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Lockdowns

This is from the Lancet and endorsed by 300 scientists

........ the control of the spread is most effective at low case numbers. Easing restrictions while accepting higher case numbers is a short-sighted strategy that will lead to another wave, and thus to higher costs for society as a whole. Testing and tracing capacities are limited: only with sufficiently low case numbers can the test–trace–isolate–support strategy quickly and efficiently help mitigate the spread.

Hence, milder and more targeted physical distancing measures are sufficient, and schools and businesses can stay open.

...................., contact tracing and quarantine is not feasible at high infection prevalence. Assuming a state with 300 new cases per million per day, ten contacts per case, and 10 days quarantine: then 3% of the population would need to be in quarantine, resulting in strong reductions of the workforce.


What this clearly highlights (and I have not seen it in print before), but some thing that I have mentioned a number of times previously is that track and trace is only ever effective when there are low instances of infection. So all this ranting (especially by the Labour front bench) about the failures of track and trace is just hot air. People know that beyond a certain point trying to track and trace is completely ineffective. So having Circuit breaker lockdowns to fix track and trace would never have worked - but has Steer Kalmer ever put his hand up to acknowledge his flagship policy for managing Covid was twaddle? Errm didn't think so !!
 
The failure of Test &Trace lies primarily in the fact that it was implemented far too late. Back in March other countries were testing like mad, WHO was exhorting test, test, test, places like S Korea did so, Germany did so, we just sat and prevaricated until it was (as you say) too late for it to be effective because the numbers were too high, and anyway too poorly organised and lacking the appropriate financial support for isolaters, so that very few people could be traced. It should have been implemented before case numbers were too hig, and should have been placed in the hands of local PH etc (who have had much greater success in tracing people than Serco, now that they've been involved at last).

Lockdowns work. But our lockdown #1 was too late starting, whereas lockdown #2 was a pale imitation of a lockdown, not even good enough as a tribute band at the Memorial Hall.

There are 10m "vulnerable" in the UK. You cannot effectively shield 10m.

People not observing the basics of hygiene and distancing are ultimately to blame, but many will take their lead from the headline guidance given by government, and if that is deemed inconsistent or confusing, or if high profile people are seen to be blatantly ignoring the rules, then the masses will simply begin to ignore the rules and do what they want. There is a large streak of selfishness involved. The crowds escaping London at the weekend prove the point - no consideration for the fact that asymptomatic people become spreaders of the virus.

As for hospitals not being overrun - given the large numbers of covid patients in hospital at the moment, plus the numbers of staff off ill or isolating, the only reason they are not overrun is that they are cancelling elective/routine/planned surgery. And the Nightingales were a PR exercise - there aren't enough staff to run the hospitals properly, there are certainly no spare staff to use in the Nightingales.
 
I think the early days of Test and trace had 2 major issues - lack of an effective test and by the time it was realised what was happening, the virus was way out of control

With regard to nightingale hospitals, I think the govt was going to use armed forces medics, I suspect these are now being lined up for the vaccination programme
 
Knutsfordian said:
It's very easy to say it's all the government's fault and they are incompetent, but don't let the facts get in the way of a good story or a bashing to be dished out to the messenger eh?

Over the weekend a number of scientists have come forwards to say that they have been working on identifying mutant forms of Covid for some months - and there in fact many hundreds if not thousands of mutations. It really was at the end of the last week when the scientists stepped up with the evidence to say "you really really can't ignore this form of the disease" and press the government for something to be done. Look at it logically - Would Boris have stood in the Commons last Wednesday, saying what he did and knowing that this story was about to break? You might think the man to be shortsighted, but people at that level of government are rarely as inept as we would like to believe. It would never have happened.

It is likely that this variant is also widely spread across Europe, but has only now been identified in the UK. That apparently is because we do about 50% of the world study into gnome (?), so very few other countries have the technical know how to do the work. This new variant has already been identified on the European mainland, so cutting off the UK isn't going to restrict the spread

The other compelling science is that this virus spreads via human contact. Avoid contact with other people and you stop the spread. Because people insist on partying together, shopping together etc etc, means that lockdowns are inevitable. None of us like them, none of us want them but until we learn to live differently or get vaccinated its where we are.

