Why we should continue taking actions that are proven to work.

johnfás

CtevenSrowder wrote: »

Good post, though I've not seen anyone claiming what we are doing now should be stopped just yet!

Regardless, in your opinion, how long do you think it's feasible to keep the current measures in place? I personally think up until end of May, start of June. I think the 6 months that the UK CMO has said is too long.

What she said was life may not be back to normal until 6 months. What that might mean is that large concerts / sports events are not licensed for 6 months or that hospital visitation may still be curtailed. She didn’t say that they would have a lockdown for 6 months.

CtevenSrowder

rahmalec wrote: »

That's a great video and really well explained, thanks for posting.
I look forward to watching his other video on mathematical concepts.

If you are interested in such things, you could check out PBS Infinite series, just search it in YouTube. And PBS Spacetime for the physics version.

nthclare

I work with plants and sometimes I can tweak germination propagation and flowering times so certain generic hybrids can be almost timed to flower in certain times and temperatures etc comes into play.

I don't want to share my techniques, results or go into specific details.

So my background is in botany and horticulture, I know jack sh1t about multicellular eukaryotic's, viruses etc

But supposedly there's a timer on this virus and I know im getting into conspiracy theories, but what if the virus was designed manipulated and has a life span and it just cuts off at a certain point.

April 9th seems to be what im hearing, it'll start to fade away from the 6th or 9th of April.

Forgive my dyslexia and word salad, but hopefully someone has an idea of what I'm on about.

CtevenSrowder

johnfás wrote: »

What she said was life may not be back to normal until 6 months. What that might mean is that large concerts / sports events are not licensed for 6 months or that hospital visitation may still be curtailed. She didn’t say that they would have a lockdown for 6 months.

Fair enough. I never read what she said just a headline so I hold my hands up!

FVP3

So what's easy to continue for 6 months to a year is:

stopping all sports events and large gatherings, including mass, churches, weddings, events in general. Done anyway.

Possible is:

Keeping pubs and restaurants closed fully. Cocooning older people.

Not possible is:

What we are doing now.

If we keep non essential businesses closed for 6 months then we may have nothing to come back to.

DeVore

Wetbench4 wrote: »

I have a question.
How can we model anything for the future, or even tell whats going on right now, when we know there aren't enough tests? The numbers we see each day aren't accurate at all. The only accurate measurements we have are the numbers in icu and fatalities. We could easily be close to the original estimation of 15000 cases and imo we probably are.

Ahh, welcome to my life.

We NEVER know enough data. In anything.

Sooo.... we guess. Yep, we guess.

BUT, we dont just stick our finger in the air and guess. We have ways of "guessing" that are built on solid foundations. Now, without hard data, you are still "guessing" but you can have some confidence in your guesses.


Imagine you have a graph of data. Now, Paddy collected this data dilligently every day. He recorded it in your database and you come to look at it one day. You graph it and it looks like this:

---

---

Eh, Paddy... why is there a hole in our data?
Ah well boss, see, I had a feeeed of pints the night before, and didnt come to work that day. I was polluted, it was a mad sessh.

So, now we have to guess Paddy's missing hangover day but like come on, its pretty obvious. I mean every other day is the same value, well... we can kinda confidently guess that day would have been too. I mean, we cant be 100% sure and we can scowl at Paddy but yeah, theres a damned good chance its the same value that day too.

Suppose the graph looked like this:

\
 \
  \
   
    \
     \

Well, its a slope now. But we can still "guess" the missing value.

Thing is, on any graph, if you zoom in real close, its kind of a straight line, if you dont look too hard. So you can do this with a lot of missing values.


In terms of missing tests for Covid, yeah, there are some huuuge holes in the data. Some of it is questionably accurate and some of it isnt being collected or isnt being released so our "guesses" are pretty big but you also have other countries you can "cog" from and presume (reasonably) that similar things will happen.

redmgar

We are not truly 2000, there are 10,000 waiting to be tested based on the new criteria (higher chance of being positive) so you could probably multiply that number.

Yellow_Fern

CtevenSrowder wrote: »

Christ. How many times does it have to be pointed out that they followed the advice given by the HSE and CMO?

and that is not beyond criticism. Id like to blame the HSE but the buck stops with the gov.

Kivaro

This is an important subject, and thank you Dev for the informative posts and simulation video.
The thread title might give people a headache though, and might direct readers away from it.

