New Chinese virus spreads

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  • Well, that's just ridiculous, Bryan, you must know that's not going to fly.

    'At risk' groups are already defined by the government. Those at risk are meant to isolate themselves from everyone else. Why penalise the rest of the population and wreck the economy when there is an alternative?

    We are all at risk

  • But more than half the population is at risk OB, if you take into account those who are overweight, have diabetes or some other condition.

    If it were a minority of the population that needed protection, then all well and good, but its not.

    But we cannot go on like this. Those not at risk should be left alone. That will help in the quest to get herd immunity with minimal casualties. Add to that number who have already had it (knowingly or not) and those who are immune and we have the herd immunity we need. Surely that's a better solution than locking everyone up indefinitely, which cannot work, is politically unacceptable and would require the Army to enforce the permanent curfew.

    Surely, that's not what you are advocating, Horizon? And if not, what? We have extremely limited options here.

  • But we cannot go on like this. Those not at risk should be left alone. That will help in the quest to get herd immunity with minimal casualties. Add to that number who have already had it (knowingly or not) and those who are immune and we have the herd immunity we need. Surely that's a better solution than locking everyone up indefinitely, which cannot work, is politically unacceptable and would require the Army to enforce the permanent curfew.

    Surely, that's not what you are advocating, Horizon? And if not, what? We have extremely limited options here.

    Knacker the NHS, kill everybody off? :rolleyes:

  • I didn't say that, Bryan. Think about it. Let the virus spread amongst the healthy population while you protect the vulnerable. That will not knacker the NHS, as you so delicately put it.

    That is the effect of allowing the herd immunity to run. If it was a goer don't you think that Johnson would have adopted it to save the Tory business friends?

  • But we cannot go on like this. Those not at risk should be left alone. That will help in the quest to get herd immunity with minimal casualties. Add to that number who have already had it (knowingly or not) and those who are immune and we have the herd immunity we need. Surely that's a better solution than locking everyone up indefinitely, which cannot work, is politically unacceptable and would require the Army to enforce the permanent curfew.

    Surely, that's not what you are advocating, Horizon? And if not, what? We have extremely limited options here.

    Herd immunity only works if 90% of the population gets exposed. My point is that with most of Britons being fat and at risk of severe complications from the virus, this can't be allowed to happen unless its decided that millions should die and many more millions suffer from organ failure and other serious complications.

  • Herd immunity only works if 90% of the population gets exposed. My point is that with most of Britons being fat and at risk of severe complications from the virus, this can't be allowed to happen unless its decided that millions should die and many more millions suffer from organ failure and other serious complications.

    I read that herd immunity would kick in at 60-80%, Horizon. This is the first I have heard about 90%. Do you know where that came from?

    As I said, and have stated repeatedly (it's on my signature!) the vulnerable should be protected.

  • There are so many interesting comments in this thread that it would be exhausting and duplicative to reply to each and every one. So for what’s it worth I’ve replied generically

    Lockdowns and the NHS

    I’m not sure how many people realised that the primary reason for an obligatory lockdown was because the NHS couldn’t cope with too many cv infections at the same time.

    Of course for the elderly the lockdowns are entirely voluntary because they know there is a high risk of dying from cv infection and their only hope is to be in control of their anti-infection precautions rather than be exposed to the throngs of ill-disciplined, ignorant or confused public at large.

    I think there were many people who took too literally the government’s blustering association between lockdown and “stamping out” cv, as if somehow a steadily decreasing “R” was proof of such “stamping out. The hard truth has always been that a handful of cv infections could multiply exponentially, just like it did at the beginning, when the government were slow and complacent to act by just a week or so.

    Surprise surprise, the NHS couldn’t cope. Why would we ever have thought they could? NHS patient satisfaction surveys show impressively high percentages. That’s partly because the dissatisfied patients have been cremated or buried before they could take part in the survey. It has always been the case that when the NHS save lives we treat them as heroes. Now that we have the Chinese equivalent of Germany’s 1940 blitz we’re back in that Land of Hope & Glory, which we express as nightly doorstep claps and, unsurprisingly, in this new age of self-identity, we witness the NHS staff clapping themselves (or clapping us for clapping them for being so clappable).

    Will Britain ever realise that for quite some time now that the NHS is clapped out? Its overall objectives are intelligent and forward thinking, its knowledge and talent are exceptional and its staff camaraderie is at times most impressive. But its system is overrun by a white-collar administration, who criminally waste finite budgets and manage the NHS into a basket case of incompetence.

  • There are so many interesting comments in this thread that it would be exhausting and duplicative to reply to each and every one. So for what’s it worth I’ve replied generically

    The Care Home scandal (BLM versus OLM)

    I would contend that sending elderly patients from NHS hospitals to care homes people without testing them was not evil, not even deliberately heartless but simply a reflection of an under resourced ossified organisation inevitably tempted to pass-the-parcel – even pass-the-buck – either being easier to do to a separate organisation rather than a separate department under the aegis of NHS.

