8 ms·

One has to wonder to what extent the new strain is really responsible for this, versus being a convenient excuse for the government's failure to manage the norm

One has to wonder to what extent the new strain is really responsible for this, versus being a convenient excuse for the government's failure to manage the normal variant.

gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
This is always said “if only we were more competent/oppressive/empathetic people - we’d have done fine” instead of perhaps wondering whether much of the mitigation efforts and their implementation are a fraught and possibly even net-negative exercise.
- the8472 6y ago
  We don't need to wonder, we can look at nations that succeeded in controlling the spread from the start and now are reaping the benefits.
  - albertgoeswoof 6y ago
    Without making excuses it is hard to compare though
  - jl6 6y ago
    The data is so noisy though. Earlier in the year you could point to Germany as an example of a nation doing it right - but look at them now.
    - refurb 6y ago
      Indeed. Back in Oct Canada was doing quite well and now they have 25x number of cases in 2 months.
  - gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
    With time the people we vaunted as enlightened don’t appear to be doing well. In fact it seems they’re vulnerable and now subject to the same seasonal trends of spread everyone else was largely powerless against. California, Germany, Korea, Japan... We don’t consider whether the reaction has been worse than the virus, but that’s because there’s so much political reputation, ego, and identity staked on having been “level-headed” about all this.
    - umanwizard 6y ago
      Don't forget New York, where Emmy laureate Gov. Cuomo published his book on how he beat COVID-19 mere days before cases started exploding again in the second wave.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
- lefrenchy 6y ago
  It’s not like no nation in the world has succeeded at containing this virus. Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, New Zealand. We have the solutions, we just refuse to do what it takes to solve it. Western nations are taking half measures with poor enforcement, and blaming individuals for failures that should be attributed to institutions.
  - andylynch 6y ago
    Aussie and I think most impressively China too.
    - gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
      Australia is an island with a population almost half California. China welds people in their houses and forcibly enters homes and drags family to some location. I have no desire to emulate them.
      - robocat 6y ago
        I’m tired of hearing excuses. 20% of New Zealand export income[1] came from tourism, yet we closed the doors on February 1st, cancelling tourists while the season was still high. If you want to get rid of the virus, you can, but you have to suck up the costs: shut down your borders and do whatever it takes. Close down internal travel: domestic flights were virtually shutdown in NZ; Ozzie’s had other overland travel restrictions between states etcetera. Stay at home: fuck the economy for a while, but then you all can relax. NZ is about the same size and population as Oregon, so a single state could choose to do it, if they were willing to face up to the implications of the choice. There is still time to do it now, to give yourselves enough time to vaccinate people that would be network nodes in the transmission graph, and health workers, and the at-risk population. Or be honest like Sweden and decide that some deaths and chronic repercussions are acceptable costs (versus the alternative economic and human damage.) But don’t give lame just-right excuses like “Australia is an island with a population almost half California.” Oz has a higher population than every other state except Texas, so.... [1] https://tia.org.nz/about-the-industry/quick-facts-and-figures/ https://tia.org.nz/about-the-industry/quick-facts-and-figure...
- pjc50 6y ago
  https://twitter.com/pati_gallardo/status/1340037836972699648 https://twitter.com/pati_gallardo/status/1340037836972699648 "How’s Sweden doing, you ask? More people have died of COVID-19 in the past 5 days than have died altogether in Norway throughout the entire pandemic. Tegnell still hasn’t been fired." (Sweden and Norway have similar populations, climate, and even language and culture, but very different COVID approaches)
  - randomsearch 6y ago
    Sweden’s population is double Norway’s. It has denser and bigger cities. Norway has had severe flu seasons, with high fatality rates that may have reduced the number of vulnerable people in the pop. Cultural similarities are debatable; many in Sweden have complained about that outdated comparison. Finally: minimising lives lost is not the only goal in a pandemic, or even in the day to day management of a country.
