8 ms·

This doesn't really seem to make sense. The US already has confirmed community transmission and the suspected case rate is higher in the US the UK. Also why now

by bb123 7y ago

This doesn't really seem to make sense. The US already has confirmed community transmission and the suspected case rate is higher in the US the UK. Also why now? Why not 2 days ago?

Leary 7y ago
If the UK really goes through with the "infect 60% of its own population to get herd immunity" strategy, every other country is going to ban travel from there. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/herd-immunity-will-the-uks-coronavirus-strategy-work https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/herd-immunity-...
- johneth 7y ago
  Just to counter that point: https://twitter.com/AdamJKucharski/status/1238821515526897664 https://twitter.com/AdamJKucharski/status/123882151552689766... (this is a thread, click the tweet to expand)
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    I honestly have no idea what that Tweet is trying to say. The UK government explicitly used the phrase "herd immunity" in a press conference, so that seems to be an explicit objective - even though the mutability of the virus is not yet known. The rest seems like babble. No, closing schools for two weeks will not make the problem go away - but it will buy time, to try and set up revised working and living arrangements for everyone. So what is the point of doing almost nothing? I'm not seeing any other country looking at the UK and saying "Oh, I wish we'd thought of that."
    - johneth 7y ago
      > I honestly have no idea what that Tweet is trying to say. It's a thread (click the tweet). > The UK government explicitly used the phrase "herd immunity" in a press conference, so that seems to be an explicit objective - even though the mutability of the virus is not yet known. Did you watch the full press conference, where the phrase 'herd immunity' was described in context with the main objective, namely to ensure the NHS can cope with demand over the next several months. If you haven't, I'd recommend you do; they're uncut on YouTube. They explain their strategy better than I could here.
- sadfklsjlkjwt 7y ago
  Never before has a country consented to group suicide on the scale the British are doing at the moment. I hope every other country isolates us fast. The epidemic will be terrifying in the UK.
  - tallyhotallyho 7y ago
    You are evoking the rhetorical excellence of Churchill to make the least Chuchillian statement ever. The epidemic will be mildly inconvenient and relatively insignificant. Some people will die, because the virus is already here. Your hysteria is pointless.
    - sadfklsjlkjwt 7y ago
      If a conservative 20% of 70 million people get a disease where a conservative 10% need to be in intensive care (NB people who need intensive care tend to need 3 weeks treatment) that is 0.2x0.1x70,000,000 = 1.4 million intensive care beds. My parents will be some of those that need the beds. They won't get them. They will die. In the nicest most civil way I am asking you to think about your words and actions and how they might impact others. If you want to express your lack of care for the lives of our loved ones to people you meet in real life you should be very careful how you do so.
      - tallyhotallyho 7y ago
        You are continuing with pushing your hysteria. You are making up figures, even making up the population figures. Your emotional posturing and worthier-than-thou attitude is grating, I'm caring for my father that has cardiovascular issues, he is the most at risk one could be. He seems relaxed.
    - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
      You clearly haven't done the math. The UK's population is 66 million. According to the government's own estimates at least 60% will become infected, and the final case fatality rate will be around 1%. Hysteria over 400,000 extra deaths may well be pointless, but white hot fury over this pointless and partially avoidable loss of life is hardly misplaced. Never mind that a significant proportion of survivors - who will outnumber the deaths by some non-trivial multiple - will be left with permanent lung damage.
ttul 7y ago
It doesn’t make sense. It would make far more sense to allow incoming flights but funnel them through a small set of airports where extensive screening takes place.
- meowface 7y ago
  Unless we could test every single incoming passenger and get results in a matter of minutes, how would this work, really? If we could do that, I would agree that'd be a better option, but since I don't think we'll be able to anytime soon, a ban seems pretty reasonable to me. We can't even test very many US citizens, and the results take days to get back.
- gfodor 7y ago
  Why in gods name would you prefer that, which would bring sick people into both countries vs just ensuring no cross-country transmission via travel? One can question the timing, but the more isolation between countries populations, the more lives that will be saved given that it will reduce the spread.
  - ttul 7y ago
    Because if you simply bar flights from a country entirely, people find sneakier ways to get in to your country. Secondly, there are negative effects to eliminating travel.
usaar333 7y ago
The UK's deaths and confirmed cases are significantly higher per capita, though Ireland does look better than the US. I guess this only leaves Eastern Europe (non-EU or outside Schengen) as not banned? Agreed though that I'm not sure how this is going to make a difference.
