COVID-19 UK & Beyond

[Freggyragh]

Farage is very upset. He now desperately wants the U.K. to follow what the EU is doing. He’s complained about the WHO anti-smoking campaign for years, and now he wants the U.K. to follow WHO advice because this disease wipes out older male smokers. I can’t think of a word strong enough for him.
 

I can think of a word for those who kept voting for privatising the NHS and thought their BUPA subs would see them right and screw ‘society’. Seems like the US and U.K. are struggling worst with this, unable to form strategy because they are failing to even collect data on the number of cases. 

Edited March 15, 2020 by Freggyragh

[woolley]

Nobody knows. Let's wait and see.

[Chinahand]

3 hours ago, Freggyragh said:

Seems like the US and U.K. are struggling worst with this, unable to form strategy because they are failing to even collect data on the number of cases. 

Really?  Any evidence that the UK is in such straights with testing?

Data seems to disagree with you.

Edited March 15, 2020 by Chinahand

[P.K.]

15 minutes ago, Chinahand said:

Really?  Any evidence that the UK is in such straights with testing?

Data seems to disagree with you.

According to Johnson's responsible adult minders (CSA & CMO) there "could be" up to 10k already in the UK with the virus. In any event apparently a US citizen was tested, passed, but has the virus.

Besides which testing for it is not the same as effectively dealing with it....

[Chinahand]

I think a Chinese phrase works well in these times: 摸着石头过河.

Governments are crossing the river feeling for the stones.

I see most countries, Iran might be an exception, North Korea too, having a pragmatic, flexible, changing response as evidence is gathered and also the attitude of the public is tested.  This is a highly political situation - how long can people be forced into quarantine, what impact will doing that have on people's livelihoods.  China can just bash down a billion people and attempt to centrally control the fall-out.  That doesn't work in western democracies.  Italy is in a different position to Spain, which is in a different position to France, which is in a different position to the UK which is different from Germany.

Link

At the moment it is entirely reasonable that Germany's current response is different from Italy's.  Ditto the UK.

It is going to be an interesting ride, but I find the idea that it is obvious one set of policies are incompetent compared to another rather odd, and not really based on evidence, but rather other biases, which I don't think are helpful in looking at policy formation during an epidemic.

 

[Rog]

18 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

Interesting suggestion there from "Rog" in the locked thread that UK Govt has suggested that the over 70s could be banged up in isolation in requisitioned accommodation for up to four months to ride out the Coronavirus. Rog is concerned as he's implicated, age-wise.

This is the same Rog who suggested confining the unemployed and financially disadvantaged a couple of weeks ago... 

Sweet Karma.

Are you really so hard of thinking that you can't understood what I wrote?  Communal living is what I wrote.  That is NOT  the same as incarceration.  Think "modern day houses of industry".

[TheTeapot]

3 minutes ago, Chinahand said:

 

At the moment it is entirely reasonable that Germany's current response is different from Italy's.  Ditto the UK.

 

I wonder what is different about Germany's approach, they seem to have a lot less deaths than other countries based on diagnosed cases, 10 from 5000 approx, although those figures are probably out of date now.

[TheTeapot]

Just now, Rog said:

Are you really so hard of thinking that you can't understood what I wrote?  Communal living is what I wrote.  That is NOT  the same as incarceration.  Think "modern day houses of industry".

You meant a forced workhouse, don't wriggle.

[Rog]

9 minutes ago, TheTeapot said:

You meant a forced workhouse, don't wriggle.

Not forced.  Their choice.  If they want tax payers money they should do what is reasonably asked of them.  If not then let them find some other way.  It's going to have to come to this, we just can't afford to carry on with the welfare state being abused as it has been for far too long.

 

[TheTeapot]

[woolley]

1 hour ago, Chinahand said:

 

At the moment it is entirely reasonable that Germany's current response is different from Italy's.  Ditto the UK.

It is going to be an interesting ride, but I find the idea that it is obvious one set of policies are incompetent compared to another rather odd, and not really based on evidence, but rather other biases, which I don't think are helpful in looking at policy formation during an epidemic.

 

Precisely. I admire your attempts to use fact and logic in an attempt to counter, in your words, other biases that abound here on the subject. Admirable though this is, it will no doubt prove fruitless. 

[P.K.]

2 hours ago, TheTeapot said:

I wonder what is different about Germany's approach, they seem to have a lot less deaths than other countries based on diagnosed cases, 10 from 5000 approx, although those figures are probably out of date now.

That's probably because of this:

On 3/12/2020 at 2:44 PM, P.K. said:

Interesting survey by the EU just after the referendum on the number of Curative Care Beds per 100k population in the 28 member states. Some salient points.

The EU average was 372.2.

Top of the list was Bulgaria with 616.8

Second was Germany with 601.5

Twentieth was France with 309.0

Second from last the UK with 211.4

No doubt more have been lost since then...

 

[P.K.]

3 hours ago, Chinahand said:

I think a Chinese phrase works well in these times: 摸着石头过河.

Governments are crossing the river feeling for the stones.

At the moment it is entirely reasonable that Germany's current response is different from Italy's.  Ditto the UK.

It is going to be an interesting ride, but I find the idea that it is obvious one set of policies are incompetent compared to another rather odd, and not really based on evidence, but rather other biases, which I don't think are helpful in looking at policy formation during an epidemic.

I agree with this but the "biases" aren't just to do with how people see it, but rather are compounded by resources. For example Germany have 601.5 Curative Care Beds per 100k population compared to the UK's 211.4 - just over a third. Now if the diagram showing the much derided "sombrero" were to scale then in Germany's case it simply doesn't need "squashing" at all!

I read somewhere that our government had actually calculated the loss to GDP if the schools closed. Errr I wonder if to arrive at a figure they costed out what a life was worth?

Personally I have no confidence in their priorities or methodology...

[Freggyragh]

4 hours ago, Chinahand said:

Really?  Any evidence that the UK is in such straights with testing?

Data seems to disagree with you.

http://on.theatln.tc/cvLl3Uf

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/coronavirus-testing-us

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-51889957

As of March 14th (yesterday) The U.K. has tested only 37,747 people. South Korea (population 51M) has been testing 10,000 people per day. As of today South Korea has tested more than 248,000 people.

[Chinahand]

I'm not disputing Korea's incredible efforts on this front, nor the US's problems with a fragmented private system, but the UK's efforts are as far as I'm aware in the forefront within of the major countries in Europe with only Italy exceeding our efforts for perfectly understandable reasons.

Bloomberg:

In European countries including France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria, authorities are sticking to a policy of testing mainly those who had traveled to a virus hotspot or had contact with a confirmed Covid-19 patient, even as the infection spreads more broadly through the community.