Well do you have a better exit plan? Bill Gates says 18/12 till a vaccine, I'm a bit more optimistic, early 2021, but herd immunity is the option in the mean time. Trump says hydroxycloroquine is available now perhaps he is right; that'd be great. But sometimes you have to go with the reality however regrettable. Been there, done that, sometimes you have to tell people they are going to die.

I can pretty sure not many people who do health care anywhere in the world think management is competent; the best thing management did in this crisis was stop managing, let clinicians make the decisions and just sign off the invoices (to give many companies their due when we emailed about equipment they sent it first and invoiced us later, some even sent stuff before we asked for it assuming we'd need it; the support from the private sector in the UK has been excellent).
Surprisingly, no I don't enjoy it; and I think your comment is petty. I think you should reflect on whether personal comments like this are helpful. What would be helpful to me and cathartic is ruminating on whether this was a predictable event which we should have had resources to address, or whether this is something we have to cope with (which so far we are). Could the government have done better? Not the current government; perhaps previous governments , but this would need to be all previous governments not just in the last 5 years or the last 10 years, because this could have happened at any time.

Surprisingly, ventilators aren't much more complicated than vacuum cleaners they just operate in reverse. Dyson does not produce crappy vacuum cleaners, he is a good engineer with a lot of experience in mass production of things that blow air. I said before this came up that Dyson could produce a good ventilator, the engineering is simple; he may have done so, I hope so, because no one else has offered to do so. So you can sneer. But I'd be interested if things turn bad would you refuse to go on a Dyson ventilator because he designed a vacuum cleaner?

Official Secrets Act?

What on Earth are you babbling about?

I disagree. Take a look at the situation in Canada. The Canadian government fumbled its initial response, rating the risk to Canadians as "low" for longer than it should have and taking too long to do things like cancelling events and closing schools. But once it got serious about the pandemic, the federal government in co-operation with the provinces has swiftly brought in measures, messaging, and financial assistance to combat it.

The first confirmed case in Canada appeared on January 25, a full six days before the first case in the UK. Yet since the first case, Canada has seen only 713 deaths and a death rate of 19 per million population. The UK has seen 10,612 deaths—despite the first case appearing six days later—and a death rate of 156 per million.

These numbers are independent of country's total population. Population density aside, the growth curves seen by each country are, in my opinion, a direct result of measures taken to slow the spread. IMHO, if Canada and the UK had exactly the same population, Canada would still be seeing a death rate of 19/million and the UK 156/million (and Canada's been fighting the epidemic for six more days than the UK.)

I've been hearing a lot lately about doctors saying ventilators are being overused to the point of being counterproductive, do you have an opinion on this? Here is one story: https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/08/...-for-covid-19/

This is a good argument. To oppose it the population density of the UK is much larger, this is probably a significant difference. Canada locked down on March 17, 52 days after Canada's first case of covid-19; the UK locked down on March 24, 53 days after the UK's first case on 31 January in York in a Chinese student. The first in country transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the UK was 28 February, with lock down 25 days later. Are you arguing that one day difference between first cases explains the difference between the UK and Canada? Predominantly the UK's statistics are determined by London. Forty percent of London's population is non UK born. London has population of about 9 million and a third of the UK's (population 60,000,000) cases.

FWIW until the epidemic has stabilised making comments about different localities fatality rates is problematic since we know of nothing that effects mortality, this will just represent differences in starting infection rates and may converge to the mean as infection rates move towards normal.

I think the evidence is fairly complete that taking measures early vastly reduces the amount of spread of the disease - Canada, NZ, Australia, South Africa, South Korea & Iceland all acted very early in the epidemic and they all have far superior stats to countries that didn't.

There's an entire thread on that subject here: http://www.internationalskeptics.com...n&folderid=all

I'm arguing different government responses play a large role in the growth curve, case load, and deaths.

To better understand the government responses, we need to look at when various steps occurred. Both Canada and the U.K failed to contain their outbreaks and had to switch to a flatten-the-curve strategy. "Lockdown" is pretty much the last phase of this strategy. Other steps are encouraging social distancing and hand-washing, cancelling events to prevent asymptomatic people from infecting others, imposing travel restrictions, and encouraging (but not mandating) people to stay home. When the messaging started and the urgency applied to it are factors that need to be considered.

My understanding (from this side of the Atlantic) is the UK was very lax in applying the initial measures, trying for a "herd immunity" approach by letting the epidemic run its course practically unopposed. It then switched to flatten-the-curve once the death counts started rising. Canada was slower than I would have liked in its initial response and didn't really ramp up on flatten-the-curve actions until mid-March.

