fraz65

The decision to turn down 11,000 paying customers this season might not have been the wisest one.

Yep. A Connahs Quay Nomads Groundhog Day until we get the right result. The big man upstairs is looking after us.

What do they expect will resolve between now and April 3rd?

I'm one of them. But with insight.

There are a lot of people posing as experts who have no idea what they are talking about.

That means 350,000 dead elderly people in the UK.

Hubei province has a similar population density to England. They have managed to slow the spread of the virus from 3,500 cases per day to double digits. They have mainly done this in two ways. 1. Mobile testing units. Suspected cases have a white blood cell count and a rapid flu test. If both are negative, they have a mobile CT chest scan performed. Those suspected of having the virus are immediately isolated and not allowed to return home. 2. Social isolation. Football stadiums full of hospital beds are used to house people away from their families. 80% of viral spread is within family clusters. Social isolation in the home doesn't work. South Korea have a similar strategy, although less draconian. We know what works to slow the spread of COVID-19 and we know what fails. Western governments have a choice which route they want to pursue.

What we're seeing is Western countries reacting to what has happened to Italy and trying to retroactively impose the same control measures that the Asian countries successfully implemented. The sad thing is that this virus was containable but years of inaction and poor planning has resulted in the current crisis. As recently as last week, infectious disease specialists were telling us that the UK was culturally different to Asia and that banning mass gatherings for a prolonged period wouldn't be possible here. There wasn't a jot of behavioural psychology evidence to back this up.

The problem is that it takes years to prepare for a pandemic, so any measures that the UK took in February wouldn't have been as effective as Singapore and Hong Kong. Nonetheless, more could have been done. These areas were exposed to SARS and have prepared for future pandemics accordingly.

It's not really comparing chalk and cheese, although I appreciate that there are some differences. It's comparing developed nations exposed to the same virus who have had different approaches to containment and delay. If anything, greater population density should make a pandemic more difficult to control. I'm not a public health specialist though so not sure whether this is definitely the case. Singapore banned mass gatherings as soon as local transmission started. They did this when they had 22 cases. Those 22 cases were more likely to have been a correct number than the UK's estimate due to their approach to testing. By contrast, the UK has taken similar action when it has (according to estimates) between 5,000 and 10,000 cases.

We should be doing all we can to flatten the curve and try and replicate what Singapore and Hong Kong have done. These areas had experience from SARS which is why they were better prepared than Western countries. Every major spectator event that is allowed to take place shows a complete disregard for the health of the elderly population and the healthcare workers who are expected to go above and beyond during the pandemic. It looks as though the Melbourne Grand Prix has been cancelled, due to some of the McLaren team testing positive, comments from Lewis Hamilton, and public pressure.

Things won't improve in 3-4 weeks. The Chief Medical Officer suspects that 95% of infections will be within a nine week period from when community transmission becomes established.

It seems like a good time to recommend my favourite work of apocalyptic fiction, Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20170404-station-eleven

That all sounds eminently sensible. The Australian government obviously regard the income from the Grand Prix to be more important than the health of the elderly population and the functioning of the health service. Banning mass gatherings might just flatten the curve enough to avoid hospitals being overwhelmed.

Address to the nation from Australia's PM Scott Morrison this evening. Schools in Australia to close from next week. An Intensive Care tsunami of patients expected in 14 days.

Retrospective data suggests that Hubei province underestimated their COVID-19 rate by a factor of 15. The death rate may be a truer measure of the prevalence of COVID-19. Taking an average time to death of 17 days, a death rate of 1% and a doubling time of 6 days, for every death there are possibly 800 cases in the community, as each death will have potentially doubled 8 times in the preceding 17 days. With 8 confirmed deaths in the UK, this means that the true UK prevalence may be around 6,400.

An Italian doctor tells of his experience: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1237142891077697538.html

Once the US goes into widespread lockdown (probably within a week) I think we'll see all developed countries following suit.

Italy had 62 cases on 22nd February, 888 on 29th February and 4236 on 6th March. Singapore and China have shown that COVID-19 can be contained if the right steps are taken. This doesn't mean locking people in their own homes, but mass gatherings seem like a recipe for disaster. Unfortunately, financial considerations seem to mean more than the lives of elderly people. The WHO could and should have shown some leadership on this but have been found wanting. They took two months to recognise it as a pandemic and even now won't answer basic questions about whether mass gatherings should be avoided. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/coronavirus-cancel-everything/607675/

Swine flu (H1N1) in 2009 was a significant outbreak. Up to 500,000 dead according to some reports. COVID-19 will be worse based on on current predictions. The one cause for optimism is that it doesn't seem to be as contagious prior to symptoms appearing as previously thought. This has made it containable to some extent. We'll still be looking at anywhere between a few hundred thousand deaths to well over a million.

Australia banned flights from Italy a couple of days after the Ferrari entourage had arrived for the Grand Prix. I suspect the public gatherings ban will be considered once the Grand Prix is done and dusted.

It was surprisingly easy to score from the half way line if I remember.

It would also make a change to be able to get some decent gear in Killie.

That's a terrifying account. Based on current estimates of the virus doubling every week, unless extraordinary containment measures are put in place, the UK is 4-5 weeks away from being in a similar situation to Italy (6,000 cases), and 8-10 weeks away from the health system being overwhelmed (100,000 cases).