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Here is a rule of thumb that will be familiar to many who manage risk in a professional capacity: The time to get creative is when you face a capped downside o

Here is a rule of thumb that will be familiar to many who manage risk in a professional capacity: The time to get creative is when you face a capped downside on the one hand, and an uncapped upside on the other. The time to get conservative is when you face the opposite condition. The reason for this rule is that creative policies almost never work; but when they work, they have a much higher chance of working extraordinarily well than conservative policies do. The UK is facing a capped upside and a huge potential downside. The UK is choosing to handle this situation with a creative experiment. This experiment will, in all likelihood, not succeed. And unfortunately most values of "not succeed", in this context, map to catastrophic outcomes. Time, as always, will tell.

lozenge 7y ago
(warning: conspiracy theory, but at least an original one) I'm thinking this only makes sense in the context of Brexit. Brexit will be a massive hit to the competitiveness of British businesses... somebody in government is hoping to counteract this by taking an approach different to the rest of Europe. If the UK's approach works, it will end up economically ahead of all the other European countries, something like the US post-WWII (but to a lesser extent).
- colin_fraizer 7y ago
  Conspiracy theory from an opposite point-of-view: killing off a bunch of elderly people with this experiment will save the NHS a fortune.
- lallysingh 7y ago
  .. fewer elderly to take care of?
  - mirimir 7y ago
    Although I'm personally offended, being unimaginably (for me) old, this does make some sense. After all, many countries have been angsty about demographic inversion. And SARS-CoV-2 could resolve that within a decade or less.
    - lallysingh 7y ago
      Apologies for the offense, but I was being serious for the reason you mentioned.
      - mirimir 7y ago
        NP. I was mostly joking about the offended part :)
    - devnullbyte 7y ago
      The other interesting factor is how it will impact Gerontocracy which is the norm for most eastern and western governments alike. We see this playing out in in Iran.
- iateanapple 7y ago
  > I'm thinking this only makes sense in the context of Brexit. Brexit will be a massive hit to the competitiveness of British businesses Bad theory. This virus could have been used as an excuse to lock down borders while the rest of Europe got economically destroyed by the virus.
  - dathinab 7y ago
    No it already spread to the UK so it was to listen for that
- tenpies 7y ago
  Counter-point: is Brexit Britain actually going to be worst off than post-pandemic EU or what's left of the EU? I don't think the risk of this pandemic approach is worthwhile, especially given how poorly the EU is doing in general. Terrible economy, catastrophic pandemic response, and the symbolism of countries closing borders on fellow EU states are all quite telling. By contrast Britain almost seems like it dodged a bullet - although they seem to have jumped in front of a train instead with their pandemic gamble.
  - brrrrr1 7y ago
    the uk is bust - germany is injecting 600 billion in the economy, while the uk a mere 30. the uk NEEDS people to work so they keep the country afloat.
    - iateanapple 7y ago
      The UK can raise as much cash as Germany so it is a choice they are making.
  - radicalbyte 7y ago
    Only the EU economy has been doing pretty well - much better than the UK has been. I think that their strategy is more smoke and mirrors - they're looking for the massive uproar so that the public understands that what we're facing is the real deal and will accept the harsh restrictions to freedom better once they have to be made. The damage caused by an extra day or two of waiting will be small in comparison to the benefits of good compliance. Plus don't forget that it's the weekend. No schools. The schools won't be open on Monday. Dominic Cummings and his team are sharp and extremely good at manipulating the exact group of unthinking idiots who would otherwise ignore curfews and restrictions.. I should also add: all of the other Western countries are doing the same thing, UK included. Do whatever is possible to keep the health system working until. Eventually you get herd immunity either via people getting it or a vaccination.
  - devnullbyte 7y ago
    Britain reminds me of the drunk guy who falls down a flight of stairs and then rolls back onto their feet unharmed.
- wtvanhest 7y ago
