Generic Virus Thread

[blandy]

 

Quote

 

Lockdowns in Europe helped stop 3.1 million deaths up to the start of May, researchers have estimated. Strictly limiting people’s movements and enforcing social distancing cut the average number of people that contagious individuals infected by 81%. The measures pushed the epidemic’s reproduction number, R, down from 3.8 to below 1 in all 11 European countries they studied, including Germany, France, Spain, the UK, and Italy, thus drastically curbing transmission. The calculations by the team from Imperial College London are set out in a paper in Nature this week.

How it was worked out: The team combined data on covid-19 deaths from each of the 11 countries and worked backwards to figure out how much transmission had occurred in the weeks running up to May 4. They estimated that between 12 million and 15 million people had become infected up to that point, causing almost 130,000 deaths. They then compared these figures with a model assuming that no interventions had been made at all. An estimated 3.1 million deaths across the continent were averted, the model suggested. France’s lockdown was estimated to have prevented the most deaths: roughly 690,000. Instead, there were about 23,000

 

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/09/1002936/lockdowns-may-have-prevented-more-than-3-million-deaths-in-europe/?utm_medium=tr_social&utm_campaign=site_visitor.unpaid.engagement&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1591995205

[PaulC]

Very concerning the percentage of  people who work in health profession  that are BANE that have died. 

[Davkaus]

1 minute ago, PaulC said:

Very concerning the percentage of  people who work in health profession  that are BANE that have died. 

I guess this is proof that masks don't work.

[AVTuco]

Is Finland the first country to allow fans in the stands in matches?

[chrisp65]

13 minutes ago, AVTuco said:

Is Finland the first country to allow fans in the stands in matches?

Maybe ‘Western Europe’, but did the Faroes ever stop spectator attendance?

Not sure on the likes of Belarus either.

New Zealand have allowed fans in and I know the other day at a friendly the fans weren’t allowed ‘in’ at Porto so they stood on the roof with flares and smoke bombs!

[HanoiVillan]

8 hours ago, KentVillan said:

Why did you remove "silver bullet" from the quote? It completely changes the sense of the sentence you quote. Vaccines vary from those that offer partial protection (e.g. seasonal flu vaccines), to those that completely wipe out a disease (e.g. smallpox).

But that's why remove it though? Vaccines don't have to be a 'silver bullet' to be effective. The results of the trial of the Oxford vaccine on monkeys was that it didn't prevent transmission, but did prevent the development of pneumonia. If we imagine, hypothetically, that the same is true for humans, that would still be a massive improvement that would save a lot of lives.

8 hours ago, KentVillan said:

As for proning, what makes you think it has been a "huge improvement in treatment" and not just a marginal gain?

Because right back at the beginning of this, the panic was over getting an adequate supply of ventilators, which looked like being an impossible task. But changing standard practice in ICU's in this way has meant that frantically turning large parts of our manufacturing sector into ventilator production facilities has not been necessary.

At the end of the day, for me it comes down to this - since you can't bring people back from the dead, it would require a really high standard of proof that mortality would be much lower overall by taking actions that inevitably killed people now, rather than protecting people for now and potentially being in a position where improvements in treatment (either in ICU practice or therapeutic drugs) or yes, potentially even a partially-effective vaccine, could reduce the number that need to die later. I don't think anything I have seen has met that high standard of proof.

[AVTuco]

3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Maybe ‘Western Europe’, but did the Faroes ever stop spectator attendance?

Not sure on the likes of Belarus either.

New Zealand have allowed fans in and I know the other day at a friendly the fans weren’t allowed ‘in’ at Porto so they stood on the roof with flares and smoke bombs!

I think the difficult part is not sitting in the stands, it's the way in and toilets and pubs... so everything that's inside. It seems outdoors is much safer, at least that's what they tell us in Finland. Indoors sports rules were not relaxed yet.

[Davkaus]

10 minutes ago, AVTuco said:

I think the difficult part is not sitting in the stands, it's the way in and toilets and pubs... so everything that's inside. It seems outdoors is much safer, at least that's what they tell us in Finland. Indoors sports rules were not relaxed yet.

Even in the stands, there are, what, about 8 people sitting within a metre of you for an extended period of time, which would make me pretty uncomfortable right now. But even if that was ok, I can't imagine any kind of distancing in the concourses.

Edited June 13, 2020 by Davkaus

[AVTuco]

4 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

Even in the stands, there are, what, about 8 people sitting within a metre of you for an extended period of time, which would make me pretty uncomfortable right now. But even if that was ok, I can't imagine any kind of distancing in the concourses.

I agree, the number of people should be limited somewhat and everyone spread around the stadium appropriately. But the game's 90 minutes is probably the easiest part to arrange safely.

[KentVillan]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

At the end of the day, for me it comes down to this - since you can't bring people back from the dead, it would require a really high standard of proof that mortality would be much lower overall by taking actions that inevitably killed people now, rather than protecting people for now and potentially being in a position where improvements in treatment (either in ICU practice or therapeutic drugs) or yes, potentially even a partially-effective vaccine, could reduce the number that need to die later. I don't think anything I have seen has met that high standard of proof.

Lockdown provably causes deaths, as well as preventing them. Unemployment, declines in quality of life, delayed diagnosis and treatment. There are items on both sides of the ledger that have to taken into account.

Are we still protecting enough people to justify that?

