I’m interested to see what happens in high population density US areas with very good health care systems and little in the way of lock downs. The whole situation is experimental (not based on proven science) but of European countries it seems that only Sweden did anything except the draconian approach. Even then the results varied wildly between counties (e.g, UK versus Germany) in a way that doesn’t provide much support for the lock downs.
Los Angeles is subject to a theoretical state-wide ‘shelter in place order’ that has been very much ignored for some weeks, except perhaps for older people who would stay home anyway. The population there collectively decided to run a different experiment. Meanwhile as per the data I posted above the fatality rate has remained constant or decreasing while the infection rate has risen over months. Going forward, it won’t be perfect data but hopefully what is learned will in the future support maintaining a healthy economy (the main factor in long term societal well being) while still controlling the virus numbers to that which the population thinks is acceptable.
with our media almost taking delight in the poor decisions taken in the UK.
Much of mainland Europe takes the p1ss out of the UK – because they have been practicing that since 2016 and why stop now? The best time to kick a man is when he’s down. Brits don’t get offended however (patriotism is a dirty word here) unlike people in most of the “old” mainland countries where any criticism may be conducted only by own citizens 
Europe is a funny place; can’t say there is not enough variety!
rather we should be focused and what we can do better ourselves if there is a repeat.
Indeed. It’s going to be fascinating how differently things might be done next time. Everybody has been learning so much on this event.
I am glad the govt has stopped the daily briefings (last one was yesterday). I never quite knew whether to laugh or cry at BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg (or most of the rest of her moronic peer group) asking yet another unbelievably brainless question, carefully sculpted to elicit -273.16C of infomation while wasting as many electrons as possible and being maximally obnoxious to whichever politician drew the short straw to do the briefing
The one truly funny thing was the dropping of the UK-developed track/trace app I mean, how many billions (literally billions) were spent, over many years, on IT projects, proving to the world that (a) NHS bosses can’t write a spec and (b) whenever they do write a spec and some IT contract winner delivers on it, it is nearly always unusable.
Even then the results varied wildly between counties (e.g, UK versus Germany) in a way that doesn’t provide much support for the lock downs.
Lock downs is a red herring (or whatever it is called). Social distance and hygiene is all that matters. Hygiene is pretty straight forward. Social distance is a bit more complicated. It doesn’t matter how it is done, only that it IS done.
Then, when things are under control, you can ease up on social distance, but only when systems of tracing and testing is in place to put down smaller outburst. They just keep coming by the looks of it, but are also put down effectively most places in Europe by now.
Peter wrote:
The best time to kick a man is when he’s down
Especially when the man is down because they threw themselves on the floor completely under their own volition!
LeSving wrote:
Lock downs is a red herring (or whatever it is called). Social distance and hygiene is all that matters. Hygiene is pretty straight forward. Social distance is a bit more complicated. It doesn’t matter how it is done, only that it IS done.
Lock downs exist, legally, and my point was directly in relation to the value of their existence. Other than that I understand your position reflects the divergent view of Sweden’s government and regardless I agree with you. I think the fundamental issues are (1) behavior (2) the fidelity at which science supports certain behaviors in relation to controlling this particular communicable disease (3) the loss in people’s lives, short term and long term, resulting from changes in behavior and (4) the validity of available information that in the absence of legally quarantining the healthy allows people to evaluate risk and make choices, both communally and individually. I’m increasingly coming to the conclusion that ‘tracking the numbers’ is feeding totalitarian government.
I guess we have more than one problem.
One is that people will NOT act rationally and in their own interest without massive pressure from the law. Wherever I’ve now looked at how people were behaving during this crisis, it was directly proportional to the probability of huge fines or arrest where the actual measures imposed worked. Where the measures were implemented half heartedly or “recommended” only, numbers exploded. The same thing can be seen now, that measures are eased but people urged to keep social distancing and hygiene. It doesn’t work unless people are FORCED by law and law enforcement to protect themselfs and others.
Two is that at the beginning of the outbreak nobody new anything how this thing spreads and what is risky and what not. We had countless “experts”, some genuine, most bigmouths, trying to get published, not unlike in the CO saga, with all sorts of hot air and nonsense. The consequence is that today, where more IS known, the experts who DO know are not trusted and it is still practically impossible to tell those who have something real to say from fakers and others. Science is again under massive scrutiny and has not done much to earn trust lost in previous crisis’ such as the CO2 debate.
What has NOT helped was the initial denial of WHO and health officials everywhere that masks would help, with the idea that masks would become a good such as toilet paper and disappear for those who really need them, as in hospital workers. This backfired badly, as today it is perfectly proven that masks WILL protect OTHERS to a very large extent. What this lie did is to aggravate the disbelief and distrust against scientist and officials.
Consequently the whole thing has turned religious instead of rational. Now there are the “believers” who know that Covid is a massive danger to mankind and the “deniers” who think it is a flu and the conspiracy theorists who think it is all a government scam to get total control over them e.t.c. As a result, we can’t even get lockdowns past the public anymore even where they are needed.