- DanBC 7y ago
  But the UK were testing many more people than the US were. That's likely to change because the UK has stopped testing mild cases where people are self-isolating while the US has made testing free for everyone.
  - makomk 7y ago
    The UK was only testing mild cases where the person had travelled from one of the countries with a large number of cases or had contact with another confirmed case. The government now reckons that those cases are now substantially outnumbered by community transmission which hasn't been detected because it doesn't meet those criteria.
christkv 7y ago
The UK has really just decided to let the virus progress doing the minimum at the moment. I want Spain to ban flights from the UK asap.
- animalnewbie 7y ago
  You're late. There are flights already returning half-way 3 hours back
knzhou 7y ago
The UK has explicitly declared that its strategy is to let about 40 million people get it. If they hold to this, I'd be surprised if any country in the world will allow travel from there by summer. I was part of a US/UK fellowship exchange program, emphasizing the "special relationship" between the countries. The current cohort has largely fled the UK this week, abandoning their fellowships and their degrees, knowing that this kind of travel ban would soon kick in.
- dorfsmay 7y ago
  What is the UK doing different than Italy? Will they just let the old and weak die as part of their plan?
  - knzhou 7y ago
    The idea is that in the long run everybody will get it, so might as well "take it on the chin" now to gain herd immunity, and minimize damage to the economy. There's some rumblings of protecting the old during the summer when this is supposed to happen, though I'm not sure how that's supposed to work when there are millions of active cases at once. I suspect the real reason, as some government officials have outright said, is that it would free up money for the NHS by killing off "bed blockers". Their reasoning is that if the only things you can do are China-style lockdown or nothing, then the disease will just resume exponentially growing the second lockdown ends, so it's pointless to do it at all. While that may be technically right (under some optimistic, unverified assumptions, e.g. no reinfection), I think it's a false dichotomy. Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea aren't under lockdown, they're stopping the spread by just having good testing and case tracking capacity, and good hygiene. And the longer things go on, the better they're getting at doing that. If things are getting out of hand, a temporary lockdown is effective (as it was in China), to get the numbers down while building up this kind of capacity. But the UK seems to have just dismissed this option out of hand... which means they seem to be heading blindly to disaster.
    - dnautics 7y ago
      > While [all or nothing] is technically right No, it's not. Have you done the math?
thelittleone 7y ago
Makes sense to me. Allowing flights in means more non-US citizens reliant on US health services. US should prioritise those services for their own citizens.
Hokusai 7y ago
> This doesn't really seem to make sense. The US already has confirmed community transmission and the suspected case rate is higher in the US the UK. Also why now? Why not 2 days ago? It makes a lot of sense, if you just disregard human lives. The UK leaving the European Union opens the possibility to open their market to American companies. So, any signal that USA is welcoming to the UK and that the UK and Europe have separate destinies makes a deal more likely in the public opinion. A basic divide an conquer strategy. From THAT perspective makes a lot of sense. When you look at the world thru a glass of 'what will bring me more money' makes sense for president Trump. If you are just a decent person, then it makes no sense at all.
sidibe 7y ago
The why now question is easy, a reporter yesterday told Trump the UKs numbers were rising quickly and asked why they weren't included over some EU countries with much lower rates and he said they'd look into it
adventured 7y ago
> The US already has confirmed community transmission and the suspected case rate is higher in the US the UK. What doesn't make sense is adding unnecessary numbers and risk to your domestic infection figures. Why would anybody do that? It does not matter which country has a higher case number, what matters is you don't want to add to it by importing cases from other nations. Under your really bad premise, Italy should just keep travel open with the entire world, because they're currently the worst off. Because what Lombardy obviously really needs right now - with a failing healthcare system that is intentionally letting people die in large numbers because they don't have medical resources to go around - is more cases being imported from the outside. The US may be in Italy's shoes in a matter of weeks. Adding more cases from outside, ie reducing available per capita healthcare resources further, is plainly a bad idea.
- dboreham 7y ago
  Surely it's travel _from_ an area with high levels of infection that's important to stop?

by bb123 7y ago

This doesn't really seem to make sense. The US already has confirmed community transmission and the suspected case rate is higher in the US the UK. Also why now? Why not 2 days ago?