ILoveYourVibes

We should understand the thing better keep doing the other thing ..until the thing goes totally away...and we should learn more about the thing and also learn more about how we can make lives better for people doing the thing.

Also the things no are not low ....we just ran out of things ..and tests ...and our testing is like a few days old by the time we get the results.

Death to the thing. **** the thing.

DeVore

FVP3 wrote: »

So what's easy to continue for 6 months to a year is:

stopping all sports events and large gatherings, including mass, churches, weddings, events in general. Done anyway.

Possible is:

Keeping pubs and restaurants closed fully. Cocooning older people.

Not possible is:

What we are doing now.

If we keep non essential businesses closed for 6 months then we may have nothing to come back to.

This is probably true but we wont have to lockdown like for 6 months. Here's why:

First we have to find out just how much trouble we've gotten ourselves into without knowing it. Every country is doing this.
How many wild infections are there out there running around?

So, wave 1 is out there and we have to lock down for 14 days to let it wash through. In the meantime its REALLY IMPORTANT not to get any more.


Then we figure out what to do next.
Most likely that means another 2 weeks of lockdown. Why? Because we need time for information to flow. We need to give the scientists time to figure out how to stop this thing or what works to triage it. We need to buy them time.

And if that doesnt work?
We try to get to "herd immunity" which for covid is somewhere about 60-70% of the population having had it and recovered.

We'd REALLY REALLY like that 60-70% to be the under 50's without UC's because they have the best chance of surviving it, but thats still means unfortunate deaths. If we can get triage meds before this, all the better.

We have to do this without blowing through the vent limits because as soon as we exceed vents, mortality rates go sky high. That means doing it slowly and keeping the curve flat.

So what does that mean?
It means likely we will see future "temporary" lock downs. Whenever it looks like things might be heading that direction, we lock down again to put the breaks on. (THIS IS MY GUESS BUT THERE IS SOME SUPPORTING EVIDENCE FOR IT FROM THE UK).

ILoveYourVibes

We need a thing vaccine ...we shouldn't stop doing the thing until we have a thing vaccine and we are all vaccithinged.

I am very anti thing.

DeVore

nthclare wrote: »

I work with plants and sometimes I can tweak germination propagation and flowering times so certain generic hybrids can be almost timed to flower in certain times and temperatures etc comes into play.

I don't want to share my techniques, results or go into specific details.

So my background is in botany and horticulture, I know jack sh1t about multicellular eukaryotic's, viruses etc

But supposedly there's a timer on this virus and I know im getting into conspiracy theories, but what if the virus was designed manipulated and has a life span and it just cuts off at a certain point.

April 9th seems to be what im hearing, it'll start to fade away from the 6th or 9th of April.

Forgive my dyslexia and word salad, but hopefully someone has an idea of what I'm on about.

No. I'm sorry but theres absolutely nothing to support this.

Its not going away except if we are responsible and take actions that have effects.

DeVore

Kivaro wrote: »

This is an important subject, and thank you Dev for the informative posts and simulation video.
The thread title might give people a headache though, and might direct readers away from it.

Fair point. Done.

ILoveYourVibes

I like the change to the thing.

ILoveYourVibes

Here is my issue.


We are not taking important key actions that have proven to work.

Our testing is terrible.

Its a missing piece of the correct action to take. Its like having a hole in your bucket. It doesn't mean we jump in the river but we really need to put pressure on the govt for testing.

ILoveYourVibes

If tomorrow no one interacted with anyone and we did that every other day it would be gone.

Wetbench4

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

If tomorrow no one interacted with anyone and we did that every other day it would be gone.

That would only work if no one cheated, and it would be impossible to have 100% lockdown, so it won't be going away any time soon.

This is it

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

If tomorrow no one interacted with anyone and we did that every other day it would be gone.

What? Your last number of posts are making no sense. I'm not sure if that's on purpose.

DeVore

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

If tomorrow no one interacted with anyone and we did that every other day it would be gone.

I dont know why you think that. What would happen is that every other day the virus would spread. You might think that that would mean it would grow half as fast but it wont.
Every lockdown-day, the people who housed with some one who picked it up on a previous free-day, would almost certainly get it. So, it grows by more than half for sure.

fishy_fishy

Have your models any capacity to throw light on how many infections we actually have here? Maybe basing off SK data.

