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

361–370 of 391 posts

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

#361

Post by Taurenking »

pcurve wrote: post #219
polote wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now the number of free icu beds in hospital and number of death are the only kpi we look at to make decisions? It is crazy how people opinion like mine is fully ignored in Europe. today we tolerate flu deaths so that people can live freely, why shouldn't we tolerate covid deaths to live freely?

For every 1,000 diagnosed covid case, roughly 14-18 of them will eventually die. Rich or poor countries alike, that range has been consistent. Wouldn't you say that's rather staggeringly high number to simply let things run course?

in which universe is 0.018% a "staggeringly high number"

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

#362

Post by simonh »

fsdfgsfsdfsdfsd wrote: post #229
e40 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 should be more awareness about what is going on in hospitals all year round. Media hype can make everything extreme. And there are many theories to explain, for example NY morgues may have been overflowing because morgue owners were afraid to accept people who died from Covid. Is there actual evidence that people died because they couldn't receive care? Even in Italy I have not seen the evidence, just YouTube v…

So you won't accept video evidence given by named doctors at specific hospitals, thus easily checked by the media or anyone who has anything to do with the hospital.

What evidence would you accept?

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

#363

Post by jtbayly »

asdff wrote: post #343
jtbayly wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yeah you would be fine at six feet too. But if that person just stopped moving to check their phone, turned around and doubled back my direction and passing me on the narrow sidewalk, all kinds of reasons that they would quickly close in from a safe distance to within six feet of me, that wouldn't be too great. Easier to just throw on the mask sooner than wait till the last minute.

You’d still be spending such a tiny amount of time in close contact that it doesn’t matter. You can even look them in the eye and say a friendly “hello” as you walk by each other.

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

#364

Post by fsdfgsfsdfsdfsd »

simonh wrote: post #362
fsdfgsfsdfsdfsd wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be more awareness about what is going on in hospitals all year round. Media hype can make everything extreme. And there are many theories to explain, for example NY morgues may have been overflowing because morgue owners were afraid to accept people who died from Covid. Is there actual evidence that people died because they couldn't receive care? Even in Italy I have not seen the evidence, just YouTube v…

So you won't accept video evidence given by named doctors at specific hospitals, thus easily checked by the media or anyone who has anything to do with the hospital. What evidence would you accept?

Named doctors would be a start. Media doing some checking would also be a start. Some person looking like a doctor making claims on YouTube is not sufficient.

None of those reports citing the alleged doctor actually checked with the hospitals.

Maybe that should be the minimum: actually checking the situation, rather than repeating some random claims.

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

#365

Post by patrec »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #282
patrec wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 no…

> 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 it didn't seem to find much evidence for silently killing economic stress. Not the point I was making. I do not know which option will lead to less death, neither do you, neither do really the scientists…

> Not the point I was making. I do not know which option will lead to less death, neither do you,

What point were you making then? And yes, I think I do know which option will lead to less death, because I actually took the time to do some minimal research and the relevant information wasn't hard to find or terribly ambiguous. It's fine to have a contrarian opinion, based on some effort to ascertain facts and reason about them and we could then have a productive discussion on why our conclusions differ but from everything you said so far my current impression is that you made no such effort whatsoever.

> However, a full lockdown will lead to more economic loss at least in the short term than a voluntary lockdown. Long-term, as I said, I don't think any of us can say.

For some farcial definition of "short term" and "can't say" maybe, but for anything a sane person would care about (quarters or longer) we can just try to compare economic stats.

I mean to me it seems like the herd-immunity/corona-is-a-hoax/hands-off-response countries weren't doing that hot economically either:

https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/gdp

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp

https://tradingeconomics.com/brazil/gdp

vs

https://tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/gdp

https://tradingeconomics.com/south-korea/gdp

https://tradingeconomics.com/taiwan/gdp

https://tradingeconomics.com/china/gdp

> You are in lockdown until you fill in some sort of form with the government, waiving your rights to hospital care in the case of catching Corona. This list is used to make decisions. This part at least is implementable.

Why would anyone in their right mind sign such a form, no matter whether they intend to flout lockdown or not? Not without massive penalities. How would you enforce them?

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

#366

Post by tasuki »

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #221
alkonaut wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people in the video seem to just walk around outdoors and not very close to other people. That many people obviously will mean a risk that some of them go into stores, but if there is a reasonably safe thing to do outdoors (like a particularly nice street) it’s natural that this becomes extra popular when people want to find something to do outdoors.

Outdoors, especially in a humid night, is not a magical place where the virus is inactivated right at the mouth of the shedding individual. People being so close, people walking into air that someone recently exhaled—these are big opportunities for infection.

