Lockdown #2

[Joseph_Pestell]

20 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Ravenser

 

There's a lot in that which I agree with, and a few points that I don't, but building on it:

 

One of the things that I think might have been done better was the way we "unlocked" in the UK, which to me seemed to involve changing many variables very quickly, so that it wasn't possible to identify the affect of each. Now, maybe the economy, mental health etc necessitated that, or maybe cases were so low that it wouldn't have been possible to identify affects, but to me it seemed even at the time like a lost learning opportunity.

 

How many times was it drummed into me at school, college, engineering training school etc: change only one variable at a time?

 

Kevin

 

I can agree with that. But, very early on, BoJo publicly declared that he understood that the public would only put up with lockdown for a certain period of time. He proved to be all too right about that with widespread non-observance of the measures that were still in place after lockdown.

[Ravenser]

Just now, phil-b259 said:

 

And that statement shows ignorance of the situation.

 

Put bluntly the aim of all the restrictions is NOT to prevent infection by Covid per say, the issues has always been about the effect of having lots of Covid patents clogging up hospitals meaning either (1) sheer numbers overwhelm the ability of the medical system to cope or (2) having people clogging up the system means others are unable to be treated and thus die from preventable illnesses in large numbers.

 

The first lockdown in March was based on the first situation where the virus was not well understood and it seemed initially that enormous numbers of people would need to be put on ventilators. Fortunately this prediction never came true, however the symptoms of Covid are still significant enough that hospital treatment is needed for many.  If the virus was allowed to spread unchecked then while Covid deaths would perhaps not be significant - deaths from things like Flu, or cancers would increase as the NHS simply doesn't have the capacity to do it all.

 

And before anyone starts political point scoring, the situation is much the same across the rest of the world including the likes of France and Germany.

 

The Government are well aware of the economic fall out from the restrictions (hence Boris not putting them in place in October like Kerr Starmer, etc called for) but under the same time are under pressure from voters to try and prevent the healthcare collapsing. It really doesn't matter that much whether your relative dies from Flu, Cancer or Covid - if that death is because the NHS did not have the capacity to treat them you are going to vent your anger at the ballot box.

 

Comparisons with what humanity may have tolerated in the past are invalid - we used to think nothing of sending children down the mines, keeping human slaves, having colour / race bars in all aspects of public life, criminalising homosexuals, keeping women out of the workplace, etc. Do I take it you think these were all reasonable measures too?

 

If human society means anything it is a duty to try and look after our fellow humans when things get tough. As such simply tolerating deaths from a pandemic is no longer an option for any society that wants to call its civilised. It is incumbent on us all to try our best to minimise the number of deaths as far as is practical - and the current restrictions, as burdensome as they may be economically, do represent the most suitable way of doing so.

 

 

I'm no advocate of "herd immunity" . It would be a catastrophic mistake. And I was not arguing against our recent measures,

 

I was arguing against those demanding an "eradication strategy ", or taking the stance that "there can never be an economic cost too high , if the measure might save lives". There are certainly quite a few people around the world taking that line.

 

Quote

Put bluntly the aim of all the restrictions is NOT to prevent infection by Covid per say, the issues has always been about the effect of having lots of Covid patents clogging up hospitals meaning either (1) sheer numbers overwhelm the ability of the medical system to cope or (2) having people clogging up the system means others are unable to be treated and thus die from preventable illnesses in large numbers.

 

 

I am certainly willing to accept a lockdown to prevent the medical system being overwhelms. If that is adopted as the criterion and strategy I support it.

 

But a lot of folk , notably in places like Scotland and ANZ, are saying that the goal of the restrictions should be to be to prevent infections per se. or at least to restrict them to very low /minimal levels . That is certainly the policy in Australia /New Zealand , and parts of Asia: an "eradication strategy"  as was used against SARS. People taking that line do regularly suggest that anything less is a criminal indifference to loss of life, and that any level of restriction needed to achieve it should be adopted - that the economic and human cost should not even be a factor.