My big suspicion is that our positive test numbers in no way reflect reality (although really it's hospitalised, ICU and death numbers that really matter atm). The labs are clearly at capacity and the new case definition hasn't fed through to the results yet. So if 94% are negative and we can't increase the numbers of tests getting through the labs, then you'd have to reasonably assume that for the next few days we'll continue to see new cases in the low 200s..

ILoveYourVibes

This is it wrote: »

I'm not sure if that's on purpose.

lil bit.

I did a thing.

ILoveYourVibes

DeVore wrote: »

I dont know why you think that. What would happen is that every other day the virus would spread. You might think that that would mean it would grow half as fast but it wont.
Every lockdown-day, the people who housed with some one who picked it up on a previous free-day, would almost certainly get it. So, it grows by more than half for sure.

Total lockdown you cant leave your house for 24 hrs.

Then the next day the rules are the same as now you can go out but not more than 2 k etc etc.

sydthebeat

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

Total lockdown you cant leave your house for 24 hrs.

Then the next day the rules are the same as now you can go out but not more than 2 k etc etc.

there is at least a 14 day incubation with this "thing".

total lockdown for 14 days minimum a time is the frequency we would have to adhere to, not "every other day".

personally i think we are in this for another 3 weeks.
end next week they will tell us if the numbers are dropping .... and if so, the actions are working, but we're not safe yet, so another 2 weeks lockdown is advised.

That 2 weeks is, as devore says above, partly to information gather and to plan for a slow staggered / staged exit.

if the numbers arent dropping by the end of next week then its continue as we are right now

DeVore

fishy_fishy wrote: »

Have your models any capacity to throw light on how many infections we actually have here? Maybe basing off SK data.

My big suspicion is that our positive test numbers in no way reflect reality (although really it's hospitalised, ICU and death numbers that really matter atm). The labs are clearly at capacity and the new case definition hasn't fed through to the results yet. So if 94% are negative and we can't increase the numbers of tests getting through the labs, then you'd have to reasonably assume that for the next few days we'll continue to see new cases in the low 200s..

Ok so this is a good question.

So far most models predict "NEW CASES!!" and work from there (because we know the hospitalisation rates and the mortality rates for cases, from places like Italy etc).

What if we worked that backwards... what if we said "we know we have had 46 deaths, how many cases would be needed to cause that".

So, you can do that and the answer is today we should see about 4000 rather than the 2,615 we have reported.

Why dont we do this? Its because the system is very very sensitive to that number of deaths. Bluntly put if a few more grannies (or less) popped their clogs, well that 4000 number goes flying up and down. In technical terms its "chaotic" ie: highly sensitive to starting conditions.

We DO DEFINITELY need large scale wide spread testing. Right now we are blind and we need someone to turn on a light of data. Do you think they havent thought of that? They know that.
1. They need test kits. Those are in kinda short supply world wide now...
2. Its a hellova job to mobilise the logistics needed to test 4M people.

ILoveYourVibes

sydthebeat wrote: »

there is at least a 14 day incubation with this "thing".

total lockdown for 14 days minimum a time is the frequency we would have to adhere to, not "every other day".

personally i think we are in this for another 3 weeks.
end next week they will tell us if the numbers are dropping .... and if so, the actions are working, but we're not safe yet, so another 2 weeks lockdown is advised.

That 2 weeks is, as devore says above, partly to information gather and to plan for a slow staggered / staged exit.

if the numbers arent dropping by the end of next week then its continue as we are right now

I know.

You are not reading what i have written.

One day TOTAL lockdown no one leaves the house.
The next day we have exactly the same rules as now.

This continues for 14 days or probably more.

No one leaving there house for 14 days totally is something we might have to do...however if we do it every other day ..and keep every second day just as we are now...it might mean we never totally have to lockdown.

Nermal

Signore Fancy Pants wrote: »

I would be interested to hear your assessment of the Pandemic, specifically the characteristics which have contributed to the global spread of the virus, the value of mitigation measures and your 2 month projection for the course of the Pandemic.

Who said I could do any of that? I'm pointing out that this model, like so many others presented here, addresses only the benefits of our actions, not the costs.

The only attempt I have seen to quantify them is this paper, which more or less points out that we're already beyond the point of costing more lives than we save:
http://jvalue.co.uk/papers/J-value-assessment-of-combating-Covid-19-Thomas-23.3.2020.pdf

DeVore wrote: »

We have to do this without blowing through the vent limits because as soon as we exceed vents, mortality rates go sky high.

