I think the singaporian approach was probably the best. Hit this hard and hit it early, stop sustained local transmission before it ever establishes itself.

But to do that we needed to be in war mode in January not March.

We will just print it and use helicopter money. There is absolutely nothing stopping governments from doing that. The problem will be inflation at the end of this but that is small concern right now.

It takes 2-3 weeks to work through the system. Look at the link I shared earlier. Numbers are improving finally.

Singapore is not a good model for a big country, but Taiwan is.

I don't need to prove it. Already happened recently in the London riots. Look at the crazy stockpiling now. This is only happening in certain countries that have been corrupted for decades by the right wing agenda - America, UK and Australia

Our society and culture is so divided and disengaged. 40 years of Gaslighting by Rupert Murdoch, Rothermere and the Barclay Brothers have turned the plebs into selfish, greedy consumerists who only care about their immediate circle. There is no sense of community spirit. 

What's the main difference? I don't know a huge amount about Taiwan's approach but it also stopped sustained local transmission before it was rooted.

So your solution is to become one?

Lead by example.

Be societally responsible.

I haven't read a lot of today's posts, but I'd urge people to take responsibility for themselves. I am not a sensationalist person, I am a scientist, but people need to change their behaviour right now. The updated epidemiological report from the team that had advised the HMG on mitigation (herd immunity) says that if we now do last week's strategy, then the best case scenario would be 250,000 deaths in the UK.

They now propose what European countries are doing and they are saying that closing schools is the single most effective measure to slow down the infection.

This is has been a big failure of UK science, politics and probably of the media too (for failing to ask the right questions), but it's not the time for blame. There is nothing more wrong in persisting with a wrong strategy and there is a lot of merit in recognising your mistake and change quickly.

Unfortunately a big surge/tsunami is now heading for the ICUs of the NHS and there is nothing we can do to stop it. We could easily have hundreds of deaths daily before the end of this month/ What the govt and the people do now though will have a big impact on what will happen in April.

We need a complete shutdown now as the one happening in Europe. People should stop seeing (if they can) their elderly loved ones and vulnerable people and they should stop socialising.

Ok, but what happens when the lockdown is lifted? We cant wait a year for the vaccine 

The hot summer months will help in some countries, but perhaps not in northern europe

SK have never been in lockdown. In the Far East only China implemented any kind of lockdown and nothing on the scale of European countries.

You've changed your tune. I remember you mocking Q and Maunder a few weeks back

Well said, Darren.

A balance still needs to be struck so that society doesn't self-destruct. 

The danger of allowing economic ruin and the massive human cost of that would dwarf the impact of Co-19, even if we talk of 250k Co-19 deaths.

So, whilst we need to take measures to protect the vulnerable, we must not store up problems for the future that will unfairly impact other groups, whether they be small businesses, entire industries, or school pupils.

 It's also worth noting that British experts are following the lead set in other countries and by the WHO. What on earth were they thinking last week? It's nonsense to say the scientific evidence has changed dramatically. Italian experts have been warning for weeks. Huge cock-up by the Brits IMVHO. 

Businesses and people can and should be protected, countries are already announcing big stimulus packages and the magic money tree has an unlimited supply. First duty of any govt is preservation of life.

I'm resigned to the pubs closing voluntarily anyway, but I hope Boris doesn't force a close, Tim Martin will try and stay open unless forced to

So even if the Government forced pubs, restaurants, theatres etc to close the vast majority of them wouldn't be covered, according to the Association of British Insurers https://t.co/0OqWmvmIVi

— Matt Dathan (@matt_dathan) March 17, 2020

Exactly. It's not feasible to put life on hold for more than a few weeks for most. The wider impact on the functioning of the country and the economy would be devastating. 

Anyone still think the WHO made the right call back in January wrt travel in and out of China?

What's probably changed is the scale of the problem. British experts probably thought that going down the lockdown route is unsustainable in the long term and just delays the problem. 'Flattening the curve' does seem like a myth because we would need 15 years to flatten this curve. And if we can't flatten the curve then, without a vacinne, we would have to stop the virus completely, on a global scale, which is not possible. The UK was trying to avoid the dire, potentially year long, end to life as we know it however now recognize the cost is simply too high.

So all the hopes now rest on a vacinne being developed before society crumbles under this lockdown, and it will eventually. This cannot be sustained indefinitely.

There are reports that NHS trusts that have been in contact with their Italian and French colleagues have been shouting about this on the daily conferences over the last fe days only to be told 'we have high approach in our epidemiology team and our approach'. World class etc.

You mean Michael

Nice soundbite, but a breakdown of the economy will almost certainly lead to more loss of life and hardship in the medium term than Co-19.

That is exactly the same behaviour as those idiots panic buying. At a time like this you have to put the wider needs of society above your personal wants.

If too many chose to behave as you're suggesting the recommendations would fail to work. 

If every country had immediately thrown everything at this in January we could have stopped it.

But that was just never going to happen. Even if the UK had done it, we would now be an offshore north korea. It needed a massive global response. The Italy outbreak could have been prevented with some continent wide EU clampdown. But even then we would still have had the Iran outbreak.