Coronavirus - Global and National trends

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  • Merry Vole wrote: »
    exempt businesses include DIY stores, garden centres, off-licences, training for elite sportspersons, TV filming etc etc

    If you have a leaking pipe, failed water heater, or some other domestic emergency, you want the DIY stores to be open so that you can buy a replacement part. We'll agree that new shelves or a new fitted kitchen aren't essentials (although a new snow shovel might well be).

    There's also a big difference in the amount of contact you have with any other individual in a DIY store or garden centre, and a school. Schools, like office buildings, put people in much closer contact for much longer.

  • I keep reading on Twitter that secondary children have the highest rates of infection. Tracked it back to an ONS statement, suggesting 2% infection rate. If that is correct, schools have to close. No link.
  • Children will congregate whether they are in school or not. The average age of a teacher in the UK is around 40 -not the age of significant risk of dying of Covid. I don't believe the government cares enough about education that they will invest sufficiently so that children get a genuine chance to catch up the education they have missed already.
  • A lot of teachers are much older than 40 - especially the more experienced teachers, heads etc. And, with the pressure on keeping schools open with increased sick leave many will be delaying retirement or volunteering to come back in after retirement to help out (just as many retired health professionals did). It's also not just teachers, there are other staff in schools, and children going home can spread the virus to their families and households which can include more vulnerable people.

    The current reality is that the virus is as prevalent, if not more so, than it was in March while the health services enter the period when they're most stressed. There doesn't seem to be much of an argument that can be made against introducing restrictions similar to those introduced in March, including non-classroom learning where possible.
  • Resourcing hospitals on the time scale needed isn't possible. You can't magic thousands of nurses and doctors out of thin air (you can provide more beds, as the various conversions of conference centres into new facilities named after famous nurses has demonstrated, but they're useless if you don't have staff), and we can't go back ten years to reverse the under-investment and resourcing of the NHS of the last decade. Vaccination roll-out is going to be largely dependent upon the pharmaceutical companies ability to produce the vaccines (which will be needed by all nations, not just us) and it will take time to ramp up production.

    In the meantime, we have a new variant of the virus that's spreading much more rapidly (with no evidence that this causes less severe symptoms), and therefore we need to identify those places where the virus spreads most readily and do what we can to reduce that. We know that mixing of people in schools is a significant vector for transmission and therefore schools should be one of the places we need to look at to reduce transmission. It's impossible to have all pupils present and maintain social distancing (class rooms and other facilities are simply not big enough), therefore there needs to be significant reductions in the number of children in school at the same time. Of course, schooling needs to continue, and where distance learning is possible this should be pursued for at least part of the time; we could also look at extending school hours (but, this would need more teachers - and like nurses and doctors we can't just magic them out of thin air). The way to keep schools as safe as possible will probably need to be thought through more carefully rather than using a "one size fits all" approach; what might work for an urban primary school may be unsuitable for rural areas where children need to travel further, the first years of high school may be easier to manage than later years where end of school is closer and chances to catchup are reduced, and of course there needs to be plans already in place to allow for fair qualifications without exams in the summer (even if those exams take place there'll be so much variation in covid impact on schooling this year there's no way they'll be fair).

    Some hospitals are running low on oxygen ... and ... (ironically) they can't just pull that out of the air, either ...
  • Merry Vole wrote: »
    Children will congregate whether they are in school or not. The average age of a teacher in the UK is around 40 -not the age of significant risk of dying of Covid.

    I don't know if that's median or mean, but either way it means many 10s of thousands over 40, even assuming that none have diabetes, asthma, copd, suppressed immune systems etc.

    And no, by and large children will not congregate outside of school in anything like the same way they do in school. Outside of school you don't get 30 kids crammed shoulder to shoulder in a 20ft by 20ft badly ventilated room for hours every day, and mixing with 500+ others at break and lunch. 10 kids getting together to kick a football round the park is nowhere near in terms of risk, and in rural areas even that is unlikely to be happening.
  • Merry Vole wrote: »
    Children will congregate whether they are in school or not.

    Some will.

    Many won't.

    Those of "congregating age" are teenagers, and sure - some of them will hang out together, but plenty of them will hang out virtually, on discord or whatever else and keep themselves isolated. I could introduce you to any number of teens of my acquaintance who aren't congregating in person.

