Coronavirus - potential Black Swan?

[mattyboy1973]

7 minutes ago, bear.getting.old said:

I think you are in another world. Most of the electorate don't think like you, thank goodness.

I think there is quite a lot of evidence that the electorate actually does think like that. To some extent, for some people at least, the thought process is simply "do I like what is happening now? yes - vote the current government back in, no - vote for someone else". People voted Churchill out after WW2 because they wanted to put the era behind them, perhaps we'll see something similar in the US. Probably not so much here since, with luck, the virus will be some distance in the rear view mirror by the time of the next election. Then again, if the response turns out to be complete disaster, who knows?

[longgone]

On 13/03/2020 at 23:14, MonsieurCopperCrutch said:

So you contribute zero to society (and have done likewise for almost a decade) yet you're quite happy to condescend those that do. Bravo Sir. What an outstanding individual you are. 

i contribute as much to society as you do to this forum.  

i have contributed plenty in the past you never have. 

[markyh]

34 minutes ago, thecrashingisles said:

You're forgetting that Britain is an island, so with most flights grounded, there isn't a border to close.

The Royal Navy should machine gun immigrant boats in the channel come summer, you no, just in case.

[Confusion of VIs]

2 minutes ago, bear.getting.old said:

I agree with your comments abut government red tape. And how difficult it is to get production of ventilators. I have been a civil servant. I don't agree with the rest of what you said about the government. A lot of the remainer MPs have gone. It has been said that 40% of the civil service need clearing out to finish the job because their attitudes make it it difficult for us to finish the job of being out.

Car manufacturers making ventilators is pure distraction. Telling that there is absolutely no detail behind this "plan", just like the silly little delay graphs with no values on their axis. 

It will soon be apparent that we don't have enough critical care staff, anaesthetists, ancillary equipment or drugs to fully utilise the ventilators we have, never mind all the ones Hancock says he has been buying up, plus some devices cobbled together by car manufacturers.   

 

 

[slawek]

39 minutes ago, thecrashingisles said:

You're forgetting that Britain is an island, so with most flights grounded, there isn't a border to close.

That is true that lots of flights have been cancelled but this is not because of the UK action but because of other countries closing their border. 

The UK hasn't done anything about closing their borders.

[Kosmin]

12 minutes ago, bear.getting.old said:

I think you are in another world. Most of the electorate don't think like you, thank goodness. Another person moved across from the brexit thread who can't see beyond their anti brexit tunnel vision and obession with people like Cummings. Its quite dangerous really -

1. that they still have accepted and moved on

and 2. they are letting it cloud their vision at a time like this, regarding things that have zero to do with brexit

I said: "If there hadn't been a pandemic, the Tories would have had a great opportunity and great risk in their post-Brexit negotiations." There is a chance that Brexit goes very well, that Johnson gets a brilliant trade deal, all economic indicators do very well and Johnson argues - and people (even Remoaners!) believe - that this was due to Brexit. Set aside how probable this was before the pandemic. How likely is it now? Will Johnson be negotiating a trade deal? Will any other countries be negotiating a trade deal? Or will they focus on the pandemic? I'm not saying Brexit will go badly. I'm just saying I don't see how it can go well whilst everyone is focused on the pandemic.

It's really a secondary point to the pandemic anyway.

Probably the bigger gain from Labour is that they can avoid their Brexit dilemma (that some people still think they can win by arguing for rejoining, whilst others acknowledge there is no majority for this) as the focus will be on more general policy errors. Remember when Labour were able to make a lot of political capital out of the Grenfell Tower? I think it's going to be a lot easier for Labour to find a link between Tory policies from 2010-19 and the response to the pandemic and the impact on vulnerable people and the secondary impact on everyone else.

18 minutes ago, bear.getting.old said:

* On the other hand in times of crisis some leaders can boost their popularity, eg Falkands War - Thatcher.

You are in another world:

Falklands War - 255 Brits killed, 775 wounded, 10 weeks. It was popular because it allowed people to feel good with very limited cost. A pandemic lasted a long time with a large loss of life or a shorter time with a very large loss of life isn't likely to be a crisis that makes the leader popular. 

[Bruce Banner]

32 minutes ago, bear.getting.old said:

I think you are in another world. Most of the electorate don't think like you, thank goodness. Another person moved across from the brexit thread who can't see beyond their anti brexit tunnel vision and obession with people like Cummings. Its quite dangerous really -

1. that they still have accepted and moved on

and 2. they are letting it cloud their vision at a time like this, regarding things that have zero to do with brexit

* On the other hand in times of crisis some leaders can boost their popularity, eg Falkands War - Thatcher.

Why do you insist on linking Coronavirus with Brexit? Other than the fact that we only have this divisive and incompetent government as a result of Brexit, there is no connection.