 

Melbourne has just endured 4 months of lockdown to drive the cases below 5 per day , and Aussie posters in the thread were implicitly saying Britain should have done the same. Sealing Britain's borders is not practical , and I shudder to think how many months of lockdown would be required to drive out the viurus if you did.

 

Saying an eradication strategy is not a sensible approach is very different to opposing a strategy of locking down only to protect the hospital system - which I support

I 

[Nearholmer]

24 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

If human society means anything it is a duty to try and look after our fellow humans when things get tough. As such simply tolerating deaths from a pandemic is no longer an option for any society that wants to call its civilised. It is incumbent on us all to try our best to minimise the number of deaths as far as is practical - and the current restrictions, as burdensome as they may be economically, do represent the most suitable way of doing so.

Yes, and no.

 

As I said in an earlier post, IMO duration has to come into this.

 

Hoping to goodness that this isn’t a prediction, if it proved impossible to devise and deploy effective vaccines and/or ameliorating medication, how long would it be “right” to defend the vulnerable by the use of lockdowns, which come at a huge price for the less vulnerable?

 

My gut feel is that the answer is “not very long”, so one of two things would need to apply in fairly short order:

 

- cease to defend the vulnerable; or,

 

- devise and deploy a completely different method by which to defend the vulnerable.

 

Where I get so deeply irritated with the people chiselling away at the current approach is not that the fact that they are opening-up this discussion, but that they do completely fail to talk about those two alternatives in solid, practical terms, which is what is needed in a grown-up discussion.

 

If some people advocate ceasing to attempt to protect the vulnerable, they should have the b@lls to say so overtly, and describe how that would work in practice. Nuts and bolts.

 

If, on the other hand, they advocate protecting the vulnerable by a different method, let’s hear what that method is, how they intend it will work - let’s have that method exposed to enquiry and debate, and be tested for “down sides”. Nuts and bolts again.

 

 

 

 

[phil-b259]

2 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

 

 

I'm no advocate of "herd immunity" . It would be a catastrophic mistake. And I was not arguing against our recent measures,

 

I was arguing against those demanding an "eradication strategy ", or taking the stance that "there can never be an economic cost too high , if the measure might save lives". There are certainly quite a few people around the world taking that line.

 

 

 

I am certainly willing to accept a lockdown to prevent the medical system being overwhelms. If that is adopted as the criterion and strategy I support it.

 

But a lot of folk , notably in places like Scotland and ANZ, are saying that the goal of the restrictions should be to be to prevent infections per se. or at least to restrict them to very low /minimal levels . That is certainly the policy in Australia /New Zealand , and parts of Asia: an "eradication strategy"  as was used against SARS. People taking that line do regularly suggest that anything less is a criminal indifference to loss of life, and that any level of restriction needed to achieve it should be adopted - that the economic and human cost should not even be a factor.

 

Melbourne has just endured 4 months of lockdown to drive the cases below 5 per day , and Aussie posters in the thread were implicitly saying Britain should have done the same. Sealing Britain's borders is not practical , and I shudder to think how many months of lockdown would be required to drive out the viurus if you did.

 

Saying an eradication strategy is not a sensible approach is very different to opposing a strategy of locking down only to protect the hospital system - which I support

I 

 

The main issue is this - having got the virus infection level down can you keep it down when the lockdown is lifted. 

 

New Zeland for example is an island which requires air travel to reach it. It is thus far more feasible to use lockdown as a means of eradication because the opportunity to re-infect is low. As such you only in theory need one very strict lockdown to effectively eliminate the virus providing your controls on entry stay strict

 

By contrast a huge number of movements between Scotland and England take place every hour - a strict Lockdown in one country might bring the virus to a very low level but as soon as its eased then the opportunity for reinfection from across the border is huge - meaning that Lockdown has caused massive harm for very little.

