Covid-19 the unlockdown

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Brightonian
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by Brightonian » Wed Sep 16, 2020 10:41 pm

Coronavirus: Rhondda Cynon Taf to go into local lockdown amid rise in cases

Snippets from that story, a tale of a journey where they never got to their destination (would make a good play I reckon):
A cluster of cases has been traced back to an apparent trip to the races, which was said to have stopped at a series of pubs.
...
Local lockdown measures are to be imposed in the Welsh county of Rhondda Cynon Taf after a rise in coronavirus cases.
...
two key clusters of cases were identified at "a rugby club and pub in the lower Rhondda" and "a club outing to the Doncaster races, which stopped off at a series of pubs on the way".
...
The Welsh Government later said that although the group intended to go to the races, "the party did not enter the racecourse as originally planned".

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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by Bird on a Fire » Wed Sep 16, 2020 11:25 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Tue Sep 15, 2020 1:50 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Sep 14, 2020 5:23 pm
So, the "Rule of 6".

No meeting up with groups of more than 6 people, unless it's for:
Education (schools and universities)
Weddings & Funerals
Exercise
Grouse shooting

One of those things is not, I contend, like the others.
I think you're being a bit unfair there.

The new rules feature shooting among a long list of other sporting activities which are exempt (including canoeing, rugby and frisbee).
That's what I thought, until I read the article. This bit:
HuffPost UK has learned that the Cabinet Office’s special Covid-19 Operations ministerial committee – chaired by Michael Gove – scheduled a meeting on Saturday, with one agenda item titled: “Exemption: hunting and shooting.”

The meeting was abruptly cancelled just hours beforehand, with cabinet ministers and officials told that this issue would be discussed later or via ministerial correspondence.

Insiders believe that the meeting was axed to avoid any ministers raising objections.

Instead, the “outdoor activity” wording was inserted into the regulations, opening the way for an exemption for so-called “country sports” such as grouse and pheasant shooting and hunting.

One source said the entire issue held up the publication of the regulations until shortly before the new law was due to kick in at midnight on Sunday.

Brand new government guidance published by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on Monday lists “shooting (including hunting and paintball that requires a shotgun or firearms certificate license)” as a “sport or organised outdoor activity”.
smells like shenanigans.

Standing around in tweeds shooting farmed birds out of the air isn't exercise and can easily be done in groups of 6 or less - it was obviously included deliberately purely because the aristo w.nkers who call the shots miss showing off to each other on their estates.
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by lpm » Wed Sep 16, 2020 11:53 pm

Relockdown in two weeks? Lack of testing has obscured a rise to 38,000 cases per day?
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by Bird on a Fire » Thu Sep 17, 2020 12:27 am

Grouse season closes on 10th of December.
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by headshot » Thu Sep 17, 2020 8:37 am

lpm wrote:
Wed Sep 16, 2020 11:53 pm
Relockdown in two weeks? Lack of testing has obscured a rise to 38,000 cases per day?
The person who broke that story on Twitter has just retracted it.

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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by lpm » Thu Sep 17, 2020 10:02 am

The concept of local lockdowns is flawed.

There are always highlands and lowlands for any essentially random process. If every UK region did a series of coin flips, some would get a lot of heads and people would invent stories as to why that locality is prone to heads, while the tail areas would congratulate themselves on being better at avoiding heads. With a virus, early heads make the coin biased towards producing more heads. We are at a stage when tiny founder effects at the beginning create lumpiness.

I think it's doubtful there's any intrinsic difference between Oldham and, say, Ipswich. Both have schools, pubs open, young people socialising, Eat Out scheme etc etc. The reason Ipswich isn't in local lockdown is almost certainly nothing to do with Ipswichians obeying 2 metre rules better, household composition or poverty rates - simply there happened to be a bigger nucleus early on in Oldham that became established, whereas in Ipswich it fizzled.

In March, we could see the future: Italy was ahead by two weeks. Ipswich now has that advantage: Oldham is ahead and shows what is going to happen. The local lockdown concept is that Ipswich must ignore this, and simply wait until cases rise to the official trigger point.

The underlying assumption is that Ipswich is currently low because it is better. Is there any evidence to suggest that highlands and lowlands are created by a locality being better? As more and more local UK areas enter lockdown, this would imply that a place that was "better" at dodging Covid has now become worse. Experience from around the world suggests it's simply timing - Illinois appears worse than Wisconsin for a while, a couple of months later and it's reversed.
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by Bird on a Fire » Thu Sep 17, 2020 10:12 am

You're right, lpm. I'd be very surprised if the led-by-science modelling showed that local peaks were outside the range of expected stochastic variation.

You're focusing on the wrong thing, though. UK lockdown policy is driven by short-term economic performance, not boring stuff about coronavirus cases.
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by lpm » Thu Sep 17, 2020 10:23 am

A quick look at demographic stats show no particular differences between Oldham and Ipswich.