    And, of course, those that live with vulnerable grandparents etc. can choose not to hang out at the park with their mates - they can't choose not to attend school.

    The media shows us plenty of examples of teenagers and young adults behaving stupidly. It doesn't show us examples of what I think is the majority of teenagers and young adults behaving relatively sensibly.
  • I don't have fixed views and am being persuaded that schools are indeed a significant source of Covid spread. But I don't think enough of a case is being made for how children will be compensated for missed education
  • Merry Vole wrote: »
    I don't have fixed views and am being persuaded that schools are indeed a significant source of Covid spread. But I don't think enough of a case is being made for how children will be compensated for missed education

    Entire societies are being grossly disrupted by this pandemic, so I don't know how much "compensation" is possible for anyone ...
  • Merry Vole wrote: »
    But I don't think enough of a case is being made for how children will be compensated for missed education
    I think that's a fair observation. It's something that will require medium to long term planning - starting with how to assign fair grades for those completing GCSE/A-levels/Highers etc this summer. For some there'll be little lost education as they'll have been able to continue to learn at home (an ability that's a function of parental wealth and educational attainment, whether there's a suitable place to study at home with necessary IT systems and support from parents, the resources the school has, the aptitude of the student and the stage of school/subject, and I'll throw in other unknown factors to cover the bases). Others will have missed out on a year if they've been unable to learn at home and unable to regularly attend school (which could be particular needs to self-isolate, classes cancelled because someone tested positive or the teacher was ill etc). Most will be somewhere in between. To catch up we'll need to provide significant resources - so in the next few years we may look at an additional hour at the end of the school day (which will mean more work for teachers, coupled with increased pay for this extra work, and/or additional staff to pick up some of the admin load teachers have), we may need to pay for additional out of school tuition (especially for those who wouldn't normally afford that), we'll need a few years of revised curricula to recognise that students coming into a year will have covered less material (both at schools and college/university). And employers need to look at what kids have achieved recognising that those achievements were made in difficult times so that grades issued in the difficult years (2020, 2021 and probably a couple of years beyond) aren't viewed as substandard and a barrier to employment.

    This will need a plan for about five years, with additional spending to support it. Unfortunately, the current UK government hasn't exactly excelled at advance planning and properly resourcing things.

  • A headteacher I used to work for tweeted earlier that he had delivered the last of the donated and/or refurbished laptops to equip a single year of that secondary school with enough computers to be able to work online from home. However "17% of that year group are using devices that other family members need to use during the day as well".

    This is a school in a deprived area that worked very hard to provide learning through the first lockdown using worksheets and/or other physical ways of learning, including teacher preparation and marking. Nationally, any school that wasn't providing online learning in the first lockdown was hugely criticised, even though this school is not alone in knowing that online learning is inaccessible to many pupils. He remarked that "the digital divide is significant".

    Of the secondary age waifs and strays I have been youth working with this last year or so, I've seen very few stravaging around the streets, and have been reporting any groups I have to monitor the concerns as these young people out together unsupervised suggests neglect.

    The biggest gatherings I've seen are the clumps of kids on the way to and from school, and maundering through the High Street after school is out. Or slightly older teenage boys who usually hang out smoking various substances and playing with bikes.

    Several of those kids are using phones to access online work and coming into the youthwork facility to print out their homework to hand in, if it's not just submitted electronically.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
    Latest weekly update.

    Week ending 2 January

    Global:

    Total cases: 84,970,208 (prev. 80,711,457)
    New cases during the week: 4,258,751 (prev. 4,105,632)
    Daily Average: 608,393 (prev. 586,519)

    Total deaths: 1,843,106 (prev. 1,764,424)
    New deaths during the week: 78,682 (prev. 73,269)
    Daily Average: 11,240 (prev. 10,467)

    Europe:

    Total cases: 24,037,052 (prev. 22,561,359)
    New cases during the week: 1,475,693 (prev. 1,416,744)
    Daily Average: 210,813 (prev. 202,392)

    Total deaths: 550,454 (prev. 518,735)
    New deaths during the week: 31,719 (prev. 29,680)
    Daily average: 4,531 (prev. 4,240)

    USA:

    Total cases: 20,904,853 (prev. 19,433,847)
    New cases during the week: 1,471,006 (prev. 1,355,838)
    Daily Average: (prev. 193,691)

    Total deaths: 358,685 (prev. 339,921)
    New deaths during the week: 18,764 (prev. 16,517)
    Daily Average: 2,681 (prev. 2,360)

    Europe, with about a tenth of the global population, accounted for 35% of the global new cases and 40% of the global deaths during the week.

