Earlier lockdown could have prevented three-quarters of UK coronavirus deaths

[papasmurf]

Yum, as the dog doo piles up on the beaches, the infection rate will slowly rise.



It's so obvious this will happen, there really should be a bet placed on this.

It is the human poo being left behind that is the problem.

[Borg Refinery]

Give it another 10 days.

Yum, as the dog doo piles up on the beaches, the infection rate will slowly rise.



It's so obvious this will happen, there really should be a bet placed on this.

[DeppityDawg]

Critically, none of the new data that has come out since March has indicated that the assumptions underlying the Imperial College study were massiveley wrong.



By far the main drivers of those numbers would be

1)- The R0 re-infection rate if no action is taken.

2)- The incubation period of the virus.

3) - The infection to death ratio.



Which of these data points are you challenging is massively wrong in the original model?

FFS



Do you only read the Guardian and the Huff Puff? Both of which are busy now blowing sugar up Ferguson's arse and any other "Doomsday" scientist that supports the message that this virus will destroy life as we know it.



There are numerous articles (which don't focus on his sex life) that are sceptical of his software AND his methodology. Its been said that the modelling which Prof Ferguson based his calculations on was 10 years old and based on a programming language which was 20 years old.



https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/05/16/neil-fergusons-imperial-model-could-devastating-software-mistake/">https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/ ... e-mistake/">https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/05/16/neil-fergusons-imperial-model-could-devastating-software-mistake/

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/coronavirus-uk-modelling-that-forced-lockdown-messy-as-angel-hair-pasta/news-story/c7a5ea882a1a4066333d998e2a206f48">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/ ... 8e2a206f48">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/coronavirus-uk-modelling-that-forced-lockdown-messy-as-angel-hair-pasta/news-story/c7a5ea882a1a4066333d998e2a206f48



But of course, this is just the "climate change denying reactionary right wing press" isn't it  :roll:  



As has been said now...what 83 times? ...time will tell Javert. You seem to think his sh*t doesn't stink, but others are sceptical about his model

[B0ycey]

Give it another 10 days.

OK,  and after ten days, after the bank holiday and sunny weather, if the R0 is below 1 then what? All those who "risked their lives" did so for what punishment?



We have two problems here. Firstly we do not know the percentage of those who were initially infected meaning that lockdown may have done F@@@ all if it was already high (50% like one Oxford study suggested) and two people are understanding very clearly that in reality there is little risk to them and those it does pose a risk stay at home and stay safe. Which means that in all likelihood the fit and young infect themselves and as they are the percentage who are most likely asymptomatic, critical figures won't increase massively and the R0 will appear to reduce.

[papasmurf]

But what if there isn't a second spike? R0 is still below 1 and that includes everyone flooding the beaches.

Give it another 10 days.

[B0ycey]

With all the idiots breaking the lockdown and ignoring distancing I suspect we will be well into the second spike in cases by then.

But what if there isn't a second spike? R0 is still below 1 and that includes everyone flooding the beaches.



The second spike depends on infection rates before the lowdown FYI.

[B0ycey]

Well you could have saved everyone if you shut borders when the first case was reported in China. So fucking what? Governments have to mitigate deaths to a minimum and work on the information they have available at the time.



Hindsight is pointless when decisions that need to be made have to be based on a number of things (such as economic, mental, social) and not just Covid19. Latest figures are 68bn borrowed in April. I suppose nobody gives a shit about bankruptcy, jobs and wellbeing until the impact surfaces because the borrowing is masking the true impact for everyone to see. When the last furlough payment is handed out and businesses are forced to make redundancies and taxes rises are required to pay for this clusterfuck, then I suspect public attitudes will change from saving the over 70s on their final leg to how the F@@@ am I going to pay my food bill this month.

[Borchester]

London, packed underground, and more or less nationally for idiots rushing to beaches where there are no toilet facilities, "wild" camping with no toilet facilities. Social distancing being ignored. (Don't you have access to news/current affairs.)

Actually Pappy, the Tube and buses are practically empty (at least in my part of London). I am not into camping, but whenever I have been dragooned into it I have always found that by digging a hole and then doing what came naturally into it answered well enough as a latrine. Certainly it is what I do on my allotment and I have not caught the Peking Pox yet. Similarly, at the seaside I just go into the water and piddle, which is what the fish do all the time and I have yet to read reports of them suffering from the Chinese Cough.

[papasmurf]

It seems probable that government and advisors have allowed for some non-compliance among the population.

SOME none compliance? Travelling 300 miles to a beach/national park with car parks closed and toilets closed, is beyond stupid.

