatten the curve of the exponential growth of infection to minimize overloading the health system and to provide more time for preparation and for the acquisition of best practices regarding the situation. There is no disillusion that this might somehow…

Those are good points. Because Italy was hit hardest first they had very little time to prepare. The UK has had about an extra month, which puts us in a different strategic position, so we might be able to afford an approach not viable for Italy.

How does the UK have an extra month, exactly ?

It did not take Italy 1 month to to go from 1,143 (today's UK number) positives to 21,157 (today's Italy number, per https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...), did it ?

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

#459

Post by e12e »

I watched a presentation/session by Norwegian directorate of health that included some comments from Italy [1]. I think they shed some light on the mortality rate - in effect 50% of those intubated died. And they were some percentage of those needing icu care. Assuming the icus are overrun, and all ventilators taken - all of those patients would be dead.

So (given the size of population, and relative lack of ventilators) - in an actual uncontrolled spread, I think we will/would see much higher mortality rates than we've seen so far.

I hope the UK won't be the first to prove that (I suspect the US might be the first to do so). Or indeed, maybe Iran already has.

I heard there was mentioned that in areas hard hit in China, where low(ish) mortality rates were reported, they were also desperately seeking more people for

[1] in English, starts at 4h mark: https://youtu.be/LtWti5prxzg?t=4h

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

#460

Post by golem14 »

Silhouette wrote: post #20
knzhou wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there's a third strategy that works better than either: don't lockdown, but do effective testing, case tracking, and treatment, well enough so that exponential growth can't happen in the first place. That's the policy of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, who are doing great.

That's the policy of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, who are doing great. All of which have tiny populations compared to the UK. For larger nations, there simply aren't enough tests available, nor enough treatment facilities for those who are likely to become very sick if the virus spreads rapidly through the population.

Taiwan population is smaller, but not really "tiny" compared to UK's.
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