Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Is UK government insane or genius?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 772 posts

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

#501

Post by dTal »

henrikschroder wrote: post #466
dathinab wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 no…

Uh huh... is the UK isolating and protecting people in risk groups? Because the last time you could safely get infected, and be guaranteed medical attention, was two weeks ago. The NHS is already at capacity right now. There's certainly no danger of accidentally containing it too much.

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

#503

Post by DarthGhandi »

CPLX wrote: post #446
dathinab wrote: post #428

Earlier 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.

Funnily enough recessions are associated with lower overall mortality rates.

Something to remember the next time people harp on about GDP being the most important metric for a country's advancement.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-02-recession-greater-dec...

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

#504

Post by lmm »

ethbro wrote: post #495
CPLX wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> On the one hand, we have people getting evicted from their homes and having to visit soup kitchens.

Which translates directly into many years of reduced life expectancy, no?

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

#505

Post by necovek »

RareSoft wrote: post #247
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. The best case scenario is that restrictions are introduced, and they work so well that people complain that they were unnecessary. And remember folks, when it comes to exponential growth, the best time to act was yesterday.

The issue with that approach though is how do you effectively prevent reinfection of the region when all counter measures are suspended? Another carrier could reinfect the region again and all that previous work came to nothing.

It's never "nothing". For all we know (or don't), the virus might (or not) slow down spread during the warmer months in Europe and the US.

Perhaps it could be effective enough to have multiple 2-week lockdown periods (eg. separated by 2 or 4 weeks non-locked-down periods), just to slow down the spread so health care systems can keep up?

There is so many variables at play, and no simple model could come up with "the best" solution, if there ever is one.

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

#506

Post by anigbrowl »

theseadroid wrote: post #275
anigbrowl wrote: post #57

Scientifically, yes. Politically, suicide. Herd immunity is what you hope for once the infection has gone through the population. To the extent that they try to build it by telling people they must be infected with it (questionable, and arguably a misinterpretation of public statements) it will be perceived as an attempt to cull the lower classes for the benefit of the ruling ones.

Scientifically, yes? First do we have conclusion that people are immune to coronavirus once infected? Isn't the disease too new to know that? Secondly have we done any experiments and have any evidence that this will work in a smaller scale? Any scale? I thought science is about evidence and repeatability. If anything this will be a large scale human experiment at best without any informed consent given.

Please read the whole comment instead of just the first couple of words.

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

#507

Post by dTal »

henrikschroder wrote: post #497
saalweachter wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

>letting the virus spread uncontrolled through the not at risk population

Sounds excellent. Did we remember to tell the virus?

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

#508

Post by ethbro »

lmm wrote: post #504
ethbro wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> On the one hand, we have people getting evicted from their homes and having to visit soup kitchens. Which translates directly into many years of reduced life expectancy, no?

I understand the point you and GP are trying to make.

I'm saying that the two miseries feel like apples vs oranges, given the context.

You'd have to go pretty far to convince me that (even mass) economic depression is more harmful than widespread, near-term fatalities.

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

#509

Post by henrikschroder »

dTal wrote: post #501
henrikschroder wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 no…

Uh huh... is the UK isolating and protecting people in risk groups? Because the last time you could safely get infected, and be guaranteed medical attention, was two weeks ago. The NHS is already at capacity right now . There's certainly no danger of accidentally containing it too much .

> There's certainly no danger of accidentally containing it too much.

Actually, there is. The UK strategy explicitly aims to avoid a peak come autumn/winter, you want it to go through enough of the population before summer ends. Too fast and it overwhelms the NHS right now, too slow and it will overwhelm the NHS in November.

I completely agree that it is a risky strategy, but unlike the general sentiment in this thread, I don't think it's an obviously bad strategy, and I absolutely think that everyone arguing against it are also engaging in a lot of wishful thinking regarding people's willingness to self-quarantine and obey government recommendations aimed at containing it.

Try harsh containment measures in the US, and 20% of the population is going to go "fuck you it's a Democratic hoax/Chinese conspiracy/Deep State population control scheme, nothing's gonna stop me!"

At least the UK strategy takes the unwillingness of the population into accord, locking down all retirement homes is much more doable than locking down everything.

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

#510

Post by iateanapple »

brrrrr1 wrote: post #329
tenpies wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter-point: is Brexit Britain actually going to be worst off than post-pandemic EU or what's left of the EU? I don't think the risk of this pandemic approach is worthwhile, especially given how poorly the EU is doing in general. Terrible economy, catastrophic pandemic response, and the symbolism of countries closing borders on fellow EU states are all quite telling. By contrast Britain almost seems like it dodged…

the uk is bust - germany is injecting 600 billion in the economy, while the uk a mere 30. the uk NEEDS people to work so they keep the country afloat.

The UK can raise as much cash as Germany so it is a choice they are making.
Post reply on HN