Do you support another two week lockdown?

Do you support another two week lockdown?

  • Yes

    Votes: 35 46.7%
  • No

    Votes: 40 53.3%

  • Total voters
    75
Definitely 100% I want two weeks of putting my feet up. I'm being run ragged at the minute and would love some down time.
 
No point in a lockdown if test, trace, isolate isn't used effectively in the post lockdown period. That's why it's 'out of control' again. Political failure, N, S and W of the border.

Is there any proof that test and trace isnt working? I know labour and the media are always screaming about it, but is there any proof?
 
We get those numbers if we have a circuit breaker now or not, in fact what it does show is that if we're going to go down the circuit breaker route we should save it until we really need it, not use it as a political stunt because we must do something.

Does anyone have any idea what the NHS could cope with in terms of covid patient numbers? We're at about 5,000 today, I think there's about 12,000 spaces in the Nightingale's not yet being used, could we cope with 20,000 patients? How about more?
That's why I mentioned a full lockdown even stricter than before, perhaps more like Italy or France or more extreme - however that can only be countenenced from an economic perspective if we are almost certain that we have an effective vaccine that is almost ready.
If the figures you have calculated are anywhere near accurate then I can forsee a situation where people are asked to sign a disclaimer before being given a not fully tested vaccine (in the traditional sense of fully tested) - the alternative will be an NHS that is overrun with people being turned away from hospitals and dying when they would have lived. And of course the inevitable social disorder, anger and who knows what else?
 
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That's why I mentioned a full lockdown even stricter than before, perhaps more like Italy or France or more extreme - however that can only be countenenced from an economic perspective if we are almost certain that we have an effective vaccine that is almost ready.

I've seen no evidence that France/Spain's super strict lockdown was any more effective than ours.

Anyway I've run a few scenarios that keep patient numbers below certain thresholds to see what it would look like:
1602691467062.png

If the target is one million cases per week or fewer then it's 2 weekly lockdowns:
  • 2 weeks from today;
  • 2 weeks after that;
  • 3 weeks after that;
  • 5 weeks after that;
for a grand total of 8 weeks lockdown over November, December and January.

The upside is that only about 35% of the population get the virus, the downside is that there's a risk that compliance may be more limited with multiple lockdowns and we may be less well prepared going into next winter.

If we can manage 1.5m cases per week then:
  • lockdown 3 weeks from today;
  • second lockdown 3 weeks after that;
for a grand total of 4 weeks lockdown in November/December.

The upside, only 2 lockdowns, the downside, there's a very long tail to the epidemic so of all the scenarios this one generates the most cases, about 53% of the population.

If we can manage 2m per week cases then:
  • lockdown 4 weeks from today;
  • lockdown 5 weeks after that.
The upside of this case is that 48% of the population are infected, however what happens in this scenario is that R drops below 1 during the second lockdown thus the virus never stages a comeback, in this scenario I would perhaps recommend the final lockdown be extended to 3 weeks, which would bring case numbers down to where they are today and avoid maybe 2m cases in total.
 
Lost Seasider, wish you would get "lost"! Your posts are becoming increasingly obsessed with trying to prove the points you are raising are correct!
One thing that a circuit break would do is provide time for these incompetent fools to try and fix the "world beating" test, track and trace system!
It's now well recognised that the lockdown in March was too late, primarily because that lazy bumbling oaf was too busy avoiding Cobra meetings and attending rugby matches whilst shaking hands with all and sundry. Also visiting Covid patients in hospital and shaking hands!
Do they never learn? Looks like the same mistakes are being made again. If he had followed scientific advice, another lockdown should have been implemented on 21 September, BEFORE we saw the huge increase in infections since then!
 
One thing that a circuit break would do is provide time for these incompetent fools to try and fix the "world beating" test, track and trace system!

Show me your workings.

Oh, and how much difference do you think 2 weeks is going to make if they haven't managed it after 6 months?
 
It would be easy for me to say yes because I am a retiree (and therefore have no friends or social life OL), but I have two adult kids, and one of them was made redundant due to C-19. I'm certainly no expert, but no longer how long the "circuit breaker" or lock-down is in place, the last few weeks/months suggest it will return anyway, but with much much higher costs to the economy, jobs, and peoples' mental & physical health.

I voted no because there isn't a "I don't have a clue" button
 
I've seen no evidence that France/Spain's super strict lockdown was any more effective than ours.

