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

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

#321

Post by lolc »

core-questions wrote: post #176
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't believe after 12 months this argument is still being made. You say shutting down the economy so casually, as if it has no impact on an infectious disease spreading during a pandemic. If there hadn't been any shutdown, it would lead to a tenfold increase in infections and an even higher than tenfold increase in death as hospitals will be completely overwhelmed and unable to provide normal healthcare. But if you…

My point is more like, 10x the number of people could be dying of COVID per day than are dying right now, and I would care about 10x more than I care about all those people who are dying of heart disease, which would still be an indescribably small amount of care, even with the multiplier. I am not making the argument that it's "just a flu", but I will make the argument that it's "just death". Death is. Only a shelte…

I understand you're saying that we wouldn't be in this situation if we didn't let the old getting infected. How do you suppose we could've "isolated every old folks' home" if everybody else had gotten infected?

But wait now, while you're deciding for them how they should live you're not accepting that they could also ask you to live differently during this pandemic. So when they take personal risk, like going grocery-shopping, and get infected, does that mean they have a lesser claim to a hospital bed than you, who wants to "make their own decision" about the risk of spreading the virus? Or do you accept the fact that an old fat guy might just block the ICU you could happen to need tomorrow?

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

#322

Post by lolc »

lordnacho wrote: post #264
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.

"Here's the game: whenever you wake up in the morning, you ask me whether the fortnight is over. And you count how many times I say no. Ok?"

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

#323

Post by lolc »

postalrat wrote: post #314
lolc wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are right now observing exponential spread of a virus. And we don't want to hit the natural end of exponential spread for this virus.

I've been hearing that for months. If coronavirus had a doubling time of 7 days we should be well over 1,000,000,000,000,000 cases by now. And you or nobody else knows what the natural end would be for this virus. A fast spreading variant could overall reduce deaths over the next 5 years.

The projected natural end of this pandemic would come within a year when the majority of the population got infected. As a society we've decided to not let this happen. Which is why the numbers diverge from your simplistic formula.

> A fast spreading variant could overall reduce deaths over the next 5 years.

What do you mean by this?

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

#324

Post by war1025 »

d1zzy wrote: post #310
war1025 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I didn't see anyone calling to shutter the economy when my dad was dying of cancer. Similarly, I didn't see any great outrage this summer when my uncle died of a heart attack. Death is tragic, but it's also a fact of life. A lot of people have fallen into the trap of making fear a virtue this year.

If "cancer" was this new disease that appeared in 2020 and it was highly contagious I'm pretty sure similar measures would have been taken. Or in other words, lockdown doesn't help combat the spread of cancer but it helps against airborne diseases. On the other hand, we haven't ignored cancer, AFAIK is one of the family of diseases that has most of the research funding going into (at least pre-2020) and it shows, the…

I was fully on board with lockdowns, etc. in the spring. We are long past the "novel and unknown" stage for Coronavirus.

Our schools opened in the fall and have been able to stay open. Everything I've heard about "remote learning" points to that being a huge blessing for the families in our state.

I am thankful every day that our state and local government has had the backbone to let people live their lives.

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

#325

Post by ldrndll »

malandrew wrote: post #289
ldrndll wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to cite any stats supporting your assertion that a maximum of 2% of the population would die? During periods where the healthcare system has been overloaded the mortality rates have been many multiples of that during times when healthcare is provided at an appropriate level. What’s more, do you have any reasonable figures to suggest why letting a percentage or more of the population die unnecessarily, consigning…

> During periods where the healthcare system has been overloaded the mortality rates have been many multiples of that during times when healthcare is provided at an appropriate level. If you ask people to cite statistics for their claims, you should also do so for your claims such as this one.

I think it’s appropriate to ask for stats for suggestions that run counter to accepted wisdom. That doesn’t put the onus on me to provide evidence of generally accepted facts. Suggesting that we should let the virus run wild through the population is contrary to guidance from the WHO, any number of national health organisations, etc. So no, I don’t feel the need to cite statistics for my position, as it’s not the novel one.