    Quite apart from not having enough test equipment, NHS didn’t have enough beds, nor enough oxygen, nor enough mechanical breathing aids. What’s the point of cov testing those poor elderly souls when there wasn’t the resource to act upon the result of that test? What better example of ignorance is bliss? Especially since their only decision was hardly as difficult as Bernard Shaw’s Doctor’s Dilemma (who to save in the Hobson’s Choicer scenario – a scrounging, dishonourable budding genius or an honourable, useful but unexceptional person).

    In the cv NHS scenario the decision was a no-brainer - practical as well as ticking the box on the very meaning of life, which surely goes like this: you use your limited resource to save the life that has the better prognosis, especially when that saved life has far more years to live. This was a lifeboat that would sink unless it carried fewer souls. Here there were no other lifeboats with spare capacity; those Nightingale bed warehouses were still a plan or work in progress – or they did not yet have the necessary equipment for what would often need to be intensive care.

    Besides, why would NHS staff have cause to believe that care homes would be indifferent to or incapable of dealing with the risk of cov transmission by at least exercising some segregation or protection or quarantining of existing residents from the influx of NHS hospital cast-offs?

  • There are so many interesting comments in this thread that it would be exhausting and duplicative to reply to each and every one. So for what’s it worth I’ve replied generically

    Duracell bunnies or a slow fade

    Somewhere buried in the preoccupation with staying alive is a question about how we lengthen life expectancy. I think there are two processes: (a) improved health, (b) improved methods of staying alive.

    Process (a) helps people to become more immune or able to shrug off threatening diseases. As we improve our health, the diseases improve their virulence, so it is natural that there will always be this contest. Hopefully, people increase their competitive edge by concentrating more on preventing what causes the origination as well as growth of new diseases (and if it occurs to you that this same thought also applies to population control, well, yeah, there’s a thought!).

    As for Process (b) – propping up the living dead - okay, hopefully it’s better than death – unless you are confident or hopeful that your religious or spiritual beliefs has bought you a ticket into the next life. For those who prefer to enjoy being in the present land of the living I would suggest it is highly desirable that medical care and invention be directed more to Process (a) than Process (b). Indeed, I would suggest that Process (b) is a Heath Robinson solution

  • There are so many interesting comments in this thread that it would be exhausting and duplicative to reply to each and every one. So for what’s it worth I’ve replied generically


    Easing lockdown to do what and do it where

    Does it make much difference whether those released from lockdown holiday in Britain or abroad? Many of the scenes in pubs, garden parties, BBQ’s and on beaches look as frightening here as abroad. What we have here is a bunch of pinballs, x% of which are infected, bouncing into other pinballs which might catch the infection, racking up a percentage infection which grows exponentially.

    I agree that if those returning from abroad can be pinpointed as having come from some country or region with a way-above average rate of infection, it makes sense to quarantine them. But this is just tinkering at the edges, which be of sub-marginal return in suppressing cv.

    I think it is a suicidal lack of responsibility by the British government to rely on its citizens’ precautionary-preventative behaviour to avoid the spread of cv to or from themselves. Everyone surely knows that uncivilised or savage behaviour by British holidaymakers is far worse than that of their European counterparts

    Guidance and advice is not the answer. A little bit of Chinese autocracy wouldn’t do too much harm. Failing that either a lobotomy or total head transplant.




  • There are so many interesting comments in this thread that it would be exhausting and duplicative to reply to each and every one. So for what’s it worth I’ve replied generically

    Living is an exercise in probability

    One FB member says he will need to “tolerate the second wave and get it all over and done with once and for all”. I’m not sure how cov can be defeated by tolerance. Maybe “get it all over and done with” is meant to suggest herd immunity which, let’s face it, means survival of the fittest.

    Could it be that is the long term thinking of the government, which is to tackling the link of obesity = diabetes2 = low-immunity? Hard to imagine British government having a vision that extends beyond the next election or indeed into next week.

    The implication of such a vision would be to shine a green light on herd immunity. Hopefully the downside of herd immunity won’t place too much pressure on the funeral industry. Good luck with getting the public to come to terms with risk, with the inescapable fact that staying alive means coming to terms with the necessity of judging probability in deciding what to do. Doing nothing is not an option. Even chickens cross the road without much motivation. For me it’s a revelation to discover how timid are the British public.

    What is the alternative? One FB member said “If everyone stayed at home for six weeks apart from getting food and dealing with medical things, there would be no second wave as the virus would've died out, with the caveat that the airports should've been completed closed too and port activity heavily restricted”. I love the caveat! How about the caveat of one person happening to catch the virus and unknowingly breathe on another? Here we are again, in Virus Groundhog Day.