Oldham average age 37 (median age 37)
Ipswich average age 38 (median age 36)

Oldham born in England 86.8%
Ipswich born in England 86.4%

Oldham 89.5% speak English
Ipswich 92.4% speak English

Oldham 56.5% married/cohabit
Ipswich 58.0% married/cohabit

Oldham Elementary & Skilled 26.3%, Professional 13.0%, Administrative and secretarial 22.9%
Ipswich Elementary & Skilled 26.1%, Professional 14.1%, Administrative and secretarial 23.1%

If we were asked a year ago to predict which place would have a worse outbreak in Sept 2020, I don't believe there's any way we would have picked one over the other. But if we were told Bolton had a bad outbreak, then asked to predict Oldham or Ipswich, we'd go Oldham every time.

Is there anything except random chance that would link localities such as Northumberland, Caerphilly, Solihull, Lanarkshire, Leicester, Ballymena?
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by Gfamily » Thu Sep 17, 2020 11:17 am

lpm wrote:
Thu Sep 17, 2020 10:23 am
But if we were told Bolton had a bad outbreak, then asked to predict Oldham or Ipswich, we'd go Oldham every time.
Hence, local locking down on Bolton, which reduces the threat to Oldham.

Local lockdown isn't a punishment for being 'bad'.
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by lpm » Thu Sep 17, 2020 12:11 pm

The point is they failed to lockdown Oldham when they locked down Bolton, even though Oldham was having a very similar outbreak (except shifted 2 weeks in time).

The theory is: "Different areas are experiencing different outbreaks, so don't deal with them all the same." This seems sensible at first glance. But I'm saying this is wrong. My argument is that Ipswich is experiencing an identical pandemic to Oldham, near as damn it, with only insignificant variations due to minor details in the demographics, behaviours, workplaces. I can see no reason why R(Oldham) does not equal R(Ipswich), over the longer term and when the noise of day-to-day events are stripped out.

The only difference is a temporal effect: Ipswich is behind and so can see the future. We already know from March what to do when you can see the future - act as early and hard as possible. Do everything to crush it before it gets embedded. The earlier you do it, the shorter the economic impact, the easier the suppression and the lower the death and injury toll.
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by jimbob » Thu Sep 17, 2020 12:21 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Sep 17, 2020 12:11 pm
The point is they failed to lockdown Oldham when they locked down Bolton, even though Oldham was having a very similar outbreak (except shifted 2 weeks in time).

The theory is: "Different areas are experiencing different outbreaks, so don't deal with them all the same." This seems sensible at first glance. But I'm saying this is wrong. My argument is that Ipswich is experiencing an identical pandemic to Oldham, near as damn it, with only insignificant variations due to minor details in the demographics, behaviours, workplaces. I can see no reason why R(Oldham) does not equal R(Ipswich), over the longer term and when the noise of day-to-day events are stripped out.

The only difference is a temporal effect: Ipswich is behind and so can see the future. We already know from March what to do when you can see the future - act as early and hard as possible. Do everything to crush it before it gets embedded. The earlier you do it, the shorter the economic impact, the easier the suppression and the lower the death and injury toll.
Yup.

And the covid.joinzoe.com app data is saying 6400 new symptomatic individuals today with 61000 overall, so just over 10% per day
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by lpm » Thu Sep 17, 2020 5:49 pm

The UK government returns time after time to the belief that you intervene as late as possible to minimise economic damage. How can they possibly make such a terrible mistake again? Evidence from across the world has proved you intervene as early as possible to minimise economic damage.
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by jimbob » Thu Sep 17, 2020 6:30 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Sep 17, 2020 5:49 pm
The UK government returns time after time to the belief that you intervene as late as possible to minimise economic damage. How can they possibly make such a terrible mistake again? Evidence from across the world has proved you intervene as early as possible to minimise economic damage.
Cue more accusations by Johnson of "captain hindsight" in 3 months time.

"First as tragedy, then as farce"
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by jimbob » Fri Sep 18, 2020 7:04 am

Also - even if you implement lockdown, there is a 1-2 week delay before you actually start seeing the measures have an impact in the numbers, due to the delay, so whatever the government does today, the infections* will still be doubled by next week.


*I won't say "the numbers", as not testing or not publishing the data in a meaningful way can keep those down.
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by nezumi » Fri Sep 18, 2020 8:11 am

jimbob wrote:
Fri Sep 18, 2020 7:04 am
Also - even if you implement lockdown, there is a 1-2 week delay before you actually start seeing the measures have an impact in the numbers, due to the delay, so whatever the government does today, the infections* will still be doubled by next week.


*I won't say "the numbers", as not testing or not publishing the data in a meaningful way can keep those down.
Even if the community testing doesn't happen, it'll go back to testing in hospitals only, then the only measure we'll have is the death rate.
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by lpm » Fri Sep 18, 2020 9:57 am

Looks like partial relockdown is on the way. Suspect it will be a salami relockdown, and therefore way too inadequate.

Broadly speaking, if the unlockdown level in July was Unlockdown(July), then in August following salami unlockdowns was at Unlockdown(August), then for the past two weeks we were at Unlockdown(Schools), and now at Unlockdown(Universities)...

...then from the stats we know Unlockdown(July) was about right, holding R at approx 0.9 to 1.0 (except for random events like meatpacking plants or whatever).

