Ferguson in the media again this morning on Marr I think. Quoted saying deaths could be as low as 7000. Given that we've recorded 4300 hospital deaths +25% ish elsewhere we must be around 5500 already. To restrict to 7000 corona virus deaths in the UK seems impossible to me. Unless he's expecting us to be hit by a meteorite and all killed in the next few days.

---

And I suppose depends on how the country you want to go to is also fairing. I doubt if the whole world will 'open' together and suspect non essential overseas business to be banned for quite some time. Greta will be pleased.

As long as we have our own house in order with the virus, we may find ourselves spending more in this country holidaying in resort and hotels, restaurants etc may do very well. It seems businesses will have to adapt a number of times depending on demand, but while things look bleak for certain businesses here now, if they can hang on in there there may be 'rewards' later on.

Of course, any death is tragic, and I apologise if my posting style is too blunt. I have no filter (explains why I am alone perhaps!)

My argument has always been that we must be sure the cure does not lead to more premature deaths - indirectly through economic depression and associated health consequences like suicide, substance abuse etc

 

---

He is talking about deaths than can be directly attributed to Corona - those nurses for example

 

---

Perhaps, but some US states are not in lockdown, those with very few cases. 

---

If they want to keep it that way then perhaps they should be. I understand why that would seem strange but surely the best way to keep an area from having significantly more cases is to take preventative action?

---

Not true. Rutland was the last place with no cases in England but they got their first cases over a week ago. Last to fall were the Outer Hebrides and the Orkney Isles, but now they have cases as well. And for every positive case (resulting in a hospital admission) there are at least 10 and maybe as many as 100 other symptomatic cases.

---

It could be completely wrong. Just a wild guess really. 

I think once HMG have done all they can to boost the relative preparedness of the NHS i.e. ventilators/extra hospitals, they’ll eventually move to the “herd immunity” model even if they don’t call it that. They won’t have any other option. I very much doubt they will keep the lockdown in place until a vaccine is available, the timescale is just too long. 

I think if you have holidays booked in 2020 it’s probably a fair bet to assume they will be cancelled. Even once lockdowns are ended in individual nation states I think borders will remain closed. I was fairly confident I’d still be having my beach holiday in Sitges in September but now I have big doubts. 

---

Shutting down early would have been far cheaper, IMO.

Yes, Spain will be Uber paranoid I reckon.

Great place Sitges, went their in 2014 with a group of mates. One of our best group holidays, we stayed up one of the hills - did cause a few arguments over taxis lol

---

We considered Sitges but ended up choosing Port Soller in Mallorca end of April - which won't happen now.

Also looked at Alicante City and Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

---

 

 

Your logic is: X is working, so stop doing X?

Surely the logical thing to do is more of X?

 

You would not pass muster with the Vulcans

Hahahhaa I wonder why you like Sitges 😉 . 

Let’s just say I suspect my nether regions will be safe from sunburn this year. Shame. 

---

 

I'm inclined to agree.  Pubs have got to be THE best way of getting the thing.  Not only have   you got close proximity to peeps, you have  the bar, tables, bog door handles, taps a  in bogs, cutlery, plates, the actual foods its self all as vectors for infection.

We cancelled an early mothers day / birthday pub  visit in advance of the lock-down for precisely that reason. It's  a b'stard not being able to  down a decent pint in a nice pub ambiance and tuck into a juicy pub steak but we are where we are.  However, If I get an antibody test that comes back positive and the pubs open,  I'll most  likley start  having all my meals   at my local - it  will help them to survive and save me the hassle of grocery shopping for myself (although I'll still have to do it for The Folks).

 

 

 

 

---

Sitges is possibly my favourite place in the world. A friendly, beautiful, interesting town with loads to do and see, plenty of nice places to eat and drink, with decent beaches in the middle of the town. Close to Barcelona and Tarragona with an amazing train service. 

Strongly recommend to those who haven’t been before. 

