Elegantly and convincingly argued Q. It's a good model to consider - so I am trying to recall an actual example we can discuss ...

While you hopefully think of one or two, I have a couple of observations to add.

a) By your definition this is a less acutely catastrophic event than I had considered, so I suggest longer-term the trend would be to become milder. But at a cost!

b) The significance here is we will need more countermeasures, as our present immunity is not up to the task, hence the current strategy to restrict onward infection whilst we try to find a medical means to counter the agent. The longer that takes the more your nightmare scenario could apply.

c) We may already be [unwittingly] at the point you describe, with the disadvantage of not yet knowing the extent of this threat. If social distancing fails, as it could once we drop our guard, then we could indeed get an "unlucky" result.

We are pinning a lot of hope on the new vaccines.

R.

Not all our eggs are in the vaccine basket - promising tests are being conducted using antiviral therapies like remdesivir - of course, these are therapies for patients already infected with the virus, but if they significantly reduce the fatality rate and improve the recovery rate, there is hope from that quarter.

There is one heck of a race on to get a vaccine atm. This is good. I reckon one will be found by the end of this summer.

And Greece as well is totally dependent on tourism. 

Even if the vaccine is ready to roll in September, it will take many more months to get it mass produced and distributed. They cant shut down the economy until then. They will have to open for the Summer

I do wonder if there might be some connection with the widespread and over use of antibiotics?

Antibiotics are obviously used to "treat" biological, rather than viral infections (where they are completely useless). After time antibiotics become less and less effective, because the immune system in the body hasn't been able to re enforce it's natural immunity. 

If the immune system has already been compromised, might that mean it's ability to then cope with an aggressive virus in certain groups is impossible?  

Breakdown of the 665 deaths in England by date

• 119 on April 21st


• 254 on April 20th


• 108 on April 19th


• 175 between April 1st and April 18th


• 9 in March with one on March 22nd

Good thinking Llamedos. I have been puzzled about the paucity of cases in most of Africa - I partly put this down to massive under-reporting due to a lack of testing, combined with having very youthful demographics. But perhaps the populations there have stronger immune systems as well for a variety of reasons, including being exposed to a lot of dirt and pathogens from birth and not being exposed to antibiotics so frequently as pampered people in advanced countries.

For the sake of balance here are some plausible best and worst case scenarios. Obviously something better than this 'best case scenario' is possible or something worse than the 'worst case scenario'. I'm aiming for perhaps 1 or 2 SDs either side.

Plausible best case scenario:

There is a large resevoir of unofficially reported cases that are mild or with no symptoms. Immunity may not last years but it is robust enough in the short term. A vaccine is developed towards the end of this year which accelerates the demise of the virus. There is, meanwhile, not much take off in the 3rd world due to the hot weather proving more damaging to the virus than expected in conjunction with poorer infrastructure. Things slowly get back to normal by the end of the summer or the early autumn. The economy has a very sharp dip in Q2 but recovers very quickly with a record growth year in 2021.

Plausible worst case scenario:

Vacinnes are ineffective or have such limited effectiveness that herd immunity cannot be produced. The virus also mutates about as fast as flu preventing herd immunity from being reached naturally. Some people are infected twice and sometimes the 2nd time they are affected worse. The virus becomes more deadly with a CFR approaching 10% and with younger people becoming much more affected. The virus is everywhere, no country is without cases and the only solution is full supression mode indefinitely. The economy is put on indefinite twilight mode and we enter a new decade of hardship. The virus keeps returning in waves, each wave perhaps is a little less devastating than the last but it takes around 3-4 years before a slow recovery starts to begin. We are still suffering the consequences of this into the 2030s.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/22/eu-turns-up-pressure-on-matt-hancock-over-covid-19-ppe-scheme

More evidence of cabinet politicisation of Brexit leading to delays in sourcing PPE.

Hancock increasingly looking like he will be the sacrificial lamb at the altar of Boris-ism.

The civil servant that suggested this was political actually had to retract his statement he made at a commitie. It might be a bit strong to suggest he lied at the commitee but he did not tell it as it actually was. And the problem is the retraction doesn't write inches like 'cabinet doesn't join due to political motives'.

Over the last few weeks some people in the media, that should know better, are piping out nonsense critisims of the government. This does not benefit any of us. Because the government has made genuine mistakes we should be focusing on. The government has also been less than transparant although part of that may be to concentrate on the right messaging.

I do think its important though that any critisim of the government be substantiated and we don't unnecessarily assume malice of intent. That's not helpful either.

I'm also reffering to that Sunday Times article which seemed full of half truths and untruths.

I think we got the balance right at the start of the month where the media was genuinely trying to hold the government to account for its failings. Now it seems like they are out for capital. And also its not just the government making screw ups. PHE screwed up early on by refusing to outsource its testing to the private sector despite the government ordering it to do exactly that.

People voting with their feet? Certainly getting busier by the day.

Has Britain already gone back to work? Roads, trains and Tubes appear busier while weekend traffic was highest of lockdown so far as building sites, cafes and now B&Q and Five Guys quietly reopen doors

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8244719/M25-looks-busier-day.html

F*ck f*ck f*ck. Don't these idiots realize that this lockdown will be for NOTHING if we abandon it now.

In fact it will be worse than nothing because we take the economic hit and the virus.

if this is happening then we need to double down on the lockdown and make it even more restrictive. And people who make unnecessary journeys should be punished even more harshly.

Pretty stupid if that's the case 

Agreed. Infections have remained above 4k for 22 days in a row. While they are not surging and remain flat. They are flat at a high number.

Our lockdown hasn’t been adhered to strongly enough I fear.

people need to understand just how f*cked we are if people are relaxing the rules now.

Lets say the R0 is currently 0.8 and the virus is slowly under control

The slightly more relaxed measures might push it up to 1.1. Fine you might all say, at least its better than 2.5 before the lockdown.

Nope. I'd rather R0 be 2.5, at least we get it over quickly. An R0 of 1.1 has exactly the same outcome as 2.5 it just takes longer to reach conclusion. And probably coincides with Winter at its peak.

And no we can't 'flatten the curve', our NHS will exceed capacity if we don't supress. To flatten the curve would take 10 years or more.

That's true but not necessarily encouraging MM. It's a bit of a lottery. We might get lucky - but from an evolutionary point of view we don't simply want people to get better, we want to be sure they have a meaningful future resistance to the virus and are no longer infectious. Furthermore a promising therapeutic product can become useless if the pathogen adapts to it. There is always the danger that the agent's ability to change proves superior to our own! Perish the thought.

Keep healthy.

Roger

If people are coming out now then the government was right in that people are 'tiring' and going in hard too early would have been pointless.

People need to get their tuliptogether and f*cking control themselves. If they don't then they can only blame themselves for the consequences.

I thought this had been debunked by Nick? There are no meaningful mutations so far

What is emerging is that those affected badly are not quite the same again, with damage possibly permanent