SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

noodlehair said:
I suspect in the longer term it's going to be very difficult to stick to that view Pogue, unfortunately. The number who have died here already (whether it's due to the virus or the lockdown) has been vastly under estimated...and from the mortality and infection rate of the virus (the former of which seems to have been over estimated if anything), it's already looking like it will be difficult to argue in the longer term exactly how effective our lockdown was...and that's before you factor in economic impact and related deaths.

Going by the current UK population, if we did nothing and literally EVERYONE got the virus you would be looking at about 300,000 deaths as an absolute worst case scenario and without factoring in the likelyhood the mortality rate is actually lower than 0.5%. So that number is very likely a significant over estimate of an actual worst case scenario, since the mortality rate would be lower and it's really unlikely of the infection rate ever getting to 100%. Also not factoring in that anything up to about 200,000 of that 300,000 would have been at high risk of passing away within the same time period anyway.

The reality is we're already on probably around 40-60,000 deaths. In a year's time that number is going to be much larger. and it's in all likelyhood going to be more than 300,000 the way we are going.

I really don't see a way around that...we have actual numbers and science to go on and those are the two things that simply don't lie. Obviously the longer term has to be based on estimates but estimating based on the numbers and past research is still more likely accurate than the baseless presumption of things just coming to an end and going badk to normal. And I really do think most people are still living in this weird bubble where they are oblivious to the effect this is going to have on their lives. The mental stress of not being able to hug your mates really isn't even the begining of the problem. Remember there is also brexit to negotiate in the midst of all this, which is an impending disaster in its own right if not handled properly.
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You’re doing it again, noods. Pretending that letting the virus run riot wouldn’t also cause economic impacts and non virus-related deaths. As per my previous post, the cost (to the economy and in terms of people dying) of not flattening the curve of an outbreak would go far beyond the numbers of people killed by the virus. You can’t keep claiming that the lockdown alone is what’s causing the economic hardship we’ll endure in the next year or two. It’s actually way more complicated than that and the economy would likely be scuppered whatever we do.
 
noodlehair said:
I didn't say it confirmed anything but there are models that show you based on recessions that in the medium term the death toll would be quite significant, and compared to the numbers being thrown around in terms of virus deaths it does make a very interesting case...certainly not one that should just be ignored at all costs like it is being...there's too many uncertain factors to be sure of anything. We don't have any real idea for example how many people lockdown measures have actually saved. What these things do tell you though is if you're going to go don the route of shutting everything down, you HAVE to mmake sure you do it properly and wiith a strategy in place to make sure it is effective as possible and that you have a way out afterwards.

Only Germany at the moment can say with any certainty that what they've done has had any real impact. For all we know here in a year's time it could have been next to pointless once the virus has donee the rounds a couple of times...we have no data to compare anything to and no plan that we know will be effective in protecting people in 6-12 months time. Have you also looked at the actual recorded deaths numbers? There are already thousands of "additional" deaths a week which can't be linked directly to corona virus...what do you think is the other most obvious factor that has changed in this time that might cause more people to die? There's only two possibilities there. Either corona virus is responsible for most of these deaths,, in which case lockdown isn't working very well at all...or lockdown measures are actually causing these deaths, which in reality brings you back to the same conclusion.

These are things the government has admitted it did not even consider...which is why we have ended up with a half arsed flimsy plan that has been quite ineffective when you put it into context, because we haven't factored in things that might have drummed home just how important it was to make sure these mearues worked properly and had the necessary testing and actual strategy to go with them...if the aim was to protect the most vulnerable and the NHS, why do we have an epidemic going through care homes and can't supply NHS workers with the most basic pieces of equipment? Why have we had commuters cramming onto packed trains the entire time? Why can I still not go into my local spermarket without being swamped by entire families of people needlessly wandering around it? Why are the police harrassing people in the middle of empty forests but can't stop large groups of people pointlessly milling about in built up urban areas? Several people I know have lost jobs because they can't work in their restuarant/bar, but 50+ people can still just stand around pointlessly together in a park....

I'm not necessarily saying lockdown was the wrong thing to do or we should all just go back to normal...but what we are doing makes NO sense. It is bordering on madness at this point as we don't even seem to be changing or learning from anything. We've taken away the freedom from literally everyone's lives. We've actively helped destroy our entire economy...and we haven't even bothered to do the most basic things to go with it that actually make sure it would work. It's the equivalent to someone trying to lose weight by exercising 18 hours a day to the point of nearly killing themselves and having no actual life, then just thinking "feck it" and eating 15 cakes before bed every evening.