The government is clearly hoping that the AstraZeneca vaccine will hit the market any day. I suspect when it does the advice on who gets it will change with schools and geography added to the mix. They have 100 million doses of that vaccine that's enough for 50million peeps, so I suspect teams of army medics ploughing through schools and universities in tier4 areas will be high on the agenda
Click to expand...
You might be surprised to hear this, but even I can’t blame Boris and his cabal for this latest mutation and the impact that it has had.
But what is absolutely without doubt is the complete lack of leadership, direction, statesmanship and the slightest nuance of competency we’ve seen from this bunch of chancers, spivs, and elitist con artists over the last 12 months.

10 days to go before we crash out without a deal and with no plan to cope with the combined impact of this and the latest Impact of Covid.

Those sunlit uplands with unicorns dancing upon them seem pretty far away at present...
 
Knutsfordian said:
I think the early days of Test and trace had 2 major issues - lack of an effective test and by the time it was realised what was happening, the virus was way out of control

With regard to nightingale hospitals, I think the govt was going to use armed forces medics, I suspect these are now being lined up for the vaccination programme
Click to expand...
So why did Boris and his chums faced by this conundrum completely ignore the existing and experienced public health teams in local authorities and immediately award a contract with the serial failing company Serco to undertake a vital, complex and hugely important task that they had sod all experience in? Ditto supplies of PPE.

Hmmmn. ? Let me think for one moment....
 
James Wood said:
So why did Boris and his chums faced by this conundrum completely ignore the existing and experienced public health teams in local authorities and immediately award a contract with the serial failing company Serco to undertake a vital, complex and hugely important task that they had sod all experience in? Ditto supplies of PPE.

Hmmmn. ? Let me think for one moment....
Click to expand...
I think they thought that local services would be overwhelmed and a nationwide solution would be a better fit. Damned if you do and damned if you don't in my view
 
James Wood said:
You might be surprised to hear this, but even I can’t blame Boris and his cabal for this latest mutation and the impact that it has had.
But what is absolutely without doubt is the complete lack of leadership, direction, statesmanship and the slightest nuance of competency we’ve seen from this bunch of chancers, spivs, and elitist con artists over the last 12 months.

10 days to go before we crash out without a deal and with no plan to cope with the combined impact of this and the latest Impact of Covid.

Those sunlit uplands with unicorns dancing upon them seem pretty far away at present...
Click to expand...

I am not sure any of our current crop of politicians across any of the parties would have fared better. That said, this really is crunch time. Having gone this long before walking away from the Brexit talks, I am coming round to the idea that their just might be a deal. If so there's bound to be huge recriminations around winners and losers, but that will pass as the news agenda will be all bout the pandemic. The task the government must not shirk or fail is the roll out of the vaccination programme. January is going to be absolutely critical and there will need to be something in the order of 20m vaccines dispensed in a month to make a real difference, with a repeat in February. I think, as well as vaccinating the adult population, there will be schools and universities programme too. This is the moment of real truth as to whether as a nation we have the capabilities we always assumed we had.

Its also fair to say that whilst the focus is clearly and heavily focused on the UK, infection rates on the continent are also roaring ahead with many countries showing cases per 100,000 in excess of the UK
Czechia5810799609576.113.82020-49 and 2020-50
Romania55633513385436.811.32020-49 and 2020-50
Portugal3487445559524.911.02020-49 and 2020-50
Sweden3410297667781.74.32020-49 and 2020-50
Austria3200364400472.516.92020-49 and 2020-50
Hungary2838707130683.023.62020-49 and 2020-50
Bulgaria1794495688528.026.82020-49 an


U/EEA and the UKSum of CasesSum of Deaths14-day case notification rate per 100 000 inhabitants for the reporting period14-day death notification rate per 100 000 inhabitants for the reporting periodReporting period YYYY-WW
France237685257911236.38.32020-49 and 2020-50
United_Kingdom184940364170348.28.92020-49 and 2020-50
Italy184371264520428.315.92020-49 and 2020-50
Spain175188448013220.96.32020-49 and 2020-50
Germany133707821975341.16.92020-49 and 2020-50
Poland113567622864396.615.42020-49 and 2020-50
Netherlands61274610034546.74.02020-49 and 2020-50
Belgium61128418170263.011.52020-
 
