From my secret source in Ireland… “Coronavirus: What are the British up to?” (RTE):
The UK scientific and medical advisers do not expect the infection rate to peak for another three months.
They believe that it is too early to take drastic measures, and that if they are taken now, they will have to be held in place longer than most people expect, and because of that they would lose effectiveness just when they were most needed, because people would get bored and stop practising the hard disciplines of “social distancing”.
In a Channel 4 news special programme on the virus shown on Friday night, Professor John Edwards, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who also advises the British government, said there are two ways to deal with this virus.
Either stamp it out by curing every person in the whole world who is infected, which we are no longer able to do, or managing the spread of the virus until herd immunity is reached. When challenged about a potentially large death toll, he said “there is no way out of this”.
What, he asked, happens when the lockdown is relaxed? The virus will come back and the risk of a sudden, overwhelming peak rises again.
In other words, the U.S. is due for a massive outbreak of coronavirus in the late spring or early summer.
If the U.S. had a universal taxpayer-funded government-run health care system like the NHS (but with welcome mats spelling out “No Human Being is Illegal” in 15 languages) and no Orange Menace in the White House, Americans would all go to the clinic, get tested like the South Koreans do, and this would purge our great nation of this virus (not to say “foreign virus”), right?
Right now, the British government believes that the biggest impact it can make in terms of slowing the spread of the disease is to request that anyone with a persistent cough or fever should self-isolate for seven days, which is the main infectious period, and not bother contacting a GP or even the phone helpline.
The technocrats in England don’t even want people to go to the doctor, much less fire up the PCR testing machines!
Separately, the article shows that microaggression against the Latinx is muy bien:
Boris Johnson, in his inimitable way, described the resulting chart (or curve, as economists like to say) as looking like a sombrero. And he said the aim of public policy is to “squash the sombrero”.
How is the course of an epidemic in any way like the profile of a sombrero? Isn’t it just up and then down? If Mr. Johnson wants a profile with some action on the brim, why not an English bowler hat? Why pick on our neighbors to the south whom our most righteous Hollywood stars celebrate even as they make plans to migrate to Canada rather than Mexico?
Herd immunity sounds to me like a population average; hope this epidemic is normally distributed…
They claim to be prepping for the 2nd wave: https://twitter.com/Clarky989/status/1238893310229479424?s=20
Probably should try for proactive containment and testing: https://link.medium.com/pWIeWvnLP4
Should be OK the British are famous for their stoicism.
In the true spirit of Brexit, hopefully someone will remain.
UK officials provide cool instructions too:
https://mobile.twitter.com/DHSCgovuk/status/1238888876523094024
Sleep alone?!?! How is a golden retriever supposed to get the love that she needs?
I thinks dogs are okay: “Hong Kong dog with coronavirus tests negative after quarantine”
https://nypost.com/2020/03/14/hong-kong-dog-with-coronavirus-tests-negative-after-quarantine/
If the British were testing adequately, to ensure they can detect small hot spots before they turn into regional conflagrations I could understand their approach. But if they are not testing, then any measurement would always seem to be 2-3 weeks late, after the hotspot has placed at least one person in a hospital.
I think they take the delay into account. For example:
“590 people have tested positive for the coronavirus in the UK, as two more fatalities take the number of people to die in UK hospitals to 10.
Sir Patrick Vallance, the Government’s chief scientific advisor said the number of the people infected at the moment could be as high as 10,000.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-news-uk-cases-deaths-numbers-covid-19-latest-live/
If I’m not mistaken, modeling outbrakes is well established science.
> I think they take the delay into account.
Not testing, measuring the outbreak by measuring hospitalizations and deaths, well that seems to be a perfect way to Kirkland, WA elderly care home fatalities throughout Britain
You seem to think it was possible to stop the outbrake at some point. The genie was out of the bottle months ago. For comparison, the world had never suceeded in stopping yearly flu pandemic. Covid19 transmits just like flu, but spreads faster and with longer asymptomatic period.
The virus has joined common cold and flu viruses, and it’s here to stay with us.
British are even urging universities *not* to close:
“The government has warned universities to stop bringing in restrictions over coronavirus.
It comes after a series of top institutions cancelled teaching and exams.
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson told education leaders they “shouldn’t be closing” campuses and urged them to follow medical and scientific advice.”
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/coronavirus-universities-gavin-williamson-schools-closed-a4387111.html
The UK’s importation of the covid-19 infection from Italy became evident at the end of February and yet the problem wasn’t resolved until the Italians themselves imposed a quarantine a fortnight later. The inaction of the British authorities would if anything suggest an innate incompetence and it is through this lens that the ridiculous plan to sacrifice 400,000 lives should be viewed.
The British government has a long history of misinterpreting scientific advice: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51892402
“More than 200 scientists have written to the government urging them to introduce tougher measures to tackle the spread of Covid-19.
In an open letter, a group of 229 scientists from UK universities say the government’s current approach will put the NHS under additional stress and “risk many more lives than necessary”.
The signatories also criticised comments made by Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, about managing the spread of the infection to make the population immune.
The Department of Health said Sir Patrick’s comments had been misinterpreted.”
Its a rapid developing scenario: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51895873
“Shielding the vulnerable and elderly will be an essential part of the government’s strategy when cases are rising rapidly – it was one of the decisions signed off at an emergency Cobra meeting on Thursday.
Half of the overall cases are expected within a period of a few weeks, with 95% in a period of around 10 weeks.
So officials will ask those at most risk of developing severe illness to stay at home.
“
FYI, Something to read and watch.
The BBC also did a nationwide experiment in 2018, which is still available on BBC iPlayer called Contagion: The BBC Four Pandemic.. which shows and models the spread and impact of a flu type virus in the UK. They worked in conjunction with scientist, modellers and the general public to ensure it was robust. It led to this research paper, which gives more detail, the programme is also a good watch.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1755436518300306