We have no plan at all as to how to come out of this. We're just literally making it up as we go "oh we'll ease some of the lockdown on Monday but we wont telll you what until Sunday night because we haven't decided what yet"...I mean what is that? Is that an effective strategy? Can any sane person even calll it a plan? What IS the plan if (when) we don't have a vaccine in six months time? What IS the plan for all the people who wont be ablle to have the vaccine even when it is available?

It's really easy to just poo poo anone who questions why we're doing what we're doing, and yet it's actually quite impossible to logically explain why we're doing what we're doing without having to admit we're doing quite a lot of it quite badly wrong.
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Agreed. In my view there should have to be ironclad and irrefutable evidence that a lockdown is going to be save a substantial amount of years of life (I say years of life because saving 100 people 3 months isn't worth one person in their 20's who would otherwise live another 60 years committing suicide due to depression. Likewise someone in their 30's who hasn't had a cancerous lump checked out).

As it stands the evidence is anything but irrefutable or ironclad; it's understandably patchy, incomplete and not fully substantiated.

At last count I believe less than 300 people under 60 without pre-existing conditions had passed away... Just over 700 under 80. When you look at the cost of the measures I think it's guaranteed (which will become obvious over the next several years) the reaction is worse than the disease.

Hell I wonder how many people in the third world that have curable diseases, in poverty or dying of other preventable causes could have had their lives saved/extended with the lost wealth these reactions have caused worldwide. No doubt the hundreds of billions lost could have saved far more years of life than coronavirus will cause. The opportunity cost of the lost wealth as a result of the reaction to this virus is millions of years of life. This isn't to say the worldwide economy would be honky-dory without these measures, but it would be immeasurably less awful than it is and will continue to be for years.

People need to realise this isn't a lives vs money debate. These two are the same thing. Every year the treasury decides how much lives and time are worth, whether it's when deciding whether to invest £1b to reduce road deaths by 1000, whether it's to invest £10b to improve healthcare, whether it's to increase welfare or pension payments. Whether it's to spend more or less on international development (which will immediately and automatically be reduced by our GDP reduction, costing thousands of lives no doubt).

The stripping of what should be basic human rights and civil liberties... The ability to walk in a park, visit family, open a business, not have one's business that has taken decades to build destroyed, attend a funeral, sell legal products that people want to buy... These aren't things that government should be able to compromise or destroy at the stroke of a pen and certainly not without unequivocal evidence that shows the casualties resulting are without doubt, demonstrably and irrefutably worse than the result of said pen stroke.
 
GloryHunter07 said:
Apparently, the top execs at my company were so worried by WFH that they considered monitorin peoples Citrix login times at the start of lockdown. Pathetic.
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Classic example of never mind the quality, feel the width.

Companies run by megalomaniacs who have no concept of trust and leadership.
As long as you are logged on, that is all they are interested in.
 
noodlehair said:
Going by the current UK population, if we did nothing and literally EVERYONE got the virus you would be looking at about 300,000 deaths as an absolute worst case scenario and without factoring in the likelyhood the mortality rate is actually lower than 0.5%. So that number is very likely a significant over estimate of an actual worst case scenario, since the mortality rate would be lower and it's really unlikely of the infection rate ever getting to 100%. Also not factoring in that anything up to about 200,000 of that 300,000 would have been at high risk of passing away within the same time period anyway.
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I usually respect everything you write but you're off the deep end on this one. Apart from making fanciful assumptions about non-virus related deaths and economic impact related deaths which you have no basis of saying, this particular one is just wrong. 300K deaths absolutely the worst because 0.5% is the worst case death rate? Why? Literally if everyone got it, chances are mortality rate will be MUCH higher than the base 0.5% simply because medical care won't be available to everyone. You just need to look at Italy to know what happens when ALOT of people get it, let alone everyone.

Moreover, there would be likelihood of severe economic damage because people won't come in to work because they're sick and people won't travel to do work with or in the UK.

Finally, to provide some scientific 'evidence' = there is evidence to prove that mortality rates actually fall in times of economic depression. Simply because factory related deaths and road related deaths reduce because fewer people are traveling to work. the 2009 recession caused 5000 more suicides in 2009 across multiple countries. These are all referenced numbers, you can look them up. There is absolutely no evidence to show that economic depression will cause more deaths than a disease. Social issues along the line of crime, sure. But yeah, that would happen regardless if things went to shit if EVERYONE got it.

