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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?

#701

Post by JetSetWilly »

hyko wrote: post #532
JetSetWilly wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the UK already pursues a strategy of herd immunity regarding chicken pox (along with other countries), despite the availability of a vaccine: http://www.ox.ac.uk/research/everything-you-need-know-about-... . I disagree with that strategy but I am not qualified to make that decision on behalf of a country, and I'm glad it's not my responsibility to do so. The UK does not vaccinate against chickenpox because it judge…

That for me is where the logic breaks down, a comprehensive vaccine programme for shingles would seem far more effective than just hoping the adults come into contact with infected children.

Anti-vaxxers are a thing. If you vaccinate then due to herd immunity the anti-vaxxers don't get exposed to chickpenpox nearly as much and then end up getting shingles.

Also then anti-vaxxer children get chickenpox much later in life when it can be more serious.

If you don't vaccinate everybody gets exposed to chickenpox much more and the proportion of shingles cases ends up being smaller, not only that but anti-vaxxer children don't need to worry about getting their first case of chickenpox at age 30.

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

#702

Post by joe_the_user »

thu2111 wrote: post #653
joe_the_user wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This approach is definitely negligent to the point of criminality. There's no practical way to keep younger and healthy people away from older or less-healthy people and once the virus spreads to the less healthy people it will likely spread further. (I've been doing the arithmetic for this stuff all day but here goes). The UK's population is about 66 million. Sixty percent infected is 39,600,000. A 1% death rate (wh…

Herd immunity doesn't happen for Ebola because it's not that infectious compared to covid19. Ebola spreads when an infected person coughs up infected blood over someone. That's pretty easy to contain - people don't walk around spreading Ebola with no symptoms. Herd immunity in this case isn't something you choose to cultivate or not. With such an infectious disease you're going to get it sooner or later; that's the U…

With such an infectious disease you're going to get it sooner or later; that's the UK's point.

I believe it's mistake to claim that the disease will inevitably become endemic in the fashion of the flu. It certainly reach that level but costs would be massively catastrophic in a multitude of fashions. Oppositely, that of the different nations who've contained the infection show that is possible to eliminate it from a region and so a world-wide effort could eliminate it world wide as well.

One factor is that the disease is much more deadly than the early commentators (notably in the Atlantic) believed and aside from making "everyone get infected, OK?" horrific, this gives a strong marker for the disease and a strong incentive to act.

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

#703

Post by kenha »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #695
odiroot wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

face masks don't help unless you've got covid19 and are using it to prevent spreading. If you have flu like symptoms you should be staying home anyway.

I wonder if this is in fact working - Not so much to protect oneself from getting it, but preventing the no-symptom/mild symptom carriers from spreading to others.

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

#704

Post by svara »

yulaow wrote: post #689
grey-area wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's false, all recorded deaths do far were reported to have preexisting conditions.

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

#705

Post by rusk »

phpnode wrote: post #679
rusk wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My gripe was that OC made an appeal solely on the OBE rather than his body of work. Such awards should be viewed with suspicion as they can be awarded on the basis of saying the convenient thing as much as the right thing.

I said he was awarded the OBE because of his work in this area, not that an OBE is solely a reason to trust his opinion. He is far more qualified than the growth hacker / marketing guy who has zero expertise in this area as far as I can tell.

Well you probably should have cited a more credible award so

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

#706

Post by thu2111 »

joe_the_user wrote: post #702
thu2111 wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Herd immunity doesn't happen for Ebola because it's not that infectious compared to covid19. Ebola spreads when an infected person coughs up infected blood over someone. That's pretty easy to contain - people don't walk around spreading Ebola with no symptoms. Herd immunity in this case isn't something you choose to cultivate or not. With such an infectious disease you're going to get it sooner or later; that's the U…

With such an infectious disease you're going to get it sooner or later; that's the UK's point. I believe it's mistake to claim that the disease will inevitably become endemic in the fashion of the flu. It certainly reach that level but costs would be massively catastrophic in a multitude of fashions. Oppositely, that of the different nations who've contained the infection show that is possible to eliminate it from a…

So far nobody has shown it can be eliminated from a region. To show that would require that transitional controls on movement of people end and yet the disease doesn't come back.

This is a disease in which people can be infectious yet show no symptoms. How do you stop infected people moving between regions? Do you think a "world wide effort" is going to successfully encompass places like Africa, central Asia, even Latin America? It's out now, it'll be circulating for a long time.

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

#707

Post by thu2111 »

tigershark wrote: post #671
thu2111 wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Flu vaccine has to be taken every year.

That's because flu isn't a single disease, it's a category of diseases, like cancer. People do build immunity to specific flu variants.

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

#708

Post by thu2111 »

leemailll wrote: post #663
thu2111 wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

do you ever heard of plague?

What's plague got to do with it? Plague vaccines exist that give up to a year of immunity:

https://contagions.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/generating-immun...

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

#709

Post by eli_gottlieb »

devnullbyte wrote: post #640
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They can intend what they please, but the facts show that you can't save the elderly without quarantining and social distancing of the non-elderly. "Stiff upper lip" is such a caricature of Britishness that I wonder if Johnson is doing it as a piece of patriotic method-acting. It is not a medically sensible method to fight COVID-19.

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

#710

Post by kurthr »

ascorbic wrote: post #617
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…

What better plan for vulnerable people is there than isolating them? You also seem to be under the impression that the plan is for no lockdown. The government has already said that there will be increasingly tight measures over the next few weeks. I despise the current government, and have no idea if this plan is better than alternatives, but please if you want to criticise it, do so for what it actually is, not a st…

I truly wish you good luck. Planning for the virus to expand (rapidly) through the younger less vulnerable population to protect businesses and provide herd immunity is what was described. I understand they're trying to walk that back now... good idea! https://politicshome.com/news/uk/health-and-care/illnesstrea...

The actual plan and how to isolate the almost 20% of the population at high risk is not outlined here or anywhere I've seen. If you know (or anyone in the government knows) what it is, please provide a description or link. I've only seen hope... and undefined "measures".

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