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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

#141

Post by randomsearch »

makomk wrote: post #127
dehrmann wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> South Korea You might want to check the news on South Korea. They're hitting daily records right now. This isn't to say they're at US levels, but with their current measures, they don't have control of the virus.

It's been bloody obvious for months that South Korea can't control Covid through test and trace alone without massive, economically-damaging social distancing and business closure measures - every time they lift them cases go up, and there's been a worrying increase in cases not linked to any previous known cases which implies an exponentially increasing pool of unknown infections entirely unimpacted by contact traci…

The British government is utterly incompetent. It’s tiresome to even list their many many major failures, but the app and PPE are two straightforward examples that could have been lifted from a political satire.

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

#142

Post by [deleted] »

tzs wrote: post #99
rhino369 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Covid is pretty contagious, but you really need to be around someone for ~15 minutes to have a good chance of infecting them ...if you are the only one around them who is infectious.

[deleted]

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

#143

Post by guenthert »

k0stas wrote: post #30
pmoriarty wrote: post #9

As has been pointed out in an earlier article about the "new strain"[1]: "Let's not be hysterical. It doesn't mean it's more transmissible or more infectious or dangerous." That there are new strains of COVID-19 has been covered over, and over, and over, and over again on the This Week in Virology podcast[2] (which usually has 4 to 6 virologists on it every week discussing COVID-19 news), and they've always had the s…

> but there is no evidence that these mutations Parroting NN Taleb: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Haven't we learned from coronavirus that we need to use the precautionary principle in the face of new information that is not fully understood. I don't know where you are from, but I locally heard a string of "there is no evidence of" starting in about January of 2019. There was no evidence that the vi…

> In any case, nobody can assert with absolute certainty that the coronavirus cannot mutate into a more severe or more transmissible virus, especially in the face of a the long human history of being (literally) plagued by mutating viruses.

Well, the coronavirus won't mutate into Ebola, if that's what you're afraid of. And viri as deadly as Ebola aren't particularly successful as they tend to kill their host before spreading sufficiently (HIV is quite nefarious in that respect and I'd think close to worst case).

Humankind is in no danger of extinction from this virus or any other known. The old and infirm need to take precautions, as well as those tending to them. The rest of us have other things to worry about. Stop the fear mongering.

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

#144

Post by js2 »

rhino369 wrote: post #89
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…

Or maybe just five minutes:

> If you just want the results: one person (Case B) infected two other people (case A and C) from a distance away of 6.5 meters (~21 feet) and 4.8m (~15 feet). Case B and case A overlapped for just five minutes at quite a distance away. These people were well beyond the current 6 feet / 2 meter guidelines of CDC and much further than the current 3 feet / one meter distance advocated by the WHO. And they still transmitted the virus.

https://zeynep.substack.com/p/small-data-big-implications

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

#145

Post by gnusty_gnurc »

lefrenchy wrote: post #126
rweir wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No other western country has actually been willing to do what NZ or Australia did - strict contact tracing, strict lockdowns, and a near-complete ban on entering the country, with those that do being picked up the police or military at their plane and driven to quarantine hotels where the doors lock from the outside. I don't know why everyone keeps going on about other countries not getting the same results - no othe…

In fact it’s worse, western nations have done the stupidest thing which is half measures. They’ve wrecked their own economies by taking measly half measures and not providing adequate relief. Wrecking people’s lives without actually achieving meaningful ends. At risk of being labelled “anti-lockdown” or whatever, i’ll clarify my point is we should have done MORE. Strict lockdowns, tracing, etc... AND providing direct…

Always be weary of the people that argue that because the experts failed, we need to be more oppressive.

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

#146

Post by 650REDHAIR »

dehrmann wrote: post #93
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…

Masks might slow it, but they're everywhere in the Bay Area, and cases are rising faster than ever, and we're setting new records for new cases, so "just wear a mask in public" isn't enough.

They aren’t everywhere in the Bay Area by a long shot. They aren’t even everywhere in SF...

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

#147

Post by djaychela »

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…

>Supermarkets continue to be rammed, but staff aren't required to wear masks.

I don't think this has been the case since September. Admittedly too late, IMO, but I think it has been the law since then.

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

#148

Post by LatteLazy »

djaychela wrote: post #147
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…

>Supermarkets continue to be rammed, but staff aren't required to wear masks. I don't think this has been the case since September. Admittedly too late, IMO, but I think it has been the law since then.

I was literally in Dagenham Morrisons 30 minutes, only 2 staff had masks, one was wearing his around his neck.

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

#149

Post by AlexCoventry »

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.

One Londoner I know told me he moved to North Africa to escape the social pressure to wear a mask.

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

#150

Post by randomsearch »

pjc50 wrote: post #116
gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is always said “if only we were more competent/oppressive/empathetic people - we’d have done fine” instead of perhaps wondering whether much of the mitigation efforts and their implementation are a fraught and possibly even net-negative exercise.

https://twitter.com/pati_gallardo/status/1340037836972699648 "How’s Sweden doing, you ask? More people have died of COVID-19 in the past 5 days than have died altogether in Norway throughout the entire pandemic. Tegnell still hasn’t been fired." (Sweden and Norway have similar populations, climate, and even language and culture, but very different COVID approaches)

Sweden’s population is double Norway’s.

It has denser and bigger cities.

Norway has had severe flu seasons, with high fatality rates that may have reduced the number of vulnerable people in the pop.

Cultural similarities are debatable; many in Sweden have complained about that outdated comparison.

Finally: minimising lives lost is not the only goal in a pandemic, or even in the day to day management of a country.

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