EDIT: This is to say that the lock down was the best approach. Hell, hindsight is 20-20 and in a few years we will be in a position to criticise what could have been done better. But given the situation and facts at hand, no other way seems more palatable than to lock the country down for 30-40 days. Atleast for sizeably populated countries,
 
Those are really long ways of saying "I don't care if old people die, I want to be able to go do whatever I want again."
 
@Kag @noodlehair , thought provoking posts there, that probably haven’t come up enough.
I think part of the problem has been the general public’s exposure to the ‘death figures’. Even in this thread if you go back a month ago it was constant figures on dead people. This is how many dead, look over here this Is how many are dead. In the news, look how many are dead in Italy. And I get it you need transparency but It was too much and inevitably most people became so preoccupied with reducing those numbers that they basically forgot everything else. It’s purely “if the death figures are going down this is working”.

There is also no context and a breakdown to these figures a lot of the time and to people not clued up it’s dangerous (The age, health, make up of the majority of the dead). For instance I’ve got a few friends (early 30’s) who’ve said even post lockdown they’re not leaving the house. Fit and healthy young people shouldn’t really be fairing for their lives.


It says a lot when the majority of the general public think the government have handled this well. And that only seemed to change once we went into lockdown. Forgetting that it took so long and still to today testing isn’t up to scratch. Forgetting it took an age for essential workers to get their tests and appropriate kit. The only thing they’ve got right is furlough but how long and sustainable is that?

As for the unnecessary people around and the policing of it. This was doomed to fail from day one in terms of expecting 100% adherence. Without question the majority have obeyed the law but there’s enough who haven’t that’ll have an effect. Policing in this country is totally different to anywhere else. By all accounts it’s a lot ‘softer’ and to suddenly try and carry out a major lockdown enforcement is naive, especiallly if you fail to give police the tools they need (ID checks points, laws, ticketing systems etc).
But yeah the only way you get control of something like this is by being assertive and direct from the get go. Police were basically told to be really nice and negotiable about things. It literally was a case of only fine/arrest as a complete last resort. And then you factor in the self entitled who think they’re too special to be questioned by police that they resort to juvenile retorts whilst recording and uploading it to their social media accounts you’re on a hiding to nothing. This isn’t really a surprise. The Government have been failing emergency services for years. Why would they suddenly stop now,


The point about stopping people living to keep them alive is a fair one. I was one who said, elderly should be on lockdown indefinitely but actually that’s easy for me to say. It must be horrific at the moment being in that bracket especially in a care home. You’re more likely to be lonely in general, you know you haven’t long to live and now you’re being told you’re not allowed to meet anyone or go out and the government are still failing to protect you anyway.
 
golden_blunder said:
Yeah it’s very frustrating. I guess many companies take out long leases on big office spaces etc so they don’t want empty buildings. But it’s time for everyone to reimagine how they work
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It's not just that tbh. I worked from home for a few weeks, and I thought it was frustratingly slow - the VPN was often getting overloaded and if you're working with files on shared drives it just took so much longer to download/open/update them (we've got some that are huge).
 
PedroMendez said:
thats one of those issues that genuinely puzzles me with many employers. I understand that they want their workers to show up once/twice per week to cultivate a personal relationship and that new employees have a bit more oversight (=come to work). Still most office jobs can be done from home and we really need a cultural change, because its just a waste of time, space, money, real estate and now its an additional health risk.

At least in Germany I know many companies that are already heavily reducing the time that people are allowed to work from home.

Without corona, its stupid, now its dangerously irresponsible.

As if big offices are such a lovely and productive place to work in.
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Offices are far, far more productive than working from home in my experience.

I currently have 12 staff working from home. One is around 10% more productive working from home, one is around 10% less and the other 10 range between 20% and 70% their usual output despite having the workload available.

I've also tried to work from home myself and I get far more done including a 2 hour commute to go into the office (11 hours at home achieves less than 9 hours in the office).

If working from home was equally productive as well as being cheaper for the employer (an employer could pay staff less as they would have no commuting costs and more free time due to the lack of a commute); the biggest companies would already be taking advantage.