    Has anyone played with the figures when R>1? Imagine a pinball machine where you are racking up the score as one infected ball hits an island, which expresses its score not just by lighting up but also emitting several infected balls. Each of these infected balls carry on playing dodgems into and around islands, releasing more infectible balls, more than compensating for those balls that rolled downhill and vanished from the board. That’s bad enough if it’s just one ball. Do you really think as long as there is just one pinball hanging around to play dodgems, that putting most of the first wave balls into lockdown is going to wipe out phase 2 mischief-making balls that didn’t lock down? And when several of these mischief-making pinballs are from BAME islands, which are known to discharge at twice the infection rate, it’s time to make sure your will is up to date.

    Sweden’s more relaxed or less-paranoid approach, taking probability in their stride, suggests they are willing to settle for herd immunity. Probably they are healthier. As for elderly “loved ones”, maybe Swedes adopt a matter-of-fact philosophical attitude to agedness and mortality, which either makes them rational, cold and heartless or makes us British soppy and sentimental. Sweden now has a rate of infection similar to the UK but it was a much easier ride, less fretful and far less damaging to their society and economy. Time will tell whether Sweden’s infection rate will become seriously higher than the UK’s, whereupon Britain can enjoy a sense of schadenfreude.

  • There are so many interesting comments in this thread that it would be exhausting and duplicative to reply to each and every one. So for what’s it worth I’ve replied generically

    Public guidance, rules, enforcement

    I read somewhere that Boris Johnson wants to build on the success of the coronavirus press briefings with a new format starting in October". Success? What I witnessed was:

    - The stilted stage-managed presentation style reeking of propaganda

    - The three stooges of the day offering a vast lexicon of vagaries and euphemisms to bludgeon the viewing public into a state of numbed acquiescent ignorance

    - The deflections evasions and obfuscations in response to any intelligent relevant probing question from the media

    - The vacuous big lie of "following the science" becoming a satirical gag-line

    - The Governments' mania for statistics, which analyses the problem to death

    - The briefings only made bearable Mutt Hancock's half hour, where such vacuous-ness, verbal ineptitude needed no alteration to be straight out of tv sketches such as "Not The Nine O'clock News" or "Spitting Images".

    I suppose after a while even nakedly ambitious fame-seekers become uncomfortable being exposed as puppets controlled by 10 Downing Street and either strain at the leash or fail to conceal the fabrication of it all. How clever of the Government to recognise that this was happening and that the solution to that is to have the whole "show" fronted by media news celebs, for whom adhering to a biased agenda predetermined from on high is like fish taking to water.

    God forbid the Government would even thinking about enforcement rather than just information and guidance. God forbid the Government would even dare think about trading off electionability which is almost 5 years away in favour of firm leadership.

    Democracy isn't just about accommodating voters' behaviour and attitudes, it's also about leading them. There must some civilised midpoint between Western democracy and China's totalitarianism.


  • I read that herd immunity would kick in at 60-80%, Horizon. This is the first I have heard about 90%. Do you know where that came from?

    As I said, and have stated repeatedly (it's on my signature!) the vulnerable should be protected.

    Pretty sure it was one of those government advisers we used to see on tv each day, but if I find a link, I'll post it.

  • Surprise surprise, the NHS couldn’t cope. Why would we ever have thought they could? NHS patient satisfaction surveys show impressively high percentages. That’s partly because the dissatisfied patients have been cremated or buried before they could take part in the survey.

    You always have a very "unique" way of putting things and probably right on this point too.

    I'll get to some of your other points at a later date. By the way, you're a bit late on the clapping bit old bean, that's all ended now. (thank god)

  • I have no concern about what other countries do , it is up to them. We just close our doors and stop any of their people coming here as New Zealand did

    It's a bit rich for a Brexiteer to worry about the world economy when they have opted for the UK to go it alone

    We either sit it out or we allow the virus to keep spreading when more and more people will die, we could have another Black Death episode when there will e nobody left to worry about

    I have no concern about what other countries do , it is up to them.

    Truly the Little Brit rather than the sophisticated Internationalist I always took you for

    It's a bit rich for a Brexiteer to worry about the world economy when they have opted for the UK to go it alone

    "Going it alone" is having a global outlook without unnecessary restriction and most certainly without being tied into a political-trading cartel

    We either sit it out .....

    Is this a sophisticated but secret medical term that describes a procedure tailor-made to survive CV?

    Or we allow the virus to keep spreading when more and more people will die

    You're wasted not being on Sage's statistical sub-committee. You grind it all down to the essence. Quite of what I'm not sure

    We could have another Black Death episode when there will be nobody left to worry about

    With BLM should we even be thinking that way?

    Looking on the bright side, when you say there will be nobody left to worry about" does that include you?

    Edited once, last by casablanca (July 31, 2020 at 11:56 PM).

  • a bit late on the clapping bit, that's all ended now. (thank god)

    It's ended but the posters are still up!

    I read that many retail businesses have refused NHS staff "requests" for a discount.

    It's not easy wanting to be generous to people who expect and demand your generousity.

    Yet individually within the NHS there are thousands of incredibly nice exceptions

    Edited once, last by casablanca (July 31, 2020 at 11:56 PM).

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