Anyway I've run a few scenarios that keep patient numbers below certain thresholds to see what it would look like:
View attachment 3192

If the target is one million cases per week or fewer then it's 2 weekly lockdowns:
  • 2 weeks from today;
  • 2 weeks after that;
  • 3 weeks after that;
  • 5 weeks after that;
for a grand total of 8 weeks lockdown over November, December and January.

The upside is that only about 35% of the population get the virus, the downside is that there's a risk that compliance may be more limited with multiple lockdowns and we may be less well prepared going into next winter.

If we can manage 1.5m cases per week then:
  • lockdown 3 weeks from today;
  • second lockdown 3 weeks after that;
for a grand total of 4 weeks lockdown in November/December.

The upside, only 2 lockdowns, the downside, there's a very long tail to the epidemic so of all the scenarios this one generates the most cases, about 53% of the population.

If we can manage 2m per week cases then:
  • lockdown 4 weeks from today;
  • lockdown 5 weeks after that.
The upside of this case is that 48% of the population are infected, however what happens in this scenario is that R drops below 1 during the second lockdown thus the virus never stages a comeback, in this scenario I would perhaps recommend the final lockdown be extended to 3 weeks, which would bring case numbers down to where they are today and avoid maybe 2m cases in total.
As I’ve said above, I think your case number projections are likely to be over-estimated. We possibly got to a level of maybe 100K -200K per day last time, but the virus clearly had limitations....

For starters, the more the numbers increase, then the more people are likely to isolate out of choice and so you would expect the R rate to come down.

It’s therefore likely that ‘herd immunity’ (and when I talk about herd immunity, I mean in the context of a society that is taking active measures to socially distance) would be achieved at a much lower level.... Arguably 10- 15% infected could easily be enough to trigger it.... Wr also need to bear in mind that perhaps 10% may already have some immunity from last time around....

Do unless we were simply just carrying on business as usual, I really don’t think that 35% of the population would contract the virus... not in the short term at least.
 
As I’ve said above, I think your case number projections are likely to be over-estimated. We possibly got to a level of maybe 100K -200K per day last time, but the virus clearly had limitations....

Those limitations were called lockdown and summer.


For starters, the more the numbers increase, then the more people are likely to isolate out of choice and so you would expect the R rate to come down.

Well in that case the pandemic bubbles along at 500k - 1m per week for the next five months and we end up in much the same place anyway.

In any event my focus was on the effect of a circuit breaker and in particular whether we need one today, 3 weeks from now or 4 weeks ago, the answer seems to be "not yet, wait and see what happens with NHS capacity".
 
Those limitations were called lockdown and summer.




Well in that case the pandemic bubbles along at 500k - 1m per week for the next five months and we end up in much the same place anyway.

In any event my focus was on the effect of a circuit breaker and in particular whether we need one today, 3 weeks from now or 4 weeks ago, the answer seems to be "not yet, wait and see what happens with NHS capacity".

Well the virus was also limited by the 'light-touch' measures in Sweden so I think there is likely more too it than lockdown and the weather...

I understand how you are coming at it. I just think that the modelling of the "optimum lockdown" is likely to be extremely sketchy... The timing of that relies on the idea that the virus would continue to rise exponentially and that a significant portion of the popuation would be infected.... My expectation would be that the virus would burn out long before we got to that kind of level.... So it might possibly hit the 1M infection per week level, but then fall off from there.

That for me is why the circuit breaker is pointless.... I'm also struggling to grasp the logic of bringing students home from the Universites too...Surely now that we're dealing with that pain point, it seems illogical to bring students back to potentially draw the pandemic into households?
 
Well the virus was also limited by the 'light-touch' measures in Sweden so I think there is likely more too it than lockdown and the weather...

Sweden never got the same level of "seeding" as we did, together with France and Spain, it also performed far worse than their near neighbours.


I understand how you are coming at it. I just think that the modelling of the "optimum lockdown" is likely to be extremely sketchy... The timing of that relies on the idea that the virus would continue to rise exponentially and that a significant portion of the popuation would be infected.... My expectation would be that the virus would burn out long before we got to that kind of level.... So it might possibly hit the 1M infection per week level, but then fall off from there.

I think what's important is that it shows that timing of the lockdown is important, too early and it's ineffective and simply requires a repeat lockdown two weeks after you've come out of lockdown.