If my experience is anything like the country as a whole the best we can hope for is maybe 10% of people who can work from home being given the opportunity after this is all over (although the politics and legal aspect involved with allowing one person with an identical job title the opportunity but telling 3 others they can't would put me off).
 
finneh said:
Offices are far, far more productive than working from home in my experience.

I currently have 12 staff working from home. One is around 10% more productive working from home, one is around 10% less and the other 10 range between 20% and 70% their usual output despite having the workload available.

I've also tried to work from home myself and I get far more done including a 2 hour commute to go into the office (11 hours at home achieves less than 9 hours in the office).

If working from home was equally productive as well as being cheaper for the employer (an employer could pay staff less as they would have no commuting costs and more free time due to the lack of a commute); the biggest companies would already be taking advantage.

If my experience is anything like the country as a whole the best we can hope for is maybe 10% of people who can work from home being given the opportunity after this is all over (although the politics and legal aspect involved with allowing one person with an identical job title the opportunity but telling 3 others they can't would put me off).
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Your personal experience goes against the evidence of actual research on the issue, so can probably be ignored.

Although it does seem as though you should put a bit of thought into how to best motivate your staff.
 
One of the joys of reading through threads like this is knowing that the people posting are nowhere near being in a position to have any influence on actual policy.
 
GloryHunter07 said:
Should we be discussing Kyle Walker’s latest slip up in here? Not seen another thread.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52587293

Doesn't read well for any individual, never mind one who has recently been caught (maybe should be keeping his head down) and who's a professional footballer getting paid a lot of money who may be playing again soon... should perhaps be doing his best to minimise direct contact.

Not sure about playing the mental health card. If he has some serious problems ok, but if not, is a pisstake for people who DO have serious issues.
 
Camilo said:
Working from home... What a miserable existence that would be. I hope to heaven we all all fight it tooth and nail.
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Personally i love it. I think my company are planning to move towards one or two days in the office a week at most and compensate with a bit more team outings. We already did a lot of our work through conference calls though.

I think forcing employees in either direction is obviously a mistake but the flexibility to allow it is hugely beneficial to most people's work life balance.
 
Massive Spanner said:
Those are really long ways of saying "I don't care if old people die, I want to be able to go do whatever I want again."
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If I was going to be a massive spanner, or reduce the quality of discourse significantly, I could suggest that your post is a short way of saying “I don’t really care about poor people down the line, or those that are crippled by debt and lost business, my Nan is fine and I’m alright, Jack.”

I’m not a massive spanner, mind you. Just a small one.

There is a very real discussion that the general public need to confront. Coming out of this is going to be brutal. Absolutely brutal. The sad reality is that the most disadvantaged in society are going to pay a very heavy price, and people who were bettering themselves in all manner of ways are now going to find themselves climbing back out of the well. Some will make it; some won’t. Public services, relentlessly underfunded and over-scrutinised, will be left to pick up the pieces. Acknowledging this probable reality can exist separately from the ongoing tragedy of death.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Your personal experience goes against the evidence of actual research on the issue, so can probably be ignored.

Although it does seem as though you should put a bit of thought into how to best motivate your staff.
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I'm not sure a 500 person study of one specific job type (working in a noisy call centre vs being in a quiet home environment), lasting only 9 months with an obvious and direct incentive to the people involved to be productive (that a large increase in productivity would likely lead to being able to work from home full time, which would save the employee in commuting costs as well as hundreds of hours of their annual time) and in an industry with very little investment cost to trial this and with a company in a country whose population are notoriously compliant is great evidence. Neither of course is my much more limited and anectodal evidence.

However if an employer could effectively pay their staff 221 hours a year less in salary (the average annual commute) whilst also paying them £795 a year less as that would be the average saving per employee; whilst they were being 13% more efficient (therefore they could employ far less staff for the same output) and at the same time with far smaller office rental, heating and general running costs ... Either every employer would already be doing this and saving a large % of their fixed costs with zero downside; or the companies not doing this would have been driven to bankruptcy by the ones embracing this being able to offer the same services or products at considerably more competitive prices.

Motivating my staff isn't a problem in the office, however it is whilst they're working from home. That's the point.

Either way we'll have a conclusive answer in a few years as almost every firm is having their own enforced trial at the moment. If the majority of companies have great experiences with incredibly productive staff they will no doubt be giving this option to staff going forward.
 
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Camilo said:
Working from home... What a miserable existence that would be. I hope to heaven we all all fight it tooth and nail.
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As opposed to the joys of spending hours (and money) commuting to and from work every day?