 

Australia is a bit of a hybrid - large bits of it are desert / uninhabitable so travel between some states can effectively be restricted and thus the ability to re-infect kept low. In other places (where the climate is more suitable for habitation) you end up with state boundaries looking more like an England / Scotland situation.

 

 

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Ladies and gents, I’d like to ask, why are we doing this? With regards to posting here I mean. It seems nothing but an endless sinkhole of depressing thoughts slipping to political and sometimes outright anger. While this is wheeltappers, this is a forum about trains, and for some (many actually) the idea behind model railways is to get away from the real imperfect world, and have some semblance of dare I say “peace.” Granted, one could simply say that if you don’t want to see stuff like this on a model railways forum, the simply don’t click on the topic. But then again it is a model railway forum. I understand that I am not a moderator, nor do I have any authority whatsoever on the forum,  it is simply an opinion. Each to their own however.

 

Douglas

Edited November 3, 2020 by Florence Locomotive Works

[Pete the Elaner]

3 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

The main issue is this - having got the virus infection level down can you keep it down when the lockdown is lifted. 

 

 

Unlikely.

We still have this attitude of "if I'm allowed, I will" instead of asking what the reasoning is behind a particular restriction.

In the UK, many were desperate to get away after lockdown & rushed away to get infected as soon as travel was available again.

When quarantine was imposed after certain trips (which was always a possibility for anyone who actually thought about it), some were arrogant enough to complain about not being given much notice. Clearly they don't want to understand the term 'response'.

[Nearholmer]

When I joined RMWeb I chipped into a debate in much the same vein, and was told “it’s in wheeltappers, so it’s permitted debate”. Well, this is in wheeltappers, a zone which I have come to see the value of over time.

[Ravenser]

Just now, phil-b259 said:

 

The main issue is this - having got the virus infection level down can you keep it down when the lockdown is lifted. 

 

New Zeland for example is an island which requires air travel to reach it. It is thus far more feasible to use lockdown as a means of eradication because the opportunity to re-infect is low. As such you only in theory need one very strict lockdown to effectively eliminate the virus providing your controls on entry stay strict

 

By contrast a huge number of movements between Scotland and England take place every hour - a strict Lockdown in one country might bring the virus to a very low level but as soon as its eased then the opportunity for reinfection from across the border is huge - meaning that Lockdown has caused massive harm for very little.

 

Australia is a bit of a hybrid - large bits of it are desert / uninhabitable so travel between some states can effectively be restricted and thus the ability to re-infect kept low. In other places (where the climate is more suitable for habitation) you end up with state boundaries looking more like an England / Scotland situation.

 

 

 

 

Agreed. However what our Australian friends are missing is that the situation between Britain and the Continent is much closer to the England/Scotland situation.

 

Suggestions that we aren't taking it very seriously because we haven't imposed mandatory 14 day hotel quarantine at point of entry fall flat when you realise just how many trucks - with their drivers - do Dover/Calais each day, and what the consequences of interrupting that flow would be.

 

Until. recently I worked for a firm that - amongst other things - was involved with a trailer groupage service from a continental country hit hard by this virus. The hauliers operated on the basis they could do 1 round trip from the UK to a Med country each week. Drivers were generally Eastern European.

 

Now imagine 14 day mandatory hotel quarantine at point of entry applied to that....

 

Of course the truck and the driver go through to the UK delivery point.

 

For an island 23 miles off the Continent your comments apply:

 

Quote

a strict Lockdown in one country might bring the virus to a very low level but as soon as its eased then the opportunity for reinfection from across the border is huge - meaning that Lockdown has caused massive harm for very little.

