[Bored chemist]

And how typical of philosophers to pretend that everything else is a subset of philosophy.

I thought that was "people with PhDs".
Never mind.

Lets be positive and normalise as we now have Nightingale hospitals to save the NHS panicking

Priti Patel just stopped us getting the cleaners they will need, and we also don't have enough nurses for them.

Since the rest of your post isn't about kids, I take it you have abandoned your view that we should send them all back to school.

[alancalverd]

I thought that was "people with PhDs".

No. A PhD implies that the bearer knows practically everything about almost nothing. Not that the knowledge is entirely pointless. About 40 years ago a colleague actually asked me out of the blue if his problem could be solved by irradiating sodium bromide with electrons, and as a result of 3 years of careful experimentation, I was able to explain exactly why not. What are the chances?   

Acsin: the function of a new hospital is not to stop the NHS panicking (you'd need several years of competent government to do that) but to stop people dying. We've been living with rush hours for years, but let's solve the acute problem first. 

[Bored chemist]

Doh!
Bit of a brain fart there.
People with D Phils..

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Alan, You are correct; a vaccine could still be a year away.  We elders must self isolate but the rest of working age must be allowed to return to work, so they can feed their children and those children must return to school to learn how to be useful contributers to the nation and the economy.  The hospitals all have vacant ICU beds, just in case you fall ill;    so why wait any longer??

A vaccine may never happen at all, after a century of trying to cure the common cold we have none.

[alancalverd]

The hospitals all have vacant ICU beds, just in case you fall ill;    so why wait any longer??

They also have plenty of A&E capacity, so why bother to look before you cross the road?

[Janus]

Alan, You are correct; a vaccine could still be a year away.  We elders must self isolate but the rest of working age must be allowed to return to work, so they can feed their children and those children must return to school to learn how to be useful contributers to the nation and the economy.  The hospitals all have vacant ICU beds, just in case you fall ill;    so why wait any longer??

A vaccine may never happen at all, after a century of trying to cure the common cold we have none.

That's because the "common cold" is not the result of any single virus. It is a "catch all" phrase for a large number of different viruses. Each time you catch a cold you've contacted a different virus.

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Alan, You are correct; a vaccine could still be a year away.  We elders must self isolate but the rest of working age must be allowed to return to work, so they can feed their children and those children must return to school to learn how to be useful contributers to the nation and the economy.  The hospitals all have vacant ICU beds, just in case you fall ill;    so why wait any longer??

A vaccine may never happen at all, after a century of trying to cure the common cold we have none.

That's because the "common cold" is not the result of any single virus. It is a "catch all" phrase for a large number of different viruses. Each time you catch a cold you've contacted a different virus.

That doesnt really counter my point, it only confuses things. Corona rhino viruses have not been cured.

[Bored chemist]

Alan, You are correct; a vaccine could still be a year away.  We elders must self isolate but the rest of working age must be allowed to return to work, so they can feed their children and those children must return to school to learn how to be useful contributers to the nation and the economy.  The hospitals all have vacant ICU beds, just in case you fall ill;    so why wait any longer??

A vaccine may never happen at all, after a century of trying to cure the common cold we have none.

That's because the "common cold" is not the result of any single virus. It is a "catch all" phrase for a large number of different viruses. Each time you catch a cold you've contacted a different virus.

To be fair, we haven't  found a cure for AIDS yet and that's just 1 virus.

[acsinuk]

Alan you state "the function of a new hospital is not to stop the NHS panicking (you'd need several years of competent government to do that) but to stop people dying.".   Living is a risk, living excitingly is very risky but living in fear is horrid and boring as hell. 
Surely;  It is up to God to decide who will live and who will die, not the NHS who can only do their best to cure people with the resources available. 
But; it is certainly the job of government to do what is for the common good of the nation and not panic every time some WHO expert or NHS scare monger sneezes.

[Bored chemist]

But; it is certainly the job of government to do what is for the common good of the nation

So, we try to keep people alive then.
That's good. Nice to see we agree.

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Alan you state "the function of a new hospital is not to stop the NHS panicking (you'd need several years of competent government to do that) but to stop people dying.".   Living is a risk, living excitingly is very risky but living in fear is horrid and boring as hell. 
Surely;  It is up to God to decide who will live and who will die, not the NHS who can only do their best to cure people with the resources available. 
But; it is certainly the job of government to do what is for the common good of the nation and not panic every time some WHO expert or NHS scare monger sneezes.

