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Re: Coronavirus
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Originally Posted by Chris
That's a false dichotomy (in other words, there are more possible answers than the two you have offered).
The science of this has been explained on various news programmes throughout the day. Radio 4's World at One is a good place to start ... the first 15-20 minutes or so.
In essence, the strategy last week was to attempt a controlled burn through the population, in order to keep within NHS capacity but also to gain widespread immunity to SARS2 (the coronavirus causing coven-19). The progress of the infection generated a ton of new data over the weekend which was analysed at Imperial College London. This data suggested that under that strategy, critical/fatal infections could rise to 250,000 - far too high to sustain.
The strategy has now therefore changed to an increasingly aggressive containment effort. This does two things: first it sacrifices the drive for herd immunity, second it probably keeps the NHS within capacity. It also poses a serious risk: if the virus is still present in the population when restrictions ease, it will flare up again. We are probably therefore in this now for the very long haul.
The extreme long-term nature of the crisis we now face is the reason it was worth trying for herd immunity. I don't think it is fair to characterise this as 'Boris got it wrong' - there are always a range of options, weighted by available evidence. He would have 'got it wrong' by sticking to the same decision in the mount of changing weight of evidence. But he didn't.
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Not BJ's biggest fan, but totally agree with you on this one - he did the right thing by reviewing the changing information,and acting on it.
And on that note, here's the Emergency Coronavirus bill, drawn up after cross-party talks.
https://www.gov.uk/government/public...s-bill-will-do
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The bill enables action in 5 key areas:
increasing the available health and social care workforce – for example, by removing barriers to allow recently retired NHS staff and social workers to return to work (and in Scotland, in addition to retired people, allowing those who are on a career break or are social worker students to become temporary social workers)
easing the burden on frontline staff – by reducing the number of administrative tasks they have to perform, enabling local authorities to prioritise care for people with the most pressing needs, allowing key workers to perform more tasks remotely and with less paperwork, and taking the power to suspend individual port operations
containing and slowing the virus – by reducing unnecessary social contacts, for example through powers over events and gatherings, and strengthening the quarantine powers of police and immigration officers
managing the deceased with respect and dignity – by enabling the death management system to deal with increased demand for its services
supporting people – by allowing them to claim Statutory Sick Pay from day one, and by supporting the food industry to maintain supplies
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Last edited by Hugh; 17-03-2020 at 20:10.
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