And that's for a country that got hit substantially later than Asia, and substantially later than the rest of Europe and sits on an island with a few roads to shut off, and is substantially richer than say an Italy or Spain. Yet it has surpassed Italy's crisis and has not yet shown any signs of a strong trend of improvement. It's absolutely insane how they mismanaged this. Yet it seems he and his administration fair not much worse criticism than any other leadership in other countries at the moment.
Look at the FT or NYT international comparative excess death studies. Excess death is definitely in the top 3 and looks to be nr 1 in all of Europe's 30-50 countries.
And this is despite having one of the best positions as one of its richest, relatively few tourists per capita compared to many other countries like Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Netherlands etc, the vast majority of visitors arriving by air which was relatively easy and uncontroversial to shut down compared to shutting down land borders in Europe (particularly for landlocked countries).
And lastly, it was hit later than much of Europe let alone Asia, which is massively important. When you have early-outbreak doubling times of 2 days, getting hit 4 days later can mean a 4x difference in the infection/death numbers. It had absolutely no excuse, particularly compared to other countries, to erroneously downplay this pandemic.
Unfortunately whereas many other countries like Spain or Italy are seeing far fewer infection numbers than weeks ago, the UK is seeing just as many as weeks ago. It's slowly improving, but it's nowhere near the home-stretch as other countries are, yet it's relaxing conditions. Finally, it's not even testing as much as other countries, with tests at a rate of 29k per million, whereas Italy/Spain are at respectively 44k and 52k.
This has mismanagement written all over it. Indeed if I came across as implying the UK is 10x worse than everywhere else, no it's nowhere near that disproportional. But it clearly seems to have had one of the best starting positions and worst outcomes, and one of the furthest away from significant improvements.
[charts halfway down the link] https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06...
And that's while lagging behind Belgium, which had a daily number of infection reported the past few days of about 20% of the peak figure. For the UK they're only at about 60% of the peak figure.
You're comparing two countries at different points in their lockdown-cycle. And this is very relevant in an exponentially developing health crisis where total-infected (correlated with total-deaths) see doubling times measured in days, meaning that comparing two countries 1-2 weeks apart can mean you're undercounting by 50% or even 75%. The UK's figures are worsening far faster than Belgium the next weeks.
And Belgium, by the way, is testing at a rate of 1.75x that of the UK on a per capita basis. If the UK ramped up testing as much, they'd likely fare even worse in these comparisons.
In other words, it looks like it literally is the worst managed country in Europe.
I don't know about you guys but being 'part of an outlier out of control problem group' is not 'proportionate for Europe' to me, and winning the prize for worst hit of that group, definitely isn't.
Very unfortunate to see you imply I'm presenting the facts about the UK because of my political leaning and why my contribution to the discussion must thereby be biased, and limited. I don't despise the government at all, I don't live in the UK and frankly prior to the Covid-19 crisis I'd probably have picked the UK (including its government) to come out of this crisis best. But the facts turned out different.
I'm not talking about belgium, the governement there is a joke since 2010, only redeeming thing are Belgians.
The US as the best population density except in a few area, few train line and major road (and a lot of toll roads too), as well as early cases with limited infection spread. I think US numbers are OK for now but getting higher than ~30% excess mortality with their advantages would be a pretty bad look for their government.
Buys time:
That allows epidemiologists to understand exactly what the risk factors are. So governments and businesses can begin to fine tune suppression measures.
Gives the biotech industry time to develop cheap and fast tests. Which you need to do contact tracing. Hopefully they can develop immunotherapy agents to prevent exposed people from developing the disease.
Time for public health officials to raise a small army to do contact tracing.
Allows doctors time to understand how best to treat the disease. For a disease with a serious mortality morbidity rate even partly effective treatments are important.
Allows sane people to grok what they need to do to keep themselves safe. And allows society to begin to reign in careless people, loons and deniers. Also give again sane people the opportunity to stay safe by not allowing businessmen like Musk to force them into unsafe working conditions.
