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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?

#711

Post by tasuki »

tilolebo wrote: post #682
xorcist wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 infect…

Under certain assumptions, young and healthy people getting infected would be the best course of action: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2020/03/expose-the-young.html

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

#712

Post by mygo »

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.

please distinguish between surgical masks and N95 masks.

N95 masks, fitted properly, do help prevent catching the virus. For a mask to be called N95 it has to be approved by the CDC. It’s specifically designed to block >95% of airborne particles. That’s why they’re recommended for caretakers at hospitals and frontline workers dealing with infected patients. Replaced every ~3 hours and worn in combination with goggles and ear protection, they minimize the risk of infection through mucosal membranes. They have also been in short supply.

Surgical masks do not prevent catching the virus, but they help sick people not to spread it due to the mask catching some of the spray droplets when they cough / sneeze

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

#713

Post by foobarbazetc »

OJFord wrote: post #388
foobarbazetc wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s already too late. They’re on the Italy path. This “herd immunity” thing is nonsense. So much so that doctors and scientists are warning against it: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/coronavirus-nh...

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…

Nobody thinks it’s a good idea. It’s just nonsense. There is no debate.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/15/epidem...

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

#714

Post by Silhouette »

kragen wrote: post #698
Silhouette wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the policy of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, who are doing great. All of which have tiny populations compared to the UK. For larger nations, there simply aren't enough tests available, nor enough treatment facilities for those who are likely to become very sick if the virus spreads rapidly through the population.

Taiwan is 23 million people. The UK is 67 million people. The level of confidence of your comment does not seem to be warranted by your level of knowledge.

Please don't make comments like this on HN. They lower the tone and add nothing of value to the discussion.

We have explored a little whether the population of Taiwan being somewhat closer to the UK's than the other two named countries was significant in a sibling thread.

In addition, in the UK, which is the subject of this discussion, it is certainly the case that we do not currently have sufficient resources to cope with a widespread, uncontrolled outbreak. There have been a number of further announcements today regarding how the government is hoping to acquire new space for treatments, acquire essential equipment like ventilators on a much larger scale than is currently available, and bring in more trained staff to make use of these resources to help treat coronavirus patients. Even if these plans work out as is hoped, all of them will require at least several weeks to make a large difference. This isn't my opinion, it's coming straight from senior government figures and their senior medical and scientific advisors.

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

#715

Post by kqr »

ethbro wrote: post #508
lmm wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the one hand, we have people getting evicted from their homes and having to visit soup kitchens. Which translates directly into many years of reduced life expectancy, no?

I understand the point you and GP are trying to make. I'm saying that the two miseries feel like apples vs oranges, given the context. You'd have to go pretty far to convince me that (even mass) economic depression is more harmful than widespread, near-term fatalities.

That is part of the problem. It is very hard to quantify the consequences of economic depression because it affects everyone at least a little bit, and some more than others. It might cause so and so many more people to have to go through therapy, so and so many families break up over financial hardships, and the children are ever so slightly worse off and the second-order consequences aren't fully realised until 30 years down the line. It's individually (possibly) very small effects, but it hits the entire population.

That's hard to weigh against a concrete number of very concrete deaths and serious recuperation periods.

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

#716

Post by tiawav »

arcticbull wrote: post #155
NullPrefix wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop it because it is incorrect or stop it because it is insensitive?

"Stop it because it's unimaginable that the UK government is intentionally trying to kill off it's old folks no matter how much money that may save the NHS, in no small part because that would be akin to a genocide for profit"

Never blame anything on maliciousness that can easily be explained by stupidity.

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

#717

Post by kragen »

Silhouette wrote: post #714
kragen wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taiwan is 23 million people. The UK is 67 million people. The level of confidence of your comment does not seem to be warranted by your level of knowledge.

Please don't make comments like this on HN. They lower the tone and add nothing of value to the discussion. We have explored a little whether the population of Taiwan being somewhat closer to the UK's than the other two named countries was significant in a sibling thread. In addition, in the UK, which is the subject of this discussion, it is certainly the case that we do not currently have sufficient resources to cop…

I'd like to ask you to not make comments like the one you did — confident assertions about things you know nothing about, that you haven't made even the most trivial effort to verify, whether that's the population of Taiwan or the general relationship between country size and testing kits per capita. Regardless of how politely you make them, statements unconnected to any concern for truthfulness lower the signal to noise ratio, and they add nothing of value to the discussion. On the contrary, calling out such recklessly false statements does add something of value to the discussion.

Instead of criticizing my tone, which was in fact fairly restrained, you should thank me for taking the time to correct you. For instance: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22580049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22569806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22529609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22505631 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22504690 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22370446

It is true that the UK does not have sufficient resources to cope with a widespread, uncontrolled outbreak, lacking for example one to two orders of magnitude in ventilator capacity; but, as should be obvious, this is not a result of the UK being a large country — the UK is much smaller than China, slightly smaller than Japan, the same size as South Korea, and slightly larger than Taiwan. But this conversation would be of higher quality if, instead of containing such your obviously false assertion and also fact-based rebuttals such as these, you had not posted the assertion in the first place (perhaps because you had read enough to see that it was false), so no rebuttal would be necessary.

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

#718

Post by tiawav »

rumanator wrote: post #389
ajross wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "nonsense". It's real. It works for almost every other virus out there (even colds and flu, even though it's imperfect: new seasonal cold and flu strains don't become pandemics, because many people have some immunity from previous infections). If you let a large enough fraction of the UK contract and recover from COVID-19, we have every reason to suspect that the society will develop good enough herd immunit…

> It's not "nonsense". It's real. It works for almost every other virus out there (e You're failing to take in consideration that the virus incubation period is on average 1 to 2 weeks, and those who manage to recover from the disease take about 2 weeks from diagnosis to confirmed cure. This means that you're comparing 4 weeks of exponential growth with 2 weeks of constant recovery. Sure, those who survived the disea…

There are 200 Viruses, vaccines only exist for 20 or so. For some you can hardly build immunity (e.g. Dengue fever).

"Sure, those who survived the disease will be immune afterwards." There have been reports of re-infections in China and Japan. This may be mistakes - the never were cured - but this could also point to something more severe. Proceed with caution.

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

#719

Post by foobarbazetc »

foobarbazetc wrote: post #297
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…

It’s already too late. They’re on the Italy path. This “herd immunity” thing is nonsense. So much so that doctors and scientists are warning against it: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/coronavirus-nh...

cough

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/uk-coronavirus...

Imagine going ahead with this instead of... doing something.

And no, the NHS doesn’t have the capacity to handle this. So...

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

#720

Post by foobarbazetc »

foobarbazetc wrote: post #719
foobarbazetc wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s already too late. They’re on the Italy path. This “herd immunity” thing is nonsense. So much so that doctors and scientists are warning against it: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/coronavirus-nh...

cough https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/uk-coronavirus... Imagine going ahead with this instead of... doing something. And no, the NHS doesn’t have the capacity to handle this. So...

“Strategy”.
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