Population density has a role to play, but I don't really know how to quantify its role in spreading disease. It would make for an interesting study: all other things being equal, is there a correlation in deaths/million population vs every extra 100 people/km^2?

For now, let's look at the two most populous places in each country.

Metro London: 14,257,962 people in 8,382 km^2, density 1,700 people/km^2 (Wikipedia.) First COVID-19 case: (can't find a date.) Deaths to date: 2,700. Source

Metro Toronto: 5,928,040 people in 5,905.71 km^2, density, density 1,000 people/km^2 (Wikipedia.) First COVID-19case: January 21. Cases to date: 2,225; deaths: number unavailable, but it must be 279 or less because that's the total umber of deaths in Ontario. Source Canada as a whole has reported only 717 deaths.

London has seen more deaths from COVID-19 than Toronto has seen cases. Is Toronto's lower population density solely responsible for this?

That's en excellent point. Different countries, and areas within those countries, are still on different parts of the curve. My assumption that Canada's low case and death counts are the result of a decent (but not great) government response could be upended by a sudden surge in counts and/or the discovery that other factors such as climate, low population density, or ethnic mix played a role.

The UK introduced self isolation (quarantining) with contact tracing 20/02. All people with respiratory symptoms were asked to self isolate. There was not the resource in terms of testing available at that time to allow a South Korea type response. (South Korea did not introduce travel bans which shows that it is hard to know what part of response is useful and what not; but the evidence does not show travel bans are particularly important.)

The first case of UK in country transmission was 28/02. Social distancing was introduced on 03/03 but was voluntary. compulsory lockdown with closure of schools. pubs, etc. was brought in on 23/03.

A useful resource for reviewing a governments response are the ECDC contemporaneous documents e.g. for 03/03.
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/def...y-COVID-19.pdf
This gives the appropriate public health responses recommended at different stages of the epidemic. At this point the UK was in scenario 1, at which point the recommendation was case finding, isolation and contact tracing.

By 12 March the UK had 10 deaths and 590 cases, at which point it had entered ECDC scenario 2 which promotes social distancing, but not yet closing / banning mass gathering.

If you look at how UK government policy matched European recommendations published by ECDC, the Uk government actions followed recommendations.

In retrospect perhaps introducing a lock down a week earlier when Italy was clearly running into problems would have been correct. But the failure to see the future is not the same as incompetence. Everyone agrees that the UK government took the expert advice offered by its scientists, epidemiologists and public health teams. The one criticism that seems significant was that the social science unit suggested too strongly that introducing a lockdown too early would be counter productive.

ETA
Canada locked down on 17/03 and the UK on 23/03 although non-compulsory social distancing had been introduced earlier. So less than a week difference.

So we should be expecting your scientific paper to be published showing these results any moment now then?

Herd immunity is the only reasonable fallback solution available if there is no vaccine. Society can't go on like this forever, and at best it's the elderly that have to be isolated while the rest of us try to continue on with a resemblance of normality. It's telling that when a WHO official was asked about what would happen if there was no vaccine: he simply responded with something like "science will find a solution".

Edit: Here's the BBC article, it was not a WHO official but rather the UK's chief medical adviser:

Well he certainly has been. Google 'Dyson Ventilators" and you'd be forgiven for thinking he'd saved the human race rather than just... Hang on what has he actually done?

If you ever find yourself gasping for every single breath of air that you can possibly get into your wheezing frame, then you will be thankful for The Dyson CoVent blowing your lungs up till they look like balloons and causing enough barotrauma to finally put you out of your misery.

Prince William says Britain is 'at its best when we're in a crisis'

Would love to hear you explain how a lockdown cannot slow or even stop the spread of a contagious disease. It’s so utterly obvious for so many reasons and so much science has been published about it.

I've never said that "a lock-down cannot slow or even stop the spread of a contagious disease".

Besides, how's the situation in South Africa? How many homeless people have they shot to death in South Africa to get the homeless to stay in their homes? Have Covid deaths exceeded the amount of people who drown in pit latrines?

On the 10th of April, the UK recorded 980 deaths.

Eamonn Holmes is spreading 5G Coronavirus conspiracy theory on daytime TV.

If you’re wondering where your auntie is getting this nonsense from it’s not obscure internet conspiracy sites it’s mainstream ITV and Eamonn Holmes

The UK public and media are increasingly falling out with the police over each others handling of the virus and the cause is the badly worded Health Protection Regulations and general ignorance of what is allowed.