As an individual the odds aren't too worrying in isolation.
Everything functioning well, few people get sick and those are treatable and death rates are low.
But it's exponential growth.
So cases can swamp any realistic health system left unchecked. At this stage the low fatalities (0.5%) goes out of the window and start looking at just under 10%.
So a good strategy seems to be to slow the spread to managable rates at which level actual disease impacts are quite low.
Imagine, in the limit, theoretically, you could keep everyone seperate and expose a batch size you could treat, lead them through and then take the next batch. You could have death rates under 0.5%.
The only other realistic objectives I see are tactical: ramping up treatment ability and postponing cases until a cure/preventative measure is available and when disease progression and treatment are better understood.
A lot of people are throwing out numbers somewhat randomly here. If we had no hospitals at all, the worst possible case would be everyone requiring hospitalization dies. Right now among the elderly it's about 40% of those who require hospitalization end up dying. Thus the worst case would be 100% or a 2.5x increase. Among the middle aged, hospitalization survival rates are about 10%, so a 10x increase in death rates worst case. Neither of these worst case scenarios are especially realistic because hospitals are pretty good at surging; and if people need to be triaged, you triage the people who are most likely to die anyway (thereby changing the actual death rate very little). Thirdly, a good chunk of people who get hospitalized would just survive on their own anyway. There is the non trivial problem that other healthcare concerns (like unrelated heart attacks) are harder to treat.
That doesn't mean it's negligible. A 1 percentage point increase in mortality is a lot of people. But a 20x increase from 0.5% to 10% is preposterous and apocalyptic.
For clarity's sake: I'm comparing (roughly) stats like Italy and UKs deaths/known_cases ratios (which are closer to 10% than 1%) and Like a new New Zealand which is between 1% and 0.1%.
But looking quickly at the data one order of magnitude is totally justified.
"Hospitals are pretty good at surging" must break down against exponential growth at some stage. I doubt whether exponentially increasing your treatment capability would be possible in most cases.
Around 10% of known cases needs hospitalisation. Among them, 70% to 80% of cases only needs oxygen and not respiratory help. So you can't give them oxygen, they'll either die or have permanent right heart or brain damage. Those will likely be fine after a dozen day at the hospital.
If your oxygen levels are really, really low, you will need an intrusive ventilator. And yes, the death rate in those cases is absurdly high (between 60 and 90%).
Note: 10% of known cases is NOT 10% of cases.
Note 2: IMO this 10% number should be way higher as hypoxemia is far more widespread than previously thought, even for people with mild symptoms, even for kids (i only have anecdotal data on this so don't use it as an argument until papers are written and consensus is made). Still, if you have covid with only mild symptoms, please go to the hospital to take your oxygen saturation level.
Yes, 66% to 90% mortality rate.
The other problem doctors are worried about is people with life-threatening conditions--heart attack, stroke, etc. not going to hospital out of fear.
Time to develop better treatments.
Keep a lid on the virus with track and trace (I'm doubtful we can achieve this in the UK).
Second to that, hundreds of millions more would need to be hospitalised. You'd essentially see any other healthcare be completely overwhelmed, e.g. cancer treatment or conceiving a child in the hospital. You'd see tons of excess mortality from these second hand effects as well.
Third, in general, and in particular without proper care, you'd see many people suffer permanent organ damage. We see this to be true for many who have recovered from Corona, but with permanently damaged lung or liver capacity.
Not to mention the trauma and PTSD for hundreds of millions even those who survive, who'll have experienced what it's like to (nearly) suffocate for weeks. Experiences like these would occur in every community and would likely completely shatter certain individuals, families even communities, their religious beliefs, their sense of security etc. The notion we'd let something like this happen in the 21st century. It'd be a paradigm change in our thinking for many of us who believed our live, societies, governments etc were stable and provided order. Situations like these would be ripe for abuse by political or religious extremists, violence, scape-goating etc.
