Lockdown

There will always be enough reporting on what is actually happening even in that gung ho police state. Mate of mine's chinese wife has her parents there and they barely managed to get out of there on 31-Jan, they were back there for chinese new year.

And her employer back here, also chinese, quite literally returned from Wuhan in mid Fed, deliberately flouting the ban on anyone coming here from there. And since he was back in china for chinese new year too, obviously has been communicating with his relos back there since.

With modern communications, there isnt much even a gung ho police state can do to stop hard info getting out. from

I think you dont get proper herd immunity until the infection rate drops to zero which means that the chances of someone with it meeting someone who has never been exposed are essentially nil. THAT takes a hell of a lot of people getting it.

The problem is that many have it and hardly feel it. I had a slight cough, aching muscles and felt a teeny bit feverish several weeks ago, but that is pretty normal with COPD anyway. Did I have it? Who knows?

They can never be certain of that and may find that the restrictions are doing such a good job of stopping the spread of infection that they continue with that and see the virus stamped out in the country.

Mean, over a population, infection rate of less than one from someone infected. Obviously the lower the infection rate the faster it dies out.

It's reckoned that SARS-CoV-2 needs to infect 60 to 80% of the population for "herd immunity" to start having an effect. There is a mathematical relationship between the natural infection rate and the percentage of population that needs to be infected for the herd effect to start having an influence.

Well quite, I had a "funny throat" about the start of lockdown. Felt a bit "lumpy" but not sore or tickly, little bit of a cough. Obviously something but what? I doubt it was Covid-19.

Until there is a decent anti-body test available and significant numbers of people are tested we don't really know how widespread SARS-CoV-2 actually is.

All we can do is watch the hospital admissions and once they are showing a consistent fall for a couple of weeks, lift some of the more draconion ones and keep a close eye on the admissions. If they start to exponentialy rise bang the restrictions back on. The tricky bit is spotting early enough the difference between the rise that will occur when the restrictions are lifted and a rise that means it's starting to take off again.

They will only know that when they have tested sufficient of the population for numbers of those infected. We have no idea what proportion of the population are infected or the rate of new infections.

The real question is when will we know the NHS can cope?

Lets be optimistic, lets assume 2% of the population will need admission to a hospital before herd immunity kicks in sufficiently. That's 1 million patients. Each one that survives, probably 1/2, will need a bed for 1 or 2 weeks. That's a lot of beds, or a very long time to reach herd immunity.

My numbers may be off, but that should paint a picture of how this might pan out.

gto a hosptial

Spike was thinking very hard :

Not what I heard this morning, they were saying it was more about getting that age group back to work, because that group is the group which might suffer long term mental issues from being confined to home.

Broadback explained :

I know they are doing a pretty good job creating the Nightingales, but general they cannot simply and instantly magic up hospitals, equipment, doctors and nurses. They have a lead time, particularly the latter staff, measured in years. They virus is here - NOW, the need to take measures is here and NOW. Lockdown is the only way to control it at this moment.

Dave Liquorice formulated the question :

The big problem with that, is the long lag between lifting restrictions and the infections appearing.

Sensible would be system of lifting restrictions in a closely confined area, as a test. In Italy they have isolated a village for experimental purposes.

The extra staff are a mix of ?returners?, ?early graduates? ( for example Doctors normally all start on a Wednesday in the Summer- I should remember, our middle daughter was one a few years back, she is now a Registrar) but a number have been pushed through, ditto nurses), other workers and volunteers for the none medical jobs have been recruited - including from areas like the airlines.

I?m not suggesting the above will stay in the NHS - obviously the early graduates hopefully will- but they will man the extra hospitals/ fill shortages etc.

The planning, response etc has been quite impressive.

The way the volunteer system runs (GoodSam) is really quite impressive.

