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"The approach you describe : open / close / open a little / close back a bit more according to the situation is exactly how we need to handle things. " The act

"The approach you describe : open / close / open a little / close back a bit more according to the situation is exactly how we need to handle things. " The actions seem to follow this pattern not because of some well balanced and thought through strategy, but more the governments constant shifting attempt to move past the current mistake/scandal. It's actually quite amazing how effective this is in terms of public perception. Just because it's possible to have a reasonable plan that looks something like "open / close / open a little / close back a bit more" doesn't mean that is what is going on. As previously touched on, a chaotic constantly moving "get out of the latest mess" can also. I could give examples such as the initial 'herd immunity' plan. There is also the recent revelations from internal government documents that show the a pandemic was identified as the biggest risk to the uk from 2016 (ie the governments 'who could hanve known' ploy is empty). Or that it was recommended early on that elderly patients who had covid be returned to old peoples homes. Leaving all that aside - look at the results: the UK has one of the highest death per 100k people in the world.

IMTDb 5y ago
> the governments constant shifting attempt to move past the current mistake/scandal It's only the case because you see roll backs of previous relaxation as a sign those were "mistakes" proving that those were "scandals". Th strategy is balanced and thought throught if you consider that: a) Not a single entity anywhere in the world has been able to come up with any model that accurately represent COVID-19 infection rates and evolution. b) As a consequence, the only way forward is "test and see". Understand that some tests will be successful, and some won't c) As a consequence, calling failed tests "scandals" works wonder for bumping read count on tabloids articles, but does accurately represent what's going on. The initial herd immunity plan was one of those tests. That's how humanity has gone through all epidemics before - with various degrees of success - and how most of humanity will go though COVID. When it became clear that the tradeoff between covid death and society impact was not where the government wanted to go, they reverted the decision - before hospitals reached full saturation. Overall, the UK has a bit more covid direct death than most (not all) western european countries, and had a bit less lockdown days (and with overall less restriction) than those same countries - which results to less suffering/death due to those measures. The tradeoff made by the UK government was a bit more on protecting the economy/societal model rather than focusing on COVID alone. You could argue that they could/should have made different choices, but it's certainly not the rolling mess that you are trying to paint.
- freddybobs 5y ago
  > It's only the case because you see roll backs of previous relaxation as a sign those were "mistakes" proving that those were "scandals". No, this isn't really it. I'm actually making a more broad claim that that is the Boris Johnson government mechanism. That it is reactionary. It doesn't have plans. It doesn't have a vision for the future. It is reactionary. It only makes a claim to being better than the other alternatives. Which is hard to disprove because the alternatives didn't happen. a) No. I mean there are a bunch of models. You say they are inaccurate? Oh how so? All of them? By how much? b) No. It doesn't follow even if a is true, so no it's not a consequence. c) Just no. Recasting doing things that fly in the face of expert opinion, that rejected the plans and efforts to handle pandemics that already exisited as 'tests'. Is well, hilariously sad. These weren't mistakes they were 'tests'! That 'test' to move elderly people who had covid back into care homes? I guess that 'test' showed that was a bad idea. But we needed to do the 'test' because there was no possible way of knowing that might be a problem. That 'test' for herd immunity that flew in the face of the governments own plan. That 'test' pushed back efforts to slow the spread. Lucky we had that 'test', you know just to try it out. I mean I could go on.
  - IMTDb 5y ago
    > You say they are inaccurate? Oh how so? All of them? By how much? Hundreds of models have been published, I can't refute them one by one. I can however make this claim : You are will not find a model that predicts COVID-19 with the following properties : - Modeled population : > 5 million people (a very big city, a US state, or a standard EU country) - Population has covid running and has sufficently accurate testing/reporting capabilities (don't pick a corner case like singapore, or a banana states that reports "0 covid cases") - Makes predictions for at least 3 month - Predictions were within 30% of the reality for > 80% of the predicted weeks (if the model predicts a range, the average is taken as ground truth)
    - freddybobs 5y ago
      Even if I accept the premise that "Not a single entity anywhere in the world has been able to come up with any model that accurately represent COVID-19 infection rates and evolution." (which sounds highly unlikely especially at this point). None of this backs up your claim of... "The strategy is balanced and thought though". What is this strategy anyway? Do random 'tests' and if they produce bad results then do something else? And that's ok because 'the models are bad'? Or something. I don't see much thought or balance in that. It's not a meaningful plan. It's certainly not thought through from the point of view of coming from the minds of experts in pandemics. It might be a workable 'political plan' that causes lots of needless suffering, death and waste. I mean seriously - I'd love to see a clear articulation of the Uk strategy from the start to now and why with it's 'balance' and 'thoughtfulness' adverted disaster even though the Uks outcomes are so poor. I'd note other countries were able to do something about this and have it work - such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand or South Korea. It certainly wasn't/isn't impossible. The Uk also had the advantage of being an island nation. In Europe Germany has a competent government and it's efforts seem to have paid off in terms of the economy and having half the Uks deaths per capita, for example.

