[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Very good, but cancer patients will not be treated, heart patients will not be treated, suicide will increase and so will infanticide

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/education-54827702

Yet it is a good thing to have students at uni. There are other ways, such as Sweden.

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Plus

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54841375

Just too late to avert the lockdown.

[alancalverd]

Worth reading beyond the headline, to find,for instance, the cheering news that

In the week to 30 October, ONS says new daily infections in England stabilised at around 50,000.

which compares utterly brilliantly with Australia (2 cases per day) and New Zealand (0). Shame on you antipodeans - you aren't even trying! 

All the stuff about mental health and delayed operations just underlines what I have been saying since this nonsense began. Back in January, instead of encouraging people to drive to Barnard Castle to test their eyesight, the UK government should have imposed  an immediate and thorough national quarantine, and thus prevented the disease from spreading in the first place. You can't negotiate with a virus. The longer you mess around with partial measures, the deeper it gets embedded. 

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

The stuff about mental health and infanticide both now and future is about locking down driving people to madness. Just saying a lockdown works doesn't ring true in any European country, even the Czech Republic that did so well last time is now locking down.

All the stuff about mental health and delayed operations just underlines what I have been saying since this nonsense began.

[alancalverd]

So how many cases of longterm disability or early death, due to an entirely preventable disease, is acceptable?

Can you name the one person in your immediate family you want to see hospitalised and disabled? And the one in your extended family you want to die from a COVID-related minor infection? If not, why mine?

Endemic diseases do not go away by themselves. The first and most effective preventive measure against an airborne infection with a human vector is to prevent humans infecting each other. There is no magic in Australia or New Zealand, just very effective quarantine.

You can probably quote a dozen places that got it wrong, for a dozen different reasons of compromise and incompetence. Far more useful to study those who got it right - they all used the same virus. 

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

So how many cases of longterm disability or early death, due to an entirely preventable disease, is acceptable?

Can you name the one person in your immediate family you want to see hospitalised and disabled? And the one in your extended family you want to die from a COVID-related minor infection? If not, why mine?

Endemic diseases do not go away by themselves. The first and most effective preventive measure against an airborne infection with a human vector is to prevent humans infecting each other. There is no magic in Australia or New Zealand, just very effective quarantine.

You can probably quote a dozen places that got it wrong, for a dozen different reasons of compromise and incompetence. Far more useful to study those who got it right - they all used the same virus. 

That is callous Alan, how many people in your family would you like to see kill their children. I know of one person who is dead due to lockdown and many more who have had trouble. Not quarantining the vulnerable is the problem, rather than a fits and starts of destroying the wellbeing of the national viability.

Why did the first lockdown not work? Why is South Korea and its excellent track and trace, medical provision and fastidious antipathogen psyche still experienceiNG cases?

[evan_au]

Why is South Korea and its excellent track and trace, medical provision and fastidious antipathogen psyche still experienceiNG cases?

Because their last pandemic was around 2015, and it is still fresh in their memory.
... and because their contact tracing system has access to the credit card records and phone records of patients and their contacts.

I think that there would be a revolt if we tried that in my country! (At least this year - if aerial transmission of Ebola was possible, I think most people would be prepared to give up their credit card & phone details...)

Why did the first lockdown not work?

You could argue that it did work, flattening the curve and bringing the number of new cases down.

But unless you implement international quarantine, you will be continually introducing new cases throughout the country.
And if people just get tired of masks and social distancing, cases will take off again, requiring a further lockdown.

[alancalverd]

You can't negotiate or compromise with a virus. Until you have a proven effective vaccine, any relaxation of quarantine just allows it to spread again, without limit. The rate of increase may be altered by partial measures, but eventually everyone will get infected.

Note that quarantine means exactly what it says: 40 days' isolation for anyone who may be infected. In fact you can probably succeed with 30 days for COVID. It requires organisation and enforcement, not excuses, lies, or appeals to the magical properties of chlorhexidinie..

I'm not the one being callous here. Those who put "the economy" and "saving Christmas" ahead of preventing 70 years of fear, trepidation and early deaths (that's how long it took to eradicate smallpox, despite an effective vaccine having been known since 1796) are being callous. 

But just to appeal to the utterly selfish, you will all be old one day, so if you relax quarantine and let COVID become endemic in the UK, you have a 20% chance of seriously suffering from a nasty infection that you voted for. 

The only upside is that we now know the hazards of lockdown, so we should be able to avoid them in a comprehensive quarantine. Probably worth studying the statistics of  mental illness etc in those states where they have eliminated COVID.

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Why is South Korea and its excellent track and trace, medical provision and fastidious antipathogen psyche still experienceiNG cases?

Because their last pandemic was around 2015, and it is still fresh in their memory.
... and because their contact tracing system has access to the credit card records and phone records of patients and their contacts.

I think that there would be a revolt if we tried that in my country! (At least this year - if aerial transmission of Ebola was possible, I think most people would be prepared to give up their credit card & phone details...)

Why did the first lockdown not work?

You could argue that it did work, flattening the curve and bringing the number of new cases down.

But unless you implement international quarantine, you will be continually introducing new cases throughout the country.
And if people just get tired of masks and social distancing, cases will take off again, requiring a further lockdown.

Eboal is exactly the point. Never before in the history of mankind has social distancing etc for pathogenic reasons been mandetory, it has always been on one's own initiative based on personal risk. Regarding Australia, how much worse has the cure been than the virus? In my opi ion it is too early to tell, but it does carry risks. We cannot go on mass lockdown continually, whilst understanding quarantine and contact tracing can work this risks further flareups in future and further lockdown, as has been seen prior to in Korea and Japan. Sweden's approach takes into account the need to live and create, it has been done on a risk basis rather than a need to Rob tomorrow to pay today. The vaccine similar to the flu vaccine is on its way yet we are once again destroying the future.