Cite. In Wuhan, ventilators made no difference. If you were put on one, you died anyway, just later:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30566-3/fulltext

DeVore

So.... we're still trying to put this genie back in its bottle. When they find someone with a positive test for Covid, they "contact trace" that means they phone everyone they can to tell them they might be infected and to lie low.
This is a way to get the jump on the virus and reduce its ability to spread.

See, the worst thing about this virus is that it spreads BEFORE symptoms develop. SARS didnt. Sars you had a fever before you became infectious. So they set up checks everyone and quantined anyone with an elevated temp.
With Covid we have to work in the dark.

So, it makes sense to target tests not at the general populace but at the people who are seriously likely to have positive outcomes. Thats why they restricted the criteria for testing, so that they could RAISE the number of positive outcomes from 6% to something higher. They NEED to find these positive people and then contact everyone they know or came in contact with and get them to isolate. This stymies the virus and slows infection rates.

ILoveYourVibes

sydthebeat wrote: »

if the numbers arent dropping by the end of next week then its continue as we are right now

Why would we continue as we are if the numbers are not dropping?

If the numbers are not dropping we need to do more.

ILoveYourVibes

DeVore wrote: »

So, it makes sense to target tests not at the general populace but at the people who are seriously likely to have positive outcomes..

That only makes sense if you don't have enough tests.

CtevenSrowder

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

I know.

You are not reading what i have written.

One day TOTAL lockdown no one leaves the house.
The next day we have exactly the same rules as now.

This continues for 14 days or probably more.

No one leaving there house for 14 days totally is something we might have to do...however if we do it every other day ..and keep every second day just as we are now...it might mean we never totally have to lockdown.

But those going shopping will likely double or greatly increase on the day we are not in complete lockdown, so footfall will increase and people will be closer together. The same with people out exercising. Better to have this more staggered, the way it is now.

People will just be "locked up" for 24 hours and there will be no benefit to it at all.

ILoveYourVibes

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

I know.

You are not reading what i have written.

One day TOTAL lockdown no one leaves the house.
The next day we have exactly the same rules as now.

This continues for 14 days or probably more.

No one leaving there house for 14 days totally is something we might have to do...however if we do it every other day ..and keep every second day just as we are now...it might mean we never totally have to lockdown.

The guy in the video could easily model that. I have no idea how much if any difference that would make. I would imagine it would make some difference, but not a whole lot.

What might work better is to stagger who can go out on which day. That way there would be far less people out on any one day.

In your scenario, the shops etc would just be twice as busy every 2nd day, as people would only have 1/2 the week to shop etc.

DeVore

Nermal wrote: »

Who said I could do any of that? I'm pointing out that this model, like so many others presented here, addresses only the benefits of our actions, not the costs.

The only attempt I have seen to quantify them is this paper, which more or less points out that we're already beyond the point of costing more lives than we save:
http://jvalue.co.uk/papers/J-value-assessment-of-combating-Covid-19-Thomas-23.3.2020.pdf



Cite. In Wuhan, ventilators made no difference. If you were put on one, you died anyway, just later:
https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2820%2930566-3

That Lancet link doesnt work.

I agree that there is a limit to the economic damage that we can sustain before there is systemic threat to life greater than Covid 19 but we're no where near it yet imho.

DeVore

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

That only makes sense if you don't have enough tests.

We dont have enough tests.

sydthebeat

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

I know.

You are not reading what i have written.

One day TOTAL lockdown no one leaves the house.
The next day we have exactly the same rules as now.

This continues for 14 days or probably more.

No one leaving there house for 14 days totally is something we might have to do...however if we do it every other day ..and keep every second day just as we are now...it might mean we never totally have to lockdown.

there is no scientific evidence that that approach would do anything at all other than extend the duration of lockdown.
Why would it help "flatten the curve" ?
if anything its worst of both worlds, it doesnt stop contact or community spread, but at the same time it extends a serve lockdown.

have a look at the video devore posted... very little difference between a 50% compliance rate with social distancing and a 90% compliance rate.

we either totally lock down everyone from leaving their homes (Wuhan) or we do what we are doing now (WHO advice)

If the numbers are not dropping we need to do more.

nope, if the numbers are rising, we need to do more.
if the numbers are not dropping, or even if they are dropping, we still need to continue to do what we are doing.