 

And given where we were in April, if Britain had tried to go down that route I've no doubt the first lockdown would still be continuing now - with no prospect of relief until Easter at least

[Ravenser]

5 minutes ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Ladies and gents, I’d like to ask, why are we doing this? With regards to posting here I mean. It seems nothing but an endless sinkhole of depressing thoughts slipping to political and sometimes outright anger. While this is wheeltappers, this is a forum about trains, and for some (many actually) the idea behind model railways is to get away from the real imperfect world, and have some semblance of dare I say “peace.” Granted, one could simply say that if you don’t want to see stuff like this on a model railways forum, the simply don’t click on the topic. But then again it is a model railway forum. I understand that I am not a moderator, nor do I have any authority whatsoever on the forum,  it is simply an opinion. Each to their own however.

 

Douglas

 

 

Because most of us will again be under "Shelter in place" (to use the US term) for at least 27 days from midnight tomorrow. Some fear, through Christmas until the New Year, though I am 98% certain not

 

It's not really possible to avoid an elephant in the room that size completely, especially as it directly affects the hobby by shutting down the very large exhibition circuit

[phil-b259]

7 minutes ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Ladies and gents, I’d like to ask, why are we doing this? With regards to posting here I mean. It seems nothing but an endless sinkhole of depressing thoughts slipping to political and sometimes outright anger. While this is wheeltappers, this is a forum about trains, and for some (many actually) the idea behind model railways is to get away from the real imperfect world, and have some semblance of dare I say “peace.” Granted, one could simply say that if you don’t want to see stuff like this on a model railways forum, the simply don’t click on the topic. But then again it is a model railway forum. I understand that I am not a moderator, nor do I have any authority whatsoever on the forum,  it is simply an opinion. Each to their own however.

 

Douglas

 

the Wheeltappers section was specifically created for these sorts of discussions. If you don't like them there is no obligation to read them (and can set you preferences such that it ignores all content posted therein I believe).

 

For those of us with limited social contact the ability to discuss worldly problems is of significant comfort and makes this place more than just another modelling website.

 

If you (or anyone else) has any railway related question there are a plethora of other sections where questions may be asked / topics discussed and politics is bared.

 

As for the current topic being depressing - yes I freely admit it is. However we are discussing a global pandemic - and by its very nature that is hardly going to happy occasion is it?

[phil-b259]

8 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

 

 

Agreed. However what our Australian friends are missing is that the situation between Britain and the Continent is much closer to the England/Scotland situation.

 

Suggestions that we aren't taking it very seriously because we haven't imposed mandatory 14 day hotel quarantine at point of entry fall flat when you realise just how many trucks - with their drivers - do Dover/Calais each day, and what the consequences of interrupting that flow would be.

 

Until. recently I worked for a firm that - amongst other things - was involved with a trailer groupage service from a continental country hit hard by this virus. The hauliers operated on the basis they could do 1 round trip from the UK to a Med country each week. Drivers were generally Eastern European.

 

Now imagine 14 day mandatory hotel quarantine at point of entry applied to that....

 

Of course the truck and the driver go through to the UK delivery point.

 

For an island 23 miles off the Continent your comments apply:

 

 

And given where we were in April, if Britain had tried to go down that route I've no doubt the first lockdown would still be continuing now - with no prospect of relief until Easter at least

 

Indeed - but possibly Australians are guilty of over estimating distances which leads them to assuming trade is less.

 

Logically the further apart places are, the more difficult travel is, and three is less the chance of diseases being transported.

 

When Brits go over to Australia one of the things that takes getting used to is distances. If you have lived your life in the UK you will probably say Dover is a couple of hours drive from London. If you then go to Australia you might look at a map and use what your brain is used to doing to say that two points on the map are only two hours drive apart - yet because the Australian map is of a much smaller scale its actually 4 hours.

 

 

 

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

6 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

Suggestions that we aren't taking it very seriously because we haven't imposed mandatory 14 day hotel quarantine at point of entry fall flat when you realise just how many trucks - with their drivers - do Dover/Calais each day, and what the consequences of interrupting that flow would be.

