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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?

#531

Post by Aperocky »

wyclif wrote: post #421
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.…

Except if it became seasonal there's going to be vaccines (with my faith in the medical research). And if the death rate is as high, everyone is going to get it. Making the sacrifice that british public is going through now senseless.

Also, it becoming seasonal could also be a self fulfilling prophecy due to its policy.

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

#532

Post by hyko »

JetSetWilly wrote: post #300
hyko wrote: post #170

They are neither; they are making difficult decisions on the basis of limited information across multiple disciplines. The main aim is to prevent the NHS from being overwhelmed, which would be a humanitarian disaster. A secondary aim is to prevent bringing economic life to an end in the UK, which would also be a humanitarian disaster. We are at most about five months into this pandemic; to suggest we know what strate…

> the UK already pursues a strategy of herd immunity regarding chicken pox (along with other countries), despite the availability of a vaccine: http://www.ox.ac.uk/research/everything-you-need-know-about-... . I disagree with that strategy but I am not qualified to make that decision on behalf of a country, and I'm glad it's not my responsibility to do so. The UK does not vaccinate against chickenpox because it judge…

That for me is where the logic breaks down, a comprehensive vaccine programme for shingles would seem far more effective than just hoping the adults come into contact with infected children.

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

#534

Post by StanislavPetrov »

A sudden surge of infections will overwhelm the health services, number of available hospital beds, ICU units, and ventilators. This means that many more people will die that would have otherwise survived if the spread of the virus was slower and treatment was available.

Unfortunately there are many who view the countless avoidable deaths of those who are older, have underlying conditions or otherwise could have benefited from proper treatment as an acceptable price to pay for a faster "economic recovery".

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

#535

Post by nirui »

One question here: Do we have any scientific way to verify which strategy works? I been waiting for related research that can either proof or disproof the usefulness of the "Lock-down strategy" which China been using in the past couple of months and still not fully lifted.

We had little less than 30 total cases in our city with just over 1 million population, and the city was in lock down mode for few weeks. I can feel the slow rise of living costs during that period of time.

It's quite funny to see how people reacts to this, panic-buying all the face masks for example. Makes me think whether or not it's worth it to go full-out panic, because panic usually creates way more chaos/problems than the problem itself.

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

#536

Post by zepto »

rumanator wrote: post #389
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…

> 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…

Recovery is exponential too - it just lags behind the new cases.

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

#537

Post by jdietrich »

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.

This isn't really a plan, it's mostly wishful thinking. We expect herd immunity to kick in at around 60% prevalence, which in the UK would be ~38 million cases. ~10% of cases require hospitalisation, so that's ~3.8 million hospital admissions. At the last count, NHS England had a grand total of 4123 critical care beds. Unless we remain in isolation for the best part of a decade, the healthcare system is going to be substantially overwhelmed and care will have to be rationed.

We may get a vaccine, but that'll take at least 12 months and we don't know how well it'll work; until we know how rapidly SARS-CoV-2 mutates, we can't assume that a vaccine would end the epidemic. It is a strong possibility that COVID-19 will become a regular seasonal affliction like influenza.

There are no good options and we're not even sure which are the least bad options. Strict isolation measures will kick the problem down the road for a while, but at the risk of a whole bunch of other problems. How long will people tolerate being confined to their homes? How long can the economy withstand a huge reduction in productivity and spending? What happens if the lockdown fails and social unrest occurs just in time for the next winter flu season?

We need a lockdown to buy us some time, but we also need to face up to the reality that a lockdown isn't a solution but merely a stopgap.

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

#538

Post by reddog »

cameldrv wrote: post #499
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They might if they were the kids of people working at the nursing home. I am not sure if this strategy will work either but I get it -- every infected and recovered individual is another control rod pushed into the out-of-control atomic pile.

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

#539

Post by dash2 »

cynusx wrote: post #316
cirrus-clouds wrote: post #135

Here is a discussion on Channel 4 on the approach taken by the UK government. https://youtu.be/C98FmoZVbjs?t=590 Debating are: - John Edmunds: a professor in the Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine - Tomas Pueyo: his modelling of the pandemic has gone viral on the web: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop... During the debate,…

Well, they are both in agreement that we need to reach herd immunity at minimal cost. They also agree to keep the rate of new infections below NHS's capacity to handle. They disagree on: - adherence to lockdown measures over a longer time - actual rate of spreading the disease I agree with John Edmunds on these two points, however I am frankly disappointed a third approach is absent from the debate which is to lockdo…

> These types of organized "corona parties"

What if we gave a corona party and nobody came? Seriously, I don't think forcing people to be infected is ethical in any way whatsoever, unless you are a truly brutal trolley-pushing utilitarian, and very confident that your strategy will work....

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

#540

Post by someperson »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #326
cirrus-clouds wrote: post #135

Here is a discussion on Channel 4 on the approach taken by the UK government. https://youtu.be/C98FmoZVbjs?t=590 Debating are: - John Edmunds: a professor in the Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine - Tomas Pueyo: his modelling of the pandemic has gone viral on the web: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop... During the debate,…

Wow, Tomas Pueyo is a self proclaimed „growth hacker“ with no experience in epidemiology. I would prefer to have people weigh in on the issue that actually have more than two weeks experience in this. Everyone can have good ideas but giving people like Pueyo a platform for their self marketing must be an insult for all real experts that work on these issues.

On Facebook I saw Paul Buchheit sharing Tomas Pueyo's medium post. I was stunned that PB would share models created by someone who clearly has so little knowledge of epidemiology.

I was unable to comment and call Paul out on this, due to Paul Buchheit's privacy settings allowing only his Facebook friends to comment, not any arbitrary Facebook followers. It's very frustrating to not have an outlet to comment on and critique what is clear misinformation.

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