Sweeden has a lower death toll than the uk, and they kept working.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52903717

Hardly seems like it was worth it

[acsinuk]

The virus will affect us all eventually;  just like common flu , it could kill anyone who gets pneumonia badly and that's a fact. The latest idea to insist on 14 days self isolation for all visitors and returning residents is too late as we have already peaked.  All that needs to be done now is customs officials/medics, should test everyone coming into the country, take the address and Email/phone numbers of those people and get a written signed statement of where they will be at in the next 2 days and if the test proves positive contact them and insist they self isolate for 14 days.  Failure to comply IF notified is £1,000 I think the PM said.

[alancalverd]

It is up to God to decide who will live and who will die,

Poppycock. There is no evidence of a deity.

 

living excitingly is very risky but living in fear is horrid and boring as hell.

One should only fear the inevitable or the uncontrollable. Living hygienically is not living in fear, though life would be a lot easier if we could stop people from defecating in the street....oh yes, that's been done, by Victorian governments building sewers and passing "nuisance" laws. What is missing nowadays is a government with a Victorian respect for the bloody obvious rather than the profits of bankers and the drivel of economists.

Where there is a choice between being right and being liked, politicians should remember that nobody likes them anyway, but people have a grudging respect for those who do the right thing. 

we have already peaked.

One wave is not a receding tide.

[Bored chemist]

All that needs to be done

LOL

[alancalverd]

All that needs to be done now is customs officials/medics, should test everyone coming into the country, take the address and Email/phone numbers of those people and get a written signed statement of where they will be at in the next 2 days and if the test proves positive contact them and insist they self isolate for 14 days.  Failure to comply IF notified is £1,000 I think the PM said.

A half-arsed process will only generate half-arsed results, as we have already seen.

If I travel home from  Heathrow by public transport I can infect about 20 people. Within two days each of them will have infected around 40 more in similar journeys, and each of them......so your contact tracer will have to find  32,000 people, with absolutely no information about any of them. If they take another day, we are looking at over half a million possible carriers, none of whom has any symptoms or any reason to believe he has been infected.

You have to begin by isolating everybody who has not been tested and shown to be either immune or uninfected.

panic every time some WHO expert or NHS scare monger sneezes.

Panic achieves nothing, and inadequate response just wastes money and lives.  When an expert shows you the evidence of an easily-transmissible disease which kills 4% of those it infects and has no early symptoms, you should take all necessary precautions to prevent its transmission. Knowing that the only vectors are human beings and non-native bats, the obvious response is to immediately prevent the movement of both for at least the period of incubation to symptoms.   

[evan_au]

we have already peaked

You only get to say that when 60-80% of the population is immune: This is the level needed for herd immunity.
-Either through catching it: Current estimates suggest that perhaps 25% of the UK population may have recovered, but we won't know until health authorities do a random sample searching for antibodies
- Or being vaccinated: Trials are only now approaching 1,000 people (0.001%)

See: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-uk-covid-.html

Within two days each of them will have infected around 40 more

The most recent estimates I have heard is that:
- Symptoms appear after 5 days (on average)
- Infected people start spreading virus about 1 day before symptoms appear

So we could expect the delays to be more like 4 days after exposure that people start spreading the virus.
- Packed trains (no social distancing) is likely to be a common route of spreading

Where I live, the government has placed "Do not sit here" labels on half the seats in trains and buses - and told all the school kids to congregate at the back of the bus...

[acsinuk]

The WHO expert said 4% of the population could die of covid19. . That prediction caused the panic and Trump is correct to penalise them. They must have known that 80% of the population would not even be infected and that a vaccine could not be developed for possibly years. The peak is over in UK and all we need do is avoid crowded areas, just as a hygienic precaution; not a mandatory requirement.  By all means still test and check people at the borders but forget any mandatory 14 day quarantine period unless the traveller proves positive as a carriers 

[Bored chemist]

That prediction caused the panic

What panic?

They must have known that 80% of the population would not even be infected

We don't know that now. You seem to have made it up.

[Bored chemist]

The peak is over in UK and all we need do is avoid crowded areas,

The parachute has slowed our rate of descent, so we can now remove it.

[Bored chemist]

The peak is over in UK

Well, the first  wave is  over.