 

 

 I understand your argument but unfortunately the  result of not quarantining incoming people  is that the infection never reduces for long in the community - you can all stay locked down for months and  months all you like but the infection is still being continually introduced into the community through the back door.   As soon as you open up again it'll all spread around once more.  Its like bailing out your rowboat without patching the leak first.

 

Sure there's a huge economic cost that results from locking your border.  Australia doesn't  just rely on exporting "Neighbours' and renting out bits of the NSW North coast so yous can film "I'm a Celebrity' to grow our budget.  For the last 10 years or so it has relied almost exclusively on a huge immigration programme to keep the economy out of recession, the lockdown means that there will be over a million fewer arrivals over the next five years than forecast prior to the pandemic which has blown the governments budget clean out of the water and left us with a trillion dollar black hole, in place of a forecast modest surplus prior to the pandemic .  To our governments credit, especially since the PM is on the Boris Trump side of the political divide it has prioritised community health over the health of the economy.  

 

I guess I'm just not sure what the UK government is trying to achieve long - term, it just seems to be knee-jerk reacting to crises that  pop up such as the current situation that exploded there over the last couple of months or so,  without having a longer  term strategy other than relying on the hope that a vaccine will come along.  It really is an awful no-win situation for us all.

 

[Nearholmer]

We might be discussing the feasibility/effectiveness of eradicating the bug in the UK by shutting borders in the absence of some key facts: can anyone here point to a source of solid information/data showing how much of the second wave is traceable to cases being imported from outside the UK?

 

I can't find one.

 

My gut-feel is that it probably has played a very unhelpful part, and that we were truly stoopid to have permitted non-essential travel in and out to anywhere over the summer. But, that is gut-feel, or what the PM would call "common sense", not solid facts.

 

As to trade with Europe necessitating a lot of people travelling in and out: no it doesn't.

 

Lorry tractors are detachable, they can be exchanged at borders (quite a few actually are), so that drivers need only enter controlled zones, drop-off, pick-up, and return to home. Full "tractor and driver exchange" would cost money, but so does every other protective measure - the most expensive being the ones you don't take. 

 

Stopping frivolous (another word for 'non-essential') travel on and off our islands wouldn't have dealt with the bubbling-away of cases within, but it would surely have reduced the load on "test and trace", because the way that cases multiply, avoiding even a few new "seeds" would probably have been exceedingly useful.

 

Having a foreign holiday in the blazing sun is not a human right, and not having one for a couple of years is a small sacrifice - its brattish for anyone say otherwise, given that a fair proportion of the population can't afford one in a good year.

[Ravenser]

3 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Indeed - but possibly Australians are guilty of over estimating distances which leads them to assuming trade is less.

 

Logically the further apart places are, the more difficult travel is, and three is less the chance of diseases being transported.

 

When Brits go over to Australia one of the things that takes getting used to is distances. If you have lived your life in the UK you will probably say Dover is a couple of hours drive from London. If you then go to Australia you might look at a map and use what your brain is used to doing to say that two points on the map are only two hours drive apart - yet because the Australian map is of a much smaller scale its actually 4 hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I spent some years in NSW in my teens and we made a few holiday trips interstate.

 

One thing that's worth pointing out - though it may well have changed: Australians don't commonly travel interstate. I hardly remember coming across anyone from interstate during my time in Sydney, and I don't recall classmates travelling interstate for holidays

 

Contrast the level of travel between Britain and France , (or Poland or Lithuania).

 

I still remember it's several days' drive from one state capital to another , and there's not a lot in between . A hundred miles of road between small towns with just two villages in between is not uncommon - and I'm not talking about the extreme Outback "back o' Bourke" or "beyond the Black Stump"

 

"The tyranny of distance" is a very powerful thing

 

Broken Hill, December1983. The 80-class is1000 miles from Sydney Central and handing over the Indian Pacific to ANR in the morning sunshine

 

Compare and contrast with the platform at Calais-Frethun......

