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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?

#461

Post by Reason077 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #343
Reason077 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

The Spanish Flu (H1N1) killed between 3-6% of the entire world's population. Unlike most other flu pandemics, a large portion of the victims were young and healthy adults. You really think Covid-19 is going to be that bad?

The Black Death (Bubonic Plague) lasted for decades, killed more than 1/4 of the world's population and set human civilisation back by a century or more. It took more than 200 years for Europe's population to recover to where it was before the pandemic. Many regions never recovered economically, or only recovered centuries later. You really think Covid-19 is going to be that bad?

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

#462

Post by henrikschroder »

cactus2093 wrote: post #176
ksec wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are quite a few difference. HK, Taiwan and Singapore all acted extremely early on, to the point where HK knew before the news broke out in China. And the culture allows you to wear mask, which seems to be something most western nation are completely against. Most part of Europe and UK reacted very late in the cycle. Since the Virus has an extremely long stable period before any symptoms appeared or to the point…

Isn’t that the whole point of a lockdown? After ~6-8 weeks you get the new infection rates down low enough that you basically reset the clock and have a second chance at responding like Hong Kong and keeping it in the containment phase. Then you have to keep that up for hopefully 9 months until a vaccine is available. It’s certainly not easy, but it seems possible and it’s not clear this would be much worse on the ec…

> It’s certainly not easy, but it seems possible

If your population already has lived through similar outbreaks, sure.

But look at the US. There is a sizable portion of the population who thinks this thing is a hoax, who simply don't believe in this pandemic. How do you lock down those people? They're going to completely ignore government recommendations, and they'll scream bloody murder when government cancels events and restricts travel and assembly.

But let's say you manage to lock down the US to contain the current wave, and that you manage to ramp up testing so that you can be more sure about actual infection rates. Once it dies down in the US, then what? Ease the lock down? What about other countries where it's still rampant? What if it flares up again in the US? Go into a second lock down? You've already spent an enormous amount of political capital getting the first one through, good luck getting a second one.

> Plus it saves half a million lives

You pulled this number right out of your ass by multiplying a guesstimated death rate as measured in China, where the virus spread unchecked through an entire province, and where the medical system wasn't prepared, and you're assuming that the demographics of the people catching the virus in the UK is going to be the same.

But if your medical system is prepared, if you're quarantining vulnerable people, if you have good testing, then letting the virus roll thorough the remaining un-quarantined population won't lead to the same death rates, or the same hospitalization rates, because all the underlying factors are different.

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

#464

Post by csours »

I remember when I was a kid, I didn't really understand refrigerators. Like I knew that the cold would eventually leak out, so how was it cold inside if the cold would eventually leak out? How does insulation even work?

So, I eventually figured it out. The insulation slows down the heat transfer. The fridge still has to do work to keep cold, but the insulation means that it can keep up with the losses and spend less energy on that.

The countermeasures to COVID19 are like that. The virus is going to spread, but we still need to slow it down, so that the healthcare system can deal with individual cases, and not a flood.

Some people are going to get it, but that doesn't mean we have to be fatalistic about it. We should take it seriously, but also rationally.

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

#465

Post by hedora »

necovek wrote: post #454
ajross wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> unknown long term effects

Ultimately, it’s a just a really inconsistent cold. The vast majority of cases are mild. However, if it spreads to the lungs, it’s worse than the flu.

As far as I know, there’s no evidence that it’s any more exotic than that.

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

#466

Post by henrikschroder »

dathinab wrote: post #443
henrikschroder wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I haven't seen anyone address this concern among the people who think the UK's strategy is insane. Yes, if you lock down society, you will halt the spread of the virus dramatically. But for how long? When do you lift the lock down? Whe…

But no lock down strategy is about halting the virus! They are about slowing it, so that the load on the health care system isn't too grade. Current data show that dath ratio in case of slow spread can be reduced to 1%, potential even less. While with overload it's more like 5% and with collapsing overload even potentially more. Also work slowing the number of total infected people without usable medicine against it…

> They are about slowing it, so that the load on the health care system isn't too grade.

