Lockdown too late

[JohnfromUK]

2 hours ago, oowee said:

The original 'herd imunity' plan was clearly wrong.

No.  The 'Plan' still is herd immunity  (but spelled with two mm's  😇).  The plan is to slow the rate of spread by getting the R value well below 1 ....... and keep it there until we can get the herd immunity by means of a vaccine.

You will probably never put this virus back in it's box.  It has mutated such that it infects humans and spreads between humans.  It is all over the globe.  It will not be suddenly 'removed', or go away.  So we want (and need) to get immunity as we do with other diseases - through a vaccine.  Developing a vaccine is top priority (and the worlds best people are working on it).

What we have to do by 'lockdown', protecting the NHS, finding possible treatments to improve outcomes, Nightingale hospitals etc, is to minimise the deaths and serious illnesses until such time as we have herd immunity - and either that comes relatively quickly via a vaccine - or if we cannot get a satisfactory vaccine, a degree of herd immunity will develop over a much longer period simply by people getting the disease with the majority surviving, but with grave consequences for a portion of the population.  But whichever way - it is still herd immunity.

There is also the additional worry that the virus mutates to 'dodge' the antibodies that give the immunity, or the the antibodies (either from vaccine, or from infection and recovery) are short lived.  There seem to be some worrying 'repeat infection' cases, but little clarity about these yet.

 

[Raja Clavata]

The plan is herd immunity but it's a different plan to achieve herd immunity compared to the initial one which wasn't based on vaccine but by people getting infected and developing immunity - but you already know this. Either way oowee's original statement holds.

PS - following the pedantic precedence, the world's best people are not working on the vaccine but the worlds best people working in the fields of immunology and vaccines are working on it 👍 

[Mighty Ruler]

It doesn’t matter wether herd immunity is the plan or not, it will happen sooner or later, either with a vaccine or without.

[Vince Green]

 

11 hours ago, Scully said:

This may sound rather callous, but there is a Macmillan nurse in the village who told us she shouts at the tv each time the death count in care homes and such facilities is mentioned on the news. She said the people in those homes are there for a reason, and as unfortunate as it is, how much longer do the children of 90 odd year old parents expect them to live. In her opinion, if people cared that much then they should have removed those parents from those facilities from the outset. just 

You make the lazy assumption that all care homes are for people in their 90s just sitting around waiting to die. That's far from the truth.

[JohnfromUK]

7 hours ago, Raja Clavata said:

PS - following the pedantic precedence, the world's best people are not working on the vaccine but the worlds best people working in the fields of immunology and vaccines are working on it 👍

It was pedantic, but it's not like Owee to make spelling mistakes.  These opportunities are few and far between, so are not to be missed!

[old man]

13 hours ago, oowee said:

It was clearly too late (look at those countries that took early action). The original 'herd imunity' plan was clearly wrong.

Unfortunatey those responsible did not have the luxury of receiving informed advice ahead of the pandemic, or maybe they did?

Absolutely, IMHO the flaw in that theory totally discounts the numbers of the fallen?

[old man]

13 hours ago, Scully said:

This may sound rather callous, but there is a Macmillan nurse in the village who told us she shouts at the tv each time the death count in care homes and such facilities is mentioned on the news. She said the people in those homes are there for a reason, and as unfortunate as it is, how much longer do the children of 90 odd year old parents expect them to live. In her opinion, if people cared that much then they should have removed those parents from those facilities from the outset. 

The culture maybe wrong here?

Us olduns here are deemed to be a useless waste of space now with opinions that are irrelevant? Just like old pit ponies, good to build and support a system but discarded as soon as deemed fit......😅?

Talking of NZ, at least they seemed to try, when visited 20 years ago there were firm policies in place regarding known imported pathogens, seemingly here authority doesn't give a flying fig if it costs 10 pence to implement action or upsets a lib?

Edited May 1, 2020 by old man

[oowee]

6 hours ago, Mighty Ruler said:

It doesn’t matter wether herd immunity is the plan or not, it will happen sooner or later, either with a vaccine or without.

We have to hope that this is true but as yet there is no evidence that the anti bodies that originate from having the virus will remain, or if they do, for how long.

 

40 minutes ago, JohnfromUK said:

It was pedantic, but it's not like Owee to make spelling mistakes.  These opportunities are few and far between, so are not to be missed!

I wish that was true. I am the worlds worst when it comes to spelling. 

[ClemFandango]

14 hours ago, clangerman said:

as usual the door was bolted after the horse was already far to loose we wasted the opportunity of being a island by allowing just about anyone to fly in and disappear with a half baked lock down designed to slow not stop the virus after catching the virus boris definitely knows we acted to late 

Closing our borders would have been a waste of time. To be sure we would have had to stop EVERYTHING coming in including freight. The country wouldn't last very long without importing goods. 

[ClemFandango]

6 hours ago, Mighty Ruler said:

It doesn’t matter wether herd immunity is the plan or not, it will happen sooner or later, either with a vaccine or without.

Exactly. 

I don't think the government has done a bad job. 

Do people think the virus is just going to disappear?

It's here. It isn't going anywhere. The likelihood is you will get it. If not now later. Unless you get access to a vaccine. 

It doesn't matter how many people enter the country now legally or illegally. It doesn't matter when we started or finish lockdown it is here. Unless you grow all your own food, make your own clothes and goods you will catch it. 'Lockdown" is just delaying the inevitable.

The purpose of it is to hang out the infection for long enough that it reduces the strain on the NHS so that if you do get it. They can care for you and it will be less likely to kill you. 

[Raja Clavata]

1 hour ago, JohnfromUK said:

It was pedantic, but it's not like Owee to make spelling mistakes.  These opportunities are few and far between, so are not to be missed!

Oi, it's oowee not owee 😛 

52 minutes ago, ClemFandango said:

Exactly. 

I don't think the government has done a bad job. 

Do people think the virus is just going to disappear?

It's here. It isn't going anywhere. The likelihood is you will get it. If not now later. Unless you get access to a vaccine. 

It doesn't matter how many people enter the country now legally or illegally. It doesn't matter when we started or finish lockdown it is here. Unless you grow all your own food, make your own clothes and goods you will catch it. 'Lockdown" is just delaying the inevitable.

The purpose of it is to hang out the infection for long enough that it reduces the strain on the NHS so that if you do get it. They can care for you and it will be less likely to kill you. 

Exactly, plus of course otherwise preventable deaths as a result of the strain on the NHS.

[turbo33]

I've been of the same opinion, and expressed in conversations with friends since the the outbreak in Wuhan. Clearly it was huge. It appears that no one (Governments) seemed to take on board, the Chinese hurriedly building two new hospitals. They knew what they had there, the rest of the world, especially us, were caught sleeping. It was totally naive to think it wasn't serious and would be contained in Wuhan.

There was a enacted research commissioned by the Government here to in 2016, to identify if we were prepared for such a pandemic, and to identify what was needed to prepare for such an event. Huge inadequacies were identified including that of PPE. Report done, nothing acted on. 

With the need to have PPE passed as safe for use, companies should have been approached had their capacities and products passed, to be called on should the inevitable happen, metaphorically flicking a switch for the supply chain. There hasn't been enough discipline from the government to control peoples behaviour, more of a weak advisement to "Lockdown" with pathetic and non effective penalties for not heading advice. Figures have been manipulated to play down the seriousness of the testing fiasco. Its only in recent days, the Government has been backed into a corner to include care home death figures. As a consequence of a more realistic figure, we have the trophy of having the second highest death rate globally, secondly to America. I personally think its been a shambles of ineptitude, for which the consequences have destroyed so many lives, in so many ways.

We have the equivalent of two Boeing 747's airliners coming down daily, 14 per week,  with total loss of life. Imagine that on the news each evening? 

My final comment is that shared above, it is here to stay. I have said this from the beginning of the outbreak......There are, IMHO, 4 options. Get it and lose your life, get it and survive with hopefully, some form of immunity, have the vaccine,when it eventually arrives, or somehow, isolate yourself from any contact with the outside world.

[Scully]

2 hours ago, Vince Green said:

 

You make the lazy assumption that all care homes are for people in their 90s just sitting around waiting to die. That's far from the truth.

It's not an assumption I made, lazy or otherwise, I was just passing on what a local Macmillan nurse had told me. I did assume however, she was referring to care homes for the elderly, which she was, and you may know different, but I don't know of any elderly people who once placed in a care home ( or old folks homes as they were referred to when I were a lad ) come home again. They were known as 'gods waiting room' for a reason. 

The point I was trying to make really, is that given there are many who are criticising the government and other authorities in hindsight, for their lack of foresight, no one is criticising care homes or the families of residents, for their lack of foresight when it came to getting those people out of high risk establishments such as they have turned out to be. 

A farmer mate of mine took his two primary school aged kids out of school some time before Boris announced the lockdown. They also have a third child, in his early teens, who is in what is now known as a high risk category. Admittedly they have past experience regarding the spreading of infection. 

1 hour ago, ClemFandango said:

Exactly. 

I don't think the government has done a bad job. 

Do people think the virus is just going to disappear?

It's here. It isn't going anywhere. The likelihood is you will get it. If not now later. Unless you get access to a vaccine. 

It doesn't matter how many people enter the country now legally or illegally. It doesn't matter when we started or finish lockdown it is here. Unless you grow all your own food, make your own clothes and goods you will catch it. 'Lockdown" is just delaying the inevitable.

The purpose of it is to hang out the infection for long enough that it reduces the strain on the NHS so that if you do get it. They can care for you and it will be less likely to kill you. 

This.

[Mighty Ruler]

1 hour ago, oowee said:

We have to hope that this is true but as yet there is no evidence that the anti bodies that originate from having the virus will remain, or if they do, for how long.

 

 

There should be some immunity until the virus mutates, apparently viruses rarely, if ever mutate into a more deadly form, they usually weaken over time. At least, according to what I’ve read, I just hope that’s true.

[bruno22rf]

14 hours ago, AVB said:

That you for correcting my typo. Correct this one - ****. 

The pleasure is all mine - ****....LOVE?

[Raja Clavata]

9 minutes ago, Mighty Ruler said:

There should be some immunity until the virus mutates, apparently viruses rarely, if ever mutate into a more deadly form, they usually weaken over time. At least, according to what I’ve read, I just hope that’s true.

my understanding of the normal evolution of a virus too.

[Vince Green]

2 hours ago, Mighty Ruler said:

There should be some immunity until the virus mutates, apparently viruses rarely, if ever mutate into a more deadly form, they usually weaken over time. At least, according to what I’ve read, I just hope that’s true.

In general, and its wrong to generalise I know, viruses that kill their hosts are working against their own best interests for their own long term survival. They really need a compliant host  who will spread them far and wide. Not one that's going to lay down and die.