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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?

#641

Post by sgt101 »

eyko wrote: post #256
sgt101 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at chart 7 of Pueyos article. He uses this chart to underpin his argument that the lockdown in Wuhan is the way to approach controlling the virus. But note, on that chart it shows that testing only became available to the Chinese authorities 9 days before the lockdown. In all other outbreaks (even the US one) there has been widespread testing - it's just not reasonable to make inferences from that situation to a…

> In all other outbreaks (even the US one) there has been widespread testing Can you back up that claim? From what I've read, the opposite seemed to be the case, especially in the USA.

The UK has tested 37,746 times so far. [1]

Italy is 80k +

The testing incidence is going to change the infection confirmation number. The testing protocol will change the confirmation number. The type of testing will change the number (I believe that there are several types of test with a different confusion matrix).

[1] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information...

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

#642

Post by [deleted] »

sgt101 wrote: post #641
eyko wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In all other outbreaks (even the US one) there has been widespread testing Can you back up that claim? From what I've read, the opposite seemed to be the case, especially in the USA.

The UK has tested 37,746 times so far. [1] Italy is 80k + The testing incidence is going to change the infection confirmation number. The testing protocol will change the confirmation number. The type of testing will change the number (I believe that there are several types of test with a different confusion matrix). [1] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information...

[deleted]

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

#643

Post by grey-area »

TMWNN wrote: post #123
grey-area wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Trump did not "cut the CDC budget" either. No, he only proposed cutting the CDC budget. Luckily, saner minds prevailed.

>No, he only proposed cutting the CDC budget. Luckily, saner minds prevailed. Presidents do not pass the budget; Congress does, under the Constitution. The annual President-proposed budget is just that, a starting point from which to negotiate from. Both the House (currently controlled by Democrats) and Senate (Republicans) have to pass it. If you criticize the president for starting out with a proposal for cutting t…

I don’t find anything praiseworthy in his actions re this crisis, he has and will continue to handle it really badly IMO.

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

#644

Post by thinkingemote »

This idea that the primary aim of the UK Government is herd immunity is plain wrong. The primary aim is to flatten the curve with specially timed interventions and any herd immunity is a by product of that. The aim is to flatten the curve so that the systems are able to cope better.

Herd immunity will be a by product in almost every western countries actions today. Ask them and if they are honest they will say the same that it's a long term effect but not the primary driver or the main aim.

The difficult non sound bite criticism is about the flattening of the curve based on their models which basically means they need to get both the timings and the interventions spot on for it to work correctly. Dont let fear win

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

#645

Post by thu2111 »

twic wrote: post #122
knzhou wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there's a third strategy that works better than either: don't lockdown, but do effective testing, case tracking, and treatment, well enough so that exponential growth can't happen in the first place. That's the policy of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, who are doing great.

It's far too early to say whether they're doing great. Several months too early. Their lockdowns are preventing virus spread now, but at some point, the lockdowns will end, and then there is a vulnerable population waiting to be infected by a carrier coming from abroad. Will they be able to keep carriers out? Will they be able to respond to further outbreaks with more lockdowns indefinitely? Will there be a vaccine s…

There won't ever be a consensus of experts. That whole concept is one I've really come to hate over the years. When it comes to decisions about what to do, versus the outcome of replicable experiments on nature in lab conditions, there is always disagreement and there always will be. The idea that any decision can be resolved by a bunch of scientists sitting in a committee beard stroking doesn't reflect how people really work.

Amongst other problems, the term "expert" is ill defined (see discussion above about mathematicians) and there's always value in contrarianism for people who aren't directly making decisions. If they're wrong nobody will remember and there's nearly no reputational impact. If they're right, they can win fame and glory.

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

#646

Post by collyw »

Gatsky wrote: post #517
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…

I think you can draw a direct line between the personality of Johnson and adoption of this strategy. Covid19 will unfortunately kill a lot of people. As a silver-lining, it may also kill populism.

Populism seems to be "democracy that I don't like the result of".

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

#647

Post by thu2111 »

egr wrote: post #321
Neil44 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the current UK Gov’s huge majority and long remaining term allow them to make decisions that many other countries would not be able to make at this time. I think they’re right, not that this makes things any easier, both my parents are in their mid 70’s and have health problems.

As far as I know, they did not communicate an overall strategy or comprehensive action plan. The basis of this thread are a series of tweets making assumptions about what the government strategy could be (given a lack of measures taken as a basis). I do not understand how not communicating a comprehensive action plan is meant to be the harder choice ("a decision many other countries [...] not able to make") when cont…

They held a press conference live streamed on YouTube where the PM and the two chief scientific advisors answered questions and explained their strategy for nearly an hour. The answer to one question alone took over ten minutes. You may not be aware of their communication about their strategy but it's on YouTube waiting for you.

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

#648

Post by thu2111 »

leemailll wrote: post #605
Engineering-MD wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If immunity doesn’t occur, then a vaccine is also useless.

It's two different things

No it isn't. Vaccines create immunity, that's the point. Also, what diseases that don't kill you also don't result in immunity? "There's no evidence of immunity" seems an absurd statement, we can literally see the antibodies people create in response to the infection. That seems like just looking for an excuse to attack the UK.

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

#649

Post by globular-toast »

polote wrote: post #234
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…

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…

What could the government realistically do to protect the vulnerable? It's ultimately up to the people to be disciplined and protect vulnerable people. That will only be done by educating the people, which has been done.

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

#650

Post by thu2111 »

xenonite wrote: post #628
ReDeiPirati wrote: post #613

According to other famous virologists, this is a risky strategy to play. This is an RNA virus, this means that you cannot safely assume that the population will be immune after the first infection.

Could you cite these sources please?

He just means that RNA mutates more than DNA during replication, which you can learn from Wikipedia. That's why flu keeps coming back every year.
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