I'm still hoping some researcher will publish a dataset of 'median lived density', rather than a simple density average. That is to say, a weighted density calculation. In other words, if 100 people live in one building in a vast desert the size of Texas, their 'lived/experienced density' or 'weighted density' is far greater than if 100 people live spread out in an area the size of a few football fields. Then we could have a more sophisticated discussion around density, as this issue aaaalways pops up when doing comparisons at the national level. (at the city level it's not as big of a problem, although even there some weird zoning differences can sometimes throw figures off.)
It was late and hasn't been strict and so we're having the worst of both worlds: Decimated economy and lockdown that has to be extended.
The key issue, I think is that the lockdown has been lax. Just look at the curve in the UK vs. France/Italy/Spain.
I can't ever see it happening; there is so much opposition. Human rights seems to be biggest sticking point, and is unlikely to be resolved any time soon.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accession_of_Turkey_to_the_Eur...
It sounded nonsensical at the time. It has been proven that it was.
Edited to add: “total failure” would have been to just do nothing, allow the health service to be overrun, let hundreds of thousands die, let millions be hospitalised, and let the economy tank with no support for business or workers. None of which is true of the UK government response.
You may not like the UK government, but stating something that is so obviously wrong just undermines the rest of your legitimate criticism.
Like from my perspective it seems like an isolated island of hooligans, distinct from a civilized society.
Even when it comes to the language, continental Europe speaks a more easily understood version of English.
With their self isolation and general dysfunction, it really seems have handicapped the point of the UK, like as a financial center or place to consider for anything.
A perspective.
> Really is shameful
It's shameful that any country put practically their entire citizenry under house arrest.
If someone is scared of catching something, they should stay home. If they want, they can live their life in a full-body condom, covered in bubble-wrap, soaking their hands in chlorhexidine, sipping O2 from a tank. Nobody is or should be putting a gun to their head to come out.
The UK government, and governments around the world, have indeed failed. They've failed to protect the liberty of the people, and in fact have become tyrannical.
You and others can’t make a pact to get infected with a deadly virus. If you do and someone dies others should be ready to go to prison!
As long as you understand that, it’s cool. Mostly people expect heath care workers to take deadly risk of getting infected themselves and working without PPE that’s no lockdown is basically a ruse from entitled people who want others to risk their life and liberty for them.
The mental state of a person attacking another person with a knife, or a virus, is not at all comparable to a person going to bake sweets, cut hair, or any of the other productive employments people engage in.
Actus reus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea.
For people without underlying risk factors, the illness is generally quite minor. Those at risk should stay home, and avoid contact with the potentially infected. For those who share accommodations, mixed risk factor domestic populations, perhaps systemic help could aid in sorting that out.
I decided to post here only to demonstrate that people exist with other views. I'm satisfied that anyone reading this will understand that these views are not unheard of.
1. Kawasaki disease increase for children is not yet tied to a risk factor other than covid19
2. Pulmonary fibrosis occurs also with patients with no risk factors. Although most of those patient spent time in ICU tied with an intrusive ventilator, this is not the case everytime (not enough data yet to know how many have minor lung scarring though).
3. Hypoxemia caused by covid19, even with very mild symptoms is dangerous for the longterm heart and brain health. If you do sleep apnea AND you have covid19, please do not hesitate to go to a hospital (22 millions americans are suffering from sleep apnea and 80% are undiagnosticed according to this [0]). Hypoxemia also have impact on mental health.
I agree that other view exists and should be allowed to be heard. But you probably don't have family in a hotspot, and if you have, it's probably in a major city where the effect are not that visible, especially with lockdown (and overall a few percentage is hit). I have family in a low-density hotspot (around Colmar, France) and they are medical workers. Everyone was hit around them. Around 300% excess mortality in the area (still less than Bergame, so lucky them), at least three parents died, as well as a long-time friends and two colleagues. He told us that not going in self-lockdown was criminal and begged us to ask to work from home if we could (this was 5 day before government-enforced lockdown).
