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London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

bloomberg.com

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Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#81

Post by LatteLazy »

iamben wrote: post #67
LatteLazy wrote: post #59

I live in London. The core issue here is that the government hasn't really taken any action. There are "rules" but they are full of loopholes and totally unenforced. 2 cases in particular stand out to me: Compliance with mask wearing on TFL is less than 50%. "Covid enforcement" officers walk around about one train in 50, and despite it being 8 months since this started, "I don't have one" is an acceptable answer to w…

Exactly my experiences in London. Crazy isn't it? I just don't think people even believe it's real. Half the people with a mask on TFL wear them over their chin or with their nose out anyway.

The uk always has this 2 levels of laws: laws that are passed and laws that are enforced. When a new law is passed people watch to see whether its enforced. This law is not enforced, so it goes in the same category as speed limits.

I remember the 2011 riots, courts were run 24h a day, sentences were extreme and people were tired and convicted the same day as the offense. That's very heavy handed. But that shows you the priority here.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-14487636

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#82

Post by qz2 »

LatteLazy wrote: post #81
iamben wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly my experiences in London. Crazy isn't it? I just don't think people even believe it's real. Half the people with a mask on TFL wear them over their chin or with their nose out anyway.

The uk always has this 2 levels of laws: laws that are passed and laws that are enforced. When a new law is passed people watch to see whether its enforced. This law is not enforced, so it goes in the same category as speed limits. I remember the 2011 riots, courts were run 24h a day, sentences were extreme and people were tired and convicted the same day as the offense. That's very heavy handed. But that shows you t…

This was also a bad solution. A high number of false positives.

Sensible legislation never rushed but forward thinking is the only option, not running kangaroo legal system suddenly.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#83

Post by spuz »

tux1968 wrote: post #78
spuz wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why is the new strain causing any problems at all if it behaves exactly like the existing strain? If it's true that the new strain is 70% more transmissible then that means more people will get sick before we can reach immunity thanks to a vaccine, hospitals will be overwhelmed sooner and more people will die.

While that's true, the issue being addressed is if the current vaccines would help at all even if we could deploy them instantly. It honestly seems like an open question, although apparently people are hopeful it'll work out that way.

Ah ok - sorry I misinterpreted.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#84

Post by [deleted] »

oxfordmale wrote: post #51
chimprich wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's old news, unfortunately. The latest data suggest that it is significantly more transmissible. "Up to" 70% more, according to the UK government's press conference. This is big. Luckily, it doesn't seem to be more dangerous in terms of hospital admissions. Statement from Chris Whitty, UK's chief medical advisor to the government: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/statement-from-chief-medi...

NERVTAG's early analysis suggests the new variant could increase R by 0.4 or greater. Although there is considerable uncertainty, it may be up to 70% more transmissible than the old variant.

[deleted]

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#85

Post by pmg102 »

qz2 wrote: post #72
leke wrote: post #69

“When the virus changes its method of attack we must change our method of defense,” What did I miss? How is this mutation attacking differently?

Until we actually hear evidence that it is, then it’s not. But we still have to sleep with one eye open.

He means as it is more transmissible (but yes, apparently by the same routes and mechanisms) we need to tighten restrictions.

A rhetorician would call these different "methods" of attack but you're right that in fact they're merely different degrees of the same method.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#86

Post by qz2 »

iamben wrote: post #67
LatteLazy wrote: post #59

I live in London. The core issue here is that the government hasn't really taken any action. There are "rules" but they are full of loopholes and totally unenforced. 2 cases in particular stand out to me: Compliance with mask wearing on TFL is less than 50%. "Covid enforcement" officers walk around about one train in 50, and despite it being 8 months since this started, "I don't have one" is an acceptable answer to w…

Exactly my experiences in London. Crazy isn't it? I just don't think people even believe it's real. Half the people with a mask on TFL wear them over their chin or with their nose out anyway.

The one that makes me laugh is the people who get on the bus and then put their mask on.

And the people outside the supermarket who grab the dirty spray bottle handled by 500 people already, clean their trolley handle but not their hands, then put the mask on their face handling it, then rub their eye and go shopping.

Humans stupid.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#87

Post by qz2 »

pmg102 wrote: post #85
qz2 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until we actually hear evidence that it is, then it’s not. But we still have to sleep with one eye open.

He means as it is more transmissible (but yes, apparently by the same routes and mechanisms) we need to tighten restrictions. A rhetorician would call these different "methods" of attack but you're right that in fact they're merely different degrees of the same method.

True and I certainly agree with that side of things.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#88

Post by rweir »

LatteLazy wrote: post #59

I live in London. The core issue here is that the government hasn't really taken any action. There are "rules" but they are full of loopholes and totally unenforced. 2 cases in particular stand out to me: Compliance with mask wearing on TFL is less than 50%. "Covid enforcement" officers walk around about one train in 50, and despite it being 8 months since this started, "I don't have one" is an acceptable answer to w…

> Compliance with mask wearing on TFL is less than 50%

where? my counter-anecdote is I've taken to counting everyone on the carriage I'm on (between zone 2 and 1), and it's never more than 2-3 people without a mask, something like 90-95% compliance (seems down from a few months ago, though). in supermarkets it seems higher than that, to the extent I was quite weirded out to see a single person not wearing a mask last week.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#89

Post by rhino369 »

LatteLazy wrote: post #59

I live in London. The core issue here is that the government hasn't really taken any action. There are "rules" but they are full of loopholes and totally unenforced. 2 cases in particular stand out to me: Compliance with mask wearing on TFL is less than 50%. "Covid enforcement" officers walk around about one train in 50, and despite it being 8 months since this started, "I don't have one" is an acceptable answer to w…

I'm pretty shocked staff in supermarket employees aren't required to wear masks in London.

But this isn't really true: "One staff member with covid will rapidly infect a few 1000 people given how busy they are on a Saturday morning.

Covid is pretty contagious, but you really need to be around someone for ~15 minutes to have a good chance of infecting them. Superspreading events can occur, but they are fairly rare.

I bet supermarkets aren't big transmission vectors.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#90

Post by pmg102 »

tux1968 wrote: post #44
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK government has stated that there is no evidence the vaccine will not be effective against this strain. And from the bmj: The new variant has mutations to the spike protein that the three leading vaccines are targeting. However, vaccines produce antibodies against many regions in the spike protein, so it’s unlikely that a single change would make the vaccine less effective. Over time, as more mutations occur, t…

That's not very reassuring, why is the new strain causing any problems at all if it behaves exactly like the existing strain? And if they haven't actually done any trials or testing, then they haven't really looked for any evidence. If they haven't looked for any, it seems rather too convenient to use the lack of evidence as a reason for hope that the current crop of vaccines provides any protection at all.

It behaves exactly the same, but faster (is the current working assumption based on limited research so far).

So the "problems" it is causing is just that EITHER more stringent restrictions of the same kind are required to contain it OR if uncontained healthcare will be overwhelmed more quickly.

So problems of degree not of kind.

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