Coronavirus - political views - supporting or otherwise...

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Surely it will be up to shops to refuse entry to those not wearing masks and then for the police to enforce it if needed.

I think the Police have said they won't be in a position to enforce it. Yes - they could enforce it if we had to wear a mask in public (full stop) as we could be stopped at any point by passing police. But police getting called to individual shops becuase individual customers won't wear a mask. Not going to happen.

More likely it's going to be as we individually enforce passengers in our car to wear a seat belt; and how we pull people up for smoking inside a public space or for dropping litter.

And according to Hancock this morning we might as well get used to it - as he's advised us that we will be wearing masks on public transport and in shops for the foreseeable future - with him giving no end date.

 

[Beezerk]

I think the Police have said they won't be in a position to enforce it. Yes - they could enforce it if we had to wear a mask in public (full stop) as we could be stopped at any point by passing police. But police getting called to individual shops becuase individual customers won't wear a mask. Not going to happen.

So who is going to be the first to post a photo of the police at a shop on the 24th July for a facemask violation? ?
Of course some shops are going to call the police, it will all be filmed by some gimp and posted all over Facebook quicker than you can say Brexit.

 

[Doon frae Troon]

If I, and I would imagine many others, walked into a shop and saw people not wearing masks I would walk out.
It works both ways. Shopkeepers will have a difficult time.

PS Simple little tip from a medical friend....on the bog standard masks if you twist the elasticated ear loops they fit much tighter.

 

[ColchesterFC]

I think the Police have said they won't be in a position to enforce it. Yes - they could enforce it if we had to wear a mask in public (full stop) as we could be stopped at any point by passing police. But police getting called to individual shops becuase individual customers won't wear a mask. Not going to happen.

You are completely wrong on both the bits in bold. The spokesman on TV yesterday made a right hash of the information and had to issue a statement later to correct what he had said. What the police have said was that they wouldn't be patrolling shops to enforce the law but they will enforce it if they are called to a shop.

 

[Ethan]

We have a modest amount of cases. We can and have coped. How is herd immunity ineffective? You say it's unproven, there has never been a pandemic of this scale in modern times..... What other option is there currently? The City can't function with extended periods of closed borders, let alone anything that needs production abroad or importing in. Were we just supposed to stay in full lockdown with closed borders until a vaccine may or may not appear?

Sweden didn't lockdown, has coped very well and it's GDP has only dropped 8% compared to most of Europes 25%. It's a case study into why I think you are wrong. Obviously it's all too early to tell at the moment.

OK, so in your opinion, what particular aspect have I got wrong?

Sweden has not coped that well, actually. Compare against Denmark and Norway, a lot more deaths. It isn't a case study either, it is an anecdote. The question is not how much GDP has dropped, but how fast it will recover and how durable it will be. Sweden's leading epidemiologist is a lot less bullish on their strategy than he was. Germany had a better approach. Traditional public health lockdown, effective tracing and testing and they have done better than anywhere else around here, including Sweden.

As for herd immunity, there has never been a successful example of a nation allowing an infection to run rampant in order to confer immunity. For a start, the initial assumptions on likely death rates were wrong, and much of the knowledge about long term complications was unknown. With a new virus, it should be assumed we do not know enough about to to make wild assumptions about how it will affect people. But the Govt here did;t look at the unfolding crisis in Italy and Spain, they did mathematical modelling. And the assumptions in those models turned out to be wrong.

Secondly, some people imagine that herd immunity means the virus goes away once 60 odd % get infected. It doesn't. It just can't propogate on an exponential scale any more, but can have a long tail. There will still be cases, and most of those will be in older people released from lockdown/shielding.

Thirdly, herd immunity requires that infection confers a durable immunity. We now know that immunity is variable and in some cases transient. It seems likely that this is related to the viral load, and it is possible, though unproven, that vaccination might confer a stronger effect.

When Vallance let slip at that briefing that herd immunity was the strategy, as a former public health doctor I was shocked. I know that many other public health, infectious disease and other doctors were too. It was a fantastically risky and reckless strategy. Best case scenario was that the Govt was willing to accept several tens of thousands of death and several hundreds of thousands of hospitalisations to allow it. Worst case there would have been many more of both, but no population immunity. It runs 180 degrees counter to the public health approach of caution and over reaction being better than under reaction.

