COVID-19

[FlammableFlower]

After sleeping on it (albeit for 3 hours), I think my business partner and I are going to make the decision to cancel our three outdoor theatre tours with 160 combined dates.

Our tours will be in their most busy, and thus most expensive, period right when the experts are predicting the peak of the virus to hit.

We think it would be irresponsible to encourage mass gatherings when so many serious cases will be happening.

We also can’t make any guarantees that our casts won’t get I’ll and have to self-isolate, meaning the tours would be unviable for 7-14 days. Or that the Govt will put a ban on gatherings in place in the next phase.

That means 16 actors, 2 musical directors, a set designer and writer/director won’t make any money from us this year. It also means we won’t have any form of income stream until January.

Crikey, all the best headshot.

[secret squirrel]

Tourism way down in Thailand due to virus fears. Lower tourism means less food for monkeys. Less food for monkeys means thousand strong monkey battle.

This is fun. I always enjoy a good monkey story.

However, it's not just monkeys that depend on tourism to eat. As others have said about events companies etc, one bad season will cause a lot of people big problems. Hopefully it's only monkeys that will erupt into large-scale violence.

Yes it's true. The political situation in Thailand is tense at the best of times, what with the military government openly rigging the election in their favour, still not being able to win properly, then disbanding rival parties and prosecuting their leaders. Only 10 years since the army were shooting protesters by the dozen in the streets of Bangkok too.

At least they have universal health care though.

Also, Thailand seems to be much safer than Europe in terms of covid-19, if you believe the official figures (which I'm not sure I do).

[Vertigowooyay]

indeed, viruses don't like to dry out or get too warm. They are susceptible to UV, so sunlight has an added effect. I was taught that viruses were more likely to spread in winter because we all spend more time indoors in groups, but that seems less plausible with a 21st century developed world lifestyle - it doesn't feel to me like I spend all of my summer outdoors in the fresh air! But it’s all about pushing the R0 down, so small factors combined with a general increase in herd immunity through the season probably make a significant difference.

f.ck. If climate change slows the virus down, deniers are going to be absolutely *insufferable*...

[lpm]

Critical care beds. In beds per 100,000. Germany appears to have more critical care beds per person than the UK has total hospital beds per person.

[Pucksoppet]

After sleeping on it (albeit for 3 hours), I think my business partner and I are going to make the decision to cancel our three outdoor theatre tours with 160 combined dates.

Our tours will be in their most busy, and thus most expensive, period right when the experts are predicting the peak of the virus to hit.

We think it would be irresponsible to encourage mass gatherings when so many serious cases will be happening.

We also can’t make any guarantees that our casts won’t get I’ll and have to self-isolate, meaning the tours would be unviable for 7-14 days. Or that the Govt will put a ban on gatherings in place in the next phase.

That means 16 actors, 2 musical directors, a set designer and writer/director won’t make any money from us this year. It also means we won’t have any form of income stream until January.

That is Not Good. I hope you find a reasonable solution, and you are not affected too much.

[Woodchopper]

Critical care beds. In beds per 100,000. Germany appears to have more critical care beds per person than the UK has total hospital beds per person.

This isn't plausible. No way has Uruguay several times more beds than Sweden. I expect that someone has compiled the data without taking account of wildly differing national definitions of what counts as a critical care bed.

[Woodchopper]

After sleeping on it (albeit for 3 hours), I think my business partner and I are going to make the decision to cancel our three outdoor theatre tours with 160 combined dates.

Our tours will be in their most busy, and thus most expensive, period right when the experts are predicting the peak of the virus to hit.

We think it would be irresponsible to encourage mass gatherings when so many serious cases will be happening.

We also can’t make any guarantees that our casts won’t get I’ll and have to self-isolate, meaning the tours would be unviable for 7-14 days. Or that the Govt will put a ban on gatherings in place in the next phase.

That means 16 actors, 2 musical directors, a set designer and writer/director won’t make any money from us this year. It also means we won’t have any form of income stream until January.

Crikey, all the best headshot.

That's bad. I hope things work out in the long run.

[Woodchopper]

From twitter:

The world is conducting a formal experiment in pandemic containment. The UK has been designated as the control group.

This thing about why some of us Scrutablists are challenging expert scientists? We are challenging UK scientists. Who are challenging the view taken by scientists in the rest of the world.

Outlier is a scary place.

The UK advice may have to take into account factors other than epidemiology. Purely as a hypothetical scenario, if a senior police officer were to state that particular advice would result in panic and public disorder, that advice may have to be changed. For example the Italian prison riots following changes in visiting rules.

[Pucksoppet]

Previous pandemics have gone in waves. Perhaps they're trying to prevent the waves.

Tonight's press conference was pretty sobering.

The CSO specifically said we need to start social distancing measures at the last time its feasible to start. That feels intuitively wrong which makes me think my intuition is off. I'm missing something. I think it might be the this:

Lot of us are assuming that China/Japan/South Korea are managing well. But what if they're just managing well in the short term but storing up problems for later. China in particular has used extreme measures - travel restrictions on most of the population with a whole province where most people aren't allowed to leave their homes at all (1 person per family allowed to leave for 2 hours once a week to collect supplies). They can't keep that up forever and they have millions of people with no resistance sitting in their homes. They've bought time to improve hospital facilities and mass produce testing kits. But if a viable vaccine is 15-24 months away there is a long way to go. And as we've seen from every country in Europe you only need a few cases to spark a new exponential wave.

