Corona Virus

Get out of it, the Leaf would do 150 miles with only one 45 minute break to recharge. All without polluting the atmosphere and smoking all over everybody.

Just like stopping people from climbing Snowdon. The last thing ones needs right now is taking limited resources away from the fight against the virus. Slip and break a leg on a mountain and you could easily cause someone else to die elsewhere in the country.

This point has been rammed home and yet some people don't get it...

That was Trumps first thought, but he gets it now.

The problem is, that your fellow brit is a thick twat (well 51% of them) and cant be trusted to be sensible, careful and have some idea about the risk and its mitigation. So we all have to comply so they dont have
the excuse "Well he aint doing it"

In truth, I suspect that half of us have it, have had it, or are carriers.

One of the big misunderstandings is that this is a "bout of flu". I'm sure we've all had flu before and haven't died from drowning in our own bodily fluids after 2 weeks on a respirator, thus far. That's the death we're inflicting people by spreading it.

This isn't flu, and is in fact nothing like flu. It's one of the worst pieces of misinformation in this whole sorry story, but seems to be one of the most persistent.

If you think the cure (some economic hardship, mitigated by government bail-outs for businesses and individuals) is worse than that form of death happening to 250-500k people, well I'm not sure what to say. Plenty of people in the healthy, productive stages of life are being taken by this. We can rebuild economies, reanimation of corpses remains beyond our abilities. I don't want anyone to die of this if it can be helped.

An individual's appetite for risk may be such that he'd like to carry on as normal. But that doesn't weigh the impact of potentially spreading death to others who may have wished to avoid it.

Of course you're allowed an opinion, Humph.  And others are allowed to differ.

I think that's a fairly natural response, when one is greatly inconvenienced by the restrictions, and doesn't necessarily see oneself as being in the grouping described as high risk.

Problem is, the thing is complex, the only tools they're using to inform things are mathematical models, and the statistics underlying these are at best opaque, and probably entirely unreliable. (Some of the measures for the UK have been all over the place, and when questioned, the spokespeople who should know their basis admit that they don't, and that they are not at all clear that they are being collected consistently, e.g. the deaths recorded are or are not only those occurring in hospital, some trusts are or are not batching up numbers and not consistently giving day-by-day figures, etc.). The different countries are also patently using different bases for what at first glance appear to be the same measure. All that makes the mathematical models quite unreliable. (For example, the UK currently has Sheffield as a hotspot, but local medical experts explain that this is because they tested earlier and deeper - the Northern General having one of the greatest lab test capacities in the UK, and they implemented drive-through testing for NHS staff. The number of cases currently in hospital, and the number of deaths, is lower than average. Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

What is clear, however, is that the empirical evidence (China, Spain, Italy, etc.) suggests that the thing will be out of control without stringent counter-measures being taken, and lockdown is the only universally viable measure anyone in the world has come up with (South Korea and Singapore have to some extent been successful with other approaches not really widely deployable elsewhere).

I'm also not comfortable with seeing it as a problem that confronts only the elderly and infirm (though I would concede that both stats and empirical data indicate they are at greater risk). The UK has declared, in round terms, some 33,000 cases, and 3,000 deaths. Since the UK is (almost uniquely) generally testing only those hospitalised, that implies there are large number of people (still) in hospital that haven't died yet, and hopefully the majority won't. This will be because they are getting the appropriate intervention, and undoubtedly a good proportion of these will not be in the high risk categories,  and will survive only because they can receive intervention in a health service that is not overwhelmed.

Statistics seem to suggest that, as a health service does get overwhelmed, both the numbers increase and the profile of risk changes because otherwise recoverable people can't get the appropriate intervention. Locking down only the "at risk" might delay any overwhelming, but I doubt it would avoid it (a very large proportion of the population is below 65). Whilst the Government(s) will take a hit if the unhealthy oldies suffer to the extent of 250K to 500k deaths, if the profile changes and a greater proportion of these numbers are then younger, otherwise recoverable people, then there will be a real political problem. I think all countries fear this, and if you don't take preemptive precautions (lockdown being the method of choice) you won't be able to pop the genie back into the bottle when things go pear-shaped. If hospitalised cases significantly exceed capacity, then the profile of the disease and its impact changes quite quickly.

TBH, I don't think we'll ever be entirely clear what approach would be/have been best. Hindsight will part the fog a bit, but unless you were to relax everything and see if the excess death figures for this year (maybe 500K) were balanced by a similar deficit against statistical norms next year, (proving that, at least statistically all those people would have died anyway) then it would be impossible to champion the "do nowt" approach, even retrospectively.

It is what it is. I'm not entirely comfortable with the restrictions, but I don't think there is a better plan. I'm also not sure that, globally at least, the recession will be as bad as being feared. Some sectors will suffer dreadfully (travel/tourism) but others will recover in the medium term. The UK will be very poorly placed, however, because of Brexit. EU cooperation and trade will ensure that those inside the bloc will have quicker and easier opportunities for recovery.  

Just been to Sainsburys. ( not a pleasant experience but hey ho ) and on the way back I saw something we never see round here. Two police officers on foot patrol on a residential street near us. What's more they were walking side by side in conversation sharing a laugh about something.

Was sorely tempted to roll the window down and remind them of the social distancing rules, but decided that probably wasn't a great plan...

🤔