    The USA, with less than 5% of the global population, accounted for 35% of the global new cases and 24% of the global deaths during the week.

    At the macro level, therefore, things continue to be very grim.
  • There is massively increasing unemployment, there’s basically no economic advantage to qualifying as quickly as possible.

    I said before and I’ll say again, that I think it would take a huge amount of pressure off kids, families and teachers if we accepted that they’d need to stay in school an additional period (and ideally increased school starting age by at least a year to facilitate this). This would give everyone a much longer catch up period and avoid retconning exams.

    Likewise university students and their lecturers.
  • Marvin the MartianMarvin the Martian Admin Emeritus
    Ethne Alba wrote: »
    Maybe All sceptics secretly want their elders to die

    Or maybe they realise that (relatively) imminent death is an integral part of being an elder in the first place, and changing the timing of that death by a year or so isn’t worth completely buggering up the lives of everyone else.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited January 4
    Ethne Alba wrote: »
    Maybe All sceptics secretly want their elders to die

    Or maybe they realise that (relatively) imminent death is an integral part of being an elder in the first place, and changing the timing of that death by a year or so isn’t worth completely buggering up the lives of everyone else.

    And once again you forget the pressure on the NHS dealing with people suffering from Covid. The only way we can avoid Covid "buggering up the lives of everyone else" is not to actually admit anyone suffering from Covid to hospital and to leave them to take their chances at home, and if they die, they die. Because what you call "buggering up the lives of everyone else" is what I call "preventing numbers of infections becoming so high that we will indeed be just leaving people to die."
  • Ethne Alba wrote: »
    Maybe All sceptics secretly want their elders to die

    Or maybe they realise that (relatively) imminent death is an integral part of being an elder in the first place, and changing the timing of that death by a year or so isn’t worth completely buggering up the lives of everyone else.

    Eugenics much ?
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    edited January 4
    Ethne Alba wrote: »
    Maybe All sceptics secretly want their elders to die

    Or maybe they realise that (relatively) imminent death is an integral part of being an elder in the first place, and changing the timing of that death by a year or so isn’t worth completely buggering up the lives of everyone else.

    Until you or a loved one is the elder involved. I’m just very relieved my parents and in-laws are no longer around to suffer this. When they died we were with them, holding their hands and making sure they were comfortable and knew they were loved. My Dad died of pneumonia - and to think of the same thing happening to him alone is awful. I feel for everyone in this terrible situation.

    It’s also a myth that only the old are affected. My friend (36) has suffered terrible Long Covid for months now. He was healthy - a triathlete - before he caught Covid19. He’s still not back to work.

    Next problem - overwhelmed hospitals mean if you or a child of yours get sepsis there won’t be the beds or nurses to treat it - and sepsis needs instant attention, not five hours in an ambulance.

    I think all schools should be closed as long as it takes, hopefully just a few weeks. This generation of kids will cope and will catch up. In this instance, hospitals come first.

  • Ethne Alba wrote: »
    Maybe All sceptics secretly want their elders to die

    Or maybe they realise that (relatively) imminent death is an integral part of being an elder in the first place, and changing the timing of that death by a year or so isn’t worth completely buggering up the lives of everyone else.
    Or, in many cases 10, 15, 20 years or more. I'm of an age where if I get infected by this virus that the chances of developing life-threatening symptoms are definitely non-zero (of course, no one has zero chances of not developing life-threatening symptoms). I'm definitely of the opinion that a few more months of inconvenience and paying a bit more in tax to invest in the recovery we need is worth seeing my children go to university (if they wish), get married, give me grand children and all the rest of the future I look forward to.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited January 4
    Ethne Alba wrote: »
    Maybe All sceptics secretly want their elders to die

