Indeed ECMO means its even more serious than it would be if he was being ventilated. Hence my doubt about the theory.

Sturgeon has been fine (from what I've seen of the press conferences I've watched) but it was a severe misjudgment not to immediately deal with that CMO situation.

That is massively different to the Imperial model.

We should be seeing he results of social distancing coming through in a few days in hospital admissions but obviously not deaths.  The trends we are seeing have got to change massively and quickly for their model to be correct.  I fervently hope it is bull*tulip!

I wouldn't put much weight to any particular modelling really. They are not useless by any means, but they can be quite unreliable and unstable and the problem is that we don't know much about their accuracy. HMG relied too much on the Imperial team's modelling and put too little weight to empirical data from other countries. 

Oh dear. It is a matter of record that you quoted inaccurate information yesterday and quite properly this was flagged.  I haven't seen any evidence of you being 'howled down' by anyone but maybe that comes under the definition of 'journalistic licence'?

We all hope he pulls through. 

It took 3-3.5 weeks for that to happen in Italy and Spain and that would be later next week for us.

I expect their citizens obeyed the lockdown better than ours, so may take a little longer.

Isn't that a very crude measure though? I would have thought the number of areas with high population density was more important: if you look at the UK data you can see how London and the West Midlands stand out, for example.  Then in the US look at the challenges in New York and now New Orleans.

Yes, we discussed this a few weeks ago. 'Lived density' could be a better measure.

https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/02/theres-a-better-way-to-measure-population-density/552815/

It is only a model and no more likely to be correct than GFS predicting a screaming northerly in 10 days in January.

We have a high overall population density, but the more important metric is lived density - lived density is higher in most continental cities than in London (because most people live in apartment blocks).

No model can possibly take account of all the variables. Based on the inputs to the IHME study, Sweden should clearly end up with the highest per capita death rate, since they have not implemented lock down at all.

Norway looks like another example of handling this well (so far!) They locked down early in their epidemic (12th of March) and they now have only 89 deaths in total. They are not too happy with their neighbours though.

Talking of population density, it is maddening and infuriating that this is still going on during the current crisis:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-52207869?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world/europe&link_location=live-reporting-story

The only way to stop it is to return every single one straight back to France with no questions asked - when will politicians man up enough to do this?

Some more countries which locked down early (and closed their borders) and have few total deaths so far:

Serbia: 61 deaths

Slovakia 2

Slovenia (next door to N.Italy): 36 deaths

Czechia 88

Lithuania 15

Poland 129

From the BBC. The UK Government was heavily criticised by some at the time for not joining this scheme:

-----------------

In late February, the European Union launched a plan to buy equipment to tackle the coronavirus outbreak on behalf of its members.

It was aimed at reducing costs when negotiating with manufacturers.

The first scheme involved buying masks and then, in March, three more schemes were added to purchase ventilators, testing kits and personal protective equipment.

But, to date, nothing has been bought and delivered.

-------------------

Link:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52193858

Fascinating graph (click for larger) from the BBC showing the variation in response to the crisis across Europe

Sorry to hear that, Ulric. I hope at least that she had the comfort of having loved ones near her when she passed away, unlike corona virus victims. 

It’s nonsense Q it’s not the standard starting procedure only used when other M ventilator does not work for patient, and normally those with added heart failure can also provide blood pressure support

An Orwellian attempt to rewrite history because it was unarguably inaccurate when you reported what your source said.

In case you've forgotten , at 9.30am yesterday you posted the following: "Hearing that Johnson has been put on a ventilator"

Feel free to have the last word provided it's an admission that you're wrong.

Yep. 

Good, so you accept that as he wasn't on a ventilator and is still not on a ventilator that the comment was indeed inaccurate.

Good, we can move on.

Thank you.

Very interesting sorry it’s behind a pay wall but progress is being slowly made.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2020/04/07/blood-recovered-coronavirus-victims-helps-patient-come-ventilator/