  That seems like the exact gamble. IMO, the US has taken the right approach. Keep things going until it starts to replicate in the community, then get aggressive before the hospitals are overrun. Some communities will have too many cases, but most will hopefully be ok. And we will have a first step of Hurd immunity, concentrated on people most likely to transmit later like package delivery, restaurant workers, drivers etc. The US should have had testing procedure set up early to relieve stress for citizens.
  - RealityVoid 7y ago
    > Keep things going until it starts to replicate in the community, then get aggressive before the hospitals are overrun. How is that not a bad strategy? By this point the disease will have some sort of transmission inertia, so establishing containment just before hospitals are overrun pretty much guarantees they will be overrun.
    - wtvanhest 7y ago
      We won’t know for 2 weeks. If the hospitals are overrun, that is a massive policy problem. If they aren’t, it’s a massive policy success. Math was known and the results fall on our politicians
  - tim333 7y ago
    The US approach has been awful. Things are running completely out of control. The "aggressive before the hospitals are overrun" thing won't work. Herd immunity means something like 60% of the population get it and maybe 1.3 million Americans die ghastly deaths.
- thefounder 7y ago
  Yeah, it will make Britain Great Again as it gets rid of the old population and increases its competitiveness. It almost feels natural that after getting rid of the migrants it's time to get rid of some less desired locals as well.
  - justinclift 7y ago
    In a very dark-humour fashion, it sounds like this would change the balance of brexiters-vs-remainers fairly drastically too. No longer ~50/50. ;)
- brrrrr1 7y ago
  may be a conspiracy theory, but as the uk gov is injecting only 30 bil in the economy while germany is injecting 600 billion shows the uk is financially in a weak position. if the country stops working the economy is bust. the uk _needs_ to be ahead of europe to stay afloat, so that these measures as a state of war, in which economic sovereignty can be lost unless some people die on the battle front.
  - Jabbles 7y ago
    You're confusing two different measures. The UK government has increased spending by £30B, £12B to be spent on tackling COVID 19. The Bank of England has suggested lending £190B to businesses in need. The roughly equivalent numbers appear to be 12B and 600B (Euros) for Germany. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/11/budget-2020-rishi-sunak-spending-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/11/budget-2020-... https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/2020/march/boe-measures-to-respond-to-the-economic-shock-from-covid-19 https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/2020/march/boe-measures... https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/coronavirus-germany-economic-measures-covid-19-crisis-12517624 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/coronavirus-germa... https://www.pionline.com/markets/germany-lines-600-billion-virus-aid-eu-backs-stimulus https://www.pionline.com/markets/germany-lines-600-billion-v...
    - brrrrr1 7y ago
      thanks for the clarification, still a pretty small number considering. all i am saying is these numbers might explain the logic behind going against all scientific advice.
- eli_gottlieb 7y ago
  I don't think killing a larger portion of Britons than of Continental Europeans is going to be good for the British economy.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - devnullbyte 7y ago
    That's ignoring intent they expressed to implement very long isolation measures for the elderly. Thier approach might be flawed, but let's debate it based on what has actually been stated.
    - eli_gottlieb 7y ago
      They can intend what they please, but the facts show that you can't save the elderly without quarantining and social distancing of the non-elderly. "Stiff upper lip" is such a caricature of Britishness that I wonder if Johnson is doing it as a piece of patriotic method-acting. It is not a medically sensible method to fight COVID-19.
foobarbazetc 7y ago
It’s already too late. They’re on the Italy path. This “herd immunity” thing is nonsense. So much so that doctors and scientists are warning against it: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/coronavirus-nhs-private-hospitals-join-forces-academics-warn-over-strategy https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/coronavirus-nh...
- ajross 7y ago
