Generic Virus Thread

[jackbauer24]

2 minutes ago, Jareth said:

No dude, stay, it's important to chat about it all - sharp corrections are just that - doesn't mean you can't contribute. Quite right that nobody is an expert.

I feel like I'm being attacked for having a viewpoint that doesn't fit the masses! At no point have I suggested we all ignore it and end the lockdown and we're being deceived in big conspiracy! I have suggested we need to look more closely at measured responses. I have asked questions that make no sense to me. I have no vested interest in this. I go and teach (babysit if honest!) kids regularly to help others do their job. I recognise every life is valid but if each individual life is important we should isolate forever - crime down, infections down, car accidents down, pollution down etc etc. But that's not how life works. I have a thirst for knowledge, I question everything. To me, there are a number of things that don't make sense. I have not abused or attacked anyone in this thread or advocated for defiance of current resrrictions. I have asked questions. That really annoys some people so I shall leave this thread for their sake and mine!

[Wezbid]

15 minutes ago, Jareth said:

I was being flippant!

Sorry! I was being stereotypically, defensively Welsh

[Jareth]

9 minutes ago, Wezbid said:

Sorry! I was being stereotypically, defensively Welsh

Haha, I live in Wales, technically my son is Welsh - at times like this I really appreciate devolution. 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

I wonder if the history books will look back at the Cheltenham Horse Racing Festival 2020 as the greatest ever sporting disaster? 

[PaulC]

30 minutes ago, jackbauer24 said:

I'm checking out of this thread! Only time will tell what was what, what was right and what was wrong. What could have been done and what was unnecessary. I don't quite understand the vitriol towards people asking questions that don't follow the masses but it's kind of society I suppose. None of us are experts.

me neither, I wonder about the long-term consequences of this lock down, especially if it drags on and on and on and on. Domestic violence is up,, suicides are up and the govt are dishing out money like confetti. Who's going to foot the bill long-term? we are! The housing market could crash, people cant pay their mortgages. I said before 180000 die every year of cancer and heart attacks. Its not in the news nobody cares. 

Edited April 19, 2020 by PaulC

[HanoiVillan]

1 minute ago, PaulC said:

the govt are dishing out money like confetti. Who's going to foot the bill long-term? we are!

By definition, the living will foot the bill, because the dead don't have capital. In terms of who, amongst the survivors, 'foots the long-term bill', those are political decisions for the future, which we can and will argue about later.

[Jareth]

Voice of reason - and always has been. 

 

[Jareth]

I would not want to bat for this team

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2020/apr/19/uk-coronavirus-live-lifting-lockdown-restrictions-boris-johnson-death-tollcovid-19-latest-updates

Williamson has defended Boris Johnson after reports today said he missed five Cobra meetings on coronavirus.

Williamson said: “The Prime Minister from the moment that it became clear that there were challenges in terms of coronavirus developing in China has absolutely been leading our nation’s effort to combat the coronavirus, making sure that resources or money is not a concern for any department, especially the health service.

[Genie]

Quote

Williamson: Response is a whole government effort

Responding to criticism that Prime Minister Boris Johnson missed five emergency cabinet meetings, Williamson says Johnson has been leading from the front since the scope of the challenge became clear.

The issue is that this was far, far later than it should have been... but then why was there emergency cabinet meetings if it wasn’t clearly a serious issue?

BBC

[blandy]

1 hour ago, jackbauer24 said:

We can all go to nth degree. Why do we remain open during flu season? According to Public Health England 17,00 people die annually from Flu....  I am [Not] likening flu to covid, that is not the case. Clearly it is far more contagious and far more deadly with a lot more unknown.

What I'm saying is there has to be calculations.

What is your calculation? You're happpy with 17000 dying from flu as you don't shout for lockdown over winter. So what's the number you find acceptable?  

Line by line

First line answers your own question. Infection rate and lethality.

Second line - yes, there does have to be calculations. I've already addressed that

Last line - And this - 

4 hours ago, blandy said:

We shouldn't be unlocked until it is viably safe  to do so. That's right there does need to be a calculation . Again, the calculation requires information and data and facts. For those to be gained we need to know who is at risk of harm. For that we need to know who is also not at risk - who has had it already, and whether that renders them immune, and if so for how long. 