And we know Unlockdown(August) was slightly too much at approx R=1.1 or R=1.3, leading to a steady growth in cases across August, plus some unlucky localities ramping up significantly.

And we know the current Unlockdown(Schools) is defnitely too much, maybe R=1.7 (doubling time in one week), leading to a pretty fast jump in cases in September so far.

And Unlockdown(Universities) is inevitably even higher, shuffling the population around as well as increasing contact. Without any action, Unlockdown(October) will be even worse again due to weather: the end to outdoor beer gardens, park activities, BBQs in back gardens.

We need to somehow get back to the level of Unlockdown(July), yet also keeping schools and universities open. Because schools are so expensive in terms of contagion points, this will require pretty huge compensating lockdowns to offset. Unlockdown(October) must have far higher restrictions on non-education activities than Unlockdown(July) in order to balance out the education effects. Need to factor in proper NHS treatment for non-Covid health as well, which still isn't running properly. This means:

- close all pubs, restaurants and nightclubs
- close gyms, beauty saloons, bowling alleys and all the other little stuff that was salami unlockdowned
- work from home if you can work from home
- only leave your home to work, get food and exercise
- no mixing with other households for adults, but school children and students can mix
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by jimbob » Fri Sep 18, 2020 11:38 am

lpm wrote:
Fri Sep 18, 2020 9:57 am
Looks like partial relockdown is on the way. Suspect it will be a salami relockdown, and therefore way too inadequate.

Broadly speaking, if the unlockdown level in July was Unlockdown(July), then in August following salami unlockdowns was at Unlockdown(August), then for the past two weeks we were at Unlockdown(Schools), and now at Unlockdown(Universities)...

...then from the stats we know Unlockdown(July) was about right, holding R at approx 0.9 to 1.0 (except for random events like meatpacking plants or whatever).

And we know Unlockdown(August) was slightly too much at approx R=1.1 or R=1.3, leading to a steady growth in cases across August, plus some unlucky localities ramping up significantly.

And we know the current Unlockdown(Schools) is defnitely too much, maybe R=1.7 (doubling time in one week), leading to a pretty fast jump in cases in September so far.

And Unlockdown(Universities) is inevitably even higher, shuffling the population around as well as increasing contact. Without any action, Unlockdown(October) will be even worse again due to weather: the end to outdoor beer gardens, park activities, BBQs in back gardens.

We need to somehow get back to the level of Unlockdown(July), yet also keeping schools and universities open. Because schools are so expensive in terms of contagion points, this will require pretty huge compensating lockdowns to offset. Unlockdown(October) must have far higher restrictions on non-education activities than Unlockdown(July) in order to balance out the education effects. Need to factor in proper NHS treatment for non-Covid health as well, which still isn't running properly. This means:

- close all pubs, restaurants and nightclubs
- close gyms, beauty saloons, bowling alleys and all the other little stuff that was salami unlockdowned
- work from home if you can work from home
- only leave your home to work, get food and exercise
- no mixing with other households for adults, but school children and students can mix
It will be a salami lockdown so HMG can say it's not the whole country in lockdown because the Scilly Isles aren't
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by AMS » Fri Sep 18, 2020 2:54 pm

Being on the Scilly Isles is a form of lock down, just a more scenic one.

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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri Sep 18, 2020 3:07 pm

AMS wrote:
Fri Sep 18, 2020 2:54 pm
Being on the Scilly Isles is a form of lock down, just a more scenic one.
Full of birdwatchers at this time of year, I think - a good place to see unusual birds getting lost on migration.
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by nezumi » Fri Sep 18, 2020 3:36 pm

"A second national lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus has not been ruled out, the Health Secretary has said" from my local news rag. I am about 99% certain that Johnson literally said there will not be another national lockdown. Did I imagine that or am I being gaslighted?
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by JQH » Fri Sep 18, 2020 3:43 pm

Accuracy, consistency and honesty are three things Johnson regards as unnecessary.
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by bolo » Fri Sep 18, 2020 3:49 pm

JQH wrote:
Fri Sep 18, 2020 3:43 pm
Accuracy, consistency and honesty are three four things Johnson regards as unnecessary.
Ftfy

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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by jimbob » Fri Sep 18, 2020 3:52 pm

bolo wrote:
Fri Sep 18, 2020 3:49 pm
JQH wrote:
Fri Sep 18, 2020 3:43 pm
Accuracy, consistency, honesty, and numeracy are three four five things Johnson regards as unnecessary.
Ftfy
ftfy

EDIT to add Oxford comma
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by lpm » Fri Sep 18, 2020 5:10 pm

Johnson:

UK is "now seeing a second wave" and "it's been inevitable we'd see it in this country".

If it's been inevitable why the f.ck did you bribe people to eat out more and nag them to return to offices you stupid f.cking tw.t?
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Re: Covid-19 the unlockdown

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri Sep 18, 2020 6:07 pm

Well, as it was inevitable, stopping doing all that stuff wouldn't make any difference. Johnson and crew were completely powerless to stop the inevitable second wave, so they wanted to keep people happy and businesses in business.
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