It's a very useful tool if we get to the stage where the NHS is approaching breaking point, it's not the magic wand that Sir Odd Stammer seems to think it is.
 
Sweden never got the same level of "seeding" as we did, together with France and Spain, it also performed far worse than their near neighbours.




I think what's important is that it shows that timing of the lockdown is important, too early and it's ineffective and simply requires a repeat lockdown two weeks after you've come out of lockdown.

It's a very useful tool if we get to the stage where the NHS is approaching breaking point, it's not the magic wand that Sir Odd Stammer seems to think it is.
There is no magic wand 👍 The sooner people realise that and accept some form of damage limitation as the only viable approach the better.
Full on lockdowns are a short term deterrent not a cure. We’ve been made aware from the very start that damage limitation whilst protecting the NHS and the economy are our only options till either a vaccine or herd immunity occur.
 
Sweden never got the same level of "seeding" as we did, together with France and Spain, it also performed far worse than their near neighbours.




I think what's important is that it shows that timing of the lockdown is important, too early and it's ineffective and simply requires a repeat lockdown two weeks after you've come out of lockdown.

It's a very useful tool if we get to the stage where the NHS is approaching breaking point, it's not the magic wand that Sir Odd Stammer seems to think it is.
I’m not sue the seeding is particularly relevant tbh. They certainly experienced significant infection in the population (possibly more than us) So at some point the situation was comparable. So it was still self limiting, based on their light touch measures.

I don’t think it really does show that the timing is important tbh. I think if you actually considered the impact of the natural virus progression (considering the basic suppression measures) then it would have fizzled out long before any idea of optimum timing for a lockdown.

It also fails to address how an earlier lockdown might enable track and trace to become more effective and be better suppressed due to low numbers.

I can see what you have tried to do, but the model is so limited it’s essentially meaningless really.
 
The choice we have is either the level 3 local lockdown that could last an indeterminate amount of time or a 2-week national circuit break not between the break and nothing. I just can't see things remaining the same here. Economically it is the former that will do more damage if it lasts 4 or 6 weeks while also being ineffective in stopping the virus. Though I have reservations about the 2-week circuit break too as we have left it too late at least that is survivable financially.
 
I don’t think it really does show that the timing is important tbh. I think if you actually considered the impact of the natural virus progression (considering the basic suppression measures) then it would have fizzled out long before any idea of optimum timing for a lockdown.

Well, there is the possibility that your theory of magic immunity or that the virus is somehow "self-limiting" is in fact wrong, that no such effect exists and is simply wishful thinking on your part.

At a minimum it looks like a sensible idea to plan for scenarios where the virus doesn't simply disappear of its own accord, and if it does then we don't need to implement the circuit breaker at all.


It also fails to address how an earlier lockdown might enable track and trace to become more effective and be better suppressed due to low numbers.

What is T&T going to do differently in two weeks time that it can't do after six months?

The reduction in numbers would likely only last a few days so that won't help either.
 
Well, there is the possibility that your theory of magic immunity or that the virus is somehow "self-limiting" is in fact wrong, that no such effect exists and is simply wishful thinking on your part.

At a minimum it looks like a sensible idea to plan for scenarios where the virus doesn't simply disappear of its own accord, and if it does then we don't need to implement the circuit breaker at all.




What is T&T going to do differently in two weeks time that it can't do after six months?

The reduction in numbers would likely only last a few days so that won't help either.
It’s not so much ‘magic immunity’ as simply reaching what constitutes ‘herd immunity’ in an environment where significant measures are being taken to suppress the virus. It’s inevitable that would be much lower than when normal mixing takes place.... It’s possible it’s wishful thinking, though it has been evidenced to some extent in Sweden, during the first spike.

I absolutely agree with the principle that we should be looking for more sustainable solutions and that the benefit of a circuit breaker is likely to be short lived, in just not sure that the model really does much to prove or disprove anything in particular..

On T&T I’m not sure... It’s possible that it has improved over time and may now be helped by the app and more local focus.... The point I was making is that other significant factors exist that will impact the model.... For example we are likely to have less death by spreading the virus over a longer term than a shorter term, due to the risk of overwhelming the NHS.... That isn’t factored in to the model... if it were, then it’s possible that a series of circuit breaks could significantly reduce the number of deaths (again just an example, but to highlight the obvious flaws in such simplistic modelling)
 
It’s not so much ‘magic immunity’ as simply reaching what constitutes ‘herd immunity’ in an environment where significant measures are being taken to suppress the virus. It’s inevitable that would be much lower than when normal mixing takes place....