...Until it is viably safe restrictions have to remain. They could ease and re-impose, ease and re-impose, they could select parts of the population, or parts of the country based on local circs to reduce restrictions, and that's what they'll need to do. But mostly people will have to modify their behaviour for a very long time yet. There is no other path.

 

[markavfc40]

35 minutes ago, PaulC said:

 the govt are dishing out money like confetti. Who's going to foot the bill long-term?  

If the Tories have their way it will again be those already with the least in addition to cutting the funding for public services, public services that again those already with the least are most reliant on. In fairness though they have already decimated a lot of those public services which is another reason we went into this crisis so unprepared.

Eventually though we'll have a say in that when we next get to stick an X in a box and hopefully we'll have the option of electing a party that ensures it is those of us with the broadest shoulders, be it as individuals or corporations, who foot the bill.

I think whilst we have over 20k dead and hundreds still dying everyday and those we are asking to care for us still in many cases lacking PPE and becoming ill and dying themselves then who pays over the next 5/10/20/30 years towards the cost of saving potentially hundreds of thousands of lives shouldn't be near the top of the agenda.

[blandy]

And one other thing - because we're not testing, we don't know who's got it out here in the wider country. IF we knew who had it but was basically OK, then the stats could show us we can relax, or the lockdown can end. Testing is absolutely critical to ending this. It might even show that the lethality is much lower than thought, and that we can then adjust the measures we take. But what we know now is that of the confirmed cases there have been 120,000 in the UK and 16000 deaths (rounded figures) which is way too high to ignore at 7.5% mortality rate. There are likely, but unknown, more deaths and many more cases, we just don't know. We need to know, and then this current conversation can have different parameters. It might be that the death rate ends up at a tiny fraction as more effective treatment evolves and widespread testing shows the number infected to be far higher.

[chrisp65]

36 minutes ago, jackbauer24 said:

I feel like I'm being attacked for having a viewpoint that doesn't fit the masses! At no point have I suggested we all ignore it and end the lockdown and we're being deceived in big conspiracy! I have suggested we need to look more closely at measured responses. I have asked questions that make no sense to me. I have no vested interest in this. I go and teach (babysit if honest!) kids regularly to help others do their job. I recognise every life is valid but if each individual life is important we should isolate forever - crime down, infections down, car accidents down, pollution down etc etc. But that's not how life works. I have a thirst for knowledge, I question everything. To me, there are a number of things that don't make sense. I have not abused or attacked anyone in this thread or advocated for defiance of current resrrictions. I have asked questions. That really annoys some people so I shall leave this thread for their sake and mine!

No need to check out, don’t take it personal.

I get debated plenty and sometimes I learn and sometimes I change my mind.

Often, it just bats back n fore because there can never be a winner as its all about opinion.

We need people to stop this being an hysterical echo chamber.

There clearly is, somewhere, a tipping point number where the number of deaths makes lockdown worthwhile or not. We have clearly decided that ten or twenty thousand deaths from flu, amongst the aged is more acceptable than lockdown.

With Covid we have too many unknowns about future health, disability, mutation etc., to make that call at 20,000. Plus a distinct lack of good data to base any economic assumptions on. So we are buying time by trying to restrict it to 30 or 40,000 rather than 200,000 and hope it doesn’t mutate.

If it turns out it’s 15,000 annually, for ever, if we wear face masks on the tube, that’s what will happen. But it’s too early to be able to say that. There is clearly a magic number somewhere. But there’s too much risk right now that guessing its 20,000 old ill people could be really really badly wrong and we suddenly need to bury a million bodies. Annually.

[snowychap]

1 hour ago, jackbauer24 said:

So what's the number you find acceptable?

The issue with this kind of a question is that there isn't a sensible answer to it when it is posed in this kind of way.

It's a bit of a sorites paradox: at what point do the grains of sand become or cease to be a heap?

 

Edited April 19, 2020 by snowychap

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

If the Tories have their way it will again be those already with the least in addition to cutting the funding for public services, public services that again those already with the least are most reliant on. In fairness though they have already decimated a lot of those public services which is another reason we went into this crisis so unprepared.