Whatever about having to work from home all the time, having the flexibility to do so is a massive perk.
 
Kag said:
If I was going to be a massive spanner, or reduce the quality of discourse significantly, I could suggest that your post is a short way of saying “I don’t really care about poor people down the line, or those that are crippled by debt and lost business, my Nan is fine and I’m alright, Jack.”

I’m not a massive spanner, mind you. Just a small one.

There is a very real discussion that the general public need to confront. Coming out of this is going to be brutal. Absolutely brutal. The sad reality is that the most disadvantaged in society are going to pay a very heavy price, and people who were bettering themselves in all manner of ways are now going to find themselves climbing back out of the well. Some will make it; some won’t. Public services, relentlessly underfunded and over-scrutinised, will be left to pick up the pieces. Acknowledging this probable reality can exist separately from the ongoing tragedy of death.
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My partner will probably lose her job soon. My sister lost hers. My self employed brother has no work right now. Numerous close friends have been heavily affected from a financial perspective. So .. no ... that's not true. I'm extremely concerned about the economic impact but I also respect the fact that the alternative - more deaths, and a completely overwhelmed health service, is much worse.

People talk about economic costs but Italy only locked down when they were forced to because their health service (one of the world's best) was on the verge of total collapse and ended up having to do the longest, and one of the most restrictive, lockdowns of any country, and at massive economic cost, too. As Pogue already said, the economic and social consequences of not taking these actions and letting this virus infect more people is probably much worse.

Where I do think there should be a bit of discussion is on countries reopening. I think our roadmap here in Ireland is ridiculously long-winded and restrictive because our out-going government are a bunch of cowards, and I hope to feck it gets shortened before we completely cripple ourselves with debt, but I don't want us reopening the economy too fast either. We've had our lockdown, we've gotten the virus under control, and I think we need to start thinking about being a bit less restrictive and a bit more trusting of the public to adhere to social distancing, without going too far to the point where we will need a lockdown again.
 
Massive Spanner said:
Where I do think there should be a bit of discussion is on countries reopening. I think our roadmap here in Ireland is ridiculously long-winded and restrictive because our out-going government are a bunch of cowards...
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I don't think anyone is in any position to say a Government is being too conservative. This strikes me as the correct policy when there is a large amount of uncertainty about what happens when a lockdown is ended. If it is found that the measures can be eased more quickly, then the policy can be changed accordingly.
 
Shakesey said:
After seeing the US unemployment figures I am now leaning towards opening up economies at the risk of widespread infection... Does that make me a republican-abroad?
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It wasn't a binary choice, of course. New Zealand have "in epidemiological terms" eliminated the virus, and they're going to re-open the economy far more successfully than the US. What the US are suffering from most is a poorly executed strategy. The notion that the US somehow forgot about the economy in all of this kind of ignores the most important part of the story - the initial exponential growth. Cases were doubling every three days and they had thousands of cases by the time they implemented social distancing. New Zealand were at 100 cases by the time they reached "level 3" - essentially what we've called lockdown - and Czech Republic had under 100 cases by the same stage. That's because they had the economy front-and-centre at that stage, as they have in every stage. They were forced into this approach when the scale of the public health crisis became overwhelming, not because they put public health above the economy.
 
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JPRouve said:
If it's based on the Spectator article, that paragraph is a bit strange without any idea regarding the sample size or more details about the cases, the one anecdotal example doesn't allow to make that type of conclusions. They should be careful with the way they claim things.

Here you have examples of conflicting opinions.
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Basing it off of these



 
noodlehair said:
I get that and I get why we had a lockdown in the short term because the NHS was at risk of being overwhelmed...all of this that you are saying though, the actual science doesn't back any of it up. THe science suggests that in the longer term the economic impacts and the continuing effect of the virus itself will mean the measures we've taken here could well have cost lives rather than saved them. With science you don't just take one variable and ignore literally everything else. You would factor in the people who ARE dying because they can't get care, who are dying because of stress, mental health, not being looked after, loss of income. You factor in the many more who will fall under the same umbrella due to the economic impact of the biggest recession in history (which has been caused primarily by lockdown, not the virus). You factor in the percentage of people who have died of corona virus who would have been likely to die within the same time frame as these economic factors (what you will see is the expected death numbers will drop well below average when the virus subsides)...how many fit and healthy people have died of corona virus in the UK? I don't have an actual definite number but the figures I have seen have only been in the hundreds. You have to factor in the effect on the quiility of life for the people you are most aiming to protect. It's no good saving someone if you make the rest of their life lonely and miserable, because you aren't going to make them live forever. We'd all live longer on average for example if none of us ever got in a car again (over 25,000 less deaths or serious injuries a year straight away). We'd all live longer if none of us drunk alcohol ever again...where do you draw the line with stuff like that?