So far, BTP, Cambridgeshire (twice), Greater Manchester and Northants have all issued apologies (of sorts) about how their officers have dealt with situations and made mistakes about what the regs allow. Police Scotland keep posting a claim on social media, that only key workers are allowed to travel, which is not true.

If the police still have not got to grips with what is allowed and enforceable under the regulations, what hope have we got?

Then there is the issue of the police thinking that all they are doing is policing the lockdown. That is not the only issue. They need to recognise mental and other health issues caused by the lockdown and that for the countries long term health, we need as much economic activity to continue as possible. We are in a lockdown, not a curfew.

I don't think it's aunties you have to worry about sabotaging telecommunications antennae though.

Strange, every country seems to claim that. Of course it’s just one of those trite platitudes which are accepted as meaning something.

It’s a load of crap.

Which country or countries are using these?

The UK has apparently ordered 10 thousand of these things.

Meanwhile, for the people who find that Dyson branded equipment is out of their price range, there's this crazy contraption that some guy in Califonia without any experience in making medicinal products cobbled together:

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52251286

This is the kind of can-do spirit that is lacking in the UK!

866 Deaths (in hospitals) in England reported on 10/04 of which about 125 were on 09/04, about 350 on 08/04, about 150 on 07/04 the rest from earlier dates.

An analysis from 12/04 is here
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-...te-12th-april/
It is fairly obvious that deaths have plateaued in England. Deaths are also reported to have plateaued for Scotland. It seems unlikely that deaths will exceed 800 on any day in England, UK population is 66 million of which 55 million are English. On a pro rata basis it is unlikely total daily deaths in hospital for the UK will exceed 900 for any day. Like every other country the counting of community deaths has more of a lag, 2 weeks for E&W. You can see here registered deaths up to week 27/03 from the beginning of the year.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...tfg/edit#gid=0
Also the expected mortality is given based on weekly average over the last 5 years, there is an excess over predicted of 1% in the last week for which figures are available. This is significant, but lower than one sees associated with winter flu. It is likely to get worse.

Well someone is building parts for the Dyson Covent, and has been doing so for about a week.
https://www.buxtonadvertiser.co.uk/b...lators-2532159

And are these being double-counted? For axample, were the 350 that actually occurred on 08/04 also counted on some other day? If not, this point you've made a number of time now is actually pretty pedantic.

Allowing epidemic run it's course should be plan Z, not plan B. We are not in middle ages, FFS.

Newsflash: argument like "everyone else sucks too" does not help your case.

My intention is to force you to wonder if government and politicians that you support are actually worth supporting. Personal experience can cure one from being mindless follower.

Yes, ****** ventilator made by people without medical expertise is better than no ventilator.

You know what would be even better? Ventilator made by actual medical company.

Some people make astonishing arguments. Someone would think Dyson personally bribed them, not just politicians that they like. :rolleyes:

I am being pedantic, the meaning of which is educational, (putting the e in jref as was). I do hope if I make the point a sufficient number of times we will stop seeing people posting there were x deaths in the last 24 hours. Clearly the message is getting through! So I'll stop.

The message didn't need to 'get through'. People were happily using the shorthand and repeatedly being reminded by you that it was just shorthand. But if you want to claim it as a 'win', that's grand.

I at least argue based on facts that I reference.

Bribery is a crime in the UK if you have any evidence that James Dyson has bribed any member of the government then I would encourage you to report it to the police. If this is just a fantasy fact then it just reflects on the quality and basis of your argument. If you had any real justification you would not resort to making slanderous comments against other people or indeed against me. A principle of arguments here is we do not resort to ad hominems.

Perhaps your case would be sounder if you could identify the current UK manufacturers of ventilators who are twiddling their thumbs. The alternative sources that could make up the global shortfall without getting new manufacturing capability on line.

Your argument against the ventilator seems to be that you disagree with the political views of the owner of the company. I have no idea what James Dyson's views on politics are. I do know he does a lot to promote engineering and science.
https://www.jamesdysonfoundation.co.uk

I don't really understand why you're trying to hammer this point home. Italy will have had reporting issues, too, as will all other countries. And it's entirely irrelevant to the point, which is that there is a massive gulf between how the situation in the UK is perceived and how the situation in Italy a couple of weeks prior was perceived, despite the two being directly comparable. That the figures aren't 100% accurate, that they don't literally give the figures from a single 24 hour period, and that different official sources list slightly different figures doesn't really change any of that.

Wasn't that pretty much what his gran said in her speech?