[0] https://www.sleepapnea.org/learn/sleep-apnea-information-cli...
At the same time, for me personally, after spending years in biotech and healthcare (doing academic mathematical research on hand hygiene, including published peer-reviewed study of compliance rates of doctors to their own hygiene protocols, working within and analyzing clinical trials, doing pharmacokinetics, publishing epidemiological studies, mathematics of mass decontamination, etc.) I've realized a few things.
One is that doctors in particular are always calibrating their behaviour to what butters their bread. In the same way American police write "to serve and protect" on their cars, when it really it should say "to serve and protect [THE STATE]", doctors believe they should "do no harm [TO MY CAREER]". Meaning, the treatments and recommendations for patients are totally different than the standards they apply to themselves and their own children. It's safer, and garners more power, to prescribe a lockdown, than to risk getting caught out on the off-chance this is another Black Death.
You'll see the same repetitious behaviour with respect to things like dietary supplements, lockdowns, and masks: do as I say, not as I do. And what I say is always going to be coming from a cover-my-arse perspective. It's the outrageous hypocrisy that drives me mad. No doctors that I know or work with personally believe the hype, yet the peer pressure to conform in public and lick boots is overwhelming.
The impact of the deaths from delayed non-covid-19 medical treatments, mental issues, depression, hunger, economic distress, and so on is going to be enormous. There is no accountability in this scenario, because of the mass hysteria. All the damage gets ascribed to the virus, and none to the policy makers, similar to how iatrogenic deaths get swept under the rug.
The only positive that I see is that the mask has slipped and the possibility exists that soon, some proportion of the people will see what maniacal control-freak lunatic weirdos the people in charge of the state have become. Never shake hands again? Guess what, if strangers never touch each other, it will be the end of the human race in just 50 years. God help us.
My opinion is that lockdowns if you can't stop the spread should be locals, way more local than a state in the US, and i agree that global lockdowns are bad if you can't completely stop the epidemics.
a point for future argumentation: the food situation is okay in western europe (notwithstanding sever cut in animal protein consumption) , troubling in eastern europe (but this is not caused by the lockdown and can be offset by less animal feed), my company is hosting FNSEA/INSERM project doing food previsions so i'm well aware of this. No data on other countries sadly.
Also to nitpick:
>The impact of the deaths from delayed non-covid-19 medical treatments, mental issues, depression, hunger, economic distress, and so on is going to be enormous.
Yes, again, i have family working in hospital at Colmar, my cousin is the SMUR chief and his wife is an addiction doctor so i'm well aware of this, but during the height of the epidemic, almost no care were given to emergencies because they had to focus on patient. Since two weeks ago they can now take care of people suffering addiction, they did not redirect emergency operation to hospitals in Lyon (no free helicopter trips anymore). Also the diminution of road accident was also a really nice side-effect for them.
> No doctors that I know or work with personally believe the hype
They should have come to Colmar France or Bergame Italy and helped then.
The global response is not the best, but really you should talk to doctors in community with 300%+ excess death, their point of view might be a bit different.
Quarantine is for the sick, not the healthy. I'm equating lockdowns with tyranny, yes.
Shutting down the global economy has resulted in hundreds of millions of people experiencing food insecurity. It will result in an enormous cost in terms of deaths, morbidity, and impaired mental well-being, for people in the UK and around the world.
>Shutting down the global economy
This implies that the global economy would not have taken a hit had we not enforced more stringent quarantine policies. Do you really think that people were going to be flying, eating out at restaurants, or going to their local movie theater or mall while their local community is dropping like flies around them?
>hundreds of millions of people experiencing food insecurity
Citation needed. And, by the way, this is not an argument against quarantine policies, this is an argument for better social services from the government.
>It will result in an enormous cost in terms of deaths, morbidity, and impaired mental well-being, for people in the UK and around the world.
Citation needed. Are you going to just continue to throw around unsubstantiated claims?