Can you quantify that? I've been under the impression that outdoors transmission was extremely rare and the vast majority of transmission was indoors. I've been meeting with people outdoors for walks thinking that was mostly safe. I've no sources unfortunately.

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

#367

Post by LeoNatan25 »

tasuki wrote: post #366
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outdoors, especially in a humid night, is not a magical place where the virus is inactivated right at the mouth of the shedding individual. People being so close, people walking into air that someone recently exhaled—these are big opportunities for infection.

Can you quantify that? I've been under the impression that outdoors transmission was extremely rare and the vast majority of transmission was indoors. I've been meeting with people outdoors for walks thinking that was mostly safe. I've no sources unfortunately.

Wind, UV light from the sun, wearing a mask—these all help, but it’s never 100%. From the research I’ve seen, it’s 20 to 1 safer. But as the virus becomes more transmissible, as well as different outdoor environments, the risk can fluctuate. Be careful. Mental health is important, but so is your physical health. Keep distance on your walks, and choose outdoor areas with a lot of air circulation.

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

#368

Post by jokethrowaway »

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…

I believe we should have let covid run its course whatever the cost. Not because I think it's a hoax but because the alternative violates the non aggression principle. Is freedom more important to me than 1% of the population dead? Sure.

I don't necessarily think the government is doing it on purpose and colluding with big businesses that are profiting from the situation, I think it's more likely that politicians are just incompetent (they need to save face with people who are pro and against a lockdown) and that big companies are better positioned and can push the government a bit to get what they want. As usual.

If you fear for you life isolate yourself. If you can't afford to isolate ask for charitable donations (even if the more preferred approach has been to just give taxpayers money, taken with force from everyone).

I isolated myself and my family 2 weeks before the government forced a lockdown on us, because there was no data and I was scared of the mortality rate. After seeing the mortality rate and the age range, I stopped caring but I started keeping a distance from old people. I still led a pretty isolated life for personal reasons - and wore my mask to avoid fines and to respect my social contract with society, which took this decision against my will.

I'm genuinely curious to see if the doomsday is going to arrive or not in 2-4 weeks time.

If it does, I hope it will crash the economy and that I'll make a profit or that house prices will go down (assuming I don't die, given my kids go to nursery and are probably spreading all kind of viruses).

If it doesn't, your argument won't look very good and you'll regret calling idiots those with a different opinion. And I guess there is still a chance of an economy crash, given the lockdown.

Maybe this will be a bit of a wakeup call.

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

#369

Post by war1025 »

markdown wrote: post #346
war1025 wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess without your dad and uncle, you have nobody old left that you care about. My 98 year old grandma was the first person in my family to catch the coronavirus. Since then I've an aunt and uncle both catch it. All three have recovered just fine, as have my five or six neighbors who also caught it, and nearly everyone in my broader community who has caught it. But yes, me and my cold dead heart killing old peopl…

> My 98 year old grandma was the first person in my family to catch the coronavirus. Since then I've an aunt and uncle both catch it. All three have recovered just fine There you go. All your old people are dead or immune. Yours are no longer threatened, so bugger everyone else. > without visitors for the past nine months and the whole place still caught the virus. That's not possible. Somebody with the virus had to…

> All your old people are dead or immune.

Well, there are 8 siblings on my dad's side and six on my mom's, so not really.

> That's not possible. Somebody with the virus had to to have visited in order for it to have spread.

Yup. The physical therapist.

> Did all the other grandmas in the nursing home survive as well?

I think when I asked maybe six people died.

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

#370

Post by cptskippy »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #347
cptskippy wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The word open is superfluous if that's the case. What's the meaning of the word open if not unoccupied or available? Of course that begs the question, why did they use open instead of unoccupied? If open is meant to mean bed that can be utilized, then we don't have a true number of beds or a reason why a bed would be closed. Either way it's confusing but generally the term open as the opposite of occupied…

You can disagree all you want you really are categorising these numbers incorrectly; the data as supplied lists the categories “open”, “occupied”, and “% of open beds occupied” - which seems pretty clear. There is inherently no “true number” of beds because this number varies in response to things like hospital space configuration, staffing levels, and demand. AFAIK the term “open” is analogous to that in “open for b…

> You can disagree all you want you really are categorising these numbers incorrectly; the data as supplied lists the categories “open”, “occupied”, and “% of open beds occupied” - which seems pretty clear.

I went back and looked and you're right. I didn't look at the XLS file, I just pulled the raw data from the CSV file which doesn't offer the %.

It's clear from the XLS that the % is derived from occupied/open and not occupied/(open+occupied) as I was thinking.

Post reply on HN