171–180 of 772 posts
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Killing older population will provide £350M/weekly for the NHS and decrease financial gap between generations.
Stop it. This is bigger than Brexit.
Well, Brexit won't kill anybody (hopefully).
But on the other hand, a year from now, the pandemic will be largely forgotten. Brexit will still be going on.
This strategy is not insane only if there is also a concerted effort to protect those who are vulnerable while the virus spreads. The problem is there isn't one. At all. None. Zip. Zero. Some care homes are, off their own back, banning visitors but apart from that the old and the vulnerable are not being asked to self isolate or engage in social distancing, only those who have symptoms themselves are being told to se…
Where 'symptoms' includes 'a cough'; not just definitely-COVID-19 symptoms.
> [...] themselves are being told to self isolate, and not members of their households.
That's not true.
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How much does every day in lockdown hurt the economy? Flattening out the infection curve too much means increasing the economic harm by a much larger degree. Calling a lockdown a week too early, means continuing it a week extra on the other end or you risk a sudden, unmanageable peak. I don't envy any politician the decision, but pandering to panic and locking down too soon will cause a lot of harm too.
I'm somewhat puzzled about this doomed economy idea. Many businesses are doomed of course, but some opportunities arise: economy changes, it adapts to the environment. We've been building the perfect tool for this scenario during the last 25 years, if we manage to sustain the logistics the economy won't stop. Had this happened in the early 90s we'd have been in deep trouble.
Even putting aside the sick leave, which will happen either way.
It looks like to me just a comfort pill for the public. They basically acknowledged that they can't handle the crisis already. So what they gonna do? They want it to appear to be an advice from expert, to persuade the public, rationalize a forced decision. The uncomfortable truth is, the British government have weighted cost and benefit, and they have decided, the death of thousands or more is not worth the cost of n…
> the deaths of thousands or more More like a million deaths assuming 50% UK infected and 2% death rate.
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^^^ 2000% this, a large proportion can't change their ways, is not paying attention or simply doesn't care. It's shocking to still tonight walk past a packed pub on a Saturday night
Personally, I'm 30, have no contact with folks over 65, have no co-morbid conditions and so I have no reason to keep away from folks. I'm at zero risk. In fact if I get it now and develop an immunity, all the better. I have to assume the same is true of the folks at the pub -- otherwise it's them who are being irresponsible, not me.
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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.
There are quite a few difference. HK, Taiwan and Singapore all acted extremely early on, to the point where HK knew before the news broke out in China. And the culture allows you to wear mask, which seems to be something most western nation are completely against. Most part of Europe and UK reacted very late in the cycle. Since the Virus has an extremely long stable period before any symptoms appeared or to the point…
It’s certainly not easy, but it seems possible and it’s not clear this would be much worse on the economy in the long run. Plus it saves half a million lives, so it seems like a moral imperative to at least try.
This strategy is not insane only if there is also a concerted effort to protect those who are vulnerable while the virus spreads. The problem is there isn't one. At all. None. Zip. Zero. Some care homes are, off their own back, banning visitors but apart from that the old and the vulnerable are not being asked to self isolate or engage in social distancing, only those who have symptoms themselves are being told to se…
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I guess we'll see, won't we. I mean for all the panic about Wuhan, fewer than 3.2K people died there so far, and when it all winds down, the death toll will likely be below 5K people. Probably fewer than died of flu complications in the same time frame. Given that the vast majority of the cases are not acute, probably most of their metro population was exposed to the virus, which is tens of millions of people. I know…
I think you kinda missed the part where the UK is trying very hard to infect the majority of the population and China is trying very hard to stop more infections from taking place. Successfully it seems. > So no, there won't be "millions of deaths" or anything close to that I showed you some simple arithmetic, based on official figures from the UK government. Can you come up with better numbers or point out an obviou…
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Personally, I'm 30, have no contact with folks over 65, have no co-morbid conditions and so I have no reason to keep away from folks. I'm at zero risk. In fact if I get it now and develop an immunity, all the better. I have to assume the same is true of the folks at the pub -- otherwise it's them who are being irresponsible, not me.
Defense in depth is a thing. Your strategy is only as strong as the weakest link. Only one person between you and someone vulnerable.