---

---

 

I think you are banging your head against a brick wall with Beast, Doc.  He's not daft, he "gets it" alright it's   just the lure of a pint in  his local 'spoons with his  "red neck",  "pub mates" ellipses all other factors

---

Seems like there is a move away from reliance on Imperial / Ferguson. Interesting and worrying comments by Osnat Zaretsky. FWIW I don't know anything about the Imperial model but I wonder whether an ensemble based approach is taken? So is the model run and run again with starting parameters changed to help account for uncertainty.

Coronavirus: tensions rise over scientists at heart of lockdown policy

The Royal Society is to create a network of disease modelling groups amid academic concern about the nation’s reliance on a single group of epidemiologists at Imperial College London whose predictions have dominated government policy, including the current lockdown.

It is to bring in modelling experts from fields as diverse as banking, astrophysics and the Met Office to build new mathematical representations of how the coronavirus epidemic is likely to spread across the UK — and how the lockdown can be ended.

The first public signs of academic tensions over Imperial’s domination of the debate came when Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology at Oxford University, published a paper suggesting that some of Imperial’s key assumptions could be wrong.
...

Other modellers have drawn similarly dire conclusions. One of them is Osnat Zaretsky of DataClue, a company that has helped Israel, which has seen only 40 deaths so far, draw up a response. He believes Britain’s modellers have grossly underestimated the pandemic and predicts that Britain will see 95,000 deaths by May 1, rising to 288,000 by late June.

“The numbers are extremely alarming —they are doubling every couple of days and this is what our projections are based on,” said Zaretsky, a UK-born Israeli whose research suggests that the UK is not even counting deaths accurately. “There seems to be a vacuum of reliable information in the UK. It’s apparent that many sick people or even ones that passed away showed Covid-19 symptoms but have never been tested. This creates a false sense that the curve and the spread is far lower than they really are. As soon as the UK ramps up testing we’ll see a sharp increase in diagnosed cases.”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/coronavirus-tensions-rise-over-scientists-at-heart-of-lockdown-policy-nxz23qdl0

 

---

If that's true, the lockdown is utterly pointless.

---

Matt Hancock announces that if people continue to abuse the daily exercise rule, it may be banned altogether.

The Health Secretary has warned that if lockdown rules are not followed - after sunbathers were seen in parks - then people could be banned from leaving their homes to exercise.

Here's what you can and can't do during the lockdown https://t.co/iahBe4hwqS pic.twitter.com/s6HrEV1hwu

— ITV News (@itvnews) April 5, 2020

---

A friend of mine lives there.

---

This is just unbelievable. Day after day we see Scotland's Chief Medical Officer on TV telling us not to leave our houses and then she travels from Edinburgh to the East Neuk of Fife to spend the weekend at her second home 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-52171694

What a disgusting hypocrite. I was meant to be spending Easter Weekend down there but have had to cancel it based on advice which those giving out seem to think it is beneath them to have to follow themselves 

---

Its clear from pictures yesterday that they are not being followed and we need a tighter lockdown for the next 4 weeks. 

 

---

Here's a suggestion. There are approx 284,000 nurses in the UK. How about the Premier League club together and gift each of them £1000. The total cost would be £284,000,000. That's only 3.5 Harry Maguires. 

---

So, you do want to continue this argument.

 

Let's just focus on the facts:

1. The virus was out beyond China in December.


2. To prevent it reaching the UK you would have needed to close our borders completely by Christmas


3. Closing the borders would have locked out hundreds of thousands of British people who were out of the country. As that is never going to happen then you would be looking at quarantining every British person returning; not 'self-isolation' but proper quarantine measures, as were applied to those returning from Wuhan. Anything else wouldn't risk further spread.


4. Given that (2) and (3) were 100% impossible then the virus was always going to reach the UK.


5. If the virus was always going to get here then we're just talking about the rate of transmission because imposing restrictions on people back in January was also 100% impossible.

So, your 'headless chicken' panic mode was worse than my alleged complacency.

Feel free to continue the argument if you really must. Preferably just move on - and cut out the name calling.

---