 

[Ravenser]

13 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

We might be discussing the feasibility/effectiveness of eradicating the bug in the UK by shutting borders in the absence of some key facts: can anyone here point to a source of solid information/data showing how much of the second wave is traceable to cases being imported from outside the UK?

 

I can't find one.

 

My gut-feel is that it probably has played a very unhelpful part, and that we were truly stoopid to have permitted non-essential travel in and out to anywhere over the summer. But, that is gut-feel, or what the PM would call "common sense", not solid facts.

 

As to trade with Europe necessitating a lot of people travelling in and out: no it doesn't.

 

Lorry tractors are detachable, they can be exchanged at borders (quite a few actually are), so that drivers need only enter controlled zones, drop-off, pick-up, and return to home. Full "tractor and driver exchange" would cost money, but so does every other protective measure - the most expensive being the ones you don't take. 

 

Stopping frivolous (another word for 'non-essential') travel on and off our islands wouldn't have dealt with the bubbling-away of cases within, but it would surely have reduced the load on "test and trace", because the way that cases multiply, avoiding even a few new "seeds" would probably have been exceedingly useful.

 

Having a foreign holiday in the blazing sun is not a human right, and not having one for a couple of years is a small sacrifice - its brattish for anyone say otherwise, given that a fair proportion of the population can't afford one in a good year.

 

 

I suspect the part it has played has been really quite small. And very probably  Eastern European lorry drivers will have brought some of it in anyway.

 

Ireland has been very restrictive in international movements - they still have a second wave and a second lockdown

 

I'm afraid moving to "unaccompanied trailer" across the board would have been completely impractical. Just one consideration - we simply don't have enough British HGV drivers (or tractor units) to replace the Eastern Europeans.

 

 

 

The supply chain disruption would have been much worse than the worst "hard Brexit" scenario even if we did 

 

And neither the Tunnel nor the relevant ferries  is geared for it. The "controlled zone" would be Frethun le Calais ... enough said. Besides Macron would not have co-operated - he threatened retaliation even for quarantine on passengers, and the EU would have put their foot down and blocked it

 

I'm afraid monkeysarefun is viewing the virus as an external threat . It isn't , though it may be for Australia.

 

What we are trying to achieve is simply to keep infections low enough that the hospitals are always able to treat the sick, regardless of what they are sick of, and mortality is at least contained until a vaccine is available. And to do so without creating mass destitution.

 

Even that is a huge task.

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by Ravenser

[monkeysarefun]

5 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

One thing that's worth pointing out - though it may well have changed: Australians don't commonly travel interstate. I hardly remember coming across anyone from interstate during my time in Sydney, and I don't recall classmates travelling interstate for holidays

 

Airfare prices up until the late 80's early 90's were ridiculously expensive (try $1700 to Perth from Sydney) prior to competition. Now (or at least until the Pandemic stopped us flying!) due to lower airfares travel is much more frequent - prior to the pandemic I could go Sydney to Launceston (Tasmania) for $70 if I kept my eyes out for a deal.  

 

As for driving, up until the 90's the roads were sh!t and you'd probably write your car off hitting a roo after dark!

[Nearholmer]

21 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

I suspect the part it has played has been really quite small.

 

 And, I suspect the part that foreign holidays (possibly not so much truck drivers actually) has played has been significant.

 

But, as above, we seem woefully short of hard facts to support or overturn our suspicions.

 

What we do know is that import of the bug in the period immediately before Lockdown No.1 was huge. Seed cases occurred all over Britain, something like 1500 different ones IIRC, most coming from Spain and France. This was demonstrated by a study of the genetic-signatures of virus samples collected in the UK during the first wave. https://virological.org/t/preliminary-analysis-of-sars-cov-2-importation-establishment-of-uk-transmission-lineages/507

 

In June, the virus was an internal and external threat. By being too open to import, we gave ourselves two fronts to fight on, rather than one.