Beasty

redmgar wrote: »

We are not truly 2000, there are 10,000 waiting to be tested based on the new criteria (higher chance of being positive) so you could probably multiply that number.

And there is a delay in a few days in delivering test results

I've said it repeatedly in the main threads, the "positives" are limited by the number of tests done. If we had the results of 150,000 being tested (bear in mind some may be tested more than once) we would probably see 15,000 positives now. A lot simply self isolate.

We had 40,000 considered "worthy" of a test last week that were wiped off the waiting list. Absolutely right that they prioritise tests, and some of those 40,000 will have been put on the new list. However but for that change in testing protocols we would probably have a waiting list nearer 100,000 by now

Yes most of those not being tested are in that 80% with little or no symptoms, but all can transmit the virus

We won't even start to see the impact of Friday's further restrictions for another 10 days or so. We are not even seeing much of the impact of the changes announced on Paddy's Day yet - that was 2 weeks ago, but the test results we're getting now were probably only from 7-8 days after that

A lot of this is making assumptions about the testing protocols based on information that is in the public domain (which is all we have to go on)

DaithiMC

DeVore wrote: »

Ok so this is a good question.

So far most models predict "NEW CASES!!" and work from there (because we know the hospitalisation rates and the mortality rates for cases, from places like Italy etc).

What if we worked that backwards... what if we said "we know we have had 46 deaths, how many cases would be needed to cause that".

So, you can do that and the answer is today we should see about 4000 rather than the 2,615 we have reported.

Why dont we do this? Its because the system is very very sensitive to that number of deaths. Bluntly put if a few more grannies (or less) popped their clogs, well that 4000 number goes flying up and down. In technical terms its "chaotic" ie: highly sensitive to starting conditions.

We DO DEFINITELY need large scale wide spread testing. Right now we are blind and we need someone to turn on a light of data. Do you think they havent thought of that? They know that.
1. They need test kits. Those are in kinda short supply world wide now...
2. Its a hellova job to mobilise the logistics needed to test 4M people.

As you imply, models are only as good as the data they get. The issue is that much of the data is heterogeneous and requires several models to provide information.


I have worked in the area of diagnostic testing for the past ten years and have been loathe to get involved on these threads, but I thought this thread was at least serious in its intent so I wrote the below as An attempt to add to this thread with thoughts on vaccination
The virus is what is vaccinating us at present, those who have been sick and survived are “vaccinated” (assumption: this virus is like other corona viruses and re-infection cases are rare).


It is (very likely) correct that there are many more people with the virus than the testing numbers are telling us, but for now, that is not critically important because of those most will be asymptomatic, mildly symptomatic, and moderately symptomatic and not require hospitalisation (read “Healthcare resources”).


What is critical is protection of the available health system resource because of the highly contagious nature of this virus.
Social distancing and work from home measures may be considered (modelled as) a way of artificially applying “herd immunity” as herd immunity and these measures both result in the same outcome, i.e., apply an effective barrier between infected people to reduce risk of contamination.


So, we need the population to SLOWLY get to the 60% estimate that achieves herd immunity before we can think of re-opening contact channels.


So, while we are all focused on the headline news of new cases and unfortunate deaths, meanwhile the general population is moving toward herd immunity. The implication of this is that the “peak” in numbers of new cases is NOT the only measure that will be considered important when making the decision to remove isolation measures – it will be soon important to get a handle on how many have been infected to enable us to understand how close we are to herd immunity.


So, the strategy is effectively trying to achieve a twofold outcome:

• Flatten the curve to reduce health system burden
• Control the rate at which the wider population achieves herd immunity

Unfortunately, even when we achieve herd immunity there will be new cases and vulnerable people will still be vulnerable and will remain so until we have an effective vaccine. So it will still be very important to practice safe contact such as handwashing and cough etiquette and not avoiding handshaking etc.. But when we do achieve the level to be at Herd Immunity, the risk to overwhelming the health system will be largely gone.


Points on testing:

• The test being carried out on people who are showing symptoms are tests to directly detect the virus through its genetic material – the presence of symptoms indicates that there is enough virus present in the person to be within the limits of detection of the test.

• Antibody tests require a person’s immune system to have reacted to produce the antibodies as a result of infection so cannot be used too early, even when initial symptoms appear. It may take several days AFTER immune system reaction before there is a high enough concentration to be detectable by an antibody test.

In fact, there is a window in which a person would test positive for test 1 and negative for test 2 so its important to understand when and what testing should be done.

fishy_fishy

DeVore wrote: »

Ok so this is a good question.

So far most models predict "NEW CASES!!" and work from there (because we know the hospitalisation rates and the mortality rates for cases, from places like Italy etc).

What if we worked that backwards... what if we said "we know we have had 46 deaths, how many cases would be needed to cause that".

So, you can do that and the answer is today we should see about 4000 rather than the 2,615 we have reported.

Why dont we do this? Its because the system is very very sensitive to that number of deaths. Bluntly put if a few more grannies (or less) popped their clogs, well that 4000 number goes flying up and down. In technical terms its "chaotic" ie: highly sensitive to starting conditions.

We DO DEFINITELY need large scale wide spread testing. Right now we are blind and we need someone to turn on a light of data. Do you think they havent thought of that? They know that.
1. They need test kits. Those are in kinda short supply world wide now...
2. Its a hellova job to mobilise the logistics needed to test 4M people.

Ah I'm not saying we don't need to wide-scale test - maybe I phrased it badly.

It just concerns me that people seem to be taking the reported numbers as being accurate (or at least some way reflective of the reality) when I myself can't bring myself to believe that. People could arguably look at the reported numbers and say "great, very little % movement day on day - we're getting this under control, should be able to ease the restrictions soon" - meanwhile it's probably only reflective of labs at capacity. That's one of the reasons I'm glad they tightened the case definition - tough for people who'd been waiting, but essential to try find the positive cases. I was curious to see new case numbers a week from now, but it seems that we've pretty much run out of testing kits so they'll still stay artificially low

Wetbench4

DeVore wrote: »

Ok so this is a good question.

So far most models predict "NEW CASES!!" and work from there (because we know the hospitalisation rates and the mortality rates for cases, from places like Italy etc).

What if we worked that backwards... what if we said "we know we have had 46 deaths, how many cases would be needed to cause that".

So, you can do that and the answer is today we should see about 4000 rather than the 2,615 we have reported.

Why dont we do this? Its because the system is very very sensitive to that number of deaths. Bluntly put if a few more grannies (or less) popped their clogs, well that 4000 number goes flying up and down. In technical terms its "chaotic" ie: highly sensitive to starting conditions.

We DO DEFINITELY need large scale wide spread testing. Right now we are blind and we need someone to turn on a light of data. Do you think they havent thought of that? They know that.
1. They need test kits. Those are in kinda short supply world wide now...
2. Its a hellova job to mobilise the logistics needed to test 4M people.

Also, another factor to consider, won't the current death rate change when the capacity of icu beds become full? Afaik we're not at full capacity yet, so when we hit that, shouldn't we see an increase in deaths??

endacl

Wibbs wrote: »

+1. I've got dyscalculia so anything more than 1+1=2 requires me taking my socks off and bring extra digits into the mix and even I understood it.

How do you take your socks off if you've only one finger on each hand?

:pac:

RandomName2

DeVore wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxAaO2rsdIs

That video is amazing.

DeVore

RandomName2 wrote: »

That video is amazing.

Isnt it!

Alf Veedersane

Isn't it the case that the number cases is really only a proxy for the important numbers, i.e. hospitalisations and ICU cases?

riffmongous

DeVore wrote: »

So.... we're still trying to put this genie back in its bottle. When they find someone with a positive test for Covid, they "contact trace" that means they phone everyone they can to tell them they might be infected and to lie low.
This is a way to get the jump on the virus and reduce its ability to spread.

See, the worst thing about this virus is that it spreads BEFORE symptoms develop. SARS didnt. Sars you had a fever before you became infectious. So they set up checks everyone and quantined anyone with an elevated temp.
With Covid we have to work in the dark.

So, it makes sense to target tests not at the general populace but at the people who are seriously likely to have positive outcomes. Thats why they restricted the criteria for testing, so that they could RAISE the number of positive outcomes from 6% to something higher. They NEED to find these positive people and then contact everyone they know or came in contact with and get them to isolate. This stymies the virus and slows infection rates.

