And after the sunshine...

[johnofgwent]

So...someone in the Times (no quote or link?)....and...Social Media? Right ho. You do realise that "social media" is about as deep as The Beano don't you? And this is comprehensive evidence that people are saying en masse "let them die", because Doreen from Solihull said so on Twatter?



I think my "proposal" was something along the lines of the Swedish response. That, and questioning if lockdown for virtually the whole population (including next doors cat) as a strategy should ever have been implemented in the first place. I was told, basically, that I knew Jack and to stfu because the "experts" are all Dr this and Phd that and they know what they are doing (with computer models).



It was left at "we will only know the answers to all these questions in time".



That about sums it up.

Well, you forgot to add



"and the person 'providing' the science decided he was above it, twice at least, first by inviting some slapper extinction rebellionist with an 'open' marriage round his place for a shag while he was himself exhibiting the classic signs of the disease, and then again after he had "recovered" but she was now exhibiting those signs"



which seems a rather unusual way to behave when your life style is supported by predicting half a million will lie dead in gutters from this disease unless we do what he says, while leaving him to do what he does  ...

[DeppityDawg]

I think for example Matthew Paris in the Times has been pretty much advocating that, and so have many others on social media.



Also, I think your proposal was to release at least part of the lock down bit by bit - that is now happening, so if you don't think it's right, what do you think should be happening right now, today or tomorrow?

So...someone in the Times (no quote or link?)....and...Social Media? Right ho. You do realise that "social media" is about as deep as The Beano don't you? And this is comprehensive evidence that people are saying en masse "let them die", because Doreen from Solihull said so on Twatter?



I think my "proposal" was something along the lines of the Swedish response. That, and questioning if lockdown for virtually the whole population (including next doors cat) as a strategy should ever have been implemented in the first place. I was told, basically, that I knew Jack and to stfu because the "experts" are all Dr this and Phd that and they know what they are doing (with computer models).



It was left at "we will only know the answers to all these questions in time".



That about sums it up.

[papasmurf]

I would not be surprised to learn that there were many cases and deaths of Pneumonia over this period that do not have any underlying cause recorded.

The NHS has been inoculating "at risk groups" (me) against Pneumonia for several years now.



https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/pneumococcal-vaccination/">https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinati ... ccination/">https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/pneumococcal-vaccination/

[Sampanviking]

Yes it is a puzzle isn't it. It is now obvious the bug DID arrive in europe a lot earlier and didnt actually kill anyone it got. The real curiosity is what really triggers the transition from the mild to the severe. There has to be some explanation, some common factor or factors, or something in the makeup of the European as opposed to chinese human genome that presents a different pathway.



I'd need a month of sundays and the resources of a bond villain to stand any chance of finding the answer which if it is anywhere, it is in the operation of the ACE2 pathway that controls the reaction to adrenaline on bloid pressure etc.

The point John is that we do not know if it killed anyone or not, as it was not tested for at the time and there is no retrospective testing (probably impossible unless tissue samples were retained) of fatalities from last October until March.

I would not be surprised to learn that there were many cases and deaths of Pneumonia over this period that do not have any underlying cause recorded.

[Javert]

Roche have a 100% effective test, approved by Porton Down.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-new-100-accurate-covid-19-antibody-test-approved-for-use-in-uk-11987924">//https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-new-100-accurate-covid-19-antibody-test-approved-for-use-in-uk-11987924



I agree. Even the NHS are saying, yes you can do a test yourself, but even if it is positive for antibodies, doesn't guarantee you are immune.

(They say this with no basis)

Nobody else is reporting the 100% number, and I'd be surprised if the real number on mass testing is 100%, but even a rate of 99%+ would be good enough.



Also - be careful as the article refers to "specificity" and the people being interviewed this morning were careful to talk about "specificity" rather than accuracy.



As I understand it, specificity means how good is the test at only giving a positive result when that person definitely has had exactly that illness.  i.e. it won't give a false positive.



They don't talk about the other aspect of test accuracy which is "sensitivity" - this is the chance that people who indeed to have antibodies, will actually test negative.  In most tests like this, the sensitivity is worse than the specificty.



For an antibody test, that's ok as it's a "failsafe" position - if you are telling people they haven't got antibodies when actually they have, it's an inconvenience but not dangerous.  The other way around it's dangerous.



On the current antigen test, the problem is reversed - the number of false negatives is a big issue because we are telling people they don't have Covid-19 when actually they do have it.

[Barry]

I feel there is an urgent need to get a test that shows prior infection with a serious degree of reliability.



I wonder if, should such come about, the worst case merchants will admit the degree of damage ...



I also feel the politicians will do their utmost to block any news of a mass immunity getting out.

Roche have a 100% effective test, approved by Porton Down.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-new-100-accurate-covid-19-antibody-test-approved-for-use-in-uk-11987924">//https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-new-100-accurate-covid-19-antibody-test-approved-for-use-in-uk-11987924



I agree. Even the NHS are saying, yes you can do a test yourself, but even if it is positive for antibodies, doesn't guarantee you are immune.