  It's not "nonsense". It's real. It works for almost every other virus out there (even colds and flu, even though it's imperfect: new seasonal cold and flu strains don't become pandemics, because many people have some immunity from previous infections). If you let a large enough fraction of the UK contract and recover from COVID-19, we have every reason to suspect that the society will develop good enough herd immunity to make further pandemic-scale propagation impossible. This part is good science, and reasonably well understood. The question is on the impact side. The reason this theory seems to work is that the seeming danger from COVID-19 is all on the elderly and immunocompromised. If you can prevent them from getting the same disease everyone else is, then they'll be protected by the herd -- new clusters won't form and infect them. So this all comes down to those assumptions: 1. The virus is genuinely of low danger to the young and healthy 2. The vulnerable can be adequately protected during a pandemic of the general population If either is wrong, we're looking at a staggering disaster. Are they wrong? We have no fucking idea. I'm not even on the continent and I'm terrified.
  - rumanator 7y ago
    > It's not "nonsense". It's real. It works for almost every other virus out there (e You're failing to take in consideration that the virus incubation period is on average 1 to 2 weeks, and those who manage to recover from the disease take about 2 weeks from diagnosis to confirmed cure. This means that you're comparing 4 weeks of exponential growth with 2 weeks of constant recovery. Sure, those who survived the disease will be immune afterwards. That's great for herd imunity. But the thing you fail to understand is that as the disease increases exponentially, when that time arrives the whole nation has already become infected, and it's too late by then because health services will be unable to cope with the demand and a lot of people will die due to lack of basic medical care.
milansm 7y ago
But how can anybody be sure that conservative policy (lockdown, I assume) would work for UK (or any other nation beside China)? They probably have to factor in the chance of success. They can fail in implementing conservative option (which might not be so conservative after all), and ruin the economy as a side effect. I imagine this as a choice between these: - long struggle with uncertain outcome in terms of life lost but with certain economic ruin - short struggle with uncertain outcome in terms of life lost, with small economic ruin I’m neither epidemiologist nor politician in power, so I can entertain myself with these thought experiments. In the end, I have little choice (and knowledge or firepower), but to do as instructed by local authorities.
- roenxi 7y ago
  The economy is a tool to get people goods and services. It is less important than life & death on a mass scale. 0.1% to 1% of the population unexpectedly dying is huge. If the government was implementing a plan that they had considered and prepared over a number of years, carefully assessed the evidence and weighed the options? Costs and benefits have been weighed and it is hard to ask for more. Government has no idea what is happening and it decides to go in and see how bad it is? Not a great time to prioritise the non-essential parts of the economy.
  - ash 7y ago
    > The economy is a tool to get people goods and services. It is less important than life & death on a mass scale. It's not as simple. GDP per capita is strongly correlated with life expectancy. In other words, people die sooner with worse economy.
    - chii 7y ago
      or die _even sooner_ with this herd immunity strat. On an individual level, i would not want this, even if it's "better" for the UK in the long run. As an individual, it's unacceptable for me to take this sort of risk, and i would not agree to it if i had a choice.
  - 7y ago
jariel 7y ago
Great point - but - shutting down the economy is not a 'conservative' policy, it's up there with 'extreme risk'. Many sectors will crumble, it will ripple through the economy like dominos, credit dries up, investment halts, you get into an economic death spiral. There's very real possibility existential meltdown which will indirectly cause a lot of pain and death. So 'lockdown' is 'conservative' from the viral perspective, from any other perspective, it's 'very risky'.
wyclif 7y ago
This is a smart observation. The UK is now taking the conservative view because it's the long term view, that this will likely become a recurring seasonal virus (or a one-time virus that keeps knocking on your door until you get it), and therefore there's not much point in a national "lockdown" to "stop" the virus, because as soon as a nation relaxes its lockdown the virus will simply pick up right where it left off. Herd immunity is the goal for the UK government; they are explicitly saying they want ~60% of the population to get the virus. The only concern for the UK government is to space out the rate of infection so as to avoid overloading hospitals. So they are banning large gatherings, but not doing a lockdown per se, if that makes sense. Slow the pace, but let it continue. (They may do a strategic lockdown later if necessary to flatten the curve, but right now is certainly NOT the time to do a lockdown, according to their strategy, because at this stage it would be motivated by an attempt to "stop" the virus rather than an attempt to flatten the curve.)