[patman post]

With all the idiots breaking the lockdown and ignoring distancing I suspect we will be well into the second spike in cases by then.

It seems probable that government and advisors have allowed for some non-compliance among the population. And acknowledgement of probable public resistance could have been the reason for not implementing lockdown until later in March...

[papasmurf]

Only in your part of the world Pappy,

London, packed underground, and more or less nationally for idiots rushing to beaches where there are no toilet facilities, "wild" camping with no toilet facilities. Social distancing being ignored. (Don't you have access to news/current affairs.)

[Borchester]

With all the idiots breaking the lockdown and ignoring distancing I suspect we will be well into the second spike in cases by then.

Only in your part of the world Pappy, where failure and despair are pretty much the way of life. The rest of us will salute the wise stewardship of Boris and vote him into many more years as PM

[Javert]

What do you NOT understand about what I am saying about this whole sorry mess? I and several other on here (as JoG illustrates above) are sceptical about these "models" which make claims like "500,000 will die if we do nothing". There are "experts" who are sceptical about them. How many times has this been said too? This was a "model" and there are "experts who disagree with it for feck sake, what is so hard to understand? This ISN'T SAYING "no one will die". This isn't saying "only 500 will die" What is it with you keep inventing motives or binary opposites because someone doesn't fecking agree with you? Do you understand how fecking annoying it is when you keep doing this? DO I have to write in capitals all the time to make my point because you don't read what other people say?

I agree that you should be sceptical about the models.  Up to now though I haven't seen any data that massively invalidates the Imperial study which modelled, as I say again, what might happen IF nothing was done at all.



I don't agree with JOG either because according to the other thread, and this one a well, his argument is that the Imperial college study must be wrong because the scientist who was in charge of writing it broke the lock down rules and would not have done that if he believed his own data.  However, the scientist had already had Covid-19 and was immune to catching it and spreading it.  



Nothing about his model was about predicting immunity or protection it was about the spread of infection.



Actually, if we were to assume as the government tries to tell us, that it's a possibility that immunity to Covid-19 doesn't exist at all, his model of deaths would have to be adjusted upwards, because all the people who nearly died first time around will get it again a few weeks later and die.



That's where I most certainly am sceptical - I find it preposterous to suggest that Covid-19 confers zero immunity or protection for any length of time.  If that was the case, given that everyone in my house has had it, we would have been getting it in circular form every few weeks and would have been continually ill since March.  This has not happened.  Why?



Also the hospitals are not full of people who've caught Covid-19 for the second time in a row.  Why?



The original model about if we had done nothing had confidence intervals which were pretty wide.  In face, many of the studies up to now have pretty wide confidence intervals.  



For example, the slide presented yesterday in the press conference said that they think 122,000 people had Covid-19 at any one point in the last few weeks, but the confidence interval was between 80,000 and about 350,000 which is obviously a pretty wide interval.



What that means is that they are 95% sure that the real answer is somewhere between those two numbers, with the probability of the correct number increasing towards the middle.



So when you and JOG say these models are incorrect, are you saying that it's even incorrect to give those confidence intervals, and there's an equal chance that the real number is, say, zero, or even a minus number?



Critically, none of the new data that has come out since March has indicated that the assumptions underlying the Imperial College study were massiveley wrong.



By far the main drivers of those numbers would be

1)- The R0 re-infection rate if no action is taken.

2)- The incubation period of the virus.

3) - The infection to death ratio.



Which of these data points are you challenging is massively wrong in the original model?

[papasmurf]

As I may have mentioned before, I reckon that this bug will have burned out by about 13 June.

With all the idiots breaking the lockdown and ignoring distancing I suspect we will be well into the second spike in cases by then.

[Borchester]

But I never said that the PM should definitely resign now.  I said, if it's shown by the future public inquiry that he had all the information needed to make the decision to introduce the lockdown earlier, and he failed to act on that and dithered instead, when the correct decision would have saved thousands of lives, he should at that point resign.  If that's not how it came across, that's what I meant and I am happy to clarify it now.

Please don't Javert.



If a future public inquiry finds that a lockdown should have been introduced earlier you will sigh and accept the grim necessity of dragging Boris before a tribunal of Islington Luvvies who will drone on and on until his arse falls off and he dies of terminal boredom.



If the inquiry finds that Boris was right all along you will demand another inquiry.



As I may have mentioned before, I reckon that this bug will have burned out by about 13 June. I am probably wrong but so are most of the other forecasters, so I would be obliged if someone would arrange to forward me a very large sack of cash for my very limited efforts.