Harry

You may have got that from me. Here we call it kinder rather than pre school or kindergarten

Just think though what could be done in a do over with this virus... All the things we shied from doing earlier for fear of the economic impact of the measure...

The lower your case count the easier it is for that ratio to spike.

It's gonna be better fit for am eased level of lockdown type restrictions though. I suspect we'll be being told to stay at home as much as you can within some level of comfort until this whole thing eases.

I've been operating under the assumption a vaccine could take 18 months or more however members of our scientific community lately have been speaking with more confidence than I'd expect of something potentially being available before the end of the year. I get your frustration. Definitely i'm starting to itch for an end to restrictions primarily for my son to return to school. He's in 4 year old kinder. At that age the learning is almost entirely about social interaction, and increasing confidence and resilience of kids. My son is quite timid and already I've seen him become more shy under this lockdown and more anxious about leaving the house (not fear of COVID, just as a timid kid who's now not used to being out in crowds). I'm fine with some level of restrictions for a long period but I want him to return to school.

Agreed. Out government announced a way out of lockdown on Friday with an aim to get back to something more normal by July. This thing spreads so quickly though I can't see it happening. I suspect I'll be working from home most of the time until a vaccine or until herd immunity is reached

It's still too early to call anything like that mate. Although I'd agree is a safer bet than Peru. Every society is doing it's best to minimise case and body count until a vaccine but that will be going on a while. Some countries may come up against the obstacle of being unable to afford to sustain lockdown measures for the period of time required, which would have significant impacts on the trajectories of cases and deaths.

I don't agree with the guy at all he's obviously pretty nuts as his whole thing is predicated on needing to achieve herd immunity by mass infection which is obviously a pretty daft thing to do and tantamount to the best way of making the bottle of poison go away being to drinking it. But I think there's an interesting analysis to be had coming out of this, when things return to a growth trajectory and the damage can be assessed and is each countries approaches be judged on a full reflection of human and economic (and subsequent human) consequences.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/07/economy/uk-economy-bank-of-england/index.html Current bank of England forecast that the UK is headed for it's worst economic crash in three centuries. Not bankrupt, but more than 5p.

Is it though? If we could help old people live an additional ten years on average but it would need to be invested in instantaneously, to such high cost and so suddenly that it would cause the entire world economy to go bankrupt and likely lead to two decades of economic misery for the Greta thunberg generation, you're suggesting the world leaders would decide that was a price worth paying?

The somewhat controversial views of a Nobel prize winning scientist from Stanford University.... according to Levitt, coronavirus data show that sweeping lockdown measures were an overreaction that may actually backfire. Levitt has been analyzing the COVID-19 outbreak from a statistical perspective since January and has been remarkably accurate in his predications. The data show that the outbreak never actually grew exponentially, suggesting harsh lockdown measures, which have drastically impacted the world economy, were probably unnecessary. Instead of strict lockdown orders, Levitt told UnHerd that developing "herd immunity" is a better strategy to fighting a virus like COVID-19. "I think the policy of herd immunity is the right policy. I think Britain was on exactly the right track before they were fed wrong numbers. And they made a huge mistake. I see the standout winners as Germany and Sweden. They didn't practise too much lockdown and they got enough people sick to get some herd immunity," Levitt explained. I see the standout losers as countries like Austria, Australia and Israel that had very strict lockdown but didn't have many cases," he said. "They have damaged their economies, caused massive social damage, damaged the educational year of their children, but not obtained any herd immunity. "There is no doubt in my mind, that when we come to look back on this, the damage done by lockdown will exceed any saving of lives by a huge factor," Levitt predicted. I think this is another foul-up on the part of the baby boomers," the 72-year-old tells UnHerd's Freddie Sayers, not of the catastrophe in Britain that's so far killed more than 30,000 people, but the abandonment of the herd immunity strategy that would see even more baby boomers killed We've caused pollution. We allowed the world population to increase three-fold in my lifetime, even more, we caused the problems of global warming, and now we've left your generation with a real mess in order to save a relatively small number of very old people. "This is a virus designed to get rid of the baby boomers. Quite frankly, I've had a great life … I'd much rather help young people than live for a very long time."

I'm not suggesting they will abandon globalisation, although that's definitely a risk with more right wing authoritarian types, and finger pointing. But the idea of offshoring industries to low cost centres as a necessary and unavoidable outcome of capitalism in a globalised world... I think it will be challenged in light of a different perspective about capabilities that can be critical to national security in times of crisis.