- henrikschroder 7y ago
  > therefore there's not much point in a national "lockdown" to "stop" the virus, because as soon as a nation relaxes its lockdown the virus will simply pick up right where it left off. I haven't seen anyone address this concern among the people who think the UK's strategy is insane. Yes, if you lock down society, you will halt the spread of the virus dramatically. But for how long? When do you lift the lock down? When it's died out in your country? How long will that take? What if it hasn't died out elsewhere? Are you going into another lock down right on the heels of the first one? And how do you get people to comply with it? Hell, there's plenty of people in the US who are completely convinced that the coronavirus is a hoax or a conspiracy or something something Trump Democrats Obama Liberal But Her Emails. Less than two weeks ago President Trump called the thing a hoax! The UK strategy takes this into account and rolls with it. They know it's going to infect a majority of the population eventually, so let's just get it over with as quickly as possible, while protecting the vulnerable in society, and then herd immunity kicks in and after that your country is protected no matter what other countries do.
  - dathinab 7y ago
    But no lock down strategy is about halting the virus! They are about slowing it, so that the load on the health care system isn't too grade. Current data show that dath ratio in case of slow spread can be reduced to 1%, potential even less. While with overload it's more like 5% and with collapsing overload even potentially more. Also work slowing the number of total infected people without usable medicine against it can potentially be drastically reduced. Especially if we find some usable but imperfect medicine in the near time which reduces ICU cases. Also let's remember 1918: The first wave killed the old, the second wave killed the young, the third wave killed without discrimination. I.e. we are still in the first wave, it's not impossible that a mutation occurred which makes it especially deadly against the young (through maybe quite unlike). Just consider what happens if that overlaps with the UK plans and they notice it to late. It would be a lost generation.
aaron695 7y ago
This is NOT a creative experiment. It's exactly the same as everything that's being done, no one knows what's best, they are all creative or none are. We have no idea what the downsides are for massive lockdowns. Look at the deaths that happened over summer in Britain when the heatwave struck. What will happen to the elderly in a lockdown? Lockdowns are not conservative. They are what the rest of the world's doing so they are politically conservative for weak governments.
- chii 7y ago
  Lockdown has been shown to work in wuhan and china, except for the political willingness and population willingness in western democracies.
  - aaron695 7y ago
    We don't know that yet. This hasn't even begun. We have another 6 months before we'll understand anything. Wuhan might just break out again. Following others lead is only political conservative. It's the learned behaviour of risk managers, push responsibility to others even if it's not the best action. They are there to manage internal risk.
lngnmn1 7y ago
Abstract (too general) nonsense. Just bullshit. Lockdowns are just to decrease the rate of spreading (and avoid high concentration of virus particles) not to eliminate the virus, so everyone should prepare oneself to face it and get through. Just this. Some small percentage of population in isolated regions have chances never meet the virus, but hiding is not the stable strategy. Getting through and become immune is. This is what UK government is saying. Let's face it.
gergi 7y ago
Interesting way of managing risk. Curious - Does this rule of thumb have a name?
DarknessFalls 7y ago
To add to your risk management analysis, I believe we're looking at more of a capped downside if you consider the timing. It's better to come down with it now, before hospitals are overflowing with the sick. We're just at a point where hydroxychloroquine is gaining traction as a treatment, so we have a viable response. We won't have a definitive cure or vaccine for several months, before which the number of people who are contaminated will skyrocket.
daxfohl 7y ago
"Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM"
Gatsky 7y ago
I think you can draw a direct line between the personality of Johnson and adoption of this strategy. Covid19 will unfortunately kill a lot of people. As a silver-lining, it may also kill populism.
- collyw 7y ago
  Populism seems to be "democracy that I don't like the result of".