Leary 7y ago

If the UK really goes through with the "infect 60% of its own population to get herd immunity" strategy, every other country is going to ban travel from there. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/herd-immunity-will-the-uks-coronavirus-strategy-work https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/herd-immunity-...

johneth 7y ago
Just to counter that point: https://twitter.com/AdamJKucharski/status/1238821515526897664 https://twitter.com/AdamJKucharski/status/123882151552689766... (this is a thread, click the tweet to expand)
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  I honestly have no idea what that Tweet is trying to say. The UK government explicitly used the phrase "herd immunity" in a press conference, so that seems to be an explicit objective - even though the mutability of the virus is not yet known. The rest seems like babble. No, closing schools for two weeks will not make the problem go away - but it will buy time, to try and set up revised working and living arrangements for everyone. So what is the point of doing almost nothing? I'm not seeing any other country looking at the UK and saying "Oh, I wish we'd thought of that."
  - johneth 7y ago
    > I honestly have no idea what that Tweet is trying to say. It's a thread (click the tweet). > The UK government explicitly used the phrase "herd immunity" in a press conference, so that seems to be an explicit objective - even though the mutability of the virus is not yet known. Did you watch the full press conference, where the phrase 'herd immunity' was described in context with the main objective, namely to ensure the NHS can cope with demand over the next several months. If you haven't, I'd recommend you do; they're uncut on YouTube. They explain their strategy better than I could here.
sadfklsjlkjwt 7y ago
Never before has a country consented to group suicide on the scale the British are doing at the moment. I hope every other country isolates us fast. The epidemic will be terrifying in the UK.
- tallyhotallyho 7y ago
  You are evoking the rhetorical excellence of Churchill to make the least Chuchillian statement ever. The epidemic will be mildly inconvenient and relatively insignificant. Some people will die, because the virus is already here. Your hysteria is pointless.
  - sadfklsjlkjwt 7y ago
    If a conservative 20% of 70 million people get a disease where a conservative 10% need to be in intensive care (NB people who need intensive care tend to need 3 weeks treatment) that is 0.2x0.1x70,000,000 = 1.4 million intensive care beds. My parents will be some of those that need the beds. They won't get them. They will die. In the nicest most civil way I am asking you to think about your words and actions and how they might impact others. If you want to express your lack of care for the lives of our loved ones to people you meet in real life you should be very careful how you do so.
    - tallyhotallyho 7y ago
      You are continuing with pushing your hysteria. You are making up figures, even making up the population figures. Your emotional posturing and worthier-than-thou attitude is grating, I'm caring for my father that has cardiovascular issues, he is the most at risk one could be. He seems relaxed.
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    You clearly haven't done the math. The UK's population is 66 million. According to the government's own estimates at least 60% will become infected, and the final case fatality rate will be around 1%. Hysteria over 400,000 extra deaths may well be pointless, but white hot fury over this pointless and partially avoidable loss of life is hardly misplaced. Never mind that a significant proportion of survivors - who will outnumber the deaths by some non-trivial multiple - will be left with permanent lung damage.

ttul 7y ago

It doesn’t make sense. It would make far more sense to allow incoming flights but funnel them through a small set of airports where extensive screening takes place.

meowface 7y ago
Unless we could test every single incoming passenger and get results in a matter of minutes, how would this work, really? If we could do that, I would agree that'd be a better option, but since I don't think we'll be able to anytime soon, a ban seems pretty reasonable to me. We can't even test very many US citizens, and the results take days to get back.
gfodor 7y ago
Why in gods name would you prefer that, which would bring sick people into both countries vs just ensuring no cross-country transmission via travel? One can question the timing, but the more isolation between countries populations, the more lives that will be saved given that it will reduce the spread.
- ttul 7y ago
  Because if you simply bar flights from a country entirely, people find sneakier ways to get in to your country. Secondly, there are negative effects to eliminating travel.

usaar333 7y ago

The UK's deaths and confirmed cases are significantly higher per capita, though Ireland does look better than the US. I guess this only leaves Eastern Europe (non-EU or outside Schengen) as not banned? Agreed though that I'm not sure how this is going to make a difference.