    Or maybe they realise that (relatively) imminent death is an integral part of being an elder in the first place, and changing the timing of that death by a year or so isn’t worth completely buggering up the lives of everyone else.
    Or, in many cases 10, 15, 20 years or more. I'm of an age where if I get infected by this virus that the chances of developing life-threatening symptoms are definitely non-zero (of course, no one has zero chances of not developing life-threatening symptoms). I'm definitely of the opinion that a few more months of inconvenience and paying a bit more in tax to invest in the recovery we need is worth seeing my children go to university (if they wish), get married, give me grand children and all the rest of the future I look forward to.

    Me too. I also risk passing it onto Mrs KarlT, who could then infect patients at work. We have a big enough problem with hospital acquired Covid as it is. But then most of her patients are old and a lot of them have life limiting conditions, so fuck 'em. They can die.
  • I'm old, and have life-limiting conditions. Maybe I should pre-empt things, and just fuck off and top myself. Will that help, Marvin?
    :rage:
  • HelenEvaHelenEva Shipmate
    I'm old, and have life-limiting conditions. Maybe I should pre-empt things, and just fuck off and top myself. Will that help, Marvin?
    :rage:

    One serious answer is that I hope and trust you will not even think of such a thing (yes, I know it's rhetoric, but even so). Another serious answer is that part of a pandemic is (sadly) the increased pressure on the funeral industry and collective [insert euphemism here] would actually generate a huge lot of problems. So please let's all try to stay alive.
  • HelenEva wrote: »
    I'm old, and have life-limiting conditions. Maybe I should pre-empt things, and just fuck off and top myself. Will that help, Marvin?
    :rage:

    One serious answer is that I hope and trust you will not even think of such a thing (yes, I know it's rhetoric, but even so). Another serious answer is that part of a pandemic is (sadly) the increased pressure on the funeral industry and collective [insert euphemism here] would actually generate a huge lot of problems. So please let's all try to stay alive.

    Yes, it was rhetorical, but I am tired of Marvin's apparent desire (and I say apparent, because I doubt if it is actual) to dispense with the old, sick, and useless, so that the young, fit, and (presumably) useful can get on with their lives.

    If that is a misrepresentation of Marvin's view, then I apologise.

  • Marvin the MartianMarvin the Martian Admin Emeritus
    My chief point is that there is such a thing as an acceptable level of deaths. There is for everything, from the flu to driving motor vehicles.

    Once that is accepted, the response to covid becomes not a matter of saving every life we possibly can regardless of the costs to everyone else, but of balancing costs and benefits. Lockdown is causing serious hardship to many, and the economic and social impact of losing so many businesses, livelihoods, services etc. will be felt for years (even decades) to come. Additionally, the disruption to education and the impact on socialisation that comes with being barred from seeing friends/families for so long may well negatively affect this generation of children for the rest of their lives. There are tens of millions of people in the UK who will on average live for several more decades, and on the other side of the scale are a few million people who will on average live for a few more years.

    I take no pleasure in saying this. But at some point the needs of the many do still outweigh the needs of the few. Quality of life is at least as important - if not more important - than quantity. And it's not like anybody lives forever anyway.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited January 4
    There is an opinion piece in today's Guardian which may be of interest:
    https://theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/29/covid-theory-dangerous-health

    It has some bearing on the point Marvin is making.
  • My chief point is that there is such a thing as an acceptable level of deaths. There is for everything, from the flu to driving motor vehicles.

    Once that is accepted, the response to covid becomes not a matter of saving every life we possibly can regardless of the costs to everyone else, but of balancing costs and benefits. Lockdown is causing serious hardship to many, and the economic and social impact of losing so many businesses, livelihoods, services etc. will be felt for years (even decades) to come. Additionally, the disruption to education and the impact on socialisation that comes with being barred from seeing friends/families for so long may well negatively affect this generation of children for the rest of their lives. There are tens of millions of people in the UK who will on average live for several more decades, and on the other side of the scale are a few million people who will on average live for a few more years.

    I take no pleasure in saying this. But at some point the needs of the many do still outweigh the needs of the few. Quality of life is at least as important - if not more important - than quantity. And it's not like anybody lives forever anyway.