lozenge 7y ago

(warning: conspiracy theory, but at least an original one) I'm thinking this only makes sense in the context of Brexit. Brexit will be a massive hit to the competitiveness of British businesses... somebody in government is hoping to counteract this by taking an approach different to the rest of Europe. If the UK's approach works, it will end up economically ahead of all the other European countries, something like the US post-WWII (but to a lesser extent).

colin_fraizer 7y ago
Conspiracy theory from an opposite point-of-view: killing off a bunch of elderly people with this experiment will save the NHS a fortune.
lallysingh 7y ago
.. fewer elderly to take care of?
- mirimir 7y ago
  Although I'm personally offended, being unimaginably (for me) old, this does make some sense. After all, many countries have been angsty about demographic inversion. And SARS-CoV-2 could resolve that within a decade or less.
  - lallysingh 7y ago
    Apologies for the offense, but I was being serious for the reason you mentioned.
    - mirimir 7y ago
      NP. I was mostly joking about the offended part :)
  - devnullbyte 7y ago
    The other interesting factor is how it will impact Gerontocracy which is the norm for most eastern and western governments alike. We see this playing out in in Iran.
iateanapple 7y ago
> I'm thinking this only makes sense in the context of Brexit. Brexit will be a massive hit to the competitiveness of British businesses Bad theory. This virus could have been used as an excuse to lock down borders while the rest of Europe got economically destroyed by the virus.
- dathinab 7y ago
  No it already spread to the UK so it was to listen for that
tenpies 7y ago
Counter-point: is Brexit Britain actually going to be worst off than post-pandemic EU or what's left of the EU? I don't think the risk of this pandemic approach is worthwhile, especially given how poorly the EU is doing in general. Terrible economy, catastrophic pandemic response, and the symbolism of countries closing borders on fellow EU states are all quite telling. By contrast Britain almost seems like it dodged a bullet - although they seem to have jumped in front of a train instead with their pandemic gamble.
- brrrrr1 7y ago
  the uk is bust - germany is injecting 600 billion in the economy, while the uk a mere 30. the uk NEEDS people to work so they keep the country afloat.
  - iateanapple 7y ago
    The UK can raise as much cash as Germany so it is a choice they are making.
- radicalbyte 7y ago
  Only the EU economy has been doing pretty well - much better than the UK has been. I think that their strategy is more smoke and mirrors - they're looking for the massive uproar so that the public understands that what we're facing is the real deal and will accept the harsh restrictions to freedom better once they have to be made. The damage caused by an extra day or two of waiting will be small in comparison to the benefits of good compliance. Plus don't forget that it's the weekend. No schools. The schools won't be open on Monday. Dominic Cummings and his team are sharp and extremely good at manipulating the exact group of unthinking idiots who would otherwise ignore curfews and restrictions.. I should also add: all of the other Western countries are doing the same thing, UK included. Do whatever is possible to keep the health system working until. Eventually you get herd immunity either via people getting it or a vaccination.
- devnullbyte 7y ago
  Britain reminds me of the drunk guy who falls down a flight of stairs and then rolls back onto their feet unharmed.
wtvanhest 7y ago
That seems like the exact gamble. IMO, the US has taken the right approach. Keep things going until it starts to replicate in the community, then get aggressive before the hospitals are overrun. Some communities will have too many cases, but most will hopefully be ok. And we will have a first step of Hurd immunity, concentrated on people most likely to transmit later like package delivery, restaurant workers, drivers etc. The US should have had testing procedure set up early to relieve stress for citizens.
- RealityVoid 7y ago
  > Keep things going until it starts to replicate in the community, then get aggressive before the hospitals are overrun. How is that not a bad strategy? By this point the disease will have some sort of transmission inertia, so establishing containment just before hospitals are overrun pretty much guarantees they will be overrun.
  - wtvanhest 7y ago
    We won’t know for 2 weeks. If the hospitals are overrun, that is a massive policy problem. If they aren’t, it’s a massive policy success. Math was known and the results fall on our politicians
- tim333 7y ago
  The US approach has been awful. Things are running completely out of control. The "aggressive before the hospitals are overrun" thing won't work. Herd immunity means something like 60% of the population get it and maybe 1.3 million Americans die ghastly deaths.
thefounder 7y ago
Yeah, it will make Britain Great Again as it gets rid of the old population and increases its competitiveness. It almost feels natural that after getting rid of the migrants it's time to get rid of some less desired locals as well.
- justinclift 7y ago
  In a very dark-humour fashion, it sounds like this would change the balance of brexiters-vs-remainers fairly drastically too. No longer ~50/50. ;)
brrrrr1 7y ago
may be a conspiracy theory, but as the uk gov is injecting only 30 bil in the economy while germany is injecting 600 billion shows the uk is financially in a weak position. if the country stops working the economy is bust. the uk _needs_ to be ahead of europe to stay afloat, so that these measures as a state of war, in which economic sovereignty can be lost unless some people die on the battle front.
- Jabbles 7y ago
  You're confusing two different measures. The UK government has increased spending by £30B, £12B to be spent on tackling COVID 19. The Bank of England has suggested lending £190B to businesses in need. The roughly equivalent numbers appear to be 12B and 600B (Euros) for Germany. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/11/budget-2020-rishi-sunak-spending-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/11/budget-2020-... https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/2020/march/boe-measures-to-respond-to-the-economic-shock-from-covid-19 https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/2020/march/boe-measures... https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/coronavirus-germany-economic-measures-covid-19-crisis-12517624 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/coronavirus-germa... https://www.pionline.com/markets/germany-lines-600-billion-virus-aid-eu-backs-stimulus https://www.pionline.com/markets/germany-lines-600-billion-v...
  - brrrrr1 7y ago
    thanks for the clarification, still a pretty small number considering. all i am saying is these numbers might explain the logic behind going against all scientific advice.
eli_gottlieb 7y ago
I don't think killing a larger portion of Britons than of Continental Europeans is going to be good for the British economy.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- devnullbyte 7y ago
  That's ignoring intent they expressed to implement very long isolation measures for the elderly. Thier approach might be flawed, but let's debate it based on what has actually been stated.
  - eli_gottlieb 7y ago
    They can intend what they please, but the facts show that you can't save the elderly without quarantining and social distancing of the non-elderly. "Stiff upper lip" is such a caricature of Britishness that I wonder if Johnson is doing it as a piece of patriotic method-acting. It is not a medically sensible method to fight COVID-19.

