Over 70S To Stay Home, Troops To Protect Supermarkets ...

[ladybirder]

private hospital beds .... and more in latest moves by Boris.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8112177/Coronavirus-deaths-UK-double-overnight-21.html

[jno]

Clarion, the Aussies are already talking about fining people who don't stay home when they're told to.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/all-overseas-arrivals-in-australia-must-self-isolate-for-14-days-amid-new-coronavirus-rules

Are you sure Boris won't think of this?

[mushroom25]

//Of course this is Boris trying to plug the gaps in the NHS because of the way the Tories have let it run down for years after Labour had got it back to half-decent. //

"got it back to half decent". really?

the Blair-Brown labour government's legacy to the NHS was/is PFI, a fiscal millstone that will dog the NHS for decades to come. is that what you call getting it back half decent?

[douglas9401]

The usual half-arsed cobbled together response to a crisis.

We'll laugh about it all one day.

Maybe.

[woofgang]

ok so I have just read the text of what Matt Hancock said and IMO its correct sort of.......
Point one I absolutely get and believe that herd immunity is not one of the objectives of the plans or part of their policy. Its a natural outcome of the situation. I bet though that they are expecting it and blooming hoping for it because if it doesn't happen the outcome will be worse.

Secondly while I think its what they expect and hope for, I bet the other issue is they don't want smart people going "oh catching it and herd immunity is a good thing so lets have COVID parties" because yes some people are that silly. If that were to happen then we'd be back to the steep infection curve and risk to the ability of the health service and economy to cope.

[vulcan42]

There's going to be one hell of a party when the over seventies are released en masse!!

[Theland]

But in the meantime, patrols on the streets.

"Papers! Ve haff vays off maykun you shop!"

[ichkeria]

“Herd immunity”
- the new buzz term, of taken to its current logical conclusion, would see 60% of the population of the UK having been infected.
I would be astonished if that is actually what the CSO meant the other day when he said that it’s ok for a lot of people to be infected as that will make them immune. He never mentioned the “herd immunity”‘as such.
In China the thing appears to be on the retreat after a “mere” 80,000 cases.
Also in S Korea, interestingly, where only a tiny fraction of the cases had been fatal. Whereas Iran has had 6 times as many deaths and only 50% more cases.
And yet the S Koreans have not it seems done anything drastic to contain it.

[woofgang]

ick, he didn't have to....as I said its an expected and hoped for outcome. If you don't achieve herd immunity, either by natural means or vaccination, then the people who are at risk if they catch it or shouldn't be vaccinated are in deep deep trouble.

[ichkeria]

I don’t think it’s a hoped-for outcome that 40,000,000 will become infected. It’s not happened in China or S Korea for example.

[ichkeria]

Herd immunity is achieved primarily by vaccination: it’s currently assessed that for every person who spreads the virus 2.5 will be infected. Once the figure falls below 1 then the disease is doomed. So you need that figure to drop by 1.5 and a fraction. They’d now you get to 60% for Coronavirus: 1.5 / 2.5.
But thats because me don’t have a vaccine and is, you would hope, hypothetical

[ichkeria]

“That’s how you get ...”

[allenlondon]

Not sure of an answer, but headlines such as “death toll doubles” (BBC, Observer, Mail) are not helpful

21 deaths, from 10 before, might technically be “doubled”, but out of a population of around 65 MILLION is it really significant?

Allen, elderly & vulnerable.

[ichkeria]

Yes quite

[mushroom25]

it's been suggested online that government policy on the virus was being driven by an idea by Dominic Cummings, who is alleged to have written in 2002, "a virus with mortality rate of 0.5-10% should be allowed to propagate through the UK to remove “economically inactive” members of society (retired and disabled)".

have so far been unable to fact-check this - anyone have anything o add?

[brainiac]

There was an interesting letter in yesterday's Telegraph from a retired doctor who qualified in 1953, asking how we would have reacted to Covid-19 in those days. His answer was not at all:

"The virus could not have been identified rapidly enough, if at all. Most cases would have been too mild to attract attention in this season of coughs and sneezes. And the small proportion of deaths among elderly people with chronic respiratory disease would have remained much as usual for the time of year.

It follows that there would have been no alarm or countermeasures. International trade and travel would have carried on as usual. World stock markets would not have collapsed. And governments would not have needed to get involved."

[ichkeria]

Which opinion might be regarded with some scepticism in Italy.
It is true tho that fear is a very disruptive factor

[woofgang]

Herd immunity is achieved by vaccination once there is a vaccination and I agree that where viable its a better way. Before childhood illnes vaccination, herd immunity was achieved by natural means.

[jno]

that seems a little speculative, brainiac. Doubtless he could have said the same in 1918, except that the toll from the Spanish flu turned out to be huge. As for the toll of coronavirus, we don't know if it will be huge or not but it seems to be about three times as lethal as ordinary flu, though that's based on figures that are (so far) a lot fewer.

We're still in the realms of guesswork here. I've got no big problems with the government's response - except for the proposals to treat the elderly differently by telling them to self-isolate whether they're sick or not.

[woofgang]

brainiac thats kind of true...the difference is that now we have higher expectations of life expectancy annd in particular of life expectancy among the vulnerable of all ages and of frail elderly. Flu used to be known as the old man's friend because it ended what might be an unpleasant life. People with conditions like cerebral palsy and cystic fibrosis just didn't live long. I well remember the anmazement and pleasure among staff when our hospital had a new Mum wirth cystic fibrosis in ther maternity ward. It was the first one all of the staff had met and for many, the oldest person too.

[ichkeria]

That seems sensible to me.
A fifth of all 80 year olds who’ve got it have died