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> 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

by 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 global strategy is : "We are going to minimize the anti-covid measures as much as possible, as long as there are still hospitals bed available to treat patients. If that means people get infected, so be it, as long as we can treat them. We know some are going to die, but we are prepared to accept those losses". When a vaccine got developed, the country chose to launch a very ambitious vaccination campaign and was on top of the charts wrt to injected doses per capita. You are comparing the UK with japan and Australia: I am not sure you'd prefer being in Japan right now, and Australia "0 covid" strategy looks great, but they had a lot of extremely severe restrictions as well - and their demographic and economy is much more insular than the UK. With a 14% vaccination rate, they'll have to keep living with those restrictions on for several more month. You might not agree with the UK strategy - and that's perfectly OK - but it's a consistent one, and they executed it relatively well, considering the knowledge they had of the disease at every time, of course hindsight is 20/20. Other countries have tried other methods, with various degrees of success as well, with various hidden costs which will take years to measure.
pasabagi 5y ago
> UK has a bit more covid direct death than most What? The UK has double the death rates of similar EU countries. Double is not 'a bit more'. > and had a bit less lockdown days (and with overall less restriction) than those same countries If you look at this[1] chart, I think it shows that the UK was in lockdown for longer than most (all?) nations in europe. EDIT: I'm not sure where wikipedia is drawing their data from. This Jerusalem Post article quotes 79 total days in lockdown, which compares favourably to Germany at 88 days, but unfavourably with Spain (69 days). Regardless, I think it's clear that the UK is one of the european frontrunners when it comes to days spent in lockdown. >a bit more on protecting the economy/societal model If you look at this[2] chart you can see that the UK had a GDP fall of 9.9% in 2020, which compares unfavourably to France (8.2%) and Germany (4.9%), and Italy (8.8%). Shambles is the kindest word one could use for it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_responses_to_the_COVID-19_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_responses_to_the_COVI... [2] https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDP_RPCH@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDP_RPCH@WEO/OEMDC/...
- IMTDb 5y ago
  > Double the rate of similar eu countries ? According to [1], the UK is on the average. Right between France and Belgium, the two closest countries, that's what I call comparable. > If you look at this[1] chart, I think it shows that the UK was in lockdown for longer than most (all?) nations in europe. Lockdowns are hard to compare. Eg: my country is technically not on lockdown right now. But I can't get married, and my best friend who's a DJ hasn't had a single gig for 2 years now. The UK has had several periods where all these were open and possible. Including now. As a an employer, I can't really start talking with my employees about returning to work yet. The current recommendation in the UK is to start gradually get back to the normal state. I can't stress how much of a difference these stuff make, even if "technically" both countries aren't in lockdown. > GDP. Don't forget the impact of brexit here, which is supposed to have massive impact on the country import and export, thus GDP. The full effect of brexit will be seen in a few years, but england already suffered from massive import delay due to customs. I am not saying that the UK strategy was "the best", but just dismissing it and considering that basically every other country did it way better is just not true either. They made slightly different tradeoffs with slightly different results. [1] https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

by IMTDb 5y ago

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 global strategy is : "We are going to minimize the anti-covid measures as much as possible, as long as there are still hospitals bed available to treat patients. If that means people get infected, so be it, as long as we can treat them. We know some are going to die, but we are prepared to accept those losses". When a vaccine got developed, the country chose to launch a very ambitious vaccination campaign and was on top of the charts wrt to injected doses per capita. You are comparing the UK with japan and Australia: I am not sure you'd prefer being in Japan right now, and Australia "0 covid" strategy looks great, but they had a lot of extremely severe restrictions as well - and their demographic and economy is much more insular than the UK. With a 14% vaccination rate, they'll have to keep living with those restrictions on for several more month. You might not agree with the UK strategy - and that's perfectly OK - but it's a consistent one, and they executed it relatively well, considering the knowledge they had of the disease at every time, of course hindsight is 20/20. Other countries have tried other methods, with various degrees of success as well, with various hidden costs which will take years to measure.

pasabagi 5y ago

> UK has a bit more covid direct death than most What? The UK has double the death rates of similar EU countries. Double is not 'a bit more'. > and had a bit less lockdown days (and with overall less restriction) than those same countries If you look at this[1] chart, I think it shows that the UK was in lockdown for longer than most (all?) nations in europe. EDIT: I'm not sure where wikipedia is drawing their data from. This Jerusalem Post article quotes 79 total days in lockdown, which compares favourably to Germany at 88 days, but unfavourably with Spain (69 days). Regardless, I think it's clear that the UK is one of the european frontrunners when it comes to days spent in lockdown. >a bit more on protecting the economy/societal model If you look at this[2] chart you can see that the UK had a GDP fall of 9.9% in 2020, which compares unfavourably to France (8.2%) and Germany (4.9%), and Italy (8.8%). Shambles is the kindest word one could use for it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_responses_to_the_COVID-19_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_responses_to_the_COVI... [2] https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDP_RPCH@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDP_RPCH@WEO/OEMDC/...

IMTDb 5y ago
> Double the rate of similar eu countries ? According to [1], the UK is on the average. Right between France and Belgium, the two closest countries, that's what I call comparable. > If you look at this[1] chart, I think it shows that the UK was in lockdown for longer than most (all?) nations in europe. Lockdowns are hard to compare. Eg: my country is technically not on lockdown right now. But I can't get married, and my best friend who's a DJ hasn't had a single gig for 2 years now. The UK has had several periods where all these were open and possible. Including now. As a an employer, I can't really start talking with my employees about returning to work yet. The current recommendation in the UK is to start gradually get back to the normal state. I can't stress how much of a difference these stuff make, even if "technically" both countries aren't in lockdown. > GDP. Don't forget the impact of brexit here, which is supposed to have massive impact on the country import and export, thus GDP. The full effect of brexit will be seen in a few years, but england already suffered from massive import delay due to customs. I am not saying that the UK strategy was "the best", but just dismissing it and considering that basically every other country did it way better is just not true either. They made slightly different tradeoffs with slightly different results. [1] https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality