Can we try something like this here? https://www.dailysabah.com/world/as...orry-500-times-after-breaching-india-lockdown also police headgear to point out the virus risk:
And what about the next pandemic and the one after that? Wait for herd immunity and you'll soon run out of people especially if they're more deadly (there have been more deadly bouts of coronavirus, thankfully they were less contagious). Perhaps more importantly, we don't even yet know if after having Covid-19 you are truly immune to it or if there is a level of immunity how long it would last. Herd immunity will not work in that case, that is why an earlier lockdown, reducing transmission rates and reducing deaths until a vaccine is produced has always been essential. We knew that before it even reached our shores.
yes it it stays there. But I would have rather the elderly were shielded earlier But the point is that give or take the misnaming, it was the scientific advice, at the time. Was it wrong for the government to follow it? EDIT: Do you think they should fire Sir Patrick for giving that advice?
I believe the scientific term for this is Passing The Buck. The current UK government appointed the current scientific adviser at a time of major constitutional upheaval. It's guaranteed that, during the recruitment process, the said government ensured he was ideologically aligned with them. The type of government who wants to Get Brexit Done by Keeping Calm and Carrying On. Bugger on through adversity, my old chap! In a speech by Yanis Varoufakis I recall him postulating that the private sector pays their upper management ridiculous wages and dividends to ensure that they get the very best; With that rationale in mind it's no wonder that we get the quality of politicians and public servants we do in the relatively low-paying public sector. There's also the ongoing concern that multinational corporate money is corrupting our democratic processes, so it does make one wonder about the agenda of an individual who chooses a career path that goes from a job with a base salary of £780,000 p.a., as president of R&D for GlaxoSmithKline, to one paying at most £180,000 p.a. as a government adviser. What I'm saying is you can pass The Buck™ around that circle of liability as many times as you want, but at any stage it all looks very Tory.
Scientific advice to government depends on the objectives pursued by government. Natural selection is a valid scientific approach --if you prioritise the economy and don't mind people dying. Immediate lock-down, intensive testing and contact tracing is also a valid scientific approach --if you want to minimise losses and are prepared to take the economic hit.
Trouble is this government finds the advisers who will tell them what they have already decided. I know all governments do that to a greater or lesser degree but one of Bojo's hallmarks is to take it to levels that border on reductio ad absurdum. It's a poor economic approach too. Millions off sick do not generate much value, even more so if a percentage of the survivors are left damaged in some way that lowers their productivity further. A million extra people claiming Universal Credit or Disability Living Allowance would certainly make an interesting shift in demographics. On that note I wonder if what spurred HMG to action wasn't the knowledge that hundreds of thousands would die in a social and economic catastrophe, but that the majority of those deaths would be Tory voting demographics.
... So long as you can't get re-infected. Yeah, it's pretty terrifying. But it's what happens with the flu every year; the reason it's endemic is because there are so many different types, subtypes, etc, of influenza virus: Source: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/viruses/types.htm That's why you need to get a flu jab every year if you're one of the ones in an at-risk influenza category. It vaccinates against whichever version of 'the flu' that we think is going to be most common that year/season (based on seasonality, northern/southern hemisphere spread, etc, lots of factors go into it). It's pretty 'worst case' thinking, but at this point we just don't know any better. All we can do is try and limit the spread and ease the burden on health systems. Thank god we don't get measles outbreaks, measles has an R0 of 12-18; if COVID-19's R0 of ~3.4-5 (or whatever the latest estimates are) is already enough for exponential growth, then a measles outbreak would be absolutely devastating. The cynic in me says that what spurred them into action is the knowledge that inaction would mean that they'd be out of power for decades.
Natural selection becomes extreme population reduction very quickly if covid-19 ends up mutating every year or two like the flu does.
"You're too young to remember it," her mother said, "but we were expecting nuclear war all the time, really, up into my early thirties. Later, all of that felt unreal. But the feeling that things became basically okay turns out to have actually been what was unreal." “The drivers for the jackpot are still in place, but with less torque at that particular point." He took a seat at the table. "They’re still a bit in advance of the pandemics, at least.” She took the seat opposite. “Nothing before the 2020s has ever seemed entirely real, to me. Hard to imagine they weren’t constantly happy, given all they still had. Tigers, for instance.” --Agency, William Gibson
It's hard to know exactly what you're inferring but if I simplify to a multiguess, perhaps you can indicate which of these were your point. A) Following the advice provided by the government's scientific advisers is passing the buck so they should ignore it and do something else. B) Patrick Valance is lying to us at the request of the conservative party. C) Anyone taking a pay cut to work for the government has something to hide. Please tick which you were trying to infer...
A) I'm sure it wasn't presented as a singular advice but rather a series of options, each with the (spinnable) rationale behind them, from which they could take their pick. After all, everyone in that meeting was working for a political entity, not a medical one. That is the context. B) See above. C) No, but I am saying that industry lobbyists take government roles (with industry kickbacks to compensate their loss) all the time. It really isn't a stretch. Are you saying that there's absolutely zero inventive for Big Pharma to control a key government position during a time of major constitutional change, spearheaded by a party who wants to use the opportunity to fundamentally remodel national healthcare provision?
Lots of weasel words. If you think Sir Patrick is being dishonest, and should have been ignored, say it. Else it sounds like you're playing games here.
Not weasel words (seriously, why do you always have to get personal when someone disagrees with you?) but an explanation that clearly doesn't fit the black-and-white narrative that you wish to embrace. What Vipersgratitude and I are saying is that scientific advice is a set of options from which the government makes a choice depending on what it considers its priorities. That is how advice works, scientific and otherwise. I'm sure you'd agree that it would be rather stupid for any government to consider just one scenario, or take advice from just one expert. Hell, you get the builders in, I'm sure you too would get multiple quotes. This why NHSX and Faculty (and other contractors) ran multiple scenarios, not just one. Of which "herd immunity" was one.
^ What he said But, if you want to play that game - Do you think the World Health Organisation was being dishonest and should have been ignored? The government's initial strategy was, at the time, in direct contravention of the WHO advice and, given that the government u-turned and adopted the recommended WHO policy, history has already passed judgement on Saint Sir Patrick.
Found this an interesting read. Government were told on March 2nd of the mortality rate, equivalent to around 500,000 deaths in the UK if no action taken. So the science didn't really change much with the publication of the Imperial paper two weeks later, but the lack of available ventilation potentially adding further strain seems to have swung it. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ey-were-slow-to-sound-the-alarm-idUSKBN21P1VF
So, work has just confirmed that we're off until 31st May, at least. I've been off for three weeks already! The plan was to clear out the garage, but the local tip is closed...
Ditto, 'tis a problem. Garden waste is filling 1/4 of the drive and what space I have cleared in the garage is now full of house clearance waste... I had heard the the tip was open to commercial dropoffs, coudl pay clearance man if funds allowed. Ahhh, if you're off my other line of getting rid is still off limits, my car boot has 3 bags of charity shop stuffs abandoned in it. Walked a different way today, past some shops and was disappointed to see stuff in charity shop doorways....well out of order
All the charity shops here are asking for donations to be left at their doors and someone is checking them. As long as it's actual stuff and not fly tipping.
Yep, Winton and Poole stores are definitely shut - I think all our stores are closed now. Happens all the time - people just want to dump **** so they leave it outside our stores - most of the stuff left like that is junk but they know we can't leave it outside, so they're just taking advantage of charities. It's fly tipping and they know it - we have plenty of signs up. I haven't been past our store in a couple of weeks - I dread to think what that looks like right now.
