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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?

#151

Post by mnl »

mattmanser wrote: post #74
mnl wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it does, you don't wait a week to put out a fire, it gets worse. China has essentially contained it already. Maybe alternating lockdowns and releases we might be able to keep it manageable until there's a vaccine. This is not hard to model once there are a few cases in a population, again IMO.

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.

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

#152

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

simonh wrote: post #31

I’m going to try and lay out the case in as neutral terms as I can, although to be clear I think they are probably right. They’re going to take an awful lot of stick for it though, and indeed already are. They believe that there are basically two mitigation strategies. One is to have a very drastic early lockdown that shuts down the virus before it spreads widely. The problem with that is, once you lift the lockdown…

Why would operating as normal and mostly ignoring the problem cause a "slower initial burn"?

It won't. This is nonsense of the most obvious kind, because we're already past the stage where the virus is spreading quickly.

In fact the reverse is likely to be true. Lockdown minimises the number with the disease, but that number is not zero.

Which means that if immunity is possible (questionable for a CV, but let's pretend), immunity will spread wider and wider in each lockdown wave - and the health system won't be swamped.

This plays for time, raising the odds that a vaccine or some other treatment will appear.

Successive lockdowns will do exactly what they're supposed to do - spread out the peaks, minimise casualties over time, and minimise health system stress. (Although it will still be very high.)

What they won't do is keep businesses afloat. Mass bankruptcies are going to be a huge problem throughout the entire global economy.

Other countries understand this, and are stepping in with financial measures to help. Presumably the UK doesn't want to do this.

The tell is the fact that the government has plans to quarantine for four months - i.e. place under house arrest - over-70s who are infected. Without access to intensive care - it won't be available if the NHS is swamped - the mortality rate in this demographic is going to be higher than that of any other developed country. It could easily be twice the nominal 15% CFR for this demo in China.

It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the real plan is to cull the old and sick while pretending that's not happening.

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

#153

Post by SilkRoadie »

hanoz wrote: post #91

I think we (UK) are trying to be too cute about managing the curve, like we can ramp it up to the capacity line then slam on the brakes with the big measures at exactly the right time and keep it ticking along there nicely through the spring and summer and have this thing wrapped up by the end of the year. It could all go very badly wrong. I get the impression we're being overly influenced by a few gurus of behaviora…

I would be on board with the UK plan if it was more proactively protecting the at risk population.

Why aren’t large events stopped? I get one infected person won’t infect a whole stadium... the main thing for me is people from all over go to these large events and so there is a high risk of introducing the virus to new areas by having them.

There should be more testing and local alerting. It would keep people on their toes and help individuals be more aware of potential risk around them.

At risk groups should be making use of social distancing at a minimum.

Even with this it seems risky. That said I understand the approach and reasoning. The implementation - so far - seems half baked and risky as hell.

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

#154

Post by happierlook »

richk449 wrote: post #27
happierlook wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> through very little fault of his own https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/ Get out of here with this. We had expert teams and processes in place to combat the possibility of this exact thing and his administration fired them without any replacement. The virus existing is not his fault, but nearly all of the national consequences rest directly at his feet.

I worded it that way because I think that even if he had done everything right, his re-election would still be in trouble because of factors outside of his control.

The job is literally to be prepared for the future on behalf of the country. If you take active steps that make us less prepared for something and we therefore suffer greater consequences when it happens, I have a really hard time describing that as being something outside of your control.

Under normal circumstances, an exigent crisis such as war would make a President significantly more likely to be re-elected. He tried to start a war with Iran not long ago for this very reason.

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

#155

Post by arcticbull »

NullPrefix wrote: post #139
soVeryTired wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop it. This is bigger than Brexit.

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"

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

#156

Post by sgt101 »

cirrus-clouds wrote: post #135

Here is a discussion on Channel 4 on the approach taken by the UK government. https://youtu.be/C98FmoZVbjs?t=590 Debating are: - John Edmunds: a professor in the Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine - Tomas Pueyo: his modelling of the pandemic has gone viral on the web: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop... During the debate,…

Look at chart 7 of Pueyos article. He uses this chart to underpin his argument that the lockdown in Wuhan is the way to approach controlling the virus. But note, on that chart it shows that testing only became available to the Chinese authorities 9 days before the lockdown. In all other outbreaks (even the US one) there has been widespread testing - it's just not reasonable to make inferences from that situation to any of the others.

Pueyo doesn't understand the data, worse he has made no effort to understand the data (like actually reading the chart for a start). He's just a lad messing round with numbers.

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

#157

Post by boffinism »

simonh wrote: post #42
chippy wrote: post #12

https://twitter.com/AdamJKucharski/status/123882151552689766... appears to give a better explanation from the modellers. The aim is to flatten the curve, any herd immunity is a by-product but not the aim.

I think herd immunity is an integral part of the strategy. If a population never gets herd immunity, it will keep on getting infection breakouts and keep on having to impose lockdowns. The only way to stop doing lockdowns is either to prevent the ingress of the virus, ever, or eventually reach herd immunity. The virus is everywhere now, it’s part of the landscape, so preventing breakouts is just flat out not possible…

"Herd immunity is not part of our action plan, but is a natural by-product of an epidemic" - spokesperson for Department of Health and Social Care

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51892402

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

#158

Post by arcticbull »

aberoham wrote: post #129
throwaway936482 wrote: post #94

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…

^^^ 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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