IMTDb 5y ago

> the governments constant shifting attempt to move past the current mistake/scandal It's only the case because you see roll backs of previous relaxation as a sign those were "mistakes" proving that those were "scandals". Th strategy is balanced and thought throught if you consider that: a) Not a single entity anywhere in the world has been able to come up with any model that accurately represent COVID-19 infection rates and evolution. b) As a consequence, the only way forward is "test and see". Understand that some tests will be successful, and some won't c) As a consequence, calling failed tests "scandals" works wonder for bumping read count on tabloids articles, but does accurately represent what's going on. The initial herd immunity plan was one of those tests. That's how humanity has gone through all epidemics before - with various degrees of success - and how most of humanity will go though COVID. When it became clear that the tradeoff between covid death and society impact was not where the government wanted to go, they reverted the decision - before hospitals reached full saturation. Overall, the UK has a bit more covid direct death than most (not all) western european countries, and had a bit less lockdown days (and with overall less restriction) than those same countries - which results to less suffering/death due to those measures. The tradeoff made by the UK government was a bit more on protecting the economy/societal model rather than focusing on COVID alone. You could argue that they could/should have made different choices, but it's certainly not the rolling mess that you are trying to paint.

freddybobs 5y ago
> It's only the case because you see roll backs of previous relaxation as a sign those were "mistakes" proving that those were "scandals". No, this isn't really it. I'm actually making a more broad claim that that is the Boris Johnson government mechanism. That it is reactionary. It doesn't have plans. It doesn't have a vision for the future. It is reactionary. It only makes a claim to being better than the other alternatives. Which is hard to disprove because the alternatives didn't happen. a) No. I mean there are a bunch of models. You say they are inaccurate? Oh how so? All of them? By how much? b) No. It doesn't follow even if a is true, so no it's not a consequence. c) Just no. Recasting doing things that fly in the face of expert opinion, that rejected the plans and efforts to handle pandemics that already exisited as 'tests'. Is well, hilariously sad. These weren't mistakes they were 'tests'! That 'test' to move elderly people who had covid back into care homes? I guess that 'test' showed that was a bad idea. But we needed to do the 'test' because there was no possible way of knowing that might be a problem. That 'test' for herd immunity that flew in the face of the governments own plan. That 'test' pushed back efforts to slow the spread. Lucky we had that 'test', you know just to try it out. I mean I could go on.
- IMTDb 5y ago
  > You say they are inaccurate? Oh how so? All of them? By how much? Hundreds of models have been published, I can't refute them one by one. I can however make this claim : You are will not find a model that predicts COVID-19 with the following properties : - Modeled population : > 5 million people (a very big city, a US state, or a standard EU country) - Population has covid running and has sufficently accurate testing/reporting capabilities (don't pick a corner case like singapore, or a banana states that reports "0 covid cases") - Makes predictions for at least 3 month - Predictions were within 30% of the reality for > 80% of the predicted weeks (if the model predicts a range, the average is taken as ground truth)
  - freddybobs 5y ago
    Even if I accept the premise that "Not a single entity anywhere in the world has been able to come up with any model that accurately represent COVID-19 infection rates and evolution." (which sounds highly unlikely especially at this point). None of this backs up your claim of... "The strategy is balanced and thought though". What is this strategy anyway? Do random 'tests' and if they produce bad results then do something else? And that's ok because 'the models are bad'? Or something. I don't see much thought or balance in that. It's not a meaningful plan. It's certainly not thought through from the point of view of coming from the minds of experts in pandemics. It might be a workable 'political plan' that causes lots of needless suffering, death and waste. I mean seriously - I'd love to see a clear articulation of the Uk strategy from the start to now and why with it's 'balance' and 'thoughtfulness' adverted disaster even though the Uks outcomes are so poor. I'd note other countries were able to do something about this and have it work - such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand or South Korea. It certainly wasn't/isn't impossible. The Uk also had the advantage of being an island nation. In Europe Germany has a competent government and it's efforts seem to have paid off in terms of the economy and having half the Uks deaths per capita, for example.