    Ok, so what is your acceptable death rate to avoid lockdown? Say we're looking at 6 months before vaccines can push R below one without other restrictions, what sort of death toll will you accept? Right now, with fairly tight restrictions, it's still close to 500 a day. That's another 90 000 by 1st July with measures similar to now. Where is your limit? 200 000? 900 000? Remember that without lockdown nobody is going to be getting treated for anything because hospitals will be overwhelmed. What do you think will be the impact of thousands of people with treatable conditions being marked with a permanent marker on the forehead and left to die because we haven't the staff to treat them? How many doctors and nurses will be left permanently traumatised? How many children will lose a parent? How many pupils a teacher? How many people a colleague or friend?
  • This.
  • chrisstileschrisstiles Shipmate
    edited January 4
    Lockdown is causing serious hardship to many, and the economic and social impact of losing so many businesses, livelihoods, services etc. will be felt for years (even decades) to come.

    The UK economy is highly dependent on activites classed as "social consumption", you are assuming the economic hit caused by extra deaths (in the thousands per day) under a looser regime would be smaller than the hit currently being experienced. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that this may not be the case (even Mckinsey seem to be coming around to this point of view).

    Besides; shutting things down with a vaccine being rolled out is different from a scenario of shutting things down with no end in sight. There is a strong argument for bringing infection spread down now because it doesn't simply mean shifting deaths down the road by a few months, it means preventing those deaths altogether.
  • Marvin the MartianMarvin the Martian Admin Emeritus
    Ok, so what is your acceptable death rate to avoid lockdown?

    What's your acceptable level of unemployment to avoid deaths? How bad are you willing to let the economy get? How many people should be left in poverty because their employer has gone bankrupt? How many lives should be left empty because the things they used to enjoy doing are no longer possible? How many places of worship should have to close because without the collection plate being passed around they literally can't even afford to keep the roof on? What about the health impacts of people being forced to sit around in their homes all the time rather than being able to play sports? The cultural impact of having no museums, theaters or concerts? The social impact of losing cafes, restaurants, pubs and clubs?

    Is none of that important? Is it all an acceptable price to pay for postponing a few hundred thousand deaths for a few years? Is that not a question that can even be asked?
  • Ok, so what is your acceptable death rate to avoid lockdown?

    What's your acceptable level of unemployment to avoid deaths? How bad are you willing to let the economy get?

    So how about you start by quantifying the difference (since that is essentially the question you are asking).
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    It’s a question which should not be asked.

    It isn’t a cost/benefit equation. You can’t possibly calculate the cost or the benefits of choosing some to be left to die. Nobody should be given that burden. Not doctors, nurses, lawyers or relatives - nobody.

    We need to protect the NHS in order to protect all patients - whatever it takes.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    You have still not addressed the NHS burden. Do you propose that Covid patients not be treated and be allowed to die "acceptable deaths", or do you accept that getting treatment on the NHS may be very difficult for everyone because of a lack of resources.

    And do you factor in that 100s of thousands of Covid deaths corresponds to millions of people with long term effects which may negatively impact their ability to function econonically for years to come?
  • Boogie wrote: »
    It’s a question which should not be asked.

    It isn’t a cost/benefit equation.

    My point is that Marvin isn't even making that argument; he's starting with an emotive argument, switching to invoke an economic one, but never actually making the case.
  • There might come a time when people who are seriously ill with Covid-19 may themselves actually ask to be left to die, to reduce the burden on medical staff, and to free up beds, oxygen supplies, and other resources.

    Please God it doesn't happen.
  • Marvin the MartianMarvin the Martian Admin Emeritus
    Lockdown is causing serious hardship to many, and the economic and social impact of losing so many businesses, livelihoods, services etc. will be felt for years (even decades) to come.

    The UK economy is highly dependent on activites classed as "social consumption", you are assuming the economic hit caused by extra deaths (in the thousands per day) under a looser regime would be smaller than the hit currently being experienced.

    The hit currently being experienced is total. A business that averaged 10,000 customers per day pre-pandemic is still going to be better off with 5,000 than with 0.
    There is a strong argument for bringing infection spread down now because it doesn't simply mean shifting deaths down the road by a few months, it means preventing those deaths altogether.

