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

291–300 of 391 posts

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

#291

Post by tomatocracy »

tin7in wrote: post #146

Although lockdown measures in the UK look very similar to measures in other European countries I can tell that there is very little police control, probably due to lack of resources. For example I don't know anyone who arrived from abroad being checked if they are self isolating at home as they declared.

Anecdotally compliance has actually been pretty high. And I think it's wrong to say there haven't been checks - I have a couple of friends have received visits or calls from the police to check they were in compliance with travel quarantine requirements.

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

#292

Post by d4mi3n »

azangru wrote: post #260
doovd wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will tolerate deaths until it becomes a loved one or yourself. At that point you'll realise that all you need to do is stop being an idiot and understand that with some restrictions we can significantly reduce deaths and at some point in the near future resume "free life". "It's crazy" how much people are willing to risk just because they can't be patient.

> You will tolerate deaths until it becomes a loved one or yourself. Couldn't you argue that a loved one may die because of the consequences of the lockdown? Undiagnosed cancer, depression, suicide, aftermath of the ruined economy? Is anyone keeping this tally?

Hard to get a diagnosis when the hospital is overrun with people dying in line, friend.

To the other points: yes, things will be hard. We can quantify how hard each approach will be.

In the case of a lockdown, there will be orders of magnitude fewer deaths.

A tally is being kept—all the numbers were run before a lockdown was even considered. The only reason this debate continues is because so many ignore the hard work medical administrations, public health departments, virologists, economists, and policy makers have already done.

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

#293

Post by lolc »

brendanmc6 wrote: post #84
lmilcin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are probably living in two different worlds. There is reality and there is the world you live in. In real world it is not the restrictions that save lives, it is people following them. If people ignore restrictions it doesn't matter whether they were or were not tightened. Actually, if people were sane we would not need restrictions. Everybody would wash their hands, avoid touching their face, wear their mask prop…

Following your nonsensical logic there would be no difference in covid cases between states or nations. Obviously this is not true. It is absolutely the government’s job to enact policy to slow the spread of deadly disease. It is also the job of governing leaders to encourage and educate citizens on how and why they should comply with these policies. This is where the USA is failing miserably. We could discuss the tr…

The specific argument was that people didn't change their behaviour enough. The inevitable consequence being more cases. Inevitable as in "can't change it anymore, the cases are rolling in."

I don't see how you arrived at your reading.

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

#294

Post by bluecalm »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #267
bluecalm wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah and it's still a value call with significant part of the population on both sides. It's easy to be for lockdowns when you're in privileged position in the society but if you talk to people not so fortunate when it comes to income, education and perspectives in life you will see why they are so often for letting the pandemic run it course. It's because lockdowns take the very little they had in their life be it work or ways to escape loneliness for just a while.

I am sick of this tone of superiority so often used here. It's so elitist and so out of touch.

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

#295

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #276
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations on totally missing the point. [ EDIT: the number I originally used for "requiring hospitalization" were way off. I've edited to reflect data from September provided by the CDC. The 20% -> ICU figure comes from the NYC experience in May, but seems roughly correct from other global hotspots ] Roughly 0.4% of those who catch COVID19 will require hospitalization. Of those, 20% will require ICU treatment.…

How is this comment getting down voted, the 20% and 20% they used might be a bit off but the overall message is solid

I've updated the first 20% with a more accurate number. Not sure why I got that so wrong.

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

#296

Post by frereubu »

smcl wrote: post #182
polote wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if we let the virus lives its life, maximum 2% of pop will die, 90 more % will live normally and a few percent will have covid related health issues. so we sacrifice a few percent of population for the future of the others

So by that calculation 1.32 million people (2% of 66 million) would die and we're supposed to NOT react strongly to people who hold that opinion?

To add to that, there would also be a large number of people suffering from long-term complications who may not be able to work and will need ongoing medical care.

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

#297

Post by [deleted] »

oxfordmale wrote: post #261
alimw wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

[deleted]

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

#298

Post by flak48 »

mfDjB wrote: post #57
lmilcin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are probably living in two different worlds. There is reality and there is the world you live in. In real world it is not the restrictions that save lives, it is people following them. If people ignore restrictions it doesn't matter whether they were or were not tightened. Actually, if people were sane we would not need restrictions. Everybody would wash their hands, avoid touching their face, wear their mask prop…

I am afraid I don't understand your point, are you saying London did in fact loosen it's lockdown over Christmas?

Rules kept getting stricter on paper but none were really enforced in the real world

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

#299

Post by SergeAx »

e40 wrote: post #54
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…

A colleague made the point that we need more pictures of overflowing morgues and ICUs and (like is happening in LA) people waiting in an ambulance for 7-8 hours (and some of those people dying because of it). Just like the US government banned (discouraged?) pictures of caskets coming back from war. These images need to be on the news and on news websites 24/7.

There is a comment not far away above from HN user who doesn't feel safe on a street without mask with other people closer than 25 feet. Imagine what those TV pictures of yours gonna make with people like that.

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

#300

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

Supermancho wrote: post #236
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations on totally missing the point. [ EDIT: the number I originally used for "requiring hospitalization" were way off. I've edited to reflect data from September provided by the CDC. The 20% -> ICU figure comes from the NYC experience in May, but seems roughly correct from other global hotspots ] Roughly 0.4% of those who catch COVID19 will require hospitalization. Of those, 20% will require ICU treatment.…

> Roughly 20% of those who catch COVID19 will require hospitalization. Where do you get this from? I do think, of those requiring hospitalization, there is somewhere around a <20% mortality rate (it seems to vary by region).

The number was very, very, very wrong. I've corrected it. My point remains intact, I think.
Post reply on HN