What was missing throughout the whole thing was a single official voice for the whole Corona crisis, which lais down the status quo in science and makes clear and truthful statements about what has to be done to stop this thing. The WHO has failed to provide this single official voice but even if they had, countries would most probably still put their own needs before them. We would have needed strong leadership and clear but reasoned measures to control the outbreaks instead of denial and panik spreaders. None of this happened.
The situation now is different than it was in January or February as now we know more but still not enough. It appears now clearer that outside infection is much less likely than indoors and e.g. that touching contaminated surfaces will most likely not do much. We know now the super spreader events in churches (singing), football (shouting) and pubs (drinking and shouting e.t.c. ) most of them indoors and where no distancing is possible at all. So would we actually need a full lockdown again? Most probably not but we would have to restrict those events where superspreads happen. That is public gatherings of all kinds, predominantly indoors should stay banned, outdoors masks must be worn.
Where I am now, in Bulgaria, they had a massive lockdown in place AND they had compulsory masks for everyone in shops or other public places. Consequently, they did have very low figures initially. Now, shortly after measures have been eased, daily new figures went up from before around 20 to 30 to 130 today. The government have reacted and put the mask duty back in place. I also expect that partial lockdowns by county might happen again, that is that you were not allowed to travel outside your county of residence (oblast) unless you had very good reasons. The main reason they tried to open up this restriction is the fear that the tourist industry on the black sea coast would collapse, which it will anyway. Now however we are seeing moves in the direction that opening the tourist season on July 1st will be stopped and possibly quarantine for those entering the country will be reintroduced. Here people will comply as they fear retribution more than anything, even though there are moves afoot by the socialists to topple the government over this. I hope they will fail, because Bulgaria has NO way of handling the numbers Switzerland had in April.
To me personally it is perfectly clear that Covid 19 is not gonna go away any time soon and that figures will explode yet again unless governments all over the world finally get their acts together and get people to comply with the recommendations about hygiene, masks and social distancing to the letter. Otherwise this thing might well end up worse than the Spanish Flu ever did and with much further reaching consequences. Idiots like certain sports gods who thought it a great idea to have themselfs a tournament and now are all sick with this thing should be severely punished and taken out of circulation for good.
Anyone able to hazard a guess at why many countries have been able to surpress the virus significantly but struggle to eliminate it?
For example:
Switzerland has been at low double digits daily infection rates since early May.
Ireland has been at low double digit daily infection rate since the end of May.
Austria has been at low double digit daily infection rate since early May.
Denmark since late May
Norway since early May
Luxemburg since the end of April
Greece since mid April
Croatia sine mid April
Estonia never got above low double digit daily infection rates
Slovenia never got above low double digit daily infection rates.
All these countries have had low double digit daily infections rates for at least a month now (that’s 2 * 14 day infection periods) yet seem to struggle to eradicate the virus. Some have been at very low figure for over 2 months now.
From what I see the only countries to have been properly hit and actually eliminate it were New Zealand, Iceland and the Isle of Man.
Why is the last part so hard?
The lack of trusted news media in the UK (and US?) has not helped.
The crazy UK/ Scottish Government rules, such as forbidding Vit D manufacture by sunlight, made things worse. We now have serious civil disobedience in the UK with respect to distancing.
Reports now suggest that long time immunity may not occur.
It also begins to look like permanent damage, rather than death, is the problem.
And there’s the economic loss.
The bright side is the new opportunities which will open to survivors.
dublinpilot wrote:
Why is the last part so hard?
Maybe my brain works differently, but the difficulty of elimination is obvious to me (while many other aspects of it that others find straightforward are not!)
It is very contagious and there is quite a long incubation period, as well as a good number of asymptomatic carriers and a much higher number who whilst perhaps not completely asymptomatic are barely ill and therefore don’t know they have it.
Remember also that your low double digit infection rate is not the infection rate. It is the tested and recorded infection rate. Real infections are higher.
For total elimination to happen all those who are infected at some given time must not pass it on to anyone else, i.e. at some point the last bit of virus in the country must die – killed by someone’s immune system without getting a chance to spread from the host. R must equal zero for total elimination. Not 0.00001, but zero.
If you have just one case lurking, they probably infect someone, who infects someone else, and off you go. Without a lockdown and with no vaccine it spreads, slowly at first but gathering pace and eventually shows the exponential curves we were looking at a couple of months ago. Same as it did the first time.
And if you do eliminate it completely in a particular country then, unless you have the world’s most draconian border controls, sooner or later someone will bring it back in.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
It doesn’t work unless people are FORCED by law and law enforcement to protect themselfs and others.
Not around here, at least not where I live, one of the more educated (and therefore wealthier) parts of L.A. Wearing of masks was certainly never enforced by law enforcement, yet something like 99% of people are wearing them. The recent spike in cases in greater L.A. is largely due to areas where for one reason or another masks were frowned upon. I suspect that attitude is about to change.
Graham wrote:
And if you do eliminate it completely in a particular country then, unless you have the world’s most draconian border controls, sooner or later someone will bring it back in.
Which is exactly what happened in NZ.