    Wrong. All it does is change how far down the road those deaths are shifted. Everybody dies eventually.

    I'd wager that since March 2020 a significant percentage of the extremely covid-vulnerable who have been successfully protected from covid have died anyway due to the thing that made them vulnerable, and that a similar percentage of those who did die of covid would have died anyway by now as well.
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    @Marvin the Martian I think you're missing something. Most governments are already working on the basis of an acceptable level of death. One of the main factors driving political decision is the level of infection that health services can deal with before they collapse.

    Over 70000 of your country people have already died. That is the level of death the British government has deemed acceptable AFAICT. If they want to shut down now, it's because the point at which the NHS collapses is getting too close.
  • There might come a time when people who are seriously ill with Covid-19 may themselves actually ask to be left to die, to reduce the burden on medical staff, and to free up beds, oxygen supplies, and other resources.

    Please God it doesn't happen.
    If that happens, then that should be the choice of those individuals. It's not a decision the government should make on their behalf.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    I'm hoping that Marvin is going to address the question of NHS being overwhelmed, rather than focus on raw numbers of deaths as if every Covid case existed in isolation and had binary outcomes of death or recovery with no effect on anything or anyone else.
  • Marvin the MartianMarvin the Martian Admin Emeritus
    Boogie wrote: »
    You can’t possibly calculate the cost or the benefits of choosing some to be left to die.

    But we do, all the time.

    We accept that there will be thousands of deaths in traffic accidents even though we could prevent every single one of them by simply banning all motorised transport, because the economic benefits of allowing motorised transport are so much greater. We don't go into full lockdown every single winter even though doing so would save many lives lost to flu and other illnesses. We could prevent any pandemics from ever entering the UK in the first place by permanently closing the borders, but we won't.
  • Marvin the MartianMarvin the Martian Admin Emeritus
    KarlLB wrote: »
    I'm hoping that Marvin is going to address the question of NHS being overwhelmed

    That's the best argument for lockdown, and I agree that the curve needs to be flattened to a manageable level. But most people here aren't advocating the minimum restrictions that are absolutely necessary in order to achieve it, they're arguing for everything to be done to prevent every death that can possibly be prevented.
  • AnselminaAnselmina Shipmate
    My chief point is that there is such a thing as an acceptable level of deaths. There is for everything, from the flu to driving motor vehicles.

    Once that is accepted, the response to covid becomes not a matter of saving every life we possibly can regardless of the costs to everyone else, but of balancing costs and benefits. Lockdown is causing serious hardship to many, and the economic and social impact of losing so many businesses, livelihoods, services etc. will be felt for years (even decades) to come. Additionally, the disruption to education and the impact on socialisation that comes with being barred from seeing friends/families for so long may well negatively affect this generation of children for the rest of their lives. There are tens of millions of people in the UK who will on average live for several more decades, and on the other side of the scale are a few million people who will on average live for a few more years.

    I take no pleasure in saying this. But at some point the needs of the many do still outweigh the needs of the few. Quality of life is at least as important - if not more important - than quantity. And it's not like anybody lives forever anyway.

    I seriously believe you couldn't be more wrong if you were Mr Wrong, of Wrongville studying for your Degree in Wrongology at the University of Wrongfulness (apologies to Blackadder)! To begin with the current situation isn't even about 'saving every life.... regardless of the costs to everyone else'. That's a straw man. There clearly IS already a balancing of benefits and costs going on, and that is very clearly reflected in the interesting curves of those colourful Blue Peter charts we get presented with at every briefing, as we lurch experimentally from one attempt at controlling the contagion to another.

    You appear to have excluded all those of pensionable age from your more valued category of 'the many'. But your assertion that 'the needs of the many outweigh those of the few' necessitates a lot more than consigning the frail elderly to an earlier grave. Eg, the NHS spends huge amounts of money on tiny numbers of patients eg, children with rare terminal cancers (sometimes as few as two or three in the whole of the UK). Geriatric medicine is a colossally useful and effective arm of NHS activity, both financially and medically, compared to the eye-wateringly expensive niche specialisms currently keeping barely a handful of children alive who are almost certainly going to die before they reach their teens anyway. Your ideology necessarily throws them onto your bonfire of 'the few' to be disposed of, so that 'the many' may enjoy more hospitals, clinics and free medications.

