Relief, or if your entirely logical about it and not been brainwashed by the media fear mongering, just getting what you entirely expected??

I mentioned the prevailing winds with the speed with which this virus has gone round the globe ,although i should think air travel has probably done a lot to spread it.

Yes it needs people to spread. The droplets won't be carried for miles across the oceans on a prevailing wind as they are too heavy.

It will have spread via international travel. Also there are people who catch it and don't develop symptoms (18% of those who tested positive on the Diamond Princess cruise ship didn't develop symptoms) but still spread the virus to others, so these people would never know to self isolate and will have been spreading it around.

Tell that to the families of the young people who've died from it? If it weren't for the lockdown, there would hundreds of thousands dying from it in this country. It's definitely worth taking seriously.

I'm not disputing a proportionate response. We haven't made a proportionate response though.

First time for an adequate appraisal will be year's end, when we can compare average death numbers from previous years with what unfolds this year- just the other day I saw an official graph showing death totals with no change from this year to the recent average, while, just by coincidence, this year's flu deaths are down in number, but been replaced by covid19.

The next time for an adequate appraisal will then be in about 20-30 years when all the deaths from mental health and the austerity aftermath can be thrown into the equation.. I'll wager good money those numbers will outdo any death from covid19 figures.

The latest data on overall deaths from all causes only goes up to 20 March so far, at which point there were fewer than 200 deaths attributed to covid. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... 0march2020 In less than two weeks since then we've seen more than 2,000. When that data is updated in a few weeks/months time we will start get an idea of the impact of covid on deaths. We're coming out of flu season now to a point where weekly deaths usually fall so we would expect to see that number fall. As you say, to get an estimate of the short-run impact in terms of deaths from covid, you would take the figures over the course of the pandemic and compare the death rate with previous data on deaths by age/gender over different parts of the year like this: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... 2009to2018 You would have to adjust for population growth if you are using a time series like that.

The latest data on overall deaths from all causes only goes up to 20 March so far, at which point there were fewer than 200 deaths attributed to covid. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... 0march2020 In less than two weeks since then we've seen more than 2,000. When that data is updated in a few weeks/months time we will start get an idea of the impact of covid on deaths. We're coming out of flu season now to a point where weekly deaths usually fall so we would expect to see that number fall. As you say, to get an estimate of the short-run impact in terms of deaths from covid, you would take the figures over the course of the pandemic and compare the death rate with previous data on deaths by age/gender over different parts of the year like this: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... 2009to2018 You would have to adjust for population growth if you are using a time series like that.

And you have to also take into account that while there may indeed be a 'cluster' of deaths for April/May this year, which may be an increase on previous years, many of those deaths will have happened spread over the next 8 or 9 months anyway - So there is a chance that deaths in the last quarter of this year could actually be less than when compared with previous years?

Yes that is a good point - as this virus is preying on the old and vulnerable it is bringing forward some deaths that may have happened over the next 1 to 2 years anyway, so to really get at the impact effect of covid you would need to do this a number of years in the future and observe how long it took patterns to return to normal. You'll get some displacement effect where deaths attributed to covid replace deaths that would otherwise have been attributed to other underlying conditions maybe in the near future. The health economists would measure this in QALYs (quality-adjusted life years) to effectively reflect "life shortened" due to the pandemic. They use that measure in reverse when making purchasing decisions for different treatments and drugs in the NHS - what will give the maximum increase in QALYs to the population to improve overall quality and length of life.

There could be a displacement effect with economic activity too as some of the fall in activity now is going to be just decisions that are postponed (you see this with purchases of sofas, cars etc) and so you will find an increase in activity after the pandemic is over. I expect when pubs and restaurants reopen we will see similar pressures to what we saw in supermarkets at the start of the crisis - all it takes is about 20% increase in normal footfalls and you end up with huge queues. There will also probably be a big rush on buying holidays as well when travel restrictions are lifted. So in some sectors you will get an overestimated effect of the downturn in the short run because transactions are just being delayed from now to later.

The big risk with the economy is that households and businesses that are receiving no or lower than average income now, but still have outgoings and overheads to cover, are going to be running down reserves or getting in to debt, which means when the pandemic is over, although the underlying factor that started the recession is gone, household consumption and business investment will be much lower because belts are having to be tightened, so they don't end up buying the sofa/car/holiday. That's why the government's strategy, expensive as it is, has been to try and keep households and businesses afloat as much as possible so that things can return to as normal as possible when it is over.

What would happen if it was a normal year ?

We normally vaccinate for winter flu, then accept the number of deaths it brings. The CMO said last year the number of excess mortality due to flu was around 8,000.

There is no vaccine for Coronovirus, so we don't vaccinate and allow the thing to run through the UK. How many deaths will it claim ?

