IFISAcava
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Post by IFISAcava on Sept 17, 2020 10:24:15 GMT
Costello has since tweeted "I've been told by another insider I respect that Chris Whitty does not support a 2 week lockdown, so I'm pleased to correct the record." It's interesting in the context of this FOI request in which Whitty, CMO, gave Vallance, CSO (i.e. Whitty's boss??) a "telling off" for arguing for the initial lockdown... The fact remains, the rate of infection is increasing and the limited measures to date seem to have had little impact so what will happen next? I think the fact is that until its over* we don't know what will happen next or what the effect of blanket lockdowns was or will be. People who loudly criticised the Swedish "tortoise" long haul approach versus the rest of Europe "hare" approach are quieter at the moment when the Swedish approach seems to be having a more enduring effect (and if they'd looked after care homes better would have had much lower mortality - albeit that's the same in most countries). What has struck me is that, just like with so many issues in the modern era, all we get is polarisation, doubling down on pre-held beliefs and screaming blame games. It's a pandemic and like all pandemics in history it kills millions of (mainly vulnerable) people, one way or another, sooner or later, largely regardless of what you do. *meaning that the virus becomes endemic with seasonal outbreaks
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travolta
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Post by travolta on Sept 17, 2020 13:21:49 GMT
Since wearing a mask I have flossed,mouthwashed and cleaned my teeth after every meal. A goodtime to experience your own personal hygiene when you feedback your own breathe
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Post by dan1 on Sept 17, 2020 13:37:36 GMT
It's interesting in the context of this FOI request in which Whitty, CMO, gave Vallance, CSO (i.e. Whitty's boss??) a "telling off" for arguing for the initial lockdown... The fact remains, the rate of infection is increasing and the limited measures to date seem to have had little impact so what will happen next? I think the fact is that until its over* we don't know what will happen next or what the effect of blanket lockdowns was or will be. People who loudly criticised the Swedish "tortoise" long haul approach versus the rest of Europe "hare" approach are quieter at the moment when the Swedish approach seems to be having a more enduring effect (and if they'd looked after care homes better would have had much lower mortality - albeit that's the same in most countries). What has struck me is that, just like with so many issues in the modern era, all we get is polarisation, doubling down on pre-held beliefs and screaming blame games. It's a pandemic and like all pandemics in history it kills millions of (mainly vulnerable) people, one way or another, sooner or later, largely regardless of what you do. *meaning that the virus becomes endemic with seasonal outbreaks Errm.... by "what will happen next" I meant what will our govt decide to do, or not as the case may be, in terms of rising infection rates. I certainly agree that we in an unprecedented era defined by those who deal in "alternative" facts in order to justify their beliefs and actions. We see a high degree of correlation between those who vote Johnson/Trump/Morrison/Modi/Bolsonaro etc and climate deniers, Brexiteers, MAGA, anti-immigation and a series of other issues in direct opposition to the "liberal elite", and to that we can now add how we respond to this pandemic. This debate began with the economy vs health angle when it was bloody obvious to all that people would take action to protect themselves and the economy would nose dive as a result yet still the arguments raged in spite of all the evidence. Just look at the correlation between economic woes and death rates. In the back of my mind I've always remembered the.... it will be to the west's shame if if turns out that China has handled this pandemic better. We now see repeated sharing of dodgy outlier scientific research to back up the assertions, chief among them being that the infection fatality rate is very low (remember, we were told it's just a cold, there are more deaths due to flu and all that BS), when the weight of evidence points to rates that are way in excess of their claims. It's all too reminiscent of the Brexiteer economic professors who claim we're due a boost in economic output as Sterling continues to dive. There's nothing wrong with their views but let's not pretend they are mainstream, they're not they are outliers just as the likes of Ioannidis are. It's all a rather extensive way of saying that we should be looking for the weight of scientific evidence to lead us not just outliers. I guess it's the dishonesty of the argument that gets me. Fine, people hold different views but don't hide behind false arguments. This pandemic has polarised the debate into individualism vs collectivism. With that in mind I very much respect the views of everyone's favourite born again Christian and arch Brexiteer Steve Baker. And as for Sweden, well as it stands they've fared as badly as their Scandinavian counter parts just with a whole bunch of dead Swedes to show for it. In all seriousness, I argued at the time that they're approach wasn't that different. They still have huge curbs on their freedoms (I would say they are still in lockdown as we are to some extent) - you realise that kids and uni students over here are living far more normal educational lives than Swedes? They're economy got clobbered along with the rest of the developed world for precisely the same reasons. It does highlight one disturbing thing that if a country as rich as Sweden (far richer per capita than us, and probably in the top ten I'd guess along with the likes of Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Qatar, Singapore, Macau, HK etc) is unable to protect its vulnerable then the rest of the world really has no hope. I do wonder if they'd made a success of it whether they'd of changed the course of the response but it was almost inevitable they'd fare as they did.
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james100
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Post by james100 on Sept 17, 2020 14:16:13 GMT
<snip> In the back of my mind I've always remembered the.... <snip> ? What was ...? Did you moderate yourself?
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Sept 17, 2020 15:56:25 GMT
With that in mind I very much respect the views of everyone's favourite born again Christian and arch Brexiteer Steve Baker. Was that sarcasm?
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Post by dan1 on Sept 17, 2020 16:08:53 GMT
With that in mind I very much respect the views of everyone's favourite born again Christian and arch Brexiteer Steve Baker. Was that sarcasm? No My respect is very much in a "specific and limited way"
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benaj
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Post by benaj on Sept 17, 2020 17:35:18 GMT
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Mike
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Post by Mike on Sept 17, 2020 18:46:04 GMT
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Sept 17, 2020 19:15:05 GMT
My daughter had to go into London this morning, hopefully Covid free encounters, came home and put all 'London clothes' in the wash and took a shower, hopefully we are still safe. She worries about us!
