Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

hsj.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 391 posts

Re: London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

#261

Post by oxfordmale »

alimw wrote: post #241
oxfordmale wrote: post #197

Looking at COVID models, the hospital admission peak is around the 10th of January UK wide. Cases have already started to level in London. Lockdown has been implemented too late to make any significant difference to that. Not the most reliable source, but confirmed by other sources which are unfortunately behind a paywall. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9115357/amp/Coronav...

> Cases have already started to level in London. Lockdown has been implemented too late to make any significant difference to that. This is a common claim and I have seen it made about various periods of lockdown in various countries. "Look, rate of increase started to slow within a week of lockdown, but it should take two weeks to see the effect, so it can't be that lockdown has made any difference." There is usuall…

I am not suggesting lockdowns do not work. Hospital peak was predicted to be around the 10th of January well before lockdown was announced and that has not shifted. Lockdown is undoubtedly going to change the shape of the curve after the peak has passed, but it didn't move the actual peak.

Re: London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

#262

Post by lazyasciiart »

labster wrote: post #49
jpxw wrote: post #33

And yet we still have idiots here in the UK saying things ranging from: * coronavirus is invented as a government power grab * the government locking down is a deliberate ploy to kill small businesses * the government should just let this run its course, it’s Just A Flu TM * hospitals are actually empty (the “proof” being people recording empty waiting rooms in outpatient departments on bank holiday weekends) * coron…

Or maybe these people will keep believing the lie, even after they die from COVID, like the Calormen at the end of CS Lewis’ The Last Battle. Everyone else will be in Heaven, and they’ll be all like, “Let me out of the hospital, corona is a lie!”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/11/17/south-...

Re: London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

#264

Post by lordnacho »

dfsegoat wrote: post #93

Ignorant US Guy here: I had to google to learn a 'Fortnight' is 14-days / 2 weeks.

Happened to me a couple of years ago:

Kid: Dad, what's Fortnite?

Me: Fourteen days

Kid: What? That makes no sense

Me: It's an old word that means two weeks

Kid: Okay I want to play it

Me: What? That makes no sense

Kid: I want to play it, what does it mean?

Me: It means two weeks. What do you mean you want to play it?

Kid: I want to play it. What does it mean?

etc, etc. Weird drive home until I went online.

Re: London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

#265

Post by anthilemoon »

lhnz wrote: post #46
mfDjB wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lockdown was tightened for Christmas. [1] 1: https://nypost.com/2020/12/20/londons-covid-19-christmas-loc... EDIT: It's weird that people don't believe me. Here is a BBC article talking about the Tier 4 lockdown that occurred right before Christmas: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-55380644 From the article: "Millions of people across England have been banned from meeting friends and family indoors ov…

Where I live in North London, there was a testing centre for people that were not showing any symptoms. Before Christmas (and after the Tier 4 restrictions were introduced) there was a huge queue of people without symptoms that were very interested in finding out whether they had Coronavirus. I found it quite strange, since if you were staying at home and had zero symptoms, why would they need a test? However, somebo…

I live in London but I went back to Paris where I'm from for Christmas. Here in Paris it was the norm: everyone got tested before driving to their families for Christmas. The days before Christmas there were white tents every couple of blocks where you could get tested without an appointment. You're probably right that's what lots of people in London did as well.

Re: London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

#266

Post by matz1 »

smcl wrote: post #257
matz1 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As supposed of advocating lockdown ? How many million of people would suffer from lockdown?

Really not sure how to perform that comparison. How do we equate one death vs one "suffer", and how do we count the "suffers" of people who take ill of covid in the free-for-all scenario? I think the ball is in your court on this one but, frankly, good luck

So not sure then do lockdown anyway?

Re: London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

#267

Post by lazyasciiart »

bluecalm wrote: post #119
simonbarker87 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re totally allowed to have that opinion and other people are totally allowed to think it’s idiotic, unless I’m missing you’re point?

Because it's a value judgement and one at least worth considering so it's not idiotic. I mean maybe the decision to lockdown for many many months is better but we are least need to try to estimate how many lives it saves in comparison to just letting it run and hope big the economic cost is.

Good news, we did.

Re: London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

#268

Post by patrec »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #217
patrec wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking only for myself, I think your opinion is idiotic based on some simple back of the envelope math I did many months ago (when the UK announced its herd immunity plan), relating to hospital capacity, likely peak case numbers, proportion of cases that would need hospital treatment or die and some simple minded guesses about knock-on effects for the rest of the health system. I have not bothered to redo these cal…

> So let me ask: on what basis did you arrive at your opinion? I will answer this, although more than likely my comment will get killed soon: I believe that the high-risk people (elderly, immuno-compromised, people with diseases that put them at risk) should go into voluntary quarantine if they wish, together with a government package to support them. Anyone who wishes to undergo lockdown can also do so, although wit…

> That said, it would mean the lowest amount of economic stress (which kills silently) for the following years

What makes you think so? Did you look at the life-expectancy impact of severe economic downturns and compare them to likely excess fatality figures due to your proposed policy? I suspect not, because last I looked for it I didn't seem to find much evidence for silently killing economic stress.

> This will not stop the ICU beds from filling up obviously,

That's a bit of a problem, because those ICU beds are also known to be useful for people suffering from urgent non-covid related problems. Even if you managed to turn away all the non-lockdowners (how would you even check? Police patrols tattooing people spotted on the street during voluntary lockdown?), you might still find that just the "legitimate" cases are enough to really mess up urgent health care for a lot of other people.

Re: London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

#269

Post by lazyasciiart »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #217
patrec wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking only for myself, I think your opinion is idiotic based on some simple back of the envelope math I did many months ago (when the UK announced its herd immunity plan), relating to hospital capacity, likely peak case numbers, proportion of cases that would need hospital treatment or die and some simple minded guesses about knock-on effects for the rest of the health system. I have not bothered to redo these cal…

> So let me ask: on what basis did you arrive at your opinion? I will answer this, although more than likely my comment will get killed soon: I believe that the high-risk people (elderly, immuno-compromised, people with diseases that put them at risk) should go into voluntary quarantine if they wish, together with a government package to support them. Anyone who wishes to undergo lockdown can also do so, although wit…

So you think we should pursue a strategy that is unimplementable in the real world? Doesn't sound very clever to me.

Re: London will be overwhelmed by Covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS briefing

#270

Post by postalrat »

jiggawatts wrote: post #9

If a mutant strain of COVID-19 becomes twice as deadly, this "merely" doubles the pressure on hospitals. A constant factor like this can be dealt with. However, an increased rate of spread (R factor) is a change in the parameter of the exponential curve, and cannot be dealt with by any sub-exponential response. The only thing that could possibly work is to change the factor. Rapid vaccination or lockdown. It's imposs…

Nothing in nature grows exponentially. If it did it would overwhelm the universe.

YC News is mostly a forum for software developers, which means most of us have a tendency to want to keep things simple. That's fine for simple thinks like operating systems or proving all problems in NP are also in P. But nature is on a completely different level.

Post reply on HN