Confusion of VIs

I was in the office today running a trial of our new working arrangements. A few of the people who were also in went to see the protest, all came back safely and no one saw any violence. All large protests attract extremists why do you focus on them rather than what the large majority are doing. Does it really matter if the extremists spray paint a bit of granite, they are only doing it because it winds up people like you and it will be cleaned up by tomorrow morning.

I was in the office today running a trial of our new working arrangements. A few of the people who were also in went to see the protest, all came back safely and no one saw any violence. All large protests attract extremists why do you focus on them rather than what the large majority are doing. Does it really matter if the extremists spray paint a bit of granite, they are only doing it because it winds up people like you and it will be cleaned up by tomorrow morning.

In South Korea, they tracked 65,000 contacts and traced 160 infections from one infected guys night out in Seoul. From the descriptions of how our "world class" tracking system operates I doubt it would have got past about 10 contacts.

Back on topic. The HPC doesn't seem to be happening, in my parents street in Blackpool 3 houses came onto the market when the lockdown was lifted ,at full price for the area, 2 are now under offer. Maybe they will fall through but there are plenty of people looking and making offers at the moment.

It's not my theory, it where the current data says we are heading barring a vaccine or other treatment. It's quite possible some other factor will change this but at the moment it is not obious what that might be. Just like everyone else I am bored of lockdown and hope it ends ASAP, but with the R number heading back towards 1 that seems unlikely.

The inputs are just your working facts/assumption and are independent of any model. My fag packet calculation is based on the latest ONS figures that say around 7% of the population was infected and the current estimate of deaths (as deaths are a 3-4 week lagging indicator this is valid). There is no data showing herd immunity occurs at 25%. The level at which herd immunity occurs is a function of the R number, based on the R number before lockdown being somewhere around 3.5 (later estimates of R have raised the mid range assumption) of it herd immunity should occur somewhere around 70%. The link you gave is a view, that hopefully may prove correct but it is not mainstream and already is somewhat undermined by Sweden's continuing high infection rate. Just a couple of days ago the virologist leading Sweden's response said that knowing what he does now he would have recommended a harder lock down; not a comment he would have made if he though Sweden was approaching herd immunity.

A lot of the high paid already do and regard it as normal. In London you are competing against people from all over the world, like many City firms mine is 50% foreign staff.

Yes once homeworking is established it won't be long before the cost cutters start asking the IT managers why they are paying UK wages to staff who could be based anywhere.

17% is not that far on the way and if the immunity fades in a year or two we will never get there. Might end up with the peasants locking us in the walled city and laughing at us.

Not very professional if after identifying a significant risk you don't take whatever action is required to eliminate or mitigate it. What level of residual risk do you think it is acceptable to pass on to your workers and their families.

The science always supported mask wearing. The message you heard was the political spin on this from a government unable to provide their population with masks. The government decides what scientists you get to hear, and as Boris revealed gags ones with inconvenient views. Why do you think that, with the R number going back above 1, there were no scientists on yesterdays update. Clearly they refused to parrot or support the politically led nonsense Hancock was coming out with and would have recommended continuing the lockdown until the spread was properly under control.

Failing someone having a working crystal ball, it will take a couple of years to answer that question. It is not unusual for people infected with a Coronavirus to lose their immunity quickly and the only way we will know this for sure is by waiting to see what happens. If immunity fades within 2-3 yrs herd immunity will not be achievable.

You compared Japan's no lockdown and 1k deaths with our lockdown and 50k deaths. If not that our lockdown in some way contributed to the difference, I have no idea what your point was. I was highlighting it was an illogical comparison or to use your word voodoo. The criticism of the model was probably orchestrated by groups looking to undermine Ferguson and by extension the lockdown. If you had ever worked on models you would know that most are exactly as described. The code in them evolves with almost continuous amendments as each run finds a new deviation from reality that the modellers try to account for in the next run. Software engineers usually regard the code in them as unstructured doggerel. However, none of these critics could point to any material error which could explain why the we are on the predicted path to 500k deaths with 50k dead and only 10% of the way to herd immunity. Yes Vietnam has a very effective system for tracking infectious diseases and had the testing capacity to implement track and trace from day 1.

The model wasn't relevant to Japan. Even ignoring that your claim is a complete logic fail. You are effectively saying that the almost all the +50,000 deaths in the UK were caused by the lockdown. The model claimed we would have 500k deaths if we let the virus run through the population. We have had +50,000 deaths and about 7% of the population has been infected, indicating that we will have the predicted 500k deaths by the time we reach herd immunity. Based on the data we now have the model was surprisingly accurate. With R now very close to 1 the semi lockdown is going to continue for a lot longer than many people think. There will be no great reopening in July and the housing market will remain paralysed for at least the rest o the year. Does this cause or prevent a HPC I am not sure. Athough I am sure there will be some bargains to be had from motivated sellers.

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