Coronavirus

[Stagger]

Would it be fair to say that within the majority of Northern Towns on lockdown its the town centre area (higher populated) where the most virus casualties occur?

The out lying villages appear to be much safer places I'm thinking.

[Wetherby whaler]

Indeed, and looking at the specific postcode areas, I don’t think that pub closures would be all that relevant. Some of the high risk postcodes in Leeds that I know well don’t have any pubs left, sadly.

[Muddy Retriever]

To take another country which is entirely different to ours: New Zealand. Population 4.9m with a density of 15/km2: even less than Sweden.

BUT it's held up as a success because they eliminated the virus. How? Lockdown.

Two papers (there are others and it's difficult to find credible opinion to the contrary) here and here suggest that early and aggressive lockdown was the key. They took the opposite approach to the majority of countries and have had the most success. But yes, like Sweden, they're nothing like the UK.....

However, something to think about: Johnson/Cummings initially were pro-herd immunity or a very light lockdown along the lines you suggest. They're libertarians at heart and all through this they've been unwilling to put measures in place and unwilling to enforce them once they were in place. I remember seeing him physically recoil at the suggestion that the police might be involved in enforcing lockdown measures! BUT something spooked them and they went for lockdown. So what was that? Perhaps they listened to the immunologists/WHO et al. Perhaps, when it boiled down to it, faced with the choice of crashing the economy or having half a million (and that's what they were predicting, more or less, right or wrong, at the time) dead on your hands, they couldn't face being responsible that sort of carnage. It might turn out that the predictions were wrong (they seem to be off, it's a matter of by how much) but faced with the figures at the time, I think lockdown seemed the only answer. It also seems to have provided a useful source of profit for Johnsons/Cummings friends, the disaster capitalists.

But it seems to have worked. More or less. And it would have worked better with an actual, operative, track and trace system during the height of infections (look at China), perhaps meaning that a lighter lockdown might have been possible.

But this is all hypotheticals. Perhaps the truth will come out in the Public Enquiry. I'm not holding my breath.

New Zealand locked down later than the UK on 25th March. Ours was announced on the evening of the 23rd March. Belgium, which has the worst Covid death rate in the world went into a very strict lockdown on 18th March. So yes the very different nature of New Zealand is the main reason they did better than the UK and Belgium and not lockdown. Of course New Zealand did enforce an early quarantine from other countries which we failed to do. So that will have helped them.

All the countries that were lauded initially for apparently eliminating the virus have had a reoccurrence since to a greater or lesser extent. And that now includes New Zealand.

I don’t think the Government had any choice but to go into lockdown given the lack of sufficient testing. But knowing what we know now I don’t think we should do it again. There is already a looming catastrophe in terms of both the economy and other neglected health issues like cancer. This will probably end up killing far more than Covid.

[Derby Tup]

Largely agree with your last paragraph Muddy. The economy is screwed and will be for a while. No amount of Monday to Wednesday half price dinners is going to fix it

[Dave_Mole]

"Belgium, which has the worst Covid death rate in the world"

It's well established that Belgium counts differently, giving high fatality numbers. Like we used to do, but worse. They even count suspected cases as definite.

The return in NZ is what, a handful of cases? Which is inevitable, but not uncontrollable. And doesn't mean that lockdown doesn't work, it's more about how the unlocking is managed.

And yes, the economy has suffered. But over 40,000 people have died. And yes, more will continue to do so due to pressure on the NHS and reluctance to come forward. But, given the information available at the time, I think it's telling that even Johnson/Cummings went for lockdown. Because it was the lesser of two evils.

[Muddy Retriever]

"Belgium, which has the worst Covid death rate in the world"

It's well established that Belgium counts differently, giving high fatality numbers. Like we used to do, but worse. They even count suspected cases as definite.

The return in NZ is what, a handful of cases? Which is inevitable, but not uncontrollable. And doesn't mean that lockdown doesn't work, it's more about how the unlocking is managed.