[alancalverd]

Official statistics to date:

UK COVID cases: 17,500 per million population. Deaths: 730 per million

Sweden COVID cases:  14,800 per million.  Deaths: 600 per million

Given that COVID arrived in Sweden a few months later that the UK, they really aren't doing particularly well, even by official statistics. You might make a better argument by finding a better comparator. Try

New Zealand cases: 400 per million Deaths 5 per million

If you can find statistics for the consequent economic, health and welfare disaster in New Zealand, I'd be very interested.

[Bored chemist]

Never before in the history of mankind has social distancing etc for pathogenic reasons been mandetory, it has always been on one's own initiative based on personal risk

We have a better understanding of "the tragedy of the commons" and recognise that sometimes you need a law.

[alancalverd]

Never before in the history of mankind has social distancing etc for pathogenic reasons been mandetory,

Except for black death, yellow fever, smallpox, ebola, polio, tuberculosis, norovirus..... with varying degrees of rigour and varying lengths of isolation and quarantine.

The list goes on, and what is historically and currently apparent is that  "normal life with social distancing" doesn't work particularly well.

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Official statistics to date:

UK COVID cases: 17,500 per million population. Deaths: 730 per million

Sweden COVID cases:  14,800 per million.  Deaths: 600 per million

Given that COVID arrived in Sweden a few months later that the UK, they really aren't doing particularly well, even by official statistics. You might make a better argument by finding a better comparator. Try

New Zealand cases: 400 per million Deaths 5 per million

If you can find statistics for the consequent economic, health and welfare disaster in New Zealand, I'd be very interested.

Best call the WHO Alan, tell them it started in Britain as Sweden den had cases in March

What that actually say is doing anything else other than what Boris did is preferable.

[Bored chemist]

doing anything else other than what Boris did is preferable.

Generally a reasonable assumption.

[alancalverd]

Best call the WHO Alan, tell them it started in Britain as Sweden den had cases in March

I think WHO already know that we had cases in the UK in January, even if you didn't. They also know it began in China, not Britain..

[alancalverd]

What that actually say is doing anything else other than what Boris did is preferable.

Not quite "anything". That term includes the national disaster in the USA. But following the best practice of Australia, New Zealand and even Singapore would be a lot better than pretending it will all go away, or discharging infectious patients into nursing homes.

Indeed if you subtract the nursing home idiocy from the UK record, Sweden is doing extremely badly by comparison.

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

.

Indeed if you subtract the nursing home idiocy from the UK record, Sweden is doing extremely badly by comparison.

Citation needed.

[evan_au]

Never before in the history of mankind has social distancing etc for pathogenic reasons been mandatory, it has always been on one's own initiative based on personal risk

In the Middle Ages, once a house was known to harbour the Black Death, I understand that those in authority marked the door, restricting movement in and out. That doesn't sound very voluntary to me...

Ships arriving in Venice were forced into isolation for 30 (later 40) days - that wasn't voluntary. Infected citizens were exiled to an island in the lagoon
- London had a nominated hospital for infected patients
- Typhoid Mary in New York was exiled to an island in the harbour
- Ships arriving in Sydney as recently as the 1900s were forced into quarantine if they carried smallpox or a number of other diseases.

In the case of the Black Death, it was this voluntary social distancing that spread it faster.
- Once this Plague arrived in a town, all the residents would get their belongings together, and move to another town
- The rats (and their fleas and the bacterium) hitched a ride with the refugees to other towns, where it broke out too...
- A lockdown and travel restrictions may have been more effective at slowing the spread.

See: https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/plague-black-death-quarantine-history-how-stop-spread/

Let's face it, restrictions have been enforced for more trivial reasons than public safety. Like: your social class, the color of your skin, or your religious or political beliefs...  and it's still happening in many places today.

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Never before in the history of mankind has social distancing etc for pathogenic reasons been mandatory, it has always been on one's own initiative based on personal risk

In the Middle Ages, once a house was known to harbour the Black Death, I understand that those in authority marked the door, restricting movement in and out. That doesn't sound very voluntary to me...

Ships arriving in Venice were forced into isolation for 30 (later 40) days - that wasn't voluntary. Infected citizens were exiled to an island in the lagoon
- London had a nominated hospital for infected patients
- Typhoid Mary in New York was exiled to an island in the harbour
- Ships arriving in Sydney as recently as the 1900s were forced into quarantine if they carried smallpox or a number of other diseases.

In the case of the Black Death, it was this voluntary social distancing that spread it faster.
- Once this Plague arrived in a town, all the residents would get their belongings together, and move to another town
- The rats (and their fleas and the bacterium) hitched a ride with the refugees to other towns, where it broke out too...
- A lockdown and travel restrictions may have been more effective at slowing the spread.

See: https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/plague-black-death-quarantine-history-how-stop-spread/

Let's face it, restrictions have been enforced for more trivial reasons than public safety. Like: your social class, the color of your skin, or your religious or political beliefs...  and it's still happening in many places today.

That's the difference between quarantine (plague x on the door) of suspected cases and social distancing as in the rich running for the hills and leaving the poor to withdraw from socialising.

[alancalverd]

.

Indeed if you subtract the nursing home idiocy from the UK record, Sweden is doing extremely badly by comparison.

Citation needed.

You could start with https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/deathsinvolvingcovid19inthecaresectorenglandandwales/deathsoccurringupto1may2020andregisteredupto9may2020provisional

and do the calculations for yourself.

But the statistics come from the UK government, and you don't believe those from the Swedish government, so why accept these?