foobarbazetc 7y ago

It’s already too late. They’re on the Italy path. This “herd immunity” thing is nonsense. So much so that doctors and scientists are warning against it: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/coronavirus-nhs-private-hospitals-join-forces-academics-warn-over-strategy https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/coronavirus-nh...

ajross 7y ago
It's not "nonsense". It's real. It works for almost every other virus out there (even colds and flu, even though it's imperfect: new seasonal cold and flu strains don't become pandemics, because many people have some immunity from previous infections). If you let a large enough fraction of the UK contract and recover from COVID-19, we have every reason to suspect that the society will develop good enough herd immunity to make further pandemic-scale propagation impossible. This part is good science, and reasonably well understood. The question is on the impact side. The reason this theory seems to work is that the seeming danger from COVID-19 is all on the elderly and immunocompromised. If you can prevent them from getting the same disease everyone else is, then they'll be protected by the herd -- new clusters won't form and infect them. So this all comes down to those assumptions: 1. The virus is genuinely of low danger to the young and healthy 2. The vulnerable can be adequately protected during a pandemic of the general population If either is wrong, we're looking at a staggering disaster. Are they wrong? We have no fucking idea. I'm not even on the continent and I'm terrified.
- rumanator 7y ago
  > It's not "nonsense". It's real. It works for almost every other virus out there (e You're failing to take in consideration that the virus incubation period is on average 1 to 2 weeks, and those who manage to recover from the disease take about 2 weeks from diagnosis to confirmed cure. This means that you're comparing 4 weeks of exponential growth with 2 weeks of constant recovery. Sure, those who survived the disease will be immune afterwards. That's great for herd imunity. But the thing you fail to understand is that as the disease increases exponentially, when that time arrives the whole nation has already become infected, and it's too late by then because health services will be unable to cope with the demand and a lot of people will die due to lack of basic medical care.

milansm 7y ago

But how can anybody be sure that conservative policy (lockdown, I assume) would work for UK (or any other nation beside China)? They probably have to factor in the chance of success. They can fail in implementing conservative option (which might not be so conservative after all), and ruin the economy as a side effect. I imagine this as a choice between these: - long struggle with uncertain outcome in terms of life lost but with certain economic ruin - short struggle with uncertain outcome in terms of life lost, with small economic ruin I’m neither epidemiologist nor politician in power, so I can entertain myself with these thought experiments. In the end, I have little choice (and knowledge or firepower), but to do as instructed by local authorities.

roenxi 7y ago
The economy is a tool to get people goods and services. It is less important than life & death on a mass scale. 0.1% to 1% of the population unexpectedly dying is huge. If the government was implementing a plan that they had considered and prepared over a number of years, carefully assessed the evidence and weighed the options? Costs and benefits have been weighed and it is hard to ask for more. Government has no idea what is happening and it decides to go in and see how bad it is? Not a great time to prioritise the non-essential parts of the economy.
- ash 7y ago
  > The economy is a tool to get people goods and services. It is less important than life & death on a mass scale. It's not as simple. GDP per capita is strongly correlated with life expectancy. In other words, people die sooner with worse economy.
  - chii 7y ago
    or die _even sooner_ with this herd immunity strat. On an individual level, i would not want this, even if it's "better" for the UK in the long run. As an individual, it's unacceptable for me to take this sort of risk, and i would not agree to it if i had a choice.
- 7y ago

jariel 7y ago

Great point - but - shutting down the economy is not a 'conservative' policy, it's up there with 'extreme risk'. Many sectors will crumble, it will ripple through the economy like dominos, credit dries up, investment halts, you get into an economic death spiral. There's very real possibility existential meltdown which will indirectly cause a lot of pain and death. So 'lockdown' is 'conservative' from the viral perspective, from any other perspective, it's 'very risky'.