Knutsfordian said:
I am not sure any of our current crop of politicians across any of the parties would have fared better. That said, this really is crunch time. Having gone this long before walking away from the Brexit talks, I am coming round to the idea that their just might be a deal. If so there's bound to be huge recriminations around winners and losers, but that will pass as the news agenda will be all bout the pandemic. The task the government must not shirk or fail is the roll out of the vaccination programme. January is going to be absolutely critical and there will need to be something in the order of 20m vaccines dispensed in a month to make a real difference, with a repeat in February. I think, as well as vaccinating the adult population, there will be schools and universities programme too. This is the moment of real truth as to whether as a nation we have the capabilities we always assumed we had.

Its also fair to say that whilst the focus is clearly and heavily focused on the UK, infection rates on the continent are also roaring ahead with many countries showing cases per 100,000 in excess of the UK
Czechia5810799609576.113.82020-49 and 2020-50
Romania55633513385436.811.32020-49 and 2020-50
Portugal3487445559524.911.02020-49 and 2020-50
Sweden3410297667781.74.32020-49 and 2020-50
Austria3200364400472.516.92020-49 and 2020-50
Hungary2838707130683.023.62020-49 and 2020-50
Bulgaria1794495688528.026.82020-49 an


U/EEA and the UKSum of CasesSum of Deaths14-day case notification rate per 100 000 inhabitants for the reporting period14-day death notification rate per 100 000 inhabitants for the reporting periodReporting period YYYY-WW
France237685257911236.38.32020-49 and 2020-50
United_Kingdom184940364170348.28.92020-49 and 2020-50
Italy184371264520428.315.92020-49 and 2020-50
Spain175188448013220.96.32020-49 and 2020-50
Germany133707821975341.16.92020-49 and 2020-50
Poland113567622864396.615.42020-49 and 2020-50
Netherlands61274610034546.74.02020-49 and 2020-50
Belgium61128418170263.011.52020-
Click to expand...
You have far, far too much time on your hands....
 
Knutsfordian said:
I think they thought that local services would be overwhelmed and a nationwide solution would be a better fit. Damned if you do and damned if you don't in my view
Click to expand...
“Thought”. Now that would be a novel concept for this government. ?

I think that you have a fair point. But the local experts with the real experience were completely ignored and marginalised. They should have lead the T&T programme with Serco or whoever employed to do the donkey work.

But what occurred just underlined the Conservatives mistrust, even loathing of the public sector.
 
James Wood said:
“Thought”. Now that would be a novel concept for this government. ?

I think that you have a fair point. But the local experts with the real experience were completely ignored and marginalised. They should have lead the T&T programme with Serco or whoever employed to do the donkey work.

But what occurred just underlined the Conservatives mistrust, even loathing of the public sector.
Click to expand...

I don't think that the Conservatives "loath" the public sector, But I do think there is a feeling that the public sector don't have a mentality to drive continual improvement and can do - its very often seemed to be dragged screaming and kicking to make changes amid lots of groaning and sucking of teeth. That's probably also quite unfair, but sometimes it's bourn out in the services delivered. I once applied for a job with Warrington Borough Council to be told that they didn't accept CVs and I had to fill in a 16 page on line, bespoke application form. WTF? I worked for a number of top 100 companies and none of them wasted money developing bespoke application systems the like of WBC used. Sheer madness. That may be a one off, bad example, but it sticks. So when you want something doing at pace, bending all the development practices, developing modules in parallel, starting build before the architecture and design have all been ratified etc working all the hours needed, flying by the seat of your pants - you don't ask the public sector to do it. It's very sad really.
 
James Wood said:
Ah yes, the Great British common sense. We saw that in spades over the summer when restrictions were lifted. And what happened then? Cases rose resulting in the autumn lockdown.

And as for Sweden, as I posted the other day, despite their ‘relaxed’ approach they have now had as many cases as other nations per 100k of population
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More about the Swedish success story - written by a Tory MP!

www.newstatesman.com

Sweden’s Covid-19 failures have exposed the myths of the lockdown-sceptics

The “herd immunity” strategy that led to a disastrous Swedish death rate would have been even more dangerous in the UK.
www.newstatesman.com www.newstatesman.com
 
James Wood said:
You have far, far too much time on your hands....
Click to expand...