I expect that the so-called Immunity Passport will be rolled out toot sweet, so those of us that are economically productive and have shrugged off a dose of Covid-19 already can get back to our usual routines. It doesn?t take a close study of the Tory mindset to know that they?re much more keen about getting the economy going than keeping pensioners alive; the next General Election is too far away for the loss of potential voters to over-ride the cost of lockdown. And many of those that will die from this wouldn?t make it to the next election anyway, so it?s even less of a concern for your common or garden Tory politico.

Of course, there?ll still be millions of Boomers on lockdown for months to come while they wait for a vaccine. They?ll kick up an almighty fuss about ?snowflake millennials? being allowed to do what they like again, but the alternative is they roll the dice and catch the plague. A big risk for that demographic.

All predicated on the - as yet untested - theory that it's not possible to become reinfected, and that there are huge swathes of people that have somehow developed immunity. All without a shred of evidence.

Yet the media haven't stopped screaming about the 'anti-body test' while the Government are being sensible and evaluating the tests, checking they are reliable etc.

I'd love to see one of the Government Scientists confront one of the media types and call him a fool and point out just how stupid the media are being.

If only Journalist who asked sensible questions were allowed into the briefings, there wouldn't be any questions.

R4 this morning had an interview with someone who had come out of ICU. Year older than Boris, clearly a far more serious case etc. He was asked the most inane questions and they tried to draw conclusions re Boris. Conversely, a chap local to use, even older, with several underlying conditions, had been in ICU, his family had been told to expect the worst, he was home a few days later, looking remarkably good in the circumstances. People aren't the same. They recover differently.

Pound to a pinch of s*it that the Tories will be more than happy to play those odds. I mean, what?s the worst that can happen, right? Don?t forget, it was only a month or so ago that official Government policy was to let the plague run loose and ?if a few pensioners die, hard luck?. Policy didn?t change; the optics did.

As well as the extra staff "created" by early graduation for students and re-enrolment for retired staff, the use of Nightingales makes a difference by itself. It takes fewer staff to monitor large number of patients on an "open" ward than it does on modern wards with a number of separate rooms housing 6, 4 or even as few as 2 beds and "private" rooms.

SteveW

I went and looked at the South Korea figures earlier.

They've been carrying out extremely widespread contact tracing and testing, and seem to have the epidemic under control. Unlike some countries I have some faith in their numbers.

Let me merely say that if you are of a nervous disposition don't look them up. My wife, for example, wouldn't benefit from knowing their figures.

We've been in lockdown now for three weeks, comfortably over the incubation period; if lockdown is working we should be seeing a massive drop in hospital admissions.

We aren't.

We may be wrecking the economy, and not helping the country's health.

Andy

Because hordes are stupidly ignoring the lockdown and even the lockdown isnt much of a lockdown at all with everyone free to go shopping and to exercise.

The hospital admissions would have been a lot worse with no lockdown.

As we?ve seen, far too many people simply can?t understand the numbers- nothing to do with having a nervous disposition- they simply can?t analyse them and do basic research.

Of course, the media haven?t helped- their stupidity has sent people like Pamela into some strange out of touch with reality orbit from which she transmits but only receives what she wants, or perhaps that is the fumes from hairdressing chemicals she mentioned earlier.

The numbers from Sweden are interesting, especially as they adopted a different approach.

As were the comments today by one of gov medics re the difference between different country?s approaches. I?m not remotely suggesting he is wrong, quite the converse his observations were most revealing.

in Suffolk there have hardly BEEN any admissions. 300 cases in total. Its working HERE.

London is another country. If they think they are invulnerable and the tories are lying to em, let em all die.

They gave the National number of admissions today, it was about 19k for 70k confirmed cases, under 1/3. Obviously there are unconfirmed cases and some who aren?t yet in hospital may yet need to attend but, overall, the snapshot lines up with other countries- most people recover without even going to hospital, let alone complex intervention. Those requiring invasive ventilation represent a much smaller group- not only admitted to hospital but also very ill. Not those like Boris who had a bit of O2 and, I?m pleased to say, seems to be recovering well.