Coronavirus

[pauld]

It's almost like putting a woman who is a serial failure in all her previous roles with no record of public health experience in charge of the system, then contracting out large parts of it to a private contractor with an even worse record of failure than the woman in charge was a recipe for a complete shit show that is actively hampering efforts to get on top of the virus. Quick, somebody find some pictures of 20 students having a party in the street so we can blame the public again.

[tans]

I see Trump went out for a drive from the hospital.

That cunt never had it, fuck all wrong with him

[Matchworn Shirts]

Somewhat like Boris Johnson, I see Raab mentioned on the weekend that they had been "close to losing him"
What crap - the recovery was so quick, unless he was Lazarus

[theakston2k]

I'm in Ireland at the moment and their health experts have suggested going back to full lockdown (apart from schools)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54411233

That's absolutely nuts, getting towards the point of where the cure is doing more harm than the virus.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Audrey]

How does a lockdown do anything - other than temporarily slow down the infection rate. End the lockdown and in a matter of weeks up goes the rate again.

Are millions of job losses worth it?

[pauld]

How does a lockdown do anything - other than temporarily slow down the infection rate. End the lockdown and in a matter of weeks up goes the rate again.

Are millions of job losses worth it?

Provides a break point to temporarily halt the spread of the infection so you can use the time to get your shit together and put systems in place to enable society to live with the virus pending a vaccine. Or you could just spaff £12bn on private contractors who couldn't run a piss-up in a brewery. As we did.

[RobertT]

How does a lockdown do anything - other than temporarily slow down the infection rate. End the lockdown and in a matter of weeks up goes the rate again.

Are millions of job losses worth it?

A true lockdown would eventually starve the virus - if it can't keep jumping host, it can't survive past the last person in each house that is infected (or so goes the theory).

We don't do it properly or long enough, so what we actually achieve is what you describe - we smother it for a while but once we begin interacting, we let it back out.

Given it is not as deadly as something like Ebola, you can use that smothering period to get it under a degree of control.  You then have measures in place to restrict personal interaction as best as possible, have a testing regime ready and contact tracing regime in place (not just filling in some forms).  That allows you to stifle outbreaks - not completely control them, but keep the level of infection low enough so that Healthcare can resume a degree of normalcy - it's not just the patient load of Covid, it's the impact on resources it has (far greater than other treatments) and the closure of other services in Healthcare.

It's too late for that now - the Western world is far to precious and all about the individual, so it couldn't take the medicine.

[Flashheart]

Flatten the curve

[Batch]

Flatten the curve

well yeah, or covid + bad flu season = trouble.

[Batch]

I'm in Ireland at the moment and their health experts have suggested going back to full lockdown (apart from schools)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54411233

That's absolutely nuts, getting towards the point of where the cure is doing more harm than the virus.

there is no cure.

health experts are bound to look at things as best for life preservation. I'm sure the government won't act accordingly for obvious reasons.

[Samdy Gray]

I watched Outbreak the other day. What we need is Dustin Hoffman, Cuba Gooding Jr, a helicopter and the host animal. Sorted.

[bathford]

Figures up 22,961 due to technical issues!!

[theakston2k]

That's absolutely nuts, getting towards the point of where the cure is doing more harm than the virus.

there is no cure.

health experts are bound to look at things as best for life preservation. I'm sure the government won't act accordingly for obvious reasons.

No what I'm saying is in the absence of an actual 'cure' scientists see a lockdown as the next best thing which is all great in a perfect world. In reality though a second full lockdown would be more devastating than the actual virus IMO from a mental health, other illness and economic point of view. Realistically we aren't ever going to starve the virus sufficiently as the number of 'key workers' that will still need to be out and about will be sufficient to keep it spreading at some sort of level. I just don't see how another full lockdown could be justified as it hasn't worked anywhere and the moment you relax it then it just comes back. That ship has sailed, it was a one time thing that the majority bought into, a second lockdown would likely see far more rebel against it so would just become completely counterproductive.

[RobertT]

You would use a lockdown if the virus was out of control and threatening to overwhelm the Healthcare system.  You can probably take higher infection rates than in March right now because therapeutics are now available, plus there is every chance it may have started mutating to a lower mortality virus (which is has to do to survive).  Of course, we don't yet know if a true second wave could batter the world before we get to a vaccine.  So while it is highly unlikely that a lockdown would be invoked, it's not impossible if the worst did happen this winter.

[Flashheart]

I just don't see how another full lockdown could be justified as it hasn't worked anywhere

Hasn't it though?

Surely the point is to help manage it rather than eradicate it? 'Flatten the curve', not eradicate the curve, at least until a vaccine/treatment comes along. How many more people would have died if it were not for the lockdown? (We don't know for sure, but the answer is likely to be approximately a fuck ton)

Whether or not we should lockdown again, however, is something that I cannot answer. We need to manage the virus, but people also need money.