Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[merithyn]

My sister and mother are making masks with two layers of cloth and room in between for paper. That's essentially what proper masks are, cellulose between cloth.

For stopping power apparently vacuum bag material is best, but I did the spray test with toilet paper and a couple sheets stops anything from visibly passing through.

Both of those will be really hard to breathe through. The vacuum cleaner bags are apparently really difficult to breathe through, so people make them, but then rarely wear them. That's why they suggest three layers of cotton instead.

[mongers]

Came across this on another forum and quite like it:

Just remember that the spread of Covid-19 is based on 2 main factors.
1) How dense the population is, and
2) How dense the population is.

[garbon]

Came across this on another forum and quite like it:

Just remember that the spread of Covid-19 is based on 2 main factors.
1) How dense the population is, and
2) How dense the population is.

And how dense the leadership is?

[celedhring]

+743 which is +106 dead than yesterday. Everybody was expecting an uptick after all the weekend data was finally tallied, and this one still puts us below last week's peak.

[Razgovory]

It just seems surreal that the Prime Minister of Britain is fighting for his life.

[Tamas]

Michael Gove is now self-isolating because of a family member.

I guess nobody can accuse the British government of not doing their part in their original herd immunity strategy.

[Sheilbh]

It just seems surreal that the Prime Minister of Britain is fighting for his life.

It does - as I say it's one of those moments that feels more like something from a film than anything. Obviously I hope he gets well soon, but I also hope this really hits home with people.

[garbon]

It just seems surreal that the Prime Minister of Britain is fighting for his life.

It does - as I say it's one of those moments that feels more like something from a film than anything. Obviously I hope he gets well soon, but I also hope this really hits home with people.

What's the message?

[Josquius]

It just seems surreal that the Prime Minister of Britain is fighting for his life.

It does - as I say it's one of those moments that feels more like something from a film than anything. Obviously I hope he gets well soon, but I also hope this really hits home with people.

What's the message?

Karma.
"There's nothing that can possibly go wrong. Watch as I stand with my back to the water where the man eating alligator is supposed to be."

[Sheilbh]

What's the message?

Take this serious; follow the rules.

Like that guy who was working on the Nightingale was sort of impressed into understanding how serious this is by the scale of that hospital. This is something that cuts through to everyone even people who are feeling sort-of weariness at the tedium of daily covid updates.

I guess nobody can accuse the British government of not doing their part in their original herd immunity strategy.

Herd immunity wasn't the strategy - we have the government's scientific advice on this (it's been published) and we can see how they developed policies in response to that. It may have been a side-effect.

Similarly whatever dastardly scheme Cummings came up with, his biggest success is surely getting all major UK parties, except for Plaid Cymru and the Lib Dems to endorse it. Health is a devolved matter but UK policy has kept pace in all nations. So he somehow got the SNP, the Welsh Labour Party, the DUP and literally Sinn Fein to sign up to his scheme to protect his investments. Either he is literally Merlin or they were all looking at the same scientific advice and reaching similar conclusions.

[garbon]

What's the message?

Take this serious; follow the rules.

Like that guy who was working on the Nightingale was sort of impressed into understanding how serious this is by the scale of that hospital. This is something that cuts through to everyone even people who are feeling sort-of weariness at the tedium of daily covid updates.

Maybe, assuming the people who are still not taking this seriously are Boris supporters.

I guess nobody can accuse the British government of not doing their part in their original herd immunity strategy.

Herd immunity wasn't the strategy - we have the government's scientific advice on this (it's been published) and we can see how they developed policies in response to that. It may have been a side-effect.

Similarly whatever dastardly scheme Cummings came up with, his biggest success is surely getting all major UK parties, except for Plaid Cymru and the Lib Dems to endorse it. Health is a devolved matter but UK policy has kept pace in all nations. So he somehow got the SNP, the Welsh Labour Party, the DUP and literally Sinn Fein to sign up to his scheme to protect his investments. Either he is literally Merlin or they were all looking at the same scientific advice and reaching similar conclusions.

Are we still pretending that the UK government was receiving sound advice when prior strategy was that we weren't going to lock things down even though every nation ahead of us was?

[Sheilbh]

Maybe, assuming the people who are still not taking this seriously are Boris supporters.

People are watching the news more now but most people don't follow it that closely. I imagine the slogan they've settled on "stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives" is only starting to cut through now.