Again, the load on the health care system depends completely on the demographics of the people who get infected.

By isolating and quarantining people in risk groups, the load on the health care system will be much lower.

The gamble is this: By letting the virus spread indiscriminately through the part of the population that is not at risk, the load on the health care system will be manageable, the death rate will be nowhere near the current measured ones, and once the virus has passed, you have herd immunity in your population.

But if you argue for harsh lock down of everything now, you are also gambling. You are gambling that you can delay the spread until there is a vaccine, without knowing how far away a vaccine is. You are gambling that all the other countries get a handle on the virus, without knowing if they will.

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

#467

Post by christoph »

majc2 wrote: post #381
polote wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THe strategy in Asia seems to keep the virus under control but people in those countries are much more disciplined than European, not sure the measures they take would be as much effective in Europe. The strategy of UK seems valid as long as you protect the more vulnerable, which they don't do. What is the strategy after a lock down? You go back to work? It needs only one person infected to get the virus propagating…

> The strategy of UK seems valid as long as you protect the more vulnerable, which they don't do. The UK and devolved governments signaled on Thursday that the plan is for the vulnerable to be self-isolating for a long period; and based on the briefings to UK jornos on twitter - it'll be 16 weeks of self isolation for over 70s and those with underlying health conditions (they've not said what conditions yet) - I've s…

I think there's a lot behavioural science going on with the strategy here as well. A lot of the UK public now seem to realise this is serious and have automatically changed behaviour without government mandating it. Long term, that's a big win, people are bought in (seemingly) of their own volition and there is huge value in that.

The schools issue is very tricky as a lot of NHS staff will not be able to work if their children need to stay home. I can see them going to a softly, softly approach - parents working from home will be able to keep kids out of school with no consequence and they will probably extend all the school holidays a bit as well.

I can't believe this government wants to kill off the elderly out of choice, it forms a good section of their voter base, if nothing else.

I think overall it's good long term strategy, though very risky, which is never going to be perfect, but seems to have a lot of science and rationale behind it, even if not obvious at first.

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

#468

Post by tim333 »

wtvanhest wrote: post #311
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…

That seems like the exact gamble. IMO, the US has taken the right approach. Keep things going until it starts to replicate in the community, then get aggressive before the hospitals are overrun. Some communities will have too many cases, but most will hopefully be ok. And we will have a first step of Hurd immunity, concentrated on people most likely to transmit later like package delivery, restaurant workers, drivers…

The US approach has been awful. Things are running completely out of control. The "aggressive before the hospitals are overrun" thing won't work.

Herd immunity means something like 60% of the population get it and maybe 1.3 million Americans die ghastly deaths.

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

#469

Post by hellotomyrars »

twic wrote: post #122
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.

It's far too early to say whether they're doing great. Several months too early. Their lockdowns are preventing virus spread now, but at some point, the lockdowns will end, and then there is a vulnerable population waiting to be infected by a carrier coming from abroad. Will they be able to keep carriers out? Will they be able to respond to further outbreaks with more lockdowns indefinitely? Will there be a vaccine s…

I would rather have the spread stopped/slowed domestically with aggressive measures than to do little to nothing to stop the spread thinking it will somehow solve the problem.

The UK approach here is basically just accepting that a majority of the population is going to get infected by design. That's fine. It might even be true. (It obviously will be if you don't do anything to stop it, but even in aggressive lockdowns I mean)

But it benefits nobody to have it spread quicker. Maybe life in the UK gets back to normal a little faster for people who are not at-risk or aren't treated at risk but we live in a very global society and if everyone else is locked down then it's hard to see much benefit for the UK itself.

And your parents and the portion of the population who are most vulnerable are more at risk.

An imperfect defense is better than not even trying.

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

#470

Post by ithkuil »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #150
m0zg wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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