Coronavirus

[The Artist Formerly Known as Audrey]

Bound to be high numbers in the UK when us old folk have been sacrificed on the altar of the ‘couldn’t care a fuck’ government policy.

[horlock07]

Bound to be high numbers in the UK when us old folk have been sacrificed on the altar of the ‘couldn’t care a fuck’ government policy.

But possibly offset by lower numbers over the summer months after the spike has passed?

[Abrahammer]

I'd say as a gross metric the numbers show we aren't doing particularly well.

However, the figures are woolly; France didn't count deaths in community and is sporadic on care homes, Italy haven't released last months excess death figures (which are about 60% higher than just the covid deaths) and they didn't include care homes either, Spain doesn't yet include care homes, different reporting methods are used and different testing regimes means some are 'assumed covid' and others don't assume. [We assume +ve in many more cases].

If we look at it from a propagation point of view, I think population density puts us at a disadvantage [something to bear in mind for the future...]; France has the same population but twice the space; in a way the population is already slightly 'socially distanced' on a macro-scale.

Paris is denser than London...yes, but there is another factor - Paris has 2M, Berlin 3M, London 7M... More targets, squeezed closer together = high vulnerability to transmission.

Other factors such as smoking, age distribution, elderly cohabiting %age, rate of obesity etc will also play into it if we want a level playing field, but these I would say are more or less equitable.

Figure those factors in and we may still be found to be doing a poor job, however I genuinely think that we were more exposed and the differences are not quite as stark as first impressions would tell you.

This

[pauld]

I'd say as a gross metric the numbers show we aren't doing particularly well.

However, the figures are woolly; France didn't count deaths in community and is sporadic on care homes, Italy haven't released last months excess death figures (which are about 60% higher than just the covid deaths) and they didn't include care homes either, Spain doesn't yet include care homes, different reporting methods are used and different testing regimes means some are 'assumed covid' and others don't assume. [We assume +ve in many more cases].

If we look at it from a propagation point of view, I think population density puts us at a disadvantage [something to bear in mind for the future...]; France has the same population but twice the space; in a way the population is already slightly 'socially distanced' on a macro-scale.

Paris is denser than London...yes, but there is another factor - Paris has 2M, Berlin 3M, London 7M... More targets, squeezed closer together = high vulnerability to transmission.

Other factors such as smoking, age distribution, elderly cohabiting %age, rate of obesity etc will also play into it if we want a level playing field, but these I would say are more or less equitable.

Figure those factors in and we may still be found to be doing a poor job, however I genuinely think that we were more exposed and the differences are not quite as stark as first impressions would tell you.

We had 3 weeks warning from Italy and Spain. We could have locked down earlier and halted the curve much earlier. Instead we faffed about because the govt was wed to herd immunity. We were more exposed because the govt failed to act in time. That cost tens of thousands of lives.

S Korea, btw, has a much higher population density than we do but nowhere near the death rate. Because they implemented test, trace and isolate early and locked down when they needed to. All across the world, where countries locked down early they have lower death rates. We didn't, that's why we have the worst death toll in Europe (and rising). Because the govt pissed about with "Herd immunity, protect the economy, so what if a few thousand pensioners die" as Cummings put it.

[horlock07]

The whole not comparing figures argument would work considerably better if the government had not spent most of the time over the outbreak comparing figures trying to show what a good job they were doing until it became clear that comparing figures was not showing them in a particularly good light and now not comparing figures is apparently the way to go.

Likewise when you consider our slight of hand over figures (100k tests anyone) I think we are not particularly entitled to claim some sort of moral high ground when suggesting others do as well?

[pauld]

To give an idea of the scale of failure, the current official excess deaths figure (which the govt admit is the only sensible metric to look at) is 42,700. That figure lags reality by a couple of weeks as much of it is based on ONS data which takes some time to come out. The FT's estimate of the likely current death toll in the UK is 54,300. Spin it any way you like, that is a catastrophic failure of policy and of leadership

https://twitter.com/ChrisGiles_/status/1258041783222747137

[Mister Lorenzo]

We had 3 weeks warning from Italy and Spain. We could have locked down earlier and halted the curve much earlier. Instead we faffed about because the govt was wed to herd immunity. We were more exposed because the govt failed to act in time. That cost tens of thousands of lives.

S Korea, btw, has a much higher population density than we do but nowhere near the death rate. Because they implemented test, trace and isolate early and locked down when they needed to. All across the world, where countries locked down early they have lower death rates. We didn't, that's why we have the worst death toll in Europe (and rising). Because the govt pissed about with "Herd immunity, protect the economy, so what if a few thousand pensioners die" as Cummings put it.

I do wonder sometimes just why Boris hasn't called you up to advise on the right way to fight this pandemic, as you seem to be the expert on what shoulda/coulda been done....

The fact is who knew for definite what the best course of action was, it's all very well being an expert in hindsight!!

[pauld]

I do wonder sometimes just why Boris hasn't called you up to advise on the right way to fight this pandemic, as you seem to be the expert on what shoulda/coulda been done....

The fact is who knew for definite what the best course of action was, it's all very well being an expert in hindsight!!