Are we still pretending that the UK government was receiving sound advice when prior strategy was that we weren't going to lock things down even though every nation ahead of us was?

But that's not really true. The time of UK actions was broadly the same as most states Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France. Almost all countries made a huge shift between 9 March and 16 March, many started with trying to persuade people to sociall distance and then tightened the rules (the UK, the Netherlands) others started with a coercive instruction from the start (France). But the only bit where the UK really diverged was schools - and we have the evidence scientific advisors were considering and presenting on.

And also the fatigue point is real but also when have people got the message, this is an issue I think the behavioural scientists would have useful input in. If you go early before people have widely appreciated how serious this is then people treat it as a snow day we've seen that here, in Italy, in Belgium and I think in bits of the US as well. Maybe that can be improved by different comms from the government, but I think part of it is what I said above - the daily briefings are getting record numbers of people tuning in, but it's still in the low 20 million. I think a lot about that epidemiologists advice, which seems sound to me, at the time that the government should pursue as strong an approach as the public will support - because without support there's no compliance and you're wasting emergency services time dealing with that and, frankly, no-one but maybe China has enough police or army to enforce widespread non-compliance.

There's plenty of space to criticise the scientific advice they were receiving, though I think this does have to be tempered by the fact they were operating with a huge amount of uncertainty. But I just don't think the argument that they were pursuing herd immunity as a goal, it was a potential side-effect, or that there was some conspiracy behind it stack up. Lawrence Freedman's written about the scientific advice (which has been published) here:
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2020/04/real-reason-uk-government-pursued-herd-immunity-and-why-it-was-abandoned

He made the comment that if the government wanted to hide really bad news they could do worse than including it in a release of information, because it gets ignored.

[Tamas]

Sheilb, here is Sir Patrik Vallance explaining it on 13th of March that we don't want to suppress the virus for two reasons: 1. prevent a second peak in the winter, 2. build herd immunity:
https://youtu.be/2XRc389TvG8?t=254

[garbon]

Maybe, assuming the people who are still not taking this seriously are Boris supporters.

People are watching the news more now but most people don't follow it that closely. I imagine the slogan they've settled on "stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives" is only starting to cut through now.

If you are regularly watching the news, where coronavirus now accounts for the vast majority of news items, but didn't think it was a big deal then maybe you were blind?

But that's not really true. The time of UK actions was broadly the same as most states Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France. Almost all countries made a huge shift between 9 March and 16 March, many started with trying to persuade people to sociall distance and then tightened the rules (the UK, the Netherlands) others started with a coercive instruction from the start (France). But the only bit where the UK really diverged was schools - and we have the evidence scientific advisors were considering and presenting on.

We, of course can just go back in the thread and look at how many of us at the time wondered wtf the UK government was doing and you yourself even noted that the policy of delay (without anymore serious measures being undertaken) seemed quite risky.

And also the fatigue point is real but also when have people got the message, this is an issue I think the behavioural scientists would have useful input in. If you go early before people have widely appreciated how serious this is then people treat it as a snow day we've seen that here, in Italy, in Belgium and I think in bits of the US as well. Maybe that can be improved by different comms from the government, but I think part of it is what I said above - the daily briefings are getting record numbers of people tuning in, but it's still in the low 20 million. I think a lot about that epidemiologists advice, which seems sound to me, at the time that the government should pursue as strong an approach as the public will support - because without support there's no compliance and you're wasting emergency services time dealing with that and, frankly, no-one but maybe China has enough police or army to enforce widespread non-compliance.

Not sure what you are trying to say here.

There's plenty of space to criticise the scientific advice they were receiving, though I think this does have to be tempered by the fact they were operating with a huge amount of uncertainty.

I don't think it needs to be tempered at all. If you know you are using models with incomplete data and pushing a high risk strategy not in line with other strategies elsewhere, the buck stops there - the blood (so to speak) is on their hands.

[Tamas]

I don't think it needs to be tempered at all. If you know you are using models with incomplete data and pushing a high risk strategy not in line with other strategies elsewhere, the buck stops there - the blood (so to speak) is on their hands.

Yes, this is the key point I think. They were going for a certain increase in short-term risk for a speculative long-term gain. And we might still see this materialise in the winter, but I think what we are seeing is the cancellation of that policy, even if our lockdown ain't as severe yet as in some other countries. They gambled and they (plus potentially thousands of others) lost.