 

[GB72]

If a shopkeeper is worried abut losing custom due to individuals not going into their shop as they are not wearing a mask, then the shopkeeper can decide whether or not to invest in masks to hand out to potential customers who don't have one.

We (and the government) have had weeks if not months to prepare for the possibility that we'd have to wear masks. If nothing else the government could have arranged for masks to be supplied free to every single household in the country. I think @Hobbit indicated that that is what has been done in Spain?

Totally disagree, this is a national issue not one to to be left to individual shopkeepers. It is about restoring confidence for people to go shopping in the first place. Even on something as simple as en environmental level, it must be better to encourage people to buy re-usable face coverings than have every shop (or the government) handing out millions of disposable ones. Oh, and whilst we are still building up NHS PPE resources, not exactly practical to buy what, 10 masks each if they are disposable, so about half a billion masks that will then end up in landfill as well.

 

[ColchesterFC]

Germany had a better approach. Traditional public health lockdown, effective tracing and testing and they have done better than anywhere else around here, including Sweden.

Is part of that due to how they are reporting/counting Coronavirus deaths? I read that if someone in the UK has a heart attack but tests positive for the virus it is classed as due to Coronavirus in the statistics, whereas in Germany it's classed as a death with the virus rather than due to it so doesn't appear in the total deaths.

 

[Ethan]

It sounds like you want the Government to be responsible for trying to implement Herd Imunity and be seen to have ignored expert advice, it also seems like you use supposition driven by your personal dislike of anything the Conservatives do in your conclusions. I know you are a qualified medical Doctor and have experience of working in the NHS and currently in the Private Sector but I would point out this doesn't give you any qualified insight to Government strategy and your accusations are personal opinion, just like mine.

It is not a matter of opinion that the Govt tried a herd immunity strategy, it is unambiguously the case. They ignored expert advice, also demonstrably true. I make no apology for disliking the Tories, but it may surprise you to hear that I don't want a virus decimating my friends, family and colleagues in order to satisfy some sense of schadenfreude or prove that I was right in criccising them. You, on the other hand, could try to put away your Tory tinted spectacles and objectively appraise the situation in which we find ourselves rather than continue to defend everything they do.

As for insight into Govt policy, I know how public health doctors think and the principles of handling an epidemic. So should you, because the WHO publicly explained them numerous times. Hint: it didn't include getting Cummings data analysts to develop mathematical models. Plenty of expert groups were exhorting the Govt to do the right thing, traditional public health measures, but they were slow and too timid to do it. In some cases they did exactly the opposite, stopping tracing in early March when they should have been ramping it up. Happy enough to splash fat contracts without tendering to their donor friends, though. Party before country, eh?

 

[Ethan]

Is part of that due to how they are reporting/counting Coronavirus deaths? I read that if someone in the UK has a heart attack but tests positive for the virus it is classed as due to Coronavirus in the statistics, whereas in Germany it's classed as a death with the virus rather than due to it so doesn't appear in the total deaths.

The real story is in excess deaths. The UK has more excess deaths than the reported numbers of Covid deaths. Germany has a lot fewer. Nobody seriously argues they haven't done a massively better job than us.

The UK has tried to cook the books too, by the way, for example issuing instructions to coroners not to accept death certificates from outside hospital if someone was not test positive. Then if you don't provide testing to those people, no recorded death. Lots of doctors reporting care homes with lots of deaths but only a few officially classified.

 

[Slab]

The guidance in this country was certainly clearer (wear a mask when in public) & yes police were at every supermarket, all day & when they eventually left as more shops opened then staff stood at every shop doorway and dispensed hand sanitizer & checked for mask compliance, no mask no entry

But I still don't get that this is mass confusion item some media outlets are portraying it to be

Instruction: Wear a mask in a shop

From that short message basic common sense says; if you are in any doubt about a particular shop/retail outlet/cafe/fast food takeaway/trade counter/bank/golf club or any other business or its for a particular purchase, collection, transaction that hasn't been made explicit enough for you or specifically named... just wear it anyway!
(there is no penalty for wearing a mask somewhere its not mandated, so what harm will it do if you wore it into an estate agent and it turns out it wasn't required?)