    - null_object 6y ago
      As you know if you’re Swedish, Expressen (a major newspaper here in Sweden) exploded these myths about the supposed demographic differences between Sweden and Norway by comparing the sparsely populated northern region of Sweden with its Nordic neighbors and it still had more than FIVE times the death rate.
      - randomsearch 6y ago
        The two countries are different, that was my point. I'm not saying the Swedish approach is the most preferable, I'm saying cherry-picking Norway on some hand-wavy "all nordic countries are entirely alike wrt pandemics and you cannot compare them to other countries" manner is not scientific. And selecting one part of that country is not going to work unless you match on all important factors. The rigorous way to do this is: form a list of parameters that affect the pandemic, and then match on a large pool of countries to compare outcomes. Calibrate your system. You can't just cherry pick either way. I can say - well, Sweden has similar pop densities to Germany, and Stockholm is denser than Berlin so Swedish should be worse. But that's not rigorous, it's just confirmation bias at work. In truth, we'll only know the outcomes when the pandemic is over - probably by 2022 for most countries - and then it'll be an extended argument over whether it was worth say the economic damage, mental health consequences, etc. etc. for any actual reduction in excess deaths. It's complicated.
oxfordmale 6y ago
Apparently the new strain is not scary enough to enforce the travel ban in and out of London by law. At the moment the travel ban is advisory only. Make up your own mind.
- spuz 6y ago
  I thought tier restriction breaches could be punished by fixed penalties? Many have received such penalties.
  - oxfordmale 6y ago
    Based on the wording by Boris Johnson the travel ban is advisory. He uses the word should and not must when referring to the travel ban: "People should not enter or leave tier 4 areas, and tier 4 residents must not stay overnight away from home" Travel ban is advisory, overnight stay is banned by law.
    - spuz 6y ago
      Thanks for clarifying. I don't think that's the correct interpretation though. The government advice for tier 4 says: > You must not leave or be outside of your home except for where you have a specific purpose, or a ‘reasonable excuse’ > If you live in a tier 4 area, you must stay at home. You must not leave your home to travel unless for work, education or other legally permitted reasons So when Boris says "should" I believe he means "must unless you are in one of the excluded categories". https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tier-4-stay-at-home#stay-at-home https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tier-4-stay-at-home#stay-at-home
      - oxfordmale 6y ago
        You might be right, in any case the restrictions are not enforced immediately resulting in the bleeding obvious: (steady stream of traffic leaving London: https://twitter.com/Keyboar58668342/status/1340378874459402241 https://twitter.com/Keyboar58668342/status/13403788744594022...
iamben 6y ago
Not quite sure what they thought would happen - lockdown in November and then unlock and open all the shops the three weeks before Christmas and expect everyone to be sensible? Totally my experiences, but London looks like it hasn't given a shit for weeks.
randomsearch 6y ago
It is definitely being used as an excuse. The whole country’s restrictions have been changed whilst the “new strain” is focused in London. Regardless of the recent uptick in London, the rules needed to be changed, everyone knew it, Boris didn’t do it, and then to mask another U turn they seized on this. Chris Witty said today the idea that the new strain is more contagious is “just a theory”.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  It is being used as an excuse. But I wouldn't go as far as to think that means it isn't real. It's difficult to explain the numbers in Kent going up through lockdown and Tier 3 restrictions otherwise.
  - randomsearch 6y ago
    I didn't say it wasn't real.
LatteLazy 6y ago
Or both
throwaway2245 6y ago
Planning to keep the reproduction rate as close to 1 as possible is the most efficient way to generate new strains, so they have the same root cause anyway.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  I did hear one minister describe a replication rate below 1 as budget available to spend.
  - throwaway2245 6y ago
    Exactly. I've heard it said that this mutation increases the replication rate by 0.4. If we can keep this under control, we could have instead originally had a replication rate of 0.6 and the pandemic would be long over - with no mutated strain.