This is all factored into the model.

There are 2 key estimates, the R rate and the proportion of the population that have been infected and have immunity.

The R rate is the current estimated R of 1.5 adjusted to 1.65 (perhaps a touch on the high side) to allow for those who are already immune, this includes current control measures.

The immune population is the 7% that are believed to have been infected, if substantially more people are already immune then it means that the underlying R is much higher and the two effects cancel out, so if your theory is correct it actually means that far more people will need to contract the virus to achieve herd immunity.
 
This is all factored into the model.

There are 2 key estimates, the R rate and the proportion of the population that have been infected and have immunity.

The R rate is the current estimated R of 1.5 adjusted to 1.65 (perhaps a touch on the high side) to allow for those who are already immune, this includes current control measures.

The immune population is the 7% that are believed to have been infected, if substantially more people are already immune then it means that the underlying R is much higher and the two effects cancel out, so if your theory is correct it actually means that far more people will need to contract the virus to achieve herd immunity.
I’ve already linked models that show the flaws in the basic binary R : Herd Immunity level equation. To the extent that herd immunity can be achieved at 17% with an R of 2.4.

Not sure about using a reproductive rate of 1,5 or 1.65. I’d say that’s likely to be off the mark. These levels are at the upper end of the estimate as things were a couple of weeks ago.

I’m talking about a situation where we have implemented measures to suppress the virus, in the form of the proposed Tier 1,2,3 measures... which is essentially the alternative to circuit-break...
 
I’ve already linked models that show the flaws in the basic binary R : Herd Immunity level equation. To the extent that herd immunity can be achieved at 17% with an R of 2.4.

Haven't seen those, care to link again.


Not sure about using a reproductive rate of 1,5 or 1.65. I’d say that’s likely to be off the mark. These levels are at the upper end of the estimate as things were a couple of weeks ago.

Not far enough off the mark to matter, 1.65 is the Ro by the way, what R would be if there was no immunity, it forms the basis for the calcution of effective R as the population develops immunity over time.


’m talking about a situation where we have implemented measures to suppress the virus, in the form of the proposed Tier 1,2,3 measures... which is essentially the alternative to circuit-break...

Which is what we have already and which gives us the R rates I've used.


Out of interest I've run the numbers if we assume that 21% of the population already has immunity (I don't believe this scenario one bit):
1602707198588.png
No significant difference from the scenarios already outlined.
 
Haven't seen those, care to link again.




Not far enough off the mark to matter, 1.65 is the Ro by the way, what R would be if there was no immunity, it forms the basis for the calcution of effective R as the population develops immunity over time.




Which is what we have already and which gives us the R rates I've used.


Out of interest I've run the numbers if we assume that 21% of the population already has immunity (I don't believe this scenario one bit):
View attachment 3197
No significant difference from the scenarios already outlined.


If you take Sweden as a case in point.... It looks like the virus started to turn round when maybe 10-15% of population had been infected. So essentially the virus appears to run out of steam at that point, in those circumstances.

That’s not to say if measures were relaxed it wouldn’t rise again. It’s just you reach a level of herd immunity to suit the level of mixing.

In the case of the U.K. the current estimate for R, reflects the position up to 2nd October as reported on 9th October. The mid range is 1.35.

Also, the point you seem to have ignored is how we account for the NHS becoming overrun. You seem to be assuming a simple ratio of case numbers to death, but that would never be the case.... If the virus were to reach that point, then significant additional death (from a whole range of angles would result)...

There’s not a car in hells chance of 35 Million people in the UK contracting Covid this Winter however.... So something ain’t right!
 
It might buy us anything between 5 and 28 days.I was always rubbish at science at school but I’m glad we’ve got these experts 😀
 
Haven't seen those, care to link again.




Not far enough off the mark to matter, 1.65 is the Ro by the way, what R would be if there was no immunity, it forms the basis for the calcution of effective R as the population develops immunity over time.




Which is what we have already and which gives us the R rates I've used.


Out of interest I've run the numbers if we assume that 21% of the population already has immunity (I don't believe this scenario one bit):
View attachment 3197
No significant difference from the scenarios already outlined.
How those long autumnal evenings must fly by in the Lost Seasider household.
 
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