Incidentally, my loathing of the Tories (having previously been a member) was brought about, not by Brexit, but by Cameron and Osborne's lies in their 2010 manifesto and subsequent house price ramping. Although BJ , Cummings, and their cabinet minions have taken that loathing to new highs. 

Edited March 16, 2020 by Bruce Banner

[Peter Hun]

38 minutes ago, kzb said:

Just In Time deliveries.

It costs money to store stuff.  This is what managers are for, to hone things down to core purpose.  It's far better to re-purpose the PPE store to something productive and output 0.01% cost saving.  Probably got a bonus for driving that through as well.

Just Out of Time, more like.

[MancTom]

36 minutes ago, Riedquat said:

I did hear a claim that cases of people getting the sh1ts have reduced significantly thanks to all the handwashing (no more evidence than "some bloke in the pub" though).

a friend of mine posted this winters flu stats....apparently for the first time in years they over predicted the number of deaths....as if something new happened e.g. hand washing! Have read the same was seen in Hong Kong (20% reduction in flu deaths)

[Peter Hun]

1 hour ago, kzb said:

Herd Immunity:  if it is thought there are about 10 -20 sub-clinical  infections for every reported case, this is actually good news.  It means herd immunity is building much faster than would otherwise be the case.

All evidence from testing indicate that there are no hidden infections.

[Andy T]

 

3 hours ago, Social Justice League said:

And I heard yesterday that the European Union is going to ban the sale of lifesaving products to countries outside the EU.

The irony of this whole situation isn't lost on me.

It's a big wide world out there.

Germany are trying to place orders with the US.

 

[MancTom]

2 minutes ago, Peter Hun said:

All evidence from testing indicate that there are no hidden infections.

so why did the government say we have 5000-10000 infections, when testing showed of order hundreds? Clearly there is some multiplicative factor between the tests they do and the real numbers, given the former statement?

Edited March 16, 2020 by MancTom

[Andy T]

20 minutes ago, Confusion of VIs said:

 never mind all the ones Hancock says he has been buying up, plus some devices cobbled together by car manufacturers.   

 

 

Come on, we have some world leading engineers, R&D , precision manufacturing, medical supply chain in the UK, nothing is going to be 'Cobbled together' .

[kzb]

8 minutes ago, Confusion of VIs said:

It not news, it is someone thinking. Where is the evidence?

You are correct these are my own ideas.  But they are MY ideas and therefore worth considering. 

On the herd immunity, there is evidence there are far more infections than recorded "cases", and that most of these infections never progress to being reported in the case figures.  You know that many people are saying the IFR (as opposed to the CFR) is likely quite small, less than 1%.

If that is true, the more-rapid build-up of herd immunity must also be true ?

 

 

 

 

[slawek]

7 minutes ago, Bruce Banner said:

Why do you insist on linking Coronavirus with Brexit? Other than the fact that we only have this divisive and incompetent government as a result of Brexit, there is no connection.

Incidentally, my loathing of the Tories (having previously been a member) was brought about, not by Brexit, but by Cameron and Osborne's lies in their 2010 manifesto and subsequent house price ramping. Although BJ , Cummings, and their cabinet minions have taken that loathing to new highs. 

I think they are scared that Covid-19 will derail their Brexit. So obsessed that they don't understand that we will rejoin at some point.  

[Peter Hun]

32 minutes ago, Riedquat said:

Yes, there does seem to be an awful lot of "something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do it!" about.

Its must be done and done now becuase the number of deaths ripple every wek of dely

Study suggests number of cases could have been cut by 66% if China had acted a week earlier

 

The rapid spread of coronavirus around the world could have been substantially curtailed if the broad swath of measures China brought in to control the outbreak were introduced just weeks earlier, researchers say.

Sophisticated modelling of the outbreak suggests that China had 114,325 cases by the end of February 2020, a figure that would have been 67 times higher without interventions such as early detection, isolation of the infected, and travel restrictions.

But if the interventions could have been brought in a week earlier, 66% fewer people would have been infected, the analysis found. The same measures brought in three weeks earlier could have reduced cases by 95%.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/research-finds-huge-impact-of-interventions-on-spread-of-covid-19

[slawek]

1 minute ago, kzb said:

You are correct these are my own ideas.  But they are MY ideas and therefore worth considering. 

On the herd immunity, there is evidence there are far more infections than recorded "cases", and that most of these infections never progress to being reported in the case figures.  You know that many people are saying the IFR (as opposed to the CFR) is likely quite small, less than 1%.

If that is true, the more-rapid build-up of herd immunity must also be true ?

 

 

 

 

My guess is that could be 5 times more infected that confirmed cases. The government was estimating 5-10k of infected when there was 1k confirmed cases. 