Yes that's probably true these days ;)

And as for the French closing the Dover - Calais crossing, It's just typical France. Never let a good crisis go to waste. Allows Macron to don his top hat and become the ringmaster once again.
 
James Wood said:
More about the Swedish success story - written by a Tory MP!

www.newstatesman.com

Sweden’s Covid-19 failures have exposed the myths of the lockdown-sceptics

The “herd immunity” strategy that led to a disastrous Swedish death rate would have been even more dangerous in the UK.
www.newstatesman.com www.newstatesman.com
Click to expand...
It is also strange how all those advocates have failed to draw attention to their flawed analysis and then wait ready to pounce on the next perceived UK government failure. There is no doubt that mistakes have been made in the UK, but I am still firmly of the belief that when taken in the round, we have not (as yet) fared as badly as some have us or want us to believe.
 
Knutsfordian said:
Yes that's probably true these days ;)

And as for the French closing the Dover - Calais crossing, It's just typical France. Never let a good crisis go to waste. Allows Macron to don his top hat and become the ringmaster once again.
Click to expand...
But I thought that countries that were members of the EU couldn’t control their borders by closing them and that was why we needed to leave the EU. Another big fat lie from Frog-face, the ERG, Johnson, Patel, Tice, Oakshitt, Julie Heartless-Bastard et al? Surely not? ???
 
Not sure anyone ever said borders could not be closed - refugees have been shut out of Hungary etc. I think the issue here was that we were not allowed to close out free movement whilst remaining within the EU
 
Knutsfordian said:
Not sure anyone ever said borders could not be closed - refugees have been shut out of Hungary etc. I think the issue here was that we were not allowed to close out free movement whilst remaining within the EU
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But that is exactly what the French and Dutch have done without having to go through all the bother, aggro and huge expense of having a referendum about allowing us to do something it appears we can have done anyway!?

Or maybe - and perish the thought - we have been lied to and sold a pup by people with ulterior motives who will benefit from the U.K. leaving the EU,
 
Knutsfordian said:
Yes that's probably true these days ;)

And as for the French closing the Dover - Calais crossing, It's just typical France. Never let a good crisis go to waste. Allows Macron to don his top hat and become the ringmaster once again.
Click to expand...
Ah. “Typical France.” A bit like “Typical Britain” (or at least little Engerland) mentioning the Second World War, “Good old British Common Sense” “The Dunkirk / Bulldog Spirit” etc etc ad naseum, ad finitum
 
James Wood said:
Ah. “Typical France.” A bit like “Typical Britain” (or at least little Engerland) mentioning the Second World War, “Good old British Common Sense” “The Dunkirk / Bulldog Spirit” etc etc ad naseum, ad finitum
Click to expand...

Well we do have some typically British traits and fortunately for us they are not the same as on the other side of the channel and have stood us in good stead over the years.

Apart from poking fun at little Englanders, you have to ask yourself why did the French close the border? This variant of Covid has been in circulation since September, It is already prevalent in the low countries, so the chances are its already in France, Italy etc but they just don't know it yet. Why haven't they closed their borders with the Netherlands? The truck drivers came through France a few days ago and, for the most part, have sat in isolation in their cabs and will drive straight back through France to return home. So closing their border and stranding hundreds of mostly EU nationals in their trucks and vans seems to me to be hurting your friends rather than the UK. So what was the point? The benefits to Covid management in France are minimal and are disproportionate to the chaos concerned - so you can only assume that chaos was the whole point. To create another event to put pressure on the UK government in the middle of the Brexit negotiations. At the same time putting up their hands and pretending its a safety thing. Macron can sit on his hands - its not happening on his patch, the Brits are scurrying about trying to repatriate foreign workers and being pressured from all over Europe - oh and they have also managed to weave in the threat to Scottish shell fish exports to give Sturgeon another anti Westminster platform! It's no accident and from a French perspective, what a result ! Macron then gets to be seen as the problem solver by letting the people through as long as they have a negative Covid test .................. and you really believe it's all about the new variant of Covid?
 
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