One has to wonder to what extent the new strain is really responsible for this, versus being a convenient excuse for the government's failure to manage the normal variant.

gnusty_gnurc 6y ago

This is always said “if only we were more competent/oppressive/empathetic people - we’d have done fine” instead of perhaps wondering whether much of the mitigation efforts and their implementation are a fraught and possibly even net-negative exercise.

the8472 6y ago
We don't need to wonder, we can look at nations that succeeded in controlling the spread from the start and now are reaping the benefits.
- albertgoeswoof 6y ago
  Without making excuses it is hard to compare though
- jl6 6y ago
  The data is so noisy though. Earlier in the year you could point to Germany as an example of a nation doing it right - but look at them now.
  - refurb 6y ago
    Indeed. Back in Oct Canada was doing quite well and now they have 25x number of cases in 2 months.
- gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
  With time the people we vaunted as enlightened don’t appear to be doing well. In fact it seems they’re vulnerable and now subject to the same seasonal trends of spread everyone else was largely powerless against. California, Germany, Korea, Japan... We don’t consider whether the reaction has been worse than the virus, but that’s because there’s so much political reputation, ego, and identity staked on having been “level-headed” about all this.
  - umanwizard 6y ago
    Don't forget New York, where Emmy laureate Gov. Cuomo published his book on how he beat COVID-19 mere days before cases started exploding again in the second wave.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
lefrenchy 6y ago
It’s not like no nation in the world has succeeded at containing this virus. Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, New Zealand. We have the solutions, we just refuse to do what it takes to solve it. Western nations are taking half measures with poor enforcement, and blaming individuals for failures that should be attributed to institutions.
- andylynch 6y ago
  Aussie and I think most impressively China too.
  - gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
    Australia is an island with a population almost half California. China welds people in their houses and forcibly enters homes and drags family to some location. I have no desire to emulate them.
    - robocat 6y ago
      I’m tired of hearing excuses. 20% of New Zealand export income[1] came from tourism, yet we closed the doors on February 1st, cancelling tourists while the season was still high. If you want to get rid of the virus, you can, but you have to suck up the costs: shut down your borders and do whatever it takes. Close down internal travel: domestic flights were virtually shutdown in NZ; Ozzie’s had other overland travel restrictions between states etcetera. Stay at home: fuck the economy for a while, but then you all can relax. NZ is about the same size and population as Oregon, so a single state could choose to do it, if they were willing to face up to the implications of the choice. There is still time to do it now, to give yourselves enough time to vaccinate people that would be network nodes in the transmission graph, and health workers, and the at-risk population. Or be honest like Sweden and decide that some deaths and chronic repercussions are acceptable costs (versus the alternative economic and human damage.) But don’t give lame just-right excuses like “Australia is an island with a population almost half California.” Oz has a higher population than every other state except Texas, so.... [1] https://tia.org.nz/about-the-industry/quick-facts-and-figures/ https://tia.org.nz/about-the-industry/quick-facts-and-figure...
pjc50 6y ago
https://twitter.com/pati_gallardo/status/1340037836972699648 https://twitter.com/pati_gallardo/status/1340037836972699648 "How’s Sweden doing, you ask? More people have died of COVID-19 in the past 5 days than have died altogether in Norway throughout the entire pandemic. Tegnell still hasn’t been fired." (Sweden and Norway have similar populations, climate, and even language and culture, but very different COVID approaches)
- randomsearch 6y ago
  Sweden’s population is double Norway’s. It has denser and bigger cities. Norway has had severe flu seasons, with high fatality rates that may have reduced the number of vulnerable people in the pop. Cultural similarities are debatable; many in Sweden have complained about that outdated comparison. Finally: minimising lives lost is not the only goal in a pandemic, or even in the day to day management of a country.
  - null_object 6y ago
    As you know if you’re Swedish, Expressen (a major newspaper here in Sweden) exploded these myths about the supposed demographic differences between Sweden and Norway by comparing the sparsely populated northern region of Sweden with its Nordic neighbors and it still had more than FIVE times the death rate.
    - randomsearch 6y ago
      The two countries are different, that was my point. I'm not saying the Swedish approach is the most preferable, I'm saying cherry-picking Norway on some hand-wavy "all nordic countries are entirely alike wrt pandemics and you cannot compare them to other countries" manner is not scientific. And selecting one part of that country is not going to work unless you match on all important factors. The rigorous way to do this is: form a list of parameters that affect the pandemic, and then match on a large pool of countries to compare outcomes. Calibrate your system. You can't just cherry pick either way. I can say - well, Sweden has similar pop densities to Germany, and Stockholm is denser than Berlin so Swedish should be worse. But that's not rigorous, it's just confirmation bias at work. In truth, we'll only know the outcomes when the pandemic is over - probably by 2022 for most countries - and then it'll be an extended argument over whether it was worth say the economic damage, mental health consequences, etc. etc. for any actual reduction in excess deaths. It's complicated.

oxfordmale 6y ago

Apparently the new strain is not scary enough to enforce the travel ban in and out of London by law. At the moment the travel ban is advisory only. Make up your own mind.

spuz 6y ago
I thought tier restriction breaches could be punished by fixed penalties? Many have received such penalties.
- oxfordmale 6y ago
  Based on the wording by Boris Johnson the travel ban is advisory. He uses the word should and not must when referring to the travel ban: "People should not enter or leave tier 4 areas, and tier 4 residents must not stay overnight away from home" Travel ban is advisory, overnight stay is banned by law.
  - spuz 6y ago
    Thanks for clarifying. I don't think that's the correct interpretation though. The government advice for tier 4 says: > You must not leave or be outside of your home except for where you have a specific purpose, or a ‘reasonable excuse’ > If you live in a tier 4 area, you must stay at home. You must not leave your home to travel unless for work, education or other legally permitted reasons So when Boris says "should" I believe he means "must unless you are in one of the excluded categories". https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tier-4-stay-at-home#stay-at-home https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tier-4-stay-at-home#stay-at-home
    - oxfordmale 6y ago
      You might be right, in any case the restrictions are not enforced immediately resulting in the bleeding obvious: (steady stream of traffic leaving London: https://twitter.com/Keyboar58668342/status/1340378874459402241 https://twitter.com/Keyboar58668342/status/13403788744594022...

iamben 6y ago

Not quite sure what they thought would happen - lockdown in November and then unlock and open all the shops the three weeks before Christmas and expect everyone to be sensible? Totally my experiences, but London looks like it hasn't given a shit for weeks.

randomsearch 6y ago

It is definitely being used as an excuse. The whole country’s restrictions have been changed whilst the “new strain” is focused in London. Regardless of the recent uptick in London, the rules needed to be changed, everyone knew it, Boris didn’t do it, and then to mask another U turn they seized on this. Chris Witty said today the idea that the new strain is more contagious is “just a theory”.

nicoburns 6y ago
It is being used as an excuse. But I wouldn't go as far as to think that means it isn't real. It's difficult to explain the numbers in Kent going up through lockdown and Tier 3 restrictions otherwise.
- randomsearch 6y ago
  I didn't say it wasn't real.

LatteLazy 6y ago

Or both

throwaway2245 6y ago

Planning to keep the reproduction rate as close to 1 as possible is the most efficient way to generate new strains, so they have the same root cause anyway.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago
I did hear one minister describe a replication rate below 1 as budget available to spend.
- throwaway2245 6y ago
  Exactly. I've heard it said that this mutation increases the replication rate by 0.4. If we can keep this under control, we could have instead originally had a replication rate of 0.6 and the pandemic would be long over - with no mutated strain.