And yes, the economy has suffered. But over 40,000 people have died. And yes, more will continue to do so due to pressure on the NHS and reluctance to come forward. But, given the information available at the time, I think it's telling that even Johnson/Cummings went for lockdown. Because it was the lesser of two evils.

Counting suspected cases is how the ONS comes to its figures (if Covid is mentioned on the death certificate) or certainly did before tests became more widespread. I’d be interested to know if Belgium adopted the PHE policy of counting deaths as Covid if they’d ever been infected. It still seems incredible.

As you say in New Zealand it’s a handful of cases - I read that they’ve got about 70 active cases. But yet Auckland has gone back into lockdown again. Why? They can’t eliminate the virus. But they can hammer their economy. If any country was well placed to try the Swedish experiment without things get out of hand I would have thought it was New Zealand.

We need some perspective about Covid. We lose 450 people a day to cancer. Oncologists are desperate at the current situation, they fear a disaster because of the people not being treated and those not being diagnosed. Many more people are losing their lives to summer flu than Covid at the moment.

As I said before, I accept lockdown had to happen when it did but I suspect it went on for too long. It shouldn’t be repeated.

[Llani Boy]

I have a bit of a worry about New Zealand, much as I admire JA as we are all contracted to do. It can’t isolate from the world forever and sooner or later its own vulnerable population element is going to come into contact with this virus, unless a vaccine or treatment is found. And then the story might be quite similar to what we have seen in Europe. On that point, I think our own abysmal performance may in part be due to the fact that the NHS has in past years been fantastic in keeping very old, ill, obese and vulnerable people alive. So when something out of left field comes along, we had a larger set of easy targets, as it were.

JA. Virtue signaller par excellence

[Witton Park]

New Zealand is a cul-de-sac.
I took the comments about comparison with Sweden, but at least it's linked to the global transport infrastructure.

Japan seems to have done OK and it didn't have a lockdown, it has an ageing population, and it is densely populated. However it is Far East so I am cautious to make comparisons.
They followed an advisory path, asking folk to avoid closed places, crowded places and close-contact settings.

"The Japan conundrum is just the fact that if you don't test for it, you're not going to find a lot of cases," Jason Kindrachuk, Professor of viral pathogenesis at the University of Manitoba.

Ironic, hardly any testing, just over 1000 deaths to date. The inference by the prof is that of course it has swept through Japan, they just don't realise that.
So why only the 1000 deaths?

[Witton Park]

The Ferguson report seems to have been the real clincher for Government policy. I'm not sure if it was just Johnson and his team, the whole of SAGE according to the minutes of meetings seemed to be on board with the light touch measures up to the week commencing 16th March.

Talk of the lesser of two evils, well the Ferguson one is now totally discredited and as Sweden is the only place that has taken the alleged greater of two evils it's the only evidence out there.

The total deaths figure is the issue and if you look at the link there is some interesting analysis taken from ONS data.
https://hectordrummond.com/2020/08/1...topher-bowyer/

England and Wales weekly Covid and non-Covid care home deaths. ONS data.
This bar graph shows the rise, but interestingly that rise is also in NON-COVID deaths and for most of the period the non Covid excess deaths were ahead of the COVID deaths.

So the excess death rate that we put down to COVID is also down to other factors. Probably COVID related ones, perhaps people just being left to die in the home because the hospital wouldn't take them.

England and Wales weekly Covid and non-Covid deaths at home. ONS data.

This is appalling. In every week since week 11, we have had excess deaths at home, in some weeks double the 5 year average and only a fraction down to Covid.

[Wetherby whaler]

Someone commented a while ago on another forum that if a care home attributed a death to Covid, they could claim £14k for a deep clean. I have no idea if this is true or not, but what a perverse incentive.

Meanwhile, Singaporean scientists believe that the virus has mutated to be more infectious/virulent but less lethal. So more of us get it but far fewer seriously or die. That would be good,