 

[Driver and tractor shortage? Offer Eastern European individuals or companies 'top-dollar' and accommodation to out-base vehicles and drivers in the UK for the duration. How many are on UK soil at any given time, that's how many to bribe-in.]

Edited November 3, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Ravenser]

Just now, Nearholmer said:

 

 And, I suspect the part that foreign holidays (possibly not so much truck drivers actually) has played has been significant.

 

But, as above, we seem woefully short of hard facts to support or overturn our suspicions.

 

What we do know is that import of the bug in the period immediately before Lockdown No.1 was huge. Seed cases occurred all over Britain, something like 1500 different ones IIRC, most coming from Spain and France. This was demonstrated by a study of the genetic-signatures of virus samples collected in the UK during the first wave.

 

[Driver and tractor shortage? Offer Eastern European individuals or companies 'top-dollar' and accommodation to out-base vehicles and drivers in the UK for the duration. How many are on UK soil at any given time, that's how many to bribe-in.]

 

The trouble with the first wave was that we were importing the bug from Italy, Spain and France on a massive scale before the Chinese had even admitted human-human transmission was possible. 

 

Sewage samples show it was in Milan by December. A case from Paris has been identified from Christmas last year.

 

By the time we knew there was an issue it was 2 months too late.

 

Any re-importation during the summer will have been swamped by the amount of virus already here - we shut off and imposed quarantine as soon as cases rose. We were too heavily infected in the spring to avoid a second wave this winter , regardless of what we did with the borders . It's currently endemic here - travel from a heavily infected area can fuel the fire, but it burns without needing  importing fuel

 

(I'm no great fan of the holiday rush - but the political pressure heaped on the Government from every quarter to reopen borders was immense)

[monkeysarefun]

The Melbourne outbreak has been genetically traced back to one single family in quarantine. It spread through the families of the security guards of the hotel they were in and before we knew it there were 700 case a day, so it doesn't take anything much to make things go mental. 

 

We are back down to single figures and track and trace means that any outbreak can be stomped on hopefully but its sobering to know its still out there, for instance the sewage was tested at Bathurst after the Bathurst car race a couple of weekends ago and traces of coronavirus was detected in it, though none of our recent known cases attended the event... 

Edited November 3, 2020 by monkeysarefun

[Ravenser]

3 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

The Melbourne outbreak has been genetically traced back to one single family in quarantine. It spread through the families of the security guards of the hotel they were in and before we knew it there were 700 case a day, so it doesn't take anything much to make things go mental. 

 

We cannot seal the borders to that level - at which point any "seal and eradicate" strategy becomes hopeless

 

Britain has a border with the Irish Republic. As a matter of extremely high profile fundamental treaty commitments, we are obliged to keep it open . The Irish Republic has legally binding "freedom of movement" under EU law with every other member state. There is freedom of movement between mainland Britain and Northern Ireland. Unless we rip up the Withdrawal Agreement in the middle of critical negotiations (and you couldn't practically seal that border anyway) or impose a hard closed frontier between mainland Britain and Northern Ireland (the DUP would go mad, rightly)  there is another hole in your sealed border.

 

That's on top of Dover/Calais

 

Not to mention 3+ million EU nationals, mostly from Eastern Europe , for whom a "closed border" meant the Iron Curtain and goons with guns under Soviet orders. They have their rights protected under the Withdrawal Agreement. I think there might be some issues in that quarter if we tried to seal the borders.

 

The strategy is simply to limit infections to the point where the hospitals are able to treat all the sick (whatever they are sick with) and to keep mortality down to bearable levels, until there is a vaccine. And without causing mass destitution. Which amounts to "get through the next 5-6 months of winter in one piece"

 

Even that much is a huge task

 

Once there is a vaccine, the restrictions needed to keep on top of the thing will become less and less as the population is inoculated, Meaning life gets more and more normal, and hopefully we get through next winter with no need for any lockdowns. Maybe even with a few Christmas parties

[Nearholmer]

4 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

The trouble with the first wave was that we were importing the bug from Italy, Spain and France on a massive scale before the Chinese had even admitted human-human transmission was possible. 