It is an axiom of healthcare that outcomes suffer in an overburdened healthcare system, and readily apparent why that is the case. That said, for those too lazy to look, here’s literally the top result for me when googling terms related to this: https://www.kabc.com/news/covid-19-mortality-rates-rise-as-h...

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

#326

Post by jtbayly »

xienze wrote: post #320
jtbayly wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

25 yards? Outside? Humans really are bad at evaluating risk, I guess.

But packing tens of thousands of people elbow to elbow outside while wearing a mask is perfectly fine.

Correction. It might be perfectly fine. It all depends on what they are protesting.

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

#327

Post by jlokier »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #319
jlokier wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the end, the entire human race will be exposed to SARS-COV-2. This statement is false. (With regard to any reasonable definition of exposure to the current virulent strains and assuming the vaccines do their job.) One major purpose of the vaccines is to cause R not be exposed to the virus ever in their lives. The other major purpose is for those humans who are exposed to it, to significantly reduce the chance of…

The epidemiology I saw near the beginning of the pandemic was fairly clear that even when R0 drops substantially below 1, the virus will be endemic to human existence. Sure, it's certainly up for debate (and the future) whether or not the rate will drop low enough that most humans escape exposure. That will depend on more than just R0 - we still don't know if the vaccines (any of them) prevent transference, and the e…

I read that too, when the epidemiologists were saying it could become endemic, but if it does, it's unlikely to be the current virulence, which is what counts when discussing deaths etc.

The evolution of viruses like this is they tend to mutate into milder strains as they become endemic. At that point the milder version may still cause excess deaths (like flu does, and unfortunately it would be in addition to flu deaths), but not at the same virulence.

But an endemic virus does not necessarily mean every human will be exposed to it. There are diseases which are almost but not quite eradicated by widespread vaccination, and keep going in clusters, surviving in pockets here and there.

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

#328

Post by ldrndll »

ldrndll wrote: post #191
polote wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the government should just let this run its course Isn't it just an opinion? I personally think that way. Why wouldn't I be allowed to think that?

That isn’t the full statement though, you omitted the part about it being just like the flu. I think if you believe that it should be allowed to run its course understanding what it entails then you’re either woefully ignorant or something of a sociopath (but that’s addressed in other comments below). However, believing it should run its course because it’s no worse than the rule is not just an opinion, it clearly ig…

I’d love to know why this is being downvoted. As other people have observed, there exist right now multiple, highly effective vaccines. To advocate for letting it run through the population, knowing it will likely kill at least 1% of the population, cause long term health care problems for countless more, and likely devastate the economy... the best option here is that you are ignorant of these facts.

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

#329

Post by labster »

penteract wrote: post #303
labster wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!”

Sorry to be pedantic, but you may be thinking of a group of Dwarves, not Calormenes. There was a Calormene at the end, but he did "see the light".

Nah, pedantry is fine, good sir. I need to reread those books, it’s been like a decade for me.

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

#330

Post by postalrat »

lolc wrote: post #323
postalrat wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been hearing that for months. If coronavirus had a doubling time of 7 days we should be well over 1,000,000,000,000,000 cases by now. And you or nobody else knows what the natural end would be for this virus. A fast spreading variant could overall reduce deaths over the next 5 years.

The projected natural end of this pandemic would come within a year when the majority of the population got infected. As a society we've decided to not let this happen. Which is why the numbers diverge from your simplistic formula. > A fast spreading variant could overall reduce deaths over the next 5 years. What do you mean by this?

> What do you mean by this?

Assume being infected from this variant grants some protection to future variants. If everyone was infected (or vaccinated) and protected then it would be difficult for the virus to spread and mutate.

A slower spreading virus would produce more mutations over time and its possible one of those mutations could be catastrophic (though unlikely). Not only do you have more mutations but you also have fewer people protected.

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