DanBC 7y ago
But the UK were testing many more people than the US were. That's likely to change because the UK has stopped testing mild cases where people are self-isolating while the US has made testing free for everyone.
- makomk 7y ago
  The UK was only testing mild cases where the person had travelled from one of the countries with a large number of cases or had contact with another confirmed case. The government now reckons that those cases are now substantially outnumbered by community transmission which hasn't been detected because it doesn't meet those criteria.

christkv 7y ago

The UK has really just decided to let the virus progress doing the minimum at the moment. I want Spain to ban flights from the UK asap.

animalnewbie 7y ago
You're late. There are flights already returning half-way 3 hours back

knzhou 7y ago

The UK has explicitly declared that its strategy is to let about 40 million people get it. If they hold to this, I'd be surprised if any country in the world will allow travel from there by summer. I was part of a US/UK fellowship exchange program, emphasizing the "special relationship" between the countries. The current cohort has largely fled the UK this week, abandoning their fellowships and their degrees, knowing that this kind of travel ban would soon kick in.

dorfsmay 7y ago
What is the UK doing different than Italy? Will they just let the old and weak die as part of their plan?
- knzhou 7y ago
  The idea is that in the long run everybody will get it, so might as well "take it on the chin" now to gain herd immunity, and minimize damage to the economy. There's some rumblings of protecting the old during the summer when this is supposed to happen, though I'm not sure how that's supposed to work when there are millions of active cases at once. I suspect the real reason, as some government officials have outright said, is that it would free up money for the NHS by killing off "bed blockers". Their reasoning is that if the only things you can do are China-style lockdown or nothing, then the disease will just resume exponentially growing the second lockdown ends, so it's pointless to do it at all. While that may be technically right (under some optimistic, unverified assumptions, e.g. no reinfection), I think it's a false dichotomy. Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea aren't under lockdown, they're stopping the spread by just having good testing and case tracking capacity, and good hygiene. And the longer things go on, the better they're getting at doing that. If things are getting out of hand, a temporary lockdown is effective (as it was in China), to get the numbers down while building up this kind of capacity. But the UK seems to have just dismissed this option out of hand... which means they seem to be heading blindly to disaster.
  - dnautics 7y ago
    > While [all or nothing] is technically right No, it's not. Have you done the math?

thelittleone 7y ago

Makes sense to me. Allowing flights in means more non-US citizens reliant on US health services. US should prioritise those services for their own citizens.

Hokusai 7y ago

> This doesn't really seem to make sense. The US already has confirmed community transmission and the suspected case rate is higher in the US the UK. Also why now? Why not 2 days ago? It makes a lot of sense, if you just disregard human lives. The UK leaving the European Union opens the possibility to open their market to American companies. So, any signal that USA is welcoming to the UK and that the UK and Europe have separate destinies makes a deal more likely in the public opinion. A basic divide an conquer strategy. From THAT perspective makes a lot of sense. When you look at the world thru a glass of 'what will bring me more money' makes sense for president Trump. If you are just a decent person, then it makes no sense at all.

sidibe 7y ago

The why now question is easy, a reporter yesterday told Trump the UKs numbers were rising quickly and asked why they weren't included over some EU countries with much lower rates and he said they'd look into it

adventured 7y ago

> The US already has confirmed community transmission and the suspected case rate is higher in the US the UK. What doesn't make sense is adding unnecessary numbers and risk to your domestic infection figures. Why would anybody do that? It does not matter which country has a higher case number, what matters is you don't want to add to it by importing cases from other nations. Under your really bad premise, Italy should just keep travel open with the entire world, because they're currently the worst off. Because what Lombardy obviously really needs right now - with a failing healthcare system that is intentionally letting people die in large numbers because they don't have medical resources to go around - is more cases being imported from the outside. The US may be in Italy's shoes in a matter of weeks. Adding more cases from outside, ie reducing available per capita healthcare resources further, is plainly a bad idea.

dboreham 7y ago
Surely it's travel _from_ an area with high levels of infection that's important to stop?