But we didn't need hindsight. We had a plan that we failed to execute. We had WHO warning of a Public Health Emergency in January. We had our own public health experts sounding the alarm in Jan and Feb but they were ignored. We had the example of S Korea who based their plan that they implemented on ours, but we failed to follow them. We had the knowledge of what had happened in Spain and Italy but failed to heed it. We had the counter example of how the Germans had kept the curve low with TTI, but failed to follow that. This is not a question of hindsight. Just leadership

[flammableBen]

I do wonder sometimes just why Boris hasn't called you up to advise on the right way to fight this pandemic, as you seem to be the expert on what shoulda/coulda been done....

The fact is who knew for definite what the best course of action was, it's all very well being an expert in hindsight!!

Wait....

It's too early to compare to different contries until the stats even out later on.

it's too late to critisize on something they fucked up, because that's hindsight.


Yeah PaulD. Check mate.

[Bogus Dave]

The NHS data doesn’t give a complete view of the picture, but is a pretty decent like-for-like comparator with how other countries have reported their figures - and that still paints a damning picture of how the government have fucked this. We had a head start, the figures should not be as high as they are

[Outletred]

I'd say as a gross metric the numbers show we aren't doing particularly well.

However, the figures are woolly; France didn't count deaths in community and is sporadic on care homes, Italy haven't released last months excess death figures (which are about 60% higher than just the covid deaths) and they didn't include care homes either, Spain doesn't yet include care homes, different reporting methods are used and different testing regimes means some are 'assumed covid' and others don't assume. [We assume +ve in many more cases].

If we look at it from a propagation point of view, I think population density puts us at a disadvantage [something to bear in mind for the future...]; France has the same population but twice the space; in a way the population is already slightly 'socially distanced' on a macro-scale.

Paris is denser than London...yes, but there is another factor - Paris has 2M, Berlin 3M, London 7M... More targets, squeezed closer together = high vulnerability to transmission.

Other factors such as smoking, age distribution, elderly cohabiting %age, rate of obesity etc will also play into it if we want a level playing field, but these I would say are more or less equitable.

Figure those factors in and we may still be found to be doing a poor job, however I genuinely think that we were more exposed and the differences are not quite as stark as first impressions would tell you.

Agree with most of this.

The UK is very densely populated compared to France, Germany and the like.

Many countries are counting deaths differently- Italy are way behind on their number and don’t include care homes neither do Spain.
Germany don’t count anyone who dies of corona virus who has pre existing medical conditions- this is deflating their figure majorly.

Basically you are not comparing apples with apples at the moment- so not giving a true picture.

Yes we were behind testing but this was due to our lab set up- will learn from this in case heaven forbid we get any more pandemics

[Outletred]

It's always struck me that playing "top trumps" over what seem like some very headline numbers that perhaps aren't accurate, measured the same, or haven't been fully scrutinised yet does nobody any favours.

It doesn't feel like something for anyone to be trying to score points on.

However they are- sticks with the socialist narrative on here.

Starmer has all the charisma of a wet blanket.

Hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing. Of course there will be lessons learned.

[Ardiles]

Paris is denser than London...yes, but there is another factor - Paris has 2M, Berlin 3M, London 7M... More targets, squeezed closer together = high vulnerability to transmission.

This is completely misleading, and people repeatedly quote these statistics in error.  Look at a map, and you'll see that Paris is, broadly speaking, similar in size to London.  It just happens that, administratively, the official population of Paris includes only the area inside the Périphérique.  The banlieues/suburbs are counted elsewhere.  The Paris figure you quoted is roughly equivalent to what most people would consider to be 'central London'.

[Flashheart]

How can it be hindsight when people were being critical BEFORE things got so bad?

 

[RobertT]

I'm not entirely sure why people need to provide the virus with a Political leaning - I doubt it has much concept of what Socialism or Far Right Ideology actually mean.

Ignore the UK if you like, the bulk of the Western world, the NATO type countries, have all largely got one thing in common.  None of them used a plan.  Therefore, they all fucked up.  Russia appears to have followed our path.  The single common factor here is all of the Govt's felt they could just react.

Now, I'm not saying the rest of the world got it right - some countries have thus far appeared to escape through more luck than judgement.  That may catch-up to them in time, it may be the next Pandemic that they are more susceptible to.

Basic principles here though, the bit you absolutely can harangue all those Govt.s with is a complete and abject failure to plan and enact plans quickly.  Hindsight won't really tell us whether it would have made any difference, but delays have certainly not helped the matter.  Anyone who argues that any of the major Govt's have done anything on purpose, regardless of whatever side of the political aisle they are formed, is mad.  In Europe, maybe Germany look like they carried out something pre-meditated.  Sweden has taken a distinctly different approach, but even they were reacting, debating.

It will be a while before we know if the approach taken by Asian countries was effective or just lucky, but you can at least see they meant it.  Even they have lessons to learn - maybe because the past couple of Pandemics that hit them were smaller outbreaks and didn't have the risk of a second wave.  The world has had plenty of test runs to get plans in place, yet, the majority of us have been flailing around.  The absurdity is that the basic approach is pretty narrow - everyone has sort of done the same things in the end, just too slow.