 

[DanFST]

OK, so in your opinion, what particular aspect have I got wrong?

Sweden has not coped that well, actually. Compare against Denmark and Norway, a lot more deaths. It isn't a case study either, it is an anecdote. The question is not how much GDP has dropped, but how fast it will recover and how durable it will be. Sweden's leading epidemiologist is a lot less bullish on their strategy than he was. Germany had a better approach. Traditional public health lockdown, effective tracing and testing and they have done better than anywhere else around here, including Sweden.

As for herd immunity, there has never been a successful example of a nation allowing an infection to run rampant in order to confer immunity. For a start, the initial assumptions on likely death rates were wrong, and much of the knowledge about long term complications was unknown. With a new virus, it should be assumed we do not know enough about to to make wild assumptions about how it will affect people. But the Govt here did;t look at the unfolding crisis in Italy and Spain, they did mathematical modelling. And the assumptions in those models turned out to be wrong.

Secondly, some people imagine that herd immunity means the virus goes away once 60 odd % get infected. It doesn't. It just can't propogate on an exponential scale any more, but can have a long tail. There will still be cases, and most of those will be in older people released from lockdown/shielding.

Thirdly, herd immunity requires that infection confers a durable immunity. We now know that immunity is variable and in some cases transient. It seems likely that this is related to the viral load, and it is possible, though unproven, that vaccination might confer a stronger effect.

When Vallance let slip at that briefing that herd immunity was the strategy, as a former public health doctor I was shocked. I know that many other public health, infectious disease and other doctors were too. It was a fantastically risky and reckless strategy. Best case scenario was that the Govt was willing to accept several tens of thousands of death and several hundreds of thousands of hospitalisations to allow it. Worst case there would have been many more of both, but no population immunity. It runs 180 degrees counter to the public health approach of caution and over reaction being better than under reaction.

Wrong was definitely the incorrect word, apologies. Just a different view.

I very much disagree RE: GDP. We are all level in Europe now the virus is somewhat under control, providing they (and all other countries hopefully) can stop 2nd large outbreak, they are in a much stronger position not having to come from a complete shutdown. RE: Swedens comparative death numbers. You are spot on, however they've recorded so many more cases. Denmarks death rate per recorded case is substantially higher. Is that something Denmark has done wrong? I don't think so. It's furthers my original view.

This virus will kill, it will kill a % of the population regardless of wether they receive treatment or not. With no sight of a vaccine we cannot wait and keep the virus out forever. It will come, people will die. Obviously working in your previous field, it's most likely a very different belief for you! My belief tho does stand on some sort of immunity, it's looking as you say like that may be temporary. If that's the case then I'm genuinely at a loss on what to do.

I do think we agree on a few things tho:

- A proper automatic, invasive and mandatory track and trace app is needed to return to any sort of normal way of life. Not a sham to benefit friends of the party. (not sure how legal this is with GDPR)
- Care homes were failed, Sweden locked them up, and sealed everyone in. It's disgusting how we acted, it's disgusting the Tories said if they had another chance they'd send more healthcare professionals into care homes.

Either way it's nice to have a discussion, rather then a political slanging match

 

[drdel]

It is not a matter of opinion that the Govt tried a herd immunity strategy, it is unambiguously the case. They ignored expert advice, also demonstrably true. I make no apology for disliking the Tories, but it may surprise you to hear that I don't want a virus decimating my friends, family and colleagues in order to satisfy some sense of schadenfreude or prove that I was right in criccising them. You, on the other hand, could try to put away your Tory tinted spectacles and objectively appraise the situation in which we find ourselves rather than continue to defend everything they do.

As for insight into Govt policy, I know how public health doctors think and the principles of handling an epidemic. So should you, because the WHO publicly explained them numerous times. Hint: it didn't include getting Cummings data analysts to develop mathematical models. Plenty of expert groups were exhorting the Govt to do the right thing, traditional public health measures, but they were slow and too timid to do it. In some cases they did exactly the opposite, stopping tracing in early March when they should have been ramping it up. Happy enough to splash fat contracts without tendering to their donor friends, though. Party before country, eh?