It's actually quite ridiculous how blinkered and tunnel visioned people's views are on this. The reality is we are dealing with a virus that has a mortality rate of less than 1%....and we have CREATED a global catastrophe that will take many years to fix in order to "fight" the virus...and actually when you look at the number of deaths against the mortality and infection rate it's seriously up for debate how effective these tactics have even been in a lot of countries. Look at the deaths in Germany compared to here...that is an example of an effective way to combat an epidemic vs an unsuccesful one. You can dress up the numbers how you want but there's no way that 30,000 deaths (and counting) looks like an effective strategy at this point. A strategy that causes so much damage and effect sliterally everyone so severely should be with the aim of MAXIMISING the number of people you save...not whatever half arsed attempt at something the UK have made can be called. We still can't even test people in care homes...the exact people this is meant to be to help protect.

When you go on about us saving thousands of lives a day, what are you even basing this on? There are problems here that will take years and years to resolve. There is the impending second wave which we will at present be in no shape at all to cope with. There is the fact that all these at risk people who have been locked up for 3 months, aren't suddenly going to turn healthy or no longer be at risk when you let them back out. A significant number of them will be much less healthy than before. What are you going to do towards the end of the year and every winter from now on? Keep locking them back up again? It is not a viable plan. It isn't even the basis on which to make one around.

It's not a black and white case of just hiding in the cupboard until the monster hopefully leaves the room like a majority of people seem to think it is. It's a very complicated problem, that needs some very smart people in charge of managing it and that isn't something we have had here at any point. There are data based models out there telling you that after 3 weeks a lockdown starts causing more damage than it saves. There's statistical data out there telling you that something as simple as austerity can be linked to nearly HALF A MILLION deaths. Imagine what a prolonged massive economic recession coupled with the fact it wont actually cause the virus to go away will do by comparison. If 30,000 is a tragedy what is a number that has some more zeros on the end of it? Because that's a very genuine possibility as things stand.
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I was very much in the “lockdown can only be done for a matter of weeks” before it causes even more problems, but that was partly because I didn’t ever see the government offering the economical support it has. I agree with the gist of what you are saying, but cannot see how ending the lockdown now is the right move. The numbers are still too high for track and trace to be effective, and we still don’t have the infrastructure for even a smaller number.
 
So my road has thought it’s a good idea to have a street party... no social distancing being undertaken whatsoever. I can’t believe how people can be so ignorant.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Your personal experience goes against the evidence of actual research on the issue, so can probably be ignored.

Although it does seem as though you should put a bit of thought into how to best motivate your staff.
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Working from home may be more productive, but I think working from home under normal circumstances is different to enforced working from home. Coronavirus on the whole is reducing productivity because people don't have that realise of being able to live a normal life at the moment because they are always stuck at home.

https://www.vox.com/2020/3/20/21187...rus-productivity-mental-health-nicholas-bloom
https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/4/...irus-pandemic-covid-19-capitalism-ep-thompson

I didn't really read the comment thread so this may be off topic, but I just thought it was an interesting side note.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Your personal experience goes against the evidence of actual research on the issue, so can probably be ignored.

Although it does seem as though you should put a bit of thought into how to best motivate your staff.
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I have applied that to all of his posts for the last couple of years to be fair. Saves me a lot of time reading the exact opposite opinions to my own.
 
I waked through my town centre today for the first time since lockdown started. Quite frankly I was appalled. Large groups of kids on bikes, people stopping to chat, loitering and literally nobody following a safe distance. People were literally laughing at me and my partner for zig zagging and stopping and starting our walk patterns to keep distance.
Not gonna do that again in a hurry. Honestly it was like a normal Friday.
 
Sigma said:
Working from home may be more productive, but I think working from home under normal circumstances is different to enforced working from home. Coronavirus on the whole is reducing productivity because people don't have that realise of being able to live a normal life at the moment because they are always stuck at home.

https://www.vox.com/2020/3/20/21187...rus-productivity-mental-health-nicholas-bloom
https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/4/...irus-pandemic-covid-19-capitalism-ep-thompson

I didn't really read the comment thread so this may be off topic, but I just thought it was an interesting side note.
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It’s definitely harder than usual working from home right now. Especially for anyone with kids!