I think a lot of people are thinking we're going to be over the peak quite quickly. What if in a years time it's still worse than it is today. That's a long time for serious social distancing measures. With the potential to crash the economy in ways that have a knock on negative impact on health.

There's also some counter intuitive comments around closing borders and stopping mass events. That it makes a marginal difference (I think the CSO said they thought stopping flights from China would have caused a delay of about 1 day). And that actually the main focus is on mass producing testing kits not trying to close borders or stop specific points of transmission (apart from the general "whole population" delaying tactics like the handwashing mantra).

You highlight some interesting points there which I would like to understand better too.

It strikes me that mass production and distribution of reliable testing kits is a useful thing to do. Social distancing; self-isolation on suspicion of illness; and availability of treatment to those tested positive with worsening symptoms seems a reasonable strategy.

As for the testing kits: something like home pregnancy tests distributed gratis at food shops might be sensible. People have to buy food anyway, so it is a distribution chain that people have to use in some way regardless of infection status.

Of course, home pregnancy tests have had decades to be optimised. Expecting something as easy and convenient to use to be drummed up in a few weeks is unreasonable.

[headshot]

Genuine question: what makes the body respond differently to a virus?

Why are some people asymptomatic, mildly symptomatic or worse?

I have to admit complete ignorance.

[lpm]

It's in societal collapse and financial chaos that Bitcoin is finally proving its value. This is the age of Bitcoin. The price must be absolutely soaring to... let me just check the latest... er... well, that's odd.

And flash mobs. You never see flash mobs these days. They used to be all the rage. Couldn't go to a shopping centre without some bloke suddenly starting to sing, and then 2,000 people popping up to join in. At one point, the internet was over 39% videos of flash mobs, beating kittens at 38%. But today? Nothing. This is a shame. My goal for the next month is a return to flash mobs.

[badger]

After sleeping on it (albeit for 3 hours), I think my business partner and I are going to make the decision to cancel our three outdoor theatre tours with 160 combined dates.

Our tours will be in their most busy, and thus most expensive, period right when the experts are predicting the peak of the virus to hit.

We think it would be irresponsible to encourage mass gatherings when so many serious cases will be happening.

We also can’t make any guarantees that our casts won’t get I’ll and have to self-isolate, meaning the tours would be unviable for 7-14 days. Or that the Govt will put a ban on gatherings in place in the next phase.

That means 16 actors, 2 musical directors, a set designer and writer/director won’t make any money from us this year. It also means we won’t have any form of income stream until January.

Sorry to hear that, but understandable in the circumstances. You may already be on to this, but is it worth talk to Arts Council and other public bodies about coordinating representation to govt for help/support?

[Gentleman Jim]

The Wuhan strain has been identified as a new strain of Betacoronavirus from group 2B with approximately 70% genetic similarity to the SARS-CoV.[63] The virus has a 96% similarity to a bat coronavirus, so it is widely suspected to originate from bats as well.

Cohen J (26 January 2020). "Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally". ScienceMag American Association for the Advancement of Science. (AAAS).
Eschner K (28 January 2020). "We're still not sure where the COVID-19 really came from". Popular Science. Archived

[headshot]

After sleeping on it (albeit for 3 hours), I think my business partner and I are going to make the decision to cancel our three outdoor theatre tours with 160 combined dates.

Our tours will be in their most busy, and thus most expensive, period right when the experts are predicting the peak of the virus to hit.

We think it would be irresponsible to encourage mass gatherings when so many serious cases will be happening.

We also can’t make any guarantees that our casts won’t get I’ll and have to self-isolate, meaning the tours would be unviable for 7-14 days. Or that the Govt will put a ban on gatherings in place in the next phase.

That means 16 actors, 2 musical directors, a set designer and writer/director won’t make any money from us this year. It also means we won’t have any form of income stream until January.

Sorry to hear that, but understandable in the circumstances. You may already be on to this, but is it worth talk to Arts Council and other public bodies about coordinating representation to govt for help/support?

There’s a meeting of the U.K. Theatres group next week at which we have partners representing the outdoor sector. This will all be discussed there.

[purplehaze]

Glastonbury is still going ahead.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-51860319

Which I think is a foolish decision, unlike the very sensible decision you and your colleagues have made Headshot.

[Opti]

Glastonbury is still going ahead.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-51860319

Which I think is a foolish decision, unlike the very sensible decision you and your colleagues have made Headshot.

This announcement has provoked a fairly intense backlash from other sectors of the live music industry. Glastonbury isn't Mr Popular trousers just now.

[discovolante]

No. Lower alcohol levels will still work, but take more time to work.

Thanks.

[lpm]

Has Boris Johnson run the "herd immunity" basic maths? I've run the basic maths.

60,000,000 people. Want to get 60% immunity quickly via allowing the active deadly disease to spread. Means 36,000,000 people to catch it. Over 180 days that's 200,000 new infections per day.

