Coronavirus: Three reasons why the UK might not look like Italy

Much of Italy is currently in lockdown as the country's tally of coronavirus deaths has topped 1,000. The outbreak is putting the Italian healthcare service under immense strain. But will the UK follow this path? On Thursday, Boris Johnson's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, said the UK was four weeks behind Italy "in terms of the scale of the outbreak" if not "in terms of the response".

Does that mean we're four weeks away from a similar fate? Not necessarily. Here are three reasons why experts believe the UK's epidemic could be different from Italy's, and why the number of cases here means something different.

1. Different early transmission

2. Italy's epidemic is more concentrated

3. More of Italy's confirmed cases are fatal

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51858987

Ben how long would you expect lockdowns to last schools closures etc

I am very concerned about the 10k figure MM does make me wonder if more people have had it and recovered not knowing.

Spot on!

It's precisely that balancing act that the government measures are trying to get right.

You have rarely been so wrong, and that is quite a statement!

Johnson and his cronies made a calculation that in order to keep people (voters, taxpayers) happy he would play the stiff upper lip card, try not to rock the boat and disrupt.  Make stentorian speeches about the loss of loved ones.  Find some (now looking somewhat isolated) scientists who peddle the slowly relaxed herd immunity approach.

Its all political!  Trump talks about a "foreign virus", and 3 days ago dismissed it as fake news.

We've wasted weeks with the wrong approach while Johnson was fixated on Brexit and grabbing power from the treasury.

I dont think Johnson is brave enough to just admit he has ******* up straightaway and as a result thousands, tens of thousands more will die, while he gets his 2 scientists thrown under the bus we will waste more valuable days in this war on a terrible pandemic.

On the topic of the lockdown, it will help, but having read some research on this, the time lag is one to two weeks - for that period cases, hospitalisations and deaths will still increase as those already infected prior to the lockdown hit peak symptoms.

The specific problem in Italy is the cack handed way in which they locked down Lombardy - somehow the news broke in advance and thousands fled south taking the infection with them. So as Lombardy recovers, we can expect new hotspots in southern Italy.

Great post - Let's leave the politics out of it. This is a far too serious an issue for political point scoring - so leave it out.

We all know you hate Johnson and you hate the Tories. Let's review this in four weeks and see where we are.

The real blunder in my book was in not stopping flights to and from Italy straight away, apart from repatriation flights with full quarantine for those brought back.

Elderly to be quarantined for four months, in 'wartime-style' mobilisation to combat coronavirus, writes Robert Peston

People over 70 will be instructed by the government to stay in strict isolation at home or in care homes for four months, under a "wartime-style" mobilisation effort by the government likely to be enforced within the next 20 days.

It is part of a series of measures being prepared by the prime minister, health secretary, chief medical officer and chief scientific adviser to prevent the health service from "falling over" and to save lives as Covid-19 becomes an epidemic in the UK.

Other measures already being planned include:

• the forced requisitioning of hotels and other buildings as temporary hospitals;


• the requisitioning of private hospitals as emergency hospitals;


• temporary closure of pubs, bars and restaurants - some time after next weekend's ban on mass gatherings;


• emergency manufacture by several companies of respirators that would be necessary to keep alive those who become acutely ill;


• the closure of schools for perhaps a few weeks, but with skeleton staff kept on to provide childcare for key workers in the NHS and police.

https://www.itv.com/news/2020-03-14/elderly-to-be-quarantined-for-four-months-in-wartime-style-mobilisation-to-combat-coronavirus/

If you go on lockdown before the right time then your lockdown will have to last much longer is the only point I would make. I really don't know when that time would be.

I did listen. 

I find it quite exasperating that some people in this country are so  arrogant that they think our experts are better than all the others. politicians will go with whichever scientist peddles their view of the world and how to approach it.

D'Oh!

It will eventually  it has too. If people aren't mixing they won't infect each other.  It's all about slowing it down and giving the NHS a chance. 

This is what we need . I especially like the last one makes a lot of sense to look after key workers kids.

Perhaps the irony is not apparent in that fact that you seem to be suggesting that you know better than our country's experts...

Our politicians will or at least should act on the advice of the CSO and CMO and their teams.

I will NOT cease from criticising this inept irresponsible shambles of a government just because a few Tory posters dont like it.

This pandemic is being mishandled by a government who have been looking the other way, and are now too proud, too cowardly to admit their errors straightaway.

There is too much at stake to maintain the pretence, the lie, that the people in charge are competent.

So to double check, you do know better than the CSO and CMO?

Italy are just just coming up to a week since the widespread lockdown came into effect it takes to to see results.

2 towns who were among the first to be locked down have gone 2 full days without a new case.

We must also remember that it's not huge cases widely in Italy the worst is mainly restricted to the north. Some regions have very few cases

High end - Lombardy 11,685, Emilia Romagna 2,644, Veneto 1,937, Piedmont 873, Marche 899. 

Low end - Sardinia 47, Valle d'Aosta 42, Trento 206, Molise 17, Basilicata 10 

Italy appear to have gone through a period where cases were not picked up thus no contact-tracing and it just spread rapidly whereas in the UK we have at least managed to find a fair few through tracing and got them isolated

That makes some sense - what overwhelms health services on the whole, is when the elderly and vulnerable contract the virus.

A computer modeller was on Newsnight the other night, one who specialises in modelling pandemics. He said the following (more or less):

In an ideal world, you would move all the vulnerable people to the north of Scotland and all the healthy people to Kent - you would infect the healthy people and let the virus run its course - once they had recovered, you would mix the populations up again. That in summation is what the government appears to want to achieve, although real life is far more complex than a computer model.

That goes for every SME in the uk.

I insist 

We are less disciplined than SE Asians, but more disciplined than southern Europeans. Also partly for cultural reasons and partly due to weather, people in Italy, Greece and Spain tend to go out more often than here, so it's a bigger change for them.

Before anyone jumps on me, I am not suggesting we should go to lockdowns now or close schools etc. I am only questioning the herd immunity strategy for being so out of step with every other country.  Also people in Italy, Greece etc, are still allowed to go outside at any point, they are not forced to stay inside! There are reports of many more people walking, running and cycling!

PS. This thread is on fire, arguing here would be the last thing we all do before we die, 'please let me have just one last argument please' 

I also think it's an overreaction, but who knows. Their chief medical officer is also an epidemiologist and he said that their decision is science and evidence driven and that this is now the only way to prevent thousands of deaths.

As for our moat being our saving grace, it works the other way too you know, we could well become a disease ridden, cut off island and unable to travel anywhere.