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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?

#581

Post by TeMPOraL »

Reason077 wrote: post #461
TeMPOraL wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 po…

Yes, I think it'll be as bad as the Spanish flu, just with different age mortality profile.

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

#582

Post by [deleted] »

ubercow13 wrote: post #212

Modelling disease spread seems like the kind of scientific endeavour that one can dedicate one's whole life to becoming an expert in, and many people presumably do. Considering that, why should anyone give much credence to a random medium article on the topic by a 'silicon valley tech executive'? (lol) There are 10's of thousands of scientific research papers [1], by scientists, on COVID-19 already, and this guy is j…

[deleted]

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

#583

Post by ascorbic »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #152
simonh wrote: post #31

I’m going to try and lay out the case in as neutral terms as I can, although to be clear I think they are probably right. They’re going to take an awful lot of stick for it though, and indeed already are. They believe that there are basically two mitigation strategies. One is to have a very drastic early lockdown that shuts down the virus before it spreads widely. The problem with that is, once you lift the lockdown…

Why would operating as normal and mostly ignoring the problem cause a "slower initial burn"? It won't. This is nonsense of the most obvious kind, because we're already past the stage where the virus is spreading quickly. In fact the reverse is likely to be true. Lockdown minimises the number with the disease, but that number is not zero. Which means that if immunity is possible (questionable for a CV, but let's prete…

They're not operating as normal: they're telling anyone with a cough to self-isolate for seven days. And the plan isn't to quarantine over 70s who are infected: it's to quarantine them all, when they're not infected.

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

#584

Post by dang »

gimboland wrote: post #112
dang wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't post duplicate comments to HN ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22577808 ). It strictly lowers the signal/noise ratio and makes merging threads a nightmare.

Merging threads?

As nkurz said. See also:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

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

#585

Post by johndoe42377 »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #570
johndoe42377 wrote: post #566

Lockdowns are just to decrease the rate of spreading (and avoid high concentration of virus particles) not to eliminate the virus, so everyone should prepare oneself to face it and get through. Just this. Some small percentage of population in isolated regions have chances never meet the virus, but hiding is not the stable strategy. Getting through and become immune is. This is what UK government is saying. Let's fac…

Sounds like you may not have heard about the importance of "flattening the curve" yet https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/11/flattening-curve-coronav...

As any third-worlder knows perfectly will, everyone is on your own.

Aside from that, there are so many different factors (variables) that this oversimplified model is almost useless.

Every place, except China, which locked down a whole magapolis, will reach overcapacity of hospitals very quickly and UK government advisers know this.

'Flattering the curve' is a nice catchy meme though.

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

#586

Post by qbaqbaqba »

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.

It takes a long time to acquire respirators and to train anesthesiologists.

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

#587

Post by mshroyer »

snowwrestler wrote: post #63
simonh wrote: post #31

I’m going to try and lay out the case in as neutral terms as I can, although to be clear I think they are probably right. They’re going to take an awful lot of stick for it though, and indeed already are. They believe that there are basically two mitigation strategies. One is to have a very drastic early lockdown that shuts down the virus before it spreads widely. The problem with that is, once you lift the lockdown…

> The problem with that is, once you lift the lockdown it will simply start all over again. Well, no, because the world at the end of the lockdown is not the same as the world before the disease started spreading. Some differences: - People now know there is a dangerous disease and how to act and sanitize to mitigate its spread. - Manufacturing and other logistics for medical providers have had the time of the lockdo…

Also, if an affected region locks down well enough and long enough (cf. Hubei: https://miro.medium.com/max/6812/1*pwPIo7U6pBahMZhopHYbMw.pn...), the number of actual new cases per day may fall to the point where containment becomes feasible again.

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

#588

Post by mirekrusin »

guitarbill wrote: post #347
ThePhysicist wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

With statements like "the markets are up", and the hyperbole of "so we're saying 'we want to kill 200,000 people'" and "killing everybody", which even the anchor has to reign him in on, Mr Pueyo seems like such a douchebag. he comes of as incredibly unlikeable (at least to me). especially compared to Mr Edmunds, who goes through how herd immunity is a good end-game in a measured and calm manner. to which he seems to…

Funny thing about this is that they don't disagree on herd immunity. They argue over optimal rate and tradeoffs (where/when measures slider should be moved).

In this rare case Pueyo credentials don't matter much as he pretty much echoes open letter from scientific community coming from Italy.

What is not mentioned is that buying a bit of time also increases a chance for many people to get treatment that is yet to be discovered/approved.

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

#590

Post by kurthr »

ascorbic wrote: post #578
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 plan to protect the vulnerable is four months of quarantine: https://www.itv.com/news/2020-03-14/elderly-to-be-quarantine...

It’s almost Swiftian in its satire... oh wait, they’re serious. Strange that it may be quite a few of their own voters who die. I know Boris idolizes the mayor from Jaws who says the beach is safe to keep businesses open so maybe they are that dumb or maybe they’ll be really lucky. Risking an extra 2% of 50M dead (or even 20% of that) is a big gamble. How many allies died in Normandy? 200k? Hope it’s worth it.

I’m guessing that when things start getting Wuhan level crazy people will isolate anyway and they’ll get the worst of all results.

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