I really was just making a broader point that most studies (all pre-covid) seem to show people are as much, if not more productive at home than in the office. Which is counter-intuitive but there you go. What this crisis is showing is that many companies are able to function reasonably well in the hardest possible scenario for home workers. Which will hopefully cause a big rethink in the future.

Apart from anything else, if the recession really bites deep then spending less money on real estate would potentially be a great way to cut costs while maintaining productivity. Which will make even more sense when companies think about the expense of converting offices to enhance social distancing. Can you imagine the headfeck of working in a high rise tower with only one or two people allowed in the lift at any one time?
 
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Adamsk7 said:
I waked through my town centre today for the first time since lockdown started. Quite frankly I was appalled. Large groups of kids on bikes, people stopping to chat, loitering and literally nobody following a safe distance. People were literally laughing at me and my partner for zig zagging and stopping and starting our walk patterns to keep distance.
Not gonna do that again in a hurry. Honestly it was like a normal Friday.
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It's definitely changed in the last few days. Too many people seeing gleeful headlines with only rumours of changes in the last few days to confirm their own opinions, and it's seemingly back to normal outside. Like a giant school holiday.
 
A little data on excess deaths v covid deaths in Greater Manchester:
https://medium.com/@urbixio/greater-manchester-covid-19-related-excess-deaths-c382c95b14f

On the face of it, it looks like a lot of the reporting coming in from (non-hospital) death certificates comes down to what local GPs and coroners are taking as policy, and a stance on "most likely" cause, or even disagreement on the approach when documenting deaths amongst people with other illnesses.

In Bolton for example, "Bolton reported 472 deaths in April 2020 and have had a yearly average of 222 for the month. There have been 168 Covid-19 deaths reported which would be a difference of 82 deaths above the yearly average and Covid-19 toll."

Whereas in its neighbouring town, Bury: "Bury reported 282 deaths in April 2020 and have had a yearly average of 155 for the month. There have been 110 Covid-19 deaths reported which would be a difference of 17 deaths above the yearly average and Covid-19 toll."

Some of these may be timing related. Others may come down to an individual outbreak (in a care home or something) that isn't described wholly by the numbers. But still, it sounds like the recording may come down to policies adopted by individual GPs/GP practices. Certainly that Bury number seems more credible than the Bolton one. It would be interesting to know if that kind of policy divergence is taking place in other health authorities as well.
 
@Pogue Mahone How likely do you think it is that the virus’ incubation period may actually be up to 28 days rather than 14? A few doctors around the world are advising that, but surely if there was any likelihood of that being true then governments around the world would have already changed their advice?
 
jojojo said:
A little data on excess deaths v covid deaths in Greater Manchester:
https://medium.com/@urbixio/greater-manchester-covid-19-related-excess-deaths-c382c95b14f

On the face of it, it looks like a lot of the reporting coming in from (non-hospital) death certificates comes down to what local GPs and coroners are taking as policy, and a stance on "most likely" cause, or even on documenting deaths amongst people with other illnesses.

In Bolton for example, "Bolton reported 472 deaths in April 2020 and have had a yearly average of 222 for the month. There have been 168 Covid-19 deaths reported which would be a difference of 82 deaths above the yearly average and Covid-19 toll."

Whereas in its neighbouring town, Bury: "Bury reported 282 deaths in April 2020 and have had a yearly average of 155 for the month. There have been 110 Covid-19 deaths reported which would be a difference of 17 deaths above the yearly average and Covid-19 toll."

Some of these may be timing related. Others may come down to an individual outbreak (in a care home or something) that isn't described wholly by the numbers. But still, it sounds like the recording may come down to policies adopted by individual GPs/GP practices. Certainly that Bury number seems more credible than the Bolton one. It would be interesting to know if that kind of policy divergence is taking place in other health authorities as well.
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The statistician in me (and I hate fecking stats) always gets a bit irked by these excess deaths calculations, without confidence intervals.

The yearly average is exactly that, an average. With a wide range, year on year. So talking about an “excess” of 17 deaths in any given month based on the yearly average just seems silly.

There’s bound to have been months in years gone by with a similar, or even greater, number of “excess deaths” - as compared to the average - which never even got a mention.
 
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