What is the source you use on people being infectious before symptoms start showing? Not to dispute it since I also read a few reports on it a few weeks ago, but that's it, they were all from a few weeks ago (around 10 - 13th March) and based off of very limited studies, do you know of anything more up to date, because there is a lot of new data since then?

Signore Fancy Pants

Nermal wrote: »

Who said I could do any of that? I'm pointing out that this model, like so many others presented here, addresses only the benefits of our actions, not the costs.

The only attempt I have seen to quantify them is this paper, which more or less points out that we're already beyond the point of costing more lives than we save:
http://jvalue.co.uk/papers/J-value-assessment-of-combating-Covid-19-Thomas-23.3.2020.pdf

So, you have no personal assessment of the current situation, no appreciation for the mechanics of the virus, no opinion as to if we should increase/decrease our response or how effective it is?

From your earlier posts (havent gone back, just from what I remember on these threads), it seems that your position is you are more concerned with the negative economic effects due to the government response and mitigation measures...

...rather than being concerned with the consequences of not employing measures at all.

So, we should just let it run its course, accept the death toll and continue on?

I agree that the economic effect is potentially going to be with us for decades (speaking as having a self employed spouse) and will have a negative impact.

So, what is your economic/financial assessment?

Kivaro

riffmongous wrote: »

What is the source you use on people being infectious before symptoms start showing?

And to add to that; when do we stop being contagious?
After just reading the government booklet, it says that we do not transmit the virus after our symptoms stop.
That statement caused me to pause to consider possible scenarios where this might not be true. But I'm unsure.

This is a highly contagious disease, which is why I believe it transmits before symptoms start.

DaithiMC

riffmongous wrote: »

What is the source you use on people being infectious before symptoms start showing? Not to dispute it since I also read a few reports on it a few weeks ago, but that's it, they were all from a few weeks ago (around 10 - 13th March) and based off of very limited studies, do you know of anything more up to date, because there is a lot of new data since then?

It doesn't matter if up to date or not, it has been observed, so it's a feature of the SARS-COV-2 virus, reference 2 in the below also points to further evidence.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7074995/

DeVore

riffmongous wrote: »

What is the source you use on people being infectious before symptoms start showing? Not to dispute it since I also read a few reports on it a few weeks ago, but that's it, they were all from a few weeks ago (around 10 - 13th March) and based off of very limited studies, do you know of anything more up to date, because there is a lot of new data since then?

This seems so generally accepted that its hard to cut through the noise and find studies of it. The best I can find is some links to CDC and also this from Harvard Medical 3 days ago but it doesnt give hard data.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-basics

Alf Veedersane

Kivaro wrote: »

This is a highly contagious disease, which is why I believe it transmits before symptoms start.

That is part of the reason for it being so widespread, i.e. it being transmissible before the symptoms start. With something like SARS, which was more contagious , but if you got it, you were laid low fairly quickly so lower levels of transmission. They traced 1,000 people back to Patient 31 in South Korea.

When people start to register symptoms, they self isolate but they may already have passed it on to a good few people.

Nermal

Signore Fancy Pants wrote: »

So, you have no personal assessment of the current situation, no appreciation for the mechanics of the virus, no opinion as to if we should increase/decrease our response or how effective it is?

From your earlier posts (havent gone back, just from what I remember on these threads), it seems that your position is you are more concerned with the negative economic effects due to the government response and mitigation measures...

...rather than being concerned with the consequences of not employing measures at all.

So, we should just let it run its course, accept the death toll and continue on?

I agree that the economic effect is potentially going to be with us for decades (speaking as having a self employed spouse) and will have a negative impact.

So, what is your economic/financial assessment?

Fine, personal response - informed by reading contrarian opinions, not by modelling runs.

We're drastically underestimating how many people are really infected, and as a result wildly overestimating the hospital admissions, ICU requirements and lethality when formulating our policy response.

We have no defined exit strategy from these policies - what's the trigger for reducing restrictions? If we don't reach it, are we just going to continue?

Our drop in output and increase in debt is already going to be enormous. We don't have control of our currency like the UK, so we can't inflate this away. Every euro we spend on this has to be paid back with interest. Who's going to shout stop?

Those with pre-existing conditions and the elderly should be self-isolating/cocooning. The rest of us need to return to a semblance of normality. We should obviously build up bed capacity and encourage whatever low-cost behavioural changes we can to slow the spread. Whatever results in our hospitals from this approach, triage it and treat it as best as possible and accept the results.