    Or were you only speaking of this pandemic? And if so, why only of this situation? A principle is a principle, isn't it?

    Dispensable also must be incurables of any age, for they, too, are 'the few', and according to you 'the few' must give way to 'the many'. And presumably, 'the few' must also include those who are judged as being unable to function successfully or qualitatively in living a life.

    So, as it turns out 'the few', collectively speaking are a very significant proportion of 'the many'. And at any stage the young, apparently fit and 'worthwhile' person one loves and lives with, gave birth to, married etc, might find themselves labelled as the next 'few' who should be prepared to be sacrificed and consigned to earlier deaths.

    The severity of this plague is not just about the deaths and the effects on people's lives, mental health, economy etc. It's also because we can't control it in the usual ways humans are used to controlling their environments. We're not in charge. And as the supposedly superior species on the planet, we're just not used to that. We're like Trump trying to find his extra 11,000 votes, when in fact the election has already been won by somebody else. We don't like it, we can't believe it and our own reactions indicate we're still thinking 'if only we can appease the gods with blood sacrifice it'll somehow get go away'. It won't.

    I'm not saying all lockdowns, restrictions etc have been applied wisely, evenly or fairly. Given the situation, I don't know how that would even be possible. I recognize the Government's attempts at balancing costs and effects with life-saving measures. But it is dangerous fallacy to think that somehow this is a solvable situation if only we could be brave and pragmatic enough to effectively step back and let the elderly die.

  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited January 4
    KarlLB wrote: »
    I'm hoping that Marvin is going to address the question of NHS being overwhelmed

    That's the best argument for lockdown, and I agree that the curve needs to be flattened to a manageable level. But most people here aren't advocating the minimum restrictions that are absolutely necessary in order to achieve it, they're arguing for everything to be done to prevent every death that can possibly be prevented.

    I'm not sure they are, but at the moment numbers are rapidly heading into unmanageable territory, and the gap between "measures needed to make it manageable" and "actually achievable measures to avoid every death which can be avoided" is fag-paper thin.

    And even then you've got the long term complications of Covid which appear to have an incidence at least an order of magnitude higher than the deaths.

    We've got people on board now who've "recovered".
  • There is a strong argument for bringing infection spread down now because it doesn't simply mean shifting deaths down the road by a few months, it means preventing those deaths altogether.

    Wrong. All it does is change how far down the road those deaths are shifted. Everybody dies eventually.

    This is both trivially true and in the context of your overall argument incoherent. In one case you want us to consider lost outcomes ("What about the health impacts of people being forced to sit around in their homes all the time rather than being able to play sports?") and in the other case you clearly don't ("All it does is change how far down the road those deaths are shifted.").
    Lockdown is causing serious hardship to many, and the economic and social impact of losing so many businesses, livelihoods, services etc. will be felt for years (even decades) to come.

    The UK economy is highly dependent on activites classed as "social consumption", you are assuming the economic hit caused by extra deaths (in the thousands per day) under a looser regime would be smaller than the hit currently being experienced.

    The hit currently being experienced is total. A business that averaged 10,000 customers per day pre-pandemic is still going to be better off with 5,000 than with 0.

    Ignoring the fact that a reasonable number of businesses continue to operate, and that many business models will be built to be viable based on pre-Covid projections for customer numbers; you also have to compare the current loss between now at the point at which vaccination has given the country herd immunity vs a greater loss that will extend past that point.

    In any case in the context of the cost to the entire economy over time (which is what you wanted us to consider) the fate of an individual business is a cipher. So I ask again, where are your figures for total cost to the economy, because the economists that are doing the sums seem to land at a different place than you do.
  • A business that averaged 10,000 customers per day pre-pandemic is still going to be better off with 5,000 than with 0.
    A lot of businesses, especially hospitality would go out of business immediately if business was cut by 50%, businesses tend to operate on marginal conditions (that's market economics ... if they were operating such that they'll walk through a 10% cut in business then a competitor could provide the same service at 10% less cost). Business long-term survival (at least at pre-pandemic levels of service) is probably more likely if they shut down completely with suitable government support than if they remain open without support with a few % of their customers dead or too sick to use their services.
    There is a strong argument for bringing infection spread down now because it doesn't simply mean shifting deaths down the road by a few months, it means preventing those deaths altogether.