IMO there is a danger you are letting your disdain colour you interpretation and are thereby letting your anti-Tory "tinted spectacles " prevent you seeing the wider picture. I respect you medical experience but the guys modelling are not idiots. It is not 'mathematical modelling' - these are simulations that use fuzzy logic as well as conventional quantitative input and a range of socio-economic 'model' pfd's. In the Universities of the UK we have some of the most expert 'modellers' and best AI professionals in the world. Your medical expertise and experience is fine but is only partly relevant: it also seems to major on the 20:20 benefit of hindsight.

 

[ColchesterFC]

The real story is in excess deaths. The UK has more excess deaths than the reported numbers of Covid deaths. Germany has a lot fewer. Nobody seriously argues they haven't done a massively better job than us.

The UK has tried to cook the books too, by the way, for example issuing instructions to coroners not to accept death certificates from outside hospital if someone was not test positive. Then if you don't provide testing to those people, no recorded death. Lots of doctors reporting care homes with lots of deaths but only a few officially classified.

Cheers for the reply. I know our excess deaths are far higher than the recorded/announced virus deaths but haven't seen any figures for Germany, or indeed any other country. I'm bored at work so will have a google to see if I can find them.

 

[SocketRocket]

Cheers for the reply. I know our excess deaths are far higher than the recorded/announced virus deaths but haven't seen any figures for Germany, or indeed any other country. I'm bored at work so will have a google to see if I can find them.

I think Germany had quite high infection rates but recorded fairly low deaths. If this is the case then something is amiss in their reporting.

 

[Deleted member 21258]

Whilst it is likely anti-bodies are not long lasting (as with Sars, 2-3 years and other coronavirus types), the evidence is growing with more studying over T cells being long lasting and the cross use of the T cells from the other forms of coron.

Hope its all true, as would be very good news moving forward, if a vaccine isn't found, another very recent study(seen 2 or 3 now like this one irrc) :-

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2550-z

now where do I catch a cold from the coronavirus !

 

[Lord Tyrion]

I think Germany had quite high infection rates but recorded fairly low deaths. If this is the case then something is amiss in their reporting.

Or did they manage to protect the elderly and vulnerable better? If those catching it were younger, not at risk etc then that would explain it. I don't know the answer by the way but it would be an alternative suggestion to their figures.

 

[Captainron]

There are a few videos online of people in America having proper hissy fits about having to wear a mask. It's hilarious because the words "my lawyer said it was okay", "I have a condition which means I can't wear a mask" or "it's against the law to refuse to let me in" come out of their mouths so often.

Just wear a mask morons!

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Shelagh Fogerty comments in respect of Johnson in PMQs pointing the finger at Starmer's identifying government failures (as he Starmer sees them) as "knocking the public's confidence".

Well Fogerty is clear that over the last four months her confidence has not been knocked by the Opposition, but in the government by "It's incompetence; it's shabbiness; and it's lies" - and she is generally known for being balanced and objective in making honest assessments...

Incompetence, shabbiness and lies - yup - that pretty much sums it up for me - sadly

 

[Deleted member 21258]

The real story is in excess deaths. The UK has more excess deaths than the reported numbers of Covid deaths. Germany has a lot fewer. Nobody seriously argues they haven't done a massively better job than us.

The UK has tried to cook the books too, by the way, for example issuing instructions to coroners not to accept death certificates from outside hospital if someone was not test positive. Then if you don't provide testing to those people, no recorded death. Lots of doctors reporting care homes with lots of deaths but only a few officially classified.

Personally in time, I think the real story wont be just excess deaths, I think the bigger story is, we will be looking at lost excess death years. Only have to think of cancer and how many will lose years off their lives due to late treatment or people living in poverty or people not going for treatment for X problem in fear of getting the virus.

All very sad. Could be worse I suppose we could be looking at a more deadly pathogen that has occurred many times in history, with a death rate a lot higher. But still all very sad

 

[bobmac]

There are a few videos online of people in America having proper hissy fits about having to wear a mask. It's hilarious because the words "my lawyer said it was okay", "I have a condition which means I can't wear a mask" or "it's against the law to refuse to let me in" come out of their mouths so often.

Just wear a mask morons!