wyclif 7y ago

This is a smart observation. The UK is now taking the conservative view because it's the long term view, that this will likely become a recurring seasonal virus (or a one-time virus that keeps knocking on your door until you get it), and therefore there's not much point in a national "lockdown" to "stop" the virus, because as soon as a nation relaxes its lockdown the virus will simply pick up right where it left off. Herd immunity is the goal for the UK government; they are explicitly saying they want ~60% of the population to get the virus. The only concern for the UK government is to space out the rate of infection so as to avoid overloading hospitals. So they are banning large gatherings, but not doing a lockdown per se, if that makes sense. Slow the pace, but let it continue. (They may do a strategic lockdown later if necessary to flatten the curve, but right now is certainly NOT the time to do a lockdown, according to their strategy, because at this stage it would be motivated by an attempt to "stop" the virus rather than an attempt to flatten the curve.)

henrikschroder 7y ago
> therefore there's not much point in a national "lockdown" to "stop" the virus, because as soon as a nation relaxes its lockdown the virus will simply pick up right where it left off. I haven't seen anyone address this concern among the people who think the UK's strategy is insane. Yes, if you lock down society, you will halt the spread of the virus dramatically. But for how long? When do you lift the lock down? When it's died out in your country? How long will that take? What if it hasn't died out elsewhere? Are you going into another lock down right on the heels of the first one? And how do you get people to comply with it? Hell, there's plenty of people in the US who are completely convinced that the coronavirus is a hoax or a conspiracy or something something Trump Democrats Obama Liberal But Her Emails. Less than two weeks ago President Trump called the thing a hoax! The UK strategy takes this into account and rolls with it. They know it's going to infect a majority of the population eventually, so let's just get it over with as quickly as possible, while protecting the vulnerable in society, and then herd immunity kicks in and after that your country is protected no matter what other countries do.
- dathinab 7y ago
  But no lock down strategy is about halting the virus! They are about slowing it, so that the load on the health care system isn't too grade. Current data show that dath ratio in case of slow spread can be reduced to 1%, potential even less. While with overload it's more like 5% and with collapsing overload even potentially more. Also work slowing the number of total infected people without usable medicine against it can potentially be drastically reduced. Especially if we find some usable but imperfect medicine in the near time which reduces ICU cases. Also let's remember 1918: The first wave killed the old, the second wave killed the young, the third wave killed without discrimination. I.e. we are still in the first wave, it's not impossible that a mutation occurred which makes it especially deadly against the young (through maybe quite unlike). Just consider what happens if that overlaps with the UK plans and they notice it to late. It would be a lost generation.

aaron695 7y ago

This is NOT a creative experiment. It's exactly the same as everything that's being done, no one knows what's best, they are all creative or none are. We have no idea what the downsides are for massive lockdowns. Look at the deaths that happened over summer in Britain when the heatwave struck. What will happen to the elderly in a lockdown? Lockdowns are not conservative. They are what the rest of the world's doing so they are politically conservative for weak governments.

chii 7y ago
Lockdown has been shown to work in wuhan and china, except for the political willingness and population willingness in western democracies.
- aaron695 7y ago
  We don't know that yet. This hasn't even begun. We have another 6 months before we'll understand anything. Wuhan might just break out again. Following others lead is only political conservative. It's the learned behaviour of risk managers, push responsibility to others even if it's not the best action. They are there to manage internal risk.

lngnmn1 7y ago

Abstract (too general) nonsense. Just bullshit. Lockdowns are just to decrease the rate of spreading (and avoid high concentration of virus particles) not to eliminate the virus, so everyone should prepare oneself to face it and get through. Just this. Some small percentage of population in isolated regions have chances never meet the virus, but hiding is not the stable strategy. Getting through and become immune is. This is what UK government is saying. Let's face it.

gergi 7y ago

Interesting way of managing risk. Curious - Does this rule of thumb have a name?

DarknessFalls 7y ago

To add to your risk management analysis, I believe we're looking at more of a capped downside if you consider the timing. It's better to come down with it now, before hospitals are overflowing with the sick. We're just at a point where hydroxychloroquine is gaining traction as a treatment, so we have a viable response. We won't have a definitive cure or vaccine for several months, before which the number of people who are contaminated will skyrocket.

daxfohl 7y ago

"Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM"

Gatsky 7y ago

I think you can draw a direct line between the personality of Johnson and adoption of this strategy. Covid19 will unfortunately kill a lot of people. As a silver-lining, it may also kill populism.

collyw 7y ago
Populism seems to be "democracy that I don't like the result of".