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

621–630 of 772 posts

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

#621

Post by m0zg »

beaunative wrote: post #558
lotsofpulp wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t we only have a crude estimate on the death rate for people diagnosed with the virus? If we find that many people are not getting tested for the virus and just recover by themselves, then it’s possible for the fatality rate to be lower.

Well, those asymptom case can also infect others. In all likeliness they will infect others, multiple others. So if epidemiological root trauce is done right, we would find those asymptom carrier.

This doesn't mean those cases are "asymptomatic". Most people who get the disease fare about as they would with a flu. I'd also venture to guess that most people do not go to the hospital unless things are really bad (e.g. they can't breathe on their own). Furthermore, because not everyone at the hospital gets tested, I'd also guess that there's a number of cases where deaths are misattributed to plain old flu, too, since it's the flu season still, and some of those who are dying "of coronavirus" would have died regardless.

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

#622

Post by youngtaff »

knzhou wrote: post #209

Their reasoning is that if the only things you can do are China-style lockdown or nothing, then the disease will just resume exponentially growing the second lockdown ends, so it's pointless to do it at all. While that may be technically right (under some optimistic, unverified assumptions, e.g. no reinfection), it's a false dichotomy. Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea aren't under lockdown, they're stopping the…

As Singapore, and Hong Kong are so small do the lessons learnt there actually apply in larger more connected countries?

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

#623

Post by arethuza »

tedesign wrote: post #604
kurthr wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gu…

4400 confirmed dead on D-Day (Allied)

The capture of Normandy didn't take a single day - it took over a month with ~120,000 Allied casualties:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Normandy

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

#624

Post by tonyedgecombe »

wyiske wrote: post #325

I think they’re taking more or less the right approach. I do think they could have gone further and banned big events and told anyone with cold or flu to stay at home for 7 days (instead of with specific symptoms). It’s already too late to ban travelers, and will do more damage than benefit. Well it’s possible to score political points by closing borders, the damage it will do the economy is not necessary. Countries…

Most of the big events seem to have decided to shutdown on their own, I'm not sure a ban would make a huge difference now.

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

#625

Post by blablablerg »

casparz wrote: post #596
snowwrestler wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Exactly this. I don’t have published numbers to back the following, but we expect them after the weekend. Over half of ICU admitted covid-19 patients in the Netherlands are <50 years old. I get this information from friends and colleagues working in several hospitals. If this turns out to not be a fluke, the young are much more affected by this corona virus vs normal flu.

The distribution of age of corona patients on the ICU is NOT the same as the age distribution of all corona patients vs. disease severity. It could be and quite possibly is the case that many people below the age of 50 are infected but never reach an ICU. Most get better without severe symptoms, so looking at ICU admission stats is misleading if you extrapolate the data to the whole population.

I hate that this fact is spreading in the Netherlands without a proper explanation.

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

#626

Post by azmodeus »

youngtaff wrote: post #622
knzhou wrote: post #209

Their reasoning is that if the only things you can do are China-style lockdown or nothing, then the disease will just resume exponentially growing the second lockdown ends, so it's pointless to do it at all. While that may be technically right (under some optimistic, unverified assumptions, e.g. no reinfection), it's a false dichotomy. Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea aren't under lockdown, they're stopping the…

As Singapore, and Hong Kong are so small do the lessons learnt there actually apply in larger more connected countries?

Singapore and HK are ultraconnected city states. If they can do it larger sparser countries should be able to do it.

Both of them have more than 5 million people so they aren't tiny either.

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

#627

Post by tonyedgecombe »

celticninja wrote: post #10
mingabunga wrote: post #4

and causing the deaths of >80 year olds, thus reducing the costs of dependency on the health system? #consipracy :)

However this age group is also predominantly conservative voting so they would not want to off their core support base.

On the other hand the next election is nearly five years away, by then most of them will have fallen off their perch anyway.

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

#629

Post by anothermouse »

The NHS makes a huge difference. As a single entity it can pivot in a way that I wonder if other countries can come close to.

My daughters dentist commented yesterday that all her surgeries (and her team usually do 50 a week) had been cancelled. The reason? All the anaesthesiologist had been requisitioned as they will be required to do ventilation. All elective surgeries had been cancelled, and her paeds specialists sent on refresher courses for adult patients.

We're in uncertain territory here, the NHS's response may not be 100% perfect and a lot of people will argue that some minutiae could be done better, but I believe it has the huge advantage.

I wonder if other countries, and particularly the US, can manage such a coordinated healthcare response?

Post reply on HN