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Post by bernythedolt on Sept 18, 2020 11:36:38 GMT
I think the fact is that until its over* we don't know what will happen next or what the effect of blanket lockdowns was or will be. People who loudly criticised the Swedish "tortoise" long haul approach versus the rest of Europe "hare" approach are quieter at the moment when the Swedish approach seems to be having a more enduring effect (and if they'd looked after care homes better would have had much lower mortality - albeit that's the same in most countries). What has struck me is that, just like with so many issues in the modern era, all we get is polarisation, doubling down on pre-held beliefs and screaming blame games. It's a pandemic and like all pandemics in history it kills millions of (mainly vulnerable) people, one way or another, sooner or later, largely regardless of what you do. *meaning that the virus becomes endemic with seasonal outbreaks I guess that's largely true, although recent counter-examples might include Zika, Ebola and SARS1, which barely run into the hundreds or low thousands. Regarding Sweden's approach, I'd be asking why they've fared SO much worse than their immediate neighbours. As in 12 times the per-capita death rate of Norway, 10 times Finland and 5 times Denmark. I appreciate there's some way to go, but it doesn't exactly look a runaway success. A few weeks ago, Sweden's death rate was "only" 7 times that of Norway. That has now grown to 12 times. What is this "more enduring effect" you refer to?
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agent69
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Post by agent69 on Sept 18, 2020 12:02:00 GMT
I think the fact is that until its over* we don't know what will happen next or what the effect of blanket lockdowns was or will be. People who loudly criticised the Swedish "tortoise" long haul approach versus the rest of Europe "hare" approach are quieter at the moment when the Swedish approach seems to be having a more enduring effect (and if they'd looked after care homes better would have had much lower mortality - albeit that's the same in most countries). What has struck me is that, just like with so many issues in the modern era, all we get is polarisation, doubling down on pre-held beliefs and screaming blame games. It's a pandemic and like all pandemics in history it kills millions of (mainly vulnerable) people, one way or another, sooner or later, largely regardless of what you do. *meaning that the virus becomes endemic with seasonal outbreaks I guess that's largely true, although recent counter-examples might include Zika, Ebola and SARS1, which barely run into the hundreds or low thousands. Regarding Sweden's approach, I'd be asking why they've fared SO much worse than their immediate neighbours. As in 12 times the per-capita death rate of Norway, 10 times Finland and 5 times Denmark. I appreciate there's some way to go, but it doesn't exactly look a runaway success. A few weeks ago, Sweden's death rate was "only" 7 times that of Norway. That has now grown to 12 times. What is this "more enduring effect" you refer to? A very good question, and I'm certain we would all like to know the answer.
In other Covid related news:
- It looks like later today (or possibly tomorrow) USA death rate will overtake the rate in the UK
- Staying with USA, scientists at CDC say they had nothing to do with (and do not support) recomendations put out by CDC that if you have been in contact with somebody who is covid positive you don't need to get a test if you aren't showing symptoms - wonder who might have been behind it then?
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IFISAcava
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Post by IFISAcava on Sept 18, 2020 12:54:03 GMT
I think the fact is that until its over* we don't know what will happen next or what the effect of blanket lockdowns was or will be. People who loudly criticised the Swedish "tortoise" long haul approach versus the rest of Europe "hare" approach are quieter at the moment when the Swedish approach seems to be having a more enduring effect (and if they'd looked after care homes better would have had much lower mortality - albeit that's the same in most countries). What has struck me is that, just like with so many issues in the modern era, all we get is polarisation, doubling down on pre-held beliefs and screaming blame games. It's a pandemic and like all pandemics in history it kills millions of (mainly vulnerable) people, one way or another, sooner or later, largely regardless of what you do. *meaning that the virus becomes endemic with seasonal outbreaks I guess that's largely true, although recent counter-examples might include Zika, Ebola and SARS1, which barely run into the hundreds or low thousands. Regarding Sweden's approach, I'd be asking why they've fared SO much worse than their immediate neighbours. As in 12 times the per-capita death rate of Norway, 10 times Finland and 5 times Denmark. I appreciate there's some way to go, but it doesn't exactly look a runaway success. A few weeks ago, Sweden's death rate was "only" 7 times that of Norway. That has now grown to 12 times. What is this "more enduring effect" you refer to?That so far Sweden seems to be avoiding the second wave hitting its neighbors (eg new cases in Denmark shooting up and now more than double those in Sweden) and even more the rest of Europe (Spain, France, UK, etc). As I said, they took a tortoise approach of making changes that they felt they could last years not weeks or months. Their death rates were heightened by the way their care homes are set up (eg larger size) versus neighbors like Norway, and by failure to protect care homes sufficiently. And in two years time, after the second, third and fourth waves, we will be better placed to make an informed evaluation of the overall impact of different strategies.
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benaj
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Post by benaj on Sept 18, 2020 13:23:44 GMT
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Post by dan1 on Sept 18, 2020 14:02:24 GMT
The latest weekly surveillance report published today has this rather concerning chart.... About 1 in 10 of 85+ year olds are testing positive. At least they won't make the same mistake of discharging Covid-19 positive patients back into care homes. Holy Sh*t....
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travolta
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Post by travolta on Sept 18, 2020 15:49:01 GMT
Realisticaly old and disabled people go to care homes and eventually die. They dont go to die on the acute ward of a hospital It may sound harsh but face up to it. This bug kills old and sick people . There's no pussy footing around it. We live in cloud cuckoo land, abusing our younger bodies or living on borrowed time in old age supported by free drugs. No one in government will come out and admit this and the rest of us are too mealy mouthed to face up to it. Now stop swigging wine,stuffing food,get healthy or get over it.
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