(They say this with no basis)

[johnofgwent]

If covid-19 arrived a lot earlier than we think, there's something puzzling.  We're pretty sure that the incubation period for most cases is up to 14 days, with the average being 5. If that's the case, if the illness was here a month earlier than we thought, that should mean the graph of the rise in cases would have been slid back along the time axis by a month or so. If there had been just on or two earlier cases, there's always the possibility that they didn't infect anyone or if they did those people didn't become ill enough to think they'd had anything other than a cold or flu. If there had been more than a tiny number of cases, as I say, the epidemic here would have taken off earlier.



I'm not saying there can't have been any earlier cases, just that if there were, something odd went on.



With all the preoccupation with covid-19 (fully understandable) we don't see any information on whether there's any other illnesses currently going round with similar but less serious symptoms.

Yes it is a puzzle isn't it. It is now obvious the bug DID arrive in europe a lot earlier and didnt actually kill anyone it got. The real curiosity is what really triggers the transition from the mild to the severe. There has to be some explanation, some common factor or factors, or something in the makeup of the European as opposed to chinese human genome that presents a different pathway.



I'd need a month of sundays and the resources of a bond villain to stand any chance of finding the answer which if it is anywhere, it is in the operation of the ACE2 pathway that controls the reaction to adrenaline on bloid pressure etc.

[Javert]

The killer question for me is this.



We now know this arrived a lot earlier than first publicised.



We know testing regimens are flaky at best, nonexistent in wales.



We know numerous people are coming forward to declare they felt like sh*t a long time before we were told there was a risk of the disease, and that they got over it.



I am getting to the point where I believe a number of people have actually had a mild form of this disease, are now recovered and are thus safe.



I feel there is an urgent need to get a test that shows prior infection with a serious degree of reliability.



I wonder if, should such come about, the worst case merchants will admit the degree of damage ...



I also feel the politicians will do their utmost to block any news of a mass immunity getting out.

I think this is going towards conspiracy theories, in the sense that even if there were isolated cases of this back in December, it wasn't prevalent.  Otherwise why did the hospitals suddenly start to fill up dramatically in March/April and not in December?



Don't get me wrong, I really hope that you are right and that we will find that 75% of the people already had it and everything is fine.



However I highly doubt this - there are already lots of antibody trials going on, and even the tests run in high risk or high case areas I haven't heard any figures above 40% at most, and many have been in single digits.



As I've pointed out, there was a very nasty flu like illness going on in the Winter that many people are mistaking for Covid.



Also - if it turns out we have a high level of infection and I'm wrong, that's fine, but, that doesn't mean I will agree that the policy up to now was flawed.  Again, some people seem to be suggesting that if this happens, it proves that we should never have locked down in the first place.  



Imagine it the other way around - imagine if the government had said "Oh - well we think that all the people who felt ill in December already had Coronavirus so we're not going to do anything", and then it was followed by several hundred thousand dead.



We did not have the information back then so we had to assume the worst in order to preserve life.



There is also a lot of behavioural science and psychology involved (some of it I am not sure how proven it is) - if people are told "Oh well, just take care and wash your hands, you know what to do blah blah" - after a little while most people will ignore it and it will start spreading massively again.

[Javert]

I'm not aware of anyone suggesting we "stand back and let people die" Javert, are you? I mean, can you quote them, or provide a serious article that says we should? No. Of course, you can't. Because no one on here said any such fecking thing.



I've made my position clear enough numerous times, provided you with links to alternative "expert" views and studies, discussed other countries responses, the media hype and panic mongering, excess deaths information, as well as the speculative nature of both the science and the economic data - you've no idea how bad the fallout from this mess will be, or how many deaths may be caused or contributed to by it.



All you can do is repeat the same fecking nonsense, that somehow, because DeppityDawg doesn't agree with you, he's some kind of uncaring c**t.



The usual hysterics from Quack Quack aren't even worth bothering with.

I think for example Matthew Paris in the Times has been pretty much advocating that, and so have many others on social media.



Also, I think your proposal was to release at least part of the lock down bit by bit - that is now happening, so if you don't think it's right, what do you think should be happening right now, today or tomorrow?

[Hyperduck Quack Quack]

If covid-19 arrived a lot earlier than we think, there's something puzzling.  We're pretty sure that the incubation period for most cases is up to 14 days, with the average being 5. If that's the case, if the illness was here a month earlier than we thought, that should mean the graph of the rise in cases would have been slid back along the time axis by a month or so. If there had been just on or two earlier cases, there's always the possibility that they didn't infect anyone or if they did those people didn't become ill enough to think they'd had anything other than a cold or flu. If there had been more than a tiny number of cases, as I say, the epidemic here would have taken off earlier.



I'm not saying there can't have been any earlier cases, just that if there were, something odd went on.



