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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?

#631

Post by odiroot »

starfallg wrote: post #293
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…

> Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea aren't under lockdown, they're stopping the spread by just having good testing and case tracking capacity, and good hygiene. You forgot Taiwan, who is faring much better than all three of the countries you mentioned.

And they did it all without closing their airports!

What mostly helped was lack of mainland Chinese people entering the country. Also Taiwanese wear their face masks religiously and are used to obeying the rules set by the government.

Finally (AFAIK) they have a very good health care system which handled the cases quickly and efficiently.

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

#632

Post by odiroot »

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?

Taiwan isn't small (~20M) and managed to handle it better than the two you mentioned.

Being an island is definitely a contributing factor though.

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

#633

Post by numpad0 »

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…

> reasoning is that if the only things you can do are China-style lockdown or nothing,

Not nothing, the latter is what #flattenthecurve thingy is. Reducing the exponent thereby keeping the NHS load below maximum.

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

#634

Post by dempseye »

aidos wrote: post #577
dash2 wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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....

Your parent wasn’t advocating for forced infection. It’s my understanding that pox parties were a fairly common way to manage the spread of chicken pox. If you take some extreme assumptions; everyone will catch this, and you can infect in a totally controlled way where only the ones you wanted to infect were infected, you could definitely argue that controlled infection was the best course of action.

Pox parties are forced infection. Children do not choose to go or understand what is being done to them. Their parents exert power over them to make it happen.

You can argue about the morality of it, but the analogy with adults voluntarily getting infected is false.

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

#635

Post by ksec »

lukevdp wrote: post #619
ksec wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Isn’t that the whole point of a lockdown? You will need a Lockdown AND Mask, or you will simply just need Mask and not even lockdown. I would argue social distancing only is not enough. But somehow even people in Italy refuse to wear mask. So I think a culture issue is also a problem there.

I don’t think masks are as effective as you think. WHO says only wear a mask: If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with suspected 2019-nCoV infection. Wear a mask if you are coughing or sneezing. Masks are effective only when used in combination with frequent hand-cleaning with alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water. If you wear a mask, then you must know how to use it…

Except we have clear evidence with all the countries listed above, SK, HK, Singapore, Taiwan that wearing a mask is effective. Even in many cases without social distancing. There are little working from Home in majority of the business in those cities, They have a much higher population density that has a higher chance of being infected with coronavirus.

The mask also protects you from bad actors who are not doing any standard hygiene procedures such as washing your hands.

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

#636

Post by grey-area »

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…

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.

No, that is almost entirely wrong.

You can certainly disagree with their position but you should at least present it accurately. Their position is that this is a pandemic (i.e. spread too widely to eradicate this year), we have moved from the contain phase to the delay phase, and their plan is to gradually introduce measures up to full quarantine rather than jumping to lockdowns straight away. For example here are the measures planned in coming weeks:

https://www.itv.com/news/2020-03-14/elderly-to-be-quarantine...

If they manage to flatten the curve by timing measures, and if there is a second outbreak this winter, it may well save lives. The Chief Scientific Adviser and other experts are not horrified, they came up with the plan and are defending it, so no, ‘experts’ are not horrified, though some disagree (which is fine).

I’d be more worried living in the US right now given the mixture of denial and bluster which has been the response so far.

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

#637

Post by devnullbyte »

bosie wrote: post #411
Svip wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 0.1% to 1% of the population unexpectedly dying is huge. A lot of people seem to be focusing on mortality rate, but data from China and Italy show that people who get severe symptoms, but survive COVID-19 will live with lifelong scares, that make them vulnerable for say the next flu season. So while 0.1-1% may die, we are talking about upwards of 10% of people being put out of commission. It's also wrong to say tha…

do you mind sharing some sources regarding the long term effect of covid-19? i am worried about it, especially since i haven't heard much about it so far (might be too early to tell). thanks.

Not OP, but I remember reading about this. The summary was it's too early to establish long term damage. The scarring is present, but its bound to be on patient who recovered a mere few weeks ago.

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

#638

Post by devnullbyte »

mirimir wrote: post #335
lallysingh wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.. fewer elderly to take care of?

Although I'm personally offended, being unimaginably (for me) old, this does make some sense. After all, many countries have been angsty about demographic inversion. And SARS-CoV-2 could resolve that within a decade or less.

The other interesting factor is how it will impact Gerontocracy which is the norm for most eastern and western governments alike. We see this playing out in in Iran.

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

#639

Post by devnullbyte »

tenpies wrote: post #309
lozenge wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(warning: conspiracy theory, but at least an original one) I'm thinking this only makes sense in the context of Brexit. Brexit will be a massive hit to the competitiveness of British businesses... somebody in government is hoping to counteract this by taking an approach different to the rest of Europe. If the UK's approach works, it will end up economically ahead of all the other European countries, something like th…

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…

Britain reminds me of the drunk guy who falls down a flight of stairs and then rolls back onto their feet unharmed.

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

#640

Post by devnullbyte »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #355
lozenge wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(warning: conspiracy theory, but at least an original one) I'm thinking this only makes sense in the context of Brexit. Brexit will be a massive hit to the competitiveness of British businesses... somebody in government is hoping to counteract this by taking an approach different to the rest of Europe. If the UK's approach works, it will end up economically ahead of all the other European countries, something like th…

I don't think killing a larger portion of Britons than of Continental Europeans is going to be good for the British economy.

That's ignoring intent they expressed to implement very long isolation measures for the elderly. Thier approach might be flawed, but let's debate it based on what has actually been stated.
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