Compares to around 10,000 a day currently in Italy and South Korea.

10% to 20% need hospitalisation. So 20,000 to 40,000 new admissions per day. The normal daily average in the UK is about 40,000 per day, so a 50% to 100% increase in admissions.

160,000 beds available, typically 90% used. The number of beds needs to double, with nurses etc to go with them.

2,000 to 8,000 Covid fatalities per day. Plus elevated fatalities from all other causes.

And all this is with achieving a magical even daily case load instead of a curve with a peak 2x higher, or 5x higher, or 10x higher.

To me, the govt policy seems likely to give a peak in the general region of 500,000 to 1,000,000 new infections in a single day.

[Gfamily]

For what its worth, the link within your original post goes to your own google drive, and thus visible name (which maybe you knew and are happy with).

I think I'm OK with that, but the heads-up is appreciated - next time I'll link to the individual pdfs

Have now removed the link to the folder, as the individual documents are on the following links provided by mikeh
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 20022566v1
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 20023036v1

[jimbob]

From twitter:

The world is conducting a formal experiment in pandemic containment. The UK has been designated as the control group.

This thing about why some of us Scrutablists are challenging expert scientists? We are challenging UK scientists. Who are challenging the view taken by scientists in the rest of the world.

Outlier is a scary place.

Well it's the British Way.

BSE - keep saying nothing is wrong for far too long
Salmonella in eggs - sack the minister who highlighted the issue
Foot and Mouth (2000) - ignore lessons from the 1967 outbreak and allow transport of highly infectious animals all around the country for a couple of weeks after the initial outbreak was identified.
Bovine TB - pursue an approach that is known not to work for a decade, whilst again being lax on transportation restrictions in affected areas.

[jimbob]

Has Boris Johnson run the "herd immunity" basic maths? I've run the basic maths.

60,000,000 people. Want to get 60% immunity quickly via allowing the active deadly disease to spread. Means 36,000,000 people to catch it. Over 180 days that's 200,000 new infections per day.

Compares to around 10,000 a day currently in Italy and South Korea.

10% to 20% need hospitalisation. So 20,000 to 40,000 new admissions per day. The normal daily average in the UK is about 40,000 per day, so a 50% to 100% increase in admissions.

160,000 beds available, typically 90% used. The number of beds needs to double, with nurses etc to go with them.

2,000 to 8,000 Covid fatalities per day. Plus elevated fatalities from all other causes.

And all this is with achieving a magical even daily case load instead of a curve with a peak 2x higher, or 5x higher, or 10x higher.

To me, the govt policy seems likely to give a peak in the general region of 500,000 to 1,000,000 new infections in a single day.

yes, but it's closer to 70-Million not 60-Million* people so you need to up your numbers appropriately.

It's a bugbear of my youngest daughter

[lpm]

60 and 60% and 360 day years works so well for doing maths in your head, though. Those Babylonians were pretty damn smart with the 60 thing.

[Little waster]

From twitter:

The world is conducting a formal experiment in pandemic containment. The UK has been designated as the control group.

This thing about why some of us Scrutablists are challenging expert scientists? We are challenging UK scientists. Who are challenging the view taken by scientists in the rest of the world.

Outlier is a scary place.

Well it's the British Way.

BSE - keep saying nothing is wrong for far too long
Salmonella in eggs - sack the minister who highlighted the issue
Foot and Mouth (2000) - ignore lessons from the 1967 outbreak and allow transport of highly infectious animals all around the country for a couple of weeks after the initial outbreak was identified.
Bovine TB - pursue an approach that is known not to work for a decade, whilst again being lax on transportation restrictions in affected areas.

Have we tried to stop COVID-19 by killing badgers yet, asking for the NFU.

[shpalman]

Has Boris Johnson run the "herd immunity" basic maths? I've run the basic maths.

60,000,000 people. Want to get 60% immunity quickly via allowing the active deadly disease to spread. Means 36,000,000 people to catch it. Over 180 days that's 200,000 new infections per day.

Compares to around 10,000 a day currently in Italy and South Korea.

10% to 20% need hospitalisation. So 20,000 to 40,000 new admissions per day. The normal daily average in the UK is about 40,000 per day, so a 50% to 100% increase in admissions.

160,000 beds available, typically 90% used. The number of beds needs to double, with nurses etc to go with them.

2,000 to 8,000 Covid fatalities per day. Plus elevated fatalities from all other causes.

And all this is with achieving a magical even daily case load instead of a curve with a peak 2x higher, or 5x higher, or 10x higher.

To me, the govt policy seems likely to give a peak in the general region of 500,000 to 1,000,000 new infections in a single day.

More like 2000 new cases per day here, officially. Italy officially has 12839 active infections as of yesterday evening, of which 7803 are in the hospital. 1153 of those are in intensive care. It's 100-150 net new ICU cases per day and about 800 new non-ICU cases per day.

[Trinucleus]

Following the Governments proposal that big crowds are ok but vulnerable people should consider avoiding them, the football authorities have decided to cancel all games for the next two weeks.

B*gger