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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?

#681

Post by Silhouette »

tim333 wrote: post #449
Silhouette wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The honest answer is that I don't know. Perhaps I generalised too readily before, given Taiwan is quite a bit closer to the UK in population than the other two. Even so, assuming that strategies that appear to have been relatively successful in a smaller, more densely populated country will necessarily also work in a larger and less densely populated one seems to be dubious. We know that we don't have the resources w…

China doesn't have a small population and has it under control. I don't think it's a population size thing.

China does seem to be on of the most interesting cases so far.

The quarantine measures, once introduced, do seem to have been viewed favourably by the experts and do seem to have been remarkably effective. This assumes we trust the reported statistics, which I acknowledge as a possible risk in this instance.

On the other hand, it may be that China has been able to achieve that in part by pulling resources from all over to focus on the main region affected. That isn't necessarily an option that will be open to other nations, particularly if their outbreaks are distributed across their whole area almost immediately.

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

#682

Post by tilolebo »

xorcist wrote: post #655
grey-area wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Europe right now shows the full spectrum of possible solutions. It is not as if draconian lockdowns are the only alternative. Look at Germany, for example. They've been using testing quite effectively and are also looking at primarily isolating vulnerable people. It will take some time before we know more about how successful these strategies are. Different countries are at different phases in the infection spread wh…

Germany doesn't test well at all. My wife's school in Berlin has been closed since Thursday because of a positive parent who partied in a club the same night as over 16 now infected persons.

Teachers are still waiting for test results and are supposed yo come back to work on Monday.

I can't really explain why there are so few casualties yet in Germany, but I think it's because many young and healthy people got infected (that's the case in Berlin, for instance), so hospitals aren't yet saturated.

I hope it stays that way, but I think we can expect much more deaths in the next days.

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

#684

Post by w14 »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #498
dathinab wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's basically: Throw 2 or 3 hounded thousand lives away to have less economical impact next year. I.e. pure evil IMHO. especially because there is a non small chance that it will be more like 1-1.5 Million more death then necessary.

There was an op ed recently from a former member of the Johnson government that stated "It is time the economists took over from the doctors, before the real pandemic [economic recession] spreads." So that, told me all I need to know about the cruelty and stupidity of the UK government at this time.

Just to correct this, the statement was made by Omar Hassan, who was head of inward Middle Eastern investment while Boris Johnson was Mayor of London, and was never part of the Johnson government. Here's the article the quote comes from:

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/coronavirus-deaths-trum...

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

#685

Post by poooogles »

angry_octet wrote: post #547
hedora wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unknown long term effects Ultimately, it’s a just a really inconsistent cold. The vast majority of cases are mild. However, if it spreads to the lungs, it’s worse than the flu. As far as I know, there’s no evidence that it’s any more exotic than that.

There are reports from China of significant lung scarring among patients who had to be hospitalised.

This is the concerning thing for me, as an asthmatic if I stop taking meds I'm already 30% down on lung capacity, adding another 20% on top of that is scary. That 20% can't be mitigated by meds either.

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

#686

Post by aziytuiam »

I think the main mystery about the UK govts approach can be solved when your realise it is not very clever; just very incompetent. The whole word has been stunned by the herd immunity experiment policy; only to have it denied a week later. We are fools led by clowns.

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

#687

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

nikkev wrote: post #524
OJFord wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some are against it, others (such as presumably a majority of those advising the government) are for it. That's just good debate. > It’s already too late. They’re on the Italy path. Well, that's pretty much the point of the policy. 'Already screwed this year, let's try to cope, and be less screwed next year'. I was very critical at first, but I'm more interested/satisfied with the response now, it does seem to be wel…

One point neglected in discussions is the effect of spreading it to other territories that are not adopting a similar strategy. The majority of cases in the English-speaking Caribbean to date have been from persons who traveled to the UK recently.

If the UK government's policy is to deliberately allow widespread infection of the population, the logical response from other countries will be to ban entry to people traveling from the UK.

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

#688

Post by TheHeretic12 »

There is evidence from China and Korea, that you do not build immunity from the disease.

https://archive.is/Gv1iu

This makes the UK response almost as bad as doing nothing at all. Maybe some people will show to have a natural immunity, but many people will die. The UK is in arrears politically and socially. There honestly is no response that would be appropriate, that they could hope to deploy.

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

#689

Post by yulaow »

grey-area wrote: post #675
lazyjones wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe is a chaotic mess. Germany is preventing exports of urgently needed masks and other medical supplies to Switzerland and Austria, Austria announced that no curfews were coming yesterday and today Tirol is under curfew and harsh curfew-like restrictions will be in place from Monday in all of Austria. I'm not really sure what the strategy is, the WHO recommendations after their China mission have been known for 3…

Not sure I agree with your assessment. Germany is doing pretty well at just 9 deaths on 4.5k cases. The WHO is not the only or the best source of recommendations, nor is this over in China. I'd be very surprised if they don't see another outbreak there now that this is a pandemic it will spread to Africa for example, which has a huge no of Chinese working there who will bring it back.

Germany is also not reporting deaths from coronavirus if the patients had also other pre-existing conditions just to keep the number artificially low.

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

#690

Post by dTal »

henrikschroder wrote: post #509
dTal wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh huh... is the UK isolating and protecting people in risk groups? Because the last time you could safely get infected, and be guaranteed medical attention, was two weeks ago. The NHS is already at capacity right now . There's certainly no danger of accidentally containing it too much .

> There's certainly no danger of accidentally containing it too much. Actually, there is. The UK strategy explicitly aims to avoid a peak come autumn/winter, you want it to go through enough of the population before summer ends. Too fast and it overwhelms the NHS right now, too slow and it will overwhelm the NHS in November. I completely agree that it is a risky strategy, but unlike the general sentiment in this thre…

>Too fast and it overwhelms the NHS right now

The NHS is already overwhelmed. Right now. We are firmly in "too fast" territory. There is no amount containment, starting from now, that will be too much - the exponential growth is already getting away.

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