Eventually though we'll have a say in that when we next get to stick an X in a box and hopefully we'll have the option of electing a party that ensures it is those of us with the broadest shoulders, be it as individuals or corporations, who foot the bill.

I think whilst we have over 20k dead and hundreds still dying everyday and those we are asking to care for us still in many cases lacking PPE and becoming ill and dying themselves then who pays over the next 5/10/20/30 years towards the cost of saving potentially hundreds of thousands of lives shouldn't be near the top of the agenda.

I wonder about the tories. Sure I don't trust them an inch, but...

They don't have an ethos. They have some behaviours which have lasted since Thatcher, but they change policy and idea all the time - they'll happily "steal" a Milliband policy, or whatever after having railed against it previously. They are less ideological than Labour (as an example). They lie and they deceive and dissemble and are a reprehensible lot, but they will change as a result of this outbreak and just because that's what they do.

Austerity is dead. As you say it caused, or contributed to our current mess, Nurses and so on are (hallelujah!) suddenly recognised as "valuable" Ditto immigrants (to an extent). The tories are throwing money around, nationalising things (I know it's in an emergency) and so on. Having done that, they have no inbuilt reason not to completely and longer term change their ideas. They will. They'll still look after the wealthy, of course, but not necessarily beast the poor as they previously have.

They're going to get a lot of long term kickback for what they've done, now, and like with the Iraq war, or 2007/8 crash or other massive shocks/events, it'll taint the party of government for decades - they won't be able to be nasty to public servants, they won't be able to underfund the NHS to the same extent, they won't be able to even raise the notion of those types of policies without public revulsion and corresponding damage to themselves for doing so.

They're words removed, but they will turn into differently behaved words removed. They always do. All parties do, but the tories the most.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, jackbauer24 said:

I don't quite understand the vitriol towards people asking questions that don't follow the masses

I've seen no vitriol, if there is any, please report it using the site report function (top right of every post).

It's good people ask and discuss, but it's important that differing views or unusual questions are respected but challenged - whether you mine, or mine yours, etc. As Chris said, we might change our minds, or find out something we didn't know, or at worst just understand different views and angles better.

I know where you're coming from - curiosity and that's a good place and a good thing to have. Every question you've asked people have tried to answer. In doing so it makes them (us) think bout what we're saying. It's not about "defending" a fixed viewpoint, it's about speaking, listening and developing. It's all good.

[DCJonah]

I'm sure this lockdown and the economy crashing will lead to other dangerous issues in the future. 

But in the future can't we do things to balance it out and right wrongs? Why do things have to go back to normal when this is over? Can't we make large corporations pay the right amount of tax? Amazon seem to be doing OK right now. 

Can't we fund public services better? Especially mental health services? Maybe more people will see careers in social care, health care and education as important and choose to go down that path. 

There are things that we can do to make things better for people who will suffer because of this. First things first though, is we need to avoid deaths now and fix issues later. Allowing people to die because we can't be arsed to change the way we live is crazy. But then again you only have to see the disdain some show towards trying to improve the damages climate change causes to see it.  

[Jareth]

Oh 

Impossible for UK to meet Covid-19 testing targets, scientists say

Government’s 100,000-a-day pledge was only designed to be a headline grabber, claim sceptics

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/19/impossible-for-uk-to-meet-covid-19-testing-targets-say-scientists

[Enda]

As VT’s in-house economist, I declare that University of Bristol paper to be blathering nonsense.

It’s by a physicist, and it shows. There’s an entire literature on the effects of recessions on life expectancy.

You can’t assume a temporary shut down of 6.7% of the economy has the same (negative) effect on life expectancy as natural 6.7% growth 

It complete ignorance to assume they’re the same. Imagine someone assuming 4-4-2 is the same as 3-5-2 because both field eleven players. That’s what the physicist is doing.

[StefanAVFC]

I see no vitriol, if anything it's very well-spirited debate so good job everyone.

People disagreeing with each other isn't vitriolic, sorry, regardless if it's 1v1 or 10v1.