    Wrong. All it does is change how far down the road those deaths are shifted. Everybody dies eventually.
    OK, everyone dies eventually. Let's just stop treating people who get sick and let them die. Forget about vaccines to protect people from measles or smallpox, let alone coronavirus. Let's not bother with hospitals and doctors surgeries and let those medical professionals retrain as labourers to gather the crops in our fields. Or do you not really believe that and consider that treating the sick so that they can recover from treatable illnesses, and preventing them from getting sick, is a good thing ... just that for some reason you're suggesting that there's an exception to that for one particular disease.
    I'd wager that since March 2020 a significant percentage of the extremely covid-vulnerable who have been successfully protected from covid have died anyway due to the thing that made them vulnerable, and that a similar percentage of those who did die of covid would have died anyway by now as well.
    At present, excess deaths in the UK run at about 75,000 - that's 75,000 people who have died who wouldn't have done so in a normal year; 75,000 people who would not have died anyway by now.

  • Apologies for starting this
    But
    @Marvin the Martian is not alone in his views.

    Personally I do not share MtM S opinions but I Do believe that many people in the UK do.

    There can be no other reason for Lots of people’s behaviour.
    So Here Marvin Is almost alone in his views. Outside? Many think the same way
  • If I were not so old, ill (with two life-limiting conditions), and useless, I'd call Marvin to Hell, but I can't be arsed.
    :disappointed:

    If anyone else does like to do so, I might totter downstairs to munch a few peanuts.
    :naughty:
  • Thing is.... global pandemic + upheaval of our daily lives + governments across the world quite understandably not really knowing how to lead in this situation + scientists and medics on catch up and learning new things every day= a degree of anxiety.
    Everything we know is changed.

    Some people can cope with this.

    Some people can’t.
    And I certainly do not underestimate the level of serious fear this causes.

    I DO think that all of our governments and our media need to step up and help cool matters
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
    At 78 I declare an interest. The limiting factor is the ability of the Health Service to cope. Trained staff cannot be replaced easily in the short term and our current NHS service is creaking because of years of underinvestment.

    The simple fact is that if we had a better equipped and resourced and staffed NHS it would be possible to have a risk management policy under which more people would fall seriously sick and/or die as a cost of some increase in economic activity. So there’s a paradox. The more resilient the Health Service, the less protective of the vulnerable the policy needs to be.

    And of course there is a certain irony in that for those influenced more by economic considerations. We haven’t invested enough historically in Health Service infrastructure so we can’t afford to go very far down the balancing road Marvin is suggesting. Penny wise, pound foolish.
  • Scotland going into full lockdown, Boris on telly at 8pm, so I guess similar.
  • Maybe, but Boris will probably call it Tier 4.5 or something...still, more blasted and ruined lives...
  • Ok, so what is your acceptable death rate to avoid lockdown?

    What's your acceptable level of unemployment to avoid deaths? How bad are you willing to let the economy get? How many people should be left in poverty because their employer has gone bankrupt? How many lives should be left empty because the things they used to enjoy doing are no longer possible? How many places of worship should have to close because without the collection plate being passed around they literally can't even afford to keep the roof on? What about the health impacts of people being forced to sit around in their homes all the time rather than being able to play sports? The cultural impact of having no museums, theaters or concerts? The social impact of losing cafes, restaurants, pubs and clubs?

    Is none of that important? Is it all an acceptable price to pay for postponing a few hundred thousand deaths for a few years? Is that not a question that can even be asked?

    For the 6 months we're talking about the government can safely borrow money to keep businesses and individuals afloat. Saying we shouldn't lock down because of the economy is just an admittance that the government is too inconpetent to adequately provide economic support. It's also not as if hundreds of thousands of deaths is going to lead to economic success either. You think when hospital car parks are turned into triage stations and the full weight of the catastrophe sinks in the consumer confidence is going to trundle along happily?
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