> COVID-19 will double the number of people suffering from a food crisis, pushing it to 265 million, estimates the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).
You can read the report to see the effects of policy versus the effects of the burden of disease.
I don't need to cite anything regarding the other claims. The people who have assaulted human dignity by putting half of humanity under house arrest are the ones who need to prove that this draconian intervention will result in a net benefit, vis a vis the concerns I've pointed out. Cite your sources that it will -- I'm sure to hear crickets chirping on that one.
It's a simple mistake, yet you continue to make it throughout this thread.
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Coronavirus: Food insecurity fallout from Nigeria's lockdownwww.theafricareport.com › coronavirus-food-insecurity... By Oluwatosin Adeshokan, in Ogun. Posted on Monday, 11 May 2020 17:47. Virus Outbreak Nigeria Food In this photo taken on Friday, April 17, 2020, people ...
'Instead of Coronavirus, the Hunger Will Kill Us.' A Global Foodwww.nytimes.com › 2020/04/22 › world › africa › coron... Apr 22, 2020 - It could double the number of people facing acute hunger to 265 million by ... Coronavirus lockdowns have caused many more to go hungry. ... safety net face a future where hunger is a more immediate threat than the virus.
Millions in Lebanon risk food insecurity over virus lockdown ...www.france24.com › Return to homepage › Live news Apr 8, 2020 - "The lockdown... has compounded the poverty and economic hardship rampant in Lebanon before the virus arrived," said HRW senior ...
Coronavirus Lockdowns Are Choking Africa's Food Supply ...time.com › World › COVID-19 Apr 15, 2020 - Lockdowns have blocked farmers from getting food to markets and ... Bank said the virus could create “a severe food security crisis in Africa.”.
Coronavirus crisis could double number of people suffering ...www.theguardian.com › world › apr › global-hunger-c... Apr 21, 2020 - Lockdowns and global economic recession have already decimated their nest eggs. ... Global hunger could become the next big impact of the pandemic, ... save people stricken by the virus only for them to fall prey to hunger.
Severe hunger threatens Africa during COVID-19 lockdowns ...www.dw.com › severe-hunger-threatens-africa-during-... Apr 22, 2020 - The government imposed a nighttime curfew and shut businesses down in early March to slow the spread of the virus. To help with food ...
Coronavirus: Your one-stop blog for food industry updateswww.foodnavigator.com › Article › 2020/03/23 › Coro... 2 hours ago - Coronavirus: Betting on aeroponics to increase food security ... the UK's national lockdown, according to a John Lewis and Waitrose Report. ... hands, take supplements: Researchers urge leaders to extend virus advice .
Coronavirus: Fighting food poverty in a lockdown - BBC Newswww.bbc.com › uk-england-manchester-52228080 Apr 13, 2020 - Coronavirus: Fighting food poverty in a lockdown ... Volunteers at FareShare risk their health to help feed those in need during the virus crisis.
No, quarantine is literally for the “potentially exposed”, not the known sick. Once a person is sick, they are then isolated, not quarantined.
====
From the Cambridge English Dictionary:
lockdown noun [ C or U ] mainly US UK /ˈlɒk.daʊn/ US /ˈlɑːk.daʊn/ a situation in which people are not allowed to enter or leave a building or area freely because of an emergency.
From the Oxford dictionary:
quarantine noun /ˈkwɔrənˌtin/ , /ˈkwɑrənˌtin/ [uncountable] a period of time when an animal or a person that has or may have a disease is kept away from others in order to prevent the disease from spreading
From the American CDC:
"Isolation" separates sick people with a contagious disease from people who are not sick.
"Quarantine" separates and restricts the movement of people who were exposed to a contagious disease to see if they become sick.
Implicit in this description of your “rights” trumping public health authority is that you believe you have a right to infect anyone who is unfortunate enough to touch some surface you’ve previously contaminated, or breath air you’ve breathed while infectious.