Firstly we know its twice as infectious as winter flu (R0 of 2.5 compared to 1.3 for flu), so it would sweep through very quickly.

Secondly we know the mortality rate is 1%, which is 10 times that of winter flu at 0.1%. And the numbers requiring critical care will be around 5% (current UK model).

Coronavirus would need to infect more than 60% of our population before we reached Herd Immunity and the outbreak started to peter out ( standard calculation, used in our current model, uninfected fraction = 1/R0).

So 60% of the UK becomes infected which is around 41 million. 1% die which is around 400,000.

Unfortunately, the mortality figure assumes we can treat the critically ill ( IC beds with ventilators). How many of these will there be ? Well that's 5% of 41 million = approximately 2 million patients. And the virus is highly infectious and sweeps through very quickly, so can the NHS deal with 2 million critically ill patients over a short period of say 4 months ? We know they can't, so we will have a huge number of people that will simply not get to hospital, let alone be left on the floor in a hospital corridor. Even the army will not be sufficient to truck away the dead (as in Piedmont, Italy) and bury them somewhere.

So we would have deaths in the millions, and the UK would look like a war zone. The only advantage is that the economic shock would be spread over a very short time period and the Uk would be able to get back to work much more quickly. Is that an acceptable trade off though ?

Boris Johnson on 18 March: “We’re moving up to 25,000 (tests) a day."

Matt Hancock on 2 April: "We're committed to getting to 25,000 tests a day by the end of April."

Hancock 10 mins later: "I am now setting the goal of 100,000 tests per day by the end of this month. That is the goal."

Gone from 25k to 100k in 10 mins.

This government really don't help themselves. An absolute shambles from the start of this pandemic.

I think you are absolutely right. And to make things worse the government had a two month period to plan and prepare as they saw what happened in China. I can almost hear Boris talking in one of his cabinet meeting.... "It's only flu".

Absolute nonsense. Mortality rate is probably, in reality, about 0.01%.

So many people will have had, or will get this virus and will never know.

It's probably why we need the antibody test going nationwide as soon as possible.

Totally. The buffoon was boasting about shaking hands with Coronavirus patients only 4 weeks ago.

To think I've actually read online that some people think he's doing a good job. The mind boggles.

Chris Whitty our CMO has said he believes the figure for mortality is 1%, and that is the figure used in the UK model, hence that is the figure I have used.

However, if the figure you claim of 0.01% is correct it would mean we could avoid any self isolation and distancing, plus people going to work throughout the outbreak, as the 400,000 deaths would drop to 4,000. But why is every country in the world and every epidemiologist saying that we need to isolate and stamp out the infection ? Why wreck your economy for a number of deaths below what you would normally expect for seasonal flu ?

The Diamond Princess, with a population of people primed for death by covid19, is the closest thing we have to a thorough analysis of this virus and had a mortality rate of less than 1%.

The point I'm trying to make is that a large swathe of the UK population are going to have had, or have this virus and will never appear on any official figures, so any mortality rate is going to be massively over estimated.

Any mortality rate will be an educated guess at best, but 1% of people likely to get this virus is highly unlikely, though those numbers will likely become true after the 30 years of recession and social collapse that will entail after this.

The saying used to be short term pain for long term gain. Bizarrely, we have turned that saying on its head.

There will also be a knock on effect of an increase in deaths due to other areas, for example cancer. This comes from the cancellation of certain tests being postponed as they are deemed to being non essential at the present.

The government has been criticised with it's response to Covi19, but it's difficult to get a handle on what would be the most effective way of dealing with this disease.
Only time will tell which countries government appeared to have deployed the most effective tactics. I used the word "appeared" as I'm very sceptical about some of the numbers, and believe some countries are being very economical with the trust. I don't believe China's statistics and North Korea stating that it is virus free, is just a lie.

What is that saying - lies, damn lies and statistics.

I understand that the lock down procedure adopted by most nations is to reduce the spread of the virus, but unless the lock down lasts for a very significant period,,,,,,,,,,,,How will the general public re-emerge into society and not then catch it?

The virus appears to have spread throughout the world by airline passengers and those passengers that were infected were surely very small numbers.

Until a vaccine has been developed, tested and then made available to the masses, I can`t see how the countries adopting lock down can resume normal life without a mass breakout of CoVid 19.

As I understand it there are two options:

Chinese approach
Isolate people until the infection rate and mortality rate drops to a very low level. Then whenever a case appears, isolate the individuals and track down every contact and isolate them. All this would allow some semblance of life and the economy to restart albeit with bursts of fire fighting in various towns and cities. Then wait for a vaccine to be produced.