With all the preoccupation with covid-19 (fully understandable) we don't see any information on whether there's any other illnesses currently going round with similar but less serious symptoms.

[johnofgwent]

There is a deadly pandemic that has killed at least 33,000 people in the UK in less than 4 months and made hundreds of thousands of people seriously ill.  A bad recession is a small price to pay for ending the suffering as quickly as possible.  While trying to rid the country of covid-19 the government can only do so much to mitigate the economic effects.  The quicker the virus can be defeated, the quicker the government can get to grips with the economic fall-out. I'm sorry but this situation just doesn't fit any Breitbart / Trump / Fox News / Bolsonaro / alt-right template for solutions.  There's a clear priority here, namely doing all that's possible to stop people getting ill.

The killer question for me is this.



We now know this arrived a lot earlier than first publicised.



We know testing regimens are flaky at best, nonexistent in wales.



We know numerous people are coming forward to declare they felt like shit a long time before we were told there was a risk of the disease, and that they got over it.



I am getting to the point where I believe a number of people have actually had a mild form of this disease, are now recovered and are thus safe.



I feel there is an urgent need to get a test that shows prior infection with a serious degree of reliability.



I wonder if, should such come about, the worst case merchants will admit the degree of damage ...



I also feel the politicians will do their utmost to block any news of a mass immunity getting out.

[Borg Refinery]

Having a considered opinion is verboten in the minds of some, and you've got to 'pick a side' and never, ever dare to criticise the wrong mantras or you're a death worshipping, AR-15 toter or some other non-sense.



Once again OP is un-disagreeable, and the scary levels of complacency and misrepresentation of others' views are just bizarre.

[DeppityDawg]

It's still better than just standing back and letting all those people die, even given that just like all of us I might be one of the people to lose my job.

I'm not aware of anyone suggesting we "stand back and let people die" Javert, are you? I mean, can you quote them, or provide a serious article that says we should? No. Of course, you can't. Because no one on here said any such fecking thing.



I've made my position clear enough numerous times, provided you with links to alternative "expert" views and studies, discussed other countries responses, the media hype and panic mongering, excess deaths information, as well as the speculative nature of both the science and the economic data - you've no idea how bad the fallout from this mess will be, or how many deaths may be caused or contributed to by it.



All you can do is repeat the same fecking nonsense, that somehow, because DeppityDawg doesn't agree with you, he's some kind of uncaring c**t.



The usual hysterics from Quack Quack aren't even worth bothering with.

[Javert]

Even if there is a depresssion, the US depression in the 1930s resulted in 25% unemployment in the worst year.  That means 75% of people still had a job.



The economy will bounce back in some way or other, even if it takes many years.  



If companies go out of business, someone else will start up a similar company down the line if the demand is there.  In some cases this will be a good thing because the outstanding debts of that company will hit banks and investors rather than the actual people doing the work, who will often get a job in a new similar startup company - again, if the demand is there.



It's also curious that I'm the one arguing this when all through the Brexit debates I was being told this by Brexiteers.



The difference is that this now is that this is an unavoidable natural disaster that will kill hundreds of thousands of people if not stopped (which, as far as we know at the moment, will still happen if we relax the lockdown too fast and too early), whereas Brexit was, in my opinion, a political choice to cause unnecessary economic damage based mainly on theoretical ideology and principles that don't even have a grounding in reality in the real world.



This is the first time in history that we (by which I mean the global human race) actually have the scientific ability, the technical knowledge, and the economic ability to minimise the death rate and recover later.  Of course there will be severe damage, and of course many people will lose their jobs, as in any recession or depression.  It's still better than just standing back and letting all those people die, even given that just like all of us I might be one of the people to lose my job.

[Hyperduck Quack Quack]

....comes the rain.



Figures showing the impact of the luna...erm...I mean lockdown....are starting to emerge now



GDP hit of nearly 6 per cent in March alone. Less than 10 days into lockdown, worst ever recorded and already worse than 2008. By the treasuries own admission, April expected to be "far worse". Bank of England suggesting that figure could be 25% in the 2nd quarter. Lots of articles now starting to appear about the amount of businesses that will never reopen, even if we do recover our senses. Meanwhile, businesses already starting to come up against problems trying to get people to go back to work.



It's like watching 2 men standing on a railway line as an express train approaches at 100mph, arguing about the risk of tripping over if they move.

There is a deadly pandemic that has killed at least 33,000 people in the UK in less than 4 months and made hundreds of thousands of people seriously ill.  A bad recession is a small price to pay for ending the suffering as quickly as possible.  While trying to rid the country of covid-19 the government can only do so much to mitigate the economic effects.  The quicker the virus can be defeated, the quicker the government can get to grips with the economic fall-out. I'm sorry but this situation just doesn't fit any Breitbart / Trump / Fox News / Bolsonaro / alt-right template for solutions.  There's a clear priority here, namely doing all that's possible to stop people getting ill.