 

Not quite.

 

The WHO issued a bulletin on 22/01/2020 that identified human-to-human transmission, although the extent was unclear at that time. "The big import" to the UK was after that, from early February, peaking in mid-March.

 

I'm with you that the bug was almost certainly in Europe, probably in the UK, a lot earlier than 22/01/2020, probably before it had even been identified and named in China (unless one assumes a lot of fibbing by the Chinese, or an even darker possibility), but the genomic information points to dribs and drabs of import at that early stage, not "on a massive scale".

[Ravenser]

5 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Not quite.

 

The WHO issued a bulletin on 22/01/2020 that identified human-to-human transmission, although the extent was unclear at that time. "The big import" to the UK was after that, from early February, peaking in mid-March.

 

I'm with you that the bug was almost certainly in Europe, probably in the UK, a lot earlier than 22/01/2020, probably before it had even been identified and named in China (unless one assumes a lot of fibbing by the Chinese, or an even darker possibility), but the genomic information points to dribs and drabs of import at that early stage, not "on a massive scale".

 

The Italian element may well have been coming back on ski holidays during January.

 

For us to get to where we got, on such a scale, I suspect it must have been circulating amongst younger folk pretty freely in London and other areas right through January and February

[Chrisr40]

To lighten the mood a little...makes you proud to be British 

[Andy Hayter]

There seems to be a lot of blaming Johnny Foreigner for phase two.

I have no doubt that some of those who took foreign holidays in the summer did indeed bring the virus back - and indeed there is DNA evidence to show that a lot of current cases across Europe are a so called Spanish variant.

 

However, cast your minds back to summer and  packed beaches in Bournemouth,  Southend and others.  Many of the precautions being imposed in European holiday resorts made them much safer regarding the virus than many British beaches.  

 

There is IMO no one simple source for this latest phase but there is one single cause - lack of social distancing.  The cases you see today in the UK are not due to foreigners.  They are due to UK residents and their lack of social distancing.  

[Nearholmer]

10 hours ago, Ravenser said:

For us to get to where we got, on such a scale, I suspect it must have been circulating amongst younger folk pretty freely in London and other areas right through January and February

 

Yes, I find it interesting that we are frequently being reassured that things are not now as bad as they were in the first wave, because at the point we locked down first time "cases were probably occurring at a rate of 100 000 per day, doubling in less than a week", something which was certainly not said loud and clear at the time (it may not have been understood at the time, of course).

 

I haven't attempted to back-project that, but it certainly doesn't sound feasible that we got to that position from effectively zero in late-January/early-February, does it?

 

My gut feel (that again!) is that it was arriving direct from China (or wherever else it might have come from - wild theories available on request), and circulating completely un-recognised/labelled, causing "flu" and "pneumonia", much, much earlier, and that the "big import" from Italy, France and Spain added lots of fire to pre-existing smouldering.

 

EDIT: This has recently been added to the Wikipedia entry about the pandemic in the UK "In August 2020 the Kent coroner reportedly certified that the death of Peter Attwood (aged 84) on 30 January had been related to COVID-19 ('COVID-19 infection and bronchopneumonia', according to an email on 3 September, after COVID-19 was detected in his lung tissue), making him the first confirmed UK victim of the disease. He first showed symptoms on 15 December 2019.[44] Attwood had not travelled overseas.[45]" Reading a bit of the background, it seems to me that the poor guy could possibly have taken the Covid on board late in the progression of his illness, rather than at the start, so this doesn't prove presence of the bug in the UK before Christmas, but does indicate at minimum community transmission in January. 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 4, 2020 by Nearholmer