KentVillan Posted August 12, 2020 Share Posted August 12, 2020 I think the whole herd immunity thing was still an honest **** up. It was facilitated by arrogance, Brexit British exceptionalism and a desire to prioritise the economy, but it wasn’t a deliberate conspiracy (IMO). The Swedes have shown that you can pursue herd immunity as a strategy, and it’s not totally unworkable - but it comes at a price. As you say, what really screws things up is when you skip from one strategy to the next according to the feedback from your focus groups. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted August 12, 2020 Author Share Posted August 12, 2020 3 hours ago, blandy said: No absolutely not. They're intrinsically related. Here's why. The most extreme early lockdown - a handful of people have this new virus, but the gov't decides to act super fast and locks down the country, bans travel into the country, returnees from abroad have to be quarantined. The Country starts to lose finances, but after 3 weeks or so those handful of cases are over - people either died or recovered. End lockdown, maintain quarantine and travel bans. Limited, very limited deaths and ditto for the economy. The late lockdown, when cases were rampant, no travel band, no track and trace...that's what we actually did - lock-down had to be longer, the deaths were higher, the economy more damaged. The recovery slower. I agree. The Government can’t say, well the economy is a massive mess because of the hardline we took saving lives. Neither can they say, yes there were a lot of deaths compared to other nations but it’s down to the hard work that was doing keeping the economy afloat. They **** both up, which is pretty incredible really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted August 12, 2020 Author Share Posted August 12, 2020 The lockdown was so late there was an air of “finally a lockdown so we can get this thing under control” from the general public. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted August 12, 2020 Share Posted August 12, 2020 8 hours ago, StefanAVFC said: By Goli... I had to look that up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted August 12, 2020 Share Posted August 12, 2020 8 minutes ago, snowychap said: I had to look that up. A very niche pizza pun! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted August 12, 2020 Moderator Share Posted August 12, 2020 5 hours ago, KentVillan said: Ironically the govt’s whole “right thing at the right is time” line was spot on - they just didn’t do it. Government slogans are easy. They’re not bad at them. Governing is trickier. They’re incompetent at best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted August 13, 2020 Author Share Posted August 13, 2020 The new build houses by me have all gone up in price, the ones that were £489,995 now £505,995. Coincidentally the £15k that would be saved on stamp duty... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post chrisp65 Posted August 13, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted August 13, 2020 11 minutes ago, Genie said: The new build houses by me have all gone up in price, the ones that were £489,995 now £505,995. Coincidentally the £15k that would be saved on stamp duty... No way anybody could have seen that happening. Nobody on here called it, the best financial brains in the government didn’t see it. Just like a weird new branch of chaos theory. Mad how things turn out. 3 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted August 13, 2020 Author Share Posted August 13, 2020 2 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: No way anybody could have seen that happening. Nobody on here called it, the best financial brains in the government didn’t see it. Just like a weird new branch of chaos theory. Mad how things turn out. “The good news is the stamp duty has been rolled into the purchase price so you don’t have to pay it upfront” 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted August 13, 2020 Share Posted August 13, 2020 I think that was actually used on here as an argument for why it was a positive thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted August 13, 2020 Share Posted August 13, 2020 3 hours ago, chrisp65 said: No way anybody could have seen that happening. Nobody on here called it, the best financial brains in the government didn’t see it. Just like a weird new branch of chaos theory. Mad how things turn out. We all did say it. But people dont have to pay it. Make a offer stick to your guns and dont be scared to walk. Thats what i did. I walked when they tried to add a extra 10k. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted August 13, 2020 Share Posted August 13, 2020 3 hours ago, Genie said: The new build houses by me have all gone up in price, the ones that were £489,995 now £505,995. Coincidentally the £15k that would be saved on stamp duty... I'm amazed that a new build is £500k. I'm sure they are nice but what's that? 20 years x the UK average salary? Crazy isn't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted August 13, 2020 Author Share Posted August 13, 2020 (edited) 7 hours ago, Xela said: I'm amazed that a new build is £500k. I'm sure they are nice but what's that? 20 years x the UK average salary? Crazy isn't it? I’m shocked by the price, they keep selling and then every time they release some more the price goes up. Edited August 13, 2020 by Genie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KenjiOgiwara Posted August 13, 2020 Share Posted August 13, 2020 On 12/08/2020 at 20:21, KentVillan said: The Swedes have shown that you can pursue herd immunity as a strategy, and it’s not totally unworkable - but it comes at a price. Will be interesting to see the effects of that decision if this second wave keeps building. Right now it seems there's less new cases there compared to the rest of Scandinavia. They still got more cases by some distance, but seems the increase is less. Also read the other day that immunity from other corona viruses typically lasted 40 weeks. So getting it didn't mean you were safe in 2021 so to speak. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KentVillan Posted August 13, 2020 Share Posted August 13, 2020 8 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said: Also read the other day that immunity from other corona viruses typically lasted 40 weeks. So getting it didn't mean you were safe in 2021 so to speak. There's a guy Prof Francois Balloux who is brilliant to follow on Twitter. He keeps making the point that while "full immunity" may only last 1-2 years, there are longer lasting forms of immunity that your body develops after infection that are likely to last decades. This thread is superb: But I recommend his whole feed. He regularly updates it with the latest research. Another point he keeps making is that waning levels of antibodies in serology tests is not necessarily a sign that immunity disappears quickly. He's also quoted in this excellent piece: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2020/08/reasons-for-covid-19-optimism-on-t-cells-and-herd-immunity.html Quote COVID-19 AUG. 9, 2020 The Good (But Not Great) News About T-Cells and Herd Immunity By David Wallace-Wells The most optimistic interpretation of the data was given to me by Francois Balloux, a somewhat contrarian disease geneticist and the director of the University College of London’s Genetics Institute. Balloux isn’t a pandemic pollyanna — he called COVID-19 a “super wicked problem” for which there was no get-out-of-jail-free card waiting in the research (“no straightforward solution, no silver bullet,” as he put it). According to him, a cross-reactive T-cell response wouldn’t prevent infection, but would probably mean a faster immune response, a shorter period of infection, and a “massively” reduced risk of severe illness — meaning, he guessed, that somewhere between a third and three-quarters of the population carried into the epidemic significant protection against its scariest outcomes. He told me that he believed the distribution of this T-cell response could explain at least some, and perhaps quite a lot, of COVID-19’s age skew when it comes to disease severity and mortality, since the young are the most exposed to other coronaviruses, and the protection tapers as you get older and spend less time in environments, like schools, where these viruses spread so promiscuously. Read the whole article, as some of Balloux's arguments are challenged by the other experts interviewed. But clearly it all shows that immunity is extremely complicated, and can't be thought of in terms of a specific cut-off point. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seat68 Posted August 13, 2020 Share Posted August 13, 2020 My house is on at the pre covid price and my searches on Right Move have the same upper price. We ain’t buying anything over priced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted August 13, 2020 Moderator Share Posted August 13, 2020 15 minutes ago, KentVillan said: Balloux 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted August 14, 2020 Share Posted August 14, 2020 Where was the big drop in house prices that they were alluding too?? If anything they are going up. Makes you wonder where people are getting the money for properties at 500k+ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted August 14, 2020 Moderator Share Posted August 14, 2020 1 minute ago, Demitri_C said: Where was the big drop in house prices that they were alluding too?? If anything they are going up. Makes you wonder where people are getting the money for properties at 500k+ Who was alluding to? House prices won't drop just yet, they are at the end of a long chain of events. Rents in London are going down, if they drop to a level where its no longer worth the investment return, then more properties will hit the market. THAT will reduce prices. But any fall was never going to be immediate If office blocks get repurposed to housing, that will have an effect but thats a medium term effect Etc... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KentVillan Posted August 14, 2020 Share Posted August 14, 2020 3 minutes ago, Demitri_C said: Where was the big drop in house prices that they were alluding too?? If anything they are going up. Makes you wonder where people are getting the money for properties at 500k+ It feels instinctively like a crash is on the way, though. As the recession bites, people will default on mortgages and the life will be sucked out of the market. Be interesting to see how long it takes for that to pan out, or if we somehow avoid it. Personally I think UK govts of last couple of decades (but especially since 2010) have financially intervened far too much in the housing market (while not building enough new homes) and only served to make things worse. The reckoning will come eventually won’t it? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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