Thanks for the timeline.

So far, so good.

Which is exactly what Canada did. In the USA, the state of California, which has a population slightly larger than Canada's and a significantly higher population density, did very much the same thing with very similar outcomes. In fact, as of yesterday California was doing better than Canada on infections and deaths per million population. But I'm not sure how close together the two areas are on the growth curve.

That's what I'm finding to be the most curious part of all this. The politicians in the UK were listening to the scientists and taking their input seriously, unlike a certain North American country with an orange haired buffoon as its leader. And yet it appears the UK fumbled the ball. By all accounts Canada is faring far better than both countries. Although as of today our death counts are increasing at a faster pace: yesterday Canada's death count was up +10% from the day before, compared to the USA at 7.3% and the UK 6.8%. The bad news is 7.3% of 20,454 deaths and 6.8% of 10,612 deaths is still more deaths in one day than Canada has seen in total (717 as of yesterday.)

The UK went into lockdown on the day after there were 5,683 confirmed cases and 281 deaths.

In Canada, health care is the role of provinces, so it's the provinces that declare public health emergencies and set regulations for reducing the spread. Therefore the response across Canada differed slightly in each province. Quebec declared the first state of emergency on 12 March, followed by Prince Edward Island on the 16th, Alberta and Ontario on the 17th, six provinces on the 18th, and the remaining three on 19, 20 and 22 March. One can say that by 18 March most of Canada was under a state of emergency, because by that time all of the most populous provinces had declared one. Canada's numbers as of the end of 17 March were 598 cases and 8 deaths. So most of Canada was "in lockdown" (under a state of emergency) far sooner on the curve than the UK was.

With regard to "less than a week difference," when the number of infections in an open (that is, not locked down) population doubles every two days, six days means three full doublings. That's a fairly hefty head start to the epidemic when every day counts.

No need - the numbers speak for themselves.

Compare Sweden - 10m pop, 961 deaths, 465 new cases yesterday, with:

Australia - 25m pop, 61 deaths, 46 new cases yesterday, or,

NZ - 5m pop, 5 deaths, 19 new cases yesterday.

Which of those countries look like they're well on the way to eradicating Covid-19?

Because the UK was running, for a damaging amount of time, with the wrong ball; the ball of 'mitigation' and rapidly acquired 'herd immunity'.

A Tale of Two Countries
 

I have an interesting perspective. I developed covid-17 symptoms on Sunday March 15, after a trip to Paris, my wife developed symptoms a couple of days later.

My first symptoms was a persistent dry cough, this soon turned into a painful cough, a low level fever, and feeling weak and rundown. We used the UK NHS 111 online tool, which told us to stay home in isolation for 7-14 days. No test was done. My wife never developed anything more than fever and pain in the lung area, which eventually went away, but she was exhausted for 3 weeks.

I got every single symptom. I lost my sense of smell and taste, I lost weight, I had pain when coughing, I had diarrhoea, and one day I had difficulty breathing. At no point was I offered a test, and even when my breathing got bad I was not offered any medical attention, stay at home was the only advice.

Symptoms went away and came back, during the third week I had chest pain and I was taken to the hospital after a call to 999. They did not test me as it was week 3, and they were running out of tests, but everyone assumed I had covid-19 and I was taken to the "Red Zone" with other infected patients. My heart results and x-ray came out fine, and I was released the same day.

The problem is that I was allowed to go out even though I was still not well, and had I been irresponsible I might have infected more people. Now I am feeling 100% back to normal, but it was quite scary, and I wasn't even as sick as other people.

The lack of testing in the UK is criminal, no doubt it will make things worse in the long run.

Now for the comparison. As luck would have it, my brother developed symptoms in Costa Rica in March 17. Costa Rica has been doing a very good job so far, him and his family were immediately tested, and all came positive. They were all isolated and the people they had contact with were told to isolate as well. He eventually was taken to the ICU and put in oxygen, but not a ventilator. He was eventually released, but he has not been allowed out of isolation until he has two negative tests, and as of two days ago he still had virus in his system.

Costa Rica has only had 3 deaths, and over 500 confirmed cases. That is how you flatten the curve. The UK is set for more pain until we get our act together and get testing done properly, this current strategy of flying blind is madness.

I spent an unpleasantly large part of my childhood in an oxygen tent. I can think of better ways to go...

I guess we have the 'best' leadership we could hope for then.

Based on those numbers alone it is impossible to tell. No doubt Aus and NZ are currently doing well but trends can only be determined over time.

When?