British Approach
Crudely speaking, for any disease that spreads through a community there is a tipping point where the numbers of infected and then immune, prevent the disease spreading to anyone else that is not infected (Herd Immunity). The initial intention of the Govt. was I believe to allow our population to reach herd immunity as a single infection peak and hence gain immunity. But a report by Imperial College (16 March ?) squashed that when they pointed out large numbers of people would die and we didn't have the hospital capacity to cope with the sick. Currently we are following the isolation model that all other countries are following, however the Imperial model also suggested using a series of infection peaks to reach herd immunity instead. So we would allow some relaxation of the isolation approach to induce another infection peak, then increase isolation etc etc hence push the population through herd immunity. Currently they are refusing to say what their strategy is ( the question was asked yesterday at the briefing). I suspect we will not get an answer until they find out how many people are asymptomatic and how many have had a mild infection and not realised it. That depends on the 'antibody test' which currently isn't working (not accurate enough). But again like the Chines we would obviously use a vaccine in the medium term (12 months) when available.

As I say, that's my understanding.

Do you think it's possible that a family of four, in a modest dwelling, can keep apart in a way that stops you all from getting infected?

Highly unlikely... My son had the first symptoms at the end of last week, but he could have been carrying the virus for over a week before that.

Saying that, we have all picked it up quickly. (I was the last to show symptoms on Tuesday night).

Like I said, it might not necessarily be covid19- I guess we won't know until an antibody test is available- but we all have the supposed symptoms. If it arrives in your modest household, I'd simply accept it's likely you are going to get it. It's very big odds in your favour that you will be perfectly fine.

I must admit, that is what I expected, as I would think it's practically impossible to keep away from each other. Then, there's the period that somebody has it, but isn't showing symptoms that lasts for an unknown period of time.

Hope that you're all responding well and getting better!
KST

Not far off. Saying it was the Government's plan to do herd immunity is incorrect. Imperial College's experts were consulted throughout and it was them who suggested that approach based on modelling. They then re-did the modelling based on data coming out of Italy which suggested a 30% rate for those hospitalised requiring ventilators and 66% of those put on ventilators dying. They re-ran the modelling based on that with the UK population and took into account things like public transport and events like the Cheltenham Festival and they very quickly realised that we'd end up with hundreds of thousands of dead people and an NHS in absolute crisis and unable to provide a functional service in any area. A lot of people need to take the politics out of the situation. The Government are doing what they are being told to do by the experts and they are doing what they can to catch up in the areas they are failing. Don't believe for a second that anything would be any different with another political party in charge. Labour wouldn't have come in an bought several hundred thousand ventilators or virus testing kits or PPE as they wouldn't have known they needed to. The same reason the UK, France, Spain and even America are way behind in all the same areas.

Don't doubt that coronavirus is very serious. If it weren't for lockdown and distancing controls etc the NHS would be in a mess now, like they were in China, like they are in Italy and Spain and even New York. They can't process the bodies quickly enough in morgues in New York City, arguably the supposed pinnacle of modern civilisation. Sure most people aren't going to be seriously ill, but the belief that under 70s aren't going to die and under 40s are basically immune is just ignorant and dangerous. You don't want to catch this as a lot of people who have had it report it as horrific. A lad I worked with described it on whatsapp as like having a hangover from hell but with glass in your throat and having beasted yourself at the gym the day before. I don't fancy that and I don't fancy my kids getting that either. It's a disaster that will massively affect the economy and people's lives but slowing the spread is essential and there really is no choice.

Firstly, as I understand it, the most basic requirements for any pandemic are 1) PPE to protect the critical staff in hospitals and 2) Testing so that you can understand how it is spreading and hence how to control it. There is an article today on the BBC site (with pictures) of hospital staff using clinical waste bags to protect themselves instead of disposable gowns. This is not Tehran, it's the UK. As far as testing is concerned, we dont have enough test kits for the Drs and nurses attending the hospitalised, let alone other support staff, let alone in the community. Hence the recently announced deaths of two Drs and nurses (and they will not be the last). The Government doesn't need a scientific strategy to deal with this, simply preparation and planning. A stock of PPE plus a functioning supply chain, and designated labs. in the UK who can quickly raise antibodies to a given virus, then incorporate it into an ELISA test would have allowed us to tackle the coronavirus (or any other). And we know that both these areas have been shockingly neglected.

Secondly it's not an issue of politics, its accountability and we all know where that lies.

This party has underfunded and cut costs for the NHS for years and as a result it’s on its . They’d sooner spend the British tax players money on painting Buckingham Palace than funding the NHS properly.

How do you explain the governments constant mixed messages? Johnson going from bragging about shaking hands with CV patients, to talking about herd immunity to then enforcing a ‘lockdown’.