Several countries have now ruled out further lockdowns, even if the disease spreads again, because they are too destructive.

We’ll just have to see I suppose. For the time being, the government has largely shielded people from the economic consequences. When they rip that plaster off, I think we’re in for a very unpleasant few years (mass unemployment, reduced spending on public services, social unrest), and Sweden’s approach will be cast in a more favourable light.

Covid-19 is just one threat to human life among many, and it has become an obsession at the expense of all else.

[HanoiVillan]

Inevitably, we have to come back to politics:

5 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Lockdown provably causes deaths, as well as preventing them. Unemployment, declines in quality of life, delayed diagnosis and treatment. There are items on both sides of the ledger that have to taken into account.

Are we still protecting enough people to justify that?

Several countries have now ruled out further lockdowns, even if the disease spreads again, because they are too destructive.

We’ll just have to see I suppose. For the time being, the government has largely shielded people from the economic consequences. When they rip that plaster off, I think we’re in for a very unpleasant few years (mass unemployment, reduced spending on public services, social unrest), and Sweden’s approach will be cast in a more favourable light.

Covid-19 is just one threat to human life among many, and it has become an obsession at the expense of all else.

The bolded are the consequences of political decisions. We *could* pursue full employment over the next few years, and we *could* rebalance the interests of labour over those of capital, and the poorest over the richest. That the Conservative party either won't do those things, or will half-ass them, needs to be understood as a political decision, not as an inevitable fact of life.

[sidcow]

I've been doubting the Spanish figures for some time.  My brother has in laws in Madrid and they were telling him that the situation over there was horrendous, far worse than anything we've heard of over here. 

On the BBC website today they have said the Spanish have not changed their infection and deaths figures for over a week now but the local authorities say they have been sending in figures. 

Also in mid May they "changed the way they recorded figures" which resulted in much lower daily figures. 

I know people have criticised our Government saying they have manipulated figures but there is definitely some manipulation of stats going on over there. 

Similarly I am sure Italy has been much worse hit than they are letting on.  There was a case where they found an abandoned care home full of dead bodies a couple of months ago.  I would be interested to know how seriously they've counted community death's. 

I think we've been pretty honest with our figures. 

Edited June 14, 2020 by sidcow

[KentVillan]

57 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Inevitably, we have to come back to politics:

The bolded are the consequences of political decisions. We *could* pursue full employment over the next few years, and we *could* rebalance the interests of labour over those of capital, and the poorest over the richest. That the Conservative party either won't do those things, or will half-ass them, needs to be understood as a political decision, not as an inevitable fact of life.

This will be a social and economic catastrophe for many, many countries, with many different varieties of governing ideology.

[Genie]

I took the dog and the family for a big walk around Kingsbury Water Park. It was a very nice walk. Before heading back we drank the drinks we’d taken with us sitting on the floor behind the car. I was watching the ice cream man in amazement that they are allowed to trade. Handling money back and forth. Holding cones to make 99’s for the big line of customers, no screen, no gloves, no mask, not washing hands between every customer. It looked like a 1 man virus spreading machine.

It seemed far more risky for the transfer of a virus than a beer garden for example. 
 

[HanoiVillan]

15 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

This will be a social and economic catastrophe for many, many countries, with many different varieties of governing ideology.

Maybe! And of course no ideology has a monopoly on either virtue or all the right answers.

But what I'm trying to get at, is there is a very important difference between problems that we know how to solve, and ones that we don't (or don't know very well), and that we needed, and largely still need, to focus efforts in the short-term on the difficult problems (like 'how not to have a huge number of dead people from coronavirus'), rather than on ones like 'how to reduce the unemployment rate' for which macroeconomic levers are well understood. The block on the former group is that experts are genuinely unsure of the best approaches, whereas the block on the latter group is less 'knowledge' than 'political will', 'interested parties' and 'ideology', which are familiar barriers that public policy people deal with all the time. And of course, to go back to the previous point, someone that is alive but unemployed or depressed can be helped, but someone who is dead cannot.

[chrisp65]

3 minutes ago, Genie said:

I took the dog and the family for a big walk

I’m enjoying your sense of priority.

[Genie]

5 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I’m enjoying your sense of priority.

I didn’t trust them enough to leave them at home

[sidcow]

15 minutes ago, Genie said:

I took the dog and the family for a big walk around Kingsbury Water Park. It was a very nice walk. Before heading back we drank the drinks we’d taken with us sitting on the floor behind the car. I was watching the ice cream man in amazement that they are allowed to trade. Handling money back and forth. Holding cones to make 99’s for the big line of customers, no screen, no gloves, no mask, not washing hands between every customer. It looked like a 1 man virus spreading machine.

It seemed far more risky for the transfer of a virus than a beer garden for example. 
 

My kids have stopped asking they've been told no so many times when the ice cream man has come around. 

Bonkers. 

My wife grew up near Kingsbury water park.  Lovely place. 

Edited June 13, 2020 by sidcow

[Genie]

8 minutes ago, sidcow said:

My kids have stopped asking they've been told no so many times when the ice cream man has come around. 

It seems madness that it’s allowed. MAYBE if the cones were in sleeves so the ice cream man wasn’t touching the food, but they aren’t.

Edit: actually it wouldn’t make much different. 

Edited June 13, 2020 by Genie

[chrisp65]

To be fair to the ice cream man, he’ll be pissed off with all the people wanting ice cream, and limiting his drugs sales.