I think this pandemic will profoundly impact many countries perspective on complete unadulterated globalisation. No longer will it be embraced without more significant consideration of the future impacts of that loss of national capability.

Transparency opens them up to being misrepresented also. People jump on, unqualified people in the media overdramatise it and suddenly the public have issued judgement and any model showing more than zero deaths is unacceptable. I work in the industrial sector and some industrial plants have diagrams and detailed calculations of certain risk scenarios. I've reviewed drawings of contours of modelled fatal chemical concentrations around the plant boundaries (well into the surrounding neighbourhoods). In water Dam risk management plans have mapped out the expected number of fatalities if dam walls gave way, and where that water would flow, and what the human and financial impact of that will be and they use that to inform risk management strategies. If that was issued publically and we debate and iterated our way to the outcome with engagement of an impossibly large volume of decision influencers we'd scare the shit out of most people unnecessarily and go nowhere.

Lol. Some fair points mate but bikers I know (and cyclists for that matter) tend to go on big Sunday rides. I'll venture the far away chip shop is a route they've taken before and one they like to drive. On the road is like being in a car it's a pretty contained environment unlikely to expose to many others provided they manage social distancing appropriately in any interactions. Maybe this is two bikers that each live alone and are literally going out of their minds in isolation and just need to get the fuck out of the house to escape the suffocation of their loneliness. That is a definite wellbeing outlet. They could be two of the nicest guys you'll ever meet who are just at the end of their tether. Alternatively they could be absolute bellends that have gone riding everyday even once they developed a suspect cold they couldn't be arsed getting tested for. There's not enough information for me to be sure I should assume the worst about them.

I agree with you about America. There is a worrying impatience coming through. I don't dismiss the economic impact argument though and I think there is a human argument to be made for getting the economy back firing.. A 20 year economic depression will be deadly and devastating and borne mostly by the younger generations and is absolutely something to be cautious about. Let's be honest about the bikers. They weren't going for fish and chips, they were going for a ride because their bikers and being on the road is what they do. They stopped for chips at the halfway point of their ride. I can sympathise with them copping fines and public shaming for this for two reasons 1. Because it's obviously a fairly low COVID risk exposure that's resulted from their actions in the scheme of COVID risk inducing activities. 2. Exercise is also a COVID risk exposure but it's one we accept because exercise is important to health and wellbeing. But maybe for bikers their wellbeing is more linked to being it on their bikes than going jogging. I'm fairly sympathetic to some infractions because everyone's different and have different breaking points. I don't presume to know them or judge them without more information.

We didn't jump into a lockdown here, we implemented restrictions in stages. I'm hoping we will loosen them using those same stages. So next up for us if we went from stage 3 back to stage 2 would be schools going back, and restaurants allowed to have dine in again albeit with restrictions on the number of heads per square metre from what would be the normal level and minimum spacing between tables. America does seem very impatient on the whole. You just hope each governor is responsible about the way they lift things and appropriately prioritise things to open up.

So surely that's his married lover's life over then being outed like this? You do wonder how this stories been broken.

All the best with that. Sounds like a level of restriction similar to where we are now. I've continued to buy some take away coffee and good from my local businesses, particularly the ones I want to make sure survive through this period.

On the basis of an infection mortality rate is in the ball park of 1% compared to that figure of 15% implied in your data or would be with assuming the actual case numbers being 10 to 20 times higher than the 200k.

Yeah it's just typical ignorance and narcissistic bombast from a person that can't ever accept losing an argument. I'm more X than person Y. Nobodies ever done more for CAUSE X than I have. Textbook trump.

It is an incredibly complex situation. The rights and liberties side of the debate is gaining momentum now which makes containment much harder and increases the risk of a second wave. R is 0.7 but it was 3 without restrictions. It will be lower with enhanced contact tracing and lower outside of major cities but bottom line is people are contagious for days before they're even symptomatic. R=1 is the tipping point to exponential growth so there's isn't much slack to release from current levels. A vaccine is thought to be 10-24 months away. I don't see governments being able to support shuttered businesses for that long so something will have to give.

Australia's has gone live with a contact teaching app. 4 million downloads so far from a population of 25m with maybe 18m phone owners. I have installed.