London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by DanielleMolloy » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

war1025 wrote: post #190

burkaman wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the argument is that masks are an essentially effortless tactic, and if people can't even bother to put them on and the government doesn't seem to care very much, then what hope is there for more effective measures? I don't live in the UK, just explaining how I read this comment.

> I think the argument is that masks are an essentially effortless tactic Masks are effortless, but there is also a lot of reason to believe they are not nearly as effective as was sold to people in the early summer. At some point we get into "just wear a crucifix to ward off the Devil" territory of superstition. Masks are obviously helpful at preventing transmission of some illnesses, but I've seen enough evidence t…

They obviously don't offer 100% protection. Though I've heard a nice analogy by Christian Drosten on the popular German coronavirus podcast:

Imagine you are standing close to someone at a party who starts talking to you. You immediately notice their bad breath (~aerosols). Now imagine they are wearing a mask, then imagine you both are. How much of the bad breath would you still notice in each case? That's the effect of masks.

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

#232

Post by DanBC » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 9:41 PM UTC

stefan_ wrote: post #193

DanBC wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The spike isn't just in London, but across the south east. https://twitter.com/Davewwest/status/1339918672811462657?s=2... https://twitter.com/avds/status/1340355825471287299?s=20 https://twitter.com/VictimOfMaths/status/1340010730687492096... This one shows high rates for Medway: https://twitter.com/RP131/status/1338158031067033601?s=20

You are just describing a map of population density. Shocker, infections rising in the south east?

No, it's not a map of population density. Rates are rising far faster in the South East than in other parts of England.

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

#233

Post by randomsearch » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 9:42 PM UTC

null_object wrote: post #208

randomsearch wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As you know if you’re Swedish, Expressen (a major newspaper here in Sweden) exploded these myths about the supposed demographic differences between Sweden and Norway by comparing the sparsely populated northern region of Sweden with its Nordic neighbors and it still had more than FIVE times the death rate.

The two countries are different, that was my point.

I'm not saying the Swedish approach is the most preferable, I'm saying cherry-picking Norway on some hand-wavy "all nordic countries are entirely alike wrt pandemics and you cannot compare them to other countries" manner is not scientific. And selecting one part of that country is not going to work unless you match on all important factors.

The rigorous way to do this is: form a list of parameters that affect the pandemic, and then match on a large pool of countries to compare outcomes. Calibrate your system. You can't just cherry pick either way. I can say - well, Sweden has similar pop densities to Germany, and Stockholm is denser than Berlin so Swedish should be worse. But that's not rigorous, it's just confirmation bias at work.

In truth, we'll only know the outcomes when the pandemic is over - probably by 2022 for most countries - and then it'll be an extended argument over whether it was worth say the economic damage, mental health consequences, etc. etc. for any actual reduction in excess deaths.

It's complicated.

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

#234

Post by Veen » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 9:42 PM UTC

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…

> One staff member with covid will rapidly infect a few 1000 people given how busy they are on a Saturday morning

That is an enormous over-exaggeration. It's a virus, not a magic spell. Plus, employees are not required to wear masks, but customers are.

> Time and again we see them decline scientific advice

Which scientific advice have they declined? So far as I can see, Boris is entirely under the influence of SAGE and does nothing without "scientific advice".

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

#235

Post by bmlzootown » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 9:43 PM UTC

dboreham wrote: post #163

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…

Wow. Here in deepest Republican middle America mask wearing by _staff_ in supermarkets is universal. Customers around 90% if you count "nose-slingers" as non compliant. Pretty much nobody just swanning around with no mask these days. Costco has heavy mask enforcement -- they will hunt down and eject anyone with their nose out. Where masks are not worn here is in smaller family owned businesses. Some have notices requ…

Not sure about other retailers, but the one I work for (300+ stores and still expanding) doesn't really allow us to enforce such mask mandates. Sure, we have a sign posted that says you need a mask, but it's an understood no-no to push any further than asking if they want one for fear of customer complaints to corporate. Because even when the customer is wrong, they're still "right" (which is utter garbage).

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

#236

Post by edh649 » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 9:46 PM UTC

throwii wrote: post #189

edh649 wrote: post #134

For those (like me) who are looking for some more details of this new strain, I found 2 papers from the `COVID-19 Genomics Consortium UK (CoG-UK)` of great interest. It seems like the prime reasons for concern are increased frequency of mutations, increased proportion of cases, and possible change in immune response > Several aspects of this cluster are noteworthy for epidemiological and biological reasons and we rep…

I've read that COVID-19 can sometimes be found inside the body even after testing negative for some time. This being a reason for continued weakness and impairment after infection. Could this possibly continued infection lead to faster mutation, or is the amount of people infected the cause for the rapid mutations, or something else?

It's suspected that this mutation arose from a single patient who had a long case of COVID-19. Here's an interesting pre-print study on an individual (not the one from this mutation) who harboured many mutations over a 101-day period. [https://www.cogconsortium.uk/news_item/persistent-sars-cov-2...]

In terms of this strain, the actual rate of mutation is higher (5.6E-4 nucleotide changes/site/year vs 5.3E-4) [https://virological.org/t/preliminary-genomic-characterisati...]

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

#237

Post by arpinum » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 9:46 PM UTC

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.

Was in Morrison’s last week, employees without masks chatting each other up

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

#238

Post by cameronh90 » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 9:48 PM UTC

rweir wrote: post #88

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…

It depends a lot on what time you take the train IME. At 8am it's nearly 100%, on a Friday evening it's closer to 20%.

And of course on the rare occasion a staff member challenges someone not wearing a mask, they claim they're exempt and don't have to provide any proof.

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

#239

Post by beaker52 » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 9:53 PM UTC

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…

Also a Londoner. Whilst I've observed greater mask compliance, shops, cafes, bars and restaurants have been packed. I've been to bars freely serving alcohol with no need to buy food, just like the old days. Definitely seeing rule breaking.

And I've had a friend who wanted to beat the travel restrictions by leaving London before midnight. That's rule beating.

I see it everywhere.

A PSA because it's important: I can promise future you would rather remember "dang, do you remember that shit Christmas we had to stay home?" over "dang, do you remember that shit Christmas that someone accidentally gave Mum covid and she died because we REALLY wanted Christmas with the family in the middle of a pandemic". It really isn't worth it. Not right now. Just be patient and wait.

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

#240

Post by wincy » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 9:53 PM UTC

bmlzootown wrote: post #235

dboreham wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Here in deepest Republican middle America mask wearing by _staff_ in supermarkets is universal. Customers around 90% if you count "nose-slingers" as non compliant. Pretty much nobody just swanning around with no mask these days. Costco has heavy mask enforcement -- they will hunt down and eject anyone with their nose out. Where masks are not worn here is in smaller family owned businesses. Some have notices requ…

Not sure about other retailers, but the one I work for (300+ stores and still expanding) doesn't really allow us to enforce such mask mandates. Sure, we have a sign posted that says you need a mask, but it's an understood no-no to push any further than asking if they want one for fear of customer complaints to corporate. Because even when the customer is wrong, they're still "right" (which is utter garbage).

I got chided at Costco for bringing in my five year old without a mask (she’d broken the straps on the ride there), even though the state mandate here is for ages above five. Costco employee said nope, in here anyone two and over needs a mask. So I had to impromptu tie up an adult mask’s ear straps to accommodate her, and go in with a lot of crying on her part because my first try was too tight.