[Sour Mash]

20 hours ago, debtlessmanc said:

38% of germans are aged 55 or over (35% in italy 30% in uk), i believe eastern germany that % is  much higher. This could actually substantially alter Germany's population

Not to worry - they have about a million, mostly young, immigrants that Merkel welcomed in.  I'm sure that the Islamic Republic of Germany will thrive in the decades to come.

 

[regprentice]

25 minutes ago, bear.getting.old said:

I agree with your comments abut government red tape. And how difficult it is to get production of ventilators. I have been a civil servant. I don't agree with the rest of what you said about the government. A lot of the remainer MPs have gone. It has been said that 40% of the civil service need clearing out to finish the job because their attitudes make it it difficult for us to finish the job of being out.

I spent 20 hours last week rewriting process documents, training materials etc because someone decided to change a job title of a specific role to make it 'softer' as a result of user experience testing. 

Agile and other touchy feely 'methodologies' pervade the civil service now. And as I've understood that that's exactly the kind of 'modern', 'silicon roundabout' type thinking Cummings is looking to encourage. I believe that's what's driving the differing medical approach to the crisis we appear to be taking over the rest of Europe. 

I genuinely believe that if Boris or Dominic had 10,000 respirators in a warehouse, but that an expert, or an algorithm, or a desktop scenario told them that using respirators in two weeks instead of today would help 95% or people instead of 93%, or would 'shape' the 'curve' of a scenario in a slightly favourable way, then they the would counterintuitavely sit on those respirators for two weeks instead of getting people breathing today or tomorrow. 

[Kosmin]

28 minutes ago, Andy T said:

why?  because of 'growing worry?  there's no sound argument in the text, seems to be just a reaction to other countries doing it, therefore we must follow, because it must be good.

Some argue closing schools won't work because that relies on finding a vaccine.

Some argue allowing to spread won't work because it can mutate and some people are already getting re-infected (a man on the Princess cruise tested positive, recovered (tested negative), then positive again). 

I'm not sure why many are so sure a vaccine won't become available.

I'm not sure what the best response is. Buying time and trying to find the best solution and getting people to agree seems sensible.

[slawek]

British way

[Sour Mash]

8 minutes ago, Kosmin said:

Some argue closing schools won't work because that relies on finding a vaccine.

Some argue allowing to spread won't work because it can mutate and some people are already getting re-infected (a man on the Princess cruise tested positive, recovered (tested negative), then positive again). 

I'm not sure why many are so sure a vaccine won't become available.

I'm not sure what the best response is. Buying time and trying to find the best solution and getting people to agree seems sensible.

Baring some sort of Hail Mary event, Vaccines don't suddently get developed.  Still no effective vaccine for SARS, MERS or Zika for example.

[kzb]

22 minutes ago, slawek said:

My guess is that could be 5 times more infected that confirmed cases. The government was estimating 5-10k of infected when there was 1k confirmed cases. 

I think it's beyond question that, at any point in time during a growing epidemic, there will be more unknown-infected than confirmed cases.

The question is though, does (virtually) every one of those infected proceed to be diagnosed and recorded as a case number in the future?  If that is true, it means the IFR and CFR are virtually equal.  But most are saying the IFR is much lower than the CFR. 

For the IFR to be substantially lower than the CFR, there must be large numbers of infected who are never recorded as cases.  This just follows on mathematically if the premise is true.

Edited March 16, 2020 by kzb

[Dorkins]

Gilead's experimental antiviral remdesivir (small molecule inhibitor of viral genome replication) is now in 5 clinical trials for Covid-19, first data expected in April:

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/16/remdesivir-surges-ahead-against-coronavirus/

Quote

“There’s only one drug right now that we think may have real efficacy,” Bruce Aylward of the World Health Organization said last month. “And that’s remdesivir.”

According to the article it would probably only be used on hospitalised patients so the goal would be to reduce deaths/speed recovery rather than control infection.

(If anybody is interested in the source, Stat news is quite widely read in the pharmaceutical industry.)

[slawek]

2 minutes ago, kzb said:

I think it's beyond question that, at any point in time during a growing epidemic, there will be more unknown-infected than confirmed cases.

The question is though, does (virtually) every one of those infected proceed to be diagnosed and recorded as a case number in the future?  If that is true, it means the IFR and CFR are virtually equal.  But most are saying the IFR is much lower than the CFR. 

For the IFR to be substantially lower than the CFR, there must be large numbers of infected who are never recorded as cases.  This just follows on mathematically if the premise is true.

There is no way to record all or even most of the infected cases. Some are asymptomatic or very mild. The only way to get an idea of how many infected case were is by sampling the population for antibodies.