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Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
491–500 of 772 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#492This 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…
Isn't that how all the Native Americans died? The immigrants and imperialists weren't sick and their resistance to cause a herd immunity to the natives because the diseases were still ON THEM and it spread to the natives! This does not protect the vulnerable ones????
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#493Here 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…
To add to your risk management analysis, I believe we're looking at more of a capped downside if you consider the timing. It's better to come down with it now, before hospitals are overflowing with the sick. We're just at a point where hydroxychloroquine is gaining traction as a treatment, so we have a viable response. We won't have a definitive cure or vaccine for several months, before which the number of people who are contaminated will skyrocket.
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#494Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, like, the parents of all the kids will get it and many will die. Others will infect everyone at work. This seems like a obviously bad idea.
Most parents that have young children aren't in their 70s
But they have parents who are. Maybe in UK this works, different cultures have different degrees of socialization between adult children and their parents.
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#495Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
That’s a misconception though. Economic depression and deprivation also causes death, and staggering amounts of human misery. Evil is reserved as a description for gross failures of moral duty. Choosing pragmatically between several terrible options with highly unpredictable outcomes does not meet that standard.
> Economic depression and deprivation also causes death, and staggering amounts of human misery.
Let's quantify things here, for a first world country with a social net.
On the one hand, we have people getting evicted from their homes and having to visit soup kitchens.
On the other hand, we have dead people (more likely, dead poor people).
Evil seems pretty fair.
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#496Earlier quoted context omitted.
> such as presumably a majority of those advising the government Why? Politicians have shown several times that they prefer to listen to a minority of scientists that tell them what they want to hear, rather than a majority that doesn't.
Worse, politicians (particularly Health ministers) have disporportionately high infection rates.
Not sure why Health ministers are getting shade for testing positive?
I'd rather my top health officials actually have contact with those under them, than sit in a glass bubble.
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#497Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The current worst case scenarios on the table are between 1% and 5% of the individuals catching the disease dying (there are better numbers, but we're worst casing it). For achieving herd immunity, numbers like 40-70% of the population infected and recovered are bandied about. Yes, those numbers apply if it spreads indiscriminately throughout your entire population. But we know the virus is here, we know who is in…
> Some will still have an ok quality of life, but many people won't. They'll be fired, or their companies will have gone bankrupt, they'll have no money, no food.. Then what? The point isn't to actually shut down the entire economy. The point is that when you are talking loss numbers in the trillions, interventions that cost hundreds of billions or even "smaller numbers of trillions" to avert the big losses make econ…
> The point is that when you are talking loss numbers in the trillions
The main part of my argument above is that you pulled that number out of your ass, you didn't address any of my points against why that number is baseless, yet you continue using the number.
Your number is a worst-case "cost" of doing absolutely nothing and just letting people die, and then you say that your suggested strategy of dumping cash on the population is much cheaper. While true in itself, the error is that you're equating the UK strategy with the worst-case doing-nothing strategy, and that therefore your strategy is better.
The case for the UK strategy is that by letting the virus spread uncontrolled through the not at risk population, health care systems won't ever be overwhelmed, death rates will be much, much lower than current measured ones, and you'll emerge on the other side with a herd immune population, without doing too much damage to your economy, and the at-risk population won't ever get infected in the first place. And by doing that, the total death toll will be lower, than having the virus slowly go through the entire population, at-risk or not.
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#498Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
There was an op ed recently from a former member of the Johnson government that stated "It is time the economists took over from the doctors, before the real pandemic [economic recession] spreads."
So that, told me all I need to know about the cruelty and stupidity of the UK government at this time.
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#499Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It is basically nothing like that in any way. If it works, it will not be at the expense of extra "sacrificed" lives, that's nonsense. The basic idea is to isolate the vulnerable and eventually protect them with herd immunity. You are allowed to opine that this will fail dismally, but you're not allowed to just make shit up and accuse people of sacrificing lives. Have an ounce of shame.
How are going to isolate the vulnerable population? They also neglect that the vulnerable population clusters. Old people socialize with other old people. A bunch of immune school kids don’t provide much herd immunity to a nursing home.
Re: Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?
#500Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's too early to say with reliable data. We will definitely know in 2-3 weeks with data from many European countries. In Italy, it looks like the percentage of younger hospitalised people is 12%, but growing. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/coronavirus-...
12% of _COVID ICU patients_ in Italy are below 50 years old. Note that this doesn't let us answer the question of how common are ICU cases among young infected people.
And the question was about hospital admissions not ICU admissions anyway.