Large sporting events were fine. Delaying the closure of pubs/restaurants. Encouraging *regular* outside exercise. Non-essential workers still working if they can't work from home. Self-employed in limbo for weeks. Lying about testing capability. And that’s only the half of it. These people think they're fit to 'lead' us.

All governments have found this crisis difficult. In the UK it has exposed some failings at the top of government that have grown over the past decade.

The first has been a hollowing out of expertise in the civil service. Back when there was foot and mouth and swine flu there was much better capacity in terms of having people around with long-standing experience, not only scientists but people with a handle on the infrastructure and logistics requirements in a sector. Ministers would be working long hours but also had a lot of people around them who could give them accurate up to date information and guide their decisions. There was also a different culture back then where Ministers were more willing to accept hearing bad news or things they didn't agree with.

A lot of the expertise has gone. Some went during the cuts of the Cameron era where they were made redundant and moved to the academic or private sectors (often to then be hired back by government as external consultants). Also the culture changed - especially after the referendum - where 'experts' were treated with suspicion and seen as part of some kind of deep state conspiracy to undermine the UK - so a lot of the best people resigned or were 'moved on' and replaced by yes men who tow Ministers lines. There was a move away from people with policy expertise to PR types and more of an emphasis on "defensive lines" and "constructing a narrative" that supports the government rather than policy problem solving.

Last week the papers were running stories about how NHS management have been threatening clinical staff with being struck off if they raise concerns publically about the lack of PPE. This is how NHS management have been operating for a while. The priority is to shut down the story and not let the public be alarmed, rather than take accountability.

The problem with yes men and PR-focused managers in the civil service is they aren't necessarily competent and they are exactly what you don't want in this type of crisis. People are calling out the government for being slow off the mark to prepare when we knew about this in January. I'd be interested to see what type of briefing Ministers were getting back then. I wouldn't be surprised if it was "this is likely to be contained regionally in China....the NHS is world class, we are well equipped to deal with any cases that emerge here". Yes-men civil service managers send that type of stuff up as it is what Ministers want to hear and they don't want to be on the receiving end of a Minister saying "well if there are problems, effing sort them out by the end of the week...I don't expect to hear about coronavirus again".

The other issue is the type of policy/strategy advisers that are around No.10. In the Blair/Brown/Cameron years it was "policy wonks". These were nerdy, academic types who spend their time reviewing evidence from around the world on 'what works' questions like what's the best way to organise town planning to optimise public transport and infrastructure links; what are the best tax policies to incentivise small businesses to invest in high-growth technologies; what are the best early years policies to increase pupil attainment when the kids hit secondary school. They got mocked as people who had never done a job outside government but they were generally very intelligent and tuned in to research and evidence and could be set to work in a crisis and come up with some innovative solutions.

Now the approach has been to try and copy the Republican Party in the US and move towards "digital political campaign strategists". These people will be in to digital tech, social media messaging, targeted ads and devising policy based on appealing to core target groups. It is a more ruthless view of politics imported from the US which is that the purpose of policy is not about delivering what's best for the public but advancing your party's political standing. So instead of traditional policy wonks focusing on 'what works' questions you will have these guys working on things like 'bait' policies. A bait policy is something brought in to draw the media narrative and divide party lines in the way you want to support your message. For example - announce an extended freeze in beer and petrol duty and at the same time throw something out there being tougher on refugee children or limiting access to counselling on the NHS after gender reassignment. The bait will be to put out your 'popular' policy (beer and petrol) and on the same day get Labour talking about asylum seekers and transgender people. The goal is to reinforce the message to the target voter: "Labour doesn't speak for people like me any more". Longer term, things like getting rid of the BBC to have a US Fox News style channel to put out favourable media coverage, introducing political appointments to the judiciary, is part of the strategy. This is all taken from the Republican Party approach and it is ruthlessly successful over there - they exploit bait policy all the time to target different core voting groups over racial issues, guns, abortion, Israel, trade/China; send out their messaging through Fox and friendly radio talk shows and have friendly judges that can be relied on in case they face legal challenges.

But again, as the US is finding out just as we are, these kind of people are utterly useless in a public health crisis. You can't set them to work like traditional style policy wonks, they don't have the links with academics, scientists, policy experts in other countries to tap in to important knowledge. Their contacts are funding groups, media sources. They judge their success by monitoring social media and comments columns under newspapers, and seeing people post their key words like "Venezuela" "LIEbour", "EUSSR" "globalists" "BBC fake news" "cultural marxism" "establishment elites" "IRA". So while they might be useful in helping shape an attack narrative against people criticising the government's approach, they aren't able to solve a complex problem like this pandemic even if they are put to that task. As a result Ministers are left lacking the support networks around them that they need to respond to an urgent health crisis.