What principle, moral, or ethic tells you this is your right?
Secondly, since that unfortunate soul is locked in their home, how are they touching anything I've touched, and how are they breathing the air I breathe?
Lastly, why did you decide to make this about me personally?
And am I to assume that you do not assert that contrary to accepted public health science, you have a right to simply go about as you please regardless, so that others may be forced to seek shelter from your infectiousness?
What is it about the science of public health epidemiological abatement measures that you object to, and on what principle?
The lack of intellectual integrity here is astonishing. The OP, the BBC claiming these "excess deaths" are automatically COVID-19 deaths, is just more evidence of this. If any person locks another person up, it is legally recognized as a harm done to the victim. The government is the party that needs to justify itself. The constant shifting of policy, predictions, and rationale of the government's policy itself is an indication of the shaky basis of this action.
Specifically, the justification of not overwhelming the health care system, which is chronically overwhelmed anyway, is not compelling. The policy came first, with aspirational goals rather than scientific thinking, which was then back-filled. The government has put itself into a win-win situation: if lots of people die, that provides the justification for the action; and if few people do (which won't be known for a year or more), then the credit for "saving the people" goes to the policy makers. I happen to see it the other way around: if many people die, it shows these measures are useless; and if few do, then the government has caused the people massive harm for no just cause.
The veneration of the health care workers is also disgusting, this ridiculous clapping and so on. These people aren't slaves, they go of their own free will, and there are many jobs ("essential" jobs) that are far more dangerous. The purpose of life is living, not being safe. More mind-programming for the masses.
Regarding your assumption, you didn't respond to my point at all. Nobody needs to seek shelter from me, if they've already decided to barricade themselves in their home.
(b) Citation needed. Again [0], why doesn't countries under lockdowns such as israel and norway do not have excess death if lockdowns causes extrem harm? And before the "rich country" argument, why South africa does not have any excess death and even way less death than expected? Those three countries are under sever lockdown. Unless you think it will cause longterm damage to those countries and more time is needed. I guarantee you i had once an asthma strong enough to cause moderate hypoxemia, i will remember this all my life even if it did not last more than a day. I think the lockdown is really easy if im honest. And i know for a fact that at least in France, most cooks and chef de partie are pretty happy with the lockdown too even if they will be the most impacted by the lockdown (75% pay for learning new tricks and doing homestay culinary contests might be the reason why)
(c) Good argument.
> The lack of... shaky basis of this action [0]. Explain (a) and (b) then
> Specifically, .... which was then back-filled.
Untrue for France [1] (might need google translate for that)
> The government has put itself into a win-win situation. Yes, agreed but i don't understand why does this matters.
> The veneration of the health care workers is also disgusting, this ridiculous clapping and so on. Yes, but this is a personnal opinion (i REALLY agree with) and no argument at all.
> More mind-programming for the masses. Just wanted to point it out: if you read this sentence in a text you don't agree with (like a 9/11 or moonlanding conspiracy theory), what would you think of the person writing this?
If you really care about being rationnal, the question you should always ask is "why do i think this". Why would you think this is programming for the masses and not just herd-like comportment that also happens to fulfill a psychological need?
[0] https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06... [1] https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/273933-emmanuel-macron-...
Re (b) No citation is needed. I answered this elsewhere, that depriving a human of their liberties, putting people under house arrest, is in itself a harm. Forcing your neighbour to stay in a box is an assault, and to commit that violence against another person requires the highest level of justification. As for the physical health and other measurable harms, those will be recognized over time. I'm quite sure that "deaths of despair" issue will eventually be covered in mainstream programming, if not already.
Lastly, the "rational" mind (which I never claimed to be) has to acknowledge the response of humans to fear-inducing stimulus, and other mechanisms that lead to Stockholm Syndrome type behaviours. By enforcing this "prayer" to the NHS, the state has induced the public to see their captor as their liberator. It is totally perverse, but is the air we breathe these days.
Thank you for the thoughtful response!